The Cheerful Insanity of Me

'No fee degrees' university plan

We need to make the education system biased towards people who live near Universities? Oh, sorry, I didn't realise. Yes, of course people who live in big cities are far more entitled to this level of education then those of us from the countryside.

So, whatever happened to the idea of fair and equal access to education? Everytime there's a change to the funding system we seem to move further and further away from it. It's like the government are actively sitting down trying to think of new biases to add to the system.

How about this for an idea: use income tax to subsidise the education system to allow access to regardless of wealth, location, etc. It's perfectly fair as those that have been through university tend to be paid more and it would help even up the wealth too. Oh, yes, I forgot, we couldn't possibly do that, the rich clearly need their money...

Last Wednesday, I went to see Looking Glass House's performance of The Rover. The past 2 plays I've seen there have both been modern, so it was interesting to see something older (although, being entirely uncultured, I'd never heard of Aphra Behn before, so didn't actually know that in advance).

The Cavaliers were brilliantly laddish. They were like the stereotypical hormonal English teenage boys on holiday together getting very drunk and chatting up anything female with 2 legs. Then there's the main female characters who rebel against their family dress up a gypsies and try and attract the men and a myriad of all sorts of other people.

All in all, it's a bit like Old Kent Road on a Friday night, but in the 17th century, which makes it utterly brilliant and means that the comedy in it is still as fitting to society today as it was then.

The performance itself was really well done. I was especially impressed with the way they started each act in the bar amongst the audience, so you actually became part of the carnival before crowds all "moved to the next street" (the main theatre) where we took our seats.

It's on at the Southwark Playhouse until 18th July and is well worth a look.