Between blotch and blok

There I was, innocently recovering from Torchwood's gorgeous, glorious fairy frighteners (and didn't the cat put in a sterling performance?) and half paying attention to Bremner, Bird and Fortune, when some unkind being whisked me back from our multicultural, multiracial, anti-sexist, equal opportunities world (as if) to the white male workforce of yesteryear. Yes, I was watching the Serco Training advert. It's the one that claims 30 seconds could change your life. I always thought gender reassignment took a little longer than that. For that's obviously the first step to take to succeed if the evidence of the advert is anything to go by. White man shakes hands with white man; white man stands behind seated white man working at his PC; white man plugs in components; white man (possibly different to the first white man) shakes hands with another white man; it's beginning to sound like a song, join in if you know the tune, or just clap along. To be honest, after a third and very careful viewing, I think I spotted two possibly non-white men... possibly.

I looked at their website. There is no indication of any sort of equal opportunity policy. I suppose they may not need one. But... a good few years ago whilst I was studying on a government funded course at a higher education institute I remember the immense effort folk went to for their corporate brochure picking out the non-white, female, and older members of our cohort.

I'm sorely tempted to take their on-line test and turn up at one of the open days just to see if it's quite as it's portrayed.

And as the world trundles on its rough-hewn rock wheels to perdition, it struck me that were I a half intelligent 17-year-old right now I'd be calculating the offence that would keep me At Her Majesty's Pleasure for sufficient time to complete my degree by distance learning at her Majesty's expense before my release having paid my debt to society and free of my debt to the student loans company.