Britain

The Edinburgh Festival – and how!

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The Edinbugh Festival begins in Scotland’s capital city tomorrow and despite the fireworks of creativity that it always delivers, I think this year is going to be hostage to “Jihad! The Musical!” – “A madcap romp through the wacky world of international terrorism”.

It was written by an Old Etonian and a 25 year old female compatriot.

The Edinburgh Festival opens on tomorrow (Monday), and I await the reviews with interest. In the meantime, here is one of the songs, “I Wanna Be Like Osama” for your evening viewing pleasure.

The chap who plays Osmana is stardom bound, that’s for sure. I’ll let you know when the reviews come out.

Goodbye, Winston

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British secondary schools will drop Winston Churchill from a list of figures to be mentioned in history teaching. Also dropped: Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King. The schools will now be emphasizing “lessons on debt management, the environment and healthy eating.”

Also:

Schools are also being told to tear up the timetable of eight lessons a day and introduce classes lasting a few minutes – or several hours – by mixing different subjects together.

Five-minute lessons on spelling, French or German could be “drip-fed” throughout the day.

The architect of the new curriculum, Dr Ken Boston, insisted traditional approaches had been “exhausted”.

Check your calendar. This is not April 1.

Related: The Trivialization of Science Teaching.

(cross-posted at Photon Courier)

What Year is This?

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…because it increasingly seems that the first 3 digits must be one, nine, and three.

British film-maker Richard Littlejohn has released a documentary titled The War Against Britain’s Jews. Read this article, in which he talks about some of the things he has learned in his research.

I believe this program ran on Britain’s Channel 4 on Monday—don’t know if any reruns are planned.

Via Judith at History News Network.

Independence Day

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One of the great sorrows of British life at present is the widespread anti-Americanism both on the left and the right. One can understand why the left should feel so – the United States is the pre-eminent liberal (mostly) democratic capitalist society, all of which they hate.

Why the right should seethe with anti-Americanism is a little more complicated and one that I hope to discuss in greater detail in a future posting. For the moment I simply want to wish all the best to all our American friends for July 4.