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.

more jury service, more time..

the case drones on. The air-conditioned atmosphere of court cannot hide the dull mildew fug of legal books, the soporific exactitude of legal argument, the sense of a drama played out underwater: so far, I've almost fallen asleep three times. The case is not the most exciting in the world, and will, I daresay, warrant no more than a paragraph in the pages of the local newspaper. I've been playing a variation of Bullshit Bingo to try and keep myself focused. For those who don't know it, Bullshit Bingo is a way to enliven the dullest of meetings. Make a grid of nine squares, and fill each square with a set of buzzwords appropriate to the situation; For example, a management meeting may consist of phrases such as 'cascade down', 'imagineering', 'downsize' etc etc. When you hear the phrase being used, you cross it off the list. It's much more fun when you're competing with someone else, espaecially if the someone else beats you, forgets where they are, and stands up, yelling 'house!'
As I said in my previous post, legal reasons prevent me relating what's going on, but believe me, it is bloody tedious. Not quite as turgid as my first experience of jury service, but still yawnsome.
I did manage to pass some of the day imagining myself on this day ten years ago. I woke up early, then: I had a mild headache and a dry mouth, partly due to what I had drunk the night before, partly out of nervous anticipation of what was to come that day. I made myself a decent breakfast of fresh bread, black olives, feta cheese, large ripe tomatoes, egg, honey and jam, washed down with orange juice and black coffee, and had the lot on the balcony of the tiny flat I'd moved into the day before, completely naked. Then, I carefully laid out my new suit, shirt and cravat on the bed, and went into the bathroom. I looked myself fiercely in the eye and made sure I was certain, then having ascertained I was, I diligently, carefully and leisurely stroked a razor across my face, leaving my skin fresh and smooth beneath the palp. I showered, taking my time; Then, equally leisurely, towelled myself down, enjoying the simple sensual enjoyment of feeling my own body beneath my own hands, and wondering whether it would be any different by the end of the day.
After I got dressed in my finery, I finished off my hair, left the building, and went off to an urgent appointment. I found my urgent appointment in the hairdressers, having her makeup finished off, and looking lovely in her wedding dress.
And how the hell ten years has passed from then to here, I haven't a clue.
Happy anniversary!

Jury service.

So, fresh from leaving no. 1 son at school, I pedalled downhill in light rain from Emmer Green and into town, and locked my bike up outside the crown court in Reading, opposite the imposing lion sculpture in The Forbury, next to the Abbey Gateway that once housed the school that Jane Austen went to when young and unironic. I grabbed myself a Guardian, then went through the security check.
'Where you park your bike, then?' asked the guard.
'just over there', I said, pointing to the bicycle racks.
'Wouldn't do that,' he said, shaking his head,'Judge got his nicked just the other day. Lock it up here, just outside: I'll keep an eye on it.'
After moving it and being checked again, I walked through the pleasant cool interior and into the jurors' waiting room. After being welcomed, signed in, given a locker key and shown around, I was ushered into the lounge, tricked out in the utilitarian greens and beechwoods of corporate furniture, complete with pissed-off looking canteen staff. Other jurors appeared in dribs and drabs; Some chatted, some riffled through the scruffy magazines piled on the tables, others coughed and moved chairs several times, trying to find a place to be comfortable. Eventually, one of the ushers, a thin, nervous man with combed back long black hair, glasses and a straggly goatee, came in, said 'watch this video, then I'll be back', put on the video, and buggered off. One of those corporate videos, the ones with the crap electronic incidental music and people who tell you in smiling tones what the hell you're doing in the place, whether it be on a plane or in a new company or how to do presentations, told us what the hell we were doing there, while the video crackled and fizzed on the screen.
The usher came back, started speaking into a remote microphone, said ' right, can you hear me?' and the microphone failed. In his strongest voice, he went through various health and safety regulations. I completed my Sudoku puzzle, and started on the cryptic crossword in the paper. He told us we may have a wait.
He wasn't bloody wrong.
I read my paper back to front, then started reading Geoffrey Leech's Meaning and The English Verb. Not only is this a sodding boring read, I got really annoyed at Geoff because he is so maddeningly vapid when it comes to discussing the exceptions to the rules governing tense usage that he so rigidly and explicitly sets forth.
Eventually, at ten to three, I was finally called to the court, along with eleven other people good and true. We were sworn in.
Then we were told to come back tomorrow morning.
Well woopy-do.
And OF COURSE, I won't discuss the case, a) because it is sub judice and therefore would be a criminal act to discuss it, and actually I believe that this is an important legal principle, and b) They didn't even tell us what the case was.

pointless.

It's friday, there aren't many people in at work, so it's time for a blog entry. It's been a week that has seen me slowly unwind from being very stressed out over the whole bloody business of exams. We've almost finished with them now, and got the extra fillip of some extremely good results from the Speaking and Listening exams - out of 129 people, only 4 failed. I have just some oral exams to attend tomorrow, then I'm done, and off for jury service. And then, once all the crap is out of the way, and I've put all the paperwork on my desk to the torch, I can try and get on with doing my Dip. TESOL. again.
One problem I have, and one I've mentioned before on this blog, is my inertia when it comes to starting to do something, or when something I've been working on, for whatever reason, grinds to a halt. And this has been a recurring problem with this. In a way, I need someone, whether it be a supervisory figure or a competitor, to spur me on. At the same time, it really bugs me having someone standing over my shoulder, checking up on what I'm doing. I feel that it stops me expressing what's really in my mind, somehow.

Mobile phone covers: I saw one of our Chinese students shouting into her mobile yesterday. Her phone cover was in the form of some kind of cuddly, furry pink dog. Unfortunately, it gave the impression that she was yelling into its bum.

res ipso loquitur (if that's the right spelling)

just wanted to put this pic of mum and dad, moments after their wedding ceremony, on here.

Who am I? Who are you?

Who is there who never says to themselves, 'who amI'? Who is there who hasn't, at some stage in their lives, looked into a mirror and, only recognising themselves partially, behind the tiredness, behind the age beginning to creep into their features, asked, 'who are you?'
And what answers come back? Glib ones, bland ones, tired ones, lies, obfuscations, attempts to dodge some kind of truth, if truth it is, attempts to convince ourselves that we are this type of person and not the other. How often can we absolutely, honestly, say 'I am this and nothing else'?
The problem is, of course, that we are in reality many things, not only to many people, but to ourselves, and often when we don't like what we see in the mirror, we comfort ourselves with fibs about our personalities and physical selves. Advertising is based upon this premise of the self-told lie: 'Because You're Worth It', for example. Not only do we invent a legend, or legends, of the self, our own epic narratives in which we are the scions of ancient, noble clans, or lost princes/princesses or whatever, but we have labels attached to us that in general remain firmly stuck throughout life, once we reach a certain point in that particular journey. So, for example, I am, in various people's minds, and in rough chronological order, a Son, a Brother, the Brainy Relative, the Quiet One In The Corner, The Shy One, The Gambler, The Lover, The Mad Drunk One Who Gets Into All Gigs Free, The Bad-Tempered One, The Teacher, the Husband, the Father, and probably far more, including earthier descriptions, I'm sure.
But is any of this really me? The only time I really, really feel that I am myself is in the midst of quiet, reflective moments, quite like this one now, when all the world is dozing and I try to do what I do best - play with ideas. I don't like labels, I don't like pigeonholes, yet no-one can go through life without having metaphorical post-it notes slapped on them or being bunged into a little slot of some kind.

I believe that I have mentioned in previous posts about the idiocy of packaging; well, here is an example. Seeing this, would you ever seriously want it to pass your lips? And the origin of this particular little monstrosity? A plane trip.
This is my sister and me, hanging around outside a holiday villa in...
The seasisde town of Acharavi in Corfu, because...
..we came to surprise our parents, who'd decided to get married again on the sly! I've refrained from writing about it until now, as I didn't want to run the risk that they'd read this blog before we'd turned up. Yes, after a hiatus of nearly twenty years, mum and dad got back together again, after a long and tortuous path. It's a long story, and one that might be dismissed as stretching credibility. Anyway, they have been back together for a while, then moved in together, and 6 weeks ago decided they'd wed while on holiday, a fact that My sister and I only found out about some 4 weeks ago, after which we found cheap plane tickets, contacted the wedding organiser and ensured the ceremony would go ahead only after we'd arrived, and sworn quite a few people to absolute secrecy. It all went to plan: I will cherish the image of my mum literally jumping out of her sun lounger with shock and surprise, as me and Karen sauntered up to her holiday villa, for a very long time. In all, we had a fantastic four days in the sun, and it was good to be with Karen, mum and dad - we haven't been together on holiday since 1984. And guess where that was? Nissaki, just round the coast from where we found ourselves this week.

blimey. I am knackered. The amount of work I've had to do recently, both of the career and domestic varieties, has tended to preclude writing here. Anyway, I thought I'd add something before my blogging mind scabs over.
One thing I notice, and something I'm sure others have, is an inability to think of anything whatsoever to write after a little time away from the keyboard. It isn't just a matter of working the brain; It's also something to do with having lazy, rambling fingers, unwilling to step on the keyboard in the right places. Also, a general sense of inertia, making it hard to get going.

Sean

Sean yesterday. Cute isn't he?

Well, I'm about to have an extremely fun time in a meeting - the Subject Group Meeting for EFL, Education and MFL. Bluh. It's a forum held three times a year in order to see whichof the subject groups can bore the others to death first. While I'm sure that it is held with the best will in the world, it is always obvious in how much contempt the Ealing and Slough HE teachers helod us, the lowly FE workers in Reading.
Never mind, I'm going to play Bullshit Bingo. If you've never done it before, it's simple: Write down nine current buzzwords or phrases, e.g. 'Cascade down' (pass on information): when you've heard all nine, you win, although I suggest you don't get up mid-meeting and shout 'house!'. It's also far better to play with a couple of friends.

A testing time.

My ears and nose are full of gunk; I am feeling entirely exhausted; My spirits are low and I feel bored, annoyed and frustrated; My stress levels are through the roof; And I've had four stress headaches so far this week.
Welcome to the beginning of the exams season.
The amount of work on my plate is the main reason why I haven't written anything here for the last two weeks.

I've had what feels like an aimless, meandering week, so it deserves an aimless, meandering blog entry. I simply have had no inclination to do much of anything over the past few days, and to be honest it has bugged the hell out of me. I know that I'm a better person when I have a focus: getting something I've set my mind on completed always leaves me feeling good, yet I all too frequently allow myself to drift. A friend of mine once asked me what the hell I was doing teaching, when I should be doing so much more, and although they were right, I couldn't answer them. On reflection, and trying to be utterly honest, the only conclusions I could come to were these:
1. I like being a big fish in a small pond.
2. I'm afraid of success.
3. In some way, I find selling myself, in terms of saying who I am and what I'm truly capable of doing, somehow immoral.
To deal with these in order. For the first point, I'm not alone in this. That is, of course, no excuse: I should be able to move on, and risk not being more than a minnow in the ocean. Quite clearly, this is related to my second point. Additionally, big fish in small ponds are doomed to fail and diminish, so I really should not be afraid to move on to bigger waters. Dealing with the second point, why this should be the case, I'm not really sure, yet I'm certain it's true. Again, it is absurd, because I know that where I have taken a risk, made a leap in the dark as it were, I have almost always been successful. It's staying still and moping that I should be afraid of.
These two things though lead me to point three. The immorality and essential dishonesty that underpins the selling of the self. I have talked about my hatred of advertising on this blog before. Likewise, I have talked about credospheres, which work on a personal and public scale, and have hinted at how it is essentially immoral to manipulate them in order to get acheive personal, selfish advantages. As I person, I am a skeptical, cautious person by nature. Unfortunately, this also extends to myself. In a way, I am continually self-monitoring, indeed, self-censoring. This has its advantages - I am not someone of whom it can be said that I am easily fooled - yet the main disadvantage is that I do not really achieve what I am capable of, simply because I don't believe in myself sufficiently.
I have always been somewhat envious of people who are single-minded in their approach to things, while berating them for being blinkered and ignorant of the world beyond their aims. I am envious because they can get specific targets, and because they seem to be rewarded for being blinkered. I have always found itb difficult to understand the mindset required to be able to do this: It is the blindness of an arrow flying through a beautiful landscape, oblivious to all but its target. Only now do I have some understanding of it. Also, the selfishness required has always struck me as being essentially wrong.
However, I am beginning to think I am wrong.
I watched 'Good Will Hunting' the other day, and while it is, in essence, a fairly typical American self-actualisation film, I did find myself identifying very strongly with the central character. In particular, there is a scene where his friend tells him that is more insulting not to go for success when you are capable of doing so, than actually going for it. Yes, yes, all very carpe diem, but when i consider how hard my parents worked so I and my sister could be succesful, I have to take it on board. Now, I have a decent job that I do well, yet I can still do so much more.
It means I have to stand on my soapbox, then take a dive into that big scary ocean.

but to be fair...

maslow's hierarchy of needs

..which are, if I recall correctly, physiological, safety needs, social needs, status needs, and self-actualisation. Something like this gender-oriented version, made during a workshop on the new interactive whiteboards:

what's got 12 heads, 48 limbs and dozens of opinions?

...a Jury.
Bah. I've been called up for jury service. Again. I last did it 14 years ago, just after having done my TEFL certificate: Now they want me once more.
I'm annoyed because a) I've been summoned for our busy exam period and b) I'll lose roughly £500 in wages. Although compensation is given for loss of earnings, it's capped at just over £50 a day.
This is not something I can afford to do right now.
Also, my experience of being on a jury is of it being bloody boring, and having to share a room with people whose opinions are somewhere to the right of the BNP, or who only just evolved from amoebas.
Still, I may be proved wrong: I might have a pleasant time indeed.

Gloomy.

'How's it going?'
'Alright.'
'What did you think of how the exams went?'
'They were OK.'
'What did you think of the concert?'
'It was good, pretty good.'
Compared with:
'How's it going?'
'Fucking brilliant mate!'
'What did you think of how the exams went?'
'They were fantastic!'
'What did you think of the concert?'
'It was just...wooh!'

As you may have gathered from my posts previous, I am not the sort of person who regards every event in my life as being superlative. Indeed, you may have garnered the idea that I am a somewhat bad-tempered, gloomy and pessimistic type.
All of which would be true.
As someone recently said, 'Why don't you ever write about the good things? Why are you so negative?'
to which I replied, 'i usually write when I feel pissed off.'
Yet is this blog, or indeed any of my rather extensive diaries, actually negative?
My answer: not really.
Even my best friends would describe me as being a somewhat moody person, but I am not a doom and gloom merchant as such. Rather, I am someone who values words and emotions. I have always distrusted (amd occasionally despised) people whose reaction is to go 'Wooh!' to any given situation. as in:
'I'm at a concert! Wooh!'
'I'm driving round in a sports car! Wooh!'
'I'm in the Big Brother House! Wooh!'
'I've just made a large amount of money! Wooh!'
'I'm in the pub and someone's just told a brilliant joke! Wooh!'
Wooh.
The war-cry of the addled; of someone desperately trying to convince themselves that they're having the timeof their lives, RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW, when all it is is something rather quotidian.
I distrust people who overuse strong adjectives to describe their experiences, because so often they are used in an over-blown, indeed a fly-blown, way.
If a gig I've been to is good, I'll say that it was good, not that it was brilliant. If the fact that 80% of the students I've arranged an exam for have passed, I'll say it is a good result, not a staggering one. If I appreciate someone, I'll tell them that, not say 'I adore you, man'.
And why? Well, because when I say that something is brilliant, fantastic, superb, gorgeous, when I say to someone 'you're great' or 'I love you', I actually mean it. When I say 'wooh!' it fucking means 'WOOH!'
In other words, I choose my words carefully, becuase I don't want to abase my feelings. someone who uses strong words all the time strikes me as someone who cannot make a distiction between the merely good, or bad, and that which is truly amazing or awful - inother words, someone who is essentially incapable of comprehending, emotionally, spiritually and mentally, the heights and depths of all that is here in this world.
I simply can't go 'Wooh!' at every thing that is good; However, I did so when I got to each of the three peaks last year, because I'd never done it before; Likewise, a production of 'Julius Caesar' I once saw was good, but a production of 'The Merchant of Venice' was brilliant because of Anthony Scher's performance.
I reserve the right to use extreme adjectives and go 'Wooh!' only when the situation only really requires it.
So if you still think I'm a gloomy bastard you can bugger off. True it may be, but I cherish words and situations both.

As you can see, I'm fiddling with the design and layout of this blog. Bear with me.

Derailment...

..of one's train of thought, I mean. Cycling by the river bank on the way home, I had a fantastic idea of something to write down here. You know how it is: You get into a rhythm on the bike, or into an activity that doesn't quite take over all your concentration, and your brain begins to foment ideas, almost unbidden. Anyway, there I was, thinking this wonderful idea, and the sentences I was to write appeared almost before my eyes, when suddenly some little cockhead - one of the breed of cycle fascists, all lycra and expensive lightweight bike, and about whom I shall write in detail later - nearly forced me into the bloody river. Bastard.
Worse than that though was that my idea had completely disappeared. I mean, totally. To say I was infuriated by this is an understatement. Cycling back home, I tried to scrabble for the memory of it, its shadow fleeting away from me, and I couldn't grasp it at all. A shame, as it seemed to be a damn fine one at the time. This got me thinking about the numerous times I have had good ideas, yet have omitted to writing them down and they have disappeared like clouds over a desert.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

..Frequently get torn up, eaten, chucked up, stamped on, then flushed round the U-bend. Take this week: a week away from the pressures of work. My plans? Very simple: go to either the Brecon Beacons or up to Snowdonia for a bit of climbing, just for a day or two, and spend the rest of the time diligently doing my Diploma. Simple, no?
Fat fucking chance. The trip git blown out of the window for financial reasons - I can't spare the dosh - and the working diligently on my diploma for familial reasons - one slightly ill wife and two children who need plenty of attention. It's not as if I haven't done anything, just not as much as I'd like.
Anyway, I am now ensconsed in my shed-cum-office-cum-breeding factory for wasps, trying to work. And avoid being stung.
I'm going to return to the concept of credospheres in later blogs, as I want to deal with, as I see it, how people create the things and then how they manipulate them, and why it is arguable that this is unethical.
Well, that's the plan, anyway....

More on credospheres.

OK, so what's the difference between a credosphere and a meme? That was the question put by the same colleague after the last entry. A meme is an idea transmitted as an idea; it may remain the same, or mutate, or grow stronger, or weaker, or become extinct. An urban legend is a good example of a strong meme: The forgotten gods of our neolithic forbears a good example of an extinct meme. These ideas, these beliefs, necessarily need belief in order to thrive - they need to people to have faith in them as some kind of truth, a kind of 'good', in order to live. A credosphere is basically an area - physical or metaphysical - where a meme, or a set of memes, thrive.
The other difference is that if you can recognise a credosphere and you're cunning or powerful enough, you can influence that area, and subsequently all those individuals who fall within that particular area. One example would be in the theatre. Anyone who has been to a great performance of a play or a magician's show can attest to how they are held spellbound while the performance lasts, thanks to the skill of the actor(s) or magician. Another good example is of the call to patriotism in times of national distress - to believe in a core set of values, the centre of a creed. While it makes the core meme stronger, it also strengthens a counteridea. The Bush government's call to arms is ironically making its enemy more focused and powerful, both as an idea and as a physical form. Al-Quaeda started off as not much more than a loose set of (admittedly nutty) ideals; Now it is far more sinister in reach and capability, simply because it has been given form and shape, and a place in which to foment.
Credospheres, while inherently about belief, can actually inhabit a physical area - where, for example, you get several different national, linguistic or religious groups inhabiting the same city, you are most likely to end up with some kind of ghettoisation.

Credospheres.

Following a discussion with a colleague, I have been asked to expand upon the concept underlying the word in the title. Since it's my own invention, I suppose I shall. Feel free to mock it if you will, although I think it's a neat way to describe the way ideas interact - or not as the case may be.

What is a Credosphere? Very simply, it's a way to describe an area of belief, or an area where a common set of beliefs and ideals exist. Credospheres cover a multitude of different ideas, yet what they have in common is this idea of faith and belief. In other words, they do not deal with things that are solid facts, but rather with those things that people consider to be true. They can exist on several different levels:
1) Personal - our self-belief and view of ourselves;
2) Familial/clan - the idea that our family is 'normal' and others are somehow 'abnormal' (or even vice versa;
3) Social, tribal and work groups - the idea that my team is better than your team, or my workplace is somehow superior to another;
4) national/linguistic - my country/language is 'better';
5) supranational - the idea of the EU, or Western Europe, for example;
6) Political - one party represents this particular set of ideas, etc;
7) Religious - hence my originally calling the concept a credosphere in the first place;
and others.
I decided that it is best described as a sphere because of the way each area interacts, or not, with others. At the centre of each credosphere, belief is at its most strong, and is less likely to 'believe' in an alternative; At the edges, where credospheres meet, mingle and interact, the core belief of any given credosphere is more dilute, and more open to change, interpretation and challenge. Where Credospheres have heavy areas of overlap, there is an essential confusion where belief systems clash.
Let me give some examples. Linguistic credospheres are easy to describe. Someone who lives in the middle of a monlingual environment is less likely to learn a foreign language, simple because they are (geographically) distant from the target language, plus they are likely not to actually need it. That belief is likely to be shored up by this perceived fact. British people are well-known for their reluctance to learn foreign languages, partly because of our geographic isolation, but also because we believe that if we go anywhere in the world, we will find someone who speaks English. That, or we will be understood by talking loudly and slowly. However, someone who lives on the border of two countries, let's say for example the Alsace, is more likely to speak the languages of both regions, or a hybrid. There's a given belief that the knowledge of two languages is inherently 'good'.
Another obvious example is of course religion - let's use Islam. The way Islam is practised in Saudi Arabia, its nominal centre, and the way it operates on its idealogical margins - in Turkey, for example - is significantly different. The fact that Turkey borders the 'Christian' west suggests that it is influenced by it - for better or worse, I leave to you to decide, although I personally dislike both labels.
Using Turkey in another example, it has been trying to join the EU for years. The EU is best seen as a concept as much as an enormous, lumbering over-bureaucraticised dinosaur; After all, you have to believe in the project before you join it. And so Turkey has had a hankering for the European project these past few decades. Yet now, after rebuff after rebuff while other countries jump the queue, it is now beginning to look to the Credosphere of the East - not necessarily the world of Islam, but the Grand Turkish Project of connecting all the Turkic Republics that stretch all the way to the gates of China.
And what happens when credospheres collide? Well to take the UK as an example, you end up with a crisis of identity. Can you tell me what it means to be English? No, and I wouldn't be surprised. Can you tell me what it means to be Scottish? Probably, but if your answer is essentially 'Not being the southern bastards next door', then there's an essential void in the description of your belief. Being 'English', as a concept, is remarkably difficult to determine; It has nothing to do, nowadays, with George Orwell's famous essay. And if you come from a family that originally emigrated from the West Indies, or from Pakistan, or even from just over the border, then how do you define yourself? How do you believe? What do you believe, in terms of nationality, religion, which music or sport is the 'best'? The clash of ideas and beliefs is inevitable, because there are so many opinions whirling around as to which concepts are 'good' and which 'bad'. 'Good' and 'bad' are entirely subjective, and I am tempted to dismiss them all under the epithet 'wrong', although that of course is totally unfair.
This is just an outline in brief - and one I will probably come back to. As I said at the beginning, this is just a way to describe how people believe a certain set of things, and how that creates an impetus to create a 'common area'; It is not meant to be a hypothesis, merely a tool.

If your field don't yield, get up and hoe it.

Monday, and no students, seeing as it's the beginning of the Easter break. Now's the time to catch up on errant marking, create lists of students for the marathon of exams in the summer, get all my photocopies done for the next term, and put all the mountain of paperwork on my desk to the torch. One other thing is that it's blissfully quiet in the office -there's only me and another colleague, Ruth, here.
Also, of course, the absence of people demanding a slice of my time means I have an opportunity to write something here. I was listening to this song the other day, and reflecting how hard it is to create, to write, and to do all the things I enjoy, or rather enjoyed - My time being so taken up by other demands, or so it seems. And the song spoke to me, of how I feel about creating, or writing, or studying, and how so often I passively wait for things to come along.
Well, I don't want to be that any more. It's to do with being fulfilled as a person, of doing the Three Peaks in my head, as it were. What has always been a problem for me is a personal reluctance to take a step along a single path - I've always been afraid that by doing so, I will somehow cut myself off from other experiences, other adventures. But by staying as I am, I am cutting myself off from all those possible experiences.
So, it's time to move forward. But to what? Well, first of all, there's the small matter of my Diploma in TESOL. I have been genuinely busy over these past two years, but now I want to get the bloody thing out of the way.
Next, The Booze Rule. I have reflected on how much I have sunk over the past twenty-two years, and the reasons why. It started as a way out of my extreme reticence, and to cope with social situations. The trouble is, I have let it slip into a bad habit. As you can see from previous posts this year, I have made efforts to address this, with varying degrees of success week by week. The general principle is: No Booze during the week, unless in a social situation; Eat something when Boozing; And there is no requirement to finish a bottle of wine once it has been opened.
What else? Obviously (to me, anyway) my writing. I enjoy the process of making words appear on the page, pulled from some recess of my mind, so why don't I do it on a more regular basis?
There are other things, but I will enumerate them later, as someone's just come in with firewood and accelerant so I can deal with my paperwork.

Thanks to the wonders of wireless broadband and an extension lead, I'm writing this from the (dis-)comfort of my shed. The reason I'm in here is because a) I kitted it out as an office of sorts back in January and b) Nur, along with her friend Bilge, are doing an extensive clean of the house from top to bottom, and moaning about it. well, they bloody well decided to do it.
I am not what could be described as un lapin joyeaux at the moment. I am feeling very pissed off with work, and one incident in particular involving someone in a position senior to me. I am not going to say anything more about this at the moment, save to say that it has made me seriously consider whether I resign or not. However, I am not going to do anything in a fit of anger - that would be to harm none but myself: No, I am going to bide my time - for now. It is not the anger so much as the disappointment at an act done in an underhand way, and the knowledge that I can no longer rely on or trust this person in the way I would have done before.

Aspire, respire, perspire, expire.

Feet of clay - or more cheating bastards!

You'd expect those night-time dial-and-win programmes to cheat, and get people to call in at a pound a call and have no chance of getting through; You might raise your eyebrows at Richard and Judy doing it, but not be too shocked.
But Blue Peter - no, no, no - that's just wrong, all wrong!
Here's a winner we found earlier

untitled

This is one of those posts where I'm not exactly what I'm going to write. Rather, I'm allowing my fingers to caress each key, to follow the flow of the board until I get into a rhythm and then see what it reveals. I find that when I write, I eventually get into some kind of trance state and the words begins to write themselves. I even find I write more accurately - that is, my fingers become more sure of their stepping and I don't even have to correct my work as I go along. I read something by J.G. Ballard the other day, where he said that no truly great novel has so far been written on a computer.
Bollocks.
I bet someone said that a couple of years after the invention of the typewriter.
My own handwriting is utterly appalling - quite frequently, even I can't make it out. For that reason, I feel far more comfortable with a keyboard. I find it slows me down a bit, allows me pause for my fingers to catch up with the ever turbulent flow of my mind, until there's that sudden moment where they're working wonderfully well in unison and my conscious mind can sit back and marvel at what the rest of me is doing. The nearest analogy I can find is when I'm talking in Turkish at full flow, and the bit of me that's still thinking in English starts to give a running commentary:
' Hot Damn, boy, look at you do that whole Turkish thing! That's right, you're even getting the body gestures right!'
And so on.
It's something to do with an act of abstraction from the quotidian mental acts we all undergo, I suppose; A movement towards another place within that is somehow a sanctum sanctorum (Is that right?) from the usual experience. When I write at length, I withdraw further and further into this, a garden within the mind, that becomes wilder, denser, lusher the more I wander in. And the more I go in, the less I desire to come out again, yet at the same time I am aware of this other voice, my own director's commentary as it were, giving his opinion over what I'm doing.
Strangely, when I'm exploring this fecund jungle of my own imagination, he is largely positive; It is only when I'm stuck on the outside, lurching and limping through the mundanity, that he becomes an overwhelmingly negative voice, whether it be about me, or the apparent idiocies, folies and stupidities of others. Why this should be, I don't know, yet there it is.

Class

Panorama shot taken with k800.

in a fug.

ye gods, I'd forgotten how drained you feel. It's the sense of being in a permanent daze, of being a stupefied automaton at the thrall of something very small and very precious with a wail that is heartrending, soulrending, mindshredding and completely impossible to ignore. And the lengthening days, particularly the mornings, make it harder. Just like Angus, Sean is an early riser. I've spent the past few days wandering round in a haze of inattentive dullness, save for a few moments of clarity while, of all things, doing the shopping. Mind you, wandering round Tescos is enough to put anyone in a daze. Unpacking my things onto the conveyor belt before having them scanned and then repacking them (and before shoving them in the car, then dragging them home and unpacking them into new places, then unpacking them as and when and dumping the remains in one way shpae or form), it was as though all the sounds and voices came into sudden focus, as well as the colours and shapes around me, and I could almost sense the secret thoughts, worries, anger, anxieties, misery, joy and fears of those processing their shopping.
Anyway, I'm knackered.
Here's a pic.

Yes, this really is the large statue above what was the main entrance to Reading College. From the front, it looks fairly innocuous in a 1950's Socialist Realist kind of way. It's only when viewed from the west wing that it's revealed that he's having a quick one off his stone wrist.

With a statue like this...

What can you say about where i work?

post-inspection, all washed out

...which is pretty much all I have to say. The BC inspectors were fairly kind in their judgement on us: Certainly, the most important thing, the teaching, came out well. I'm now in the mood where I can't be arsed to do anything. Also utterly tired out as Sean had a v. uncomfortable night, thanks to a cough.

Angus

taken on, and posted directly from, my new sony ericsson k800. Good, isn't it?

wet sundays.

I am, quite simply, too bloody knackered. Let's hope son no. 2 grows up quickly so I can get a decent night's sleep. Time was I would have spent sunday mooching around, especially when it was a sopping wet one like today. There is a pleasure in stomping around the countryside on a wet day, but this is one of those where you need to be curled up in a chair with a decent book or three and a ready supply of wine. Crumpets may also possibly be involved somewhere along the line, as well as the smell of a roast dinner.
Nowadays, I can hardly move for the competing demands for my attention from various others - and indeed, just on cue, Sean has just woken up. Also, I have to make dinner for a guest who I drunkenly invited over after my mum's 60th birthday bash, and of which I had entirely forgotten until Nurel reminded me this morning. I miss those lazy, lounging days.