Mark, learn and inwardly digest

This has been a day when, apart from a slump on the balcony when I arrived home has been continuous academic action – stretching I might add, late into the night time.

Some of the time spent at home on school work was a punitive marking exercise to ‘bring people down.’ As I have mentioned before the thing that our school does best is cheat.

I have been informed by people whose non-racist credential are impeccable that cheating in school is a time honoured custom in Spain and which seems to have reached its apotheosis in our school.

Whatever way of cheating you have heard of is practiced in our place. They use notes, books, each other, mobile phones – anything on which or in which information can be displayed or stored. Things have reached such a pitch that a meeting has been held and member of the PBI have had to agree to new and more stringent methods to try and limit the extent of this widespread infection.

One boy, a plausible enough child, who sits at the back, gained a frankly impossible mark in the last examination. The head of English immediately said that he must have cheated. He was suspiciously near to the best pupil in the class (who got 100% in the latest test) and his eyes certainly seemed, to put it mildly, slippery.

This time the test was designed to test a little more than putting the appropriate word in the appropriate space – though I wrote exercises of that type to lull the guilty into a hopeful state of putative cheatiness. Little did the gullible (a word recently taught to the class) know that the exercises on which they could cheat easily had a pitifully low tariff while the real marks were reserved for the writing of sentences.

The proof of this particular pudding was in the fact that the suspect candidate had a mark some 40% lower than his previous effort. How are the cheaters fallen!

It also helped that for the duration of the test I was standing within feet of the candidate at the back of the class. His little face was a picture of frustration.

Exam ever is beginning to break out with classes demanding full details of what elements of English are going to be in their tests. The meeting of the English department which was held early in the day was a masterpiece of controlled hysteria with a plethora of dates of and planning meetings for a whole raft of looming examinations. I found it hard not to start giggling!

I have had to make my tortuous way between buildings a number of times today and each time my little fan club of small people called my name and demanded to shake hands and pass a comment about my tie! I have no idea what’s going on, but I suppose that I should enjoy it while it’s happening and accept that next September is going to be rather different.

At the end of school today (a little before if truth be told) I went to the monastery near the school. This used to be the place where you could see part of the Thyssen collection, but that has now been moved to my favourite gallery on Monjuïc MNAC. My visit was hurried as the place was going to shut, but it was long enough to see that it was a place that I would have to revisit. With camera.

Meanwhile I can relax with the thought that my marking is done and a selection of significant sayings on Education, Learning and Language has been magicked up by me and a selection of dictionaries of quotations for some aspect of the committee which is organizing the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the school. This is the sort of thing which is seen quite distinctly as my ‘thing’ by everybody else – so I have to keep up my reputation as Mr Literature and General Culture.

And I still have not been given my contract.

But I have a plan!

I was offered a view of the easy life today. Photocopy a test which will take up an entire period and laugh your way through minimal marking of single letter answers to a long reading test.

I managed to complete my disgraceful mangling of ‘Sredni Vashtar’ to make the story suitable for those learning English. As long as you don’t know the original and have never read a Saki story you might possibly accept what I have produced as a reasonable story. If you have but a passing acquaintance with Saki’s style you will read it with growing doubt and horror!

I am going to try it out on my Year 8 class and see what happens. I half hope that it will fail, though to be fair to the original I have included a site on which people can look at the story written in the way that Saki intended it to be published. I only hope that pupils find out about how the story should have been well after they have left school!

I am trying to infiltrate books into the kids’ hands using the volumes I managed to acquire from the bookshop in the library on Sant Jordi. So far I have managed to place two (count them 2!) books with pupils. A slow start, but I live in hope. The odd thing is that given the curriculum of the English department in the school which is geared to the Cambridge examination system for English learners, literature is not something which has a high status. Although every class has a ‘reader’ which is looked into once a week, it is fairly obviously an ‘add-on’ rather than something which is integral to the subject. I think I am supposed to be the person who likes literature and has ways and means of making it more important in an exam dominated, grammar led approach to English.

I have been approached by the art teacher who has suggested that we run a sort of Culture Club by organizing visits to significant artistic events in Barcelona for pupils, staff and parents. The present proposal is for us to think about two events per term and then to reassess at the end of the next academic year. Sounds good, though knowing this place it will not mean any free tickets!

I have to write a test for the kids for tomorrow and I am disinclined to do it.

Unfortunately there are no free periods tomorrow and I start at 8.15 in the morning.

God help!

The early worm has got it wrong!

I set off for school extra early to avoid any chaos which might result from the opening of the new terminal in Barcelona Airport. The new terminal is a major work with roads being extended and rerouted; reclamation of protected (huh!) wetlands, and much building. Acres of tarmac have been spread (over the aforesaid protected (huh!) wetlands) in preparation for the extra cars expected. Slip roads have been built which join onto the road that I take to school each day – and thereby lays the rub.

Any deviation from normality for the main arterial roads around Barcelona means, because of the density of traffic using them, total and utter chaos. Rubber necking produces astonishing delays and length tailbacks, so my leaving extra early was a wise precaution.

At least it would have been a wise precaution if the information we Castelldefels dwellers had been given was in any way accurate. I arrived in school with over an hour to the start of my classes to be informed that the terminal is actually opening in a month’s time, in June not May. At least I was early!

The Spanish do not listen. That may seem like a racist remark but in the majority of circumstances in which you could expect discussion it does not take place. A Spanish discussion is one where everybody speaks at once in a loud voice which quickly gets louder.

The political shouting match which developed in my class when discussion of the allegations about the corruption of PP (the right wing party) started was laughable. It was a caricature of how we think foreigners behave when they start talking. One boy started well explaining his point of view to me but, the instant there was a sneered interjection from a slouching girl he snarled back an instant response and then it was all shouting, raised shoulders and splayed hands! It was only by my staring steadily at him and saying, “Oriel, to me! Calm!” that I managed to get a coherent statement from him. The slightest suggestion of a contrary point of view and he was ready to jump. In fact getting him to put forward his point of view was a bit like I imagine it would be talking someone in from the outside ledge of a tall building!

It was a relief to get back to the topic in hand which was an article on stalking. You can imagine the sort of vocabulary that I had to explain!

I have returned to the task of rewriting the short story of Saki called ‘Seredni Vashtar’ – a charming tale of cousin killing by proxy and all written in Saki’s priceless prose. I have only re-written a single page and I feel positively unclean with the outrages that I have committed in the name of comprehensibility for English learners. I tell myself that it is a good story, not only in terms of the writing but also in terms of the plot. I have used the original story with a year 10 class and they found it impenetrable, so I feel that I am justified in making the basic story more accessible. Having already ‘lightly edited’ a Chekov short story I feel that I am ready for more deliberate evisceration.

Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!

Apart from the dirty great planes roaring overhead the scene at the moment is one of idyll with the sun beating down and a light breeze cooling the reddening brow. To hand, a glass of Rioja and a bottle of Gaseosa while other fingers play on the keys of a computer with a screen bright enough to read in reasonable sunlight.

Who could ask for more? (Rhetorical.)

But that was in another country, and besides . . .

When a country with pretentions to some sort of independence is actually ‘governed’ by co-princes comprising the head of state of another country and the local bishop of another you realize that expectations must be high when you visit such a surrealistically situated entity.

Expectations, I might add, which had been lowered dramatically by everyone who had been there telling me that it was very ugly.

In the event, however, Andorra was gratifyingly interesting.

It is a long drive from Castelldefels to the obscure corner of the Pyrenees which holds this tourist magnet and tax haven, but you are rewarded with some spectacular scenery along the way. At this time of year the high Pyrenees are still snow capped and form a dramatic and distant backdrop to pleasant driving in temperatures well into the range of a normal English summer.

The customs posts were drive through, though the Spanish side seemed to be far more thorough on the return trip!

The reason we were going to Andorra at all was that I was sharing in one of Toni’s birthday presents: a night’s stay in a central hotel and a visit to ‘caldea’ a thermal spa in the centre of the largest town in the state.

The GPS did its magic and got us to the hotel and, apart from the fact that our room had not been prepared we settled in with minimum fuss – especially as the parking was in an underground car park opposite.

The main town of Andorra la Vella is crammed into the narrow valley floor which is hemmed in by steeply rising Alpine sides. The town itself is made up of blocks of flats and shops etc – nothing much to write home about – but at the end of each short road leading off the main streets there are breathtaking views of almost vertical slops covered with greenery.

In the centre of the town there are houses and flats dotted at various points on the precipitate slopes looking as though someone has placed a habitation on the slope and hammered in a wedge or two to keep them in place. The views must be awe-inspiring but any false step after a drink or two could see you plummet a thousand feet!

There is a river running along the bottom of the valley which has been channeled and given a make-over so that it looks like a rather extravagant water feature. The flow of water is fierce and I wouldn’t give very much for the chances of anyone unlucky enough to fall in! Part of the river has a sort of suspension walkway over it, though which exciting glimpses of the torrent below can be seen!

The grubby truth about Andorra is that it is a tax-haven and its ambiguous national status allows it to sell tobacco (it has a museum devoted to the disgusting stuff) and alcohol at cut prices to visiting Spaniards and other tourists.

Everyone appears to smoke and the entrance to our hotel was made revolting by the café immediately adjoining the reception area reeking of cigarette smoke. It would have been impossible to eat there – but the dining rooms were elsewhere luckily. Otherwise we would have to have forgone the food which already been paid for and eaten out.

Shops are the lifeblood of Andorra and you can find all the major makes at prices lower than you would get in France or Spain – but not startlingly lower. Poor old Toni trudged around shop after shop and the only thing that kept him sane was the idea that he was looking for a little Barça kit for his nephew (what Conrad called the ‘saving lie’ – otherwise he would have to admit to all and sundry that he went shopping, to the everlasting detriment to his character!) The number of perfume shops is extraordinary and reminded me of my visit to Lampeter where I was struck by a similar surprising number of commercial establishment – though there I have to admit that it was pubs and not perfume shops. Unsurprisingly, really.

We had a short siesta until the evening meal (which was very adequate) and then we set off for our visit to the spa.

‘Caldea’ is an extraordinary place. Its appearance is ‘Spiky Plate Glass Modern’ with a central tower of great pointyness!

The inside of this spa is a fantasy of shiny metal and modern design: you really do feel ‘cutting edge’ when you go in with intertwining staircases and mezzanine floors and clever lighting and everything you would expect from a designer who was obviously given his or her head and told to create.

The centre of the spa is basically a thermal pool which is surrounded by a series of saunas, Turkish baths, showers, and other things water related. One little room actually has an ice machine constantly churning out the stuff to make the cold plunge even more heart-stoppingly un-warm!

The central pool has a series of ascending bowls linked by steps which contained a variety of Jacuzzi-linked experiences.

For me the highlight was following one channel of water and finding myself outside in the cool night swimming in warm water. The focus of the outside ‘pool’ was a spiral channel which sucked the unwary swimmer in with an artificial current and deposited him around a gushing fountain. Most satisfactory!

While we were clinging to the tile work to stop ourselves being swept into the already full embraces of courting couples we noticed that light and sound was coming from the central ‘dome.’ We swam our way back and were rewarded with “son et lumiere et eau.” A first in my experience.

With lowered lights and much playing of a vulgar version of extracts from ‘The Planets’ a series of suspended balls were lowered, illuminated and thereby turned into the planets. A central ‘sun’ opened up and smoke and fireworks were used to (I think) tell the story of water. At one point to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning we were treated to a rain storm (talk about home from home!) All in all it was an invigorating experience which left the two of us totally exhausted!

After we left the spa it was getting near to midnight, but this is usually no hindrance to finding somewhere to have a drink. The whole place was dead, but we could hear muted cheers behind closed doors as Real Madrid appeared to be going down to defeat and therefore gifting the league championship to Barça.

We found no bar open and therefore went into a Basque restaurant and had what turned out to be a surprisingly expensive bottle of wine and a few tapas. As we sat and drank we saw and heard the celebrations as Barça won the league. Cars passed hooting their horns and passengers with various degrees of danger leaned out of the cars waving Barça flags. Two flag waving youngsters were actually perched on the roof rack of one car! While this mayhem was making its noisy way along the roads, in the sky rockets and other bangs went off showing that the basic allegiance of the people of Andorra is to Catalonia!

We collapsed into our beds and didn’t so much fall asleep as lapse into coma.

Today has been a day of recuperation and we broke the journey back to Castelldefels with a visit to Terrassa and The Family for lunch.

Toni has explained that the relaxation that is the inevitable bonus from going to the spa will finally reach me tomorrow when the exhaustion will transform itself into relaxation.

I will wait and see.

It's all in what you think

One must have faith.

The trial of my belief afforded me the opportunity to show that I had become comfortable in what I believe. I could have smiled at misfortune and looked forward to a justification of my professed expectations. But no. I failed. I simply didn’t believe.

And today sunshine.

All my fears about the grey skies being the weather theme of the next few weeks were completely ungrounded and were more a result of remembered climatic conditions in another country!

Glorious sunshine was almost a personal rebuke for my lack of surety about the future provision of that commodity in Castelldefels!

The ‘Why not Catch-21’ has proved to be quite as addictive as I expected it to be and it is packed with interesting details with which I shall bore whole generations of schoolchildren in classes to come. It is difficult to use the literary knowledge in my present school as the literature content of the syllabus is woefully low. But I will find a way!

I have dipped into the two other books which I have bought and they too have addictive qualities as well. I have not read enough to make a judgement about their real quality but I have enjoyed what I have read so far.

I now have to go and back for an early start tomorrow. And I’d better get the GPS charged up as well. It’s always a good thing to have confidence about where you are going.

And have a reasonable chance of getting there.

A test of patience.

No time can be truly happy when you know that you have to visit a Spanish post office at the end of the day.

I have tried to develop a hard cynical exterior to cope with the mindless muddle; the witless waiting; the resolute rudeness and the surrounding stuffiness that characterizes the places.

As with supermarket checkouts, so in post offices I seem to be in the queue which has the Fatal Person behind whom stasis is enforced and whose enquiry necessitates the attention of everyone behind the counter, phone calls to the Office of Circumlocution and bemused scratching of heads.

When I arrived to get my ticket there were few people there! Getting the ticket is an essential part of the process. A colleague went into an empty post office and was ignored and then refused service until she had got a ticket. She was then seen. There is a young lad behind the counter (usually on position 2) who is viciously punctilious about painstakingly following the bureaucratic procedures to the letter – and both of us would, quite cheerfully slaughter him.

My ticket was B200 and the electronic indicator board was actually showing that somebody with B197 was actually being served. I sat down (following the advice of Kings) and composed myself to wait because, as I have said before, time is a tricky companion in Spanish post offices. Numbers B198 and B199 were seen in short order and then of course, numbers with the prefix A were seen, then E and then C. I was particularly impressed by this as the machine only offered three alternatives of which E was not one. Presumably there is some further refinement of pressing the button on the machine which, like the wardrobe in the Narnia stories will take you to another universe in the post office version of reality.

When my number eventually came up I had, of course, drawn the obnoxious youth who demanded to see my Spanish identification document which is now yellowed with age and crackles when it is opened up as if it is an ancient document written on ancient desiccated paper.

I suppose that all the effort does make the actual receipt of what has been sent to you much more of an achievement going through this ordeal!

Weather today has been of the soul sapping variety where overcast clouds of such colour draining vapidity make it seem impossible that sun will ever shine again. And it rained. And it was muggy and that encourages the mosquitoes.

As I have been typing I have notices a massive mozzie blatantly relaxing on the ceiling at just that sort of height where you just can’t quite reach the blood gorged insect for the killer blow with a rolled up newspaper. He looks so fat that I have begun to check myself for puncture marks because it really does look like one well fed insect. I fear a chair may have to be pressed into use for this particular execution.

No, with a copy of The Week that particular mozzie has gone to its appointed afterlife. It must be time to start plugging in the electronic anti-mosquito devices. These do not really work, but, as they are gadgets I have a vague faith in them.

I am looking forward to going to Andorra at the weekend for a night in a hotel with use of the spa – all meals included!

I have been told that Andorra is a shoppers’ paradise, but BBVA, with their characteristic callous indifference to the needs of their customers has mucked up the delivery of my new Switch card, so I will have to be content with window shopping.

Ah well, such enforced parsimony fits the Crisis I suppose.

And it’s Friday tomorrow!

And the waves roll on.

A thoroughly muggy day with only a little sunshine managing to make its way through the haze as I sit on the balcony watching the waves – I am a touch typist after all!

Today has been a generally good day for reasons which are not entirely clear to me. The teaching has gone well, although that can mean that I have merely been encouraged to digress in a shamelessly self indulgent way rather than achieving the learning objectives that I should have.

Without making much of an effort I can recall talking about trawler fishing; the paintings of David Hockney; canal lock gates; the Eurovision Song Contest; a kitchen fish slice; dogs fouling public places; misleading statistics; contour lines and expired passports.

What I can’t quite recall is where the English grammar fitted in!

A colleague has been driving herself to nervous exhaustion by putting on not one, but four little plays during this week. They have been worked on over a period of some months, but only using a single lesson a week in the ‘Drama’ lesson. Another colleague, with selfless dedication has produced photographic slide backdrops for each production and managed lights and sound.

The end result of today’s play was, as I told my colleague, “worth doing.” I hope she does not think that I am damning with faint praise, but as I have read through the play and attended a run through I was able to follow the action: I am not sure quite what those seeing this production for the first time will take away for it, apart from a vague unease that they have been subjected to a philosophically alienated piece of surrealism. The delivery of the words by the actors was done in a clipped sort of Pakistani style and the speed of delivery made clarity a bit hit and miss. All in all good fun!

I gobbled down my lunch under the impression that I was on duty. I was wrong. As I am a denizen of both buildings I was able to hide my humiliation of being a day out by taking a cup of tea, an orange and a book (that last bit sounds like a grotesque reworking of the Rubiat of Omar Kyam) and sit out on the balcony in solitary splendor!

Collection of my prescriptions meant that I could justifiably leave early in the last period of the day when I have a free and thus miss the unbelievable traffic jams that occur when the rich come to collect their offspring.

Now for a bowl of my fruit salad which is just on the point of fermentation!

And, of course, a cup of tea!

The red pen strikes back!

What was true for the younger kids when they were given back their examination papers was as nothing compared to the storm of questions and cavils that greeted me as I gave back the papers to the older pupils.

Eventually I began to question my own grasp of the language and I felt myself drifting back to the old days when, for a period of some minutes, I forgot how to spell ‘because.’

In my own justification I have to say that I had been marking papers for some time in which the perverse ingenuity in finding yet more ways to misspell the word had finally tipped my knowledge of the word in question over the edge and my spelling systems closed down!

The clarity of the advice that I received when I returned to the staff room after the distribution shone through the gloomy day: don’t go through them. Give them back and let them add up the marks. Period.

It is good to be in a staff room where the wisdom of past years distils itself into thoroughly practical self interested saws. It is advice that I shall assuredly follow!

My time in this school is marked by a fairly steep learning curve. My previous abilities in the teaching of English are looked on as a luxury, and the things that I tried to shuffle off into the shadows are now thrown into centre stage with a particularly large and bright spotlight on them.

The head of department is a particularly fine lady who dispenses comfort and sharp, effective solutions without breaking step! Nothing is unsolvable, though she does live on nervous energy. Being callous I have to say that the situation is fine with me as long as the results of her neurosis mean an easier life for me.

Now that I am permanent, various dark threats are looming on the horizon. The most dark and threatening is the possibility of becoming a class teacher. This is something which I really do not want to do. Quite apart from the fact that I always loathed being a form teacher (ah, distance always makes the truth easier to utter) I really would have to see monoglot Spanish speaking parents to talk about their children. And our children are needy as far as attention is concerned. They have ideas of their rights far in excess of their concepts of responsibility and such a mélange of strident egos is not something which appeals to me.

But we shall see what is in store for me in the timetable I am given for next year.

Of course the important element that has my full attention is what my future contract is going to say about the two months of the summer. What I expect is that my present contract will expire at the end of June, and the next one will probably start in September. That means that after my pay for June, I will not be paid again until the end of September. Happy days! At least there is the promise of future cash!

A delight awaited me after the limited horror of a small shop in Lidl: a book placed on top of my mail box!

‘Why not Catch-21?’ by Gary Dexter.

‘Why not Catch-21?’ by Gary Dexter is the book version of the column Dexter writes in the Sunday Telegraph which takes the odd titles of books and looks at the stories behind them. It has a very ugly front cover and an excellent back cover and it is obviously published just for me. My dilettante mind is, even now, lurching towards devouring this book. I am, however, determined to spread out the delight of learning the detail behind the choices for as long as possible.

The front cover shows a very bad drawing of Rodin’s Thinker sitting on a pile of books. The posture of the sculpture does give a very clear indication of where the book should be kept!

I seem to remember ordering a few other books after I had succumbed to the frenzy of ‘one step purchasing’ which means that a single mouse click sends a book to me with the minimum of pondering on that evil Amazon site!

I am finding it hard not to read about a few of the titles in the Dexter book before it is reverently placed in its appointed niche in the reading room.

I will have a cup of tea and decide how many titles I can indulge myself with.

It’s better than marking!

Calling the scores!

The day of giving back examinations.

I have tried to think back to how I responded when I had examination papers returned. I hope to god that it wasn’t anything like the demented response of the kids I now teach.

I seem to remember that the first thing that we did was to check the ticks and try and find a few extra marks, or check the teacher’s addition and gleefully take up a miscounted paper for the readjustment.

In my school the examination papers are not so much written examples of pupils’ skill, but rather touch papers to an explosion of accusations, recriminations, questionings, explanations and whining, weaseling demands for more marks.

The moment the papers are in the grubby little hands of the oiks the poor teacher is almost blinded by the blinding light reflected from the metallic bodies of a class full of offensively wielded calculators. Little fingers tap industriously away trying to prove the calculations of the hapless teacher wrong.

I, however, do not do the calculations: the computer does them. This assertion of ‘untouched by human hands’ calculations soon shuts them up.

They are forced to then to flaunt their English knowledge and assert with all the confidence of Professor David Crystal that the construction, “the wood was burnt over the grate’ is one which trips from the lips of all known English native speakers.

Variant spellings are thrust beneath your eyes with demands that you accept that there is nothing wrong with the spelling of ‘geografical’ or ‘infeccious’ and give the poor downtrodden students the mark that they deserve. This, of course is what they get!

The real point of doing all the marking was to be able to mark in a book those pupils who needed an ‘alerta.’ This would flag up any student who was in danger of failing the approaching examinations in June.

The culmination of today’s efforts were then discussed in a meeting of soul destroying boredom which lasted for two solid, bloody, stinking hours immediately after the end of school.

The school is small enough for all the teachers in all subjects in the first three years of the secondary section to sit in the library around a large island of tables and discuss all (and yes, I do mean all) the pupils whose results fell in the area of 5.5 or less. You have to understand that all marks, no matter how bizarre their allocation (we mark in .25 of a mark) end up as a mark out of ten.

The whole concept of the meeting is of course laudable and shows a caring school. When the discussion is conducted in Spanish with seemingly arbitrary leaps into Catalan, you can understand my lack of enthusiasm in feeling linked in to this tedious marathon. And there is part two tomorrow – though thank god I am teaching at the time of the start of the meeting and so I am unfortunately unable to be there!

By way of compensation for my ordeal, I called into the shopping centre in the next town of Gavá and specifically into the gadget shop called MediaMarkt (or some such travesty) and indulged my whims for things electrical. I am made happy by the possibility of purchase, so I was able to pass a perfectly happy time there mentally thinking covetous thoughts while only actually buying cartridges for the printed.

The cartridges now cost almost the same as buying a new printer, indeed I saw a few printers which cost twenty Euros less. In case you are thinking that I should have thought, “To hell with global warming and the evils of conspicuous expenditure: throw away your old printer and buy a new one for the cartridges.” Alas, the manufacturers have thought of that one and install special cartridges which have little ink in them. One shop assistant in Barcelona told me that the most expensive liquid on the planet is HP printer ink! And I believe him!

I have bought Pelikan cartridges which take the place of the over-priced originals and last a damn sight longer.

The weather has been very sticky today and I am sure that it has been the perfect environment for encouraging the remaining bacilli to regroup and make a renewed attempt on my well being.

Time for another lemon honey drink!

After a lie-in of some 30 minutes I got up and blearily surveyed the deserted beach which looked bleak and colour drained in the washed out light filtered through cloud covered skies.

Defiantly I made myself a pot of tea in my thin glass Zara teapot and surveyed my domestic empire. Paper everywhere in neat piles, though most of it in odd sheets scattered around in the best traditions of the chaos which characterised my approach to education.

Gradually order and been restored and (eventually) information put into the computer. Excel is an excellent programme for demonstrating the idiocy of computers. It will do exactly what you type into it and it refuses to compensate for the illogicality of your commands when the odd letter is misplaced in a formula. I must admit that as soon as I get a result which is halfway reasonable I believe in all the other results implicitly!

I am almost at the stage where I have managed to produce two pages of official looking information with another two on the way. You will note that I said, ‘almost’ – the ink is running low in my printer. Anything may yet happen!

After a punitive raid on Carrefour for tea bags I made a fruit salad and retired to my bed and lapsed into the acceptable comatose condition which is my usual approach to the irritation of anything less than rude ill health. My only concession to medicine was to purchase some lemon honey to soothe my throat.

I am beginning to wonder if my ‘cold’ could be a reaction to the amount of pollen in the atmosphere. Plant parts looking like specs of flying foam are filling the air and catching what sunlight deigns to force its way through the cloud cover. But I don’t think so. I only hope that a good night’s sleep will see off the niggling remains of ill health.

Another reason for taking to my bed was the coven of screeching girls who shouted at each other for the greater part of the afternoon around the pool.

The summer brings out the most colourful aspects of my misanthropy as the people we refer to as ‘the rich bs’ turn up to indulge themselves in their otherwise unoccupied flats and obnoxious progeny of the people already here disport themselves round and about and do it noisily as well.

One flat seems to be occupied by beach bums with two dogs and unspeakable friends. They leave the detritus of their beach-bumerry in all the common areas of the flats – and I realise that I am beginning to sound like Disgusted of Tonbridge Wells, so I’d better stop!

The mozzies are also beginning to make themselves felt so I think I will have a cup of tea.

I’m typing this watching Barça play the game which, if they win will give them the Championship. I hope that I am not tempting fate when I say that the score is at present 3-1 to Barça with 20 minutes to go. Iniesta (who always has been one of my favourite players because of his sense of fair play and his phlegmatic approach to the game) is playing like a man possessed and producing some extraordinary football!

And who ever have thought that I would ever have written a sentence like that last one. Now say that living in foreign parts does not have an effect on one!

I might add that since I wrote that Barça look well set to win the game, Barça have had a man sent off and a penalty against them!

I suppose that I should stop typing while Barça are still ahead!

Too late! The score is now 3-3! Talk about kiss of death!

Meals to eat when you are ill!

It is amazing what a decent meal and hyper tension talking in a foreign tongue will do to the lingering debilitations of general un-wellness.

This lunchtime to Terrassa for the Meal of the Three Birthdays and very nice it was too. I had baby broad beans flavoured with a variety of fishy bits, followed by a vast dish of fish and sea food.

I have developed an ‘efficient’ way of eating these seemingly mountainous meals. The almost overwhelming visual effect is (as it were) affected by a carefully ostentatious structuring of the dead sea creatures on offer.

The base of the edifice is constructed of large shelled mussels which look and usually taste good, but have a high ‘flash to flesh’ ratio – which means that there is a lot of inedible shell to a small amount of succulent mussel. De-shelling the mussels gives you room to manoeuvre and allows you to distinguish exactly how many crustaceans are lurking on your plate.

De-heading those removes a vast amount of interesting, if indigestible fishy limbs.

The mountain of exoskeleton, which at first sight had drawn envious comments, has now been reduced to manageable proportions and only the slabs of fish (hitherto lost beneath waving shrimp limbs) are the only substantial mouthfuls in sight.

If, like me you are an enthusiastic ‘hands-on’ eater then revealing the flesh of the gambas is put the frenzied rending of a moment and the taste sensation can commence.

The drawback of this approach to the dish is that if anyone else is eating it at the same time, your efficiency in the rapid discarding of inedible bits produces a mountain of waste before the others have got started!

Having said that, I don’t think that anyone fully finished their dish. Not that it stopped anyone from having a dessert. And a coffee. A good meal.

In a rather flashy show of dedication (and desperation) I returned to Castelldefels to continue the exam marking which has to be done before Monday and, which is rather more intimidating, has to be entered into a program which uses Excel to order the results.

The ‘magic’ details involving the devious use of the dollar sign as some sort of instruction to the powers that be to do the correct mathematics have been explained to me. But I am not absolutely sure that I remember all the stages in getting the machine to do more work that I have to do putting the information in.

The only good thing about programs not working for you (especially if you have been brought up on early versions of Windows™) is that time in front of a computer screen does not seem to have the same value as time spent, for example, drinking a cup of tea.

I have spent frustrated hours trying to get a computer program to do some calculations that would have taken me a few minutes with pencil and paper. But there is that sense of consummate achievement when your results are tabulated with the inhuman elegance that only a computer can bring to mere lists.

I am hoping that I can go back to a previous table and click on certain squares and read the runes that appear when you do so and then scurry back to the work in progress and attempt to introduce the magic and hope for the best. I am tempted to leave this until tomorrow because the state into which I get when I find that things do not work out always tends to echo the sentiments found in one of the bleaker stories by Somerset Maugham

So, I shall hope for sun tomorrow and a renewed will to dress up figures so that they look almost convincing.

But, for tomorrow, definitely.

In the normal course of events, and in a kinder world, today would have been spent in bed.

Starting last night or perhaps a day or two earlier, a grumbling sore throat made itself felt. This morning I felt ‘unwell’ suffering from one of those unspecific moods of general ‘not-rightness’.

The Bed of Oblivion, however, had to give way to the Toothbrush of Rectitude and I made my reluctant way into school. Once arrived there one of my colleagues spoke a few cheery words to me to which I croaked a reply. At this she instantly told me to go home, pointing out that was the advice I had given her a few weeks ago when she was not feeling well.

Unfortunately that was not an option. Luckily two classes were having exams and another was watching a film so that (in theory) I could have a fairly gentle supervisory role and sit, a picture of misery, feeling sorry for myself.

As is always the way in schools that rather optimistic timetable did not quite happen but I was able to sit quietly watching the pupils cheat (as they do in all examinations, it is an essential part of the culture of the school) while I sipped water from a plastic cup and tried to look pathetic, doggedly resilient and yet touchingly vulnerable.

While supervising one examination class I was attempting to mark the examination papers of one of the two others which have already sat their exams. Four sets of examination papers really need to be marked this weekend because there is a Grand Gathering of the Clans on Monday when an Academic Inquisition is held whereby Those About to Fail are identified and their status notified to parents.

I would like to think that this was part of the normal function of a school supplying parents with as much information as they require gaining a rounded picture of the progress of their children. What it is actually is a way of safeguarding the school so that they can say ‘told you so’ when the pampered pupils actually do fail and the parents come gunning for the teachers for an explanation of how their perfect progeny could possibly fall below perfection!

Whatever the truth of this exercise it is a harsh truth that the results of the tests that we have inflicted on the kids will need to be available for tutors on Monday – or, as the case with one of the year groups, we can relax because we only have to worry about giving in the results by as late as Tuesday!

And I still don’t feel well.

The highlight of the day was a meeting with the Directora (at the time when I should have been able to leave the school during my ‘early leaving’ as compensation for doing to ‘early starts’ each week.

The meeting came straight to the point with the Directora saying as she was sitting down, “Well, if you are still interested we would like to have you come aboard!” How delightfully old fashioned. Sitting as we were in her office which was probably the elegant, wood panelled study of the old town house which was the base from which the modern school has spread, what she said seemed somehow quite appropriate.

So I am now, on the basis of a handshake rather than the rather more solid reality of a signed contract, a permanent member of staff of my school, and for a few minutes we smiled and said nice things about and to each other.

It also appears that the usually dilatory Education Ministry in Madrid is about to give me the certification that officially recognizes my qualifications and officially allows me to teach in Spain. The school has a personal link with the education office which is why my papers seem to have been processed with what, in Spanish terms, seems almost indecent haste!

The celebration of my new status was drunk in fizzy water and I had to drag myself to the table to get on with the marking of at least some of the examination papers.

I have now finished two sets of papers and feel like some sort of mythical hero having slain two multi-talloned beasts, but also uneasily aware that more substantial opponents are lurking in my briefcase awaiting the slashes of my red pen. And then there is the putting of all the results in the format which I have established for myself – but as that is playing with the computer it doesn’t really count as work. Also, there is the real advantage when the results are finally presented in Excel that they look so official and convincing that I almost believe they mean something!

Tomorrow Terrassa and The Three Birthdays. Presents have generally been bought and the more difficult ones wrapped in stolen wrapping paper from Toys r Us – though I did ask before I took it!

It is already too late to have an early night, but I had better make the most of what is left of the hours before tomorrow to hope that time will sweep away the residual irritation of illness.

To have to mark is bad enough, but to be unwell at the same time smacks of the worst excesses of Victorian sentimental novels.

I’d rather be in a Rider Haggard sort of frame of mind and then I would be able to see the marking as part of my Imperial Duty, by gad!

And so, very much, to bed.

To test is life!

Once more we are gripped by the convulsions of examination fever – all self induced by the ethos of the educational institution in which I am at present residing. I have been 33% of an exam writing team before now with the youngest pupils, but, with good behaviour, I have graduated to 50% of the effort.

I must admit that I had completely put out of my mind the fact that I was supposed to produce various questions for the equivalent of Year 9 – though they look very much older than their British equivalent. Therefore the casual question I was asked this morning was a little disturbing. This related to our getting together to put the examination paper, well, together.

Needless to say, by the time we actually did meet I had reams of paper on which questions of breathtaking erudition and wit were scattered. I even included five questions about a grammatical point which had to be included and which I didn’t really understand. When the question writing frenzy is upon you such things are as nothing.

When we finally united our efforts the length of the proposed paper gave a whole new meaning to the term ‘Lifelong Learning’ and it took the swift and practised pen of the head of English to cut swathes through our work and produce an easily digestible paper for the poor pupils to groan and sweat their way through tomorrow.

Their efforts are going to be a little more painful as the head of English has cut out small clues to the correct words and phrases that I left in, so the candidates will have to dig deep to find the appropriate archaic phrases which are beloved by their examination board!

Merely because it is a grotesque and possibly racist simplification to assert that the Spanish do not listen to anyone and do not read instructions is hardly going to stop my saying it. You only have to look at what is laughingly designated a ‘discussion’ programme in this country to see that half a dozen people simultaneously shouting at each other does not really fit such a definition.

Teachers are encouraged to say everything three times so that a class can go through the normal process of 1) noticing that you are speaking 2) realising that you are trying to tell them something 3) actually listening to what you have to say. This ‘three step’ approach is woefully inadequate in this country. It is probably more helpful if you think of the TV sketch where someone tries to explain to an old British officer left behind in the jungles after the war that the conflict is actually over. It simply doesn’t get through; rather like information being relayed to a class in Catalonia!

But they generally lack the hard edge that you find in British schools so it is fairly easy to forgive much. And they are friendly. Whenever I progress (that really is the only word for it) I am assailed on every side by children calling my name. I wave regally in a way reminiscent of a shared memory from my mother who was visited in school by that redoubtable dowager Queen Mary and who sometimes demonstrated that august personage’s progress along the corridors and in the classes.

Still nothing has been said about a future contract and I can’t help feeling the more I look inquisitively at the directora; the more she doesn’t look at me!

On the other hand, the bursar has said that he is going to phone Madrid to find out the progress the department of education is making on registering my qualifications. Disturbingly, one of my colleagues at lunch today said that she sent off her documentation two years ago. After one year she received a letter telling her that her documentation was insufficient and that they were not going to recognize her status. The following year has been taken up with the appeal process! Not encouraging. Though I have been told that showing willing in sending off the documentation is taken as proof of process and that will keep the school authorities quiet for a number of years.

Still, it has only been a couple of months for me – and if I get restive, then I only have to cast my mind back to the fiasco of my CRB check to realise that bureaucracy is only as good as the bureaucrats administering it!

The present situation is little improved. Large gifts are still needed before I dare make my way to Terrassa for the Lunch of the Three Birthdays.

God help us all!

You are never alone with Radio 4

Strange as it must seem to many, it was only as I was getting into my car to go to work at the unearthly hour that I need to depart to get there to start teaching at a quarter past eight in the morning that I realized that I was still listening to the same Today programme on Radio 4 that I had been listening to while getting ready to depart.

The answer to this conundrum was, alas, not that Spanish radio had decided to broadcast Radio 4 (the best radio station in the world) to all the benighted citizens of Castelldefels through strategically placed loudspeakers so that I might have a seamless experience of the early morning drug that is the Today programme. That was not the solution.

The blame rests securely on the shoulders of Ceri and Dianne who, with a totally inspired Christmas present gave us (aka me) a pair of wireless free headphones. These came together with a niftily designed gadget that, plugged into any media device allows the signal to be picked up by the headphones.

Wandering about getting ready in the unfriendly early hours is only made bearable by the comforting cynicism of your average Radio 4 interviewer.

It is a mark of the competence of the headphones that they relayed crystal clear reception to my ears as I left the flat, walked down the stairs, out through the door and towards the parked car which I had left on the street overnight. It was only at the point of unlocking the door of the car than I became mildly bemused by the continuing presence of the British radio programme.

I then felt a complete fool, resplendent in my suit and sporting a large pair of headphones, though obviously impressed by the range of the device! As the school secretary is apt to remark, “A senior moment!”

School was a succession of chatty classes and a free period devoted to the drama production of a colleague who has been beavering away for the past two months to get our youngest secondary kids to put on a series of plays.

The one I observed was a reworking of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice updated to modern times with a sax playing musician and a wife given to drugs. Not a bad little piece. What I was watching was supposed to be the last rehearsal before the performance.

It was appalling. The person who spoke the largest number of lines during the ‘performance’ was the teacher – and she wasn’t supposed to be in it! I was there to give the “you cannot expect an audience to sit there and listen to this sort of thing” speech and try and galvanize them into learning their lines. They have nine days. Orpheus has now become my special charge and I am going to have special sessions with him to ensure that the production is not cancelled.

Anything, of course, to help a colleague. But, I find myself asking ‘cui bono?’

I couldn’t help feeling that as I passed from building to building as I taught in the upper and then in the lower school I seemed to pass and re-pass the directora. The head of English has said that she will remind the lady that I am waiting for my interview (which the directora appears to have given to the rest of the department) which will decide my future in the school.

I may be over sensitive and a touch paranoid but I did not sense the warm camaraderie that I have experienced in the past and I fear that the school is working towards a negative response. This will complicate matters, but at least the paper work is in place and I am ready to begin an assault on the other establishments of learning in the region.

The weekend, which still seems a long way off, will culminate in the joint birthday party in Terrassa for which I still have not purchased all the necessary presents. At least that means one or two after school jaunts to the shops with the vain hope that inspiration will strike!

Two classes have had examinations in the past two days and two others will be examined soon; all of which will need to be marked. A truly depressing outlook and one which is close to the assessment heart of the institution in which I am now working.

Today has been very hot (according to the Spanish teachers) and rather pleasant for me. There is a definite feeling of the summer and I dread the amount of conversation which will flow directly related to the climatic conditions. Let no one say that the British are fixated on their weather; when we are compared with the Spanish and Catalan we only seem to give our climate a fleeting thought.

The weather is a constant topic of conversation here and, given the diversity of the regions of Spain there is always scope for showing snow or rain or hail (a real favourite this) or wind or clouds or sleet or sun or anything else the skies can throw at us.

I need to splay my limbs and let the sun do its soothing work!

The early call!

Leapt out of bed to the raucous sound of the alarm on the mobile phone and was brushing my teeth virtually before I woke up. An ugly welcome back to education orientated normality.

School was enlivened by the appearance of a poet, Paul Cookson, who I know from the compilation poetry books that he produces as much as from the work that he produces under his own name.

I met him first thing in the morning and, as he seemed a fairly jolly and accepting person, I felt that I had to admit that I had been breaking copyright in the production of a small (illustrated) booklet produced by my good self. He was completely unfazed by this and on my presenting him with a copy of said breach of copyright he looked through it and said that I had chosen one of his favourites and that he would read some of my choices to the kids when he took them.

After a brief meeting with the poet or Poet I was then dragged away into the morass of teaching and did not manage to see him again until the afternoon when I was able to spend a free in our auditorium where he was to take the equivalent of our year seven.

When I found him he was sitting in one of the luxurious tip up seats in the auditorium and strumming a ukulele – as you do!

When the kids arrived my free period was forgotten and I was just another teacher manning (staffing?) the pumps and making sure that the chaos which is par for the course when a stranger visits the school was kept in check.

I have to say that Paul Cookson had the kids in the palm of his hand. Not so much a poetry reading as a stand up comedy routine with selective insulting of the audience! He literally had them rocking in their chairs and he harnessed this enthusiasm by directing it into a lively accompaniment to his poems by inviting his audience to participate.

He has written tongue twisters and poetic jokes; football poems; autobiographic poems and, a great favourite with this audience, poems about teachers. He showed them a cartoon drawing of a teacher that an artist friend had produced and that elicited howls of recognition from the kids who immediately identified one of my colleagues!

He recognized when he was on to a good thing and tried following up this popular success with another teacher poem. As I was sitting at the side of the hall, this directed the attention of the kids to me (in spite of the fact that there were two other colleagues present) and the kids began a chant of “Stee-ven! Stee-ven! Stee-ven!” until Paul snarled, “Oi! I’m supposed to be the star here!” which produced even more laughter. I either added to my reputation with the kids or found it evaporate (with these kids it’s hard to say) by enthusiastically joining in with the words and actions that Paul demanded from his audience.

Those who know me from Llanishen will not be surprised to learn that, even though this was my free period and this visit was not my responsibility, I introduced the poet and gave the vote of thanks at the end. Some things never change!

It’s things like this that make me think that I am too much at home in this school. I have been teaching here for about 40 days but it doesn’t feel like that and I worry (!) that some of my colleagues may see me as somewhat presumptuous in the way that I have established myself.

They needn’t worry, they can always put me in my place by speaking to me in Spanish and then I subside, quiescent into a handy corner licking my linguistic wounds!

I spoke to the head of English about my contract and she expressed surprise that I had not been seen by the Directora as the rest of the department have apparently had their interviews about their positions next year. It appears that I will probably be seen this week. At least my CV is updated and the outline of a new general letter of application is waiting to be polished on the computer.

One part of Toni’s present has been bought; most of Laura’s is complete and Carmen’s will have to wait until nearer to date as part of it will die if I buy it too soon!

Tomorrow early start in school and a long, long day.

At least I will have my signed copy of one of Paul’s books to read during my free time!

Present hope: future disaster!

A sullen day with resentful, grudging sunshine at best and flat greyness at worst.

With all my holiday reading done and dusted and the seven volumes making a most impressive pile on the table I was able to set my mind to the crossword from the ‘BBC History’ magazine kindly sent to me via email by Paul One.

When the magazine was first published the crossword was of such fiendish complexity asking for minute knowledge from such a variety of historical periods that only the very saddest of historical anorak wearers (or should I say cowl wearers!) would have been able to answer all the clues without cheating. To be able to answer six or seven of the clues was regarded as a major achievement. A further six or seven clues would be discovered by guessing and ‘light’ use of references. The rest were then down to sheer hard book slog or a few finger taps on the internet.

The latest example of the crossword shows the same descent into popularism and surface knowledge that has affected (allegedly) the examinations that kids are taking now. Suffice to say that this crossword used such obvious kings and queens as Alfred, Arthur, Mary and William of Orange. The foreigners were represented by such obvious monarchs as Xerxes; Nilotic civilizations by Nubian; ancient capitals by Nineveh; ancient gods by Leda. With the addition of a few scud missiles, a touch of the magisterial Pevsner and a sunk Lusitania the thing was virtually done. Any historical crossword that doesn’t make me look up at least two or three of the clues is not pulling its weight. OK, I did momentarily manage to confuse two opposing Second World War field marshals and two English kings (in different clues) but it was relatively plain sailing. It is now up to Paul One to match the achievement!

As the weather did not encourage sun gazing I went into Barcelona in a (futile as it turned out) trip to buy some or all of the presents I need to match the mass of anniversaries looming on the immediate horizon. My tramping around the city produced one small frippery for Laura. Period.

To be fair I now have an idea for at least half of the present for Toni’s fairly momentous birthday. When I pointed out to him that it was usually regarded as a birthday of some significance and should be celebrated with due style, I was treated to a short two word rejoinder which seemed to have little to do with the issue at hand!

My short holiday is almost over. It only remains for me to update my CV and draft an all purpose application letter so that I can start the process of educational prostitution to ensure employment next year.

I will ask the head of department if I can quote her as a referee – that should produce some sort of response as everyone (with the exception of the administrative staff proffering me a permanent contract) seem to expect me to be there next year.

I suppose that I have taken a fairly casual indication that I would probably know by the end of last week to be an absolute deadline. This may be true, but as my past experience of dealing with private school has clearly shown, it is far better to be prepared for the self defeating illogicality of private school ‘forward planning’ than to rely on what everyone else expects. Everyone expected me to still be teaching in The School That Sacked Me. Point taken!

Now until the end of June is solid teaching with a variety of internal and external examinations. More importantly it will also be a time of relentlessly improving weather with long hours of sunshine when I will be stuck indoors teaching.

At least I have the rest of the books that I garnered unto myself from the school bookshop on Sant Jordi and I am going to try my damndest to get some of the kids in my classes to try and read some of the books for pleasure.

This is a difficult thing to do in a school where the majority of the pupils are native English speakers. In our school the majority of the pupils are not. For some English is their third or fourth language so they have to be congratulated on the level at which they speak it.

There is an added problem.

As is well known, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the three great Religions of the Book. The kids in my classes form themselves into the fourth great Religion of the Book as they regard their text books as the most important element in their understanding of the language. Any attempt to deviate from the pattern of exercises and explanations laid down in the English text book is greeted as a major heresy and one is urged to forsake the paths of linguistic dalliance and return to the strait way of The Book.

I (for I, gentle reader, am the false prophet, issuing Devil’s Photocopies of things not necessary for grammatical salvation) have had pupils pleading with me to teach them more grammar and speak to them of the delights of the Conditional in all its forms; charm them with the lofty formality of the passive; stimulate them with the giddy possibilities of relative clauses and revel in the skittish incomprensibility of the phrasal verbs. They are, of course, all mad. Bless!

Now for the CV and letter. And the coming week should give me a clear indication of my future status in the school.

Here’s hoping! (At a salary 20K less than the UK!)

The reading must go on!

By way of a change I decided to go to Sitges to expose my crisping skin to further rays. But it was full so I came home again.

My usual parking space in the bloody place is in the process of being churned up by road works. Just what you would expect at the start of the summer season in a place which only exists because of the tourist trade! Most of the parking spaces were taken up by broken road surface and a series of workers’ huts. As I drove away tracing delicate patterns of frustration in exhaust gasses there was not a single parking space in the place. That also includes spaces which were not parking space – all of which were filled with cars!

Like Yeats, I balanced all, brought all to mind, and thought that the balcony back in Castelldefels was a much better bet than parking a 20 minute walk away from the beach (assuming that I could find a parking space that close!) and being bereft of all the facilities that an attached flat provides.

As soon as I arrived back in Castelldefels the sun disappeared with inconvenient scraps of cloud pointlessly obstructing sunshine. So I made lunch.

I don’t want you to think that the proximity of lunch indicates a slatternly lie in bed in the morning. No, indeed! I was up bright and early and reading.

My morning cup of tea on the balcony was accompanied by ‘Silverfin’ by Charlie Higson. This is the first volume of the ‘Young Bond’ series which takes Ian Fleming’s iconic spy back to his childhood. I can remember the publicity when the Fleming Estate decided to back Higson and allow him to produce an initial volume so I was interested to see what it was like.

The book has an interestingly bloody (and somewhat misleading) start which whetted the appetite for a rollicking adventure yarn which then settled down into a public school story when the young Bond went to Eton. The description of the school is rather ooh-ahh documentary style with the gnomic slang of the upper class lovingly detailed and the architectural details of the ancient school dwelt on with relish.

The action developed along fairly conventional lines with bullying (gosh!) as one of the most important story lines. The opportunistic nature of this school saga is later developed by having the characters coincidentally playing a part in the major section of the book where the more traditional elements of Bond story telling come into play.

I have to admit that the structure of the book is quite masterly and it is easy to see the influence of the films rather than the novels playing their part in the exciting narrative.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it more than lived up to its exploitation of the Bond name. Talking of exploitation there are a number of volumes in the Young Bond series and a website to keep enthusiasts happy.

Once back from my abortive trip to Sitges I settled down on the balcony (in spite of the lack of sunshine) to read the last of the seven books that I had brought home to read over this holiday period, ‘The Stone Testament’ by Celia Rees.

This is an altogether more complex novel which skips from period to period, fantasy to gritty reality and narrator to narrator. The essential apocalyptic trust of the narrative is fairly simple to comprehend but the vast time span involved and the reincarnations of the central characters through history will put off some readers.

This is basically a race against time in which the actions of teenagers are going to be crucial in the saving of the world. The author uses multiple narrators and illustrations to give a spacious feel to the story and the references to different historical periods are intriguing.

Celia Rees states that what she wanted to do was, “write for teenagers, books that they would want to read, almost adult in style and content, but with like them at the centre.” I suppose that the only problem with this type of book is concerned with the definition of that word “almost” and how far it can be pushed to stimulate young readers to make a real effort to follow a complex narrative.

Celia Rees uses a wide range of contemporary and historic references and her reworking of the character of Ambrose Bierce as Brice Ambrose Stone is witty and well used. She is fair with the reader and produces a short acknowledgements page in which Bierce, Hawking and Machen are all credited.

This was a book with epic scope and multiple points of interest. It was a stimulating and satisfying read.

Although it is late my dinner is simmering on the hob. I decided to produce one of my ‘honest chunky’ meals. This means that I put slabs of meat together with roughly chopped onions, peppers, sliced potatoes and an oxo chicken cube and a low heat. It’s really too late for a meal but that is not going to stop me.

So there!

A just reward!

You know what it’s like: you go out to the kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea to take onto the balcony after a hard afternoon sun bathing, when suddenly you think to yourself, why not a glass of wine instead.

Its half past six in the evening and the sun is still above that bloody tree next door whose obstinately living branches bring sunset a little sooner than I would like. And it gives me the opportunity to use one of my ridiculously expensive Edinburgh Crystal ‘Edge’ wine goblets because cut glass does catch the sun nicely, doesn’t it?

If you hold this art object up to the sunlight the facets on the cut stem are reflected as little red stars on the underside of the curved Rioja filled space behind the glass. A magpie has suddenly appeared and is cackling at me from the hedge by the side of the pool, presumably attracted by the elegant glints from my enticing cup! I shall move it into the shade to removed temptation!

The worst part of today has been waiting in a ridiculously long queue in Lidel. The Spanish share with the British the belief that the immanence of a Bank Holiday is a sure portent of famine. It is as if the young Joseph (he of the multi-coloured clothing rather than he of the unconvincingly engendered child) has spoken to the Pharaoh and everyone has to scurry around and garner all foodstuffs for the lean years. Anyway the world and his wife were in the store (into which, incidentally, I had only casually popped to see what odd things they were selling in the middle bit) and when I finally entered and saw the press of people I decided that I ‘had to make a shop of it’ in a phrasal verb that would have most of my students weeping copiously at yet another example of the idiocy of English!

As one of the eggs that I had bought cracked in transport, my lunch comprised the simplicity of scrambled egg and slivers of cheese with fresh bread. Delicious!

On the beach our prefabricated chiringuito has finally opened (indicating that this is officially the first day of the summer season) and been doing roaring trade. People are parading up and down our newly almost completed paseo as if they are attempting to establish their professional status. And I have been for my first swim in the pool.

The water, it has to be said, was not welcoming and constant swimming was essential otherwise I feared that the blood in my limbs would congeal.

As I was doing my solitary lengths a small humanoid appeared from one of the lower flats and watched me with interest. He had a small cup on a string with which he vainly hoped to gain my attention. His lack of success was obviously a new and most unpleasant experience for him. You have to understand that children in Spain are absolute tyrants and are used to adults who fawn at every fart so my resilient indifference to his imperial presence was a threat to his nascent world view in which he was the centre of existence.

His manipulation of the stringed cup became more intense with water directed towards my enigmatic wake. Siren-like I swam in parts of the pool furthest away from him and he duly trotted along, sometimes trying to anticipate my eventual touch on the side.

I have to admit that my actions were performed without real hope as the goggles that I had chosen to wear were actually adjusted for my level of short sightedness and so even if I had enticed him into the cold waters of the pool I would really have been duty bound to rescue him. Still, he can’t always expect me to be so keen sighted!

The weather has been delightful and I am praying that the next two days will be the same. If we have a similar day tomorrow then I might be tempted into the sea.

I have discovered that, although I love looking at the beach and the sea, I rarely go onto or into either. I much prefer sitting on the balcony and watching the world go by and having instant access to a decent cup of tea and reasonably priced food!

Tonight is the long awaited clash between Barça and Real Madrid, the result of which could well settle the league championship.

The things one has to worry about!

Pack the break!

There is, I have discovered, a correct way of eating Crema Catalana.

Lunch today was a fairly sophisticated affair as befits the first lunch on a sadly short ‘holiday.’ After a dull, rainy start – which of course either proves or disproves the existence of god, depending on your philosophically sophist standpoint – to yet another Bank Holiday Weekend, I felt that a little culinary self-indulgence was called for.

The meal with its variety of small starters and its delicious duck filled crispy pancake main course culminated in the traditional Catalan dish of what is effectively cold custard with melted sugar. That downbeat description does not really do justice to the flavour of a well prepared Crema Catalana – and this one was well prepared with the brown of the melted sugar complimenting the darker brown of the circular dish in which it is traditionally served.

The problem, of course, lies in the sugar.

My approach is to use the side of the spoon to break the sugar toffee surface as it has the dual effect of producing an intensely satisfying crunchy breaking sound and also it reduces the circular disc of sugar to more delicately edible proportions.

Once in the mouth it is essential that the sugar is not chomped; this merely compacts the toffee into the contours of the teeth and produces, if you are not careful, a most effective bond between the two sets of molars. The trick is to encourage the sugar to disintegrate by moving the sets of teeth in a glancingly lateral movement rather than a direct closure which effectively sticks the teeth together.

A final cafe con leche should ensure that all remaining sugary debris is swilled away and teeth survive to deal with the next meal. And it was a decent little half bottle of Rioja too.

The gloom of the morning encouraged me to settle down and indulge myself by a prolonged bout of reading.

‘Airman’ by Eoin Colfer (the author of the Artemis Fowl books) is, as the Guardian critic noted “Swashbuckling high adventure” and a thoroughly enjoyable read. Set in Victorian times and mostly on the islands that make up the independent kingdom of the western Irish islands of Saltee, it concerns a young hero who is consumed by the idea of flight.

This novel is a mixture of fantasy, history, political thriller and fairy story. The hero, young Conor Brockhart, hold our attention from his birth in a hot-air balloon through his savage times in the diamond mine on Little Saltee to the more than satisfactory conclusion. Colfer is an assured writer whose grasp of narrative flow is exemplified in this fast paced story where our assurance that everything will turn out well is convincingly stymied by well placed and enjoyably frustrating difficulties that our hero has to meet and overcome.

Although I do not think that there is much chance of my using any part of the story for the kids that I teach it does encourage me to look out for more of his work and try to find another of the Artemis Fowl novels to luxuriate in.

Anthony Horowitz has an almost unassailable reputation and Colfer’s Conor Broekhart would mix well with Horowitz’ Alex Rider™ another resourceful young man whose adventures have brought Horowitz fame in novels like ‘Stormbreaker.’ The book that I read wasn’t one of those however.

‘Three of Diamonds’ a collection of three stories written by Nick Diamond the younger brother of Tim Diamond ‘the world’s most defective detective.’ The stories are ‘The French Confection,’ ‘I Know What You Did Last Wednesday’ and ‘The Blurred Man.’ As the titles suggest they are derivative stories which are written in a groan inducingly punning style which you probably either love or loathe. The pace is fast and often descends to the level of written slapstick. To me they seemed little more than pot boilers and irritating ones at that.

‘Spy Dog’ by Andrew Cope had big writing, beguiling drawings and a super hero in Lara (aka GM451 to the British Secret Service) who may be a black and white mongrel with a black sticky-up ear but is also a dancing, whistling, black belt karate, newspaper reading super spy!

This is a delightful book, picaresque and heart warming. I loved it – and it can be used with the kids in school!

I was reminded of a film with Max Von Sydow where he plays a diabolical character who runs a shop called, as I remember, “Needful Things” which offers its customers exactly what they want in return for nasty ‘services’ which eventually produce mayhem in the little community. Good eventually triumphs and Max is apparently incinerated only to appear walking through the flames to his Rolls Royce and going off through the smoke to find another bunch of gullible, corruptible folk. E E Richardson’s ‘Soul Trader’ has much the same idea though the scene is set in Britain and there are a few nice touches of contemporary life.

The story starts with a boy’s search for a birthday present (apt for me at the moment as the next week or so sees at least three birthdays looming and no ideas for presents!) and the fortuitous happenstance of finding a strange shop with what appear to be a miraculous number of crystal balls which contain amazing pictures. The price of one of these balls is where the title of the book comes in and the tag line on the cover emphasises the idea with its question, ‘How much are you willing to pay?’

The story is an effective mixture of contemporary life-style situation; ancient clash of religion and magic and moralistic fable. The writing is effective and the narrative taut – and the ending is conclusive and suggestively open ended. An easy read.

The book that I am enjoying most is ‘The Amulet of Samarkand’ by Jonathan Stroud, the first in the Bartimaeus Trilogy. I have recently read the second volume, The Golem’s Eye’ and reading backwards you can see that the relationship between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus is the real strength of this series. The Resistance which is barely mentioned in the first volume becomes much more important in the second and complicates and lessens the excitement of the relationship, but the dynamic of Nathaniel and Bartimaeus in the volume I am reading now is deeply enjoyable.

So I’ll carry on with the reading!