The festivities in school last night to celebrate the graduation of certain students went on until 11.00 pm: I shudder to think of the state that Toni would have been in if I had stayed and found him slumped in his plastic chair in the garden in the darkness! It was obviously fated for me to come home and rescue him!
The day has dragged, especially as my “gained” “free” period was taken up by the showing of a French film set in the early years of the twentieth century, about a young girl who rescues a wolf cub after his family had been slaughtered – and I think anyone knowing the story of Androcoles will be able to work out the rough lines of the narrative. The film ended after the girl had crashed in a light aircraft in an isolated snowy part of France and was “saved” by the wolves and a simple-minded peasant and . . . the bell went and I had to stop the film.
It was a perfectly acceptable historical portrayal but at no point did I get a sense that anything original was being said. This is one film shown in school that I will not rush to see in its complete form!
Lunch today (now that I have rejected the meat and fish that are served in school) was surprisingly good. I had a salad with many interesting ingredients and there were ripe strawberries for postre afterwards.
Today the i-pad is unleashed on Europe and I repeat the mantra “This is a solution without a problem” to ensure that I resist the almost overwhelming urge to spend money I do not possess on an over-hyped and totally desirable Apple product!
Even I have been unable to entirely ignore the fact that some sort of football competition is soon to be invading our television air time. Spanish programming is not something which necessarily looses anything by having its uninspiring schedules inundated with endless sequences of overpaid young men kicking an inflated spheroid on grass in another hemisphere, but I am dreading the overkill that comes with such competitions.
Given my present location I go into this competition with two teams to support: England and Spain and I have that sort of despairing fear about which one is going to go further! Spain, however is trying to buck its usual bad luck which dogs its attempts to gain the World Cup. Even I was shocked by the truly shameful and seemingly deliberate way in which Spain was forced out of the competition when it was staged (a very apt word I think!) in South Korea.
As the Cup is being staged in South Africa I do have a very lively hope that everything goes well. Years of not eating South African apples or drinking South African wine do leave their impression. South Africa is not a country to which I can feel neutral. In spite of the very real problems social, political and moral that the country faces I do hope that such a focus of international attention reveals a country with potential rather than one replete with negative aspects.
I refuse to regard the non-completion of stadia as anything more than the usual horror stories which are paraded in the press before every major sporting competition in the world wherever they are held!
Tomorrow photos and an evaluation.
The day has dragged, especially as my “gained” “free” period was taken up by the showing of a French film set in the early years of the twentieth century, about a young girl who rescues a wolf cub after his family had been slaughtered – and I think anyone knowing the story of Androcoles will be able to work out the rough lines of the narrative. The film ended after the girl had crashed in a light aircraft in an isolated snowy part of France and was “saved” by the wolves and a simple-minded peasant and . . . the bell went and I had to stop the film.
It was a perfectly acceptable historical portrayal but at no point did I get a sense that anything original was being said. This is one film shown in school that I will not rush to see in its complete form!
Lunch today (now that I have rejected the meat and fish that are served in school) was surprisingly good. I had a salad with many interesting ingredients and there were ripe strawberries for postre afterwards.
Today the i-pad is unleashed on Europe and I repeat the mantra “This is a solution without a problem” to ensure that I resist the almost overwhelming urge to spend money I do not possess on an over-hyped and totally desirable Apple product!
Even I have been unable to entirely ignore the fact that some sort of football competition is soon to be invading our television air time. Spanish programming is not something which necessarily looses anything by having its uninspiring schedules inundated with endless sequences of overpaid young men kicking an inflated spheroid on grass in another hemisphere, but I am dreading the overkill that comes with such competitions.
Given my present location I go into this competition with two teams to support: England and Spain and I have that sort of despairing fear about which one is going to go further! Spain, however is trying to buck its usual bad luck which dogs its attempts to gain the World Cup. Even I was shocked by the truly shameful and seemingly deliberate way in which Spain was forced out of the competition when it was staged (a very apt word I think!) in South Korea.
As the Cup is being staged in South Africa I do have a very lively hope that everything goes well. Years of not eating South African apples or drinking South African wine do leave their impression. South Africa is not a country to which I can feel neutral. In spite of the very real problems social, political and moral that the country faces I do hope that such a focus of international attention reveals a country with potential rather than one replete with negative aspects.
I refuse to regard the non-completion of stadia as anything more than the usual horror stories which are paraded in the press before every major sporting competition in the world wherever they are held!
Tomorrow photos and an evaluation.
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