Wonder what peoples comments are on this, from John Michaels on Jason Pitts page
"These days, mediocrity is not only desirable, it seems to be compulsory. Imagine, for instance, the Blue Peter presenters of twenty or thirty years ago, getting things wrong and GIGGLING about it. Wouldn't have happened. They tried very hard to be as expert as they could at the tasks they were set, and mostly succeeded. In those days, respect was given to the person with a 'well-furnished mind'. Someone who knew a few subjects in depth, and was able to talk capably on just about anything. It doesn't require high intelligence to furnish a mind. It needs a bit of curiosity, and the ability to shut your ears to the people chanting 'boring, boring'. Nowadays, anyone who has such a mind is well advised to keep it hidden away. The only acceptable topics of conversation are about leisure interests - pop music, films, music, football, makeup, fashion, hairstyles, holidays, drinking, clubbing. And, of course, sex. If you want to show off specialist knowledge, it had better be something like goal scoring at Arsenal, or who's currently with who on the celeb circuit. Try to talk about something interesting, something USEFUL, and the eyes roll and the ears switch off. Unfortunately, the world runs on people knowing things, and unless this fashion for ignorance wanes, I fear for the future. So, I would like to pay tribute to Jon Tickle, an outstanding man. Outstanding in that he was prepared to show his well-furnished mind for the world to see. Outstanding in that he was prepared to Stand Out, putting his head over the parapet and risking the bullets. If more of us were prepared to do it, laughing at the people who laugh at us, maybe we could turn the tide"

I for one say AMEN , couldn't have put it better myself

BRAVO!!!!

What a great tribute and well deserved by the Ticklemeister.

Bravissimo!

Well said

I blame the school teachers of the 1970s onwards.

Apart from Mr Lee (Modern World History, Ashleigh school 1986-1987 )

Well said....when Jon was talking about certain subjects(early on) I didnt have much of an interest, but at least he spoke about it with knowledge and passion.

Instead of sitting around he looked after the garden, fxed things, invented things(!)

And what did this get him? the label of the boring geek.

I think the name BBAled should be mentioned, at this point.

Nicely put.
Jon - the only HM with the cojones to be himself.

Brilliant!!!

So, People.. What has caused "this fashion for ignorance "?? When did it start.. what are the contributing factors?
When I was a kid we three siblings (2 girls 1 boy) all read "Look and Learn" every week (Trigan Empire.. Yeah!!)
I don't see anythiing comparable on todays news stands. I also feel that Blue Peter went seriously downhill in the '80s, but maybe I am biassed, having left school in '81, maybe someone younger could pinpoint where it all went wrong?

It didn't ALL go wrong: just look at Jon.

I think the glorification of youth must take some of the blame. If adults all want to be young then the youth have no reason to be adult. Consider Blue Peter - when it was all Val, Peter and Noaks they were practically middle aged, but when presenters started to become barely distinguishable from the audience, the audience felt they were complete as people. The young need obviously superior role models.

All of that is of course IMHO!

Advertising aimed at children is when it all went wrong. Young kids today are under a tremendous pressure to be cool, trendy and fit in with their friends. Don't even think about sending your kids to school in the wrong trainers, their life won't be worth living.

Nobody dares to be different, no child dares to do their own thing for fear of being bullied. The only saving grace in the last few years has been JK Rowling, who has got kids to put down their gameboys and pick up a book. My 10 year old neice wants to be either JK Rowling or Britney Spears when she grows up

It would be easy to blame the bullying epidemic on teachers lack of authority ,but what can they do?

I'm going to start rambling on. Maybe we should take this to general discussion.....

Thats a really interesting point of view... and a valid one. I remember much grumbling in the 80s about not talking down to children.. which was evidently interpreted as a need for the broadcasters to BECOME more childlike.. Personally I never felt that watching BP was anything like a school lesson, but watching it now, both I .. and my nine year old daughter feel we have been beamed into a kindergarten run by lapdancers

Look & Learn ? - you pleb! I took World Of Wonder. No cartoons in that one, no sir. ( I always read my mate's L&L for Trigan Empire.....)
It ain't Blue Peter's fault. Something to do with Labour destroying local grammar schools I reckon. Education been going downhill ever since. Grammar schools used to teach ordinary kids a basic grounding in the classics - the cornerstone of our culture. And they didn't take crap from the kids or nuffink. "Larkin' about eh?" - swish-crack-howl !

Hmm Personally I think this subject very relevant to the poverty of personality displayed by poor Tania for example.. and VERY relevant to the voting public and their 9 second attention spans.. Aled said here that he thought that his "public" was smart enough to make their own minds up...... However it seems to me that every eviction has been dictated by popular radio stations, tabloid newspapers and Graham Norton..

I take your point but since this all happened during the Thatcher years I think the political point invalid...However I do agree that standards are lax now

You really ought to have bought it.

No political point, I just associate the wiping out of grammar schools with Shirley Williams. The Conservatives did NOTHING to arrest the decline. Politics did play a part if you were unlucky enough to go to an Inner London comprehensive during Ken's GLC years. The ILEA brought politics into the classroom and the sports field. But that's another thread for another board.

It's pretty much true of all the HM's so far to not stray from popular opinon. Take Justine for example, she got on just fine with Jon and seemed to genuinely enjoy his company until one of the designer t-shirt clad morons decided the guy wasn't cool and ....zoom, she distances herself and hangs with the 'trendy' lot I ROTFL at her eviction when she claimed she didn't have a sheep like mentality. Yeah, right

I could stay on this subject for hours but I've got to go for now. I'll no doubt add more to this later. Night all....

Speaking as a Scot, we have never had the Grammar/Comp system here and neither did we really have the Tory policies*, there has still been a decline in standards though. Consequently it's not possible to ascribe the failings of the non-Scottish education system to those entirely. Mind you, we've always had the far superior system - just look at Fed.

*The Tory Scottish Secretaries always knew there was no point messing as there were no any votes in it.

I'm certainly not going to deny that a disproportionately large number of the wittiest, most interesting and thoughtful contributors to DS seem to come from north of the border...

Another perfect summation of the great Mr. Tickle.

Please let Jon receive the loudest, longest cheers on the final night. It'd really put those other non-entities in their place.

I had a magazine called 'Knowledge' in the sixties. I loved it, couldnt wait to get it each week. I love being curious about things and how they work and how they got here. always have done. anyone with a thirst for knowledge should be encouraged. seems these days its a dirty word.
Thank god for Jon, maybe he'll make curiousity and the seeking of knowledge fashionable !.

Snap!! I had "Knowledge" too Built into a massive multi volume encyclopaedia.. Only got rid of it about 4 years ago.. lack of storage space unfortunately

A similar thing happened last year in BB3. In the first week or so Kate was all over Alex, until one night during a girly chat with Sunita and someone else (I forget who) they deemed Alex to be uncool, not manly enough and generally a bit of a freak. Kate then shunned him and moved onto Spencer, who was deemed to be the "cool one".

The sheep mentality displayed by a lot of housemates in BB3 and BB4 to the uncool ones I found shocking. They openly shunned them and collectively riducled them behind their backs, it's the kind of behaviour I've only witnessed in school when the fat kid or the one with glasses gets picked on.

The fact that this attitude of failing to understand (or want to understand), anyone who isn't consumed by football, clubbing, sex and celeb lifestyles seems to be prevelant not just amongst schoolkids, but 20-somethings as well is a sad indictment of where our society is at the moment.

The world needs more Jon Tickle's to express their individuality and not care what their peers think of them.