fun with tagboards

Just something to do when trawling through other people's blogs....if you come across a tagboard, leave cryptic messages, such as 'your blog is a load of senseless drivel you tw*t', just to wind them up. Beware: the tagboards don't like swear words though.....

cheating bastards!

on a different note....I've been reading more of these crappy blogs by spoilt little Singaporean rich kidz who think they're sooo cool. In particular, two caught my eye: the little fuckers are preparing for some kind of English Lit exam, and were proudly boasting about how they were trawling the 'net for some essays so they could cheat their way through. Tosspots. I've had to deal with a few similar cases at the college, where Chinese students in this case thought they could just cut 'n' paste someone else's essay work and pass it off for their own. Hey you rich Singaporean Kidz! some advice!
1. we teachers have a special device for essay checking. It's called 'google'. all we do is tap in a randomly chosen sentence from the essay, and if it turns up, bingo! we have your balls on a plate!
2. If you ever, ever appear in one of my classes and try that kind of stunt with me, I will unilaterally declare independence in whichever classroom I happen to be in, in which, as chief executive, I shall declare torture legal, and introduce you to the terror that only a rolled-up cheated essay can inflict.

Thursday.

In theory, I rather like thursdays - I only teach one lesson, and that's not until the evening. In practice, however, it's a different story. I intend having a lie-in, but still get woken earlier than anyone else by the need to look after son and wife - get breakfast for former, then coax him into school uniform and make his lunch, while gently coaxing my wife from the fields of sleep without getting my arm ripped off. So, I'm still awake early. This is usually compounded with a mild hangover, as I treat myself to a bottle or so of good wine on Wednesday night, knowing I'm not getting to work early. A whole morning stretches before me: A whole morning to do new and wonderful things. A nd what do I end up doing? Watching daytime fucking TV. Before I know it, Kilroy's voice is saying something like ' Your husband? been kidnapped by aliens? nd then? Gang-probed? And liked it?' in that peculiar west-midlands inflection of his, and then I kind of come out of a strange trance-like state in time for the one o'clock news, nothing done, nothing achieved, and the washing-up festering just a little more in the kitchen. Oh well, bollocks to it all.

living in istanbul

quite a nice article about life in Istanbul by Maureen Freely in today's Guardian.

A recipe for you all.....

It's been months since I posted a recipe here, so here's a nice veggie one.

Fasulye Pilakisi

You need:
Green beans (string beans or similar)
A tin of tomatos or freshly crushed plum tomatoes
an onion
olive oil
salt sugar
1 clove garlic (optional)

heat olive oil in a saucepan. Finely dice the onion and cook gently until it caramelises. Add the tin of tomatoes. top and tail the green beans and add. add salt. top up with just enough warm water to cover the beans. simmer for an hour until most of the juice has evaporated. just before finishing, add a pinch of sugar. can be eaten hot or cold.
Afiyet olsun!

let's see if this pic works...

Mmmmmmurrrghhh

I resolutely felt like staying in bed this morning, and not coming to work.....a sure sign I must move on.

It has been pissing down all weekend. Apparently, we've had more rain in the last forty-eight hours than for the whole summer. Well, it's good for the garden, I suppose...

I went to Gilly's birthday party on Saturday night. She's a teacher-cum-opera singer with a mane of wild hair. The party was supposed to have a Robert Palmer theme, which was my fault. She'd been thinking of ways on livening it up when I drunkenly blurted out the idea in the pub. And did anyone come dressed in dodgy haircut and jacket with the arms rolled up, or with hair slicked back, bright lipstick and microscopic black dress? Did they fuck. Instead, we all lolled around in her kitchen diner, drinking too much. Which was fun.

Just added Ugur Akinci's blog on the side bar. It looks pretty interesting.

Is that all you've got?

Dear Australia,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

HAHAHA.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.






HAHA BLOODY HA.

Thank you.

a picture of me.....

friday afternoon

I really cannot be arsed to teach this afternoon. that's all.

Kadir Gecesi

Friday. Tonight is the 'night of Power' in the Islamic calendar, the night when the Koran was revealed by Gabriel to Mohammed. It is a time when it is believed that a single prayer has the effect of a thousand, any single act of charity has greater strength, any act of contrition cleanses the soul. In the light of this, it makes yesterday's events even sadder. When I lived in Turkey, I always liked Ramazan, and not just for the delicious bread that's made then. Then was a quiet sense of celebration every evening, and a feeling of everyone coming home to be part of the family - that kind of sensation you get at christmas time, but extended for most of a month.
My wife phoned round most of her friends and family after the explosions. They were all OK, but two had lucky escapes. One girl actually works in the HSBC building on the first floor, facing the front. She was attending her mother's funeral yesterday, and so wasn't there- fortunately for her. Many of the most seriously injured and some of the dead worked on that floor. Another woman, sister to one of Nur's friends, was walking by the same building, and got slightly injured by flying glass. Again fortunately, she didn't require hospitalisation.
What has pissed me off this morning is the reaction of politicians, particularly Bush, Blair and Jack Straw. It is all generic platitude-mumbling. Read what they say: it could be a formulaic set of words for any given atrocity. You pricks started this: now find a way to finish it well.

the bombings today

I have changed my blog title for today because of the news that's just come through.
I heard about the bombings at lunchtime: I felt sorrow and anger. I know the area round the consulate really well, having spent many times in Taksim. I saw the list of the dead and injured in hurriyet. Most of them were Turkish names. And this was a strike against 'British interests'?
The bomb must have been huge, judging by the devastation by the gates. My mind is on all those poor guys who work in that crowded intersection in front of the consulate: the spices and snacks guy and the grocer who work the entrance to cicek pasaji nearby: the bloke who sold dreams of money with his national lottery tickets: the man and his apprentice boys who sweated and slaved from the middle of the night to the closing of the day making bread, pastries and cakes: the noise and joy of yorgo's wineshop, on the slope leading down to the main road: the taxi driver i always saw outside the consulate, sipping on a glass of tea and smoking, never seeming to go anywhere: the men who pushed great handbarrows up and down the slope of tepebasi, one day carrying rags, another trays of simit, yet another great bales of unknown things: the vendor of pens and bags and schoolbooks in the tiny shop on the corner: All the rush and hurl of life, running and trudging through that junction, slipping onto Istiklal caddesi, or into cicek pasaji, or down into one of a hundred miniature alleys. All of it ripped to pieces.
These bombings, and those of last week.....why? in the name of all that is holy, why? the people who've done this call themselves devout and pious Muslims. Is that why they attack innocent people during the Holy Month of Ramadan, and on the eve of one of the most important days in the Islamic calendar? One of the words that comes to mind to describe them is heretic. Make no mistakes, those who did this cannot be truly described as muslims. Where, in the Holy Qu'ran, does it give sanction to this kind of act?
I know I'm being disjointed and rambling, but that's how I feel. I love Istanbul dearly, even though I no longer live there. My mind and heart still drift back to it in moments of reverie, and I find myself once more walking down the sad bustle of Istiklal, or wandering through the Secret Maze of Old Istanbul, looking for the truth that pushed Emporer and Sultan to walk incognito in the same way. And now some bastard, in the name of a bastard truth, has done this. Leave my City! Leave my friends and the faces I know! Istanbul has survived worse than you, I know, and will carry on after you have been buried and forgotten.
I mourn for all those who have died today and those from last week. I mourn for all those families who have been affected by this. I mourn for the blow to this mournful and joyous, wild and sedate City.
Please do not view me as being on the side of Bush or Blair - far from it, I firmly believe that the way these two have behaved over the last two years has been nothing short of criminal, particularly in the way the war in Iraq has been prosecuted, which is in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention. Yet I cannot possibly be on the side of the dangerously misguided fools who did this. Blood should not be answered with blood, no matter how desperate one is.

wednesday.

I will be so glad when today is over and done with.

Yesss!

A long, dreary day, made longer by an attempted abstinence from fags and booze. I haven't slept properly for the last couple of nights now. This makes me somewhat worried. Am I so much of a boozer that I need alcohol to sleep?

does the title field work now? I wonder...

just trying something folks....hold on....

and i have the leather jacket and shades....

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzuz. I've just spent fifteen minutes reading the self-absorbed drivel of teenage singaporean rich kidz who think they're soooo cool. May I say something? Your English is shit. Now Fuck Off and die in a sweat shop, making me my trainers.

monday! It rises like a regular horror....I had to teach for another teacher this morning. A lesson as grim and grey as the weather outside.
I just found this site.....give it a try if you want to find out what your brand name is....

Friday rolls round again...hurrah! The OFSTED inspection is over, now the witch hunt begins. Our department came out of it well, but apparently the college as a whole has had what has been termed as 'mixed results', for which read 'bloody awful'. Fat Freddie McCrindle is probablt eating some of the faculty managers as I write. It has been a very stressful two weeks, not only on the professional side of things, but also the personal. I have felt deeply introspective over this time: I look around at what I am, where I've been and what I'm going to, and I feel deeply disturbed. Once more, I seem to be on a cusp. Looking ahead, my options don't appear too bright as I am. As I must be, well, it doesn't look appealing: middle age, middle of the road, middle bloody nothing, then death. wow. My finances are a mess, I am in shambolic shape, I'm wandering round, following an uncertain flag wavering here and there across the landscape of my life. I need focus: some definite target, a way forward. I both envy and cannot comprehend those who are focused on a single path in their lives. How do they exist? How can they blot out any consideration for all the amazing and terrible things around them and walk a single bright, burning strand?

Another knackering day

I am bloody knackered. I've just spent six sodden hours wandering round the beautiful and decidedly cold city of Winchester with a group of students. I still need to teach for a further two hours. Then cycle home. In the rain. Then make dinner. Then get up and do it all over again tomorrow. Calling someone, somewhere: please, please give me a job that involves lots of sunshine and hanging round bars.

Oh, the joy of mondays.... I now need to plan my entire week's output of lessons, which bodes to be fun...This includes taking a group of students to Winchester tomorrow, to gape at old stuff. whoo-hoo.
After classes on Friday, I and several others went to the Fisherman's Cottage for a few drinks. The inspectors deemed our department to be 'good', which is more than can be said for a lot of the college. I got far too drunk than is good for me. Indeed, this seems to be happening more often these days. It's not a question of how much I drink, but rather the effect: My behaviour appears to be much more pratlike. That, or the part of my brain that governs social behaviour is a lot more alert at an advanced level of drinking than it used to be, and therefore I'm more aware of the chaos I'm causing.
The weekend saw me feeling bleak and tense, especially after spending a rather dire sunday afternoon with some friends of Nur. Don't get me wrong, they're very nice people, but they're boring as, well, a wet sunday afternoon. Conversation was dominated by talk of cars and houses, as per usual. I could feel my brain withering and atrophying over the course of two and a half hours. Back home, I made mince pies, then roast lamb on a bed of leek and carrot tagliatelle, with dijon mustard potato puree and a red wine gravy....yum!

mmmnnnnnaargh. bad sinus headache. we're halfway through our OFSTED inspection, and everyone is half dead from stress. I am severely in need of a good drink or seven.

I was the object of possibly the most misdirected piece of racist abuse ever the other day. I was going home on the bus, chatting with a couple of people in Turkish, when this snotty little fourteen year old sidled down from the top deck, sniggering. He pressed the bell, then, just before getting off, turned to us and said, 'you fuckin black bastards. why don't you fuck off home to your fucking trees, you bunch of coons?'. Honestly, those were his precise words. Hell, I'm whiter than he was. I gave the little cunt a mouthful of invective back, but shit, was I angry. I still am. Just because I was using a different language....what the fuck are such little pricks taught?