Author Archives: simon
What you see is what you get
Claims for the effects of the arts in school have reached dolphin-like proportions in recent years. In the same way that the fashion for swimming with dolphins led to cures for everything from dyslexia to depression, the so-called Mozart effect … Continue reading
Posted in Art, Education, The Guardian
Leave a comment
Why schools need ground control to launch reforms
This is not a remarkable story about an extraordinary man. It’s a bog-standard story about a good man. Terry Creissen has three sons, a wife and a mortgage. He also has passion. In the stilted language of an Ofsted compliment, … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Society, The Guardian
Leave a comment
Lives beset by drama need the simplest forms of help
Rama was born in Mogadishu in 1982. She is Somalian – except it’s not that simple. There is a widespread perception that the Somalis are monocultural and monolingual, but they’re not. Rama belongs to the Benadiri people, who speak the … Continue reading
Posted in Society, The Guardian
Leave a comment
An ode to Limehouse
What is it in the air in Limehouse? Today it may be home to more lofts, designers and 4x4s than almost any other bastion of the bohemian bourgeoisie, but this east London neighbourhood has in the past 150 years given … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, The Guardian
Leave a comment
Flipping heck, we’re all at it now
The editor of the new Lonely Planet guide to London has warned visitors to be prepared to have their sensitivities assaulted. We’re all swearing like troopers. We’re dumbstruck without the F-word, she says. And she’s right. Swearing in public is … Continue reading
Posted in Manners, Society, The Guardian
Leave a comment
Language of survival is what refugees need most
Luljeta arrived in Britain in 1999. She came via Italy and France, and it cost her and her husband £8,000. But she didn’t fly in first-class. She arrived in Portsmouth in the back of a truck with 50 other people … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Society, The Guardian
Leave a comment
Brotherly love
Brotherly love As simpering, senseless queens go, Craig in Big Brother comes a close second to a gay man’s worst nightmare. As he dotes doggedly on his (apparently) straight housemate Anthony, he seems to take gay rights back about 30 … Continue reading
Posted in Society, The Guardian
Leave a comment
How do you chew?
How do you chew? A finger-licking, record-breaking 1,671 people complained about a KFC advert that showed women in a call centre eating with their mouths open. It’s the highest number of complaints ever received by the Advertising Standards Authority and, … Continue reading
Posted in Manners, Society, The Guardian
Leave a comment
The itch to get involved
No stranger to civic duty, Simon Fanshawe often steps in to chair his local groups of activists. Here, he explains why, despite bouts of doubt and eczema, he just just can’t leave things to those in charge There are moments … Continue reading
Posted in Manners, Society, The Guardian
Leave a comment
Bob Orrell
In a modest house, in a modest avenue behind the market place in Christchurch near Bournemouth lives the man who liberated the last fortification held by the Germans on D-Day. It was a tower in the Normandy seaside town of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Leave a comment