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Opinions from the North West
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Denis Joe's opinion articles

Art as entertainment?

Art for our sake

Opinion piece by Denis Joe March 2016

 

The purpose of art is manifold these days. Visit a gallery and you are encouraged to interact with works. Artists, particularly Installation Artists, create pieces that rely on the audience to push buttons, pull levers, physically enter into the work, etc. in order for the works to have any 'meaning'. The contemplative nature of art, that demands we engage with a work on an emotional and intellectual level, has become marginalised, as 'fun' has become the only criteria that allows us to endow a work with value.

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Denis Joe's opinion articles

Cyclists: Saints or Sinners?

Cyclists: Saints or Sinners?

Opinion piece by Denis Joe April 2014


Since moving to Liverpool about 7 years ago there are two things that I have come to loathe: football and cyclists.

 

As a kid one of the great pleasures was to build my own bike. My mates and myself would go to the scrap yard near Victoria Park, in Leamington, and spend hours sifting through car parts, wrought iron and other discarded metal stuff, to find bike frames, wheels, pedals and chains. If we couldn’t find parts that belonged together then it didn't matter, we were quite happy to have hybrids (not to be confused with the general purpose bike that can 'tolerate a wide range of riding conditions and applications').

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Jane Turner's opinion articles

Education as accreditation

A Day In The Life of An Exam Factory

Opinion piece by Jane Turner February 2014

 

In Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe wrote of “the deadening treadmill” and “monotonous graft” of life on the factory floor, but today, we could apply this description to life in the classroom in many schools, colleges and even in the old bastions of Higher Education, universities. Just how did school, college and “uni” become so boring and so uninspiring that today’s university students would rather read a newspaper and don’t even want a First class degree according to 'A first-class degree? I'd rather get a job...'.

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Jane Turner's opinion articles

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

ADHD

Opinion piece by Jane Turner August 2014

 

I have recently discovered I have STDL syndrome (Sick to Death of Labels). It was as a bit of a shock to receive this diagnosis, as I am normally quite healthy, but now I know what is wrong with me, I can carry on complaining, because it is not my fault, I am properly ill.

 

I have been ill (complaining) for several years now because of the growing list of labels that get assigned to young people, who it seems to me, are mostly being just that – young, and of course, immature, and maybe with a bit of an attitude, as is the prerogative of many sullen and stubborn youngsters.

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Jane Turner's opinion articles

Travelling to Cattle Class. How low can it get?

Cattle Class travel: how low can it get?

Opinion piece by Jane Turner August 2013

 

I don’t swear much. I moan a fair bit about the many things that drive me mad, but usually in sentences of polite and passable English. But if there’s one thing that effs me off and makes me eff and blaspheme, it is traffic, transport and the slow state of travel. Anyone who has worked with me over the last ten years knows that I have moaned loudly and regularly about being stuck on the A556, the M56, M60 or the M6 at various points in the week. It’s a fact, that I have spent far too much of the last decade of my life on these effing four roads, stuck in a jam or crawling along at a speed as slow as a snail.

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