Time for Culture?

An infection on the wrist (who is surprised, this is 2007, what good happens in this year?) precludes my wearing a watch and I have been depressed to discover just how much I need a timepiece strapped to my body. I had thought that the loosening of the stranglehold of the demands of a school timetable would mean that time would become a little more malleable. That has not proved to be the case.

I think that the only thing which still ticks to the school clock is my bladder! It seems that my urinary system is geared to ‘first break’ for the ‘empty and refill’ which is the toilet break and a cup of tea. The other significant time markers are lost in a normal non-school day where the pace of living and the organization of events do not fit the highly artificial ‘day’ which is the modern school time allocation.

From time to time I idly wonder what I might have been teaching based on my last timetable: but as my timetable was never hard wired into my memory even when I was in school, it is hardly likely that it will spring to mind when the necessity for paying lip service to remembering is not even remotely present. What I do recall are vague lesson times, and from my experience, I can remember virtually any class in any position in the timetable! Monday mornings and Friday afternoons are usually particularly memorable; especially in that never-to-be-forgotten year when I was free for both. Though, as I recall, the reality of staff absence meant that the mythical double never actually happened in my case!

For me, thinking about school is like translating the cost of things in 2007 into pounds, shillings and pence – good old Lsd. It’s superficially interesting, but more frightening than illuminating and, eventually, an empty exercise.

When I spoke to Gwen about her coursework poem a few days ago I could feel the old pedagogical juices begin to flow; but that was one receptive pupil, not a class – so I am not romanticising my feelings of loss at having a receptive class in front of me to snuffle around to find the pearls of wisdom amidst the acorns of digression! But I do sometimes feel the need to learn by explanation: it’s my way!

The book which I might discuss with a class is the one that I’ve just finished, ‘The Sound of Laughter’ The Autobiography of Peter Kay. The book was a present to Paul 1 which has been loaned to me, and I have to say that I am glad that I didn’t actually spend any money on it. This ‘autobiography’ is intermittently funny in a formulaic way. Kay’s writing style is faux amateur, with some cringe making asides to the reader and you feel that this is more the substance of his stand-up shows rather than a real attempt to create a comic life story.

Kay’s writing is undemanding and he rarely develops the funny situations he describes: he creates types and no real characters. His understanding of himself is carefully regulated and this is one of the least revealing autobiographies that I have read in a long time.

He does have an eye for the absurd ordinary situation, but he spotlights this skill and it lacks the guilelessness that would make this technique particularly effective.

This is the sort of read which is perfect for the doctor’s waiting room: you can pick it up and put it down with equal ease. It is beach reading, and none the worse for that.

The other delightful cultural experience today has been a viewing of the British film, ‘Severance’ “SEVEN COLLEAGUES. ONE WEEKEND AWAY. IT’S TIME TO GET SLAUGHTERED.” That pun is an accurate touchstone of the quality of the film.

It starts well enough (in a way) and seems to be developing into a nice little blackish comedy in the British Style. Absurd caricatures with quirky traits set on a bus going to a team building weekend in Eastern Europe; unoriginal, but a good enough vehicle for humour. With nice judgement this could have been a sort of slapstick, zany, unsettling but funny film. As it turned out the balance of the film was hopelessly skewed, and the different elements of humour and horror constantly juggled for prominence, not in a productively artistic struggle but as a woeful series of misjudgements.

The humour is basic and the bloody horror gratuitous. There are a few funny moments, but the tenor of the film leaves you feeling both guilty and slightly dirty because of the confusion of style.

‘Severance’ was a thoroughly unpleasant watch in a way in which ‘Sean of the Dead’ wasn’t. There the humour was subordinated to the narrative comedy of the piece and laughter was sometimes shocked, but never shameful.

The film was made with money from The National Lottery and the British Film Board – they should both look to their funding policy.