The marking has ground to a halt because too many students are getting things wrong! The specific detail in which we have to teach reported speech is horrific. At least for me it is. I am now revisiting something which I last studied in detail when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister!

I have been following the election in Britain with growing despair. Good Old Gordon is having the sort of rotten luck that usually spells failure and, with utter dread, I watch the country be led towards voting for a situation in which Cameron will have some sort of power to decide the future. Dear God! And because the lib-dem leader does well on television he is now some sort of National Figure who is talking as if he is a serious candidate for office with his extensive experience of not having any meaningful national office apart from being the head of a wrecking party!

Since marking has taken prime position in my life over the last week, I have gorged myself on reading when I have had the opportunity!

I read “H.I.V.E” by Mark Walden which was one of the books that I acquired from the bookshop in the library to celebrate Sant Jordi.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was written in a way that you could see the film version of the text in your head. This is an action adventure story of a group of super criminals and specifically the school for budding criminals that the organization has founded. The pupils in this school are gifted in various criminal ways, but they are made attractive by there being a really nasty criminal who seems to make them acceptable by comparison.

This is a gadget filled, James Bond style narrative with clear set pieces which scream for computer generated graphics to make them work in the cinema. In one of those meaningless phrases, this “is what it is” but at that level it is a stimulating and vivid read.

The other books which I read over the weekend (after my marking I might add) are both books which I discovered in a cupboard when I was looking for a new set of books to give to my kids. I did find the sets of books that I needed by I also found a whole shelf of new untouched single copy books.

I am not made of the sort of stuff which means that I can ignore two books by Terry Pratchett. I have managed to stop myself buying them, but when I am gifted them in a locked cupboard then I take!

The first one I read was also the better of the two, “The Wee Free Men” which charts the development and adventures of a young girl who discovers that her grandmother was something more than a dedicated shepherd. The something extra is that she is a “Hag” or witch.

This is the sort of book into which you relax. You are, after the first couple of pages, in the hands of a master story teller with a wry comic talent to amuse.

Almost anything I say with take away from the delight with which the story is told and the humour which imbues the whole. This is not to say that there are not moments of pathos and perceptive comment on the human condition, but this is a modern fairy story with strength of narrative which should make this into a classic.

Which is not something that I would say for “The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents” which is as tricky as its convoluted title! This reads as if Pratchett was given the concept (rats eating from a wizards’ rubbish dump and becoming sentient and philosophical – as does a cat who eats one of the changed rats) and challenged to see if he could make a novel out of it.

I think that Pratchett is unable to write a bad book, but this one is less satisfying than others I have read.

The weather has not been perfect but I have been up to the third floor and been able to get a little frantic sunbathing in before the foul weather of next week hits.

Roll on the summer, whenever it feels like making an appearance!