It’s the talk of
the New Town! Yes, cocktail parties the length and breadth of the bits of Edinburgh
that JT readers wouldn’t even be allowed to drive through, are abuzz with talk of the
latest must-have accessory.
Can you guess what it is yet?
Well, Scotland’s "public" schools this month reported that numbers of
kids being "boarded" have rocketed. For the rest of us, "boarding"
means that your kid has to stay at school 24/7. As in, they don’t get to come home
after the afternoon bell rings.
The haute bourgeoisie of our capital are falling over themselves to dump their little
Tarquins and Nigellas on the (ahem) "charitable" educational businesses that
ring the unwashed-free areas of Edinburgh.
The latest wheeze to surgically remove even more money from the wealthy has been
welcomed by the private school sector, as this spokesduster now helpfully explains:
"It's all a question of lifestyle. As a child grows they make more and more
demands on the time of people who really don’t have the time to deal with them. These
are people that we educationalists term "parents". By offering to look after the
sprogs of the cash-rich our service allows such parents they chance to exercise their
right to not-be-arsed. A "right" perhaps not enjoyed universally by the
nation’s underclass, reeking of lard, but, let’s face it, there’s money in
it for us, so who cares?"
Elsewhere on planet school, parents' organisations this week called on teachers to take
a more "relaxed view" on pupils swearing. Leading one teacher to comment:
"It doesn’t matter what we think, the little bastards swear anyway."
