Well, I feel like a duck at the moment, my flippers are paddling away manically but I’m all calm on top.  Well, perhaps more like an inverted duck.  Panicking.

Just an update to say that I haven’t updated the site for a long time due to being hacked a while back.  The hackers redirected my WordPress page to that of a shop for Gucci handbags.  I was only alerted to this development by my mother, who inexplicably went to my website to find out how to contact me.  As a result of the hacking I changed my login and password to make them much more secure from hackers; which inevitably led to the site being totally secure from 100% of potential users, including myself.  It’s taken until now to work out how to reset my WordPress password, and I’m still not sure that it’s totally sorted yet – time will tell!

Of course my last post was about Gove deciding not to mess with the GCSEs – that couldn’t be MORE out of date than it is now; firstly we all know that the GCSEs ARE going to be thoroughly messed with (a good thing?  answers on a postcard please) and *NEWSFLASH* Gove is out on his ear. The latter point may or may not be a good thing: Ben Goldacre commented on Twitter that although Gove was maligned for his radical reforms, he was very much in favour of RCTs in research within education.  I wonder if the new Education secretary will be quite so keen? Let’s wait and see.

In other news, I’ve recently quit my bottom-of-the-rung lecturer position in calm, tranquil Hampshire to take up a crazy-arse Curriculum Manager post in a large London FE college. The post is a new one within the college (an amalgamation of two related curriculum areas) and I’m of the opinion that it’s the right combination.  I should be well placed within the college to raise the profile of both Maths and English within the vocational areas (rather than responsibility for discrete Maths or English departments).  The college has a brand spanking new principal lined up, and there’s room for development in many areas.  It seems I’m going to be quite busy in the coming months.

So, I moved to Fulham last week, and I’m just settling in.  I’ve been warned off living in London plenty of times (oh the crime, oh the landlords, oh the tube, oh the cost of living) but I think I’ve fallen on my feet.  I’ve found a nice area to live, the cat’s come with me and is settling in nicely, and my landlord appears to be a scrupulous and straight-up fellow.  What could possibly go wrong?

If I manage to lock myself out of my WordPress account again, at least this post should suggest a reason why it’s not been updated in a while.

There’s several options as to my lack of updates:

1) I’m dead from knife crime

2) I’m overworked and/or underpaid

4) I’m being pursued by loan sharks

5) I’m particularly good at setting up awesome unhackable passwords

6) I’m very bad at writing down passwords

7) I’m having too much fun living it up and partying in the West End.*

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

*This is my imaginary world