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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The extra day



The holiday ends in bright sunshine with fluffy white clouds on the horizon and very few people on the beach. But the people who are on the beach are prone and taking the rays. The swimming pool is almost looking inviting, but I know that the water is unheated and my heart doesn’t need the shock that sudden immersion will give it!

This is an ‘extra day’ which seems to be limited to my school. In spite of the blank incomprehension of my colleges in the state sector about not going back to school today I have had the strength to enjoy it and not subside into a driveling wreck worrying about whether it is actual or just a simple mishearing on my part. If it was, no one in school has phoned up to tell me about it, so I think I’m fairly safe.

I suppose that I am benefitting from a nasty anti-Benthamite god who has reasoned that most of the teachers and pupils will be returning today, so it’s OK to turn on a wonderful day of sunshine so that they can see what they are missing. And if a few of the privileged get a little extra Vitamin D then so be it. For once I can be a recipient of the beneficial effect of the principle of the Greatest Misery for the Greatest Number!

As I typed that last exclamation mark, the fluffy innocuous white clouds on the horizon have spread across the rest of the sky and the sun is now well filtered and the glittering pool is now a rather dull looking stretch of water. So much for arch comments on dead philosophies!

My brief case has been entirely emptied and I only found two unexpected items. As the traditional emptying of the case is usually akin to a breathtaking conjuring trick with a rapid succession of things produced which illustrate a whole chunk of my personal history, I am rather proud that I seem to be using the case for what it was intended rather than a Black Hole for difficult to deal with areas of my personal and educational life!

In an excess of organizational frenzy I even rationalized my two pencil cases: one of which now actually contains pencils! The other, larger one now contains all those things which no teacher should be without: stapler, sellotape, rubbers, paperclips, gluesticks, tippex and highlighting pen etc. This being a particularly me-type ‘other’ pencil case it also contains a Swiss Army Hunting Knife and a USB mini hub and lead.

By the way have you heard the statistic that says only two out of every ten paper clips made are actually used to clip papers?

That statistic came from a survey conducted by a bank.

It does not take a super subtle mind to realize that as a major buyer of paperclips and therefore presumably major culprits of their non use for purpose, the banks have transferred their attitude towards paper clips to money which they have also spectacularly misused.

We poor fools with little financial acumen use money to buy things that we need, not realizing that what we should have been acquiring was ‘toxic debts.’

One would have thought that the clue was there in the description. Perhaps all those illiterate bonus takers needed was an English teacher on their boards.

I’m still available.

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