Emma left early on Friday morning and the
house seems strangely empty. However,
that is not for long as Ceri and Dianne are arriving on Sunday and then the
countdown to The Meal begins!
Meanwhile I try and keep myself calm by attempting
to find out how to work my new(ish) replacement camera which, at the moment, is
still working with the zoom in a fully functioning state.
Having printed out the whole of the
operating manual (in full and glorious colour - by mistake) I feel that I ought at
least to make some effort to read it as I am not of the generation where
operating a sophisticated piece of electronic equipment is intuitive.
I have to admit that the screen on the
camera does sometimes flash up helpful hints which give me some idea of what is
going on – but there are other bits and pieces of information that you simply
have to know otherwise you remain in blissful ignorance of the true
capabilities of the machine.
The USP of the camera is its Wi-Fi link
which should mean that it can send pictures direct to my email account or to a
printer or even that the camera is able to be operated via my mobile
phone. Quite why one would want to do
that I am not absolutely sure, but if it can be done then I would like to be
able to do it – and the usefulness can be worked out later!
It is certainly a neat piece of kit and I
think that I will enjoy getting to know what it can do. Obviously, that last sentence is something
like a written pledge to encourage myself to do what I should!
After our day of cloud and rain yesterday,
today was fine and hot but with that measure of coolness that betokens the end
of summer. I am eagerly searching the
faces of the young to find the signs of desperation that the start of the
autumn term usually brings to the surface.
Some of the less imaginative children who get bored on holidays (!) may
actually think that they are looking forward to starting school and being
reunited with their friends – but a few days of the juggernaut of the timetable
lurching into operation and they will look back wistfully to the halcyon days
of the summer holidays.
Teachers are slightly different. The only teacher who ever told me that he was
bored and was actually looking forward to returning to school was Paul 1 – and
even he has changed his tune now and denies that the youthful and offensively jejune
version of himself ever existed!
As if it were fated, I met a teacher from a
previous school in a supermarket today and we exchanged cards as I told her
that I was no longer teaching in the school on the hill. That is, we would have exchanged cards if I
had had one – instead I meekly took hers and will send in my email address to
keep her records up to date. One never
knows when a stretch of supply might come in handy. One cannot afford to ignore any serendipitous
meetings that might be to my advantage in some undefined future.
I am half watching Chelsea being destroyed
by Athletico Madrid. Chelsea’s
ineptitude is made all the worse by the obscenity of the players’ salaries and
the worse than mere obscenity of the more than questionable worth (in all
senses) of their oligarch owner.
I suggest that, instead of wearing some
meaningless numbers on their backs they have a figure which is more immediately
appreciable to the hapless punters who pay their wages and gives clear and
shocking information.
I suggest that the number on the back of
their shirts should be based on the average annual pay of workers in the
country in which they “play”. Thus the
number “1” on the back of a shirt would indicate that the selfish, foulmouthed,
incompetent “sportsmen” [see recent court cases and FA judgements] will be
earning the total average annual salary of an ordinary worker every single week.
Let’s assume that the average annual salary
in Britain is 25K that would mean that the number on the back of a player like
John Terry would be 4.4! Almost four and
a half times the average annual salary every week! That would give people something to think
about as they watch the ineffective performance of individual absurdly paid
footballers fail to stop a real drubbing from a team which isn’t even at the
top of the Spanish league!
I wonder how many of the louts we have to
put up with parading their tattooed bodies and ridiculous hairstyles on
national television would only have a single digit figure on their backs!
I am not very happy with the progress of
Paralympic Team GB. We have lost our
position and are lagging far behind the Australians and indeed other nations
which are too shaming to mention! No
doubt I will settle down as soon as we have won a few more golds.
This weekend is the end of the holidays and
31st of August was the last day of my employment in the School on
the Hill.
September 2012 (and for the rest of my
life) a true pensioner!
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