I have described this as embracing the random, although what with embracing the random, and more controversially the parsnip, I am starting to look like a proper tart. writes Luke Meddings.
A note on the parsnip: It was never actually my intention to embrace a parsnip, and I would only consider doing so in a stable relationship. Although I might be tempted. But the point made in last month's article - and it was so faultlessly articulated that it may need clarification - was that coursebooks are anodyne because they have to be. The sort of topics they cannot safely cover include those immortalised in the parsnip acronym, from politics to pork.
What I didn't advocate was piling into all that sex and politics in an orgy of post-coursebook liberation. There is only so much one wants to share in class, and if someone wishes to spend their time eating Scotch eggs, while another enjoys reading political memoirs, that is nobody's business but their own until they choose to make it so.
What I did say was that a coursebook can never anticipate our immediate daily needs and concerns, which are often repetitive and banal, which is no barrier to good conversation provided the people involved are interested in one another.
Rather than embracing the parsnip, then, I was eschewing it. And you should always eschew your food properly.
What I didn't advocate was piling into all that sex and politics in an orgy of post-coursebook liberation. There is only so much one wants to share in class, and if someone wishes to spend their time eating Scotch eggs, while another enjoys reading political memoirs, that is nobody's business but their own until they choose to make it so.
What I did say was that a coursebook can never anticipate our immediate daily needs and concerns, which are often repetitive and banal, which is no barrier to good conversation provided the people involved are interested in one another.
Rather than embracing the parsnip, then, I was eschewing it. And you should always eschew your food properly.
