Another visit to the labour exchange, this time for Toni and a cheery wave to the lady at desk 2 as we are now old friends!
Then, with Carmen and Laura in tow we began to scour the toy shops to find Mickey’s House. Carles has now developed an obsession (as Toni knows to his cost having endured multiple playing of one particular video) for Mickey Mouse and all his works.
Toys R Us is a startling experience for those of us who do not have the nagging reminder in the form of a young child who constantly demonstrates the cruel lack of Mickey related material in his everyday life. Salvation (and an empty bank balance) waits in the astonishing aisles of this horrific shop.
Stuffed representations of the various characters seem positively repulsive in their unimaginative ordinariness and their (relatively) low price.
Your child can have a Disney digital camera, a Mickey Mouse television with the loudspeakers looking like a pair of the most famous ears on the planet or a Mickey Mouse café or Market – all at prices to bring water to the eyes of the most doting parent.
As you wander through this wonderland of overpriced tat watching children in various states of dismay hounding increasingly harassed looking parents only one thought rises to your mind: why didn’t I buy shares in this enterprise when it started. Toys R Us turns the most tawdry flimsy gimcrack rubbish into the purest gold!
Plans to thwart the evil schemes of The Owner continue slowly and tomorrow will see another stage of the campaign be realised. I am trying to keep a sense of proportion about my efforts and am utilizing the ‘Oxfam Control.’ This relates to a time when I had just started teaching and was an enthusiastic member of a local Oxfam group. Against my better judgement I was persuaded to participate in a carnival in which our group decorated and staffed a float. The number of planning meetings and design crises that we endured before the final design and completion were roughly similar to those needed for the architectural planning and resiting of the capital of Brazil to Brasilia.
The amount of money that we raised in the form of sometimes frighteningly well aimed coppers along the route of the parade was derisory for the mental and physical effort that we put into the bloody float.
I then and there made a resolution that my time was worth X pounds so, if we were organizing a fund raising enterprise it had to have the very real possibility of raising X+ pounds before I would take part in it. This ‘Oxfam Control’ can also be used for other aspects of life including relationships, the price of a cup of tea and God.
Had an early evening drink with an ex-colleague with our conversation running along predictable lines, but comforting nevertheless as we persuaded each other by total agreement with our statements that we had not lost the commonly accepted sense of reality which is away with the fairies in our school!
Thinking about it, I must finish my short story about wrestling. Don’t ask. But since you do, it is a promise that I made to my English class which I should fulfil, otherwise their touching faith in the veracity of teachers could be fatally shattered.
And far be it from me to give them too much reality too soon!
Then, with Carmen and Laura in tow we began to scour the toy shops to find Mickey’s House. Carles has now developed an obsession (as Toni knows to his cost having endured multiple playing of one particular video) for Mickey Mouse and all his works.
Toys R Us is a startling experience for those of us who do not have the nagging reminder in the form of a young child who constantly demonstrates the cruel lack of Mickey related material in his everyday life. Salvation (and an empty bank balance) waits in the astonishing aisles of this horrific shop.
Stuffed representations of the various characters seem positively repulsive in their unimaginative ordinariness and their (relatively) low price.
Your child can have a Disney digital camera, a Mickey Mouse television with the loudspeakers looking like a pair of the most famous ears on the planet or a Mickey Mouse café or Market – all at prices to bring water to the eyes of the most doting parent.
As you wander through this wonderland of overpriced tat watching children in various states of dismay hounding increasingly harassed looking parents only one thought rises to your mind: why didn’t I buy shares in this enterprise when it started. Toys R Us turns the most tawdry flimsy gimcrack rubbish into the purest gold!
Plans to thwart the evil schemes of The Owner continue slowly and tomorrow will see another stage of the campaign be realised. I am trying to keep a sense of proportion about my efforts and am utilizing the ‘Oxfam Control.’ This relates to a time when I had just started teaching and was an enthusiastic member of a local Oxfam group. Against my better judgement I was persuaded to participate in a carnival in which our group decorated and staffed a float. The number of planning meetings and design crises that we endured before the final design and completion were roughly similar to those needed for the architectural planning and resiting of the capital of Brazil to Brasilia.
The amount of money that we raised in the form of sometimes frighteningly well aimed coppers along the route of the parade was derisory for the mental and physical effort that we put into the bloody float.
I then and there made a resolution that my time was worth X pounds so, if we were organizing a fund raising enterprise it had to have the very real possibility of raising X+ pounds before I would take part in it. This ‘Oxfam Control’ can also be used for other aspects of life including relationships, the price of a cup of tea and God.
Had an early evening drink with an ex-colleague with our conversation running along predictable lines, but comforting nevertheless as we persuaded each other by total agreement with our statements that we had not lost the commonly accepted sense of reality which is away with the fairies in our school!
Thinking about it, I must finish my short story about wrestling. Don’t ask. But since you do, it is a promise that I made to my English class which I should fulfil, otherwise their touching faith in the veracity of teachers could be fatally shattered.
And far be it from me to give them too much reality too soon!
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