The Bon Jovi fan living on a prayer
Dear Jon Bon Jovi, if you’re reading this - and your interest in the struggle of the working man suggests that you may like to keep up with the latest on vocational education - there is someone you really should meet.
His name is David Hassall, he works as a building services manager at South Cheshire College - that’s in the North West of England, Jon - and you saved his life.
Mr Hassall is a Bon Jovi superfan and has seen your band every time you have visited the UK since 1988, the year of your fourth record, New Jersey, which memorably helped to bring down the Iron Curtain when it became the first US album to be released in the Soviet Union.
But another of your records had a similarly miraculous effect on Mr Hassall. In 1996, a serious car accident left him in a coma. He told local newspaper the Crewe Chronicle: “They played Livin’ on a Prayer and I started to mime the lyrics and began to come round.” Whoa-oh!
With the Bon Jovi roadshow once again swinging by the UK in June, Mr Hassall is appealing for help from anyone who can set up a meeting with you, Jon. In a radio interview in 2010, you were told Mr Hassall’s story and you said, “Hopefully we’ll get to meet you one day.” So, we’re halfway there. But it does make a difference if you meet him or not. Let’s give it a shot.
It’s a real misnomer
Students seeking to apply for a place at a further education college in New Delhi, India, could be forgiven for being a little confused. It seems that the College of Vocational Studies is going to do away with, er, vocational studies. Teachers at the college - an affiliate of the University of Delhi - have claimed that it plans to downgrade its seven vocational courses, forcing students to major in a more academic subject such as history or economics.
“On the one hand, the university is talking about making students more employable, and on the other they are doing away with the courses that actually offer employment to students,” one teacher told the Hindustan Times.
Perhaps, FErret might tentatively suggest, a name change is in order.
