Saturday 31 July 2010

'Simon Webb types are bad for us'

I simply had to mention this gem. At the recent Hes Fes conference, time lay so heavily on the hands of the participants that they apparently fell to talking about me. It was decided that;

'Simon Webb types are bad for us. Although maybe he was shown to be lone voice. Got more publicity than should have.'

'Shown to be lone voice'? Odd that none of those present remembered that of the two thousand two hundred responses from home educating parents which the Badman review received, a third of those who responded were definitely in favour of registration. Hardly a lone voice then. I was also fascinated to learn that I got more publicity than I should have done. What publicity and where is it? Who is providing this publicity? I honestly want to know about this! They surely cannot mean a piddling little blog with a few hundred visits a day? I am especially intrigued by the idea that I have more publicity 'than I should have'. How much publicity should I have and how is this calculated? I am sure that somebody who was present will be happy to explain this to me.

11 comments:

  1. Are we voting on how much publicity you should have, Simon? ROTFLOL!

    I think you can get a poll widget for blogs...

    Mrs Anon

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  2. I was going to avoid the temptation to reply to this post but.....

    Don't be so pleased Simon! Yes, obviously many of us acknowledge that you are not an isolated voice; as I have said (repeatedly) I know personally home educators who would go much further than Badman or you - who believe that HE should be a privilege not a right. There are also far more somewhere in between who would agree with some halfway measures (such as registration or some kind of welfare checking; but you are the only voice who has been so public about it all; and everyone loves someone to hate. Since Ed Balls is no longer an available target, you will have to do!

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  3. "Are we voting on how much publicity you should have, Simon? ROTFLOL!"

    I am sure that you have heard of biased and self-selected samples mrs Anon? I have a suspicion that if some of the people here were polled about me then the vote would tend towards boiling in oil rather than just giving me less publicity.

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  4. Maybe all the LA people, Social Workers and MP's who you have as readers would balance them out?
    ;-)

    When't the book out again?

    Mrs Anon

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  5. October 30th, Mrs Anon. Price £18.99, available from all good book shops including Blackwells and WH Smith. Place your order now, it promises to be a rollercoaster read to match anything by Dan Brown.

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  6. Oh dear, not as silly, though, I hope.

    Mrs Anon

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  7. Or £14.24 at Amazon!

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  8. "Or £14.24 at Amazon! "

    You speak truly, Anonymous. I get the same royalty in either case, but if you have pre-ordered from Amazon it just shows what a canny shopper you are!

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  9. Not likely! I'm showing I'm a canny shopper by not buying your book at all. Predictable, I know.

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  10. More Alice in Wonderland! You have been trawling the net and comparing prices for a book which you do not intend to buy. I kind of see why you would waste your life doing that. Well, actually that's not true at all. Why would you do that?

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  11. No. I was looking for something else on home education actually and your book happened to appear in the list. Honestly, I'm not that sad!

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