drunken creativity.

We�re off to mum�s in a bit, for (hopefully) a barbecue. The weather, typically for a bank holiday weekend, looks as though it�s going to piss down. My back is slightly sore, a result of bending over a breadboard for the last hour, making stuffed vine leaves.

Which idiot invented these bloody things?

Now, I absolutely love dolmas, but they are tiresome in the extreme to make. Just doing the rice properly takes over an hour. Then preparing the leaves, filling them, painstakingly rolling them and stacking all carefully in a pan before cooking for 45 minutes. Then they go in a flash.

The only person who could possibly have invented these was a bloke.

A very pissed bloke. Let�s face it, it�s the kind of food, like banana and marmite sandwiches, which only the terminally drunk could have invented. Picture the scene: Agamemnon, Menelaus and Odysseus get home (very late of course), tanked up on retsina and ouzo.
Agamemnon: Gods, I�m pissed!
Menelaus: What you got to eat, Odysseus mate? I�m starving!
Odysseus: Well, there�s some rice, few pine nuts, currants�that�s about it.
Agamemnon: what, no bread? What we gonna eat with that, then?
Menelaus: �ere, how about these, then eh? (waves a bunch of vine leaves at Odysseus)
Odysseus: you can�t eat them!
Agamemnon: Yes, you can � go on, I dare you!

And the rest was history.

Indeed, when you look at some of the stuff we eat � snails, oysters, sheep�s brain, Ginster�s pasties � they can only be the result of drunken bets long, long ago.

mapledurham house, still owned by the Blount family: as Mike put it, 'I wonder if they have a daughter?' 

more students: meng wen, judy (qiaodan hu),meng zhang: ke zhang, my Cambridge candidate, is taking the photo 

some of my ifp students: (l-r) roy, ming, zeng, edward 

from front, then l - r: simon, mary, chrissy and mike, colleagues 

bangor pier, 1989 

more exam shit.

Giving an exam tonight; the listening and speaking sections of the CAE. Let's see how badly they do. I am feeling severely stressed at the moment because of the sheer amount of work on my plate as well as all the money crap on the domestic front. Right now, I feel I could just walk out on everything & disappear. I am also organising a sodding outing for the students, for which I haven't had the time or, to be perfectly frank, the inclination to get really ready. Nevertheless, it shall go ahead tomorrow. whoopee.

wednesday once more..

..and halfway through. I'm wracking my brains for cunning ways to stretch the materials I've got for this afternoon's lesson. It's going to be bloody boring anyway; It's the joy of academic reading...
quote for today:
'The hail bounced off the pavement like maggots being fried in hot grease.' - from a selection of GCSE essays, sent to me by one of my students.

an old photo of mine, but a good one; this shows Glaslyn from the summit of Snowdon. 

a few things re work

I had my fortnightly programme leader meeting with the boss yesterday. I found out that, rather than being able to do the DELTA course I've been after for the past few years, I will have to do a certificate in Education, so that I comply with FENTO standards. A certificate in Education basically means that you have at least a vague idea of what a classroom is. It's just another piece of crappy bureaucracy and a waste of time, space and money. the upshot is that it probably means I won't be able to do DELTA for at least another year. Bollocks.
Student quotes for today:
'I am champion of glof.'
'As a result, it will be cause secondly to be mind unfortunately.'
If anyone can work out what the hell the last one's about, please feel free to mail/comment.

Now he's invading my dreams!

Horrible, horrible, horrible!
That's all I can say about the dream I had last night. It was all quite pleasant; I was in my garden, chilling out with a beer and relaxing with a book, when all of a sudden Mr.Chimpy fuckwit himself appeared - George W. Bush! The bastard was walking round my garden, smirking his monkey smirk. I started yelling at the twat - 'Fuck off, you wanker! Just fuck off!' - then woke up.
Now that is scary!

On a more pleasant note, I must say that I like the new photoblog option.

angus and his gran 

lets see of this photohosting works then.... 

monday yet again

...I'm not posting as often as I'd like here, but then I'm v. busy at work right now; Exams are coming, everyone's getting stressed out, and I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The money situation is atrocious. If there's anyone out there that can help me, please do so! I've somehow managed to survive on �17 this week. I am also in the throes of hayfever, which has left me feeling stuffy headed and brainless.
And the handlebars on my bicycle decided to part company from the rest of the bike. While I was riding it.
I nearly went into the bloody river.
Oh well, another great start to the week.

just recovering from a hangover

....occasioned by sitting in the garden yesterday afternoon, eating sis kofte and mezes, listening to Turkish music, and drinking a shedload of raki. And wine and beer. It was an absolutely beautiful day yesterday - not bad today either. The hawthorns overhanging the garden are in full bloom: their, to put it mildly, heady perfume overarches all the other smells. Nur wrinkled her nose when she smelt it.
'Paul, it stinks of shit out here!'
'It's just the hawthorn.'
It doesn't smell of shit at all; If anything, it smells like sex, that combination of sweat and saliva and come. Whether this is incredibly erotic or nauseating is pretty much down to how you view it.

Hmmm....Friday....

The weather's far too nice for this teaching mularkey. I'm going to escape from here as soon as bloody possible.

A day by the sea.

On May Day, the family went down to Mudeford in Dorset, with the express purpose of getting on a boat, going out to sea and tossing my grandfather over the side � or rather, gently scattering him into the English Channel. It was a piss-miserable day leaving Reading; The rain belted down, the wind alternately whispered and howled, big black clouds swaggered and bowled through the sky. Mum, Nur, Angus and I headed south in the former�s car, travelling roads I haven�t been down since I was about twelve. Past Stratfield Saye and The Jekyll and Hyde, past the octagonal house at Chineham, then through Basingstoke rapidly, where the sun decided to join us in brief intervals. We hit the M3, going almost to Southampton before turning off onto the M27, then into the New Forest, where I saw the peculiar three-storey house that always announced to me, when I was a child, that we were nearly at the beach. Finally, we arrived at Mudeford at about 10.15, where we found the rest of my family already gathered. The cloud had gathered again, and gobbets of rain fell intermittently. A small boat was ferrying people to Hengistbury Head; The younger members of the family were fishing for crabs; The car park was full of dour-looking families, penned into their vehicles by the weather. Yachts filled the bay, scudding along on the wind, sails gleaming, a busy spin of colour. A fisherman was stacking some lobster creels, and a small caf�, the type that smells of egg sandwiches, milky coffee and hot vinegar, was packed. Despite the occasion, everyone in the family seemed to be in a happy, almost festive mood. We were making fun of Gary, my cousin Lisa�s husband, because he gets violent seasickness and wouldn�t be joining us on the boat; Their two children were busy hauling crabs out of the sea, while Angus looked on; The men chatted about golf.
We got on our boat, a twin hulled open deck aluminium ferry, at about 11.00, and headed towards the open sea. The sun was struggling to get through the clouds and briefly made the wave crests shine like old pewter. A jetski roared past, and a fishing boat heading towards shore. We made jokes about throwing up or falling in the water, while I busied myself with trying to write a poem (still writing it). I have written something each time one of my relatives has died � whether they�re any good or not, only time will tell. Finally, we got a mile offshore. Law dictates that human remains may not be disposed of further towards the shore than that, apparently. The skipper cut the engines and turned the boat so that it faced the land again. He opened a gangway door, so that dad, when he let the ashes go, could be nearer the surface of the water. We all went silent. Dad got the urn and knelt carefully by the lapping water. There were no prayers.
�Right, It�s time,� said dad. �This is where Dad wanted to be, and he�d be happy to see us all here. As I pour him into the water, just keep a favourite thought of him in your head.�
He took off the lid, upended the urn. A stream of ash, a flow of what had once been bone and teeth and hair and nails and viscera and heart and brains and a loving, happy smile and glittering eyes, poured straight into the sea and down. I had a sudden feeling of the great depth and volume of the water and the swirl of dust that had been Grandad glittering and curling through it, like cream on black coffee or the arm of a galaxy against the blackness, falling and gleaming until it reached the bed. A sudden, brief wail went up from the women, an intake of breath and the sound of crying and sniffing.
�Bye, Dad.�
My father had said it almost to himself; I just about caught him saying it, and saw a few tears.
We threw flowers over the side of the boat � roses, sprays of heather � then watched in silence as the boat gently turned on the current, before the engines were cranked up again.
As if to complete the sombre moment, a seagull appeared and wheeled over the spot, then it began to rain.
It rained bloody hard. We all got sodding soaked.

Jesus is coming - look busy!

One of my students wears a black wristband with the initials �WWJD� on it. I spotted this while we were doing some listening exercises.
�What�s that?� I asked.
�It�s a wristband�, said Edward.
�Yes, I can see that, I mean what are the initials for?�
Tony piped up, smiling.
�He�s a Christian. It�s for �What Would Jesus Do?��
What would Jesus do, indeed. I had images of Him wondering through the college canteen, picking over the various articles of what is laughingly called �food� there. What would He do? Go for the ploughman�s lunch, only �2.99. That and a slush puppy. Now he�s in a language exam: What will He do? That�s right, get every answer correct, seeing as He�s omniscient! My, but he�d be an annoyingly smug bugger to teach�.
Asking, in any given situation, what Jesus would do seems to me a bit of a no-brainer, in that He would either do nothing, as stuff would just happen around Him anyway, or, to be trite, be meek and mild. Or rather, Meek and Mild. Aggressively Meek.

stupid coincidence.

I've just found out that Carl, my work colleague who sits opposite me, was at the same Marillion gig at Milton Keynes Bowl as I was back in 1986. And now we are reduced to the same miserable circumstances, working in this college.

Holy Camels!

....I found out yesterday that one of my students is the niece of no less than that new frenna freedom, Colonel Gadaffi! I mentioned this to my evening class; One of them said, 'If she's his niece, why the Hell is she coming to Reading College?'
Why, indeed.
Now, it'd be extremely funny if he ever popped in for a visit....

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

....the army's 'robust denial', that is, of Brits torturing someone. This row will probably rumble on for a while, but I think I'll have to side with the army on this one. As a photographer myself, & in particular someone who's done shots for theatre productions, I have to say that the shots are just too sharp and seem too staged, in particular the one of the soldier 'kicking'. Also, the blood doesn't look convincing at all. That's not to say that it isn't a recreation of a real incident however; It's just that the photos don't convince me. And the timing was remarkably apt...