Pinata!

so much to write, so little time, so it seems, so it is. Like so many other people, I am not entirely in control of my time management, and so I allow little jobs to slide until they end up as one colossal bloody mountain of sodding little jobs, and there's me at the base wondering what to do. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of my friend Marcus' book, or rather blog: The enlightened path may not lay at the top of the mound, but rather by walking round the side of it. Hopefully with a nice cup of tea to hand.
I find myself bogged down at present, having to juggle the various needs and desires of not only myself but also others. Sometimes it is frustrating: However, it is my life as it is. I'm well aware that I don't earn enough money, and that doing my Dip is the only current way forward, yet I still wonder whether I am on the right path, and whether I should be moving into something else. I want to study, I want to write, yet I seem to not have enough time for either.Perhaps I should walk around the mountain.
On a different topic, I've had quite a few reactions to the whole Jesus Pinata thing. Most agree with what I said at the end of the post, ie a sick stupid idea, yet it later struck me that theologically speaking it was actually appropriate, as long as it was done on Good Friday. The act of striking a Jesus Pinata until it breaks (spilling communion wafers and wine?) would be hugely symbolic of the mockery, abuse and pain heaped upon Christ in his final few hours, and therefore apt. I formed this opinion while watching BBC/HBO's hugely impressive 'The Passion', which didn't shirk from showing what a miserable, vile and humiliating death crucifixtion was, while not lingering on the thing with the sadistic pleasure evinced by Mel Gibson's film. However, the actor playing Jesus looked a bit too much like Ben Fogle with a beard to be entirely convincing.

Easter

..and chocolate and bunnies. Yum. I was discussing it rather flippantly with a colleague the other day, and wondered why we didn't have any lo-calorie chocolate Jesuses. They'd go down a treat. And what about a Jesus Pinata? All the kids could dress up as roman soldiers and poke it with spears.
Yes, I know, deeply sick.

Dear fellow cyclist...

,yes I think you know who you are, and I hope you're reading. You overtook me on Hemdean road this morning, almost pushing me into the kerb, and disregarding your own safety vis a vis the car directly behind you. There you were, you hero, straining against the wind, your work suit bulging against your paunch and the hi-vis, expensive yellow cycling jacket; you wobbled under the weight of your pricey cycling rucksack and your head bowed under your pricey cycling helmet; And yes, you overtook me,regardless of anyone's safety, least of all your own, you hero, you. Well, the wind was against us, and just for a bit of sport, I thought I'd catch you up and see if I could beat you to the end of the road. And I did, didn't I? However, you didn't like that, did you?It showed you up on your pricey bike and pricey clothes and pricey kit, you hero. So, when I cycled onto Church street, you came racing behind, regardless of the car bearing down on you, hero, its horn blaring. I guess your piggy little eyes were bulging with fury behind your pricey little glasses. And of course, when I reached the mini roundabout, I indicated right, as I always do, but it's a good job I checked behind me, as I always do before I turned right, because I saw you just about to barrel into me in your yearning to get past me, regardless of the car about to turn into your path, you hero. So I hope you're reading this:
YOU ARE A TOTAL FUCKING TOOL, AND IT'S NO WONDER PEOPLE GET PISSED OFF WITH CYCLISTS WHILE ARSEHOLES LIKE YOU ARE AROUND.
Thank you.

the last post was horribly pessimistic. Blame it on reading too much James Lovelock, watching the news unfold about price increases, the threat of recession, and being 40.

Do you know what you're doing?

No, really. Do you really, truly know and understand exactly what you're doing and why? Or is your life just little pockets of control, pushed and whipped around by great storms of total bloody chaos? Now there's a question that I'd like to see a politician answer with a straight face and an honest heart. The fact of the matter is, very few people really know what they're up to. The rest of us just try to control what we can, and are at the mercy of the shitstorm that is life. We might delude ourselves that we're in control, that we are masters of our destiny, but by and large that's bollocks. Yes, we might have the luxury of choosing where we live and what jobs we do: Yes, we have the freedom to have leisure time, go on holiday, buy what we want: But it is controlled choice, limited freedom. The slightest thing could send our lives spiralling out of control.
And of course, we expect those in charge to be able to control things in order to make our own lives easier, to give us a little less to be concerned about. What we neglect, or even choose to ignore, is that these are people just like us, not some race of ubermensch. And as such, they are prone to the faults and follies, mistakes, prevarications and lies that we all are. And these are the people I'd like to grab gently by the throat, stare into their eyes, and ask the question at the top of the page until I see fear gathering in their faces.

quote of the day.

From my son, Angus:
'Dad, you and mum aren't friends, you're husband and wife!'

Old fartdom beckoning?

well, my hair hasn't fallen out overnight, nor my teeth. The Beige Gene - the one that makes you start thinking, 'actually, beige is nice' - hasn't kicked in. I haven't developed a predilection for jackets with leather patches or slippers in a plaid pattern, nor have I developed a yearning for a sports car, golf, or polo-necked sweaters in a diamond pattern. In fact, it's all pretty normal so far.
Happy 40th birthday, me.

marinading.

Home remedies can be a wonderful thing, inasmuch as they show the triumph of hope over cruel reality. For example, my wife has been applying a mixture of almond oil, olive oil, garlic and onions to my head for the past few weeks, because, apparently, it will strengthen my hair, make it more lustrous, and aid new hair growth. I have gone along with this, even though I'm sceptical. I'm being made even more sceptical by the fact that my head smells like a garlicky marinade, and has done for several days despite regular washing. And why all this? well, it's because I'm losing my hair by degrees, and my wife wants to help me keep as much of it as possible, as long as possible, and as coloured as possible, even if it means having to smell like something you'd smear over a leg of lamb and leave in the fridge overnight. It doesn't matter if I go on about telomeres, genetic inheritance, the loss of melanin, the gradually increasing friability of hair once the cell begins to die - 'try this, it'll help'. And because I'm a bit on the vain side, I go along with it, even though I know that it won't work. I don't think I'm alone in this. Having to face up to the, er, bare fact of the balding process is one of those things most men have to go through - the knowledge that one's youth is passing and gone, stupid evanescent thing. Yet still we try to avoid it for as long as possible. It's not that my hair loss is that bad: compared to my dad and grandfather, I actually still have hair, and it's mostly the original colour: No, it's the fact that it is ongoing.
The situation bears a similarity with the inevitable fact of death, the occurence of one's own, that is. The only consolation of my demise will be that I won't smell of onions. Hopefully.

A few more pics

These are from 1987 (21 years ago! How is that possible? there are people at my uni now on the verge of graduating who weren't even born when I first started boozing it up there), taken in the Mandela Bar and outside one of the entrances to the Main building. the former are of Michelle Shocked, a folk and protest singer of the time, and still among the very best gigs I have ever been to, and the latter of a very bored John Webb picketing the massed hordes of students trying to get to a 9.30 lecture. These pictures are all very typical of their time.

back in the saddle

I finally got back in the saddle today, after seven weeks. My arm's now feeling a bit sore for it, but it was good to ride again, even when I had a sudden wobble and thought I was about to go over again. I took it easy, riding by the river to work and giving myself half an hour for what would normally be a 15-20 minute journey across town. Whether I'll do it again tomorrow remains to be seen.
The feeling of mellowness engendered by the gentle release of endorphins into my bloodstream due to exercise was then completely buggered over by the discovery that my external HDD had been nuked my the computer in the classroom. I arrived home, plugged it in, and found it wouldn't work - 'the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable'. This is a bit of a bugger, as I haven't got a backup of it. Cue grinding of teeth, attempted hacking, a brief interlude to smack my head against a wall, then downloading of a file recovery program, which is now running oh-so-slowly on the main tower. I just hope I can save my info.
Nevertheless, even if it is lost, I'll be able to recover the majority of it from here and there, I think, and build it slowly back up again, datum by datum. After all, it's just another way of getting back in one's saddle, of taking control again, getting back in the (not always) right direction.

Nothing.

A somewhat hectic day halfway done....I've had to cover someone's group this morning, and now I've got four solid hours' of teaching to go. Whoopy-do. I'm also not really in a mood to scrawl anything, but feel I should make a more concerted effort than I have been doing recently. Anyway, I have three minutes before the start of my lesson, so I thought I'd take a leaf out of mys sister's blog and write frantically and not necessarily accurately over the space of a couple of minutes.
So, er, what should I write? well, there's the usual domestic stuff and, in exciting news, I put up a load of shelves yesterday. My arm continues its progress back to health, although I still can't bend it completely and the bicep looks distinctly wimpy compared to my other arm. Right, that's three minutes and nothing written - bye!

3 lives lived.

Pepys said that a diarist lives three times: once when he lives it, again as he writes it down, then once more as he looks back at his work, many years after. Of course, it should be noted that in fact he is living three different lives, in a way: the life as it lived, the life as it is recalled and seen through the glasses of reflection and opinion, and the life as it is recalled and (mis-) remembered.
Something similar happens with photos. Certainly, I'm experienced the third life currently, as I am digitising the thousands of negatives I have hoarded away from my university years and later. I recall, as photography editor for the student magazine, thinking I was a pretty damn good shot with a camera, and looking at the results once they were back from the developer ( a tiny specialist photo shop in the wrong end of Bangor High Street), that what I'd taken were damn good pics.
It is only with the hindsight of many years that I can see how crap a lot of them were. underexposure, overexposure, fogging, out-of-focus crap, pretentious, sub-Athena poster posed stuff - all there. But amidst the dross, jewels: a wonderful set of pics from a Michelle Shocked gig; a lovely shot of someone looking out, byond the frame, onto what I recall was a garden full of snow; shots of friends from the 92 Reading festival; and more.
It's going to take me absolutely ages to trawl through and sift out the best shots, and I'll be putting some of the best on here. Here's a few to be going on with, including one of my most favourite shots ever, Cara Greczyn looking distinctly annoyed while holding a water pistol.

My arm makes steady progress towards normality, but getting it moving again has been like trying to relearn the grammar of another language, one that I should be familiar with, but I can only wield partially. I'm discovering the bend and flex of each muscle and sinew, the turn of the radius as it slides past the ulna, a pair of dancers locked in a limited waltz. I find that by pushing each part just a little more each day, the whole of the arm seems to be coming slowly back to life and lithe. Who'd have thought it would be so difficult to blow one's nose, when you can't get one hand close enough? Or how uncomfortable it is to sleep when you cannot tuck your arm into a supine position?

Wrath and judgement.

'You seem very angry about things,' said my mate at Christmas. 'You know, it's counterproductive, and reserving your anger like this...'
'and being so..so generalising,' chipped in his wife.
'..it doesn't help you.'
I may have come across as a bit annoyed: after all, I'd just narrowly avoided having had my head crushed under the wheels of one big Anxious Mummy Child Carrying Juggernaut, shortly after coming off my bike and suffering a radial head fracture thanks to the AMCCJ braking suddenly in front of me. However, it was my usual joking rant, the use of apparent anger for humour's sake, my way of winding down. Unfortunately, it seems to have come across as the real thing. The question is: Am I really governed by anger, and do I generalise?
I have to ask this question, simply because the positing of the idea by another requires me to see whether it is true. On the charge of anger, I am afraid to say that there is some truth in the matter: On the latter, I absolutely refute it. I do not generalise, except for humour's sake. OK, I've written on here about my dislike of Audi, Volvo and BMW drivers, but I hope that it's fairly obvious that I'm writing with my tongue at least partially in my cheek. Generalisations are the refuge of those who are too lazy to think. While people tend to behave in broadly similar ways - for example, in my experience as a cyclist, Audi drivers behave as though the roads belong to them - nevertheless, we are all individuals with our own definitions of normal, and our own eccentricities, foibles and madnesses. I am well aware of this, and so seek to avoid making vapid, broad assumptions of others. Apart from being lazy thinking, it is also dangerous: how easy the fall from generalising to stereotyping to labelling to accusing.
On the point about anger: well, yes. I have my moments, I can't deny that. Indeed, many of the stupid things I have done in my life have been fuelled by a moment, or moments, of anger and irritation. Anger can be constructive, though, if it is directed and leads to positive change. Unfortunately, mine tends to be aimed at myself, whenever it is directed. Yet this, too, is something I am aware of, and something that I strive to change.

Back to basics. And Raki

A different week and better health. The fluey thing lifted faster than I hoped, and the visit to the Fracture Clinic went well: The consultant said to take off the sling and exercise my arm, although, because of the nature of the break, I may never be able to hold it completely straight again.

Anyway, several things have conspired to remind me of the original purpose of this blog, which was to talk about raki, recipes, booze, food, politics, and the odd rant. And raki. Also, a comment on Marcus' blog about the simplicity required to follow the teachings of the Buddha, and an article about mindfulness, got my attention. So, what I am trying to do is a) get this blog back something more direct and b) ensure I write it regularly and mindfully. At least, I think that's the idea.

So, what could be more back to basics than this?
Take two glasses, tall and narrow and preferably taken from the fridge. Take a jug of chilled spring water, a bucket of ice, and then a bottle of raki, preferably cold, preferably Tekirdag. Pour a generous measure of raki into one glass: Add ice, then add water, abd watch as it becomes a pearly white liquid. Fill the other glass with cold water and ice, and see condensation forming almost immediately on the outside: Now, add a plate of white cheese, a platter of sweet watermelon, some sigara boregi, haydari, acili ezme and patlican ezmesi, plus perhaps some leblebi, all to be followed by freshly-caught sea bass or bluefish, fried and served with rocket and lemon, or a plate of kofte and rice. On top of this, have an outdoor setting on a warm evening, overlooking the Bosphorus or the Bay of Izmir, and someone playing the saz and singing songs full of huzun:Now take a bite of one of the things laid before you, then a sip of raki, and tell me that it doesn't get much better than this.
And keep drinking till the angels start singing to you.

I love January.

This is getting ridiculous. If having my arm hurting wasn't enough, the rest of my body has now decided to join in the achy action, and I've got myself a dose of this bloody flu thing going round. I narrowly avoided throwing up in front of, not to say over, my students this morning - hardly a good way to welcome them back. By midday, I had to concede defeat, and dragged myself home, only to find that everyone else is also in varying states of unwellness.

Indolence.

You would think that, being confined at home with my knackered arm, I would be getting on with something productive: reading books, studying, doing research and so forth. But no: I seem to be all clogged up, unable to spring anything forth, do anything of any value at all. Indeed, I've been staring at this bloody computer screen for the past two days, unable even to work up the strength to think of something to write.
Indolence has this effect on me. Once it sets in, inertia follows, then I get nothing done whatsoever. And once that happens, I start feeling depressed at my own inability to move. However, one benefit of this enforced break is reflecting on the fact that movement, action of itself is actually pretty valueless. There needs to be a point to getting something done, and I should know: I'm a master of displacement activities. I've been reflecting on how much time it is possible to waste, even while doing an impression of a blue-arsed fly, and the fact that pointless work is as much a product of indolence as sitting in front of the TV.

not a resolution.

Seeing as my posting became somewhat remiss last year, I'm going to try and keep it more regular in 2008, even if it goes to the point of tedium.

frustration

I should be in bed, letting my poor arm heal, yet here you find me, hours away from the new year, eating a cracker, drinking a G&T, and blogging one-handed. I'm feeling frustrated because of the arm, and also a little angry: it seems a neat summation of my year, actually. Looking back at my blog, it appears to have started with all good intentions, then fizzled out gradually. Sometimes I wonder if this isn't a summation of my life as a whole - frustration, anger, promise, disappointment.
However, it would be wrong to say that I actually feel anything negative in general right now. Instead, I feel, well, just feelings: a desire to wallow in the now, and exult in the ability to do so. Yes, there are worries and difficulties ahead, but I know that they are surmountable. I know that there are still many weeks of pain and inconvenience ahead of me, yet pain is a thing of temporary duration ultimately, as are, bluntly, all those sensations we either cherish or seek to avoid. Simply what is now is what needs to be lived through: And knowing that that which pains me will soon be past, and that which pleasures me is either now, or will be soon, or glows in my mind, how can I do anything other than exult?

Dealing with it.

At the fracture clinic, the doctor poked the lump that hurt, twisted my arm one way till it hurt, then twisted it the other way to see how much it hurt that way, nodded approvingly, and said 'keep the sling on, and come back in a couple of weeks and we'll see how it's getting on. By the way, if you start hearing your elbow go 'click', get to A&E; we'll need to put a pin through the fracture to hold it all together'.
By a pin, he meant 'we're going to shove your elbow in a metal halo to immobilize it, then whack a titanium bolt through all those lovely nerves that pass over the outside of the joint, then leave it sticking out for a month.' This, of course, has had the effect on me of nervously listening out for every single crackle and pop my whole bloody arm might give. I don't want my arm out of action for any longer than necessary. As I have found out, it isn't just my arm that has been rendered of limited use - it's had an impact on everything I do.
Well, I hear you cry, so what's new? After all, it's not as if it's something that doesn't occur on a daily basis to thousands of people. However, it's the first time it's happened to me, so I can only talk from my own experience. Starting with what I'm doing right now, I have a limited range of mobility and dexterity in my left hand, meaning that I'm doing most of the typing with my right. Next, I keep waking up around half past four in the morning, my upper arm and shoulder aching from the position I need to keep them in to keep the elbow supported and comfortable: Also, I have to take the sling off every now and then during the day to flex my arm as much as possible. And then, of course, I need to deal with the further limitations in everyday life. I can't cycle for six weeks to two months, meaning my main source of exercise has disappeared. I can't cook, or rather I can't do anything that involves chopping, dicing, holding stuff firmly, twisting (unless I use my legs), or anything above boiling stuff. I'm beginning to wonder how I'll get to work and pick up the kids on a thursday afternoon, seeing as I can't drive.
See? It's a whole world of fun. Yet despite all this, I'm well aware it could have been much worse, and it makes me wonder how people with serious injuries cope.

three pics.

Nur, Sean and Angus; Branch and lamplight on a very foggy night; and a pen which appeared from God knows where that I found in my coat pocket.

I don't half choose my moments...

you find me, less than half my Crimbo shopping done, workplace stuff still to do, dosed up to my eyeballs on paracetamol, codeine and G&T, with my left arm in a sling and a fractured radius. I came off my bike this morning: I was going downhill at full pelt, when the TOSSBUBBLE driver in front of me, decided to brake suddenly to let someone driving a similar Chelsea Tractor into the entrance to the posh nursery training college. I braked, but my rear wheel locked and skidded on a greasy patch, and off I came, all my weight landing on my elbow. I would have kicked myself for falling in such an amateur way, had it not been for the fact I was in shock and screaming agony. Well, it could have been worse - at least the driver in the Chelsea Tractor behind me actually deigned to not run me over. Also, a passerby gave me a hand, and eventually drove me to the local surgery - thanks Ruth. After a suitable bit of bellowing on my behalf - by now, it was REALLY hurting - the practise nurse told me to go to A&E. Wonderful.
Three hours later found me in a sling at home. Just what I need for the festive season.
And yet, strangely I don't feel that pissed off, that frantic or that miserable: I don't have any little voice in my head screaming 'Why Me?', futilely. It just is, and it could have been worse, and I will get better. Of course, it's bloody inconvenient, but I'll work around it.
Anyway, festive greetings to all, and Eid Mubarek!

Really Stupid Things Said On TV, an occasional series:

...on Breakfast on BBC this morning, a debate about the increased moving away from Christianity at Christmas, and in particular some schools are now not doing nativity plays in case it offends people of other faiths. In amidst the torrent of rage emailed in by viewers with too little to do in the morning, there was this little gem:
'Primary schools should be holding traditional Christmas activities and the meaning of Christmas. After all, the nativity play has been held for over 2,000 years.....'
Someone needs to do a bit more in-depth reading, methinks.

It's late on sunday night, I have classes tomorrow, I feel vaguely ill, yet still I have to write something, mainly because I haven't done anything about it for a while. Over on my ELT blog, I'll be writing about the English UK Teachers' Conference in a bit more detail: Suffice it to say, I did a bloody good job of it, and succeeded in getting people talking about my ideas. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the whole thing, as I got a dreadful migraine and had to get out of the place.
I blame the migraine on the stress of doing the presentation, although to be honest it could be a whole gamut of things right now, mainly focusing on the banks and why they are such twats. The halifax have been chasing Nur for a non-existent debt, and I'm afraid to say that I have been phoning them up and sounding exactly like the sort of jumped-up idiot I've always hoped to avoid becoming, threatening this, that and the other to the sod on the other end of the line. In fact, banking call centres have for some reason become a bane to me over the last month or so. To add to my current state of general irritation and incipient apoplexy, we have observations going on next week.
And yet, at the same time, it all somehow doesn't matter. Don't ask me why: It's just this feeling I have that in some obscure way that I don't really understand or even see exactly, everything's turned a corner and is about to get better. Maybe it's because I'm on the verge of being forty and giving up.

God, I'm knackered. I haven't been sleeping particularly well for the last couple of weeks, but I'm damned if I know why. Just general stress, I suppose. It's not helped by snoring either - I've actually managed to wake myself up a couple of times.
Had a pleasant weekend: Invited Ruth and Harriet, a couple of work colleagues, plus their spouses over for an early-ish dinner. Nur made up an absolutely enormous spread, after I'd suggested some meals and she decided to make the lot - Haydari, Sigara Boregi, Acili Ezme, Zeytinyagli pirasa, vine leaves, tavuk kalamar, Hasanpasa kofte, taze fasulye - the full works. A good time had by all, followed by fireworks and sharing out baby clothes that Sean had grown out of.
We also now have a larder full of food that will need to be demolished.

what a banker!

Sodding banks. Or rather, I should say, sodding call centres located in exotic climes, employing local people because it's cheaper than paying some miserable scouser to sneer at you donw the end of the telephone line. To explain: In the past few years, I've had some difficulties with my credit card payments, to which end I've been diligently paying a fixed,interest-free amount regularly. Recently, they sent me a letter saying that my credit card rights had been reinstated, and that I would get a new one in the post. This duly came, late, followed by a letter with my credit card pin number. During lunch yesterday, I was passing the bank and decided to give the crad a try, just to make sure it was working. I put it in the Hole in The Wall, punched in my numbers, and the bloody machine swallowed it and told me to phone a particular number. This I did, after copious swearing: after all, it was a brand new card. After explaining to the call centre employee that I didn't know my card number because it was a new card, he passed me to another centre, where I explained the situation again. The operative took my bank account details, then promised me that another card would be sent out within five days.
It was only later, when I was in a supermarket, that I found out that the stupid ARSEHOLE had cancelled my bank debit card, not my credit card!
Cue, then, an hour of incresingly angry phone conversations, punctuated by a call centre operative giving me a phone number that redirected me back to her call centre! And, apparently: a) I will have to grin and bear it about my bank debit card and b)my new card and my credit account have been cancelled, meaning that should I want it, I will need to re-apply, even though they have just re-issued the bloody thing in the first place!
Needless to say, I am not what you could call a bobtail in a felicitous mood.
Apart from that, Halloween went rather nicely.

sean's birthday

Uh? Where did that go?

..the past year, that is. Sean is one year old tomorrow. Time really has flown. I read in a report in, I think, the Guardian, that the reason that time seems to speed up as we grow older is a) because each day is an increasingly lesser portion of the time we have spent alive and b) we simply don't have as much sensory input as we age, mainly because we are used to and increasingly inured to our environments, but also because of the myterious hormonal creakings of the chemical lab we call our brains. One report even suggests that, by the time we hit 40, we have actually experienced 71% of our lives in terms of new input. This would suggest that, at 39 and two thirds, I am already not just past it but might as well jump in a grave now and have done with the whole thing.
Well, as Oscar Wilde might have said on a bad day, bugger that. I'm not ready to slip into a pair of slippers and dribble into a bowl of porridge just yet. Anyway, I fully intend to enjoy tomorrow.

Rugby.

Arse. We lost. Since the world and his wife's opinion will be published by tomorrow anyway, I may as well as have my say. Good match, but England lost it on the discipline issue - something they forgot about from the France match last week. And the disallowed try was a joke.

efficiency drive.

I'm not posting here as much as I would really prefer to, nor am I getting on with all the other things I need to do, such as doing the Dip. (ground to a halt, again) and putting together my presentation for the English UK conference: I find having work and family is enough work. two jobs, in fact. What I really need is to be able to organise what I do more efficiently. However, my preferred mode of work involves a sprawling tower of papers, quite often in several locations. I keep intending to put it all in one place, but what is the best?
For this reason, from next week, I'm going to do an experiment. Paper vs. computer; filofax vs. desk diary;blog vs. outlook; post-its vs. everything else.
or something like that.

Censorship and The Editor.

'Whatever you do,' said my wife the other day,'Don't write about our guest. She'll be embarrassed to read about herself, sleeping on our living room floor.'

And, out of respect, I decided to write nothing until her penultimate night with us. However, I see nothing to be embarrassed about: Bilge is a thoroughly pleasant and good-tempered person, and while we've had to work around each other a bit over the past three weeks, I would much rather have her staying safely with us than in some dodgy bedroom-cum-storeroom with no proper lock in the dangerous end of town.

I was thinking of calling this post 'What Will The Neighbours Think?', because it isn't really about so much external censorship as the internal feeling that someone's watching you and judging you. This, I must admit, isn't helped by the knowledge that certain people are avid readers of my output of drivel. Well, hopefully avid. Well, hopefully readers. Except for when I'm feeling particularly down, I tend to restrict what I say here, and indeed in everyday life. But why?

Because, I think, I am by nature a pessimistic person - not that I look for the negative things in life: I just see them lying around as it were. In one way, this is advantageous, as I'm extremely good at planning and strategy. On the other hand, I'm always looking at what will go wrong rather than enjoying that which is alright right now. In other words, I find it hard to live in the moment. And because of these frets and worries, I occasionally freeze up entirely. Displacement activities (such as writing this when I have other things to do) appear, and then I feel that I have an insurmountable obstacle in front of me.

But I was talking about censorship, or rather my own internal editor. Because of this tendency to over-forward think, I get anxious as to how others may percieve me: as such, what I write may, I think, cause offence, and so stuff that on its own is entirely innocuous doesn't get put down on the page. Or, somewhere inside me, a voice starts saying 'that's rubbish, everyone will laugh at you for an idiot if you write or say that.' And it's a very hard voice to ignore, even if I know it to be true. What I seem to be looking for is approval from everyone, something that is clearly absurd. I then end up doing nothing and saying nothing, which is equally absurd, especially for someone who should, at his age, know better.

S0 - any suggestions for turning of the editor within?

Is it possible to believe this fuckwit?How this man can claim to be a leader of others beggars belief. Probably buggers it as well. I despair of the rampant ignorance, stupidity and cynical manipulation that pervades those who seek to rule others.

Anyway, I cheered myself up on sunday by going for a stride over the local hills.

Situations and decisions.

Isn't it strange how, when everything seems to be on the gloomy side, when work isn't going well and your money situation is bad, when you're feeling as if you're on your own and lying face down, all of a sudden Life leans over you and starts to deliver a damn good kicking?
Two things: one rather dumb, the other another reason to tear my hair out, followed by an observation. On friday, the new Vice Chancellor delivered a welcome speech in the large lecture hall. There were some two hundred teachers and lecturers packed in there. I'd arrived a little earlier, and had got myself what I thought was a decent seat high up, even though I wasn't really in the mood to listen to my putative new boss. Anyway, once the audience had trooped in and spare seats had been found, the VC began. At the same time, one of the wardens turned on the extractor fan, and that's when I found, rather stupidly, that I had sat beside the fucking thing. It rattled and banged, and I had to endure an hour of some bloke far below me, waving his hands about and mouthing words I couldn't possibly hear. I couldn't get out of my seat either, as the place was packed. I had no choice but to grin and bear it.
Saturday saw me taking the car for its MOT. For some reason, we get it done on the opposite side of town from where we live. I dropped it off, then spent a few hours pootling round town, during which I was forced to buy myself a new pair of trainers because the crappy pair I had bought a while back were no longer wearable - in short, my feet were in agony. Another bit of cash to worry about. I came back to the garage, to find the mechanic with a pious concerned look on his face - the kind where you start to think, 'OK, what's this going to cost?'
'It needs some work, I'm afraid'.
Two Hundred Bloody Pounds' Worth of bloody work.
This month, on top of the usual things I can't afford, I now have the car, the phone bill, and Angus' Judo Club. Oh, and it'll be Sean's birthday on the 25th of next month, for which I will have no cash to buy him any presents.
So, stuffed once again.
Sitting in a bar later that night, watching people yell and stagger and realising that I didn't reallt want a drink I couldn't afford in the first place, I reflected on the situation: How has it come to this? It struck me that I was there, right then, as a result of circumstance, but also of a morass of undirected decisions - or karma, if you like. The situation with the lecture: well, I should have checked where I was sitting first - then I might have heard what was being said, and not been left in such a foul mood. A simple choice, really, based on direct observation. The money thing however, that's more complex, and is arguably the current result of a whole slew of personal decisions and events beyond my control. Going back to the lecture, I realised that it was a neat summation of a certain point of view: I couldn't turn off the fan, so I had to endure it - in other words, it was something over which, once a certain decision had been made, I had no subsequent control. The situation with the money had me thinking to what extent I could control it, and make decisions from which I, and my family, would benefit. Then the old phrase entered my mind:
Give me the strength and courage to change the things that I can and the patience to endure those things that I can't.
So, what changes? What gives? Which road do I set out on now?
And the thing is, I'm not alone. The majority of us live these lives tangled in the morass of poor decisions and half-whelped intentions, and we call it life. Very few people have this single, tight, determined line, leading to what they want.

Things that piss me off - a random list.

1. Drivers, especially of Audis, who try to kill me on a regular basis.
2. Being asked to do things because someone else can't be arsed, and because I'm seen as an easy touch.
3. A certain colleague who asks me, ALMOST EVERY TIME I SEE HIM, how to set up his webmail and printers on the computer he happens to be using at the time - and then he never listens to me.
4. bar using a credit card, having no money even for a loaf of bread.
5. earning amateur wages for a professional job.
6. having my boss use me, and use other team members, to prop up a system that is failing from overwork.
7. nearly suffering a complete meltdown of my physical health because of the stress of work.
8. nearly being killed by idiots in Audis. Oh, I already mentioned that. worth repeating, though.
   
9. being in debt since God knows when.
10. not being able to afford new clothes for my children, for my wife, for me.
11. not being able to afford to go to a dentist.
12. Having to count out every single penny before even considering spending.
13. feeling utterly isolated at work.

fuck it all. This is a world that craves that stupidest of things, money, and confuses consumption with happiness.

Ye gods, and I know that this is becoming a regular complaint, I'm knackered. I managed the grand total of one hour's sleep last night, thanks to Young Sir. Unsurprisingly, I've had not the most wonderful of days. Bollocks to it.
Here's a picture of Young Sir having his hair cut by his grandmother, and Karen with Tootsie. Karen's the one on the left.

Busy running in circles.

Chaos at work, mayhem at home...will I ever get five minutes' peace? I am finding it remarkably difficult to get time to study, or indeed, space. Whether this is because of external influences or internal, subjective interpretation of the situation, or a combination of both, is entirely up for debate. One thing is that it is very hard to string together a coherent amount of time in which to complete a task, such is the pressure to get 'things' done, both at work and at home. I feel like I'm chasing my tail half the time.

Directions.

There is a recurring dream I have, albeit one that has become rarer in recent years. I am standing on a long, narrow road, silky black, standing in a void. All around me is darkness, except where I am. The path behind me fades into darkness, a single route. However, in front of me, there are myriad roads, all stretching into the unimaginable. And I don't know which one to take, so all I do is stay in the same place, first moving towards one road, then hesitating, drawing back, then moving to another, and so on, yet I do not know which path to take; And I end up staying the same. Well yes, it's very obviously a dream reflecting my uncertainties and hesitations in real life. Yet it's still a problem - which way next?
As the more astute observers among you may have noticed, I am nearing my 40th birthday, always a time when people are expected to take stock of their situation, wave goodbye to their hair and youth, and say hello to a widening waistline and a collection of pastel-coloured pullovers that increasingly become polo-necked as one begins to acquire a wattle and collection of chins. At this age, I should be somewhat more comfortable, not only with myself, but also in terms of personal circumstances. Instead, I find myself completely broke and wondering what the hell I'm doing at work.
The point, I suppose, is: Is it worth it? There are days where I find teaching an utterly fascinating exercise, others where i turn with weary disgust from the idiot mounds of bureaucracy on my desk and the ton of stress I feel under. Last year, had it not been for my timely jaunt to Corfu and having to do jury service, I am sure my health would have broken because of the stress of managing the exams in my department. Certainly, I do not want the same this year, but I find myself worried about a whole raft of things: money, study, preparing a paper for a conference, money, debt, work, exams, money again. My sense of discouragement at my current predicament is palpable.
However, in the last sentence, the word 'current' is important: I do not know, and cannot see, what's round the corner, and this is both a comfort and a worry. A comfort, because it may be better: A worry, because, it may be the same or worse. This invites the question: Do I stay on this same path, or go down another, or a different one? And so I hesitate, move towards one road, stop, move back, move towards another, hesitate, draw back, stop, and so forth. Perhaps it shouldn't be a case of my moving along the road: Maybe I should let the path flow under me.
However, all this to-ing and fro-ing doesn't solve my current fiscal dilemma. I need to clear our debts, and currently I'm in danger of sliding further backwards, clearly undesirable. It is an enormous pain in the arse. I need the directions to Mr. Fiscally Happy Land.
Who knows? If I find it, I might even end up with enough money to buy myself an Audi with which to try and kill EFL Teachers on bicycles.

To say that I am feeling down in the dumps is a mild understatement. I feel as though I am teetering on the precipice of a major down. Work appears as a vile, meaningless thing: I take no joy from it. Indeed, I can't even complete one thing without being interrupted by something else. I can't organise my thoughts, and not a thing I do is appreciated.
And as for the smug-faced tosser in the Audi this morning who thought it was beneath him to check his wing mirrors while turning, thereby coming extremely close to killing me, I am thinking several evil and nasty thoughts which involve various bits of him withering up and falling off, or anatomically impossible insertions of various car parts into him. Bastard.
And anyway, where do these fresh-faced fucks get their money from that they can swan around in impossibly expensive cars?

sour.

This has turned into one of those utterly discouraging, mean-mouthed weeks, where everything seems crabby and spiteful and futile. I feel low, uninspired, isolated, unvalued and unwanted at work. It seems to me that I am not required to enquire, research, learn and breathe new life into what I do as a teacher - instead, I am here to do a certain number of hours, tick a certain number of boxes, process a certain number of units - sorry, customers - sorry, learners. This place is more about the frantic scrabble for money than it is about education.

A new school year...

...and young Sean seemed to bloody know it. Although he isn't a heavy sleeper - he kips for an hour or two, then wants to stay awake - but last night broke the sodding record. I managed just over two hours' sleep, and that was in two parts. When you are a parent of young children, you become adept at counting the few precious grains of sleep you get, like someone on the breadline counting each single penny, hoping it'll last to the next payday. Hold on, that's me too.
Bugger.

I am having a crap day. I can't seem to get my brain in gear whatsoever.

still learning

Even after ten years of marriage, I am still finding things out about my wife. I was on Google Earth the other day, when she said, 'Can you find my street?' So, of course, I searched through Istanbul until I found the roof of her apartment and the white van belonging to her dad.
'No, my street. Nurel Sokak.'
'You've got a street named after you?'
'Yes, near my house.'
And she does as well:

View Larger Map
Apparently, the local civil servant responsible for naming streets in the area when she was a kid had run out of names, and her dad suggested the name to him. She was rather sanguine about the whole thing.

In Memoriam.

So there I was, in our small flat, having breakfast and trying to tune into the BBC world service. Eventually, between sips of tea, I was successful. Instead of the usual news programme, however, there was solemn music.
'Hello!' I thought, 'The Queen Mum's copped it!'
A couple of minutes later, the announcer came on air.
'Our normal schedule is suspended today,' he intoned, 'following the news of the tragic death of Her Highness, Princess Diana'.
My first reaction was one of complete surprise, accompanied by a couple of swear words, partly because I burnt my mouth while my jaw swung open. I turned on the TV and put on the godawful Euronews channel, which was showing continuing coverage of the events: The tunnel, the crashed car, Prince Charles arriving at a hospital, papparazzi.
I went into work, sorted out some papers in my office, then when the break bell rang I went to the canteen and mentioned that Diana was dead to some of the teachers.
'But she can't be!' said one.
'I saw it on the news, I'm afraid,' I said.
'No, but she can't. I'm using her for Practising the Present Perfect.'
In her hand there was a worksheet with a gapfill exercise, with sentences such as 'Diana has been a princess since 1981. She has been divorced for five years.'
'I think you'd better change that to practising the Past Simple.'
That's what I remember most of that day, anyway.
About a fortnight later, my wife and I went to the UK for a short holiday, and we went up to London and saw the vast stretch of (by now rotting) floral bouquets outside Buckingham Palace.

computers.

dancing dogs' arseholes. I've been trying to put the Ubuntu Operating System on my ageing laptop (a Dell inspiron 3500 with 256k and an external 40gb hard drive, since you ask) all evening, to no bloody avail. Sodding bollocks. I'll just have to clone a decent hard drive loaded with Windows XP off someone.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho...

...it's back to work we go. And so far, so discouraging. Paperwork. Updating forms, letters, handbooks, texts. Checking classrooms. Testing and enrolment. Inadequate pay. Corridors whose smell is transformed from industrial cleaning product to sweat, crisps, old biscuits and old footwear as putative students arrive to enrol.
And yet there are bright spots. In particular for me, My proposal for a paper to deliver at the English UK conference in November has been accepted, something I am both very glad about and rather nervous of doing. The topic is 'English Tenses and the Notion of Distance', and I'm afraid that I'm going to bollox it up big time. Then again, a little fear is always a useful thing. That's what I tell my students anyway, as they nervously anticipate what I'm about to do next...

Nuts!

The first batch of hazelnuts from the trees around our place.

A step, nothing but a step:
Yet all these footfalls
Help me climb the tallest peak.

Reading Festival, bottling and...

...the six hundredth posting!
It's the time of year when I wish a) I had the money and b) I was a bit younger - not much, just a bit - and I could go along to enjoy The Reading Festival. Well, I can get it on BBC3 and recreate the experience by pissing in my garden until it turns into a quagmire, pitching a tent in the middle, have bouncers posted at the gate to prevent me bringing any food in from outside, and have someone in the garden shed sel me overpriced and undercooked burgers and expensive piss-weak beer in a plastic glass, which I then drink until I keel over next to the bonfire I've made out of extremely toxic bits of plastic, and do that for three days, but, I dunno, it wouldn't be authentic enough.
One thing that would be missing is the opportunity to bottle a bad band. I read an amusing piece in the Guradian guide this weekend, and it brought to mind my first experience of it, appropriately at my very first Reading festival back in 1986. It was still very mind a metal festival then, and that year it was the first time it had been held after the Tory council had barred it for the previous couple of years. However, they only gave their permission for the thing to be held six weeks prior to the August bank holiday, and perforce the line up was not overly amazing. The sunday night headline were, for example, Hawkwind.
The weather was pretty crap, but it didn't matter; I had a wonderful three days, wandering round in a drunken daze, taking photos and pretending to get high. Inside the main arena, the Melody Maker tent was handing out free seven inch vinyls. This were instrumental in what was to come. Around about three in the afternoon, some really crap set came out. They weren't metal, or even rock n roll - perhaps more like twitch from side to side, making 'doo-wop' noises. Anyway, that's when I saw it: A glistening missile, very clearly full of piss, rise into the air, make a graceful arc, and splatter the lead singer. He stopped, horrified at what had besmeared him, but thengamely continued. And that's when the bottle barrage began. Bottle flew, mainly at the stage, some full, some empty, some gaining their target, others falling short. The ones that fell before their intended target were the problem, as those who were unwittingly splattered with the foul contents decided to lob other stuff back. Eventually, the audience were having a bottlefight with each other, when some clever soul decided that the seven inch vinyls were the perfect frisbee, which they were. First one, then another, then hundreds of the things were zooming round, and causing nasty cuts wherever they landed.
However, there are times I wish I could have seen some of the legendary bottlings: Meatloaf having his nose broken by a cider bottle full of piss: Bonnie Tyler screaming obscenities at the crowd after being poo-bombed; Courtney Love ripping out her tampon and flinging it enraged at the crowd.
You see, sitting in the garden just doesn't come near to being visceral enough.

God I'm tired. I've had an absolutely horrid night's sleep. I spent yesterday feeling knackered, and unfortunately for me (and anyone else trying to sleep in the vicinity) whenever I go to bed really worn out, I start snoring loudly, waking myself up. And so I spend another tired day, go to bed, start snoring, wake myself up, et cetera. And, of course, I'm in a terribly crabby mood, which helps no one. And, because I'm tired and crabby, I can't concentrate, meaning that I end up writing inconsequential entries such as these. Anyway, here's a couple of pics.

It's almost midnight: Sean has not long woken up, yet again, and is being suckled back to sleep by Nur, while Angus is hunkered beneath his duvet in a room that smells of fresh blue paint. I am sitting at the cheap old bureau that used to belong to mum and dad, wondering what to write, knowing that I have to write, impelled to drive my fingers thither and yon across the keyboard, all the while reflecting on the fractured four weeks I have had at home.
My holidays are almost invariably crap. I will except last year, which I spent reading books on the top floor balcony of a villa overlooking the Marmara, getting pissed on raki. It's generally just a bad combination of circumstances. This year, there has been the worrying lack of money to, er, worry about, as well as having little Sean to look after. I don't quite resent it, yet I feel as if I have done absolutely nothing for one twelfth of the year. I can't help but feel sorry for Angus - we have no cash to go anywhere and do anything - but also for Nur too, for the same reasons. We end up staying at home, bickering over that most stupid of things, cash.
I would love to do some studying, but when? When I try to, it seems that there is always some other demand on my attention.

The Joy of Working from home

..or not, as the case may be. I should be getting on with doing a) my diploma studies, b) the paper I may (or may not) be presenting at the English UK conference in November, c) writng up my CV and scouting out other job opportunities (of which more later), and d) painting the bedrooms. However, it is easier said than done, especially when it comes to studying in a house containing a bored nine-year-old and an increasingly curious ten-month old. It means hiding in the bedroom and trying to study there in order to get a bit of peace, the planned shed-cum-study idea having been knocked on the head. God, what wouldn't I give for a proper desk and work space! However, there is always the domestic stuff to do, the cleaning and taking an interest in the children and so forth and so on, that obtrude into the space of time I need to do the other things. Or at least, that's how it seems.
One thing that has become very obvious over the summer, and that has also been gnawing at my mind to the extent that I think about little else, is the fact that I am not earning enough to support us. Even when Nur returns to work, virtually all her wages will be swallowed up in nursery fees, meaning that my salary has to cover almost everything, and that there will be a significant shortfall. This leaves me in a quandary: do I find a new job, in which case, why do the Dip? Or do I stay at TVU, do my dip, and find other part time work, in which case, will I ever be able to find time to complete my studies, and have a life? The paltriness of what I'm earning, which is in real terms roughly what I was getting as DOS at Dilko back in 1999, was cast into a stark highlight when I was chatting with a couple of relatives over a barbecue the other day. I discovered that their son, my 37-year-old cousin, had been earning over £50K for managing a shop and had been offered £8K more a year by a rival company. I literally felt gutted. It's not through jealousy of my cousin, far from it: I know how hard he works. Rather, it was the fact that I had sweated my life out in teaching, I had done my studying and working, and here I am doing a demanding and highly complex job, and I earn less than half this. There's something truly and terribly wrong with the world.

mnuuh. Still a bit knackered from travelling to Brighton and back to suprise my old flatmate Graham's wife, Deniz, on her birthday. The car bumped and buckled and vibrated all the way there and back - I suspect I might need to change the tyres and get the bloody thing rebalanced.

Here's Grimbo with his eight-month-old son, Ediz.

smalltown boy

As if by magic, the lyrics appeared in my head:
pushed around and kicked around,
always the lonely boy.
You were the one they talked about round town
as they put you down.
But as hard as they might try to make you cry
you'd never cry to them
just to your soul.
Accompanied by Jimmy Sumerville's falsetto and his slightly unnerving resemblance to a singing potato.
And I remembered a time when those lyrics, ostensibly about growing up gay in a small town, had a tremendous resonance with me for different reasons.
It is natural for a teenager to feel apart, alone, different from the herd - it's part of the process of growing up, when we detach ourselves from the family in order to find out who we are. For me though, my sense of alienation, detachment and solitude began early and finished late, and certainly I felt that others pushed and kicked me around, that they talked about me behind my back, that I was being criticised just for being me. For many years, I felt that I was deliberately ignored and belittled, and this affected the way I viewed life, understandably. Indeed, it still colours it somewhere deep inside - when I feel down, for example, I cannot help a certain feeling of put-upon insecurity creeping over me, and I find certain people who give the impression that their lives are fine, perfect and dandy, who look like they fart flowers, insincere and false. As such, as I have grown older, I have given the impression of, first, shyness, then diffidence, and worst arrogance. I also have great difficulty in accepting my own abilities for what they are and being positive about myself in front of others.
Nowadays, though, I cannot help feeling that I am somewhat at fault. Was I ever really pushed round, as I saw it then? Sometimes, yes, and definitely when at primary school. Were people putting me down behind my back? Possibly, but to nowhere near the extent that I thought. The fact is, I think, that I was extremely poor in interacting with others (in fact, I still tend to keep my distance from people until I know them better), and so I blamed this on others - that it was their fault they didn't want to know me, that I wasn't worth knowing, and so forth and so on. Now, many of those I know and love may not recognise this portrait of me, yet I feel it to be honest.
And while I listened in my head to the potato singing his falsetto of loneliness back in the eighties, I recalled myself sat in the corner of the sixth form common room with considerably more hair than I have now, looking over the room to a group of fellow sixth formers laughing and smiling with each other over petty nothings, yearning to join in and yet unable to.

Not the best way to start your new job.

You've got to feel sorry for Gordon Brown: Since he became PM, he's had to deal with the wettest summer recorded and devastating floods, crap terrorists, a postal strike and now trhe return of Foot and Mouth. Not the most auspicious of beginnings. I blame Tony Blair. There was always something of the malevolent pixie about him, and now I envisage him darting hither and yon, sowing discord and misery around him and doing his evil pixie dance of joy at his latest piece of malice.

Menus and Pirates

While out and about recently, I saw two things I felt I had to share:
Now the menu is from the estimable Griffin pub, but I couldn't help noticing that it describes its cream as being, er, creamy. I bloody well hope it would be.














meanwhile, is it me being weird, or is this picture of a pirate tucking into a pasty a bit obscene?

I've had my holiday head on for the past week, and haven't really got an awful lot done at all. What I did do got wiped off the college's main servers, and is, according to the IT bod, 'irretrievable'. Arse. There's hardly anyone around now, so I shall leave soon.

and another one!

Just perusing the personal statement of one of my students, who is making a deferred UCAS entry for 2008, I came across the following:

In my leisure time, I occasionally write poems filled with grief and misery

Blimey. And he always seemed such a happy chap.

hmm.

from the staff governor's newsletter, regarding the new Vice-Chancellor's inauguration:

The VC’s inaugural presentation

I do not wish to regurgitate Professor John’s presentation here as no doubt he will want to do that himself and to much better effect.

I don't think he expressed himself in the way he intended.

And on the flooding front, talk of a wartime spirit being engendered is inevitable, as is finding a veteran to speak (from the BBC):

Long queues formed in supermarket car parks on Wednesday as people waited to collect their daily ration of six two-litre bottles of water.
At the Tesco in Quedgeley residents said the crisis had fostered a war-time spirit.
Reginald Davies, 91, who fought during the Second World War, said: "I did five days without water in Burma.
"I've seen men go mad from thirst. This is nothing. The worst thing is getting out of bed in the morning at 91 to get water."

Damp.

Don't you just hate those days full of humidity when your hair goes all frizzy? That's what mine's been like since the incessant bloody flooding began. Fortunately, nothing has happened in Reading - yet: Apparently, the Thames is expected to reach a peak sometime tonight. Cycling in through Caversham, I noticed that a few shops had sandbags to hand outside, although it all looked a bit scrappy and pathetic. The news is full of people, looking for someone to blame. Um, God, perhaps? Human activity, leading to extreme weather events due to global warming? Gordon Brown? He's certainly not had a good start to being Prime Minister: Crap Terrorists attacking, shitty summer weather and the worst flooding since at least 1947. Any more of this, and I can see that the people around him will slowly start to edge away, just in case he leaves the Curse of Brown (or should that be The Brown Mark?) on their heads.

wetness and disappointment and a moment of pleasant surprise.

I have just spent half an hour in the locker room trying to dry myself out after quite possibly the wettest cycle ride I have ever had coming into work. It's July, for God's sake! I drove Angus up to school this morning, rather than do our usual walk up. As we parked, I noticed that the other children going to school didn't have their uniforms on. Most had different costumes, mainly of the circus persuasion. I knew something round the circus theme was going on that week, and I had asked Angus specifically if Friday was a No Uniform day, twice. Both times he said no.
'Angus, is it a no uniform day?'
'Yes.'
'Why did you lie to me?'
'Why not? It's not as if we've got circus clothes anyway.'
At that, I must admit I blew my top at him. What angered and disappointed me most is that he deliberately and to my face lied about it. I still feel really annoyed now. The question is, what to do about it?
Anyway, fuming about that, I came home, got the cycle out, and was soaked within a hundred metres of leaving the house. I went into my local corner shop to get a newspaper, and as I was paying for it, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they sold RAKI! Bottles of Sari Zeybek, which is one of the quality ones, with a price label to match. £24. Ouch.

One of those days.

I've had a fairly crappy day of it. I couldn't seem to make any headway with my studying; It felt more like doodling at the edges of my mind. This was partly because of being interrupted by various things like having to do an interview and placement test for a student, and from a sudden sense of ennui sweeping up out of nowhere. It left me feeling frustrated an annoyed with myself. In addition, I had to take some new students on a tour of the town and take a couple of them to the police station to be registered; Somewhere along the way, I managed to lose my passcard, thanks to a gust of wind, of all things - it caught my passcard holder, which I had hanging round my neck, and flung it behind me, but I didn't notice the loss until later. Despite retracing my steps, there was no sign of the bloody thing. The students who needed to register hadn't completed their forms; One of them didn't have enough money, so I ended up lending her some, and the other didn't know his address. Instead, he produced the menu from a Chinese Takeaway restaurant somewhere in south Reading, and said to the desk clerk, 'I here with friend two day'. Fortunately it had the address on that, so she accepted it, but told him to return once he'd found himself a permanent gaff.
Overall, a niggly, annoying day, and one that might usually be expected to leave me fuming, yet strangely, and pleasantly, I found myself in a relatively philosophical and calm mood about it all.
Why, I don't know, but certainly the opportunity to immerse myself in study has had a beneficial effect, just as writing does. It's the stretching, and importantly, the focusing, of my mental capabilities that does it.
Anyway, I think that this will be the pic I'll put on my profile:


that is, of course, if the bloody profile thing will let me upload it.

Badgers!

Another danger in southern Iraq - man-eating badgers!

One of those posts....

..where I don't know what I'm going to write. Partly this is due to having had only four hours' sleep last night (something that has become depressingly routine since young Mr. Sean was born), and I'm feeling a bit frayed round the edges, and partly because I'm focusing on some of the more enjoyable aspects of my job, namely research, study and developing materials for class. I've mentioned before that summer is a good time to get things done in this job; There are fewer people round and the atmosphere is markedly more stress-free. Not entirely so, but more so. As for my summer, well, lack of money this year (babies are an expensive habit) precludes going off anywhere far. Hopefully we'll manage a few days by the sea, or something like that. And hopefully I'll get some hiking and climbing in, too. I'm trying to persuade Angus that he would like to come too, but he's resistant to the idea, even after I bought a tent and showed him how to pitch it. Anyway, what I suspect I'll be doing most of is research and study. As long as I can do it in the garden under blue skies and with a cold beer to hand.

Hurrah for good old English Ineptitude!

According to some news reports, the reason why last week's car bombs failed to go off was because the would-be bombers used NHS syringes as part of the detonation mechanism, and these failed to work.
There are times when it is necessary to be thankful for the total collapse of the manufacturing sector in this country and the knowhow that went with it. We can't even make things that move up and down in a tube properly anymore. Soon we'll be too crap to be worth bombing.

choices, choices....

Well, I've taken some more pics, but I'm not quite sure which one I should use in the profile. What do you think? Personally, I think they're all pretty ghastly; Either too cheesy, or in the case of the last one, I definitely look like I've just ripped someone's liver out with my bare hands and eaten it, possibly with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Grim.

It has been brought to my attention that the photo I currently have on this blog makes me look far too grim, and the one on my newly-acquired Facebook page makes me look like a deeply sinister escaped convict, possibly holding a someone else's head behind my back. I've tried taking a few more with the intention of uploading them here; Unfortunately, I now look like a manically grinning deeply sinister excaped convict, possibly dressed in someone else's skin. Once I have better mugshot, I will put it on.

You don't have to be a self-absorbed fanatical islamist suicide bomber to work here, but it helps!

I can't help but feel that there was something mercifully crap and English about the attempted suicide bomb attacks over the past few days, namely that they all failed through a combination of happenstance, good luck, and classic bungling. It's a bit like when Tim Henman fails at Wimbledon; we're all rooting for him (except for those of us who think he's a tosser), yet we all know he's going to fail. Not that he's going to blow himself up on Centre Court, of course, although that might make him a bit more interesting. The two guys who tried to drive the land rover into Glasgow airport - a total bungle. The mystery driver who left the car outside the nightclub - what a foul-up. If you're going to go along the suicide bomber route, there's no point only going the half hog, as it were. This might apply to many things in life. Who knows - if they'd been successful, they could even have done that crap Henman gesture with the waggly fist.
Although, of course, it would be separated from the arm by a matter of several hundred metres.

A drama played out underwater.

I can't leave off the Jury Service Experience without saying something about the drama of it all. You can see why theatre and film are attracted to the action of the courtroom: The problem is, it's just like it is in the movies, but as if the script was written by Samuel Beckett while in a catatonic trance. Hence my describing it as a slow regal procession.
And of course, everyone is aware that they are not merely being their mere selves, they are acting out the roles of themselves too. Oftentimes they protest too much, or meekly overabase themselves, in order to look more honest or sincere or incapable of hurting a fly.The presiding magistrate, like a bewigged deus ex machina, will occasionally make a wry coment to the prosecution or defence team, or now and then turn and smile kindly at the jury, while giving some point about the action in the courtroom at that moment. In the attempted murder case, the prosecuting barrister was full of dramatic self-importance; He swung his gown in such a way, gesticulated with one neat hand, flourishing a gleaming pen. He would suck in his cheeks expressively while listening to the defence, then flip a page loudly and blow out air, before pouting finely over another point in the story. When it came to cross-examining the defendent, he would reduce his voice to a quivering whisper, before bringing to a crashing wall of booming noise, batting away the man's story and denouncing his tale as preposterous.
I had to feel sorry for the Defence barrister. I got the impression that she was relatively inexperienced, and she didn't want to play along with the drama. At times, she visibly reddened, as if embarrassed by the flimsy story she had to defend, or as if ashamed at the blatant lies she was forced to try and persuade us were true. Also, for whatever reason, the judge didn't seem to like her whatsoever. There was certainly a frisson of animosity whenever she (the judge) said 'thank you, that is enough' or even, at one stage, curtly barked 'sit down!'.

And the verdict was..

Standing up to deliver the verdict, I unexpectedly found myself feeling somewhat nervous. To my left was the large dock, made of a light-coloured wood, with thick, unbreakable glass panels stretching to the ceiling; Inside was the defendant, a burly man with sand-blond hair and sand-blasted face, set in an impassive expression.
'Please answer the following question yes or no,' said the Usher. 'Have you reached a verdict upon which you are all agreed?'
'Yes.'

It had taken about an hour of wrangling in the jury room to get our decision unanimous. I had had my mind made up by the evidence by the previous day; A couple of jurors, however, still had reservations. It wasn't as if all the necessary evidence had been found, and the prosecution's case relied upon three principal witnesses, plus the unreliable narrative of the victim in the case.

'On count one, do you find the defendent guilty or not guilty of attempted murder?'

Over the past few days, some of the witnesses, including the victim, had used screens to preserve their anonymity. The events in question had taken place in Milton Keynes. In short, a drunken argument and a certain degree of animosity towards Travellers had led to a fight outside a pub, which the defendent had lost; In revenge, he later walked back into the pub, and stabbed the victim in 'the posterior chest, six inches below the axilla'. After stabbing the victim, he calmly walked out, returning some three hours later to warn the landlord that 'no fucking pikeys allowed in here'. He then went to the hospital, presumably to find his victim, where he was arrested. In subsequent questioning, under legal advice, he answered 'no comment' to the questions put to him.

'Not Guilty.'

Although the witnesses seemed to have inconsistencies in their recollection of what they had seen, one thing stood out; an arm flying, a glint of something in a hand, the hand connecting with the side of the body, the victim suddenly falling back, and realising what had happened after only a few seconds, saying 'I've been stabbed!'

'On the second count, do you find the defendent guilty or not guilty of wounding with intent?'

The defence case relied solely on the defendent himself. His version was that the other man had had a screwdriver in his hand, and that he'd knocked it out of the way - 'he must have stabbed himself.' How someone stabs themself in their own back, six inches beneath the armpit, is beyond me. During cross-examination, it became clear that this was a man with a very long history of hurting and maiming others. Maybe that was why I was nervous.

'Guilty.'

Delivering that single word meant that we had just changed his life. Although the actual sentence will not be delivered for a couple of weeks, it will inevitably be a custodial sentence, considering the man's history. And although there was a satisfaction from seeing the case end, I can't say it was an enjoyable thing. The defendent may have hurt, wounded and intimidated others, yet I took no pleasure from the idea of someone else going to prison.

A new monday, a new case

God, what bloody miserable weather. I spent the morning staring out of the window of the jury waiting room, reading bloody Leech and the Guardian, completing the various puzzles within, and speculating on the curious similarity between Gordon Brown and the Emporer Claudius. Something to do with the ears. As for good old Geoffrey Leech, I had to admire his tenacious categorizing, which is certainly thorough, but the number of exceptions he has to his various verb rules makes me suspicious. Besides, I've been working on an idea to help my students understand the whys and wherefores of the English tense system and why any giver speaker chooses the tense and aspect they do, and I seem to have stumbled on a major and easy-to-explain theory of how we see them. I won't say more right now, as it will comprise a Major EFL Geek Moment in a later log. Suffice to say I've been scouring the literature at the moment and no-one seems to have ever described what I think I've discovered before. Whether this is because my basic proposition is deeply stupid, or because it's one of those things that make people slap their heads after hearing of it and exclaim 'Well, duh! Why didn't I think of that!', I don't know. Anyway, I will come back to this.
We entered the courtroom just before lunch to be sworn in, and the case itself started at two. Obviously, I cannot comment on it. However, it was again booze-related, and it struck me how the people involved were those who had in some way fallen without noticing. My good friend Marcus has left a comment on the previous post, querying what I meant by 'law', and whether it was, in other terms, a way that the middle classes seek to impose a certain set of behaviours that are deemed acceptable by 'civilised' (viz: the middle classes) society. What I meant when I talked about its courtesy and slow regal nature was perhaps its exactitude, in seeking to ascertain the exact position and the truth, whatever that may be. Certainly in terms of criminal law rather than the morass of civil law; as an example of what I mean by civil (ha) law, treating fathers who perhaps through no fault of their own have been marginalised and, indeed, criminalised because they do not fit into the Daily Mail version of a family, or because they have been pushed into the pigeonhole of Absent Parent, even though this is not what they either wanted or intended. The ability to actually be involved in the legal process, whether it is to defend oneself, or to give evidence, or to be part of the jury, is both an important freedom and a duty. Unfortunately, it only applies only to the criminal justice system and only at crown court level and above. For the rest, we are required to depend upon the 'service' of the politicians we choose (or not, as the case may be), and invest our trust in those who may not necessarily have our interests at heart, or who do not or cannot understand them.

Bah! What a Swizz!

After being sent out early from the trial and having lunch, we, the jury, trooped into court at 2.00. We sat down. The defendant, I noticed, had been moved back to the dock, and had a huge grin adorning their face.
the judge faced us and told us that the trial, 'for reasons that have taken us all by surprise' had had to be called off, and would be sent for retrial. as such, we were discharged from our duty, and promptly thanked and told to leave. The atmosphere among the jurors was one of feeling cheated; we hadn't been able to hear the last witness or the summings-up of the case, or have the satisfaction of closure by delivering our verdict. It's also deeply frustrating because I can't discuss the case whatsoever. I will say this though: what kept me most entertained was the defendant's evasions and inventions in the face of overwhelming evidence that he was guilty as charged.
It was also fascinating seeeing the exactitude and courtesy of the judge and the lawyers, the slowly regal process of law, seeking to dig out the veracity or not of each witness' statement.