From Success to Sarcasm

Recently I clued in that the boy Fergus, aged 3 and 2/3's, is now what people might call a "pre-schooler". As an "unschooler" this has little meaning - he'll always be a "pre-schooler". At his age, Fergus - according to the powers that be - needs to get "ready for success". Early Learning for the pre-kindergarten set is becoming a big thing here and somehow somebody concluded that over 9,000 kindergarten students in BC are not developmentally ready to start school! So these early learning centers are popping up all over the place to offer parents a place to help their children develop the means to succeed in school. Apparently, parents can expect to participate in story time and in play activities as well as serving their children a healthy snack!

I was going to go on about the definition of "success" and greater society's viewpoint that story time and play time are best served in institutions and that soon 1 year olds will be loading up their backpacks and heading off to school… but instead I just have this to say: Fergus, giddyup, times-a-wasting*...

Archival photo (oldie but goodie):

Eating "cheese", as his grannie thought, for breakfast (reality: white chocolate):

*Sarcasm... Which reminds me, here's a quote from Alexei Sayle in The Best comedy program of the 80's, The Young Ones:

"Are you being sar-carstic or something, my son? That's one of my least favorite things, that happens to be. Sar-carsm. I was walking a dog, and this bloke, he comes to me and says, "Nice day, innit?" But it wasn't. It wasn't a nice day. It was a little bit cloudy. Which makes him very sar-carstic. So acting as if nothing would happen, I took his head, right, put it in me mouth, right, acting dead casual-like, clamped me teeth, and BIT HIS HEAD OFF!! Cause I hate people being sar-carstic."

Video clip available here (not for the faint of heart). Mr. Alexei's poetic diatribe starts around the 4:20 mark. But don't miss the start - Madness play "Our House" in all their lip-synching glory.