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Monday, September 21, 2009

Speeding days!

A third of my working week is already over (Oh Joy! Oh Happiness!) – two more days and then a four day holiday!

The not so good news is about our attempts to found a Culture Club in school. The fact that the devotees of our little Culture Club would have to give up a number of Friday afternoons as well as time over some weekends has somewhat limited the take up. To precisely none! I am told it is early days, but I have little optimism that we will get the number of eager, selfless students to make the club a reality. Pity. Seemed like (and indeed is) a good idea.

The older kids in our school finish early on a Friday. For our club they would have to stay for lunch and then spend an extra hour in a classroom discussing things cultural. Perhaps we were being unduly idealistic in our expectations. And I think that is something of an understatement! Back to the drawing board.

I have been studying the extravagantly unhelpful website of the Abbey of Montserrat to discover what facilities there are for disabled visitors bearing in mind that I am taking Louise there on my birthday. I think I will trust to fate and assume that there will be facilities for us when we get there. A dangerous assumption but one which I am going to rely on. Should be interesting.

The weather continues eventful, but at mid day today the sun was hot; it was just unfortunate that I was in school and couldn’t enjoy it!

Roll on the day after tomorrow

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Re-reading is a way of life!


In his latest missive from the Imperial Capital of Beijing Robert wrote that he was “re-reading Arthur Ransome. Listening to Just William on the radio. Returning to a blissful childhood? If only . . .”

There is something very comforting and at the same time disturbing when you re-read your childhood favourites through the eyes of an adult. I remember going to see Disney’s Pinocchio in University and was deeply disturbed that a film which such violent and vicious sections could be shown to children – though I fail to remember my trauma when I saw it as a child.

Robert may have been a fan of Swallows and Amazons but these books never appealed to me: I was never a bucolic child; I much preferred my action in towns and cities. I did however like ‘Just William’ and saw no real dislocation between his world and my own. I was growing up in a terraced house in a suburb of Cardiff in the 1950s while William was growing up in a detached house in leafy suburbia in a household with servants in pre-war England. Just the same then!

I also liked Finn Family Moomintrol – I think the gentle irony and the comforting morality combined with the engaging drawings created a world which is very attractive to children. Re-reading them as an adult shows that there is a strength in them which is reflected in story lines which do not duck some of the pressing social and moral problems with which children (and adults) are faced.

The book which I re-read most often from my childhood is ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’. I know that some people (including myself) have seen the characters to be representative of various philosophical stances. Eyore is of course one of the great Existential characters in Literature and the rest of the books allows almost whatever philosophical reading you want to make. A wonderful book – and funny too.

As I got a little older I began to read quality books of modern literature published in the very wonderful Penguin Modern Classics Series. These books were distinguished by having fantastic modern paintings on the covers and many of them were very thin volumes. Which was just as well with some of them because I often had no idea what was going on!

To leaven the intellectual fare I was worrying my way through I used to include in my normal weekly reading a novel by PG Wodehouse and an Agatha Christie. I always made sure that the intellectual Penguin was always hiding the other two ‘easier’ books.

I realise now that the idea that a child would be reading at least three books a week and feeling ashamed of the ‘easy’ reads of Wodehouse and Christie is something which most parents these days would give their eye teeth to see their own kids achieving.

As classes were combined on Friday afternoon because one of the teachers had to go home and look after her sick child we distributed reading books for the kids to read. This was last period on a long day at the end of a long week. I had the equivalent of Year 8 and they didn’t really want to read; but generally speaking they did. I had bagged my own book, “The Hollow” by Agatha Christie. My own reversion to childhood!

What an extraordinary novel it was. Published in 1947 it shows its age. This is a ‘Country House Murder’ where the death of a doctor (Harley Street, of course and trying to find a cure for an incurable disease) in the home of Lady Angkatell. The eponymous Hollow of the title is the name of the country house and is accompanied by all the usual paraphernalia of scene setting to accommodate all the usual paper thin characters that Christie is so adept at creating. Not one of the characters was ordinary: even the solitary ‘worker’ was a member of a couturier house who could (and indeed eventually does) succumb to the lure of the easy landed life by marrying one of the other characters.

The inclusion of a dedicated sculptor allows some philosophical discussion and acts as an interesting foil to the seemingly empty lives of the vitiated members of the landed gentry who people this novel.

The story line is interesting and the puzzle enough to sustain your reading though I did weaken at one point and almost went to bed rather than finish the novel and find out who-dun-it. Needless to say that weakness was only momentary and I did not retire to my rest until the book was complete.

The whole novel is suffused with the atmosphere of a lost world and even M. Poirot seems a little influenced by the nature of the people with whom he is dealing.

Although the ending was not a surprise the detail (as always) kept me in my place. Some clues were obvious but the whole picture had to be left for the revelations at the end.

The discussion in the novel was by no means insubstantial. I am not trying to pretend that it was philosophically profound, but issues such as loyalty, artistic integrity, truth and fulfilment were an integral part of the structure of the narrative. I found the ‘padding’ much more satisfying this time round (if indeed I had read it before; I certainly had no recollection of the story line, but, alas, that means nothing!) and enjoyed the discussions that took place rather than finding them irritating and getting in the way of the narrative.

I enjoyed this book, but I will not be searching for other Christie novels in the near future. One is enough to last for some time!

The third floor of the house has come into its own today as I have managed to sunbathe. This sunbathing is not merely an indulgence but is essential in order that the new skin on my knee matches the rest of my leg. After casing me to fall in the Ebro Delta the least the powers that be can do is ensure that there is sufficient sunshine in the next couple of months to ensure colour consistency!

Next week is a three day week and list of things to do is the two non-weekend days is growing by the hour and is rapidly approaching the level of impossibility. Something will have to be ditched.

Like the visit to the dentist perhaps?

In our efforts to make our lives just that little bit more opulent we have invested in one of Lidl’s finest and bought a machine for creating bubbles in the bath. The loss of the Jacuzzi bath in Cardiff is keenly felt and while it is absurd to replace a bath in a rented house Lidl produce a more reasonably priced alternative. Although fussy to install at first, it is a simple system and produces a satisfyingly robust stream of bubbles, so another little touch of luxury can be added to our opulent pile!

I must now go and choose my ties for next week. These have now become a school institution so I cannot let my appreciative pupils down!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

A lost day?


Where was Friday?
This can be explained by the simple equation “Home = Sleep” I came home and I echoed Bottom when he said, “I have an exposition of sleep come upon me” I had and I did.

Quite how I have the impudence to claim exhaustion when I work in a very civilized school with supportive colleagues and more than ordinary lunches – with wine, I do not know. I am not alone in my tiredness; I am joined by all my colleagues who expressed real relief that the weekend had “at last” arrived! I kept thinking about what they would have been like if they had been teaching for a week in my old school in Cardiff. Then they would have had justification for a bone deep exhaustion!

In theory my Friday should have been reasonable leisurely but, in the way of schools, it was not. I seemed to spend all my time walking up and down the interminable flights of stairs from one building to another. It was also my lunchtime duty day and the free period in which I was supposed to get an early lunch was taken up with the distribution of publicity for our nascent Culture Club.

This ‘good idea’ club has taken more time and discussion than it should. It is hardly a revolutionary idea and our parents are easily rich enough to afford the varied delights that we have on offer.

We will see what response there is. We need twenty pupils to get the club started and then we hope that it will have a natural momentum to keep it going in perpetuity. Or at least as long as I am in the school!

Today has been notable for my failed attempt to get my dynamo to work. I thought at first it was just me, but Toni couldn’t make it work either. Back to the shop on my long weekend next week – another task to fill up the two extra days off!

As we were mainly riding on the paseo the lack of a light didn’t really matter and it was a refreshing experience as well as a relatively solitary one as our cooler weather has kept most of the summer walkers indoors.

The real effort of the day has been to clean the bathroom. As there is little storage space in the en suite bathroom I have plundered the resources of IKEA to produce a whole container city of stacked boxes. Toni has declared this solution “disgusting” so I have had to look around for other ways of containing all the items that visitors usually poke their noses into to see what we are really like!

A visit to a local Homebase clone in search of a bath plug (our house came with none in any of the sinks or baths of course) also displayed a four drawer thingie that would do very well in the bathroom. The fact that each drawer was decorated with a little frieze of coloured vertical pencils would, I thought, add a little touch of surrealism to an otherwise bland room.

Half way through the tidying and cleaning and putting away I lost the will to live and took to my bed (conveniently near) for a well deserved rest.

Refreshed, I returned to the fray and threw away things like free samples of out of date perfume and little bits and pieces of assumed (though unclear) usefulness. The end result is that everything now fits in the four pencil drawers and the glass shelves now have an eerily empty and elegant look.

It won’t last of course, but to continue the illusion for a little longer I used bleach to leave that comforting scent of cleanliness as the final touch in a job well done.

Now Barça is comfortably beating Athletico Madrid so all is well with the world.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Hi Tech Frustration


Another brightly dull day with rain and the threat of rain. As is always the way in these sorts of climatic conditions there is always the Pathetic Fallacy to take into account.

This time the misery was concentrated on the computer. (How many times have I said that before?) The software is allegedly being put on the computers in the classrooms so that we can actually work the whiteboard hardware which we were taught about in the two weeks leading up to the arrival of the pupils.

I have had the software put onto my portable machine so that I can be at least semi-independent and not have to rely on the two computers which are supposed to satisfy the technological needs of half the staff.

I have, dutifully, searched through the internet so that I can pepper my dull discourses with new and exciting images which can be amazingly manipulated utilizing the magic interactivity of our computer assisted whiteboard projectors. Images, we were told, could be hidden and progressively revealed; written upon; highlighted and enhanced and god knows what – but getting the images on the screen has been just a little difficult.

As is usual when dealing with new computer programs I have spent hours trying to do a simple adjustment and failed. I have involved three of the technicians who are responsible for implementing the staff use of the new technology: and they have failed to resolve a simple (surely!) problem. This at least makes me think that my understanding is at least on a par which those who are paid to know more!

I left the school a fullish period early as compensation for the early start to the day and was able to breeze my way along roads which, an hour later, would have been heaving with frustrated parents fed up with collecting their kids.

Arriving home I was informed that I had been phoned by a teacher from another school. It turned out they were looking for a teacher to take older kids for Cambridge examinations for a limited number of hours a week. Having had fairly recent experience of having a full time job and doing a few extra hours I had no intention of taking his kind offer! Interesting that he said that he was looking at my CV which I had sent into the school over a year ago!

Nice to be wanted!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

It was still dark!





Today did not start well. I leaped out of bed at some ungodly time of the night to prepare myself for the early start of school. When I was fully awake I realized that it was tomorrow that asked for the unnatural break in my usual sleeping patterns and not today.

It did mean a fairly leisurely breakfast and cup of tea and a reasonably free flowing drive to school, but I begrudge my lost hours!

As I sipped my tea and debated with myself about whether I could profitably use my gained time to put some more of my books in order (a though that was soon dismissed) I pondered one of the great truths about battery operated toothbrushes.

As battery operated toothbrushes are, by the very nature of their power requirements, classed as gadgets and as they are relatively inexpensive, I am a bit of an expert of their variety and use.

My latest model is from Carrefour and is by far the noisiest of all the examples that I have come across. It has a removable head and seems to brush in every conceivable direction giving plaque and bacteria little or no chance. The extra noise also galvanizes one into wakefulness as it does feel as though one has inserted a serious power tool into your mouth!

But my question and observation concerns the battery life. Why is it in battery operated toothbrushes the battery suddenly fails? It doesn’t die a slow death: one moment it is working and the next it isn’t. And how unsatisfying it is to have to remember the old skills of actually having to move the brush in the ‘up and down’ style advocated by your parents and all those healthy eating films.

And why have I delayed putting a new battery into the damn thing? What is stopping me from completing a simple battery exchange? And why don’t I use an ordinary one while I am waiting? These are searching questions and it seems entirely odd that I can type about what I need to do and not actually do it!

The school day may have started badly, but it ended reasonably enough because I had a free period and decided to slip off early.

This may appear to be unprofessional, but you only have to try and get away from the school at its official end time to see how essential escape before the kids are out can be.

The school is situated on a broad avenue – though not so broad that it can accommodate triple parked cars on one side and double parked cars on the other. Parents believe that they have a Divine Right to park exactly where they want to and some double park and then leave their vehicles unattended. They stop and block; they manoeuvre without indication; they ignore other road users – car drivers and pedestrians and lastly and most annoyingly they show no guilt about their appalling behaviour.

The top road along buildings 1, 2 and 3 may be broad but all the other roads which surround the site are narrow and winding. Our school is situation on one of the hills of Barcelona and has panoramic views of the city.

This extraordinary location does mean that there are road approaches which mountain goats find difficult. And if there were any mountain goats making their sure footed nimble way to our school they would all be slaughtered by the hordes of Merc, Audi and BMW driving parents as they make their furious single minded way to school to deposit their kids in our tender care.

This morning, for example two parents stopped their cars on the corner of a 1 in 1 hill on a busy junction, thereby bring the whole traffic system to a halt and causing people to complete hill starts which is always a little hairy if you are behind the car attempting to pull away as it rolls backwards perilously close to your bonnet before the driver finds the gear to propel the car forwards.

I waited with the patience which is a characteristic of our noble nation (I’m not kidding, compared with the Spanish drivers we still preserve the old fashioned virtues!) while a woman parent in a sporty new Merc beeped her horn. Probably because she had to do a hill start!

When the children had been allowed out of their respective cars we drivers in the traffic jam were allowed to continue. I will the woman parent in the Merc on my tail. At the top of another 1 in 1 hill I stopped to allow a mother with her child to cross on the zebra crossing and was beeped by the ludicrous Merc driver!

When I had parked in an available space I walked towards the main school door and lo and behold the Merc driver was parked in a space which was not a designated parking space and she was obstructing others! Don’t you just love it when life throws irony at you! I tried to get a glimpse of her pupil passenger so that I could persecute her if she was in one of my classes. Unfortunately the reflection of light on the windscreen made it impossible to discover the face of the progeny and stopping there and waiting for a better view might have opened me up to comment!

Drivers like that mother make the traffic situation at the end of school one long nightmare. The roads to the motorway become impossibly blocked and travelling a few yards can take an absurdly long time.

My sneaking off a few minutes early was especially fortunate as the traffic lights at the junction leading to the slip road of the motorway were out of commission.

I don’t think that I need to labour the point about the chaos that was already building up and that was before the torrent of cars that mark the end of school. As it was I was home in little more than twenty minutes with a slow smile playing around my mouth as I thought about the homicidal situation I was leaving far behind!

Tomorrow a meeting with the powers that be about our Culture Club. The programme for the year is roughed out and the school will now have to decide on the practical aspects of the running of the club - like how much to charge the parents. Such things have not previously been a concern of mine, so it will be interesting to see how the meeting proceeds

Always something new!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Hard Reality


What an effete lot we are!

Two weeks (9 days really) of half days without the kids, then we start work with the kiddies and now, by Wednesday we are whimpering with fatigue.

I have to say that it appears that the fates are on our side because next week (for no obvious reason that I can see, but compelling none the less) we have two days off! God alone knows what state we will have worked ourselves into by that point before the traditional resignation of teachers takes over and the year proceeds with an acceptable level of grumbling rather apocalyptic talk of the impossibility of making it to June!

I have now seen all my classes, but it is still too soon to make any rash predictions about how they are going to work out over a year. One lives in hope!

But enough about my professional life; let me instead parade my grumpiness about my pet hate of the moment.

I do not have a great deal of choice about the proliferation of football games which appear on our television screen. If you are serious about the game there appears to be no moment in the day in which you have to suffer the indignity of being without the sight of twenty two men prancing about on the field.

Now I can (with a little severe prompting) ‘enjoy’ a game of football with the best and by judicious listening to Toni’s analysis of the game and parroting his views as my own I can pass muster as a bit of an aficionado – as long as the conversation is not too long and detailed.

So it is not the game which merits my rich contempt but the people who play it. It is not merely that they are grotesquely overpaid, mincing, strutting, wannabe models with absurdly overdeveloped foot eye co-ordination, and the real irritation for me is the way that they make their entrances.

I am well aware that football is the most popular game in the world and its very popularity means that its most expensive players have a duty to their sport. This is a game that can, and is played anywhere and everywhere. If there is a sport which can truly be said to be worldwide then football is it. It transcends race, creed, colour and politics.

Except of course it doesn’t. Spanish and Catalan players come on to the pitch and touch the grass and then make the sign of the cross; Muslim players hold their cupped hands in front of them while they pray. Goals merit a triple crossing or hands held high to god. Such ridiculous posturing brings sectarianism into the sport. I would forbid any overtly religious expression of faith in the ground of a football match.

This redundant religiosity has about as much convincingness as the ostentatious kissing of the Club badge when some prancing millionaire has scored a goal. That dedication to the Club (which has been bought at vast expense) can be changed in an instant by a higher offer.

I don’t often agree with the French (on historical grounds of national prejudice!) but I must say that I have a sneaking agreement with the French President when he attempts to ban the trappings of religious dress in secular schools. If I had my way I would not ban religious (should that word be in inverted commas?) schools but I would make damn sure that the government did not pay the teachers. The major expense in schools is the total salary of the teachers. If religious groups want a religious school let them pay the full costs with no government subsidy.

Football is a game of dexterity and skill, the best players are exceptional athletes who train and carry out the plans of their managers – god has nothing to do with it.

And while I’m on a roll; what about those embarrassing ‘Celebrations’ on the scoring of a goal?

One sad bugger, on scoring his goal, produced, as if by magic a kid’s dummy which he had presumably secreted in his jock-strap before the game so that he could suck it (ugh!) and thereby dedicate his goal to his child! Was I his manager I think that I might have something to say about the bringing onto the pitch unauthorized equipment and especially storing it in a place which must (surely) have impeded his full range of movement during the game!

Tomorrow is my early start at 8.15 am in school. I think that I am entitled to go early and Thursday is my free afternoon.

Worth a try I think.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Here we go again!


I don’t think that I have ever seen swing ball used with such vicious intent to maim as illustrated by the sweet young innocent pupils who entered our school on their first day today.

The ‘safety’ plastic ball on its swinging line was hurled around nearly decapitating the appreciative semi circle of participants who were just out of reach of the deathly radius of the wildly circulating ball. It is surely only a matter of time before one or all of the smiling faces just outside the sweep of the ball will collapse into tears as the dreadful ball does its work.

I had time to observe these activities because I had a gentle introduction to the teaching after a breath-stoppingly horrific drive to school. The entire parental population of Catalonia was out on the roads that I use and taking their gentle, vulnerable sons and daughters to school. The fact that they had a precious cargo did nothing to moderate the awfulness of the driving and it was only because of the sheer pressure of the number of cars travelling in my direction that their suicidal weavings were kept to a merely shocking minimum.

I always have to remind myself that indication by a driver in Catalonia is statement of intent: “my light is flashing I will move in that direction.” It matters nothing that there is another car in the lane into which the driver has indicated his intention to join: he moves. After a while (or two years in my case) I no longer scream imprecations at the completely nonchalant and oblivious driver I simply make space and accept that this is the way things are done here. The only trouble is that I still retain my attitudes from Britain and I do not assume that other drivers will make space. I realise that this confuses some drivers because I have indicated (even though they have shown no inclination to allow me to join the lane) they expect me to move and if I had the courage of my flickering light they would respect my inconsideration. I think it will take a few more years before I full accept the bad manners that are essential to drive competently in Catalonia. When I have full assimilated this new driving style; god help me if and when I next drive in Britain!

As classes were with their form teachers and, at last, I am not a form teacher (Hallelujah!) I had time to get some teaching material together. This is an old habit and not one which is encourage in this school. We have The Text Book and any innovation (like using your own teaching materials) is greeted with and attitude little short of panic by the pupils who see it as a deviance from The True Way and an obvious ploy on the part of the heretic teacher to lessen their chances in the examinations.

I had photocopied the Thurber fable of ‘The Moth and the Star’ and also photocopied some cartoons to use as stimulus material. The kids were interested but bemused and I am now prepared to use the book as soon as possible so that they can settle down into the strict regime of test papers and questions and page after page from the text books. At least we will all know where we are going and they will not have to deal with originality and other distressing concepts which interfere with the passing of exams.

The day was long and I found myself constantly moving from Building 1 to Building 4. They are not absurd distances apart but it is an exhausting climb as the school is built into a fairly steep hill. The way from one building to another is long and arduous and I shudder to think how many steps I have to trudge my way up and down to get from class to class. The school, to be fair, does try and group lessons together in the respective buildings and when you have to change location they try and ensure that there is a break to make the journey possible.

In my timetable this year there are two occasions when I move from one building to another with no allowance made for the changeover. For various reasons the amount of time lost in one of those changeovers is going to be substantial and classes are going to be left unattended. It will be interesting to see how they square the circle with this one because on both occasions there are two members of the department moving at the same time.

Tomorrow I will see the two classes which I did not see today and then I can make an assessment of what the year is going to be like.

I am constantly aware that, if need be, I have just over one calendar year to my official retirement. That fact does give one what might be described as ‘a little boost’ – we will have to see how it works out.

The School That Sacked Me seems to be sinking even deeper in chaos with teachers leaving or threatening to leave. At some time I will have to arrange a Council of War to decide on the next steps against The Owner and All Her Works.

The Culture Club progresses, through confirming a year’s programme in September is not altogether easy.

And it’s raining. Although the storm section of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony was playing on the radio as I drove home it did not cheer me very much. The idea that I would throw myself into the swimming pool each evening on my return suddenly did not seem such a good idea as the sky was rent with positively Biblical bolts of lightning. To be fair to my adopted country after a downpour there was a grudging period of weak sunshine but as I type there is a syncopated accompaniment of falling raindrops and drips from various overhanging eaves resentfully shedding the unaccustomed rivulets of constant rain.

The weather forecast is dull and depressing for the rest of the week, so expect me to be suicidal by Friday!

And I have a period last thing on Friday with the British equivalent of Year 8.

O Joy!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Time ticks on



My knee now looks as though it is trying to produce a version of the Mallan Streak with a flash of repaired white skin showing up clearly against the brown. In spite of my lying in a most uncomfortable position in the garden with my knee thrust up towards the sun the new skin refuses to take on the tint of its surroundings. I hope that we have an extended sunny period well into October to ensure the matching of the epidermis with that level of russet brown which is my natural sun enhanced colour.

I suppose that one good thing is that during my working day I will be wearing long trousers so the mark of a colder climate will not be seen!

The water in the pool gets colder by the day and the shower is not working. Toni has suggested that this is part of the ‘end of season’ entropy. We will watch what happens in our area as I suspect that the restaurants on the paseo will all close soon and we will soon be left with the Maritime Club restaurant – not a bad last resort!

We are now waiting for the rest of the family so that we can go out to lunch or get chicken from the restaurant around the corner (and on a bit) which caters for passing trade and the large camp site on the opposite side of the road.

The bridge that connects the two sides of the motorway has steps and also a slope so it is possible (in theory) to ride a bike across. I have done this. In a way. At each turn in the slope I had to put a foot on the ‘ground.’ This was especially galling when I passed the bridge on our way to get the chicken for lunch and had to watch a gentleman manage to keep on cycling up the whole twisting slope. Something I will have to work on or remember my father’s dictum about cycling, “If it’s easier to walk with the bike then walk with the bike.” Good advice as long as you can get over the shame factor that walking your bike rather than riding it entails!

Our visitors now have left and the nightmare is over. I truly and sincerely cannot imagine what having a four year old and a one year old as your own children and having to look after both of them day after day can possibly be like. Toni and I are totally exhausted, drained and our tension levels are tuned to that pitch which only dogs can hear. And these are two relatively pleasant children!

Roll on the professional relationship with kids tomorrow where, after an hour they are gone!

Tomorrow will be the first real start of year that I have had for a few years. The tension in the staff room last Thursday (Friday was a Bank Holiday) was palpable and, although I would like to adopt a slightly patronising attitude given the number of times that I have started a year in teaching, this time it is different.

I cannot pretend that the sort of teaching that I am being asked to do is in the centre of my comfort zone. In many ways ending up teaching what is, to all intents and purposes, English Grammar seems like a much delayed revenge for all the copying I did in the fourth and fifth forms when the scientists suddenly got top marks in all the clause analysis questions! Luckily I do not have to teach Grammar (it deserved the capital letter when we were taught it) in anything like the same anal detail thank god. I’m not sure how many English teachers not only here but also in the United Kingdom would be able to teach it!

I have lost one year and gained another. Year 4 (last year’s Year 3) was a good class and I am sad that I will not be taking them again. I have gained another ‘Sixth Form’ class which, I am told is more my metier. We’ll see.

I suppose that I ought to prepare some material for tomorrow on the ‘Plan B’ system just in case the books which we have placed in rooms suddenly evaporate and leave us with nothing for the kids! The really cunning thing is to produce something which, according to the way that you teach it, can be used with any class and at any age. I have an idea for something with my choice of cartoons vide. Thurber and Giles which can be linked to a short fable by one of a number of writers. I know what I want to do, but it does depend on my finding the requisite books which, at the moment, I have not managed.

Time to Make an Effort and justify the derisory salary that I am paid.

Happy hunting!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Seen AND heard!


The tyranny of the young is a concept that all parents must know. When you have a representative individual of the young human persuasion actually staying with you the full import of the word ‘tyranny’ leaps into focus!

The sacrosanct territory of the third floor ‘attic’ has been violated. A four year old child sleeping in my study! It is unthinkable. I’m not sure that his aunt sleeping in my study too doesn’t make it even worse. That was bad enough but worse was to follow.

We had to replenish our stocks of cooked meat so went into our local shopping centre and decided to have some lunch. As in many centres there is a sort of area where the cafĂ©s (I will not dignify them with the appellation of ‘restaurants’) are concentrated. There are some which serve half decent food and there are others which are Mcdonalds.

As is quite obvious to even the meanest intelligence, I would as soon eat in Mcdonalds as I would have a rat-dog as a pet so we went to a branch of Tot Tapas. The four year old did not agree with this gastronomic decision and contrived to kick his aunt until she relented and took him to the double arches!

I tried to think of circumstances from my youth in Cardiff when I would have been able to get away with something similar to that small human. I decided that I would have had to have been suffering from some terminal wasting disease and been at my last gasp before my parents would have given in to my whims.

Having said that, my mother always maintained that I could always wrap my Aunt Raye around my little finger: if only I have known at the time, just imagine what I could have got away with!

Perhaps I am looking at my past life through cyan and green tinted lenses (well, that the opposite of rose on the colour wheel) and I actually was indulged as much as our Young Visiter - and that’s not a spelling mistake but a reference to a great book. But I don’t think so.

Last night, just before the arrival of the guest, I went to Bluespace to look at what books are actually left there. I could, I thought, sort through those books which could stay there before I sold them off or whatever.

I want all of the books that are left there. Some twenty boxes full. Each box is at least a shelf and a half, so allow thirty shelves or four extra Billy Bookcases – which in my case I have not got. I had thought that the book choices that I had to make were going to be difficult, not impossible!

I also tried, when I got back to bring some sort of order to the top ‘open’ shelves in the living room. It so long that I eventually decided to accept a rough ordering of the volumes and worry about a global order (doesn’t that sound utopian or fascist!) when I have brought some semblance of a system to individual bookcases.

Although a bookcase by bookcase sorting seems short term and time heavy it is the only way that sorting can be done when all bookcases are full and space is limited. And some sort of ordering is essential as I found out this morning when I decided that I wanted to make up some worksheets on James Thurber. I found a book of his cartoons without much difficulty but I am still looking for the book with his stories and fables.

A library is only as good as the system which allows it to be used. Friends have said that I should leave the books as they are and just enjoy the unlikely sequences. This is tempting but it is not as Jane Eyre might have said, ‘useful.’ A double process of ‘utility’ will have to movitivate my retension and selection. It is all too much for a simple bibliophile such as I.



Though it should be fun!

Friday, September 11, 2009

I have a cunning plan . . .


As Oscar said, “To have cramp in one leg might be regarded as unfortunate; to have cramp in both smacks of mystical muscular messaging.”

Hobbling my way around the house, the last thing that my screaming muscles need is struggling with boxes of books from place to place as I vainly try and find spaces for EVs (Essential Volumes).

I took a deeply symbolic step when I decided (after much heart ache) that the Funk and Wagnells dictionary bought second hand by my father for ten bob umpteen years ago with me in attendance will have to go.

It is an enormous book with thumb tabs for each letter carved into the fore edge of book itself. This was the first time that I had seen such a thing and I was deeply impressed. But have I actually used the book over, say, the last thirty years? The answer is that I have not.

I have no intention of counting the number of English dictionaries that I own as no-one (including myself I fear) would understand why. I still have the Oxford Pocket Dictionary that I had when I entered secondary school. It is venerable and battered and I do have a newer version, but I couldn’t think of getting rid of it. My justification is that I use it as a visual aid in my teaching. “Look!” I say to a deeply unimpressed class, “I am your English teacher and I have carried a dictionary around with me since I was eleven. If I need one, how much greater is your need!” There is a distinct echo of The Book of Common Prayer and The Authorized Version of the Bible in that injunction; echoes that are lost, alas, in the electronic breeze from pupil iPods innumerable.

The latest idea grew to a defiant determination as I vainly tried to massage normality back to places where I had little suspected that such vigorous muscles were lurking. This plan is to accept that I am going to retain my little space in the storage facility for the rest of the moth at least so I may as well use it to try and find a solution to the ‘quart into the pint bottle’ problem with the books.

I will fill boxes with the books that I can see disappear without taking too much of my soul with them. This will (must) leave spaces on the shelves which can be filled with books from those in storage. The books in storage will be sorted in Bluespace itself so that the only books that I actually bring to the house will be those without which I cannot do. If all else fails that I will have to double stack certain volumes and stick something on the side of such overcrowded shelves reminding me what is hidden behind the front row of spines.

Obviously I have to take the boxes containing the ‘Books for Expulsion’ to the car so that the guest bedroom can again accommodate two beds. It might be politic to get the empty boxes (presently gracing the lawn) to the rubbish and start thinking about making yet another pilgrimage to Bluespace.

This time, however, there is, after all, A Plan – and, as Churchill (that great librarian) so memorably said, “This may not be the end of our shelving problems. It may not be the beginning of the end of building Billy bookcases, but it is at least the end of the beginning.” One can only hope so.

It will be interesting to see what I achieve in a day which will bring visitors and in particular one four year old boy! Added to that is a half promise to try and visit Margaret and Ian who have been unvisited for far too long.

Ah well, let the day progress: I feel that I have started well by formulating the details of a plan of action before my second cup of tea.

I will rely on Toni’s sister’s flexible approach to concepts like “we’ll be there in the morning” and make the first of my new purposeful visits to Bluespace. I have to tell myself to keep remembering the amount of money I pay each month to keep the little cell in order to spur myself into concrete action.

Tally ho!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Damnation!






The neighbours from Hell have returned!

This tragedy linked to a cramp in my right calf has taken away the first transports of delight at the prospect of a long weekend.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday in Catalonia (which probably explains the reappearance of our Stygian nemesis) and is a civilized gesture by my adopted country to make the blow of the kids appearing in school on Monday a little more bearable.

Today was notable because I finally signed a permanent contract at my school. As far as I can tell in Spain that means that if they sack me they have to pay a statutory amount of money. A permanent contract does not guarantee permanency in any way - as employers have what to British sensibilities seems like astonishing powers to get rid of staff with the minimum fuss and risible cash outlay! Spain, like France I understand, has a social security system which makes it much more lucrative for the employee to be sacked than to leave employment in any other way! This makes little sense of someone brought up in the British employment market, but, as I am constantly told, this is not Britain!

The signing of the contract does mean that I am now a full member of staff and the permanency also has implications for my financial status. The number of times that I have been asked for the sight of my contract in banks and other institutions would cause consternation in Britain where contracts (especially in teaching) are documents which usually fail to appear for months or even years. In Spain contracts are documents which are much more important and much more visible.

Toni phoned today from Terrassa and announced a three day invasion by a section of the family (with child!) which is fine and dandy but presents book problems.

I have started going through my books and trying to find volumes whose absence will not cause too much pain. I have managed to fill one Pickford’s box and am well on my way to filling a second. To achieve this I have decided to extract all the school examination related commentaries and after much soul searching I have decided to rationalize my Shakespeare holdings. For some of the bard’s plays I have as many as six or seven editions as well as numerous ‘collected plays’ volumes. It is an easy target and I need to find more.

The boxes of ‘rejected’ books are, at the moment cluttering up the guest bedroom: the guest bedroom which is going to be used tomorrow! The empty boxes can be easily disposed of but the filled ones are rather more difficult to tidy away. The lingering effects of the cramp in the my right calf make running up and down stairs with heavy boxes of books on twisting stairs something of a no-no, and the ‘oubliette’ of the cupboard under the eaves is already bursting at the seams. Things are reaching crisis point and the whole situation is exacerbated by the fact that I am still paying for a ridiculously limited number of boxes in Bluespace. Limited they may be but there is nowhere for what they contain to be contained in the house.

In some ways this is good for me, because it makes the impending arrival of hordes of children in my classes in school of distant secondary (pun) importance. I had hoped to have got everything out of Bluespace by the end of July and now it looks as though it is unlikely that I will ever get that space empty! I am going to set myself the limit of the end of September – even if my mother’s (and Toni’s) happy vision of books burning becomes a reality to make more space.

Sitting in my study on the third floor and away from the quite wonderful looking book room on the floor beneath I can take a more measured view of the spatial disparity between what I have and what I want to display. I know that my magpie mind rejoices in reference books and I have a range of reference books which would put many local libraries to shame. At once time not only did I have, for example a dictionary of computers, but I also had different editions of dictionaries of computers. I had the very first dictionary of computers that I bought which offered definitions of terms like ‘graceful degradation.’ In case you are interested this term was applied to a program which, when it was corrupted had a way of shutting itself down in a staged way to protect as much of the original program as possible. To me the term suggested a decaying mansion in the Deep South of America where an old Southern family was slowly slipping down the social scale as successive members of the inbred clan fragmented into imbecility and sexual excess.

A wonderful term, but no longer used. Now the correct term is ‘fail soft’ – a phrase not without some interesting resonances but which lacks the musical magic of the original: from ‘Gone with the Wind’ to ‘Terminator.’ It may be that even this term has now been superseded and ‘fail-fast’ has taken its place.

This shows one of the reasons that I have kept successive reference books: I like the ‘historical’ overview that sees ‘facts’ change over time. What British person has not at some time drooled over old maps showing the extent of the so-called British Empire? Who has not sniggered at pictures from the 1950s and 60s at ‘technological innovation’ which now looks positively medieval? Just because something is out of date, it does not mean that it is not interesting. I have indulged myself by allow the accretion of ‘historical’ reference books to fill my shelves and, while some of them will certainly stay (‘The Bumper Boys’ Book of Facts’ for example) others can (regretfully) be consigned to oblivion. I think.

I will have to do some sorting of the remaining books in Bluespace in Bluespace itself and only bring those volumes which I cannot do without. The rest will have (somehow) to fit under the eaves until they can be disposed of either to the second hand book shop in Barcelona or to other institutions. I could even think about putting some of the volumes on line and see what the web can do for me!

Considering the problems in the world today my difficulties with books really do seem gloriously self indulgent.

So what else is new!

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Space, the universe, everything!


I have no idea what Boolean Algebra is and I think that I can live without anyone explaining it to me. However, the word or the concept itself suggests a sophisticated method of looking at the word in which the ordinary confines of normal three dimensional space morph into something strange and other worldly.

As I say I have no idea whether any of that is true, but I am strangely drawn to any ideas which suggest that the ordinary run-of-the-mill universe is only one of many and that in the reality of our existence there is an infinity of spaces tantalizingly almost within reach.

This is because of my books, of course.

The boxes which I sneakily brought home while Toni was babysitting for his sister have revealed Old Friends whose reappearance I have greeted with greedy delight and have spent hours poring over them rather than putting them away. And that is the point of course: there is nowhere to put them.

I have started the process of taking out all the York Notes and Text Books. I have started rationalizing the number of editions of texts that I have. I have discarded my Opera programmes. I have extracted the two or three books that I am convinced that I will never read again. And there is not enough space.

This weekend I will have to be uncharacteristically heartless and ruthless and (dare I say it) realistic. Books will have to go – but it’s going to be hard. Very hard.

Take, for example the small book case nearest me. I have just opened it up. What do I get rid of? My Giles cartoon books? The True Story of the Novel by Margaret Anne Doody – the lady who chose my name for the helper of the great philosopher in her novel ‘Aristotle Detective’? Perhaps my copy of the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book or The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes? The Oxford Book of Letters or A Dictionary of Twentieth Century Quotations? I think not.

I can no more get rid of those that I can dispense with my copy of the cartoons of H M Bateman or The Penguin History of Christianity Volume 1 which is next to it!

Part of the delight of the way in which my book collection is ‘arranged’ at the moment is that the ‘arrangement’ is gloriously arbitrary. Who is of soul so leaden that they could not rejoice at the sequence of volumes on one shelf which is: ‘The English’ by Jeremy Paxman next to The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations next to The Authorized Version of the Bible (with maps) next to National Anthems of the World next to History of Art: Surrealism next to the Guide to Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalunya next to The Oxford Book of English Verse. Who wouldn’t want to browse all the other shelves to see what else is there in the higgledy-piggledy excess? And how could I dispense with any part of that eccentric arrangement?

It will be real test of character. There are still twenty boxes left in Bluespace. This is why I need multi-dimensional book shelves.

Work today has been an elegant waste of time but my homecoming was speeded up because Caroline was going to visit.

We have not been in touch for some time so it was an opportunity to catch up on what we had both been doing and to make firm plans for our future activity. We are both passionate believer in the idea of Ladies Who Lunch and, although our future commitments make this difficult we are determined to ensure that we get the spaciousness of a meal to allow us to indulge our delight to talk.

Lunch might have to be dinner but we are determined not to allow so long a gap to separate our gossip!

Tomorrow threatens another absurdly long meeting. I have vowed that I will not sit through another three hour marathon without a break. I will have to see if I have the strength of purpose to keep to my word and brave the questioning stares of my colleagues as I march towards the door. Especially as I have not yet signed my contract.

There is only so much that the idea of a decent lunch can do to keep you servile.

I might just emphasize the vile and have done with it!

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

The Day of the Books


Toni has gone off to do his good deed for the day and babysit for his sister – and may the good lord have mercy on his soul!

Meanwhile in the rarefied reaches of education we had the continuation of the computer course today. Our hapless tutor did not know his way around the software that the school has decided to use for the whiteboards so some fairly basic questions left him floundering. It has to be said that it was not entirely his fault as the copy of the software that he had been given earlier in the summer with which to familiarize himself did not work when he got it home and tried to play it on his computer. Pause, while the entire world expresses astonishment about this unprecedented happening!

The tutor ploughed on regardless but did not engender any sense of confidence by saying “You probably know as much about this software as I do!” I found it all faintly embarrassing and I was glad when it was all over.

As someone who has used a whiteboard I found most of what he said of little use, but the others on the course were grateful that they had been introduced to at least some aspects of the new technology and they were duly grateful – and at least it wasn’t the other course which was grinding its laborious way onwards in spite of the numbness of the bottoms of the participants in the course and the fact that their brains must now have the consistency of a Wonderloaf left out in the rain for a fortnight.

It is now Tuesday and with Friday being a bank holiday we have two half days left before the pupils arrive. A sense of barely concealed panic has now begun to inform the attitudes of the staff and they are starting to rush around from meeting to meeting emerging looking more harassed by the second.

The school has decided (when? by who?) that pupils will now produce all their work on sheets of A4 paper. The logistics of this fairly fundamental change in the way the school operates are still shrouded in mystery and it has led to dark mutterings and sage shaking of various heads.

One of the reasons for the change has been the weight of material that the poor students have to carry to their parents’ car from their homes as they are ferried to school. There is then the fearful ordeal of getting out of the car and dragging their bags to their teaching areas. While there, we teachers move to them. Then, at the end of the day they have to struggle with the bags to the waiting car to take them home. My heart bleeds!

Also, of course the real weight is not in the paper on which they write but in the textbooks and workbooks that they have to use. The real difference in weight is going to be marginal.

The real delight is in the fact that the students will have to be more organized than they have been before. Some anal students are already at a stage of organizational perfection that approaches bureaucratic Nirvana, but the others – or ‘boys’ as they are known – are going to find placing the papers from a day’s work in the appropriate compartment in their work folders akin to synthesizing amino acids using a ball point pen and an acid drop! I only hope that the maids will take on extra responsibility and ensure that their young masters and mistresses keep some hold on their new style studies!

I think that all this bitterness comes from the fact that the school did not pay me for August. Toni informs me that I should have had no expectations that I would have been paid as it was made quite clear that my temporary contract was up to the end of June and my permanent contract would begin with the start of term in September. But, morally, I think that I was entitled to it; but there again if employers had been moral then there would have been no necessity for Trade Unionism.

I have decided to make another visit to Bluespace to look at what remains still in storage. The Christmas decorations will, I think, fit into the long cupboard under the eaves but there are still boxes of books which need to be brought to the house. There is no way that they are all going to fit and so I will have to make some serious decisions about what is to stay and what is to go.

Toni’s sister gave a leaflet about an English language second-hand bookshop in Barcelona. I will have to investigate and see if there is a market for some of my books. I am steeled to the reality that, even if the shop is prepared to consider buying my books then I am going to be offered a sum which will bear no relationship to their value – either monetary or emotional.

I have been looking through what I have on the shelves already and I can give the back story of so many of the volumes that I have. I can remember where I bought them and which ones were the best bargains; I can remember the ones whose purchase made me feel guilty (‘guilty’ in my sense of the word I mean, don’t go overboard with the ramifications of that concept in the real world!) and the ones whose purchase was sheer self-indulgence. There are books that I have not read and probably will never read – but that doesn’t mean that I want to get rid of them. There are books in tattered editions that I have read and re-read and will read again and those are volumes that I could never throw away.

I suppose that I seem maudlin and sentimental over things which, after all, are just things – but, as I have said before, I never fail to be amazed that a rectangular slab of reprocessed rags or wood pulp with their little black marks can be so powerful.

To Bluespace and the rescue of more books!

(Don’t tell Toni!)

Monday, September 07, 2009

Thoughts from the Third Floor!


I am an exile.

I sit in my lonely corner of the universe with only the music from my ipod playing in the background and a few drinks from the fridge to reach which I do not have to leave my seat to keep me company.

OK, the balmy air drifts gently against my cheeks as the subtle tintinnabulation of the halyards against the masts from the Maritime Club at the end of the road forms a gentle accompaniment to whatever pretentious music you assume I am listening to (and believe me, you probably wouldn’t guess, it’s that pretentious) and I think I’ll have a Bitter Kas now as the lights in the neighbouring pools flicker on and the shimmering of the water looks almost too inviting to resist.

But two floors below the TV is now showing a basketball competition. I refused point blank to watch it as I understand that Great Britain has recently been defeated by some transitory country from the ever irritating Balkans. It it’s not basketball then it is some version of football and Barça seems to be actively involved in at least a dozen different competitions and is collecting cups like some sort of pantomime genii. It all takes television time and Toni wants to see all of them.

Now it is true that I know more people in the Barça football team than I have ever known in any sport at any time in my life. I even have favourite players and, even more shocking, I have opinions about who should be played and where!

It is mildly amusing to observe Catalans go berserk as Barça wins yet again and even more amusing to see them exercise a completely spurious restraint in their merciless goading and mocking of Real Madrid as they struggle manfully to retain their cup-less trophy cabinet in this most arid of seasons for them. But I’m not that interested in the game itself and the more I see the less interested I become.

So, exile to the third floor it is; and now the aircraft have started flying low to keep me company! I am sure that Charles Ives would heartily approve of the musical mix that iPod, boats, planes and people create. I think I will resort to headphones.

School today was generally unstructured and that gave me time to start ‘preparing’ my text books for the forthcoming term. ‘Preparing’ basically means using the answer book to write in the correct responses in the text book itself. This is important as with the English Language it is often the case that there are many ‘answers’ to linguistic problems. This is not the approach that we as a department adopt. If the book says that there is a right answer then that is the answer we teach because the books are directed towards a specific set of examinations and we are an examination led school. Philosophically I might have problems with this approach but, as Spenser Tracey said about Method Acting, “I’m too old, I’m too tired and I’m too rich to bother!” Well, one out of three is good enough for me!

The one timetabled activity today was when we had a tutor from the British Council to take us through a two hour session on the use of the new interactive whiteboards.

After a shaky start when the idea of two hours of a stuttering idiot seemed more than the human frame could stand, he settled down and proved to be an amiable course leader. But – isn’t there always a ‘but’!

He was not actually familiar with the software that we are going to be using and so most of the material he had work not work interactively on our machines. It also turned out that his lack of familiarity meant that he didn’t know how our software worked. This is a bad thing for a tutor.

In the even the work that we actually did was so basic that we didn’t stretch anyone’s capabilities – though changing the colour of a piece of text which had been magically changed from handwriting into print proved a little tricky.

It turns out that we have two systems of interactive whiteboards in the school with different software with each one. It may be that material produced for one will not work with the other. As all of us teach in both parts of the school we will either need to produce duplicates of what we need or, in the words of the tutor, “Not bother, because it will be a waste of your time.”

What amazed me was the astonishment expressed by the tutor that two mutually exclusive systems doing the same thing might be established in the same school.

I don’t know what sort of schools he has worked in but I have never worked in a school in which there was an integrated system using any technology of any sort at any time. Take, for example computers. When there was only one computer in a school then things were fine. As soon as another computer was added then things started to diverge. In my last school at one time I think that there were as many as six or seven completely separate network systems operating at the same time. The IT teacher who was obviously unacquainted with the Myth of Sisyphus started an audit to find out where everyone was and then, the plan was, that he would suggest a system that everyone could subscribe to. Nice try!

The only way that the Myth of Sisyphus can be altered is by using another Myth that of the Cleaning of the Augean Stables: a radical solution but one that would have worked if a Cardiff river had been able to have been diverted to wash away the Byzantine complexity that was computer use in the school!

My solution to this problem would be a fairly simple and (in the long term) a fairly cheap one. All teachers should be issued with a small laptop. The school would provide all central programs like word processing, publishing, archive, spreadsheet etc that were necessary and would insist that only that particular machine could be used inside the school. Subject specific programs would be authorized by the school and different levels of memory need etc would be assessed by the school too.

I’m already bored with this idea because as I type I can see that it isn’t going to work. Even with a full time, dedicated and knowledgeable technician machines will breakdown completely or be stolen or lost and replaced with the latest model which will be slightly different in what it offers and be differently styled and will, inevitably lead to jealousy and resentment from those people who have the old machines! I see rivers flowing with much blood!

No doubt we will muddle our way forward as teachers always do making the best of inauspicious equipment and material and compensating with their professionalism for the inadequacy of their resources.

What finished my experimentation with the interactive white board was a bulb. The projector used a bulb; a bulb with a limited life. When that life was over and the bulb needed to be replaced it was discovered that the cost of a replacement was absurdly high – well over two hundred pounds! And no one would buy it!

If things follow the normal pattern then there will be a year when people try out the new technology and the staff room will ring with enthusiastic voices regaling their fascinated colleagues with ‘The Story of My Struggle to Show a Web Page on the White Board’ but this bon mots will soon pale and be replaced by sullen resentment at technology that doesn’t quite work because The Person Before Me in the Classroom Left it Unplugged – or some other variation.

I know this. I have been there.

But with my permanent contract tantalizingly close and retirement just over a year away, I can afford to take the long view because I need only to be going there for a relatively short time.

Like some of the appalling vacation jobs that I had, their dire quality was always mitigated by the fact that I was being paid for what I was doing and I knew that I was not going to be doing it (like the poor souls around me) for years and years and years.

If I count the months, there are 14 before that magical date in October 2010. Take off July and August of next year because they are holidays and that brings it down to 12 working months; one year. 356 days, minus of course 52 x 2 for weekends, so that’s 252. Allow an extra 20 or so for holidays and we have 232. Divide by 5 to make the working weeks and we are left with 46 and a bit – and counting!

This is possibly not the most positive calculation to do days before the term starts in earnest, but it is realistic and it makes the days and weeks ahead part of a declining statistic and when it gets to zero then I have a decision to make.

As I feel at the moment I can consider the idea of continuing beyond the retirement date and that is certainly the impression I have give my school. It will be interesting to look back in October 2010 and read through what I have written here and see what the reality looks like rather than the speculation.

I wonder.

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Raise a glass!


When our less than ideal neighbours put their crippled rat (oh alright, a rat-dog) into a plastic prison and loaded it into the back of their car we were virtually certain that their reign of audio terror was at an end.

Since we were informed by the overbearing parvenus that they only inhabited their house for a few months in the year we have hoped that the whole dysfunctional bunch would decamp to Barcelona so that their foul mouthed daughter could continue her studies and expand her extensive friendship among the remaining adolescent male population.

When the shutters came down and the car moved off we opened a bottle of Cava and drank a toast. We now look forward to a great deal of nothing from the house next door rather than listening to the blaring television dominating the ‘outside’ sitting room; the daily shouting matches between parents and daughter; the late night karaoke sessions of the adolescents and the general parade of proprietorship of the swimming pool and poolside area with loud voices and raucous singing.

I only hope that they are not on vacation somewhere commensurate with their pretentions, only to return with even more intolerable attitudes! With any luck we will not see them for any length of time until next summer.

On a housekeeping note I have now brought some sense of order to the ‘attic’ mainly, it has to be said, by pushing all the stuff cluttering up the place into the long cupboard under the eaves. Don’t knock it – it worked! I now have a decent working space with, what for me, is a fairly clear desk. Admittedly this is only because I have done little work for school so far and therefore the usual accumulation of papers and work related impedimenta have not yet taken over.

The Spanish version of ‘Big Brother’ has started its interminable monopolization of air time and Toni is unnaturally fascinated by it. I therefore have to contend with a double whammy of football and Big Brother, so I expect to be utilizing the educational and refreshment facilities of the ‘attic’ for some months to come!

The Family arrived just before lunch and immediately decamped to the pool. The shower is not working and the water temperature was cooler than normal. We wonder if this is a sign that the maintenance of the pool is being wound down for the winter: we sincerely hope not as we expect to have a number of weeks swimming before the temperature becomes such that only the more extreme religious masochistic fanatics would welcome immersion.


We decided to go out for lunch and have the menu del dia in our 'local' the Maritime Club. My meal of a rice soup with lobster and other sea food, followed by fresh tuna with a tomato sauce. To end I had crema catalana. I wont go into the price of the meal with wine etc, but I have to say that the tuna was spectacular and I would have been happy if I had paid double the price of the meal just for that course!


Meanwhile I worry about what new horrors the morning will bring. We have been threatened with yet another computer course. This one, at least, will be specifically designed (or aimed) at the English Department. Though speaking from experience the fact that a course is supposed to be for a particular group of teachers means virtually nothing. I shall, however, reserve judgement.

As if!

Saturday, September 05, 2009

The shades get closer!


A week of half days in school is over and it has left me yearning for the opportunity to teach rather than suffer another incomprehensible meeting or interminable and badly organized computer course!

At least it is now the weekend and time for relaxation. Well, it would be time for relaxation if it wasn’t for the rather indecisive weather we are having. While we were in the pool yesterday evening it actually had the effrontery to rain – not convincingly, but rain nevertheless. I think that the Catalan weather is trying to find that mixture of gloom and grey depression that usually characterizes the start of term in the UK.

There is a certain amount of cloud around but the sunshine does keep popping through – though not enough to tempt one into the pool yet!

As Telefonica decided to deny us an internet connection today I have made the brave decision to try and sort out the top floor. As this is where I am going to do most of my school work and as this is where I am going to find refuge when the presence of yet another programme on football on TV becomes just a tiny bit unsupportable, it is in my interests to get the place ship shape – or at least a space which encourages peace and contemplation rather than despair at the sheer weight of accumulated stuff which I have been unable or unwilling to throw away.

This cluttered space is actually the attic, though it is reached by a set of twisting stairs and a chunk has been taken out of the roof to create a reasonably sized enclosed balcony. A balcony on which, I might add, I have installed a fridge; a table and chairs and a recliner. At the moment there is also a barbecue.

One must have one’s creature comforts!

Friday, September 04, 2009

Keep your hands to yourself!

‘Restraint’ is one of those tricky words whose meaning I know but whose application is a little more problematical.

The extensive scab on my right knee (courtesy of the slippery pavements of La Senia and amusing Toni’s nephew) now looks like an over symmetrical satellite view of some obscure archipelago. It is not painful, but my hand keeps reaching, questingly towards it.

What child cannot remember testing the edges of a ripe scab? Adults, of course realize that the scab is there for a particular purpose and any interference with its healing function will merely extend the process of restoration of new skin. But there is a small child in all of us and I found myself reminding this internal delinquent to restrain his picking proclivities.

Believe me picking scabs was a bloody sight more interesting than what we were supposed to be doing for three hours (without any break) chained to a badly working program on one of the serried ranks of computers in the computer room.

Apart from the horror of things not working and my not having a file which everyone else seemed to have and which made my progress impossible – the real authentic touch of torture was found in the chairs.

“Don’t go back on your chairs” is a recurring cry of teachers down the ages, especially when folk history tells of the case where a child almost broke his back after tipping his chair back etc etc. To combat this almost instinctive movement on the part of students the computer room is equipped with extraordinary seats.

These examples of pupil punishment are circular three legged low stools with a ‘back’ if it deserves that name of a thin bar of metal about six inches from the seat itself. They are supremely uncomfortable – and we were on them for three hours without a break! But I have not signed my permanent contract so I remained silent. Well, mostly silent. Well, grumbling mostly. And as I shuffled around trying to find a position which was marginally less painful and stretching my legs at the same time, my hand wandered down to my knee and the child in my took over.

The programme for our Culture Club is taking shape with six events (with pre and post talks) during the year. In our plans we have included Art, Music, Dance, Architecture, Drama and some other aspect of the arts which for the moment escapes me. On paper it looks good and convincing, but we now have to make it real by phoning around and trying to get people interested.

My function is to contact an English language theatre company and see if we can get part of their offerings directed towards our pupils.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Reality hits!






There is something about a timetable which puts freedom into perspective.

Sheets of paper giving us the schedule of our weekly misery were dropped unobtrusively into pigeon holes today.

For reasons that I like to think are connected to the way that the British Empire was coloured in all the Mercator Projection maps of my childhood, English lessons on our timetable are in a tasteful pink! My sheet of paper seemed to have been emblazoned with an inordinate amount of this colour and that it before the duties are added.

For a staunch Union member I have been most cravenly quiet about the number of lunchtime duties that we are expected to complete. Years of struggle in the UK to ensure that colleagues did not have to work in their lunchtimes and could, indeed leave the premises if they so desired, are but a thing of faint memory as I resentfully complete a lunch hall supervision and a patio (as they call the playground) supervision together with at least one break supervision! And for much less money!

The Brave New World of the year 2009-2010 was to have seen the genesis of The Culture Club in the school. The time which the art teacher and I had timetabled for this and which we had been assured would be ours was (of course) filled by teaching according to our new timetables so, reluctantly, the art teacher said that our efforts would have to be ‘after school.’

Apart from the Cultural Visits and Events themselves I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of giving up my free time for a bunch of spoiled, over privileged, rich kids – not on my derisory salary anyway. I intimated (in shocked disbelief) to the art teacher that our little venture appeared to be still-born and she scuttled off to talk to One of the Powers to see if timetables could be re-jigged.

While having lunch I was accosted by the head of secondary who, in fluent Spanish (which was not matched by my fluent understanding) I think suggested that some sort of compromise could be reached.

There is a certain fluidity about this week that I find invigorating. There are few books for the pupils as the British publishers seem to have taken off August in much the same way as the Catalans, but no one seems unduly perturbed. Classes are fluid. I have had three changes in two days and I am sure that more will follow. We are not even entirely certain who exactly is going to turn up on the 14th of September when the school gates open to the pupils!

At least in the English Department all the teachers who were supposed to turn up are sullenly questioning their timetables and resentfully tidying their cupboards.

The only communal act of solidarity, accompanied by smiling faces and genial conversation is when at 2.00 pm sharp we all converge on the dining hall and has our lunch.

Our computer course today took the form of an explanation of the new intranet system with new and improved calendar. In theory everything works together: departmental information; school information; our timetables – everything is a connected whole. From a cursory view of my colleagues as they, with various degrees of success wrestled with the new technology, I can’t help feeling that the ‘connected whole’ is going to lose that ‘w’ somewhere along the line!

Toni has not been well today and has only just risen from his bed – though he does seem strong enough to watch one of the gossip programmes which litter Spanish television. This takes the form of various non-entities shouting at the same time about some other non-entity. The sleep of reason produces monsters.

I have now finished the third part of The Bartimaeus Trilogy ‘Ptolemy’s Gate’ by Jonathan Stroud.

This novel had to square the circle and make the young magician whose fortunes we have followed in the first two volumes (‘The Amulet of Samarkand’ and ´The Golem’s Eye’) a more likeable person than he had become by the end of the second volume.

The imaginative conceit of the trilogy is that the dominant force in the world is a British Empire which has been built on the shoulders of magicians whose use of demons has ensured their almost unassailable position as the dominant force in the world. The London described in the novels is recognizable with all the major landmarks and streets in place, but the history is very different.

The greatest magician in the history of the country and the founder of the Empire is Gladstone whose magical power was the decisive factor in ensuring the pre-eminence of Britain.

The ruling class of magicians has become arrogant and has found itself bogged down in a colonial war in America. There is growing discontent from the masses of the ‘commoners’ who are treated with barely concealed contempt by the magicians and Nathaniel, our ‘hero’ has joined the government and become the Minister for Information and produces lurid chauvinistic lies for the commoners to swallow.

So far so ordinary. Take a dystopian concept, add a dash of ‘what might’, and stir in some magical fantasy and voila! A novel. The element which makes it rise above the ordinary is the character of the demon that Nathaniel summons to help with his career.

Bartimaeus is a two thousand year old djinn who has a sardonic way of talking and is a most engaging narrator. His explanations, often by way of ironic footnotes, show him to be a cowardly, self-seeking and arrogant demon. His relationship with his ‘master’ is one of mutual irritation, contempt and eventual respect.

To be fair the third volume of this trilogy is more of the same from the first two volumes but throughout one can feel the narrative working to a resolution of the seemingly insoluble problems facing the hero.

There is more human feeling in this volume and the climax is well structured and delivered.

I enjoyed reading this, but I would understand some people treating the whole concept with contempt. This is a book designed for children and it takes interesting themes and treats them in a clever and enjoyable way.

I feel that the demands of my teaching are going to try and limit my reading for pleasure. Well, they can try!

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Home from home!


Opening boxes of books and having a computer course: how hackneyed a second day of an interminable series of what could easily be (and by two of my friends in the UK have been) called ‘Baker Days.’ I look forward with growing dread the whole tranche of days until the 14th and the return of the kids.

Gradually class lists are emerging. The ones I was given yesterday have already been changed. This is just like old times!

The major part of the day has been taken up with a computer course.

I did not start well as I was in a meeting with the art teacher about our proposed Culture Club (yes, we have heard all the jokes that can be made, thank you!) when the Head of English came into the art room and said that everyone had got the time of the start of the course wrong.

We both sloped in late and sat at the back and used the computers to find cultural events to form the programme of our activities for this subversive organization!

As far as I could gather, the computer course was about some new program which would revolutionize our use of the intranet. Or something.

My interest was not even remotely aroused until I was told that exit from the course to lunch would be impossible until a number of tasks had been completed.

Thus galvanized we lurched into action and managed to produce an animated jigsaw of dancing farm animals. This use of this to the teaching of technical aspects of English to foreigners learning it as a second language is too obvious to need any explanation. Allegedly.

Tomorrow we continue this exciting course. I can hardly wait.

Because we are only working half days at the moment my return home is the excuse to go out to the beach and have a swim in the sea. Don’t worry about the sand I wash it off when I come back to the house, just before I go and have a swim in the pool.

It’s a hard old life!