Of pyramids and Shakespeare

I was watching an interesting bit on BBC News earlier on, about a new exhibit at the British Museum . It's a 3D representation of a complete Egyptian mummy that underwent a CAT scan, so the archaeologists didn't have to undo the thing to peek inside. I have an abiding fascination with old things, so it'll be an exhibit I'll see next time I'm in the Smoke. One 'curious feature' discovered was a strange serpentine figure on the skull. As the newsreader chirpily put it, 'Stargate fans, take note!'
Another thing I love is science fiction, so you can imagine that I love Stargate. It is total rubbish, but it makes perfect sunday afternoon viewing, post lunch: Being slightly pissed on a decent bottle of red wine, whilst watching some guys running around pyramids. With spaceships and explosions. Bliss. (And you get Time Team afterwards as well). OK, OK, it is rather sad, butb there you go. We all need something to do on a sunday afternoon...
As I said, Stargate is enjoyable, but absolute tosh. The pyramids were not built with alien technology, the Egyptians did not have access to strange devices, forgotten Ancient Knowledge, or stargates. They did have access to rock, mud, primitive cranes, a decent knowledge of geometric principles and architecture, slaves and whips. That was enough to build the pyramids. But of course, many people don't want to believe that. And why?
For the same reason that some people don't want to believe that Shakespeare wrote his plays. Last week saw the 400th anniversary of the death of Edward de Vere, a nob who some say was the real author of such plays as Hamlet, King Lear, and Henry V. Oh, and The Tempest, which was written after 1604. Hmmm...Likewise, some say that Francis Bacon wrote them, or Ben Jonson. Anyone but Shakespeare.
And why?
Because it isn't romantic enough. According to these people, the Egyptians can't have built the pyramids because they're, well, the pyramids. Shakespeare can't have written the plays because they're, um, his plays. That someone can create something staggering, an artifice or a piece of literature in a way that has never been done before, seems incredulous to such people, and people who don't want to credit the evidence of their own eyes tend to be credulous, and grasp at any passing straw instead. So, in their opinion, the pyramids must have had alien intervention because of their size and alignment to certain stars. The plays must have been written by a nobleman, because lords and such were erudite and well-travelled, unlike lowly Stratford schoolmasters.
What they forget are two things: First, that even the most ordinary of us, by putting our minds to what we really want, are capable of achieving the apparently miraculous; and second, that others have what they have in abundance, namely an imagination.

Thwarted.

A great word, that. Try getting students to pronounce it, and get ready to run from the incoming phlegm tide...
...but it describes yesterday quite well. I had intended, it being sunday and having just been paid, to spend the afternoon and evening in the garden, doing nothing but languish in the sun, eat mezes and barbecued things, and drink glass after glass of milk white, ice-cold raki, while chatting and laughing with my wife, and not worrying about a thing for a few blissful hours.
Fat Fucking Chance.
It pissed down all afternoon; Nur got up, then went out for FOUR HOURS, leaving me stuck at home, then spent the rest of the day, first gardening, then watching a video! All whilst my son was becoming increasingly bored and restful and kicking up a stink. And then, just to wrap it up, she began going on about our money problems at 10 o'clock in the evening after I'd dosed myself up on raki! I couldn't take it; I just decided to go upstairs and curl up into a ball, and sleep the righteous sleep of the distilled-grape-and anise blessed.
...and was promptly disturbed by screeching, yelling and fighting from some arseholes on the street at about 2 in the morning. I drifted into a vague sleep afterwards, only to dream vividly about places in my own dream 'metaworld'. These are places that I frequently visit in the night, and to which I ascribe symbolic ideas, moods, worries etc. Last night, I was in the City of Antiquities, a dusty and morose place somewhere hot. I was walking up and down a marble paved street, looking up to a museum with a gaping roof and large windows, stuffed with busts and statues, and opposite was a small, rock cut tomb (empty), reminiscent of a Lycian grave. I was thinking of stealing one of the statues, though God knows why. Later, the dream faded, and I was in a busy city street, first going through a series of deserted underground shops, then upwards through narrow alleys. Then I realised I was dreaming, and decided to try to fly. I only got a couple of feet off the ground, and caught sight of myself in a mirror (arms outstretched, a small pair of white wings flapping lazily) before I woke up.

I can't hear a f*****g thing...

What can I say?
Alright, we were robbed of the goal at the end of full time, but I can just about accept that.
England looked increasingly tired and lacklustre, and seemed to lack focus after Rooney left. That too is understandable.
Portugal played a great game. Good for them.
What I do not understand is this...

Which idiot thought it would be a good idea to let David Bowie referee the game?

What next? Sting (with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams on the sidelines) in the semis? Jarvis Cocker for the final?

The kind of day at work that I like - one where I don't have to teach anyone, but can indulge in creating wierd and wacky new materials to use in class. Who the bloody hell am I kidding? 'Wierd and wacky', indeed. By and large, Materials for ESL students are worthy, uncontroversial and dull. One of my profession's Prime Directives is, 'Don't Panic/Offend/In any way Enrage/Engage the interest of the Punter', so it means that sex, drugs and politics are off the menu. What the Hell else is there to talk about? I'd just love to do a vocabulary lesson based around a good ol' saturday night out in the UK. Let's see, which lexical items could we use?....
To drop a tab
Score some drugs/E's/Dope etc (well, you should cover all possible collocations)
Blingin' and Bling bling
To get arseholed
To get jiggy
and so forth, and so on.
What I have actually done is design a course for the summer school programme, for which I now have to book a series of outings, and design an interview protocol to follow up on students' research assignments.
What Fun.
The football - well, what can you say? Good, but it would have been better to have been down the pub watching it rather than stuck at home. More than made up for, however, by the presence of a bottle of raki, from which I had a few glasses accompanied by some beyaz peynir, haydari, salata, ekmek, kofte ve bulgur pilavi. Yum!

Another glorious monday morning - and now the days will slowly but surely start to draw in once more.....there, that's made you feel happy and optimistic, hasn't it?
I don't know particularly why, but I don't have the incentive at present to write on a computer; I feel more like scrawling in a notepad, chucking out demented cartoons of whatnot and thingummyjigs. Hence I must needs force myself to write something, anything in order to keep me going.
We had a delighful workshop with Bradley Lightbody of Quiet Associates last week, on the joys of keeping a Scheme of Work for our respective classes. Myself and other teachers from my department took delight into laying into his absolute, over-idealised guff. Balls to it all! I spent virtually all of last week doing fatuous paperwork or someone else's job, rather than what I'm paid to do.
Saturday, and in the college again, for the FCE and CAE speaking exams, which went pretty well. Came back home, and Wife and I decided to crack open the bottle of champagne that's been languishing in the fridge for months. Nice. Then we got quite merrily pissed up yesterday round at my mum's.

bored and tired.

I had a tedious, tiresome day yesterday, and it looks like being pretty much a rerun today. Bluhh.

yes i said yes.

Man gets up, has breakfast, has a dump, goes out, wanders round a bit, goes to a funeral, pops into work, has lunch, pootles round all afternoon, has a wank on a beach, gets pissed, staggers into a whorehouse, has the late night munchies, goes home, pisses in the garden, kisses his wife's arse.

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY!

I should be working...

...but I can't be arsed right now, so I'll do an entry instead. Despite it being exams week, I can't help but feel that this is a time to relax, as I don't have to fret and fume over making lesson plans for now. Instead, I have the joy of paperwork to deal with: Preparations for the summer school prog, a 22-page course review and targets overhaul, marking a load of largely plagiarised asignments from my academic English course and tying up any loose ends from the classes that finished last week. And it is bloody boiling in my staffroom.
I felt in a grim mood for most of the weekend, partly due to my hayfever, mostly because of my ongoing money problems - which found me without any money in the bank at all, and none until June 25th. Basically, it means we're going to starve next week.
I took out my despair, anger and aggression on a long, hard bike ride. I cycled down the Thames Path as far as Hambleden Lock, dragging my bike over stile and fence, thumping over root and pothole, then up towards Aston, onto a footpath at Remenham Hill, back down to Henley, then home via Harpsden, Binfield Heath, Dunsden and Emmer Green. Turning off from Hambleden Lock, I came into a meadow covered in wild poppies, a tide of red nodding in the breeze; On the footpath at Remenham Hill, I walked through a weird forest of pines, where fine, dead branches reached almost to the ground, and the light was a subdued sepia; Further on, I stood in a hilltop field, looking down onto a broad sweep of the Thames Valley towards the Chilterns, and saw a red kite circling lazily, and heard the cuck-cuck-cuck of a pheasant.
And having seen all this, it came to me that there are harder things and worse things than my current predicament, and that I live in a glorious, beautiful place.

of dogs and water coolers....

Last night was, er, the last night for the evening classes, and so a good excuse to skive off the lesson and head for the pub, the Fisherman's Cottage. A gaggle of students, two of my colleagues and I went there and sat out in the garden over beer. We were trying to have a civilised conversation; Unfortunately, the pub's dog put paid to that. It's a mangy, one-eyed pit-bull cross, and it had a friend come to visit - another pit bull cross. They were obviously happy to see each other, as they took turns to bugger each other all round the garden for half an hour. It was rather disconcerting to try and understand what a student was saying whilst being distracted by a humping dog.

We had a meeting, as usual, this morning. One of my fellow teachers, Kathryn, who's only just returned from maternity leave, had a bit of a cough, so left the room to get some water. Quite reasonably, being staff, she went to the nearest staffroom to get a cup. Quite normally, this being Reading College, the people in the staffroom wouldn't let her have any, because 'you work for a different department'. Kathryn insisted, and finally the woman guarding the watercooler opened a cupboard, got out a plastic cup and filled it halfway, then grudingly gave it to her. And then waited for her to give the cup back.
As Kath said later, 'I'm so glad to return and find some things never change...'

bloody arses.

...I tell my academic English class to bring in their country comparison assignments so I can check them before they are handed in, and what happens? 'Oh, it's stuck in computer'.'I've done it, it doesn't need checking'. 'I forgot'. 'The dog's eaten it'. Oh well, they'll be sorry when I start handing out big fat zeroes.
One guy brought his. The introduction is cetainly dramatic, and full of amazing news: 'Two days ago, Mussolini was captured and shot by Italian partisans...'

Blimey.

Egad, it's hot

It is far too warm to be teaching this afternoon. Instead, I shall show a video to my students, and whisper 'sleep...sleep' into their ears until they succumb. In all honesty, I have nothing else to do with them; They've taken their exams, and I just have today and tomorrow with this particular class. Likewise my evening group - 2 more classes, then exam time. At least with them, I can go to the pub.
Spent the early part of the morning fiddling with my telescope, trying to view the transit of Venus. Managed to get a decent view of what appeared to be a small mole on an arse cheek.

crikey!

Someone I was at university with was in the Guardian's weekend supplement!It was an article about up-and-coming poets, and it took me two read throughs of the article to remember Deryn Rees-Jones; She read English at the same time as me, and as far as I can recall, was quiet and highly industrious and ended up with a First. I don't think I could have talked to her more than a couple of times, busy as I was living a life of boozed-up, party-lovin' Bohemianism.

Bad news over at Marcus' blog: He's been sacked by his Nazi Employers. My thoughts go out to you and Dao, mate.

Despite drugging myself up, hayfever is still making life horrible. Everything inside my head is itching and I feel like I'm looking at the world through cotton wool.

TV

Just a couple of random thoughts on television.
First, breakfast telly, the weather forecast, and the eternal sunlight that is the mind of Carol Kirkwood, the Scots presenter.
'Goooooooooooood Morning!! And it's absoluutely GORGEOUS today!!!!!'
You can actually hear the exclamation marks. Just how on earth does she manage to sound so bloody upbeat so early in the morning? It doesn't matter if it's blowing a gale with added snow - she's always insanely happy. She's probably been injected with caffeine and ecstacy before the show goes out. Just for once, it'd be nice to hear her say something along the lines of, 'Morning. Isn't it fucking shit weather today? I'm off for a fag.'

Next, Big Brother. I have watched only a couple of episodes of this so far, but I don't feel particularly tempted to watch more. It's ghastly in the same way that an impending accident is. C4 have clearly rounded up the biggest bunch of morons they could find. So far, it's just a group of people shouting at each other. None of them would recognise a cogent argument even if it coshed them viciously over the head.
And which preening idiot's idea was it to let Kitten in there? I know that editing does distort a person's character on reality shows, but so far Kitten appears to be badly in need of counselling; everything she does seems to be screaming 'HELP!!!!' Just calling herself 'Kitten' is sad enough.

Now what would be good would be to let Kitten take over Carol's job, and Carol to be slung into the BB house.

.

I feel dreary and miserable, partly because of my hayfever, which has flared intensely this year, partly from a sense of ennui engendered by staring at the pile of work on my desk that's demanding to be done, and partly from my terrible financial situation. Having money would be a nice thing; I don't mean much, just enough not to get freaked out about bills and worrying if the phone's going to get cut off, or be able to buy something nice for my wife and son, or even go out to the cinema or a restaurant now and then. That's all.

I veer between an extreme interest in doing my job well, and not caring about it at all.
Oh sod it, I'm just in need of a good moan right now.