I Revise My Manifesto Using The Power Of Touch Typing

Not that I really had a manifesto; I couldn't really be bothered. I just listed out the "topics", at teachers working in comprehensives outside Milton Keynes c. 1982 would have said. The list went like this:

1. Grammar schools
2. Public transport
3. Working from home
4. State sponsored sabbaticals
5. Touch typing as part of National Curriculum
6. Free gyms and fruit.

I've decided that the only thing that's important is (5). If you can type fast, you can do in two minutes things that take most people twenty minutes to do. This means people think you are very clever and very able.

Unless all men and a certain type of woman ("I never learnt to type - it gives out the wrong message!") learn to touch type, they will be left behind by people like me: thick as pigshit, but able to type at 120wpm - and therefore able to do 50% of my job 95% faster than anyone I have ever worked with. (As a result, I am immensely rich and very successful.)

I am certain that the entire country would run more efficiently if people could type fast and accurately. As it is, I am sure the NHS, most schools and all government departments are populated by people who hammer at keyboards like monkeys with bandaged paws.

In summary, therefore, forget the bleating on about the health service and all of that. Teach people how to touch type. Then see what happens. You'll be amazed.

Comments

[SpanishGoth]

So this is the 'Etch-a-Sketch' manifesto? Bored - shake it about....oh look, a new one?

[god loves a backpeddler]

Yawn. Who let Neil back in the house?

[nonworkingmonkey]

1. Yeah.
2. Don't understand.
3. Does it matter? Do you care? I don't.

[SpanishGoth]

I care lots - about whisky and things....

[Tippler]

Learned to touch type 50 wpm at journo school. Plus 110 wpm shorthand.

Can't do either now.

It's the continental azerty keyboard wot dunnit for the touch typing. A mini tape recorder, meanwhile, shagged the shorthand.

Oh well.

[Clare]

I can sort-of-almost touchtype, simply by bashing the keys with three fingers super-super-fast and giving myself RSI. And doind the whole thing really-really loudly (as anyone who I have ever worked with has remarked). Does that count?

[Cat]

I agree on the typing thing. It means I can fanny about all day, then whip up copy in five minutes flat before my genius is applauded by all.

(Interestingly - or not - I didn't learn to touch-type in school, and taught myself at university, so while I'm quick, quick, quick, my fingers are technically not in the right places. I worked as a subtitler for a year while doing my post-grad, and became even speedier at that point, as well as making some comedy errors for all the region's viewers to see.)