I now have some idea of what the Berlin Airlift must have sounded like.
I understand from an aeronautically inclined friend that Castelldefels is only supposed to be over-flown (as I believe the technical term is) when there is a strong wind in the wrong direction. I arrived home and scurried up to the eyrie to snatch the last rays of the declining sun while Toni groaned on his bed of pain with a contrary tummy.
My grumbling acceptance of the watery sunshine that was supposed to colour my limbs to a shade of rich teak was made all the more difficult by the accompaniment of what seemed like one of Bomber Harris’s 1,000 plane missions which had somehow popped out of the Second World War and decided to disturb my well earned peace.
From the balcony of the eyrie you can see the planes lining up in the distance to make their approach virtually over my sun bed on to the runway in Barcelona Airport. They are now so low that I can test my autism quotient by glancing at the plane as it passes and then estimating the number of rivets in the fuselage!
The only thing that gives me some pleasure is that there is a dedicated band of Castelldefels inhabitants who monitor the plane that come over and then phone up the airport and raucously (rather like the planes themselves) complain to the authorities.
This evening has been ridiculous with what I can only assume is Europe’s entire air fleet making a visit to our city.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you get used to the sound of planes passing overhead. Such people are those who have bought (not rented) their accommodation and are looking to sell!
Today was the first day back after our little four day break.
The entire staff was exhausted by first break!
In spite of the fact that I still rather enjoy teaching once the class is captive in front of me I do not find the days easy. The teaching is not laborious – though what I have to teach is almost terminally boring and the text books with their lavish colour and their attempts at trendy modernity make it all somehow worse.
I am allowed, nay encouraged to teach literature; but it is seen very much as a luxury and something which does not have a strict relevance to the all powerful examinations which the students have to take. These examinations are grammar based and the writing is functional. I have effectively been de-skilled in the teaching I am asked to do and each day reveals more and more of the absurd world of English grammar to me. How many of you English Teachers out there know what a stative verb is? How many of you would contemplate with anything other than horror having to teach the conditional in all its numbered forms up to and including mixed? How familiar are you with the passive and what is a phrasal verb? I’m not even going to touch on the forms and descriptions of verb forms that we are expected to know and teach.
And the kids lap it all up. It is only when you ask them to read or write that they become restive! It is a mad world my masters!
But it is money in the bank and the rent paid so I will Follow The Book and keep my more heretical literary leanings to myself!
My books are still in fragmented chaos and yesterday I tried to find an edition of the poems of John Clare that I know I have. I was re-reading ‘I Am’ in Q’s Oxford Collection of English Verse and was confused by the first line in his chosen version of the poem.
The line with which I am familiar is:
“I am – yet what I am, none cares or knows”
Q’s choice is of the version which starts:
“I am! Yet what I am who cares, or knows?”
I think that the first version of the poem was produced when Clare’s poems were published by the Superintendant of the Asylum in which the poet spent so much of his life. I know that trying to find some sort of consensus on the punctuation is difficult, but most versions are variations on the first and more well known than the second which is a dramatic departure from the accepted line.
So I looked for my copy of Clare’s poems. And try as I might I couldn’t find it!
I know in the scheme of things quibbles about the authenticity of versions of a line of a nineteenth century poet’s best known work is not great. But I wanted to know and check my book and the frustration of knowing that somewhere in the serried ranks of very roughly ordered volumes the book lurks was great.
Once again I make resolutions to spend a little time each day moving ten or twenty books so that at least there is some progress and each day the sheer scale of the task daunts me.
I should remember my oft quoted motto, “Anything is Better Than Nothing” and get on with it.
As a sign of this new determination I have moved The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations next to The Times Book of Quotations next to my desk.
Not much: but it’s a start!
I understand from an aeronautically inclined friend that Castelldefels is only supposed to be over-flown (as I believe the technical term is) when there is a strong wind in the wrong direction. I arrived home and scurried up to the eyrie to snatch the last rays of the declining sun while Toni groaned on his bed of pain with a contrary tummy.
My grumbling acceptance of the watery sunshine that was supposed to colour my limbs to a shade of rich teak was made all the more difficult by the accompaniment of what seemed like one of Bomber Harris’s 1,000 plane missions which had somehow popped out of the Second World War and decided to disturb my well earned peace.
From the balcony of the eyrie you can see the planes lining up in the distance to make their approach virtually over my sun bed on to the runway in Barcelona Airport. They are now so low that I can test my autism quotient by glancing at the plane as it passes and then estimating the number of rivets in the fuselage!
The only thing that gives me some pleasure is that there is a dedicated band of Castelldefels inhabitants who monitor the plane that come over and then phone up the airport and raucously (rather like the planes themselves) complain to the authorities.
This evening has been ridiculous with what I can only assume is Europe’s entire air fleet making a visit to our city.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you get used to the sound of planes passing overhead. Such people are those who have bought (not rented) their accommodation and are looking to sell!
Today was the first day back after our little four day break.
The entire staff was exhausted by first break!
In spite of the fact that I still rather enjoy teaching once the class is captive in front of me I do not find the days easy. The teaching is not laborious – though what I have to teach is almost terminally boring and the text books with their lavish colour and their attempts at trendy modernity make it all somehow worse.
I am allowed, nay encouraged to teach literature; but it is seen very much as a luxury and something which does not have a strict relevance to the all powerful examinations which the students have to take. These examinations are grammar based and the writing is functional. I have effectively been de-skilled in the teaching I am asked to do and each day reveals more and more of the absurd world of English grammar to me. How many of you English Teachers out there know what a stative verb is? How many of you would contemplate with anything other than horror having to teach the conditional in all its numbered forms up to and including mixed? How familiar are you with the passive and what is a phrasal verb? I’m not even going to touch on the forms and descriptions of verb forms that we are expected to know and teach.
And the kids lap it all up. It is only when you ask them to read or write that they become restive! It is a mad world my masters!
But it is money in the bank and the rent paid so I will Follow The Book and keep my more heretical literary leanings to myself!
My books are still in fragmented chaos and yesterday I tried to find an edition of the poems of John Clare that I know I have. I was re-reading ‘I Am’ in Q’s Oxford Collection of English Verse and was confused by the first line in his chosen version of the poem.
The line with which I am familiar is:
“I am – yet what I am, none cares or knows”
Q’s choice is of the version which starts:
“I am! Yet what I am who cares, or knows?”
I think that the first version of the poem was produced when Clare’s poems were published by the Superintendant of the Asylum in which the poet spent so much of his life. I know that trying to find some sort of consensus on the punctuation is difficult, but most versions are variations on the first and more well known than the second which is a dramatic departure from the accepted line.
So I looked for my copy of Clare’s poems. And try as I might I couldn’t find it!
I know in the scheme of things quibbles about the authenticity of versions of a line of a nineteenth century poet’s best known work is not great. But I wanted to know and check my book and the frustration of knowing that somewhere in the serried ranks of very roughly ordered volumes the book lurks was great.
Once again I make resolutions to spend a little time each day moving ten or twenty books so that at least there is some progress and each day the sheer scale of the task daunts me.
I should remember my oft quoted motto, “Anything is Better Than Nothing” and get on with it.
As a sign of this new determination I have moved The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations next to The Times Book of Quotations next to my desk.
Not much: but it’s a start!
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