The Children From Hell

Children are like farts, your own aren't so bad but anyone else's are horrible." How many times has that been said by people in my age group I wonder.

The Bash Street Kids (image source)

Having reached the brink of old-githood I can now look forward to being able to say "I love children, but only if they are served with Hollandaise sauce." A quip from comedian W.C. Fields of course, the comedian who claimed he had developed a look that could kill a child at 50 paces. Some readers may still be looking forward to spawning your own sprogs and playing happy families for a decade or so. Be warned, the sentimentalisation of children is just a cynical plot devised by the ruling elite to make us all abandon our carefree early adult years and conform. Trust me on this, the time between the two year old deciding that Mr. Ploppy likes to sit in the sugar bowl and the adolescent falling victim to hormone fuelled mood swings is of only a few days duration. Or so it seems for children eat time as they eat everything they can get their hands on (including Mr. Ploppy if they are young enough.)

The ruling elite easily dismiss fears about parenthood. Well they would, being able to afford nannies they need not see their disgusting offspring from immediately after the christening or naming ceremony to the insufferably trendy, until its is time to say "goodbye darling, we have enrolled you in an excellent school." Being able to delegate parental responsibility to the hired help until well after that awkward period when hair starts to sprout in funny places and body piercings start to sprout in the funny places where hair does not grow masks most of the horrors and actually lends parents a certain social cachet.

The incurably sentimental will by now be thinking "how can he be so heartless, children are a gift from God." Can people not see, children are from Hell.

I have always felt that somewhere along the line religion got it horribly wrong. If we accept the standard definition of God then He gave us mortality, guilt, war, disease, religion, the missionary position, Britney effing Spears, piles and children. On the other hand the Devil's works include recreational sex, recreational drugs, recreation, sex, Pamela Anderson, over indulgence and contraceptives. It’s a no brainer isn't it? Just as the world's most religious country keeps electing the wrong President the people who invented religion elected the wrong God. If the other guy had got in women would have deposited a tiny egg in a flower, cocooned it in silk and got on with their lives. Twenty one years later a fully formed adult would have emerged and taken its place in society without ever once having demanded Turkey Twizzlers, an iPod, a hoodie, expensive trainers or vast sums of money.

My anti - child stance can be traced back to the time when old fashioned bringing - up - kids, a process of trial and error that most of us seemed to negotiate without having to resort to nailing the little brats feet to the floor, suddenly morphed into parenting, a skill that had to be learned at great expense from people with degrees in childcare or worse still from self - help books written by Californian fuckwits or worthy but boring British ladies who take themselves far too seriously. Nowadays the parenting industry has grown to such an extent there are even TV shows dedicated to making struggling parents feel inadequate. In these shows Professional Nannies who bear a more than passing resemblance to Bette Davis, Rebecca de Mornay or Glenn Close knock into shape both children and parents by acting like a drill sergeant in the Paratroop regiment. The message is of course you will fail unless you SPEND SPEND SPEND.

So far neither of my offspring have shown the least inclination to make us Grandparents which is good as neither of us fancies smelling of urine, breaking out in hairy warts all over our faces or wearing cardigans. As people live longer and retain youthful attitudes into their seventies cloning starts to seem like a good option.

Copyright © 2005, Ian Thorpe

TV show Nanny 911-In the UK
and in the USA
Bette Davis in The Nanny
Review of the film

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The First Dalek.....?

The First Dalek?
It is ironic that the reappearance of trans galactic villains The Daleks in the new series of Dr. Who, an episode subtitled The Last Dalek should coincide with the announcement of a new robot designed for use in hospitals to enable Doctors to make bedside visits while still cocooned in the safety of their office. Maybe the designers of the robot have a particularly cruel sense of humour because the first thing everybody noticed about the creation was its Dalek like appearance. Now the last thing anybody in hospital would want to see is an interstellar sociopath gliding up to the bedside, particularly as the Daleks are remembered for their catchphrase "EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE."

But will the mechanised uber control - freaks be able to work alongside the human control freaks who manage hospitals?
The Daleks first appeared in 1963, long before political correctness had been invented and so their fascistic society gleefully set about annihilating ancient and beautiful cultures in distant galaxies without a thought for the possibility that the poor kiddiewinks watching might be traumatised. The kiddiwinks loved it of course though many grown - ups were traumatised by the constant sound of little boys running around yelling "EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE" in robotic voices. No hoodies in those days but I helped my little brothers button overcoats to the neck and then put them on over the head so they could run around with one arm protruding from the gap between the buttons. We soon had little old ladies banging on the door complaining that they had been chased by headless overcoats.

Meanwhile the fictional Daleks on TV were behaving not much differently to the way the Bush administration deals with third world countries with rich and ancient cultures.

In the end Dr. Who had to destroy the Daleks after they had exterminated the race of Time Lords that inhabited the Doctor's home planet. Inevitably, a Dalek escaped, skipped to a different dimension as intergalactic evildoers are inclined to do - Osama Bin Laden for example is actually hiding out in President Bush's Oval office but in a different time - space continuum, and turned up as the possession of an American megalomaniac billionaire who keeps a menagerie of creatures from different dimensions in a giant underground complex of large, featureless rooms and long, bleak corridors. Come to think of it, that could have been any surface community in Utah. The Megalomaniac Billionaire wanted to learn the Dalek's secret so that he could recreate the ethos of ruthless race in his corporate hierarchy and use it to help him achieve world domination - megalomaniac billionaires are so predictable - and had broken the creature through torture and sarcasm.

By this point I was thinking "yes, the Daleks do bear a more than passing resemblance to hospital managers.
While the doctor is trying to convince the billionaire to destroy the Dalek however, it is befriended by time fellow - traveller played by the orchidaceous Billie Piper. Even the flinty heart of the semi automaton is melted by those beestung lips and bambi eyes and in the end the Dalek displays some human qualities.
At that point the whole mass of jokes about the new medical assistant Dalek collapse. Suspension of disbelief is one thing but who could ever get their head round the idea of a hospital manager showing human qualities?

Official Doctor Who website
Doctor Who - home of the cult
Doctor Who press archive
Hospital Service Robot
News Story

Sun, Sand and The Sweaty Feet Inspector

The Dalmatian coast of Croatia is a wonderful place to take a holiday, its sandy beaches are lapped by the azure waters of the Adriatic sea, its towns and villages are picturesque and imposing mountains rise steeply from the shore line. Visitors can enjoy reasonably priced food and absorb the rich local culture or they make just prefer to head for the beach and chill out while having their feet sniffed by a government inspector.

In a gobsmacking example of bureaucrats' ability to shoot themselves in the foot the Croatian tourist ministry, having noticed that the holiday trade is at last recovering from the hostilities in the area over the past fifteen years, decided to unveil a set of regulations aimed at ensuring "appropriate behaviour." This latest manifestation of the Balkan appetite for self - destruction, had it become law would have made the area a hotspot for serious foot fetishists but driven almost everybody else away.

Displaying authoritarian zeal bordering on Nazism the ministry has gone against the trend in other nations around the Mediterranean by attempting to instil a sense of decorum through stringently policed rules and regulations. Some of these even go beyond the standards required in prudish America. As well as the official foot sniffers the government would have appointed teams of babies nappy inspectors to check for adequate seals around the legs, banned from beaches women exposing their breasts or wearing thongs or "revealing sundresses", men in shorts, ice cream and cold drink vendors, picnics and make it a criminal offence to urinate in the sea (how did they plan to police that one? scuba divers?)

Now to say dress code is optional in European resorts is understatement. In more and more places dress is optional anywhere near the beach. We in Europe pride ourselves on having a healthy attitude to naked flesh. It is not a criminal offence for women to have nipples nor is it unknown for men to have hairy legs. So what has gone wrong in Croatia, a nation previously known for its tolerant attitude to untidy pubic hair, crooked willies and saggy boobs. Laws requiring elderly Germans and Swedes to cover up may have won popular acclaim but when those rules are extended to Beyonce Knowles lookalikes that is just bureaucratic intransigence at work. So what gives?

Well the announcement of the proposed laws to the travel industry attracted media attention all around Europe and now the Croatian bureaucrats are playing that other favourite game of bureaucrats, blame shifting.

Tourist minister Dragan Primorac, cowering under a barrage of ridicule said that none of the proposals were his idea and that he was not a control freak. Mr Primorac blamed his staff who he said used a facsimile of his signature to give authority to the proposals. So far no ministry workers have admitted to being closet foot sniffers.

Dubrovnik - jewel of the Dalmatian Coast

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Prosecuting One's Suit

Image source

Prosecuting one's suit or pressing one's suit. How archaic these phrases now seem in describing the process of courting a lady's favour. How quaint the word courting itself seems. So why do I not just talk about "copping off?" Well…
A flyer circulating in London's legal district advertises a special speed dating event for lawyers looking for love. Call me an old cynic if you like but "lawyer" and "love" are not words I can easily associate. Surely people whose entire life is spent examining evidence in forensic detail in the hope of closing loopholes, tying up loose ends, eliminating ambiguity and negotiating compromises can have little room in their souls for anything so indefinable, so unpredictable, so illogical as love? And speed dating?
Anybody who has had the experience of dealing with legal matters will know that "lawyer" and "speed" do not belong in the same sentence, or even the same article. (unless the article refers to the case of a lawyer being disbarred for substance abuse.) Layers are people to whom "due diligence" means sitting on their arse doing nothing for long periods while us poor punters pay them by the hour. When dealing with lawyers things happen "in the fullness of time" rather than now or PDQ.
All things considered then, both de fact and de juris, I must conclude that the entrepreneur who has invested his hard - earned in this venture has behaved in a reckless and foolhardy, but not criminal manner.
What little I know of speed - dating is that people have three minutes in each other's company after which they must decide if they are up for a casual shag with the person opposite. The idea of a lawyer doing anything in three minutes stretches the credulity of even the most credulous. It would take the speediest lawyer two and a half minutes to shuffle their papers and clear their throat before saying "My Lord, Members of the Jury…" The whole mystique of the legal profession is built on longwindedness, their speeches are full of notwithstandings and heretofores and are peppered with Latin phrases ordinary mortals cannot understand, pro bono ego. Lawyers are not equipped to formulate or respond to questions like :
"Veal or Pasta?"
"Nissan or Jaguar?"
"J-lo or Mariah?"
"Missionary or Spoons?"
but are more likely to begin "bearing in mind that you are still under oath could you tell me, in your own words and without regard to anything you may have read in the press, would Chinese or Italian be preferable for a first dinner date?" and jump on the response like so "You say Chinese, but if you cast your mind back to your divorce, did you or did you not claim that your partner's obsession with Thai food, which I think you will agree is similar to Chinese, had bored the pants off you?"
Assuming some kind of date is eventually agreed, that would only be the start of the trouble. Imagine negotiating a pre-date contract.
"It shall be understood by both parties that the party of the first part will, on the first date, pay for dinner in full, including wine and tips without prejudice to the party of the second part's right to withhold the reciprocal sexual favours should the party of the second part deem the party of the first part to be minging, unhygienic or in any way pervy."
The party of the first part will then be advised that should the party of the second part exercise the withholding of sexual favours clause pending further perusal of the party of the first part's social and sexual acceptability the party of the first part must have the right to demand that the bill be split down the middle.
Such a love affair would be certain to end in tears of course. Or lawsuits.

Positive Reinforcement As A Tool For Behaviour Change, An Assessment

Think positive - next year
by fatsally

Image: clipartpanda.com

When I worked in education the prevailing ideology was positive reinforcement, i.e. not telling the kids that anything was not good enough, not up to scratch, less than their capabilities or god forbid, wrong! but searching out the good things and praising them for these.
So when the kid who has spent all lesson texting under the desk on his mobile and consequently hasn't got a clue how to set out his addition sums in columns, hundreds, tens and units; instead of explaining to the child that he needs to listen otherwise he is never going to understand anything, teacher has to look for something good to say e.g.
"Well, it's good that you have started writing today at the front of the book:"

or "You've written your nines beautifully!"

or "This is a really good sentence, you've used a capital letter! We were doing maths, sorry!!!! numeracy, but I have to say that is a really good sentence."

And of course this positive reinforcement applies particularly to behavioural issues. So the kids who come along to school, hang their coats up, put their lunchboxes in the proper place, come into the classroom and settle down relatively quickly get a word of praise from the teacher.

Meanwhile the naughty kids, sorreeeee! the kids who sometimes do naughty things, always label the action never the child: run into the cloakroom, pull somebody else's coat off the peg and put it in the boy's urinal, leave their own coat on the floor, get the fizzy drink out of their lunchbox and then proceed to hit the little girl with rampant eczema with the lunchbox, charge into the classroom and clamber over the tables to get to their place, shaking their fizzy drink as they go, start an argument with the clever but sensitive boy about the chair he is sitting on, before opening the fizzy drink so that it sprays all over the hapless child and then start shouting that the teacher hasn't called thier name out on the register, get hauled out to the front of the class, presented with an "I Did Good" sticker and told how much better they were than yesterday. At this point, objective achieved; getting a sticker, because at the end of term the kids with the most stickers get taken for a treat, the local bowling alley for instance; the child reverts to his/her normal pattern of behaviour.

In all the school's I taught in, over all those years, I only ever witnessed one child whose behaviour improved through positive reinforcement, and I first encountered him in nursery, so it could conceivably have just been an age thing or perhaps a more settled home life that caused the change from disruptive, foul mouthed little bastard to quiet, polite eight year old.

I'm sure that as they got older some children will have changed, indeed my daughter now knocks about with a young man I taught several years ago who had the most volatile temper and would kick off about almost anything but who now apparently is really nice and has learned that when he feels he is losing his temper the best thing to do is get away from other people and simmer down in private.

Well surely I can't be the only person in education who noted this, can I?

And you'd think that the powers that be would have had oodles of professional think tank people saying that the only way people change permanently is if they want to change, no amount of bribery will do it on a permanent basis if the will isn't there.

So now we have the latest Government scheme to reduce obesity. Lardarses are going to be given supermarket vouchers and gym membership to encourage them to exercise and eat healthily. Meanwhile those of us that do eat reasonably healthily, I may live in South Yorkshire but Jamie Oliver would be right at home in my kitchen, and take regular exercise will just be left to our own devices, no help with my gym club membership which I have solely for the opportunity to plough up and down the swimming pool two or three times a week without encountering dippy old bats standing in the middle having a long chinwag with the person they haven't seen for, oh, twenty minutes.

Nor will they be stumping up a proportion of the annual golf and tennis club subs.

But if I stop doing the exercise, and start having five pieces of chocolate and crisps everyday, topped off with a couple of litres of cider, then once I hit the magic 15 stone official obese line I should be quids in, literally.

There is another fatal flaw in the government's cunning plan, once the fatties start shedding the pounds the incentives will stop, as if they think well these people are discovering the joys of walking up five flights of stairs instead of taking the lift, whilst weak with hunger, so they will just carry on doing it without any incentive.

This Governmnet is bloody bonkers!

Child protection - more politically correct mayhem

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Students censored – An Academic Community In A Crisis Of Collectivism.

Intellectual freedom in our universities is under threat from ... intellectuals. So overbearing have the left wing screechers of bourgeois politically correct leftism now become that even the universities have surrendered to the intellectual control freakery of cultural Marxism. But if universities are now dedicated to turning out dull minded conformists, what hope is there for western society?

Reality Rears Its Ugly Head

In the fouteeenth century they had the Black Death. In the seventeenth century there was The Great Plague. Periodically since them we have had Cholera, Typhoid, The Bloody Flux and Spanish Flu. Soi what will be the first plague of the twenty first century? We think we know.

Image source: cabletv.com

Reality Rears Its Ugly Head

The new "reality" TV show launched this week with the rather desperate sounding title Celebrity Love Island does not disappoint. It plumbs new depths for trash TV. The idea is that twelve Z - list celebrities (6 male, 6 female) are put on a tropical island paradise, supplied with food, booze, a pool, a Jacuzzi and a million hidden cameras and microphones. They are then left to do what health young adults do when given the chance to shrug off responsibility and live a pampered life .

The fatal flaw in the plan lies in the fact that the people involved are not healthy young adults but minor celebrities. They are people who on account of once having briefly threatened to reveal signs of talent or in some cases having briefly shagged someone who threatened to reveal signs of talent. All of them however are now intent on building a career by being famous for being famous.

One of the females who actually has genuine claims to some sort of celebrity, being a credible current affairs presenter has already broken down in tears and begged for merciful release, presumably so that she can kill her agent. The poor girl has obviously been driven to the edge by having the phrase "professional suicide" bounce around her head like a really irritating tune.

Of the rest the appropriately named Abi Titmuss, famous for having been the girlfriend of a minor league TV presenter who became famous for allegedly raping a real celebrity is the most famous. The alleged offence took place before the real celebrity was a celebrity and the minor league presenter was acquitted, but not before some sneaky lowdown bastard (or somebody's agent) had leaked to the media a porno video featuring the lovely Abi in action with some of her alleged boyfriend's friends. A career was born.

Best of the rest are a man famous for being the son of a very famous drunk, a former Future Olympic Champion and a woman who sold the story of her (alleged - by her at least) adulterous affair with a very famous soccer player and spent the cash on breast enlargement so that she could go into competition with the lovely Abi. as the world's most famous nonentity.

I have not heard of any of the rest and bear in mind these are British celebrities and I am a British news junkie. So you get the picture.

Celebrity Love Island is not about love, it is about sex. It is solely about who will get em' off and get down to it first purely for the titillation of a voyeuristic audience and without any kind of emotional attachment. It is the very lowest level of commercial sex.

The most depressing thing about Celebrity Love Island other than the fact that the only love likely to be seen is narcissism, the love that dares scream its name from the rooftops; is that it reveals the depth of humiliation these so called celebs will expose themselves to in order to stretch their allotted fifteen minutes of fame.
I have a horrible feeling the show will be a hit.


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Dog Depression

The Brown Dog confronts its Black Dog

The once fashionable and prosperous ship-building centre of Dumbarton is the centre of an apparent spate of canine “suicides” after at least five dogs are said to have jumped from a historic bridge in the past six months.

Animal behaviourists are warning owners to keep their dogs on a strong leash when crossing Overtoun bridge.Canine social worker Jock McMutt said "Crivens, its no canine depression the wee duggies're sufferin' fra.

The lads are in fine fettle inside thur heids, theyse enthusiastic an' ready tae chase anything. The problem's cause by teenagers hoyin' thur empty carry - oots over the rail. The wee doggie thinks its a game and sets off tae fetch."

Rev. Jock McHolyjoe responded "the truth is the dugs' wee brains are addled. Dug owners should keep thur pets awa' frae the Ouiske an' Buckie. Dugs are nae meant tae booze."

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Hot Stuff

The world’s strongest chilli powder is so fiery that buyers must sign a waiver absolving the maker of liability for your death or demise. The concoction, “16 Million Reserve” is pure capsaicin, the chemical that gives chillis their heat, and will be unleashed on the American market this week. At present, the strongest chilli is the red savina, from Mexico, with a strength rating of 570,000 units. The new powder is rated at 16,000,000 units. It has been compared to “having your tongue hit with a hammer.”

And if it does that to your tongue what is it going to do to the other end on the way out.

Just don't go near this stuff if you have haemerroids OK.

AND DON'T TRY FART LIGHTING!

William and Kated
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The Lazy Pupil's Examination Aid.

April 2005


In my school days, admittedly more years ago than I care to remember, trying to justify the non - delivery of homework projects with the excuse "please Sir, the dog ate it," was not exactly fresh and original but was still guaranteed to raise a ripple of laughter from classmates. Now of course it is a tired and lame excuse used as a last resort only by the terminally dull - witted. Family pets have advanced in status so much they can actually make a positive contribution to academic achievement.

But if homework cheating was primitive, cheating in examinations was positively paleolithic:

Picture source: The Daily Mail

Now with modern technology things are more sophisticated of course:

Picture source: International Business Times

But even this level of technological assistance is redundant. Exams have become so easy and our politically correct aversion to failure so intense, there is no need to actually answer the questions any more if you can stack up enough grading uplifts to compensate for physical and emotional disadvantages.

Britain's leading examination boards announced this week that results may be upgraded if it is know that the candidate has suffered an emotionally distressing experience in the run up to the exam. Qualifying experiences include death of a parent or sibling (5% upgrade) parent or sibling being diagnosed with a serious illness (5%) death of a distant relative (3%) a broken limb within 48 hours (3%) a broken limb on the mend (2%) - this throws a whole new light on the theatrical expression of encouragement "break a leg" - and so on, with the death of Fido or Tiddles weighing in at 2% if it happens within 48 hours of the exam or 1% between to days and a week prior. Monty Python fans will be emotionally distressed to learn that the death of a parrot warrants nothing.

A spokesperson for one of the examination boards responding to criticism that the scheme is politically correct mollycoddling of the young said that the maximum upgrade had been set at 5% in order to discourage abuse of the system. As she does not say whether the upgrades will be cumulative I fear the bureaucrats have once more underestimated the ingenuity of ordinary punters. Consider the possibilities in a literature examination…


QUESTION: In Shakespearean tragedy the downfall of the main character is often a result of a failure to address obvious flaws in his own character. Discuss this with particular reference to Hamlet and Macbeth.

ANSWER: Both Hamlet and Macbeth are…Oh GOD! WHAT IS THE POINT? Why should I sit this exam when with a bare bodkin I could my quietus make. Who cares about qualifications and careers. Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Shakespeare's tragedies? Are there not enough tragedies in the real world. To write or not to write that is the question, when all our yesterdays have lit the way of fools to dusty death.

Only yesterday my beloved Labrador Bonzo shuffled off this mortal coil when a car, driven by my uncle Jim, mowed him down. Jim did try to avoid Bonzo but lost control of the car and perished himself when he hit a wall.
I felt guilty about having let Bonzo off the leash and rushed to cradle the poor dogs noble head as he breathed his last. When the paramedics led me away I noticed my hands were covered in blood. "Will all Neptune's great ocean wash clean the blood from this my hand I cried out.
Just then my mobile phone rang. It was my mother calling from the hospital to tell me she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and within six months would be heading for that unexplored country from in whose bourne no traveller returns.

In a perfect world I would be able to turn for comfort to my Dad, a virtuous man, but as it says in Hamlet, Act 2 Scene 2 "Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes and Dad has been paralysed these three years.

I asked my sister, a Goth to let me have some of her downers. Each man is but a poor player who frets and struts his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more I said.

"But in that sleep of death what dreams may come, she quipped rather wittily in the circumstances, for a Goth I thought, just before she fell downstairs and broke her leg.

Then I heard a terrible sound coming from the kitchen and rushed in just in time to see poor Tiddles choke to death on a furball.

I tried to sleep last night, for after all, we are such stuff as dreams are made of, our little lives are rounded with a sleep.

But what will it avail me if I pass this examination. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy Mr. Examination Marker.

And if you add it all up that should be worth a pass.

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We like stories about bureaucrats abusing their authority and about schoolteachers (especially head teachers) letting their inner fascist out of the closet. So a story than combines both, like this tale of a South Yorkshire primary school head who banned packed lunches because out of concern for 'her' children's welfare she wanted them to have no alternative to the nutrition free slop served by the school kitchen.
Poor white pupils put off school by multicultural timetable
Education, should it be about learning to read, write, spell and calculate? Or should it be about feminism, gay rights, black history and 'gender awareness' whatever that is? For many years we have had multiculturalism and politically correct thinking rammed down pupils throats but now a study by a local education department suggests this obsession with politically correct diversity is responsible for the failure of white working class pupils.
Education, Education, Education And To Hell With The Kids
Teaching used to be a vocation and education a high minded calling for those who wished to prepare young minds for adult life by making the process of learning, in the classroom, by discovery and through osmosis, an exciting and fulfilling lifelong process
The Degree Factory: The Decline Of University Education
The decline of university education in parallel with dumbing down of the general population is contributing to the economic and social problems of the industriaized democracies. But why have standards been allowed to slip so far and can the trend in university education towards theraputic and politically correct courses be reversed?
Its Nineteen Eighty Effing Four In The Education System
Progressive approaches to education seem to be ideologically driven rather than focused on the needs of the individual pupil. so will the left's dreams of equality be fulfilled when every child leaving the school system is equally dysfunctional.
The STEM Education and Scientism - the curse of modern education.

Education, education, education, said Tony Blair. He meant indoctrination, indoctrination, indoctrination of course. The thing the Politically Correct intellectual bullies of the new left fear most is an educated working class capable of questioning the dogmas of the scientific dictatorship ...
Is education just indoctrination
UK Education: Ofsted, Not The Government, Is Blighting Poor Pupils’ Chances
Tommy Clod
Simple Life - the Nihilists Song
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