BIBELOTS

"It began two weeks ago when I referenced the government’s wheeze to ease Mary Seacole out of..."

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:31:01 -0500

“

It began two weeks ago when I referenced the government’s wheeze to ease Mary Seacole out of the classroom. That touched quite a nerve, and triggered pointed communication from Wales. Not once did you mention the Welsh Crimean nurse Betsi Cadwaladr, it said; another example of the Welsh being airbrushed. Is this Hideously diverse England? What about Wales? What should I write about, was my question? Language he said. With more children taught in Welsh, Welsh in the media and government keen to promote the language, we thought more people than ever were speaking Welsh. Then came the census suggesting decline.

We’re in shock. So here I am, at his suggestion, in Swansea, sharing a chicken tikka lunch with author, linguist and activist Heini Gruffudd. He is slightly perplexed, and he’s worried about what the decline – 21% to 19% – means for the Welsh and Welsh. But at 66 he’s seen a lot and he’s an optimist. His message: don’t panic. ‘People have been saying that Welsh would die out for hundreds of years,’ he says. ‘With all the pressures it has faced, its survival is a bit of a miracle.’

”

- Hugh Muir on the Welsh language.

Interesting. Whales older than Moby Dick. That’s right, some of...

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:31:59 -0500

Interesting. Whales older than Moby Dick.

That’s right, some of the bowhead whales in the icy waters today are over 200 years old.

"GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany — The resurgence of German soccer began, like the country’s economic..."

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:30:43 -0500

“

GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany — The resurgence of German soccer began, like the country’s economic comeback, after a long slide toward stagnation amid dire prophecies of impending irrelevance.

The sick man of Europe, as Germany was known a decade ago, could as easily have been called the sick man of soccer. After a disastrous European Championships in 2000 when the traditional powerhouse won no games and scored one goal, the problem-solving, build-a-better-widget German drive kicked in.

While the government was loosening German labor laws to grease the creaking gears of the country’s economy, a society known for its apprenticeships and vocational training set about methodically developing young talent in the world’s most popular sport.

In a little more than a decade, Germany has invested nearly $1 billion in its youth programs, with academies run by professional teams and training centers overseen by the national soccer association, the Deutscher Fussball Bund, or D.F.B. The programs testify to the long-term strategic thinking and to the considerable resources that have driven Germany’s rise to renewed prominence in — and at the expense of — a struggling continent.

”

- As Europe Struggles, Germany Invests Heavily in Soccer - NYTimes.com

"THE OLD stereotype of the stupid footballer may have to be consigned to history after a new study..."

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:01:50 -0500

“

THE OLD stereotype of the stupid footballer may have to be consigned to history after a new study claimed that players have better cognitive skills than undergraduates and even PhD students.

Research by Canadian academic Jocelyn Faubert, of the University of Montreal, found that sports stars were able to ‘hyper-focus’ when doing tests, thanks to physical differences in their brains.
…
However, some people appear to have got carried away by the findings. ‘John Terry is brainier than physics super-boffin Professor Stephen Hawking, exclaimed The Daily Star.

”

- No comment, lest I get myself in trouble.

When the Queen was first crowned in 1952, the kitchens of...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:30:33 -0500

When the Queen was first crowned in 1952, the kitchens of Buckingham Palace were hard-pressed to invent a dish that would satisfy the foreign dignitaries and guests in attendance. Not that bangers and mash isn’t delicious, but the thoughtful chefs (along with the Queen’s florist), perhaps borrowing a leaf out of newly-independent India’s cookbook, put together the following: cooked chicken, curry powder and heavy cream, served chilled with rice and vegetables. Sound anything like chicken tikka masala, national dish of England? In any case, Coronation Chicken was a hit, and now it’s fashionably retro and Jubilee-appropriate, so of course it’s what’s for lunch.

(via What The Hell Is Coronation Chicken? | Food Republic)

"In an interview with The Associated Press, Altidore said he decided to play through the abuse..."

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 13:01:18 -0500

“

In an interview with The Associated Press, Altidore said he decided to play through the abuse Tuesday because he didn’t want to give satisfaction to people who directed monkey chants at him.

The 23-year-old said it was the first time he has experienced racism like this, on or off the field.

‘This was pretty big. To have a stadium chanting monkey sounds is not something pleasant,’ he said in the phone interview. ‘I’m the only black player on my team, so I think it was more directed to me than anyone else.’

”

- Jackie Robinson’s birthday was Thursday. Two days before the first black player in Major League Baseball would have turned 94, American soccer player Jozy Altidore was racially abused by Dutch fans of FC Den Bosch, the team against which Altidore’s AZ Alkmaar was playing.

Unrelenting monkey chants. Just weeks after Kevin-Prince Boateng walked off a pitch in Italy in response to fans’ taunts.

UEFA/FIFA, get your house in order.

Rather than make clear from the top that racist abuse will not be tolerated, UEFA is worryingly silent. And when they do talk, like last summer when they fined a Danish player more for wearing unapproved underwear than they did the national teams whose fans abused black players like Theodor Gebre Selassie or Mario Balotelli, their priorities are never quite in line.

The silence and/or uselessness from the top leaves the sole responsibility of responding to racist fan culture to men who are barely adults and are being abused and attacked in their place of business. And when individuals are making decisions on the spot and under enormous pressure, we see a variety of responses that journalists and other commentators are taking it upon themselves to judge. Is Altidore’s playing on better than Boateng’s leaving?

Who are we to judge?

And why are we spending more time thinking about the individual choices these players are making instead of demanding that UEFA/FIFA treat this as an issue of utmost importance? We owe it to Jackie Robinson to demand better.

The beginning of today’s class on sewage, from Punch,...

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 12:02:00 -0500

The beginning of today’s class on sewage, from Punch, July-December 1849. (Scroll for the second part of the cartoon.)

Kevin-Prince Boateng’s stand (or walk, more precisely)...

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 12:02:44 -0500

Kevin-Prince Boateng’s stand (or walk, more precisely) against racist fans. It speaks for itself.

"I have become fixated with a map. It’s an interactive map of London that shows where the German..."

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 14:01:36 -0500

“I have become fixated with a map. It’s an interactive map of London that shows where the German Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the city between 7 October 1940 and 6 June 1941. It’s a period that includes 57 nights of consecutive bombing that pummelled the city at the height of the Blitz. You can find it on a site called bombsight.org.
…
Yet the map works now in another way. A reading street by street explains much about the city you see today. My exploration has radiated out from the small street in Bloomsbury where I live. My road was not hit. The neighbouring street, however, took a double strike when two highly explosive bombs hit a row of houses. And this explains why it’s now lined by blocks of not very nice late-1950s apartments.
…
Almost every post-1945 building in my ’hood owes its presence to a bomb dropped from a German plane. Perhaps this is how history can really be brought to life – how many of the children, or adults, living in my neighbourhood realise that what the[y] see every day is the consequences of war. It’s made me more sensitive to the city and its randomness and quirks. It’s also made me think how robust this old city must be: all that destruction and terror but it rebuilt. At their best, cities can heal again and again.”

- Very cool stuff. The website in question, bombsight.org, will be a great teaching resource the next time I teach the Blitz. For what it’s worth, the street in West Hampstead where I lived during my dissertation research trips was bombed once, according to the map, as was a nearby side street.

Greg Rutherford: Olympic gold medalist, baker, lover of history

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:02:47 -0500

Greg Rutherford: Olympic gold medalist, baker, lover of history:

Yes, this lack of nerves. What’s that about? It’s a weird one. You have to have nervous energy to perform, because that’s what kicks your body into mode. But there’s nervous energy where people are absolutely bricking it and it’s detrimental, and there’s nervous energy where you look at it and go, ‘You know what? It’s going to be amazing, I’m going to have the best time of my life and I’m going to go out and win this.’

But that brings its own pressure, doesn’t it? Obviously my heart was beating faster – of course it was, I was in the London Olympic final – but the way I viewed it was very different, possibly, to some others who maybe let the occasion get to them. And that comes with experience. In previous years I had issues where probably I had let the nerves get to me a little bit too much and I underperformed, but there I felt so confident with the way I was training, the way I was jumping. I felt pretty good. The only time I was nervous was in Round Six, when I knew I was eight jumpers away from being Olympic champion and I had to just pick each one off and hope nobody jumped further than me.

…

We hear that you’re a keen baker. Any chance you can squeeze the Great British Bake Off in to your schedule? I wouldn’t mind that, to be totally honest. Baking is something that I do. I haven’t had a lot of time over the last few months to get any done – and obviously I couldn’t eat the produce, but now I can, so once I actually get some time to get home for a bit I’m going to get baking again and have some fun. It’s just a way for me to relax at times. If I had the opportunity to go on certain shows I’d definitely be going on them.

And are you likely to make sugary concoctions or those slightly forlorn-looking savoury tarts? I’m very much a sweet-toothed person. There are days when I only feel like savoury, but generally I’m very sweet-toothed. So baking cakes I love.

What’s your favourite? It’s more a challenging one for me: it’s a checkerboard cake. My attempt a few months ago didn’t come out very well. My Mum is a great, great cook and a great baker; she sort of taught me. She makes the perfect checkerboard cake and I just want to perfect that technique. Basically when you cut it open it looks like a chess board. It’s easier than it sounds but you have to have equipment to do it.

…

Did you love history at school? It was the one subject that I could really apply myself to because I actually really enjoyed it. So that and a couple of others, that was sort of my forté, but everything else I let go by the wayside really, I wasn’t as keen. Even though arguably I could have done much better at school, I’d decided at a young age that I was going to be a professional sportsman at some sport. And at that stage there was a bit of luck: I was fortunate to meet the right people at the right time to get me to where I am now.

Photo

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 14:48:25 -0500

How the Olympics killed the killjoys | Tim Black | spiked

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 12:02:40 -0500

How the Olympics killed the killjoys | Tim Black | spiked:

My biggest regret of 2012: not being in the world’s best city for such a sensational Olympics.

Fear, cynicism and a sheer overwhelming desire to piss all over the Olympics parade; these were the key themes of the dominant story that prefaced London 2012. And what was so staggering about the pre-Olympics snipes and snides was that they were effectively green lit by the overt defensiveness of successive governments, both Labour and Lib-Con.

…

So you see, there was a time, before the sun shone on Stratford, before an audience of billions revelled in an extraordinary spectacle, when the Olympics was the focal point for little more than fear and loathing. A fear of what happens when large numbers of people gather together, and a loathing of the type of high-cost ambition embodied in the staging of an Olympics. In the years after 2005, when London won the bid, the anxieties and prejudices of a narrow stratum of British society, composed mainly of the political and media classes, shaped and formed the pre-Olympics narrative into a tale of hubris and imminent misery and woe.

Then it happened. From the Games’ opening ceremony onwards, another narrative erupted into life, a story drawn from the excitement and enthusiasm of the millions who simply loved what the Olympics is actually about: the sinewy drama of competition, the ceaseless, tenuous striving, and of course, for some athletes, the glory. Mo Farah’s double distance gold, Usain Bolt (enough said), David Rudisha’s 800 metres supremacy… the list goes on.

As the public buzzed, the elite cynics, the miserable pseudo-radical killjoys and the endless panicmongers, simply melted away.

50 years after independence, my people swept the track. (via The...

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 10:01:15 -0500

50 years after independence, my people swept the track.

(via The best photographs of 2012 - in pictures | Art and design | The Guardian)

"A lot of people said my win was unexpected, but it wasn’t. I was world number one going in. I..."

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 12:03:00 -0500

“A lot of people said my win was unexpected, but it wasn’t. I was world number one going in. I had won most major competitions during the year. I went into the race saying, ‘I’m going to win this’, because I genuinely believed that I could.”

- Well then. (Greg Rutherford on Christmas after winning gold.)

a Christmas crime

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 10:02:54 -0500

a Christmas crime:

Every Christmas when my mother was alive, she and I watched A Child’s Christmas in Wales. In the 11 years since I last saw it, it’s apparently become incredibly hard to find, which is a crime. Best Christmas movie ever.

One of the most lovely things you can watch during the holiday season is the 1987 film of Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” starring the late Denholm Elliott. It’s a faithful yet playful adaptation of Thomas’ work, a narrative poem conceived as a radio play, and the film is at once appropriately sentimental about Christmases past and tartly realistic about the Christmas depicted in the film’s present. It stands in contrast to so much Christmas entertainment that is either gloppy or pious; Elliott, as both narrator and lead actor, provides a vinegary crispness to the role of nostalgic grandfather.

But here’s the thing: A Child’s Christmas in Wales is difficult to find.

Go to Amazon.com and you’ll be told that the DVD version is “not available.” The VHS copy I bought years ago skips and stutters, and its colors are faded — I always expect the tape to snap when we hook up the old VHS machine to re-play it on Christmas Eve, a Tucker family tradition.

creolesoul: A History of Black people in Europe It is...

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:05:55 -0500

creolesoul:

A History of Black people in Europe

It is generally known that black people have been residing in European countries since the early colonial times. But even before the 15th century and during Roman times, a time when colour of skin still wasn’t a racist stigma but just another physical feature, black people lived in Europe. Remains of a man with black African features were found in England recently, dating his life back to the 13th century. Read this article for more info.

Besides that, facts have been found of black people living in different parts of Europe, although I don’t want to overstate their presence or influence. But it is generally known that during the Muslim era of the Iberian Peninsula (from the 8th century AD until the 15th century AD) people with dark skin were part of daily live. The Muslims who invaded Spain and Portugal around 700 AD were a mixture of black and dark people from North-Africa. They were often referred to as Maures, wrote about and painted, way before the dehumanization of black people started.

I added above Jan Mostaert’s portrait of a nobleman, guest of the Queen of Austria. This painting dates back to the early 1500’s in what we now call Belgium, then part of the Duchy of Brabant. There is no doubt this man has African roots while being a respected member of European culture. We can only guess that this man is of Maure origin, i.e. a Muslim having converted to Christianity or even the second or third generation of converts.

Below I will go deeper into the subject. I will give you some internet links, book references and a list of early Europeans of African descent, each time linked to their wiki page. If you know more about the subject I invite you to add information in a comment.

Al Andalus

Many blacks who were Muslims converted to Christianity after the emirate ofAl Andalus was abolished (end of 15th century). But the Reconquista took centuries (8th-15th century) and during those times black people gradually integrated the Christian and Northern European world. Among them were noble men and scholars. The negative image of blacks, as natural slaves, only gained prominence in the 18th century when the transatlantic slave trade became a central piece of European economical activity and later when European nation-states were being established.

Slavery and racism

Of course slavery existed before racism. In the 15th century blacks and whites were enslaved indiscriminately. Blacks in the America’s could become free men and own their own slaves and land (which was rather common in colonial Brazil for instance). It is only in later years that being black made you a slave forever and by birth, or at least a kind of human always inferior to white people. This racial perspective on identity and humanity only gained authority in later modern times. Read more on the subject here.

Coat of Arms

Black people were part of European imagination and reality from very early times. Read more here and here. We can say with certainty that there were black people in Europe before that white people reached the area south of the Sahara. North Africa, Iberia and the Middle East were the crossroad where black and white intermingled. In Europe references to blacks was a positive sign of strength and military power. Still today you can find many blacks in coat of arms for towns all over Europe, central, south and north, dating back to the middle ages.

Some Literature

After the 15th century, Portugal entered an intense relationship with African kingdoms in the Gulf of Guinea and the Congo coasts. Slave trade (although not based on race) and exchange between the kings led to the presence of Europeans on the West- and Central African shores, just as Africans in Portugal. Accounts from those days tell us that the sight of black people in the streets of Lisbon wasn’t a rarity during the Middle Ages, more on the contrary. I want to refer to following books for those who want to know more about this topic:
Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, Thomas Foster Earle,K. J. P. Lowe(eds.)
Africa’s discovery of Europe, David Northrup

As a consequence of the slave trade free blacks also arrived in Europe between the 16th and 19th century. Blacks lived in London, Liverpool, Lisbon, Seville, … during the 17th and 18th century. Other historical books with scientific authority give you in depth knowledge of this:
Hugh Thomas’s ‘The Slave Trade’
Ivan Van Sertima’s ‘African Presence in Early Europe’
All this publications teach us something about this hidden part of European history.

Leo Africanus

Leo Africanus is often stated as one of these black and European noble men and scholars. But it is rather speculation to state if he was black or white. He was definitely a Maure but as racism, whiteness and blackness were unknown concepts as we know it today, we can’t know his ‘race’ for sure. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Even very common socio-cultural concepts of today such as ‘French’, ‘German’ or ‘English’ didn’t exist in those days such that it would be silly to argue whether historical figures of those days were German or French. Same thing is valid for the white and black race as defined today.

Famous Europeans with African ancestry (1500-1900)

Below I will list some of the most famous figures of European modern history (after 1500) who happened to be black or have African ancestry, but were integral parts of European (high) society. Most of the time the African ancestry of these people is ignored by history books although acknowledged and accepted by most history scholars. I think it throws a new light on the concepts of race and the meaning of blackness in the 21st century.

Alessandro ‘il Moro’ de Medici 1510-1537
Duke of Florence

Abram Petrovich Ganibal 1696-1781
Major-general, military engineer, governor of Reval and nobleman of the Russian Empire

Anton Wilhelm Amo 1700-1775
German Philosopher

Ignatius Sancho 1729–1780
Author and abolitionist, UK

Olaudah Equiano a.k.a. Gustavus Vassa 1745-1797 Author and abolitionist, UK

Chevalier de Saint Georges 1745-1799 A famous musican, composer and swardsman of his times
Listen to his music here.

Thomas Alexandre Dumas 1762-1806 A general of the French Revolution

George Polgreen Bridgetower 1780-1860 Musician and composer
Listen and watch here

Alexandre Pushkin 1799-1837
Famous author, great-grandson of Abraham Petrovich Ganibal

Alexandre Dumas 1802-1870
French author of the world famous tale of ‘The Three Musketeers’, Thomas Alexandre Dumas’s son

John Archer 1863-1931
Presumably UK’s first black mayor, political activist

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912 Musician and composer
Listen to his music here

(via afroeurope.blogspot.nl)

"They learn about Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mary Seacole at this time of year. And as of..."

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:51:34 -0400

“

They learn about Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mary Seacole at this time of year. And as of this year, Barack Obama. And it all makes sense in inner-city schools, where the intake is multicultural and teachers hope a focus on Black History Month can help minority pupils centre themselves and aspire. But that doesn’t really explain why they have bothered with it over the past few weeks at Delce Junior School in Rochester. Save for a tiny proportion of the school population – 20 from 400 – everyone is white. But they tell me that they do it because they think it helps prepare seven- to 11-year-olds from a largely white working class community for a world of different backgrounds and myriad histories and varied cultures. They do it because they think it’s right. Headteacher Karen White, newly transplanted from the mosaic that is Hackney, east London to the relative homogeneity of Rochester in Kent, tells me that no one has balked, which wasn’t a foregone conclusion.

And so, with the harvest festival a recent memory, the children go on to learn about the SS Windrush, and Bob Marley and Lewis Hamilton. They eat Jamaican patties, jerk chicken; they colour maps of St Lucia.

”

- In 2009, Hugh Muir wrote about Black History Month in an all-white school in Kent, England for his continuing Guardian series, “Hideously diverse Britain.” For what it’s worth, Black History month in the UK is in October.

racism in English soccer, redux

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:00:08 -0400

Not only is the John Terry debacle not dying down—Terry recently retired from international football before his FA disciplinary hearing—we seem to be hearing more about it, and racism in soccer, than ever. The Observer, for one, isn’t happy about where the FA seems to be on racism.

And the FA, even now, seem to have some difficulty learning lessons from this fiasco. In a briefing to journalists from the Sunday media on Thursday – before the publication of the independent commission’s report – the England manager, Roy Hodgson, responding to persistent questions, said he might consider giving the captaincy to Ashley Cole for the World Cup game against Poland to coincide with the defender’s 100th cap.

On Saturday the FA made it clear to those same journalists that they should not refer to that section of the press conference lest it reflect badly on Hodgson or the FA, or that not giving the captaincy would be seen as revenge for the Cole tweet. Perish the thought.

The fact that the request from the FA came with an implicit threat that anyone who ignored this advisory might suffer in terms of future cooperation from the FA is both abysmal and shocking.

Racism is vile and malevolent and has blighted many people’s lives. It continues to do so, although great strides have been taken to reduce its incidence. Only racists and intellectual Neanderthals would need convincing that society has to adopt a zero tolerance approach to incidences of racism, or racist insults. And that includes football.

As one writer noted on Saturday: “Most footballers get through the day without uttering a racist remark.” In fact, most of us get through the day without uttering a racist remark.

Terry and Cole are an embarrassment to football, to Chelsea and to England. The club – and just as importantly, their supporters – need to be seen to understand that clearly. And react accordingly.

There are new reports about racist chants in English stadiums as well. Stadiums of hate, anyone?

The Bolton striker Marvin Sordell has claimed he and several of his team-mates were racially abused by Millwall fans during his side’s 2-1 defeat at the Den.

The 21-year-old, who was a member of the Team GB squad at the London 2012 Olympics, wrote on Twitter that he had reported his allegations to officials, and claimed that midfielders Lee Chung-yong and Darren Pratley, plus his fellow forward Benik Afobe, had also been subjected to racist taunts by a section of home supporters.

Sordell, an unused substitute in the match, wrote: “Putting the match aside, its 2012 in England and people are still shouting racial abuse at a football game? Shocking.”

He added: “Chungy, Pratts, Benik and I had all sorts of things said to us. The police were standing yards away and did nothing.”

Sordell, who claims the word “slave” was among those aimed at him, also received abusive responses to his allegations on Twitter.

He added: “Funniest thing is if I had come on and scored and gave them some back, I would be the one who got fined.”

teaching notes: Walter Johnson, "On Agency"

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:45:01 -0400

On the formulaic gesture of “giving slaves agency”:

I suppose what I am suggesting is that the present has changed and with it have the implications of our form of address to the past. While I certainly do not want to argue that chimeric promises of Official Academic Multiculturalism have solved the problems of white overprivilege and Black disadvantage, I think that it is fair to say that the political stakes of white alignment with the cause of Black freedom within the academy have changed. Such gestures today enter a well-grooved field: making them has very few costs and, for white scholars at least, more than a few benefits. The politics of solidary they ostensibly represent seem to me to be correspondingly diminished. Indeed, in the absence of the type of hard and clear thinking about the relation of history-writing to history that characterized Gutman’s decision to respond to the Moynihan Report by writing The Black Family, these rhetorical and performative gestures seem to me today to liquidate their ethical and political obligations in the very act of asserting them: even as they assume a posture of present engagement in the political struggles of the past they do so on a closed circuit by which historians and their audience together share in the knowledge that they have transcended the past. Left it behind. By formulating, through the terms of scholarly address, a pat notion of a community of believers who have made it far enough beyond slavery or racism (or whatever) in order to look back on them with the condescension of the converted they establish a set of terms in which the present is washed clean of the sins of the past (rather than doggedly implicated in them. And it is this that I want to highlight. If we are to draw credibility by doing our work in the name of the enslaved and then seek to discharge our debt to their history by simply ‘giving them back their agency’ as paid in the coin of a better history, some knowing laughter, and a few ironic asides about the moral idiocy and contradictory philosophy of slaveholders, then I think that we must admit we are practicing therapy rather than politics: we are using our work to make ourselves feel better and more righteous rather than to make the world better or more righteous.

Walter Johnson, “On Agency,” Journal of Social History 37, no. 1 (Autumn 2003), p. 120-121

"A good friend of mine from the United States, observing the British higher-education scene, noted..."

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:00:29 -0400

“

A good friend of mine from the United States, observing the British higher-education scene, noted that, whereas the United States had taken 30 years to make its system more market-oriented, it was taking England only two.

The result, I think, is a kind of general culture shock. Universities, students, and parents are still trying to work out where they stand as the challenging—to put it mildly—admissions round this year has shown only too well. (Many English universities have ended up with quite dramatic shortfalls in student numbers because of a new quasi-market.)
…
Yet I don’t think there is much doubt that parts of the current U.K. government are enamored of the U.S. system. They espouse the virtues of market discipline as an all-purpose nostrum that will bring competition to institutions which somehow aren’t good enough—even though all the league tables suggest the exact opposite—a market discipline which can somehow be applied to a system in which demand outstrips supply and in which there are, at most, a couple of hundred higher-education institutions in comparison with the 4,500 in the United States.

In most cases, this positive vision of the American system probably arises from a brief brush with an Ivy League university.
…
Be that as it may, I think a U.S.-style market solution (one which actually ignores just how complex the U.S. system is) will produce worse higher education not only because it will threaten English universities’ global preeminence but because it will prove to be mean-spirited. I’d like to think that England will stop now and rethink before it is too late.

”

- Especially interesting is the contention that those pushing for UK educational reforms based upon US models are usually doing so by looking at the US’s elite private school, rather than the whole picture.