Merged Arday life and death

[Vixen]

Sounds like quite the trip. Could've done without the casual racism, though. Why Cajun and Mexican? Why not barbecue or Nasvhille hot chicken?

As to the Alabama mall, was that in Huntsville? If so, you should've booked a tour to the space center. You could have learned a thing or two about the Apollo program.

It's what the cuisine is specifically called. Can't remember exactly where in Alabama without looking it up. Are you based around there? Could well have been Huntsville, which is in reasonable proximity. Will certainly have a look at the Apollo thing if ever there again.

Huntsville launches inaugural Rocket City Space Fest to honor Apollo Missions

Huntsville built the rocket that put humans on the Moon. This July, we're celebrating it. Events have been planned across the city, both ticketed and free, from July 16 to 25, anchored by Apollo Day on July 20. Follow @rocketcityspacefest and @visithuntsvilleal and come celebrate with...

www.huntsville.org

 

[theprestige]

Not att all. Your reading comprehension seems to work most of the time, so I wonder why you are so eager to misrepresent what I have written. I think academic fraud is a great deal, but I wonder why a case where the damage is far more serious, where people died as a result of such fraud, did not get such worldwide attention. And why large segments of society, here and elsewhere, never before concerned about academia, are suddenly shouting about it.

So yet again, because it seems that you completely disregard what I am actually saying, I am not in any way condoning Arday's fraud, or any academic fraud, no matter who has committed it.

You pay lip service to the actual issues when called out, but that's not where you want to be.

You didn't go to, what was Arday thinking, and how did he get away with it for so long? You didn't go to, how did LJMU sign off on his thesis? You didn't go to, what the hell is wrong with Cambridge these days?

No, you went straight to, why do people even care so much?

 

[theprestige]

Which has nothing to do with your mistake in thinking Clapham Junction was in Clapham and your flight of fancy as to what type of housing must be in Clapham because of the UK's busiest railway interchange being in Clapham. Your entire post was based on your mistake.

But it does have everything to do with @Vixen 's mistake in claiming Arday was born and raised in hardship. In fact he was raised in a generally well off middle class neighborhood, by middle class parents.

 

[theprestige]

Specifically, Williamson County,

did the usual sightseeing around Nashville, Hard Rock Cafe, Old Oprey, Country Hall of Fame, the 'Acropolis', the old Confederate hang outs, plantation houses/old slave quarters, Johnny Cash hangouts, Vanderbilt Uni, Jehovah's Witness skyscraper building, Jack Daniels brewery tour, restaurants serving huge plates of catfish, Cajun food, endless shopping malls. Beautiful area of great natural scenic beauty: hummingbirds and huge oaks. The Mexican restaurant I wanted to experience was nothing like the trendy ones in London. Thinking back now at how unexpectedly horrible the food was, with a group of about seven to nine Mexican amigos standing watching us, I wonder whether it was actually a front for something else. Picked up at the airport in Charlotte. Some funny things happened at the airport but that would be waaaay off topic.

Your travelogue lacks verisimilitude. It reads like you ran together a list of attractions and tacked on a bizarrely racist conspiracy theory for no reason.

I don't think you know any more about Tennessee than you do about Clapham.

 

[theprestige]

Are you aware Arday was appointed by Cambridge in 2023?

That would have been the perfect time to give him a proper vetting. Ideally just prior to the appointment itself.

 

[theprestige]

Looks like I have a fan.

The heel is an important figure in the kayfabe. Or, in this case, the nokayfabe.

 

[Vixen]

But it does have everything to do with @Vixen 's mistake in claiming Arday was born and raised in hardship. In fact he was raised in a generally well off middle class neighborhood, by middle class parents.

No. According to the blurb on his book on Amazon uk, he lived in a council house. This is social housing.

He grew up in a council house in south London with his parents and two brothers. Diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay at the age of three, he spent much of his non-verbal childhood navigating a system that struggled to understand him. Doctors and teachers believed there was ‘no one in there’. But Jason’s mother, Giff, refused to accept the limits others placed on her son.

 

[Vixen]

That would have been the perfect time to give him a proper vetting. Ideally just prior to the appointment itself.

An institution like Cambridge would certainly check references and expect to see the original qualification certificates.

 

[Ziggurat]

No. According to the blurb on his book on Amazon uk, he lived in a council house. This is social housing.

He grew up in a council house in south London with his parents and two brothers. Diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay at the age of three, he spent much of his non-verbal childhood navigating a system that struggled to understand him. Doctors and teachers believed there was ‘no one in there’. But Jason’s mother, Giff, refused to accept the limits others placed on her son.

Non-verbal. Not selectively mute, but non-verbal. So the blurb contains a claim that even you don't believe. You see the problem here?

Now, I don't know where Arday actually grew up, and I'm not making any claim in this regard. Maybe he did grow up in council housing. But I don't consider this blurb to be evidence of that. And neither should anyone else.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Your travelogue lacks verisimilitude. It reads like you ran together a list of attractions and tacked on a bizarrely racist conspiracy theory for no reason.

I don't think you know any more about Tennessee than you do about Clapham.

She did get one thing right: Most of the Mexican restaurants in Nashville are pretty bad.

ETA: She got another thing right: At a lot of Nashville restaurants, catfish is the best thing on the menu.

 

[Ziggurat]

An institution like Cambridge would certainly check references and expect to see the original qualification certificates.

Maybe they did.

But did they actually check his work?

 

[Mojo]

But it does have everything to do with @Vixen 's mistake in claiming Arday was born and raised in hardship. In fact he was raised in a generally well off middle class neighborhood, by middle class parents.

Note the description of Camden (from Wikipedia) given above: "Today the area is generally an affluent place, although many of its professional residents live relatively close to significant pockets of social housing." It will have been less gentrified 30 years ago. According to the Grauniad, "Arday grew up on a council estate in Clapham".

Where do you get his parents being middle-class from?

 

[theprestige]

It's what the cuisine is specifically called. Can't remember exactly where in Alabama without looking it up. Are you based around there? Could well have been Huntsville, which is in reasonable proximity. Will certainly have a look at the Apollo thing if ever there again.

Huntsville launches inaugural Rocket City Space Fest to honor Apollo Missions

Huntsville built the rocket that put humans on the Moon. This July, we're celebrating it. Events have been planned across the city, both ticketed and free, from July 16 to 25, anchored by Apollo Day on July 20. Follow @rocketcityspacefest and @visithuntsvilleal and come celebrate with...

www.huntsville.org

It's a two hour drive, one way, between Nashville, TN, and Huntsville, AL.

That's a hell of a long way to drive, just to visit a shopping mall.*

Americans think 300 years is a long time, Europeans think 300 is a long distance. So the saying goes. Sometimes you see a European look at a map of America, and think they're dealing with European distances.

Anyway, it's clear to me now why you're defending Arday so hard. Fabulism calls to fabulism.

---

*Especially in the middle of an itinerary packed with literally every single tourist attraction listed on the Nashville Wikipedia page.

 

[theprestige]

No. According to the blurb on his book on Amazon uk, he lived in a council house. This is social housing.

He grew up in a council house in south London with his parents and two brothers. Diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay at the age of three, he spent much of his non-verbal childhood navigating a system that struggled to understand him. Doctors and teachers believed there was ‘no one in there’. But Jason’s mother, Giff, refused to accept the limits others placed on her son.

I don't believe a single word of the marketing copy on his book.

 

[Vixen]

Some excerpts from the reviews of the book from Amazon uk (snipped so not in full context)

The constant romanticising and exaggeration of economic poverty, reminescent of a Dickens novel grated on me (yes I live in council house too, and I love it, it’s not a hovel) - like when qualified social worker mum and chef dad “could not afford to take a whole day off, unpaid, even on Christmas day”. That bit was ‘set’ in 2003, not 1843, paid bank holidays had been a thing in the UK for quite a while.

If you have never wanted to watch the Rocky movies (habitually referenced throughout): macho grit through unbeareable physical pain; winning against impossible odds; obsessive, selfish, determination to achieve your goals at any cost; if that kind of story is not your thing - then you might not enjoy parts of this book.

The book describes how this pursuit of academic validation, at one time commuting from London to Glasgow by plane several times a week, cost Jason his marraige, and contact with his young children. My empathy was drawn to his wife at several points in his epic quest.

Firstly, his mum- Giff. Wow, what an extraordinary woman. Ahead of her time- she fought all the professional nosayers who wrote Jason off as a child and young man. The 'SEND' system wasn't fit for purpose in the 1980's and 1990's and yet despite that, Jason- against the odds achieved great success.



Secondly, I am so glad Jason had people in his corner - particularly: his energetic PE teacher Mr Trace, the extraordinary Sandro at Merton College- who became a lifelong mentor and Debs- for helping Jason to read with phonics. These chance encounters revealed guardian angels- who helped Jason grow in confidence and ability.

This is an open accounting of what it's like to be autistic. Especially a non-verbal autistic. While there are more non-speaking advocates now discussing their experience, there are few who have spoken to the experience of a time where they had no words at all.

If we leave aside the issue of the publisher profiting from Black trauma, this is a warm and engaging memoir. RIP Prof. Arday.

First off I am sickened by the reviews here which have nothing to do with the book, but are simply submitted to continue to pile on the opprobrium on a man publicly lynched to death.

This is an interesting book, the story of a man who defied expectations and learning difficulties to reach the top of his game. A man who sought to make the world a better place one difficult step at a time. (That is what true sanctity looks like.)

As someone who knew Professor Jason Arday, this memoir resonates with honesty, openness and truth. It is a loving testimony to parents (especially his mum), family, friends and community and an inspiring reflection on a unique journey. Its uniqueness sadly permitted people to ridicule and scorn despite a thorough process of fact-checking that accompanied this confident piece of work.

Those were some of the 'five star' reviews. For balance, here is the 'one star' one, snipped;

Revelations about Arday’s having fabricated portions of his life story don’t begin to explain why this book is so dismal. James Frey made up his own life story, and the resulting memoir was, by many accounts, gripping. Arday’s style, in contrast, involves jamming every sentence with as many adjectives and adverbs as possible, and droning on ad nauseum with unnecessary details and lengthy descriptions. Given that he enlisted an experienced co-author for help, there’s no explanation for why the prose is so awful. Perhaps the duo cynically targeted a semi-literate audience who wouldn’t recognize decent writing if it hit them over the head. Or, perhaps they suspected that readers might buy the book to feel good about themselves, and then not bother to read it…

Amazon UK

 

[Helen]

You pay lip service to the actual issues when called out, but that's not where you want to be.

You didn't go to, what was Arday thinking, and how did he get away with it for so long? You didn't go to, how did LJMU sign off on his thesis? You didn't go to, what the hell is wrong with Cambridge these days?

No, you went straight to, why do people even care so much?

Paid lip service? Most certainly not (and i did more than speak my mind in exposing academic fraud in the Macchiarini case. I wouldn't have minded more of an outcry over that, it took a long time to bring him down). You apparently think that i haven't said exactly what you feel I should say, but if you are so eager to twist my words into something that fits your view of me, then there is nothing i can do about it, I expect.

 

[Steve]

Looks like I have a fan.

Hope it keeps your brain cool and in some semblance of working order.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

It's a two hour drive, one way, between Nashville, TN, and Huntsville, AL.

It's also a six-hour drive from Charlotte to Nashville. And there are regular flights between their airports.

That's a hell of a long way to drive, just to visit a shopping mall.*

Especially since Nashville itself reportedly has "endless shopping malls".

 

[theprestige]

Next time I'm in London, visiting Arday's birthplace, I'll be sure to nip up to Birmingham for some shopping.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Next time I'm in London, visiting Arday's birthplace, I'll be sure to nip up to Birmingham for some shopping.

Just don't go poncing off to Barnsley.