"It's Not Home Economics -- It's Food Technology!"

Myself and a good old school friend sat reminiscing about days gone by last night: the sort of thing which is highly enjoyable having just graduated after three long years at university. While Rick is now a Bachelor of Science after working damn hard for a First Class Honours Degree in Music Technology, I am a Bachelor of Arts having achieved a Second Class Upper Honours Degree in American Studies and Imaginative Writing.

The point of the above is not to brag and wallow in one's own successes, but to merely make the point that both Rick and myself went and studied a subject that interested us at university. I would venture a guess that if we had been able to, we would have studied these subjects all day, every day at school, as well. Sadly no school offers such an opportunity, and probably quite rightly so, but the problem remained that Rick, myself and a great many of our other friends were left to study subjects we found no intellectual stimulation in.

There was a stipulation at our High School that every pupil had to study a technology at G.C.S.E. level. The absurdity of such rule still fascinates me; I am sure it was in place to ensure the survival of certain wilting departments. Looking back now, I wish I had fought the system more and pushed to study History instead of 'Food Technology'. I would have liked to have learnt to cook, but that was never the ultimate goal of F.T.

Right from the first lesson I never cared for F.T. I never paid much attention in class, but from what I remember we were taught of the food industry: how to make food en-masse. "The production line". "Quality control".Personally I do not think such things are worthy of being taught in schools.

The thing which summed it up for me was Rick's front cover for his file. We had to produce large A3 sized dossier of work, containing what, I'm not exactly sure. I myself never even finished the front cover, and I am not sure whether or not Rick finally got it right either. By the first lesson he had finished his front cover, but instead of having "Food Technology" blazoned across the front, he had written "Home Economics" (The subject actually was Home Economics years seven through nine, but we were seldom cooking.)

Seven days later Rick's folder still had the same front cover. The teacher told him to change it. Twelve months later, at the start of year eleven, Rick's folder still had the same front cover, and every lesson the teacher (a large beast of a woman) shouted at him "it's not Home Economics -- it's Food Technology!"

And that typifies the problem, really. The name of the subject is not even right, never mind the academic content. It was understandable that the subject should initially change its name from Cookery to something else in order to distance itself from the sexist academic practices present in British schools in the 1950's and 60's, but it has certainly gone too far. In the lesson where we learn to cook, we do not even learn to cook anymore. When I was doing Food Technology, we were supposed to be making something every single week, but we had to cook as if on a production line. It was absolutely crazy.

Thankfully now, this Labour government seems to be correcting the problem. It recently suggested that every pupil leaving school should have good knowledge of ten to fifteen recipes. After my experiences, I consider that a bloody good idea! I left for university not knowing even how to make something as simple as pasta. Hopefully that will not happen in the future.

As for Rick and myself, Rick I think scraped a 'C' grade, though he probably lost marks for his front cover. I, however, did not fare so well. I was removed from the course, shall we say, about a third of the way through year eleven. I had done no work, had no enthusiasm for "Food Technology", and had no intention of making a career out of the food industry. I just did not care. If we had actually been learning to cook, the story would have been very different. I did, though, take one thing from the course. It was my one and only experience of getting shouted at in front of the entire class. The large beast of a teacher really let me have it. Over a twelve month period I had done absolutely no work. She shouted until she was red in the face. I just stood there in the middle of the room, and that experience strengthened the resolve in me to genuinely achieve some thing in my life, just so as I could stick it in the face of every person who ever suggested I would amount to nothing.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright

My Week

This week feels though it has almost been a wasted week. But no entire week can ever be entirely wasted. I remember Ross once saying that sometimes it is good to completely burn out. Whilst I won't disagree, it is also good to take a step back. Since Good Friday, I have reverted back to old habits. I haven't really done anything. I haven't been anywhere or seen anything. I haven't acquired first hand experience of our transport system and haven't seen anything to suggest I have made a journey of any significance. All I have done is enjoyed the sunshine. I re-read James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and am once again part-way through Claude Brown's Manchild In The Promised Land. As a first chapter, the opening section really is a baptism of fire into a world quite alien to me.

For two solid days I did very little but mess around on Facebook. This I consider to be a useless endeavour. Friends added me as a 'friend' and I added people as 'friends'. People who I haven't seen since High School (and who I truthfully hope never to see again) have listed me as 'friend'. I have pages of these 'friends' who I never even used to speak to at all at High School -- people who I am never in a million years going to actively make the effort to communicate with through Facebook.

But I spend most of the time searching the groups. I try and find humorous ones with a satirically important point: Petition To Revoke The Independence Of The United States Of America, for instance, or Virgin Media -- I Want My Sky Channels Back! or Belichick For President in 2008. Some of the groups I have joined are ridiculous: Everyone Loves A Guinness, for example. It sounds quite normal. It is, though, in the category Extreme Sports. Right, ok then.

I went up to the Church Wednesday evening and had a few drinks with the old crew. The few people from High School I actually get on quite well with. That night highlighted the false community created by Facebook. According to this 'social utility', everyone is friends. Sadly the real world does not work in such a harmonious Utopian manner. Our group was all sat together round two tables (there was not that many of us, the tables are small), talking and enjoying each other's company. I talked less than everyone else because..... I'm shy. Anyway, at the table next to us there sat another group of friends from my same year at school. At least one of them (possibly two) is/are listed as my friend(s) on Facebook. They did not bat an eyelid when I walked out there. And neither did I. I did not acknowledge there presence, and they did not acknowledge mine. The unspoken understanding of the clique was in full force Wednesday night. On the table next to them, there sat someone with whom I had a similar relationship. He was listed as a friend on Facebook, but we did not speak. The term 'friend' seems to have been redefined: friend, v. anyone from way back when who's name you vaguely remember and who you recall to be alright, though you not necessarily spoke to them way back when. Act of friendship no longer necessary. That would be a seemingly correct understanding of today's situation. Thanks, Facebook. In fact, I have just had a scary thought: if Facebook ran the world. If this was the case, we would have all been sat with each other round one large table Wednesday night. Ugh, a scary thought.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright