This is Omar’s blog

Every cabinet has at least one incompetent minister who should be helped to improve or “moved on”, the schools minister, Jim Knight, has said.

Over the course of a career, one bad minister can undermine thousands of children’s education, he said, adding that it was a “social justice issue” to ensure every minister is up to scratch.

The government is developing plans to remove more under-performing ministers but is hoping to enlist the support of the teaching unions in order to avoid a “massive fight” with the 646-strong profession, Knight said. The schools secretary, Ed Balls, promised new moves to root out minsters whose “competence falls to unacceptably low levels” in his minister’s plan last year.

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2282284,00.html

I may have edited that orginal text, slightly.

I can’t remember when I decided I was going to get fit. It was sometime in January I think and now it’s the tail end of May. Apparently I was running at the tail end of last year. It started with running and then I added in circuits at some point and stopped running and then there was pilates and then I got around to joining a gym. So, at the moment i’m still doing circuits and pilates once a week (pilates at the gym and circuits at GL1 because I like the session more) as well as a couple of times through the programme I have at the gym.

I suppose I’m fitter and healthier for it, I must be. Coupled with a real effort to try and eat better. I mean, undoubtedly I could have done ‘better’, be leaner and meaner then I am but that would have involved cutting some things out completely. I think I’m happier doing it this way. I have no real way to calculate how much fitter I am, I could probably go running again and compare the times I do but I haven’t run in at least a month so there’s no guarantee that would work. I have no idea how much my weight has changed, or how much I’ve changed in terms of shape. But that’s all fine I think. I’m exercising regularly because I enjoy it, because it takes my mind off things.

In the short term, it will see how things pan out with the new job and all.

Anyway, I wrote this in response to this page on Lifehacker, which is about tracking your progress. I think that that those methods just don’t work for me. I just need to keep plugging away at doing things instead of considering it all in greats amounts of details. I suppose, doing it because I want to is motivation enough.

By way of a quick recap: in 2005 Tessa Jowell declared of the aquatic centre: “We pledged that it would cost £75m and that is precisely what it will do.” The Olympics minister added that costs had doubled, so she sent the architects back to the drawing board. It is now costing £242m (basic disabled lift provision not included). Way to send them back to the drawing board!

I’m naturally pessimistic about the Olympics but the costs and specifically the true cost compared to the projected cost is crazy.

Still… “The International Olympic Committee’s monitoring team has heaped praise on the progress London is making for the 2012 Games.” link

(Though as an aside, the author of that Guardian comment piece shows a blatant disregard for capital letters in the comments when she writes. Is that normal now, to not start a sentence with a capital letter when writing online? rly?!)

On a side note, the problem with playing rounders and cricket with primary school children is that not enough of them are involved all the time. I found that it just doesn’t really work, the fielders have a chat, the waiting batters have a go at each other and everyone wants to bowl or be the wicket keeper.

So where we live there’s allocated parking spaces. Or at least in theory there is allocated parking spaces. One for most of the flats and two for the penthouse flats. Fine fine, anyone else can argue over the visitors spaces. The thing is, that the people who’ve bought the flats are vehement about keeping their spaces, very very much so. (There was a meeting, mum suggested just parking where you wanted, which I largely agree with. But there was much talk about coming home and knowing there’s a space and I bought the flat knowing there was a space and if I didn’t have my own space I would sulk. I say largely… Anyway, blah blah blah.) Fine fine.

The thing is, the tenants who are renting play fast and loose with the allocation. As well as parking in the middle, which is supposed to be a turning area. I don’t mind, really. I just wish there was some consistency there.

Anyway, the thing that has me annoyed in the woman who did park in MY space has parked so far across that the space next to it is unusable. Which is just rude.

What’s unusual about Just Be Yourself isn’t that it’s questionable or infuriating advice, but that it’s so meaningless, and in a curiously profound way. First, there’s the problem of who you “really” are. (Indeed, “be yourself” is one translation of an old Zen koan, an instruction designed to blow the minds of trainee Buddhist monks because it can’t be processed intellectually. The whole point of koans is that they make no rational sense, which makes you wonder if recycling them as glib dating tips is wise.) Second, even if you know who you are, trying to act that way is impossible: as soon as you actively attempt to be genuine, you’re being fake by definition. Nor can you leapfrog the paradox by deciding not to try; that’s just another form of trying.

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/wellbeing/story/0,,2280093,00.html