Andy

You got that right. Without wishing to turn this into a political debate, and I know this is off-topic for this forum, but this story was widely covered.. Secondary schools will strip back the traditional curriculum in favour of lessons on debt management, the environment and healthy eating, ministers have revealed. Even Winston Churchill no longer merits a mention after a drastic slimming-down of the syllabus to create more space for "modern" issues. Along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King, the former prime minister has been dropped from a list of key figures to be mentioned in history teaching. This means pupils may no longer hear about his stirring speeches during the Second World War, when he told Parliament that defeating Hitler would be Britain's "finest hour". The only individuals now named in guidance accompanying the curriculum are anti-slavery campaigners Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce. The omission of Churchill added to a growing row over Labour reforms to secondary education - the most radical since the national curriculum was introduced in 1988. Critics warned traditional subject disciplines were being stripped of key content and used to promote fashionable causes and poorly-defined "life skills". They said that while the two World Wars remain on the curriculum as broad topics the failure to specify teaching on Churchill - while naming other individuals - downgraded his importance. The move was called "madness" by his grandson Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP. "It is absurd. I expect he wasn't New Labour enough for them," he said. Tory spokesman on children Michael Gove added: "Winston Churchill is the towering figure of twentieth century British history. His fight against fascism was Britain's finest hour. Our national story can't be told without Churchill at the centre." Schools are also being told to tear up the timetable of eight lessons a day and introduce classes lasting a few minutes - or several hours - by mixing different subjects together. Five-minute lessons on spelling, French or German could be "drip-fed" throughout the day. The architect of the new curriculum, Dr Ken Boston, insisted traditional approaches had been "exhausted". The slimline regime is being introduced amid concerns that teachers do not have enough time to ensure youngsters master the three Rs. Key subjects such as history and science will be cut back to allow teachers to spend a quarter of the day helping pupils who struggle with literacy and numeracy. At the same time, staff will be expected to introduce topics such as personal finance and Urdu aimed at preparing youngsters for life in the 21st century.The new curriculum - introduced from September next year - precedes the introduction of "functional skills" tests in English and maths. Teach Urdu and not Churchill? Something is very, very wrong.

Thanks guys. It's only a small gesture, but is something I feel particularly strongly about.

From Dougie Press Release: Results: Rider/ Nat / Machine Total = F1+F2+F3 Total F1 F2 F3 1: Tadeusz Blazusiak POL - KTM 45 15 15 15 2: Mike Brown USA - KTM 32 10 10 12 3: Graham Jarvis GBR - Sherco 25 5 12 8 4: Ivan Cervantes SPA - KTM 22 6 6 10 5: Antoine Meo FRA - Husqvarana 20 12 4 4 6: Joakim Ljunggren SWE- Husaberg 18 4 8 6 7: David Knight GBR - Kawasaki 8 8 - - 8: Dougie Lampkin GBR - Beta 8 1 5 2 9: Daniel Gibert SPA - KTM 8 2 3 3 10: Christophe Nambotin FRA - Gas Gas 6 3 2 1 Championship Current Standings: 1: Blazusiak 45, 2: Brown 32, 3: Jarvis 25, 4: Cervantes 22, 5: Meo 20, 6: Ljunggren 18, 7: Knight 8, 8: Lampkin 8, 9: Gibert 8, 10: Nambotin 6 and the release itself: Dougie Lampkin endured a disappointing opening to his 2010 FIM Indoor Enduro World Cup campaign when he placed eighth overall at the first round of the series held in Sheffield, Great Britain. This was the first time that this relatively new championship had visited these shores, and Lampkin was determined to put on a strong display in front of his native Yorkshire fans. Over the last decade or so Dougie has been crowned the King of Sheffield due to his many World IndoorTrial victories at the same arena, but he was fully aware of just how tough his switch of disciplines was going to be against such decorated opposition. Lampkin was in no mood to make up the numbers and soon made his mark amongst his rivals, with a string of lap times that placed him up with the more fancied front runners. The thirty-three year old ex multi World trials champion used the two ten minute practice sessions to his full advantage, and to discover the best lines around a demanding yet compact course that included large tyres, rocks, logs and a murky water splash. Dougie continued his good form into his qualifying race, and used his vast off road experience to take a comfortable second position behind former World enduro champion David Knight. This result was enough to give the lone Beta rider fifth gate pick for the three main final races. Lampkin's night was to take a turn for the worse prior to the triple show down, with the tough Yorkshireman suffering a severe migraine attack during the respite period. Far from his best Dougie bravely took his place on the line for the first final and looked to have put himself in a strong position as the pack rounded the first corner, only for his route to be totally blocked as three riders crashed immediately in front of him. Dougie tried his best to make up ground, but could only claim tenth spot as he took the chequered flag on this occasion. Things went slightly better in the second final for Dougie, when this time he benefitted from some first lap carnage after a mid pack start, to carefully pick his way through to sixth position come the end of the five lap encounter. It appeared that Lampkin had left his best to last as the veteran campaigner got out of the gate brilliantly in the third final and had a share of the lead as the field charged into the first turn. Dougie's joy was to be short lived, as the trials star's front wheel washed out on the sandy surface, leaving him down on the deck as the rest of the pack filed by. Lampkin did manage to pick himself up and come through to ninth place as the race drew to a close, but this was a cruel end to a disappointing evening after Dougie had shown so much promise during the early part of the proceedings. Lampkin stated. "I am really frustrated, as the bike felt really good during practice earlier this week and I came here full of confidence. I was happy how practice and the qualifying race went, as I felt comfortable with the pace I was running." "I have suffered with migraines before, but this one was fairly bad. I felt pretty drained before the first final, and just went out and tried to do my best. You need to get a good start if you want to stay out of trouble, and although I got out of the gate OK I was not strong enough in the first corner and as a result I ended up getting caught up in the mess that then happened right in front of me." "The second race went a bit better, but still not good enough and then when I went down at the start of the last final, that very much summed up my night. I am very disappointed, as I wanted to put on a good show for my home fans, but it never happened. We have a few weeks now to get things sorted for the next round, where hopefully I can turn things around." Dougie finished.

GF is going to see it tonight. I'll be staying in with the PS3 and a few libations. It's all about priorities

Trials Central offers users the ability to create Blogs - accessible via the links at the top of this Forum page. It would be only fair to create your blog here given the help TC users are giving you with your project.

Happy birthday for Saturday you old fart!

Nah, John may be going senile in his old age, but not on this occasion. ISP matches and IP address matches - Hiya BORUS! Silly boy thinking you could go undetected when I is a major geek. Stupid thing is, you re-registered without ever having been banned or deleted in the first place.

I doubt it's back feet in the wellies like your Swaledale experiences

Photos from yesterday are uploading now. There's rather a lot of them, but in the meantime... Orgate (Not sure who the geezer is on the right who crept into shot) Surrender Donations were sitting at around

I should never have replied, but you buggers got me wound up so.... Here's a good example from the press up here in the past couple of weeks... A 69 year-old lollipop man quit after being told giving "high-fives" to primary school children and giving them sweets on his birthday and at Christmas was "a health and safety risk". One single parent complained after their child who had a nut allergey was inadvertantly given a sweet that contained nuts. Full initial story here There was then a mass protest by parents who RIGHTLY thought this way over the top. How did the Council react? They confiscated his Lollipop stick because it carried "illegal stickers" Story here You really couldn't make this **** up. The world has gone totally crazy. All the parent had to do was approach him, explain their child had a nut allergy and ask him not to offer them sweets - or even better - educate their child to say they couldn't accept them. Instead they lodge a complaint and cause all sorts of turmoil. That's just one example. I like to read the online press with my coffee in the morning, but the nonsense I see these days daily winds me up so much I need to give it up.

The clock does go wonky from time to time. It's because of the way it updates itself (or doesn't as the case may be). It was out by a couple of hours so I updated it manually, but it didn't like that. As for Copey's response, as much as I love going to the US, think it's a fantastic country and everybody I have met there has been fantastic as individuals (yup, even Copey!), we have them to blame for the mess we are in. The whole "compensation culture" thing came from the USA. Sue for everything. Where there is blame there is a claim. I was in Vegas a few months ago and had a few days to kill before the conference I was attending started. Watching TV in the hotel room, every second ad was for compensation lawyers. Sue for this, sue for that. That spread to here and now we're screwed. you can't even fart without fear of being sued for it. That is where all the health and safety and nanny state bollocks have stemmed from. US lawyers looking to make a killing and US people looking to make a fast buck - mostly through their own stupidity. We have a confirmed case of a US woman suing the manufacturer of a microwave oven after she put her dog in it to dry it out because it was wet and the dog died. Her basis for suing was because the microwave didn't carry a warning that she shouldn't put her dog in it. We have confirmed cases of US people suing fast food companies because they got scalded by coffee or tea that they bought from those fast food companies. That is why if you now buy a coffee it says "Caution, contents may be hot" on the cup. Well - DOH! If you aren't intelligent enough to realise that then you're too stupid to buy a hot drink as far as I'm concerned and should stick to cold pureed food in the home for the "too stupid to drink hot drinks" It's the compensation culture that has led to the Health and Safety bollocks we now have, and subsequently the Nanny State. Everybody is terrified of being sued so take things to the ultimate extreme. It sucks.

I need to find a way to ban myself from this topic so I don't get started. Given I can bypass the swear filter, it wouldn't make pretty reading...

Just added to front page

Now seems to be a good time to clarify to the many that read this (registered users, guests and those that find this via search engines) who are unaware - Borus is the Xispa Importer for Canada and therefore has a vested financial interest in the Xispa marque. His comments and replies should not be considered as unbiased reviews of either the bikes or Xispa, the company. TC has nothing against Xispa and would treat any importer the same if we felt what they were saying was in any way biased. We're actively looking for and would be keen to hear from any genuine Xispa riders who are not connected to any importer or dealer who can provide totally UNBIASED feedback on how the bike performs.

At the top of every topic in the bar towards the right there is a drop-down menu named "options" click on that then switch view to "standard" That'll fix ya :-) for some reason when you come to the forums via a search engine it changes the display option and you have to switch it back

The loss of any practice venue is bad news. One thing I've been aware of for a long time is that folk come on here and post looking for practice venues. That's only natural as folk want to ride somewhere and they want to do it legitimately. Trials folk, being friendly people are more than happy to help. What neither party realise is that everything is indexed by Google and all the other search engines out there so anyone, regardless of what they ride, can search online and find places to ride and that contributes to the loss of these venues. With that in mind, I've created a new forum for UK people to ask these questions and for others to respond which is ONLY viewable and accessible by TC registered members (not Supporters, just being a registered member is sufficient.) I've also set it so it can't be accessed by search engine spiders so anything posted won't appear on any search engine websites. If people keep requests for places to ride and responses to that forum only then it will go some way to keeping them Trials-only and not accessible to the masses.

Full results now online

'Trials HD' shifts 300k copies

My text talk senses are tingling Individual scores aren't published anywhere. Even at the TdN events I've been to I've never seen individual scores even in stuff we get in the Press room. It all comes out just as Team results.

I didn't know Leigh, but looking at my photos I certainly caught him on camera quite a few times over the past few years. My sincere condolences go to his family. For family or friends who want what I think is a nice photo of Leigh riding at the 2008 SSDT, I've uploaded a shot taken at Fersit in full high resolution. Do feel free to take it. Click here to download

Can you get this back on-topic please. This isn't the TMX feedback forum. PS. Well done girls

Yup, the ACU release several versions of the calendar. It'll appear on the front page once released and then any amended versions also published.

Dog was padding about at 6:30 wanting out so got up.

That takes place today starting in a couple of hours time. BTW, I'm not at TdN. Prior family commitment.

I've taken this and posted it on the front page of TC. Classic stuff, nice find, but too good to hide away on the forums