UK grammar school funding was one of the key issues getting you talking today. We’re also looking at your thoughts on a feature about one man’s experiences collecting insect stings and the potential merits of going bald.
To join in the conversation you can click on the links in the comments below to expand and add your thoughts.
Politics Live – readers’ edition
Much of the discussion on today’s regular end of week version of our rolling news blog was on grammar school funding, after the education secretary Damian Hinds defended a new £50 fund.
‘I am at a loss to see any connection between grammar schools and social mobility’
As a grammar school girl, married to a grammar school bloke, I am at a loss to see any connection between grammar schools and social mobility. Our three children went to a comprehensive, met a variety of people, passed GCSEs and A-levels with flying colours and went on to get degrees. They received a much wider education than I or my husband ever did.
If you are intelligent, gain good grades and work hard then you should be able to compete for the best jobs and take part in all the professions whichever school you went to, but the fact is that it’s still often a case of who you know, not what you know.
suzeebee
‘What is needed today are technical colleges to train artisans’
Grammar schools in my day were there to produce university entrants, now that can be done from a comprehensive. What is needed today are technical colleges to train artisans just like they did at one time. Plumbers brickies & leccies you don’t get those skills at uni do you?
When I worked for Post Office Telephones, now BT, they had a very good training scheme for young people, male and female. The Royal Signals used to take ex PO telecoms people, now it is the other way around, the army trains the civvies not the civvies the army. Saves money I suppose though.
JTQRH2015
Experience: I have been stung by 150 species of insect
In Justin O Schmidt’s job he says he’s been stung countless times, but that nothing comes close to the pain bullet ants inflict. Readers enjoyed the piece – though some were forced to wince at the details.
‘It’s quite mad to imagine that you can use a word like “fruity” to describe pain’
His descriptions are wonderful – they really show the creative potential of the English language – it’s quite mad to imagine that you can use a word like fruity, or describe pain as ephemeral, and for it to actually make any sense at all, but you can really get a sense of what he means.*
*well, as a clumsy sod who frequently manages to smash, thump, crush or spike a wide variety of body parts, I know what he means anyway.
Peter Macqueen
‘I’d never really thought about describing stings in the manner of a connoisseur’
I’d never really thought about describing stings in the manner of a connoisseur. I think the research would be enhanced, like Worcester sauce upon ones cheese on toast, if it included the stings from plants which also have their own virtue.
Also there are levels of intent. I recall a Vespula germanica sting from a lost soul who was probably dying anyway but thought that one last sustained attack upon an unsuspecting Englishman was perhaps the honourable way to go. It was like being bayonetted with a whitehot steel swordfish by somebody who thinks it was you who castrated them, murdered their family and sold their children into slavery. Also it left a small football sized sack of fluid beneath the skin.
Balaams
They can keep their ‘cure’ for baldness. I love my hairless head
Readers have also been busy discussing the merits of hair beneath Tom Usher’s piece, published on Thursday, after a potential cure for baldness was reported.
‘At the first sign of my previously magnificent barnet thinning out I shaved it off’
I’ve been bald for 25 years, and at the first sign of my previously magnificent barnet thinning out I shaved it off and have never even thought about growing the sides. I mean, who in their right mind would? It was a fun pain while I had it. I went through various versions of mullets, mohawks and just letting it grow wild and free (I had to submit and cut it when it got jammed in a car door once), and having it various shades of red and pink was fun.
But you can’t argue with genetics, and more or less the day I noticed some obvious scalp appearing off it went. The current Mrs Frameboy wets herself laughing at old photos, and I’m sure she isn’t being kind when she says I suit being a skinhead better. Besides, what’s left is white now so keeping the skin isn’t a bad idea anyway.
frameboy
‘Taking a shower is like being in a VW Beetle in a monsoon’
I like the heightened sense you get for a day or two after shaving your head.
I remember sitting in a pub with my back to the door and immediately feeling whenever anyone came in. I also sensed people standing right behind me. Taking a shower is like being in a VW Beetle in a monsoon. Bald men should work on developing this, maybe sandpapering their bonces, thus allowing our species to evolve the sensory abilities of fish and bats.
alexito
Comments have been edited for length. This article will be updated throughout the day with some of the most interesting ways readers have been participating across the site.
