The welter of paper tedium that is at the heart of examination marking is slowing down so that the steady flow of class marking can now surge forward and be considered.
What is left is the group of people who missed the examination and will have to be accommodated at some time in the future. This means that odd papers will suddenly appear from nowhere that you will be expected to mark. I have kept all the mark schemes but, as is always the case in these situations when you do not have a room of your own, it is the putting your hand on them that is the important point.
In terms of time expended, the maverick examination papers take a disproportionate effort when you consider just how much (or rather little) time was spent on the bulk of the marking!
This too, as they say, will pass.
I am at present in an empty library doing a “library duty” listening (because I can and there is no one to disturb) to Mozart. If push came to shove then I could probably justify playing Mozart in a school as his seems to be the only music that actually aids pupils’ concentration – or at least that is what we are told by various spurious “scientific” studies which I can’t name.
I don’t know whether I should be surprised, but I am enjoying listening more to Mozart than to the other composers that I have downloaded. It may be that I am using his music as it was supposed to be used – as background noise for other activities. Divertimenti and Serenades are perfection in subtly adjusting the ambience upwards on the pleasure scale.
I haven’t got to the church music or the operas yet when a little more concentration may be called for!
Another cold day with flawless blue skies; I hope that this weather continues to the weekend so that we can accommodate the numbers of people who will be eating long onions cooked on the barbecue.
I will have to go into Castelldefels to spend more money. Although I need little incentive to do this, there is an actual reason behind this little jaunt. Last night I knocked the Bodum tea thingie into the sink and it broke. That is the glass body of the thing shattered; the plastic holder and the plunger are fine. All I need is a replacement body.
And I know that I am going to have problems. Firstly the chichi little shop that I got it from is only going to stock the whole thing and the torn jean wearing and spiky haired affected person who usually serves me is going to look at me in bewilderment when I ask him for another.
Then, even if I do manage to get a replacement, there is the major problem of fitting the glass into the holder. To say that the glass fits snugly is an understatement and I am convinced that in fitting it myself I will not only break the thing but also take a chunk out of my hand in doing so. And even if I do not break it by forcing it into the holder, I will find when I have completed the insertion that the spout is not correctly aligned with the handle and I will have to start all over again and break the glass in the adjustment.
And it has to be replaced as I have now got thoroughly used to brewing exotic and flavoursome cups of tea by a judicious mismatching of various teas to obtain something unique. I rather like the fact that I am mixing one of the most expensive teas that I have ever bought (the Earl Grey Rioja) with a cheap black tea from Lidl’s: delicious. And the Bodum thingie is easy to use and jolly and encourages me to experiment, so without it I am back to the PG Tips triangular teabags – it’s just not the same! If necessary I will buy another one just so that I can (eventually) find the glass to replace and have a spare so that I will not have to suffer the horrors of real tea withdrawal symptoms again.
There is a real variety of teas on sale in the shop and I am thinking of branching out and trying another one – perhaps something a little more subtle. I remember drinking a Formosan Oolong in University that I quite liked, but when the tin from Fortnum and Mason was finished I kept ordinary tea in it. Perhaps I should revisit old taste paths. I am certainly inclined to try some of their muslin tea bags packed in fetching individual sachets with the most outré flavours!
I was right. My presentation of the plastic holder in the coffee shop was greeted by the boy with open incredulity. He did not, of course have a replacement glass container but did offer to “ask” about getting a replacement and he also took my phone number. We shall see.
In the meantime I asked for another cafeteria and lighted upon a shining metallic little number that was also a thermos flask. The revelation of the price evoked a gasp of horror from me, whereupon the boy hastened to inform me that the price he had just told me was the “normal” price, but that it was on offer at a price a few euros less: so I bought it. Never let it be said that I failed to fall for a transparent sales ploy.
By way of compensation the boy gave me a sample of coffee to try, a single sip of which has woken me from my usual evening torpor and will probably keep me awake for the rest of the night!
I have replenished my stocks of the exorbitantly priced but delicious Early Grey Rojo and also bought some Oolong Fancy – which in its raw state looks exotic indeed!
Stewart has sent me the “perfect” recipe for Bolognese sauce and I intend to try it out on Saturday: shopping in the morning for the ingredients and the rest of the day for the cooking. The recipe actually says, “and cook for at least 3 hours (4 is even better) until the meat is very tender” and this is not something that I normally do – I am more of an “instant” cook and demand visible and edible results almost immediately. It will be an exercise in restraint for me and I only hope the meal is worth it!
The nightly task of feeding CDs into The Machine is well underway, but I am still not even a third of the way through the Mozart collection and already there are 41.5 GB of music electronically tucked away in the innards of The Machine.
I continue to trip merrily along unfrequented Mozartian melodic roads listening to the odd little kontretanz, gavotte or menuet. The more I listen the more ludicrous the price of this amazing set of CDs becomes. I urge people to buy it: Mozart – Complete Edition - Brilliant Classics.
A number of years ago I read that of all the people in the world who have ever been capable of playing all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas the majority are alive and playing now. In the same way how many people have been in the position of having all of Mozart’s music at the press of a key.
Before the advent of recordings the only way to get to know Mozart was via the score or going to a performance. People who were able to read scores would probably have a piano score rather than the full score of many pieces. And anyway what sort of person would have the scores of the whole of Mozart’s oeuvre? My ownership of this set of records means that I will shortly have heard more performances of Mozart’s music than many experts on the composer in past times! It becomes something of a privilege. I suppose it should also be something of a responsibility: shouldn’t my appreciation of the Music become more profound with such exposure to the totality of the production of the composer. Or perhaps I should just wallow in the luxury of ownership!
In terms of cost: if I think about the first LP records that I owned which cost just over a pound (bought by my parents I might add) allowing for inflation, if I had bought the set of Mozart then it would have cost the present day equivalent of about two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds, whereas it actually cost me just under fifty quid!
Admittedly this amount was after taking into account the 3 for 2 offer in El Corte Ingles – but still, remarkable.
Happy sigh!
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