the McAlevel, and other news

(all seen in today's guardian)

McDonalds are now offering an A-Level in burger bar management after the company won government approval to become an exam board. I have many questions about this, what is the qualification worth (the standard xxx ucas points?) and will they offer it to other burger chains? Will burger king employees be able to take the same paper(?)?

I'm for people being able to qualify / valuate their training in jobs as it will make it easier for future employers to see that candidates have actually got experience and a qualification, rather than a wonderful piece of prose in their CV. But trying to peg them to national qualifications, such as A-Levels seems falacious, and it would be much easier to just have an in-house qualification.

Still maybe working at McDonalds will lose some of it's negative associations when you get a shiny qualification out of it.

In other news the most corrupt man in the world, Ex-President (dictator) Suharto of Indonesia has died, but apparently in this case the crimes of the father will pass on to the sons (and other familly members).

The news cameras (fully 4 at the last count) are also parked outside my office (see post below for why), which is quite exciting. No-one's asked me any questions yet, but I'm fully prepared with my "No comment" response and waving my hand in the camera.