Quasi-Evil

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Grandparents vs. Nurseries

I shouldn’t watch the BBC Breakfast news. It sends me into full on rant mode for the rest of the day.

So someone, somewhere, thought there was a need to compare childcare provided by grandparents to that provided by nurseries. I can only assume they will shortly be covering Apples vs. Oranges.

Just in case working parents weren’t feeling guilty enough about leaving their child in favour of money (and possibly sanity) we’re now being told that the people who raised us aren’t a good enough childcare provider.

The survey (for which I can find no online links, but I promise it’s true, I saw it on the television…) suggests that children aged three who’d been in grandparental care since they were nine months had more behavioural problems than those who’d been in nursery. It was also said that the nursery kids had better recognition of shapes and colours.

It was suggested by the people discussing this survey that the behavioural problems were probably to do with socialisation (as in, when they dumped the grandparent’s wards in a nursery, they didn’t cope with it as well as the ones who’d been there for two years) and the fact that grandparents like to spoil their grandchildren.

The bit that got skimmed over for the sake of drama was that children cared for by their grandparents had better skills in listening, speaking and understanding.

So as far as I can tell, this survey thinks that the most important skills for a 3-year-old go in this order:

1. Behaviour
2. Recognising shapes and colours
3. Listening, speaking and understanding

What utter bollocks. It is my educated and informed opinion (educated by my 3-year-old and informed by common sense) that someone, somewhere, will produce a study saying that Grandparents are better than Nurseries because the children learn the more important skills of listening, speaking and understanding.

And it’s my uninformed guess,used to make a point, that this next survey will come from somewhere like Italy or Spain or even France. A sensible country that doesn’t expect their kids to be able to pass their GCSEs by the time they’re five.

Thesis, Thesis, Wherefore Art Thou?

Everyone is talking about Thesis. Everyone (and everyone knows that when you say ‘everyone’, what you actually mean is ‘a few people, but a few very loud and repetitive people whose opinions I value’).

They rave about it. They go on about how it’ll make your life easier, how it’ll improve your work flow, make friends for you, influence people and bring you a cup of coffee in the morning.

They show its wonderful flexibility, how you’ll never have to change your code again. All you have to do is push some buttons on the options page and play with your CSS. It’s so simple and wonderful and magnificent.

And you know what effect that has? You know what it does?

It makes me really bloody jealous. I want Thesis dammit. So the links in this post are affiliate links. Since Thesis is so epically awesome, you clearly want to buy a copy and it would be the most awesome thing in the universe if you could do it via these links because then I might actually have some money to spend on a copy for myself.

And then if there’s any money left over, I’ll spend it on food. Priorities and stuff.

Happy Clappy Time

I’m off to church in an hour. My other half is a bit bemused by this and to be honest I’m quite surprised at my new found desire to get out of bed on a Sunday morning and go to church. But it’s not a normal church and I’m not a normal Christian so that makes it alright.

My church is Thornhill Church which is a community church where the congregation are ‘trying to be more like Jesus’. That’s it really. They don’t have any other defining criteria, there isn’t a vicar (although they do have Elders and Pastors), and they don’t sing traditional hymns but the Hillsong type stuff instead. Like this one that I’ve had stuck in my head all bloody week:

So that’s what’s unusual about my church, now for what’s unusual about my Christianity (other than the fact you’re reading this at Quasi-Evil); actually, it’s easier to tell you what’s normal about it: I believe in God. I believe in Jesus but not quite like other people do. That’s about it.

For the other major stuff:

• I don’t believe the world was created in 7 days. Or all that crap about apples. I reckon Darwin (and all the other less famous people) got it right.
• I don’t believe in Heaven. There’s no carrot. We are what we are and this is it. I believe we live here, we die here, and there is nothing afterward so you should probably make the most of it. Sometimes I wish I did believe in heaven, the thought of ‘nothing’ is quite scary.
• I don’t believe that a religious institute is a required element of our relationship with God but I think some people need it. I’m not one of them; I just like meeting other people who don’t think I’m weird for believing in God. And the songs are pretty good too.

About now people usually say, ‘So you’re not actually a Christian at all.’ And then I go on a massive rant about how the church does not get to dictate whether I am a full paid up Christian or not; I believe Jesus Christ was the son of God, and that makes me a Christian.

Welcome to Make Your Own Religion, it’s way more fun this way.

P.S.
I will not try to convert you! I think belief is personal and you should all sod off and make your own minds up.

WordCamp UK 2009

So today it was announced that this year’s WordCamp UK would take place in my home city of Cardiff. Not a coincidence, I submitted the proposal to the mailing list last week and despite being up against London and Liverpool, WordCamp is coming to my side of the bridge. Woot!