More on my grandfather

I'm trying to fix in mind my first memory of him. I can't. It seems, to me, that he always was. I recall my sister and me staying overnight in their house, which always seemed to be freezing cold because it didn't have central heating. My granddad used to wear a wig then, which he kept on a faintly disturbing polyester bust when not using it. I remember laughing as he managed to pursuade my 3-year-old sis that it needed feeding, and she proffering a biscuit to it. Mostly, I remember sunday dinners in his house, lazy luches of roast beef and potatoes, with spotted dick (made by my nan) for dessert, followed by lazy lounging in front of the TV, while nan made huge platters of sandwiches for Tea, and Grandad would let me look through huis book collection for something interesting to read. At Christmas, the family would rent out a big, dusty ex-church that smelt of ancient, dry wood, and grandad would get dressed up as Father Christmas and hand out bulky, garish presents. Other memories will come, I'm sure: I need time to think them over.

Harold Gallantry 1922 - 2004.

My grandfather died at 2.00 this morning. It was expected: He hadn't been well for some time. I was going to visit him in hospital this afternoon. I hadn't been able to before, because I've had this stupid damn cold and my parents warned me off going in, in case I passed it on. Seems stupid now. There's a photo of him in the sidebar.

happy birthday to me...

Yay! I'm 36! Happy birthday for all you other pisceans out there...
My evening class of students insisted on taking me out last night. I've pasted a couple of pics below. The darlings bought me a bottle of Tekirdag Raki, the best you can get!

Things to give up for lent.

Here's a list of things to possibly give up for 40 days.
1) Chocolate - boring!
2) Alcohol - is this possible?
3) Walking
4) Sarcasm
5) The ghost
6) Hope
7) Biting nails
8) Impure thoughts
9) Pure thoughts
10) Being awake
11) Wearing black
12) Smiting mightily
13) Wailing and gnashing teeth
14) Listening to 2-10 fm, the sound for Berkshire and North Hampshire!!!

Oh Joy. Now for an afternoon of intermediate English....lovely people, but a bit on the dim side. I think I'd have a greater degree of success with them if I took a basket of puppies in with me. And tea and cake.

still hanging in there

I very nearly had a fag last night. I even had a pack in my pocket, but I managed - just - to prevent myself. I focused on the idea of the illusion - smoking is a kind of lie, the sense of satisfaction after a puff is a kind of lie, the craving is just another lie - and thought of the currently rather abstract advantages instead - lower heart rate, prolonged life, cleaner hair and skin etc etc. It kind of worked.

I am sorely tempted...

..to have a cigarette, now that Nur's back, trailing a carton of fags in her wake. It wasn't so hard while she was away, as there was no smoking paraphanalia in the house, and I couldn't easily slip out for a pack as I was looking after Angus. Now, though, it's much more difficult. I keep telling myself that smoking and craving a smoke are mere illusions, the bodily equivalent of someone seeing a mirage in a desert. Still hard to prevent myself crawling towards wadi-al-ciggy, though.

a rough draft

just a quick piece of poetry - more just an image really, needs tidying up. It was just seeing my son asleep about an hour ago.

He has finally found sleep.
I peer round the door, see
His form quiet,
And, as ever, his duvet
Kicked to the end of the bed.
In sleep, his legs are crooked, one arm
Is flung behind him, the other
Raised to his face,
A frozen sprinter
In a dream of a race.
I walk towards him,
And gently cover his form,
Gently plant the laurels of a kiss
On his brow.
Race on, son, race on:
Past the sun, past the stars,
Outstrip the North Wind,
Skirt some distant galaxy
Then let the sun tug you homewards
That you may tell me the story of your race
As dawn broadens the world.
16-2-04

I miss you.

You are how many miles away from me now, Nur? 1,500? 2,000? Well, you�ll be back on Wednesday. I miss you though. I can always look towards the place that you are, and let my mind seek a way towards you. So, I look east-south-east, about 118 degrees on the compass. I send my eye through my bedside bookcase, between the Alexander Text edition of Shakespeare (a 1986 edition) and the Lysistrata of Aristophanes. My eye goes though the wall, past the pine tree and over the owl sanctuary next door. I travel down our valley, where the slightest noise is echoed back and forth by the trees, where foxes yowl at night. I gather these images, these sounds, the warm scent of the earth lazily uncoiling from its winter bed, to bring to you. I dash down the road now, my speed increasing. I leap over Balmore and see the bare lights of my home town, then leave them behind, mere embers. Now I am flying, flying, flying, crossing Berkshire, then Surrey, then into Sussex. Now I leap into the Channel at Hastings and wade over to France. I bound over the Alps, skirt Switzerland and Italy. Next, I glide across the Adriatic, then float silently above Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, looking down into a darkness broken only by a few lights here and there. Bulgaria comes, and I hear only a few voices from below, the sound of a car on a late night road, a horse calling in a field. But now I can see but destination: Trakya, ancient Thrace, and then Istanbul. I glide over Edirne, then follow the contours of the Marmara, watching fishing boats tilt, rise, tilt, fall, tilt again and again as the gentle waves carry them. Nearing my goal, I see that the land is cold beneath me: You have had much ice and snow this week. There are more and more ships below me, all coming to congregate where Aya Sofya, the greatest building on Earth, guards the passageway to the Bosphoros. Then, there She is, The City, blaring light skywards, its wondrous towers, its secret roads, its joy and its sorrow, its wildness and augustness. Now I turn, I dive and land in some dark road and search for you from door to door, alleyway by alleyway, until finally I find you in an apartment. You are worn out, you are sleeping: And in your sleep, I plant a kiss on your lips, I lay a rose in your heart, and I whisper all that I have seen as I journeyed toward you. Then I quietly, tenderly close the door, look towards the sky, and find myself back here, writing this. Yet still, my heart stays next to yours.
I�ll see you on Wednesday evening, darling.

Of course!

What Famous Leader Are You?

Wherever you go, whatever you do, it's nice to know that some things remain the same...

...Just read my mate Marcus' account of a day at his school in Korea....plus ca change etc...as a riposte, here's a link back to a typical day in Istanbul...the numbers in the text refer to the tracks on a compilation CD.

Bloody sodding cars, grumble, grumble...

Having had sole use of the car for the last fortnight makes me glad that I generally cycle to work. Firstly, it keeps me fit and my stomach within the circulference of my jeans; Second, it's faster for me to cycle - it takes me a maximum of fifteen minutes, whereas a car journey can be up to an hour; Finally, I never have a problem with parking with a bike. Several months ago, the college began issuing parking permits, solemnly warning that those without permits would be clamped. As is normal with this place, there are millions of cars without permits clogging the sodding car parks up, and noone has done a thing about it. Grumble, grumble, growl, growl......

I talked with Nur on the phone last night. She sounded distant and hollow, probably because she was on tranquilizers. Her mum is in a bad way. I suspect that the end isn't far off now. Nur is due to come back on sunday, but I suspect she may stay out there longer. Angus and I are doing ok, anyway.

A snatched piece of a conversation.

In a lift: 'Why walk, when you can use the lift?', wheezed the incredibly fat woman as she squeezed through the elevator doors and waddled slowly down the corridor, great folds of fat concealing her elbows. A living answer to her own question, I think.

stupid joke.

Have you seen David Blunkett's new girlfriend?

Neither has he.


note: David Blunkett, for those not in the know of British politics, is the Home Secretary, responsible for homeland affairs. a former socialist, he is now regarded as being just to the right of Genghis Khan. He is also blind.

God, I really don't want to teach this afternoon, or this evening for that matter. Still, plough on I must.

For my readership in the far East: Have you noticed how tiny Chinese, Japanese and Korean hand gestures are? When they wave a hand in greeting, the hand waves, but not too much, from the wrist, while the arm remains at an almost parallel line with the body: When they clap, the elbows remain firmly in place at the sides, while the hands do precise little flapping motions. Graceful or just self-control?

Hungover.

....and on white wine too. I was up way too late, listening to old CDs and reading through ancient diary entries again. I got really annoyed with my 25-year old self; One entry contained references to reading a book, but I hadn't mentioned exactly which book it was. What a daft oversight. Judging from the time and place (February 1994, Izmir), I suspect the book was either Grave's I, Claudius or a dreadful read by some pretentious EFL teacher in Saudi, the name of which was Sucking Sherbert Lemons.

Too late, too tired.

I feel knackered. This is the first chance I've had to sit down since 6.30 this morning, the first opportunity to be by myself and try to listen only to my own voice, to see what it may say.

There is still so, so much to be said.

I feel time withering behind me, a spark of fire on a fine yarrow stalk, which twists and blackens as the hungry orange rushes its length, leaving nothing but a fine grey ash to be scattered by the wind; I feel myself as a never-seen cavern in the chalk country that is my home, filled with calcified water from the winter rains, longing for light to burst in that the water in me may rush out, that I may stare gasping into day, finally empty; I feel like the sullen impatience of the red kite, lashed to its roost by a dull day of hard wind and cold gobbets of naily rain, desiring nothing more than to raise its russet wings like a banner against the sky, and sail the wind, an omen to scryers; I see a trail of lost opportunities behind me like goods flung from the back of a boat in stormy seas, the occupant not noticing his loss until he arrives at his destination and his cargo, he finds, is gone.

There is still so, so much to be said.

Always beware of the English Course you choose....

An advertisement for a course....
SNAKE HEAD ENGRISH
Unit 5, Block 12, Shaolin Road, Fujian Province, PRC
�HEY YOU! YEAH, YOU NEW GENEERATION! COME ON, DREAM IN ENGLISH ON ENGLAND!�

Coarse detail for that week:
Monday: PAY DAY: You pay $20,000, we get you to ENGLAND!!!! Then you pay more. Or, we torture you granny. You arrive in UK in back of led roll�rel loll�big truck and go straight to wonder home: converted freight container!! You share with only 42 other!!! 1th lesson: Vocabulary: Theme: �Cutting vegetables in farm�

Tuesday: Glammer! 1st conditional: �If you no work 24 hour day, seven day week, shining Samsung miclowave, we will tear you pet budgie head off!

Wednedsday: Social Engrish: Getting a National Insurance number. We give you one, then you sign contract promising you work for next ten year. Or we burn you house to ground.

Thuday: Visit to factory!! Depart 4.30 a.m. Bring own lunch. We take you in special no-window white van. You stay in factory, learn great ever day English, as, �Oi you! Pick that up!�, �I think �1 is fair wages for a twelve-hour day�, �No, it doesn�t hurt, I can carry on working, look, I�ve put it back in the socket�. Stay in factory until 12.00 o�clock p.m. midnight!! You work! Or we get Ming Dynasty on you parents!

Fliday: OUTING and CULTURE STUDIES: go swimming and cockle picking in loverly MORECAMBE BAY!!! Note: you must pick 300 bags cockles or we shoot you family!!!!!

SNAKEHEAD ENGRISH ! YEAH! YOU HAVE GREAT FUNNY TIME AND ENTERTAINING! BECAUSE, WE GREAT ENJOYMENT MAKE! OR YOU DIE!!!
OK, so perhaps it's in poor taste, considering what happened to those poor guys on Morecambe Bay, but it's nothing compared to the parasitic arrogant pondlife that engineered the tragedy.

Ah, the weekend...

Four days on the trot, seventeen smokeless days this year. Savings: �40.80

It has been brought to my attention that entries in this blog make me sound like an utterly miserable git. Well, I do have some justification for that, of course, but I will strive to let the sunny side of my disposition shine through. Rather than the cynical, sneering and satirical bastard that all my friends know and love.

Thursday. Hmmm.

Third day in a row without a cigarette, a total of sixteen smokeless days in 2004 so far. savings so far: �38.40

Am only having slight cravings, and when they do appear, I go off and do something until they bugger off. I'm having a pretty tedious, albeit productive, time of it at the moment. I mean productive in the sense of getting some decent lesson planning going and being (or trying to be) proactive in sorting out my financial situation. Just organising the paperwork has been useful. Now, if I could get my backside round to doing some real creative work, I'd be happy.

I haven't been getting to bed till 1.30/2.00 the last few days, a result of which is my feeling and looking pretty crap. Despite my tiredness, I find it difficult to get to sleep. I've spent far too long instead netsurfing. Chat rooms are strange *places*: I can't see the point, really, unless they're on a fairly specialised topic. Most of the conversations are inane to the point of catatonia. One chatroom I visited purported to be for university/college lecturers: For some strange reason, I became involved in a conversation with a woman whose boyfriend had apparently become wedged solid inside his pet dog whilst buggering it. Well, it brightened up an otherwise dull evening, I suppose.

Right, time to give up. Now.

I'm going to take the opportunity of Nur's absence to give up smoking. It's high time I did: I've smoked since I was sixteen, nearly twenty years ago. Jesus! where did that time go??? This means I will have to take up another activity to displace any craving. It can't be eating - I don't want to get a like a fat git! Any suggestions out there?

The fact of the matter is that, in order to rid myself of one bad habit, I must also rid myself of others. Detrimental routines seem to compound each other with me, linking into my sense of self-esteem (or lack of it). For example: I go to the pub at the end of the day because I'm feeling down about something. I have a pint. I smoke because I've always smoked when I drink. I drink more because I'm smoking, and my throat gets dry. I smoke more, then I lurch over to the fruit machine and drunkenly lob some money in it, which I promptly lose. This makes me feel lower, so I drink more beer, run out of money, go to the cashpoint, drink, smoke and gamble more, then suddenly wake up in the morning, feeling miserable because I don't have money. This pondering distracts me from getting on with my job, which makes me feel low, which in turn leads to the pub......

I can't just give up smoking: I have to reeducate myself in drinking. Since university, I have been quite a heavy drinker. Never an alcoholic, fortunately, but that's only because there's some tiny bit of me with a sense of self-preservation. But I will drink until I feel fairly pissed, which is not good.