With depleted forces in the English department in school things are a little strained as we try and cope without the support of external help. The head of department is frantically trying to find teachers who will be able to give some form of extended service in the school.
At the moment the absence of one teacher is being covered by colleagues in school while I cough delicately in the background and am thereby excused from extra duty.
Amazingly (for a school) I was actually thanked for “struggling into school”! This has to be a first; it could start a whole new trend in appreciation! But welcome though it is it doesn’t actually put any extra money in the bank!
At the moment the absence of one teacher is being covered by colleagues in school while I cough delicately in the background and am thereby excused from extra duty.
Amazingly (for a school) I was actually thanked for “struggling into school”! This has to be a first; it could start a whole new trend in appreciation! But welcome though it is it doesn’t actually put any extra money in the bank!
The drive to and from school is made more vivid by the continuing celebration of the life and work of Chopin. His anniversary is being marked by a concentration on his surging melodies so the drab reality of the usual traffic jams is being accentuated by swellingly Romantic music.
The most obvious element in this festival of a composer best known for his piano music is the astonishing differences in the sound of the pianos that have been used and the wide range of quality reproduction to bring his music to listeners. As the music channel to which I listen is in Catalan and is the equivalent of Classic FM I tend to miss some of the finer points in the commentary of the programme presenters. As long as the announcers are not too long winded I can usually understand the gist of what they are saying; after all gushing sketchiness is easy to interpret!
The names of performers are usually familiar to me but with Chopin it would also be interesting to hear what instrument they are using. Some of the recordings we have listened to have hardly been of the ‘historical’ variety, but the pianos on which they have been played have verged on the ‘honky-tonk’! I am not sure that Chopin would have played on the forte piano, but some of the music certainly sounds as if it has been played on something which has lacked the subtlety of a modern instrument.
The most important thing that I have to do is resist the wealth of excellent value CDs which have been issued to mark Chopin’s anniversary. I am not so sure how long I can hold out!
Dogs.
I have always thought of myself as a dog person. Cats are alien life forms and constantly show their contempt for humans with every attitude they adopt. They treat their owners with barely concealed contempt and strut about with an arrogance which is positively human in its intensity!
No, dogs with their engaging dependency are by far the better option.
Or at least so I thought until living in this country.
Dog ownership seems to be a sine qua non for living in our part of Castelldefels with the emphasis on the rat-dog variety of ugly, yapping, etiolated apologies for what makes up a real dog which, on the other hand, fit so easily into the life of a flat dweller.
In spite of lip service paid to the importance of cleaning up after what Le Corbusier would I’m sure have called “A machine for defecating” you only have to walk through out shit strewn streets to see that most owners regard our pavements as one vast dog’s toilet.
And the barking.
In spite of the fact that the area in which we live is densely populated with houses and flats each dog owner seems to think that they live in a landed estate well separated from their neighbours where a howling, yapping, barking, snarling, snuffling dog will be inaudible to everyone. Dogs’ behaviour is regarded as a force of nature which, like thunder and lightning, are regarded as acts of god.
Common consideration should inform the actions of people who live in a community – but it doesn’t. I don’t know why I am surprised; you can tell the quality of a community by the way that it parks its cars. And the way our fellow citizens park has to be seen to be believed!
This moan has been brought on by the actions (or rather inactions) of our new next door neighbours who place their dogs outdoors in a caged enclosure and leave them to bark their way to hoarseness at night and when they are out thereby disturbing numerous households. They seem unable or unwilling to hear the quantity of sheer noise that their so-called pets produce. Robert (bless him!) has suggested that we solve the problem by killing the dog! Why is it that that seems the easier option than simply going next door and asking them to shut the thing up!
Perhaps this is god’s way of preparing us for the advent of our next door neighbours on the other side who truly are the Neighbours from Hell and their inconsideration makes Margaret Thatcher look like a namby-pamby angel of mercy!
When April arrives we have to get into training and flex our telephone number punching fingers so that we can call the police when the rollicking outdoors festivities of our thoughtless neighbours (who will probably arrive in May for their five month stay in their holiday home) get obnoxious.
It’s part of our established calendar!
The most important thing that I have to do is resist the wealth of excellent value CDs which have been issued to mark Chopin’s anniversary. I am not so sure how long I can hold out!
Dogs.
I have always thought of myself as a dog person. Cats are alien life forms and constantly show their contempt for humans with every attitude they adopt. They treat their owners with barely concealed contempt and strut about with an arrogance which is positively human in its intensity!
No, dogs with their engaging dependency are by far the better option.
Or at least so I thought until living in this country.
Dog ownership seems to be a sine qua non for living in our part of Castelldefels with the emphasis on the rat-dog variety of ugly, yapping, etiolated apologies for what makes up a real dog which, on the other hand, fit so easily into the life of a flat dweller.
In spite of lip service paid to the importance of cleaning up after what Le Corbusier would I’m sure have called “A machine for defecating” you only have to walk through out shit strewn streets to see that most owners regard our pavements as one vast dog’s toilet.
And the barking.
In spite of the fact that the area in which we live is densely populated with houses and flats each dog owner seems to think that they live in a landed estate well separated from their neighbours where a howling, yapping, barking, snarling, snuffling dog will be inaudible to everyone. Dogs’ behaviour is regarded as a force of nature which, like thunder and lightning, are regarded as acts of god.
Common consideration should inform the actions of people who live in a community – but it doesn’t. I don’t know why I am surprised; you can tell the quality of a community by the way that it parks its cars. And the way our fellow citizens park has to be seen to be believed!
This moan has been brought on by the actions (or rather inactions) of our new next door neighbours who place their dogs outdoors in a caged enclosure and leave them to bark their way to hoarseness at night and when they are out thereby disturbing numerous households. They seem unable or unwilling to hear the quantity of sheer noise that their so-called pets produce. Robert (bless him!) has suggested that we solve the problem by killing the dog! Why is it that that seems the easier option than simply going next door and asking them to shut the thing up!
Perhaps this is god’s way of preparing us for the advent of our next door neighbours on the other side who truly are the Neighbours from Hell and their inconsideration makes Margaret Thatcher look like a namby-pamby angel of mercy!
When April arrives we have to get into training and flex our telephone number punching fingers so that we can call the police when the rollicking outdoors festivities of our thoughtless neighbours (who will probably arrive in May for their five month stay in their holiday home) get obnoxious.
It’s part of our established calendar!
No comments:
Post a Comment