Author Archives: Tim Lenton

To my horror I have discovered that more than ten million people switched on their television sets on November 23 to watch a show that was totally beyond any kind of rational belief, featured weird creatures outside space and time, had no relevance whatsoever to life as we know it and occasionally made you think you were going to be sick.

Why do people watch Strictly Come Dancing? I’ve no idea. The only relief for me was that almost as many watched Dr Who, which is as mind-stretching as the show they call Strictly is mind-numbing.

In fact Dr Who is so mind-stretching that your mind has trouble keeping up. I mean, three different versions of the main character skipping backwards and forwards through time? How does that work?

Did John Hurt blow up a galaxy? Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Is the said galaxy now frozen and hidden in a cup of tea? Clearly one of the key questions of our time. It would explain a lot of things.

The real joy of Dr Who (apart from the consistently lovely companions of recent years) is the fact that anything can happen, and often does.

Some of my friends don’t like this. They prefer things that can be explained, however dull the explanation is. They read serious literature and would not touch fantasy, regarding it as irrelevant. They suspect I am out of touch with reality.

Albert Einstein said: “Reality is merely an illusion, even though a very persistent one.” Dr Who would probably agree with that, and you have to admit, that Einstein guy was quite bright.

You see what I’m getting at? We’re wasting our time concentrating on the so-called reality that is placed before us, and which we try to explain by dissecting and examining it in mainline fiction, or enliven by turning it into massively hyped TV trivia like Strictly Come Dancing or I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

Life is much more than that, or we are beyond help.

Joseph Heller, the author of such magical books as Catch-22, once wrote, in the ironically titled Something Happened, that “Someone had distorted reality for the sake of neatness”. I suspect (though I have not asked them) that the writers of Dr Who feel the same way. They want to get behind the distortion and find out what’s really going on.

I have to say that on this I am one with J B S Haldane, another quite bright guy, who suggested: “Reality is not only more fantastic than we think, but also much more fantastic than we imagine.”

Shows like Dr Who may not have the answers, but at least they make us think about the questions, and marvel at them.

You probably know this: “England is the only developed country producing school leavers who are worse at maths and reading than their grandparents, according to a damning report.”

Or, to put it another way, England is the only developed country where grandparents are even better at maths and reading than school leavers, according to an encouraging report.

Which just goes to show that in education, statistics are not much more use than they are anywhere else. This is because they are made of rubber and can be twisted into any shape you like.

So is there anything wrong with education in the UK? We would all like everyone to be educated perfectly, bringing out each individual’s best and setting him or her on the road to fulfilment and, if possible, a reasonable salary.

Perfection, however, is not something human beings are very good at. All sorts of human traits militate against the education we provide being ideal.

First, there is the desire to get re-elected: this results in a compulsion to measure something that is innately beyond measurement in any vote-gathering sense. The only way to do it is to pretend that is everyone is the same, which is manifestly untrue.

Then there is the desire to insist that academic achievement is better than any other kind. Again, ludicrous, just like the assumption that fast-talking extroverts are the right kind of people to put in charge of everything.

Next, the desire for an easy life. This results in our schools continuing to employ teachers who are in it for the holidays, or who couldn’t think of anything better to do with their degree. Teaching is an art, and if we can’t get rid of bad teachers, pupils will continue to suffer.

A Big Issue seller is reported as complaining that striking teachers “messed up his pitch” by leaving huge amounts of litter after a rally. Whether you think teachers should strike or not, the litter is an appalling condemnation of them. If teachers care so little for quality of life that they leave litter, what hope is there for children?

Among all these time-servers, however, are large numbers, thank goodness, of brilliant teachers who children never forget. And in charge of many schools, superb head teachers. I have been privileged to meet many of them.

Their efforts are sometimes blunted by another human trait: the desire to interfere. Amateur governors (OK, there are some good ones) and politicians who know practically nothing of education beyond their own childhood experience decide that they know better than the professionals and make their lives a misery – so much so that some leave the profession.

So much for perfection. But that is by no means all. There is much that militates against a good education from another source: the pupils themselves, and their parents. This may be summed up as the desire to do badly. Or to put it more kindly, the complete lack of a desire to do well – to learn, to discipline oneself, to be receptive.

A generation has arisen which thinks that everyone deserves the same, even if they make no attempt to earn it. The result? Lack of discipline in the classroom, lack of support from parents for the teachers, and no desire to put children in the way of learning anything.

This is a cultural problem. So few people in this country think that anything really matters. The belittling of religious certainty spills over into a lack of respect for tradition and accumulated knowledge. Those who do well in other countries have a solid centre to their lives. They believe that becoming educated is important both to them and to others.

I cannot believe that the cultural vacuum in the UK will persist indefinitely. Many of the young generation that I meet are keen to do well, and to discover what appears to be missing from the national Weltanschauung. This is encouraging, although I am sure it is not universal. Nothing, after all, is perfect. We are all human.

Meanwhile, no doubt those statistics will keep bouncing around, and I advise you to keep out of their way. They may be heavy, and you could get hurt.

Through the generosity of a friend, I got my first glimpse of the O2 arena – from the inside – this month. Transformed dramatically from its original incarnation as an exhibition centre, it was transformed again for me by the presence of Leonard Cohen – poet, songwriter, singer, Canadian Jew, shepherd and lazy bastard living in a suit.

That last bit is his own self-mocking description. It is typical of his modesty and his wry sense of humour. Now in his late seventies, he would not be the first choice of a novice impresario intent on filling 20,000 seats. There is no glamour, no self-glorification, no ambient racket.

Instead there is a quiet but stunning magic with both words and music. Backed up by formidably talented musicians who he praises often on stage, Mr Cohen presents a range of inspired songs, from the widely known and much abused (by other singers) Hallelujah to sparkling gems admired by a much narrower circle.

It is typical of the man that two of his finest songs are given to his backing singers. Alexandra Leaving – a breathtaking piece of poetry – is sung by the multi-talented Sharon Robinson; and the fragile and beautiful prayer, If It Be Your Will, comes with all due delicacy from the Webb Sisters. It is a matter of personal preference which works best: I liked the latter, while my friends preferred the former; suffice to say that it takes a major performance from anyone to come anywhere near the master’s versions.

Mr Cohen’s magnetic presence shrinks the arena into an intimate setting, with the audience as friends who have dropped by, and who the singer is surprised and delighted to see. His injection of spiritual awareness into everything he writes gives a depth that is lacking in so many modern lyrics, and the musical arrangements come with matching profundity, but with lightness too.

The O2 is not perfect. The toilets, for instance, are woefully inadequate. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such a long queue of quietly desperate men. The audience, too, is not perfect. Someone thought it was a good idea to bring a baby, and a thirsty middle-ager in sweat shirt and glasses mistook the event for a cricket match and marched regularly out and in with fresh glasses of beer, beaming round as he went.

He seemed to think he was the star. But there was no doubt who the star was, and it was great to be there, light years away from the ordinariness of what we so often mistake for reality, basking in the warmth of something truly out of this world.