In a week in which Newspoll’s One Nation preference allocations have roused discussion, I’ve decided to get a piece of the action in BludgerTrack. My recent method for One Nation preferences, for which the 2016 preference flow offers an unsatisfactory guide, has involved extracting a trend from respondent-allocated two-party results from Ipsos and ReachTEL. But the very strong preference flow to the Coalition from Ipsos three weeks ago, combined with the lack of any such new data since, seems to have caused the trend measure to overshoot in the past week or two. So pending a rethink, I have reset the One Nation preference flow to 60-40, which is basically an estimate drawn from the recent Queensland and Western Australian elections. Having rerun it on this basis, you will now find BludgerTrack reporting a 52.1-47.9 lead to Labor, where for a few days there it was at 51.5-48.5. This reflects the stability of Newspoll and Essential Research on the primary vote this week, notwithstanding Newspoll’s outwardly encouraging two-party result for the Coalition.
Labor is up two on the seat projection, gaining one in Queensland and two in Western Australia, but losing one in Victoria. Newspoll’s stronger personal ratings for Malcolm Turnbull have had little influence on his trend result, which had already been elevated by Ipsos, and he’s actually lost a small amount of ground on preferred prime minister. Full results through the link below.
I’m all in favour of a well-rounded education, taking in aspects of humanities and sciences.
But what’s so special about Shakespeare, that his works must be taught and appreciated by everyone, above all others? Why are we not allowed to say that we find his works boring as dirt, if that’s what we believe? And why is being able to write a properly glowing critique of his work considered essential – not just helpful or useful, mind you, but essential – for a student who ultimately just wants to study maths or physics?
I repeat, it’s like a religous doctrine that none dare question.
Confessions @ #1288 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 7:48 pm
Or did you mean more XY and less XX.
(I met a fellow the other day, big strong good loooking, just married, and he’s ended up XXY after a Bone Marrow transplant from his sister.)
Aqualung @ #1280 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 5:34 pm
Probably $14 a week fr those “earning” over $180k.
Even if it is $14 a week to those at the bottom, it’s only $2 a day. Hardly enough to enable battlers to live comfortably.
You know what I meant. Please don’t try and make light of or dismiss a serious point being made.
Jeez Laura Tingle has taken a full dose from the ABC koolaid dispenser.
AM
‘And why is being able to write a properly glowing critique of his work considered essential – not just helpful or useful, mind you, but essential – for a student who ultimately just wants to study maths or physics?’
Um, I’ve never expected a student to do this.
I would never expect them to write a ‘glowing critique’ about any piece of literature or any author.
So that’s a few thousand students I’ve taught Shakespeare to for whom this wasn’t essential.
Confessions @ #1304 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 8:20 pm
I’m sorry you have misread me. That was the last thing I was trying to do. I was trying to make the point (made by Prof Higgins, to highlight his own foolishness, ‘why can’t a woman be more like a man”) that some men (can) only see women through their own prism.
…I’ll just add that there have been occasions when the students and I have agreed that we weren’t going to study a set text, and have replaced it with another. It’s never happened with Shakespeare.
Zoomster,
I only have experience of from the student’s side of things, and it was rather a long time ago, so I admit things might have changed. But my memory is that only a very brave student would describe any Shakespearean work as anything other than brilliant. Not unless they really didn’t care about getting a good mark.
Oh, and a disclaimer. I have a science degree, majoring in physics.
don@7.48 ………….Good on you, but I would put you in a minority! I part company with you with regard to all children wanting to learn. My observation is that some kids hated school and everything associated with it. My understanding is that even are the 4 and 5 year old stage, up to 20% of a cohort is at risk already of failing at school. This being in part due to lack of support from home for a myriad of reasons. Some of these kids never get off the educational starting block unfortunately………….
Puffytmd @ #1283 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 7:39 pm
Not at all Puffy and you are being mischievous suggesting otherwise.
But I admire women who stare down the clowns and prove them wrong. Jacinda Ardern is a good example as is Anastasia P. in Qld. They set the model to emulate. They will win.
Player One @ #1284 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 7:44 pm
Nope. They ride the wave and don’t go under. They triumph.
Puffytmd @ #1285 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 7:44 pm
You have a florid imagination. I said nothing of the sort.
don @ #1287 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 7:48 pm
Sounds like you are like the best teachers I had.
A joy to be in their class and they made things interesting and fun.
I agree, and yes that’s exactly what I was trying to convey. Why can’t women be more like men perfectly encapsulates a lot of male thinking when it comes to women occupying what are historically or traditionally considered male roles.
Confessions @ #1288 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 7:48 pm
Stated like a true idiot who does not even read what she purports to comment on.
mikehilliard @ #1290 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 7:49 pm
The ordinary shareholder is an innocent victim too.
AM
Well, I can’t think of any classes where a particular opinion of any author was required. I used to be quite upfront when I didn’t like a text myself – I don’t like ‘Animal Farm’, for example – but the students often disagreed with me.
…and I think I’ve made it clear I think Romeo and Juliet were a couple of pillocks.
Jeez Laura Tingle has taken a full dose from the ABC koolaid dispenser.
Did anyone really expect anything else? She was hired to give a veneer of respectability, not change the program.
That’s like asking, “What’s so special about Leonardo da Vinci?’, or “What’s so special about Albert Einstein?”, or “What’s so special about Vincent van Gogh?”
Shakespeare’s writing is of extremely high quality and his influence on drama, poetry, novels, films, and everyday English usage is incredibly pervasive.
Even if his work isn’t to your taste, it is culturally ignorant to deny the incredibly high quality of his work.
Nicholas @ #1321 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 8:56 pm
Nice to be able to agree with you.
ItzaDream: XXY?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV5nrj6bdD8
Even if his work isn’t to your taste, it is culturally ignorant to deny the incredibly high quality of his work.
____
But there’s no need to get it rammed down our throats.
It’s curious to hear of Game of Thrones readers on this forum that could no longer suspend their disbelief due to Westeros’ geographic spread, or the engineering challenges inherent in building a 200m high wall of ice over 500km long.
What did you make of the dragons then, or Valyrian steel, the Stark child capable of astral projection, the existence of giants on the other side of said wall, or the religion whose clergy were capable of reanimating the dead?
Ophuph
As I said, don’t get me started.
Did 7.30 mention the Kroger/Liberal v Cormack matter and the McCrann coverage?
Or the Fairfax coverage of last weekend?
Did the exploding Beetaroot proposition the caring, sharing light bulb?
And has Mr Pantsoff contributed to the Parakeet of High Fashions contribution to Australia courtesy of what she has attached to her – and will she give Mr Pantsoff back as she gives everything else back she has used?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
……………………………………………………………………………
I think this speaks for itself
So where has Andrew Probyn gone if Laura is now the chief on 7 30?
People are required to become familiar with two or three of his plays in high school. That’s hardly overkill. The guy had a singular impact on the English language; no other person in history comes even close to Shakespeare in terms of shaping the English language.
You don’t have that degree of impact unless your output is extremely good.
Observer
Sadly, I can’t reveal whether Pantsoff – I presume you mean JulieB’s handbag David Panton partner/not a partner – made it onto 7.30
I tuned in about 7.35 and just caught the last bit of Laura Tingle, my only comment being “Why did they make her take off her glasses”? As the next item appeared to be a story on pet food, I figured that the descent of the ABC into moronic Murdoch tabloid click bait could play out without my presence *click*
zoomster – I think the crucial phrase in my post was “suspend their disbelief” 🙂
Unlike many others I enjoyed the 4th book in the series (A Feast For Crows) – one of Martin’s
strengths is his ability to unsparingly portray the effects of all the high-falutin plotting and war on
the “smallfolk”, and this entry in the series was a lengthy meditation about this subject.
The strain was starting to show in “A Dance With Dragons” though – a lot of repetition of stock
phrases began to get on my nerves, so I’m hopeful that (i) the hiatus of 7+ years until the next installment means that Martin has taken his time to get his ducks lined up in a row, and (ii) the forthcoming get properly edited.
Only hopeful though. More likely the 7+ years has been spent attending fan conventions and writing up or consulting on spin-offs.
Ophuph
Yes, I’ve always thought a good editor would have improved the books immensely.
My original comments were more to do with whether he was comparable with Shakespeare or any of the greats. I don’t believe he’ll make ‘classic’ status.
He’s poor at plotting, to put it mildly.
zoomster @ #1244 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 5:43 pm
Zoomster
I have read the books several times and i do not recall any distances mentioned at all. Things were measured in days of travelling and if anything the world is quite small. Things seemed to be 2-3 weeks land travel times – pretty much as you would expect in Britain circa 1300
In any case Rome was a rather large empire rules over by one emperor
Zoomster
OK seems that GRRM had westeros about the size of South America. As I recall it was mostly within one single empire.
Anyway most of the speculating simply comes from his saying the wall was 300 miles long.
zoomster @ #1333 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 9:46 pm
Zoomster
He may bot be shakespeare but if he ever finishes it it will become a classic.
Poor at plotting – Reeaaaally.
Sorry he is superb at plotting but seems reluctant to finish it.
The first three books are so tightly written that you could not edit out even a word. Red them again and you will find that every birsdong, sky colour or colour of gown etc has a clear relevance, even if that is not apparent until 4 books later. Every bloody word. I kid you not.
The later two books perhaps not so but the first three – every line is relevant.
Find me a sentence you think should be edited out and I bet there will be a relevance of importance somewhere else.
dtt
‘…attentive readers noted that the Wall was said to be 300 miles long and extrapolated from this that Westeros was considerably larger, a full-sized continent rather than an island or peninsula. This was backed up by the extensive travel times for King Robert’s party from King’s Landing to Winterfell and back again. Very rough calculations using the Wall as a scale bar suggested that Westeros measured in fact about 3,000 miles from the Wall to the south coast of Dorne.’
Martin himself said that Westeros was about the size of South America.
https://atlasoficeandfireblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/the-size-and-extent-of-westeros/
South America is 17.8 million square kilometres. The Roman empire was 5 million square kilometres.
zoomster @ #1333 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 9:46 pm
Well actually plots was not a strength of Shakespeare. Indeed he borrowed obvious plots from known stories or history.
I love Shakespear but his plot lines were either from known tales, borrowed from other previous playwrights or were a form of politically correct history. Lear is old Welsh legend (Lear was a sea god), Macbeth was a wrong but politically correct form of history,
dtt
There is the absurd sequencing of events so that Brienne is searching for people when we know very well where they are, which makes the recounting of her adventures virtually pointless. And, as I’ve said, the mass killings of characters, some of whom he later brings back to life because he suddenly realises he shouldn’t have killed them after all.
Zoomster
We obviously searched at the same site.
However it is a pretty minor issue. I suspect he just got the lenght of the wall wrong (he was inspired by Hadrian’s wall). I imagine it was because he is a yank and thought of distances in North American terms rather than a Brit who would understand the distances better.
zoomster @ #1339 Monday, April 30th, 2018 – 10:06 pm
Well the Brienne stuff is in feast and Dance so I probably agree with you. Not quite sure who was brought back to life unless you mean Catelyn and that was quite intended I think. He left a few cliff hangers at the end of books but again that was deliberate.
He is also nodding to history eg Rickon and Bran – Princes in the tower etc
..oh and Daenerys totally failing in ruling the city, to the point where Martin has her run away and basically presses reset. In her absence, however, her advisers seem to sort things out, which suggests that the city runs a lot better off without her, and implies that Westeros would be, too.
Tricot:
While I agree with this, the flipside of the argument is that, in a normal distribution, someone is always going to be in the lower tail. Yes, some of these students can be helped – but you can’t undo genetics and the influence of the home environment of the pre-preschool years entirely, unfortunately. Statistically speaking, someone will always be below average. Unless the bar is set so low, not everyone is going to meet the benchmark.
In some ways, the one-size-fits-all school system entrenches failure in these students, as they have to spend all day doing things that they struggle with, for 10+ years.
‘.. but you can’t undo genetics and the influence of the home environment of the pre-preschool years entirely, unfortunately’
Kudos to the report, it does refer to the need for intervention at this level. You can alter the home environment – you can educate and support the parents.
As for the low tail, yes, there will always be underachievers. One of the main concerns atm however, is that our underachievers are underachieving, compared to (some of) their international peers.
Zoomster
Again you are referring to the last two books..
I am not going to defend them much. Not tightly written and a lot of padding.
I am ONLY talking of the first three books.
Actually I think he started off wring one story (Ragnarok, set in medieval Britain at the time of the Wars of the Roses) – clever concept. However I think some rival got in first and sort of stole his plot line. Since then he has been floundering around. It is a great pity.
I hope he goes back to his original story and finishes the bloody thing.
This Q&A about Trump has not nearly enough Trump bashing.
Nah. You smell.
On Game of Thrones, I would rate Martin alongside Dan Brown.
They both came up with an excellent concept and plot but their writing ability meant that the end result was so much less than what it could have been. 🙂
Creative fiction is a relatively new idea when you look back at literary norms.
Certain stories have always had resonance and since the emergence from the supposed ‘dark ages’ those same stories have been repeated and repeated. Writers saw it as their duty to retell those stories and Shakespeare was no different.
Religious stories and moral dilemmas were frequent subject matter. You see it also in the subject matter of visual arts.
DTT
Almost any fantasy has an underlying medieval framework when you closely at it. Many have feudal themes.