the education issue

I've only had a Statcounter account for a year or so, so I don't know at what point schools and universities started accessing this blog in large numbers. But that they do is gratifying. For a couple of months through Statcounter, I've been keeping a track on what schools authorities and boards, universities and other educational institutions and charities have been accessing the blog, and what posts have been the most popular. This has led to me keeping a rolling tally of the last 50 universities etc to access the blog, down on the bottom of the sidebar to the right.

I blog about popular culture against the background of Judaeo-Christian faith traditions and conservative political views and, when I'm not writing about things like cookies (see the previous post) try to research topics exhaustively. I write for the only person you can honestly write for - myself - and am glad that, alongside several online friends I've made like Linda Pam and Revd Bosco, academic instutions have chosen to follow the blog, some quite regularly. I hope you all continue to enjoy it.

I've posted a full top 30 over on the Top 30 from the Fen site; here's the top ten. (Note: it would be mischevous of me to mention which posts were accessed by the Houses of Parliament and the US House of Representatives, so I won't.)

Underage smoking is more stupid than criminal An unorthodox but time-honoured way to discourage an underage smoker, using inclusion instead of stigmatisation. Accessed by schools authorities internationally.

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Was the presidential election a set-up?When Goulong Li went head-to-head with Tom Chigbo for the presidency of Cambridge University Student Union, university dons took the unprecedented move of briefing against Li in local and even national newspapers, professing their shock at his opinion - which he had spoken freely for a year and a half - that homosexuals could be "cured". But the point at which he lost the election may have been when, during the filmed hustings, he took his Bible from his pocket. This post was very popular in both Cambridge and universities across the US.

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Cannabis policy's in no more chaos than usual As Frank Nutt's supporters predict Bad Things for drugs policies in the wake of his removal as head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, I find myself in the unusual position of supporting the government on his sacking.

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Abigail Blackburn and the truth about pregorexia Celebrity culture eats its own children, and nobody profits more than editors like Abigail Blackburn. Written about a documentary by singer and model Louise Redknapp, the post has been enduringly popular within and outwith educational establishments.

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Anne Frank In the display on Anne Frank in Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital - the foundation was delivering diversity training - we saw the world famous picture of Anne staring into a future she would never see. Accessed by some universities, but predominantly by schools.

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Norman Tebbit and the art of Risk Former Conservative Party chairman Norman Tebbit showed a magisterial understanding of the concept of risk when he suggested voters could elect smaller parties as a reaction to the MPs' expenses crisis. Councils, schools and insurance companies take note.

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Fatal Misconception - the struggle to control world population Indira Gandhi's first government collapsed in chaos because of population control measures drawn up by white westerners, but eugenics has returned. Very popular in India for reasons that become obvious, but also internationally, and by some surprising institutions.

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Good taste back on the horizon - how mad are you? A documentary recreating David Rosenhahn's 1972 experiment involving "pseudopatients" admittied to a psychiatric ward - with surprising results.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows From Harry Potter through such stopping points as Odysseus and back - but contains spoilers: big ones! Both unis and schools seemed to like this one.

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Chlamydia, koalas and killer sex education The government is attacking the epidemic of chlamydia in young people on two fronts: firstly, by grafting it onto its campaign to delay early sex; and secondly, by handing out condoms to the population it's trying to delay early sex within.