Thank god that Spain has reached the next round of the bloody World Cup. I am all for domestic calm!
The penultimate day (or half day) in school. A strange sort of day which was more for class teachers than we mere foot soldiers. I tried to look busy and keep out of most people’s way. I even, at times of great stress and public view actually did some work.
I get progressively more worried by the pregnancies in our school. Both ladies are class teachers and will need to be replaced and I am determined that it will not be me. In our school, and quite rightly, class teachers (form teachers) are paid more. The extra money, which worked out at a miserable daily rate, in no way compensates for the convulsive neediness of our pupils and I have no intention whatsoever of joining the damned tribe of hollow eyed class teachers as they traipse once more to listen to the whining of yet another pupil knocking on the staff room door!
Talking of not doing more than I have to for the derisory sums that we are paid; I had an acknowledgement email to my completed and submitted pensions form – roll on October!
Another glorious day with the temperature in the car when I came home at 2.00 pm standing at 47°C! By the time I arrived home it was at a more manageable 35°C and just the temperature to go out to lunch again and sit outside on the balcony of the Maritime Restaurant overlooking the beach and the sea.
The menu del dia was an astonishingly good value feed with fideos to start and then a herby pig’s cheek to follow and all ended by crema catalana and iced coffee. Delicious and for under a tenner!
The traditional rest period of horizontal sun gazing was only interrupted by my reading another Pullman novel in the Sally Lockheart series.
“The Tiger in the Well” is set in 1881and has all the positive qualities of “The Ruby in the Smoke” which was the first of the novels in this series that I read.
Pullman uses the historic period deftly and provides a fast paced narrative with genuine excitement and unusual exotic elements. It is imbued with a certain didactic quality in its presentation of socialism and capitalism which reminded me of Dickens in its intensity and its plea for social justice. It is remarkable that many of the Victorian abuses: inequality of wealth; sweatshops; treatment of Jews; pogroms; mistreatment of immigrants; demagogy and the denouncing immigration and proclaiming the purity of the race, the problem of a possible Israel; corruption; inequality under the law and ethical investment – are all relevant today. As I am sure that Pullman intended.
This is a very eventful book with every use made of the historical setting. There is a “picturesque” villain, though you have to read the book to find out just how apposite this word is, and a truly feisty heroine. Yes some parts of the novel are laboured, for example the identity of the villain and sometimes the political message is a little too much up front, but this is an exciting book which should work well with any group of young responsive readers.
Tomorrow the last half day.
No comment needed.
The penultimate day (or half day) in school. A strange sort of day which was more for class teachers than we mere foot soldiers. I tried to look busy and keep out of most people’s way. I even, at times of great stress and public view actually did some work.
I get progressively more worried by the pregnancies in our school. Both ladies are class teachers and will need to be replaced and I am determined that it will not be me. In our school, and quite rightly, class teachers (form teachers) are paid more. The extra money, which worked out at a miserable daily rate, in no way compensates for the convulsive neediness of our pupils and I have no intention whatsoever of joining the damned tribe of hollow eyed class teachers as they traipse once more to listen to the whining of yet another pupil knocking on the staff room door!
Talking of not doing more than I have to for the derisory sums that we are paid; I had an acknowledgement email to my completed and submitted pensions form – roll on October!
Another glorious day with the temperature in the car when I came home at 2.00 pm standing at 47°C! By the time I arrived home it was at a more manageable 35°C and just the temperature to go out to lunch again and sit outside on the balcony of the Maritime Restaurant overlooking the beach and the sea.
The menu del dia was an astonishingly good value feed with fideos to start and then a herby pig’s cheek to follow and all ended by crema catalana and iced coffee. Delicious and for under a tenner!
The traditional rest period of horizontal sun gazing was only interrupted by my reading another Pullman novel in the Sally Lockheart series.
“The Tiger in the Well” is set in 1881and has all the positive qualities of “The Ruby in the Smoke” which was the first of the novels in this series that I read.
Pullman uses the historic period deftly and provides a fast paced narrative with genuine excitement and unusual exotic elements. It is imbued with a certain didactic quality in its presentation of socialism and capitalism which reminded me of Dickens in its intensity and its plea for social justice. It is remarkable that many of the Victorian abuses: inequality of wealth; sweatshops; treatment of Jews; pogroms; mistreatment of immigrants; demagogy and the denouncing immigration and proclaiming the purity of the race, the problem of a possible Israel; corruption; inequality under the law and ethical investment – are all relevant today. As I am sure that Pullman intended.
This is a very eventful book with every use made of the historical setting. There is a “picturesque” villain, though you have to read the book to find out just how apposite this word is, and a truly feisty heroine. Yes some parts of the novel are laboured, for example the identity of the villain and sometimes the political message is a little too much up front, but this is an exciting book which should work well with any group of young responsive readers.
Tomorrow the last half day.
No comment needed.
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