Boy, was I glad that I decided never to get wound up by this sort of thing ever again.

There is more to education… than just preparing people to earn lots of money.  Education is also something that prepares you to make do with much less money.

Brian’s Education Blog, if not actually back, is about to be.  So, what better way to celebrate could there be than to do a podcast on education?

In the podcast we talk about sovietisation, compulsion, discipline, the educational impact of Elvis Presley and how teddy bears will go about teaching quantum physics.

Well, that’s the blurb.  Actually, I think it is a bit of a ramble.  An interesting ramble but a ramble nevertheless.  The lesson is that there is a huge difference between being an interviewer and an interviewee.  The last couple of times I have been the interviewee, so I forgot that as interviewer you have to prepare.  Preparation doesn’t have to take very long - all that’s really required is to find out what the interviewee wants to say and tell him what questions you want to ask.  But it’s essential.  Lesson learned.  Until it’s forgotten again.

In which we cover the Blackadder school of history, tanks, the German character, whether Britain should have fought or not, why Germany lost and Crozier’s Grand Theory of 20th Century History.

Before we recorded this conversation Brian put up a trailer on Samizdata which reaped a bumper crop of good comments.  Sure, there was some wheat in with chaff but a lot of them were first rate.  It was an exercise I suspect Brian will repeat in the future.

Notes

Field Marshal Haig (as Blackadder would have it) appears in this clip (it’s the second scene in):

This is General Melchett and Haig’s secret plan:

As funny as they are inaccurate.

Belgian neutrality did indeed date back to 1839.

The late Chris Tame was head honcho of the Libertarian Alliance.

The development of the tank was indeed sponsored by the Admiralty and the Landships Committee.

This is the Bloch we mention, the one who predicted how awful the war was going to be.

This is Brian on DUKWs.

I was right that Haig’s conception of the war included four phases.  The one I missed was the initial clash.

Yes, Brian, it is.