Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Yesterday I started the programme with an opinion piece where I said the government has offered the teachers as much as they can and they should be congratulated for it and that the teachers continued rejection of the pay offer was reminiscent of truculent children.When it was published on line that was one of the headlines.  Our teachers are starting to look like truculent children it said.Later, I got a message and it started like this:  ‘Mr Dickens, I am an ex-teacher’.  And I thought ‘uh-oh, here we go’. Ex-teacher outraged that I’m starting to side with the government and losing sympathy for the teachers.  So it went “Mr Dickens, I am an ex-teacher and may I congratulate you on the excellent use of the word truculent.”  Excellent!So today I thought I’s pay it forward and congratulate my old producer Alex Braae who now writes The Bulletin for the excellent use of the word ‘hyperbolic’  in his column today, which effectively describes much of the discourse that poses as debate these day.This is how he used