Admittedly I do not think that a school trip which starts with a long walk to an underground station (with the realization that there will be a long walk back to school from the station) is a good idea. “No bus: no me” sounds like a mantra that I should repeat if I weaken and think that another trip is a good idea.
The speed with which our students made their way to the station in the morning sunshine reminded me of that bit in “As You Like It” that compares schoolchildren to slugs – I do know it was snails really, but they were speedy compared to the funereal pace that our kids set!
The exhibition of photos of contamination and pollution that we were going to see was excellent, but not immediately attractive to cynical thirteen year olds. The images were ravishingly horrific and Suzanne suggested Yeats’ phrase “terrible beauty” as we looked at incredible pictures of squalor and smog and felt torn between what they represented and how they were represented. I think that there is a fair chance that a few of the images will stay in the memory of a number of pupils.
The pupils were even slower on the return trip and I ended up herding them forward and stepping on the backs of their shoes to get them moving! I prefer to enjoy trips rather than turn into a cattle drover.
I ended up teaching only one lesson today and that was literature “Of Mice and Men” – a novel specifically written for GCSE English in the same way that “An Inspector Calls” is the play specifically written for the same course!
I had a free period at the end of the day and, as I had started teaching early on Monday I was allowed (!) to leave early. I left at the start of my free period (rather than half way through) to visit an exhibition I had been told about that morning about the disappearance of The Aral Sea. As this could link in with pollution and contamination I decided to see what it was like.
The gallery is funded by the bathroom suppliers Roca and is in an imposing building behind El Corte Ingles on the Diagonal. My conversational GPS got me there and I emerged from the underground car park in an outside café within sight of my objective.
The gallery was hard to miss as there was a big sign with the title of the exhibition and an oddly shaped printed balloon with aspects of the arid desolation of what used to be a fecund sea.
Once you enter the gallery you are confronted with a dim space with a series of low tables (which turn out to be interactive computer screens) while on the walls there is a sort of frieze of television screens showing images of water. On the far wall is a looped film showing various people at a series of washbasins. They are life sized figures and I first thought that they were part of some performance art exhibit!
The bathroom element (it is a Roca building after all) is found on the upper floor which has an exhibition of their more futuristic sinks, baths and loos. Beautifully lighted, this selection of bathroom items is more elegantly sculptural than you might expect.
The most interesting piece was a combined bathroom sink and toilet! A brilliant idea and a severely elegant design – though I do feel a little strange enthusing about a loo!
The actual exhibition about the Aral Sea was frankly disappointing: the space may have height (and another balloon) but it is not large enough to show very much. What was there was effective, but not sufficiently interesting to justify bringing a group I think.
The best aspect of the visit was the quite extraordinary helpfulness of Françoise, the lady in reception. Speaking French, Spanish, English and Afrikaans – and probably Catalan and Italian - she has recently been appointed to her position and was eager to share her enthusiasm for the space and for the building. This is a cultural area to watch.
Dinner was in the Basque restaurant and was frankly dull. The garlic soup was tasteless with the shreds of the main ingredient merely confusing. The fish course was uninspiring and the ice cream (a separate course) quotidian. The coffee was OK and the wine drinkable. Something salvaged!
The last two days see me rising for an early start but at least Friday is an early finish at only four in the afternoon.
Oh good.
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