Motherload

In the brilliant, provocative, honest  Nickel and Dimed , Barbara Ehrenreich takes a deep dive into the world of low-paid work in America. The story she has to tell is in some ways predictable. She can't make ends meet on the kind of money the lowest-paid make. No shit, Sherlock. What saves her account from turning those low-paid people into victims, and turns them instead into the  victimised  — people thrown under the wheels of a systemic problem: Capitalism — is that she never tries to hide the fact that she is privileged, well-educated and cushioned. Her honesty in admitting and claiming this (she makes no bones about the fact that she would never willingly choose to take a low-paid job) means that her work exists in a realistic framework. She is in no sense romanticising the 'poor who are always with us'. And she is not justifying herself.  No one can accuse you of what you claim as your own. How I love that her name means 'rich in honour'...

Jonah Lehrer Jonah Lehrer's 2012 fall from grace, following the discovery of errors and 'self-plagiarism ' in his published work, is a well-known story in academic and journalistic circles. It seems to have been, not his editorial mistakes, which are so easy to make, as much as his subsequent lies and deception about them, which really turned people off, and caused his spectacular career shutdown.  In July 2016, Lehrer told the story of 'what happened next', for The Moth in Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and children. Before you read any further, please listen to what he has to say: he calls the story ' Attachment '.  I had been made aware of Lehrer's book Proust was a Neuroscientist back in 2007, by friends who knew I'd written on Proust, and who sent me copies of his work. Professional jealousy compelled me to smile publicly but privately find fault with it – he seemed only to have read the opening pages of A la recherche ...

Thinking about The US Admissions Scandal  had me reflecting on my own pathway through Higher Education and Oxbridge back in the 80s and 90s. Wow, it only cost me bulimia and an overdose to get into Cambridge. Cheap at half the price!  Luckily, after my own head of department ended my career as a lecturer at Cambridge, because I'd had a baby, it became financially impossible for me ever to pay Cambridge to get that baby into Cambridge. Or change the broken system from within. Or indeed, save for a pension.  Instead, these days, Cambridge comes to me as an alumni, asking for money.  Oh, and so does Oxford. I went there too (Just look for the Ingrid Wassenaar Library).  These days I earn a living supporting schools and students from different kinds of background through the Oxbridge process. My main goal is that they should mentally survive it. I'm a Tiger Mother who won't be pushing her kids through the Oxbridge mill.  External ma...