• 09:19 internet drama, round two, where everyone competes to be more "tired of all this" than everyone else. #
• 10:05 hmm.... friendfeed.com/petedarby hmm.... #
• 10:55 Laughing at people complaining of bias when they're being treated based on both personal and recorded experience. #
• 11:02 new blog post, Ed Balls, headdesk headdesk headdesk tinyurl.com/6mhsts #
• 11:09 Aphorisms for today: read other people with as much generosity to their motives as you can manage... or at least pretend to when posting #

• 07:18 Who was it in Ewloe Co-Op with an EO sticker in the back of their black ?rover? Didn't recognize anyone in the shop... #
• 09:41 can't stop now, there's DRAMA on the INTERNET! #
• 10:50 @themightyone now I look like an anti-EO stalker... I deny letting down their tyres and leaving a note "HA! HA! AHEd" #

• 08:13 Saw Doctor Who: worried RTD may pull a really lame "plot twist"... no, not worried, almost sure. #
• 11:10 Trying to start a rumour that I'm David Tennant's replacement: all help appreciated. #
• 13:29 Apparently I'm a cult... at least, I think that's what they called me. #

• 09:49 back at work, given up on Yoono #
• 10:24 HAVEN'T SEEN DOCTOR WHO YET, I WAS AT A WEDDING, NO-ONE SAY A THING, I HAVE ALREADY HEARD TOO MUCH. #

• 09:14 Dealing with it at home today #
• 09:40 I'm testing Yoono ! #

• 07:27 @streamlines liverpool, eh? Just down the road (well, about 40 miles from home, but 20 miles from work...) #
• 08:44 I haven't still got what I had yesterday, honest, guv #
• 09:32 tinyurl.com/3vnxy2 & tinyurl.com/5pr3s4: Co-incidence or is Rhys Ifans a were-puma? #
• 10:22 Which cleaners, Sanjoy? #
• 10:43 le singe est dans l'arbre, mais il pleut. #
• 11:02 Quand l'horologiste ferme la fromage, il n'a pas de erotocisme #
• 11:03 Quand l'horologiste ferme la chemise, il n'a pas baeucoup de fromage encore. #
• 11:05 Je ris, parce-que j'ais une malle boite de fromage. #
• 11:59 Malhereusement, Pepin n'a plus de gendarmes de tristesse. #
• 12:33 Et, maintenant, VOILA LE SINGE DIABOLIQUE! #
• 13:36 Why do I look like I'm heaven/ With a heart all full of glee?/ Because I was in here at seven/ And I can go home at three. (actually 3.15) #

[88 kb]
No.8: “Interesting . . . that he could separate fact from fantasy so quickly.”
No.2: “I told you he was different! I knew it wouldn't work! `Feed him with hallcinatory drugs. Put him in a dangerous environment. Talk to him through microphones!'”
No.8: “It's always worked and it would have worked this time if you hadn't . . . ”
No.2: “But it didn't, did it? `Give him love; take it away. Isolate him! Make him KILL . . . then face him with DEATH! He'll CRACK! Break him, even in his mind, and the rest will be easy!' Hmph. I should never have listened to you!”
No.8: “It would've worked, if you had kept your head . . .”
--Living in Harmony 

• Bold those you have read.
  
• Italicise those you intend to read.
  
• Underline the books you LOVE.
  
• Strikethrough on the "barge pole" ones

• 10:00 cold came back dammit #

• 07:23 I find your lack of awareness of all internet traditions disturbing... #
• 12:47 I have cosmic awareness of all interdimensional traditions #
• 13:24 my cold is NOT coming back, dammit #
• 14:33 dear users: when you not only misspell the username, but also reverse it, it's not my fault it takes two weeks to do your call #

ref to this: 


Dr Byron:
 
I was a little saddened by your advice to the school refusing teenager today: the standard response to a young person, obviously in deep distress at being forced to attend an institution against her will, is to treat her as having a mental disorder.
 
Is it not more likely that it is in fact an understandable, rational decision to do all in her power to avoid a toxic environment? Perhaps as the establishment of an adult, self actualized individuality, rather than irrational sulking?
 
Typifying parents who keep school refusing children at home as "anxious, depressed or lonely" is also deeply unhelpful: an parent worth their salt would be anxious to have a child in this situation, which may lead to depression. The characterisation of such parents as "lonely" is also stereotypical, and in no way reflects my experience of home educating parents, who are most often gregarious and happy with their decision to remove their children from an instituion which so oftern works against their best interests.
 
I admit, I have a dog in this fight, as I'm on the committee of a national home education organisation; my partner and I have home educated our children for four years now, and can see that they are growing into knowledgable, likeable, social people, free from the artificial anxieties of a system designed to pressurize, demean, categorize and oppress children into becoming malleable adults.
 
The system of densitisation, rewards and punishments suggested treats the child as no more than a disobedient servant, or possibly pet, that needs to be re-trained into "correct behaviour", with little or no recognition that her concerns may be entirely rational.
 
The problem is not, as you collude with the parents, with the child, it is with the assumption that school is both compulsory and desirable.
 
I can recommend that anyone involved with school refusal reads "Can't Go, Won't Go" by Mike Fortune-Wood , and that before recommending dealing with school refusal by medicalisation, you take a look at the research into the difference in outcomes of forced schooling and home education.
 
Yours Sincerely,
 
Peter Darby

• 07:26 Got to work without causing any major accidents. the day is yet young. #
• 10:40 HEAD PAIN! With the sinuses and the lobes and the dry eyeball and oy. #
• 12:51 I am suddenly aware of all internet traditions, and... it's full of stars! #
• 14:39 @notsheep Ahhh, bless..... (runs before Deb throws heavy implements at me, and rightfully so) #

• 19:29 oh, btw, I'm driving to work tomorrow... all on my own. Be afraid. #

• 10:04 Neil Gaiman reminds me why I moved from Kent: tinyurl.com/6d4vca #

• 07:04 dragging my carcass workwards #
• 07:04 Dragging my carcass workwards #
• 09:54 4th ed GSL: A maze of twisty passages, all alike. #
• 09:57 perhaps only rpg geeks will get this: tinyurl.com/6l78r7 #
• 10:19 Sanjoy sounds a little thor... #
• 15:10 Oh dear lord: tinyurl.com/63fxp3 #

• 09:51 WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY ARE YOU STARING AT ME? #
• 13:24 RPG thought: Inspectres is essentially Ghostbusters vs The Apprentice... why not have Venkman as Sugar / Trump? #
• 13:36 Gnosticism: the belief that the material world is badly planned fan-fiction #
• 14:22 News from home: the lurgi that was in my joints on sunday is now in the rest of my family #
• 14:42 Blimey, Alice is all about the tension this week, isn't she? #

• 10:01 smorgsbord of FAIL #
• 13:25 Reading my feeds, why did the internet have an informal Talking Heads restrospective this weekend? #
• 16:59 Doctor who commentary day, geektastic #