One Night Stand

Out of politeness, leg
Removed from leg we pulled
Apart desiring separation
In the after glow.


An affair just begun
Is like a morning
After a night of rain, the
Sun searching through gaps in the
Strange serene, reassuring and secretive

Ceremony of cloud.



It was not yet love,
Just lovemaking.
A curious investigation
Of a stranger, hardly known,
Of unspecified views, who
Has not yet freely spoken.


The routine had long ago been fixed,
Inconsequential phrases over coffee,
Denying breakfast, smiles
Without intent. Holding hands
At the door, a kiss,
And then the regretful goodbye.
A voice remembered as a sigh
A movement as pleasure,
No other memory but the callow scent
Of brief uncertain intimacy.

ACADEMIC ENGLISH

Academic English: 1

These courses, Academic English 1 and 2, can be combined with degree tuition courses. It enables a student to gain the academic skills for studying at a British university. They help the student gain the language skills needed for academic study, including summarising lectures, note-taking skills, debating techniques, carrying out research, writing reports, essays, assignments, and presenting data.

Learning outcomes:

1. The capacity to write degree level assignments and essays.
2. The capacity to write reports.
3. To summarise lectures.
4. To debate
5. How to carry out research
6. How to collect and present data.

Course details:

24 lectures split into blocks of 4.

Block 1) Study Skills

• Use of study time
• Grammar
• Understanding Lecturer feedback
• Evaluating work activity

Religion and violence

I was talking to a Moslem believer, that is a religious person who believes all she is told about her faith, who commented that unlike other religions (sic) Islam was received in one flow. While of course the Koran says that Muhammad received his messages intermittantly the discription of fauna and flora does not fit in with Sauda Arabia, suggesting it was written down in different times and places. The woman believer believes that if it did come from one flowing exposition it is superior to Christianity which is subject to inclusions from other hands. Media rather than message perhaps? I pointed out to her that Islam condones violence, and for that reason it is inferior to Christianity.

Why are many young men such eager converts to Islam? Perhaps because it provides validation to violent inclinations?

Religion-daft innit?

When god is attached to a text, insisting that the text no matter how silly is inspired by god, it takes on a formidable effect that it does not deserve. Islamic scholars for example raise all kinds of nonsense into immovable laws. Christians tend to project expositions of marraige, sex, etc into the gospels. An example of the latter is Christian beliefs in marraige and family, which I've already highlighted. Jesus made one solitary comment on marraige, more cioncerned with the afterlife than present, that men and women (as he was from the middle-east, mainly women) should have one spouse as confusion would reign in heaven. His view on the afterlife, like the Islamic view, appears to have been materialistic in that he envisaged problems over multiple marraige-who a woman (mainly if not exclusively women) would sleep with if she'd had many husbands while alive. His teaching here was harsh and indicative perhaps of a celibate lifestyle, in that even if a woman was widowed very young she must have no other husbands. This is a view rarely if ever thankfully sanctioned by Christian authorities.

Clearly, god's inspiration is dependent on human intervention!

World's End. Poem

World’s End.

A deepening hue, packaging crisp and dry,

Telescoping skies, hard bitten with dust

A sly moon, scarred and half-lit.

It didn’t end with a whimper

After all,

But brightly and loudly like a celebration.

It was proud of its going.

Colour spawned from a devil’s jaw, not

A god’s dull reason. Fire everywhere,

Referencing volcanic insinuations, the afterbirth of a planet.

The last man standing

Was burnt to a crisp.

POEM-Yiu Cao=inured

A new year with a new beginning
reflecting the old position of war, violence, injustice
and death. Time does not change
such matters, simply makes them more,
or less, terrifying!
Adjusting to the murderer's wish, we
are now inured to horror.

What is a Masters Worth?

I have recently come across two people, both Asians, who have apparently obtained Masters from a private college with a franchise from a British university. In one case Sunderland. One of these gentlemen has three MBAs. In each case their English is deplorable. One showed me their work and it most resembled level 2, not even A level. It was rubbish. Neither of these men can speak English, let alone write it.

What it happening? Do they present other people's work or, just as likely, the private college's standards are very low and somehow, someway, the university is accepting this work? Why are they doing so? The Headteacher of a college, also Asian but with genuine qualifications, asks, as I used to do when in similar positions, prospective lecturers to write out part of an essay. Like my interviewees, most fail.

They don't seem somehow to realise their qualifications are bogus! They consider themselves highly intelligent, high achievers. They are not!

Islam's early history

Islam emerged directly after the dissolution of a Jewish kingdom that spread into western Saudi Arabia, and was perhaps influenced by this kingdom and by gnostic christianity. Sharia law nevertheless, although influenced by Judaic law, seems to have been a middle-eastern construct, evident in earlier middle-eastern civilisations. Except, in these earlier cultures, death was rarely the punishment for breaking rules.

Islam gains its legitimacy from historical context-believing that its ideas are from and in the past, of a mythical time that involved Abraham and Moses.  It believes time provides validity. If Abraham existed, there is little genuine evidence, even in the Torah, for monotheistic belief. It is equally difficult to find such belief in the narrative of Moses. Of course, the ten commandments were far more than ten, and even so it merely replicates Babylonian laws of the same or of an earlier period.

Yiu Cao-Religion is....

Religion is like a storm,
powerful but ephemeral
causing destruction, bringing sadness:
distorting behaviour.
Immersed in old books full of lies and myths
people kill for pleasure.

ISLAM-HISTORIC LEGITIMACY

Islam emerged directly after the dissolution of a Jewish kingdom that spread into western Saudi Arabia, and was perhaps influenced by this kingdom and by gnostic christianity. Sharia law nevertheless, although influenced by Judaic law, seems to have been a middle-eastern construct, evident in earlier middle-eastern civilisations. Except, in these earlier cultures, death was rarely the punishment for breaking rules.

Islam gains its legitimacy from historical context-believing that its ideas are from and in the past, of a mythical time that involved Abraham and Moses.  It believes time provides validity. If Abraham existed, there is little genuine evidence, even in the Torah, for monotheistic belief. It is equally difficult to find such belief in the narrative of Moses. Of course, the ten commandments were far more than ten, and even so it merely replicates Babylonian laws of the same or of an earlier period.

yiu cao POEM

Tentative grasp of winter
touching all, coating with frost,
loaded with cruel air.I watch
the ice sheathe the grass
and insects die.

THE REAL CHRIST

Jesus, or the Christ figure, was, according to the Gospels, a magician and healer who brought a message of the Apocalypse. It was, for him and his followers, the end of days. He required his followers to reject their families and the temporal. Husbands rejected wives and children. They no longer looked after them.

Like many preachers of the time his  message was supported by widows or bored rich women. In fact, women were central to the message. Jesus would instruct 500 men at a time in the secret knowledge of his cult and send them out to preach and gain converts. Women could also be disciples, as clearly was Mary Magdalen. The Jesus cult was specifically Jewish. He had no interest in the gentiles-calling them dogs. The essential idea was for his disciples to obtain inner and outer perfection for the coming end-perfection of thought and action.

POEM-DRUIDS/ROMANS-LOST TIME

The druid exhorted his god beneath the oak,
entwined with sacred mistletoe, arms before him
beseeching rescue.
In the valley, shrouded in early-morning mist,
the Romans camped, relaxing around their campfires
before the final surge.A mass of barbarism destroying
all in slow. impassive, machine-like killing.
A teacher, the priest deplored violence. He
knew all his knowledge would soon be lost
in the slowly ascending mists, obscuring time.

NATO/RUSSIA/ PROPOGANDA

Many months ago I had the profoundly disturbing experience of a student, one I had regarded as essentially more intelligent than some of the others, singing Putin's praises. Although he was a student in London for a time, he went back to Kyrgistan, where he now lives.

According to him, Russia was right to invade both Crimea and Uktaine. I certainly believe that war is never an option and from previous statements it is clear that Putin has little regard for human life-except probably his own. My ex-student also believes it seems that NATO is a genuine military force out to get Russia and take its gas and oil. Propoganda from Putin it seems. Putin is good it seems because he is strong: I presume like Stalin and Hitler.

HOQUE CONSULTANCY

I have thankfully stopped working with an International Student Recruitment Agent. A nightmare even if for only one day a week. Usual reasons. It was run by one brother who claimed to have a Masters from Liverpool Hope, but demonstrated neither the intelligence nor English to warrent his claim. As usual, he cheated no doubt.

The younger brother claims to have a Masters from Sunderland (a ubiquitous MBA of course) but has limited English and is just too stupid. Really stupid. He once asked me how to write an essay. Unfortunately, his fraudalent acquisition of a Masters went to his head (he is incredibly immature) and now believes he is a qualified person . I blame universities (both men got their degrees through these bogus private colleges who have franchises from above universities to run their courses where cheating is habitual and encouraged by management) who are colluding with private colleges for money.