Thursday, January 26, 2006

Irony bypass...

BBC NEWS | Education | Students bemoan 'unhip' lecturers:

I don't whether to laugh or cry at this item. I was particularly struck by the magisterial sweeping generalisation of
"They always look down on students, they always judge and have a lack of hygiene... most discussions in seminars revolve around the academic's new book. In short, every aspect of their measly little lives irritates me."
So, obviously, this student doesn't "judge" then...

10 comments:

Buggles Balham High Road said...

Must make you want to chuck it all in?

Rob said...

No, because most students aren't such arrogant tossers as this one seems to be.
On the other hand, I've just dealt with a student protest about a timetable change. They are opposed because "we've got a life outside here" and "we've paid for this." Neither is wholly true...

west coaster said...

Don't you think though that there is a valid point being made by the snottery youth when he points up the vanity of the academic. I'm doing a course in the OU and I was brought up short in one piece of course material where the writer stated "These phrases were actually invented by me more than a quarter of a century ago.' And then the TMA almost totally hung on our appreciation of 'these phrases'. It was totally self-indulgent.

Rob said...

Yes, that does happen - Arthur Marwick, I think. But then, academics are, by definition, experts in their field, so they would (indeed must) have publications, and it would be odd not to refer to them if relevant.
I still think it's ludicrous to suggest all academics are unhygienic. So daft, it scarcely seems worth saying. It's the last refuge of the child defeated in argument who says "...and anyway, you smell..."

pal said...

Arthur Marwick, now there is a blast from the past. Him of the kipper ties, or was it cravats?

I went to an Arts Foundation summer school evening lecture which showed him being very erudite for one of the course TV programs - and then we were shown the edited bits where he gradually slid down the chair and generally fell around. It was priceless and cheered us all up no end to think that such experts are human after all!

Rob said...

He's definitely of kipper tie vintage - but then, if I wore ties, so would I be...

pal said...

Well, Retro is cool :-)

Rob said...

Kipper ties are never cool, even on Peter Wyngarde, my style icon of the early seventies...

pal said...

Oh ........ do you still wear dapper suits with crisp shirt cuffs peeping from the sleeve?

Did Peter Wyngarde have one of those Mexican bandit 'taches?

Nice short wv - xvjvs

Rob said...

I never did wear dapper suits. I don't think I'm ever going to be accused of being dapper...
But if you were an adolescent boy in the late 60s, Jason King seemed the epitome of cool.