Everything changes - again!

A sullen start to the day.



One could tell even though one was up and doing before dawn. This is obviously pay-back time for the glorious day yesterday!


With the way that the timetable has worked out I have my first lesson at 8.15 in the morning and then have nothing until 1.05 pm.


One could say that this is an ideal time to catch up on marking or producing teaching material for the ensuing week: or you could say it is pretty poorly organized in a day which is absurdly over-long.


Amazingly I did manage to get some packing done yesterday evening including the wash-bag which is the one thing which always lacks something essential when you reach your destination. For example I now realize that while I have filled all those little bottles that one has to use if you are only travelling with hand luggage and even remembered the dental floss, I have omitted to pack a razor. As I have now remembered that, I am starting to muse about what obvious other thing I have forgotten.


The UK wallet has been found and packed. This contains all the out of date “gift” cards that UK shops have given me in lieu of money. Reading the small print I noticed on one that after 24 months the company would make a charge of £1 a month for each extra month until the money is gone! You have to admire such greed. I think the answer is to spend things like that immediately even if it’s only buying batteries – they always come in useful.


More importantly I am not sure that my debit card is working for the holes in the wall machines. As I will be there for a weekend when the banks are most emphatically closed I am relying on the card to get me money and the last time I attempted to use the card the machines refused point blank to recognize my plight and steadfastly kept my money safely away from my admittedly grasping hands.


The other point of panic is the hired car. I am only hiring some insultingly basic vehicle and there is always a moment of horror when the people in charge start rejecting all the cards that I have and demand that I show them a true credit card.


As is well known, I am far too young and immature to be trusted with a credit card (even one linked with Amnesty International which was my last excuse for getting one) and I well remember the moment when I cut up the bloody thing with shaking hands and sharp scissors.


It usually ends up with the car hire people taking my Spanish card rather than my British one, but I keep telling myself that it will not be used and is only a precaution so I can rest secure. As long as I remember to take my Catalan wallet too!


I think that the highlight of the weekend will be the taxi ride from Church Road to the party with a car filled with a Roman Emperor, Dracula and Austin Powers – as well as a taxi driver. I will not have any pockets on my costume and I am already worrying about where to put the camera and other necessities.


The last time we had a fancy dress party in Cardiff we also went out and about in the streets and I at least was warm and snug in my Cardinal’s rigout. I fear that the flimsy gold lamé of my admittedly full-length costume will be insufficient to keep out the rigor of a late September night in South Wales.


Meanwhile there is the matter of four days of teaching to get through. Ah well.

I have informed the school that I intend to join the ranks of the workers and participate in the General Strike on the 29th of September. I fear that I will be a lone worker in our school to make this decision which is more a function of the emasculated power of the unions in the way in which they have to operate and their consequent distance from the workers that they are supposed to represent than any cowardice on the part of the teachers in school. I think. I am always prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to the powerless rather than the powerful: though in this case I am not sure which is which!


I have just had a short meeting with the IT teacher to try and find out why my computer refuses to work with the white boards whose use is now mandatory in our school. Even on the first day (the first day mind you!) I attempted to add the computer and white screen to my first class. As is usual with technological equipment in the classroom it was an abject failure; a failure, however that was kept away from the pupils by my furtive attempt to make it work before the class started.


What do I find out now? The pressing of two buttons was all I had to do to make the system mine own. The function button and F5 brought up an icon to change screens; a further press of the F5 brought up the screen which was recognized by the system. And that was it!

There is something immensely satisfying about a meeting which takes virtually no time whatsoever and makes your teaching easier. This meeting ranks as one of the most “time as a function of utility” positive meetings I have ever had. I will use it as a measure of the usefulness of all the other meetings to which I have to go in the rest of the year.


Or perhaps not as that way madness lies!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

The third Floor is open for vitamin D donations!


As if in shamefaced compensation for the abject weather we have had for the last couple of days, Saturday dawned bright and sunny and so far the day has been flawless with perfectly blue skies and more than acceptable amounts of sunshine.


As a partially hysterical reaction to the weather I agreed to go for a walk, something I usually spurn as if it were a rabid dog.


Today however the sun drew me out and putting on a new pair of slip-on sports shoes (wonderfully under priced in Carrefour’s) I put the best foot forward and strode out into the further reaches of Castelldefels and on to Gava.


I regretted my impulse almost immediately but trudged on if only to see what the Socialists were doing.


Every year at this time the ruling party PSOE, which calls itself socialist for no doctrinal reasons that I can discern in their policies, has a Grand Gathering of the Political Clans in a tree shaded stretch of road next to the motorway a few streets away from us.


There is a stage and long undulating lines of tables around which the faithful sit and make merry and listen with humility (suspending their disbelief) to the speeches of their political masters.


Phalanxes of Catalan police with their lop-sided caps were in abundant evidence, their numbers greater than the total of police we normally see in our part of the town over two or three years – or indeed more.


All the Catalan and Spanish television and radio stations were represented in the lines of OB vans along the road making me wonder if the national president as well as the Catalan president was going to be there.

Bus loads of party members were being unloaded when we, only momentarily amused by a small but vocal anti-nuclear demonstration, made our way to the beach paseo.


The paseo and beach road which runs parallel to it for a part of its length are undergoing changes. Part of the road has been made into a two way cycle way with a number of what look like dead striped armadillos keeping cars from meandering into the cycle path. This cycle way is gradually getting longer stretching from the central part of Castelldefels Playa until it stops abruptly (with no warning) nearer to our house.


The paseo has been growing over the years until the Castelldefels part linked to the Gava section. This latter section was interrupted by a sort of river and cyclists had to go up the length of the river to the road and there chance their survival with cars which gave no mercy until cyclists could escape back to the side of the beach and dedicated cycle lanes.


No longer! Spurning financial crisis our local authority has constructed a bridge so that cyclists and pedestrians can now walk in relative safety over the stagnant interestingly coloured waters on a newly constructed bridge. This has increased the numbers of walkers and cyclists and is a true boost to the facilities in the area. One is loath to admit it, but it does seem like public money well spent!

Lunch from our local chicken “pollo a last” was worse in every respect to the quality that we get from the establishment we used to patronize when we were in the flat. This should have been an ideal opportunity to use my bike to get the food from a better place but, as usual, indolence triumphed over future gratification.


The “little light tidying” has now almost been done as it certainly wasn’t done last night. The thought of packing my case so that there will be no last minute panic as “Something Important” cannot be found.


I am looking forward to my visit to the UK on Friday and trust that I will have dried out sufficiently to take coherent lessons by Monday!

A day of rest

Spurning the fugitive drops of rain from the tail end of the tempest from last night which was stubbornly refusing to disappear in sunshine, I (eventually) threw myself into the pool and vowing not to tell anyone that the temperature was actually not as traumatic as people suppose, swam my lengths.

There are few advantages to myopia, but one of them is not actually noticing how unprepossessing some things are when you are able to soften the edges of reality by not wearing glasses!

The particular reality that I missed this morning was the fact that not only had the storm filled the pool virtually to overflowing, but that also that the surface of the slowly undulating waters were covered with pine needles, pollen, catkins and other assorted floating vegetation.

It was only when I stopped swimming I noticed that I was surrounded by the Sargasso Sea. I could have started planting seeds if I had any – though the chlorine might have limited growth!


As I am fully determined to utilize my swimming card for the municipal pool we made a trip to the outlet store in Gava Mar to get a swim cap – I have been informed that these are de rigeur for indoor pools here. I also took the opportunity to buy new swim goggles and ear plugs.


The ear plugs (which I am assured work well) look like pieces of moist blue chewing-gum. I am, to put it mildly, not convinced by them, but I am open to new experiences and, who knows, they might turn out to be ideal.


Going on my experiences from pools in France and Spain the wearing of flip-flops may also be necessary. I will take advice on this so that my first visit will be a moment to relish!


Lunch in Sitges was less than satisfactory. Our usual restaurant seemed tired and uninspiring and, as I was driving, I was unable to take part in the wine and food tasting that was located on the paseo next to the beach! A cruel sight indeed!


Sitges’ picturesque quality did allow me to take a few more photographs to test the repaired performance of my camera, though the sullen skies did nothing for the colour values!

Amazingly, some of the tasks from the summer holidays have still not been completed (the learning of Spanish to name but five) and I do not intend to exert myself during my two days off, but I am prepared to do a little light tidying. Possibly. One has to conserve one’s energy.

I have now finished reading “Mummy’s Legs” by Kate Bingham. This is one of the extra books that we have in Language Arts, and one of the few that I haven’t read.


If this is supposed to be for the “young” reader then it doesn’t say much for my reading ability as I was progressively more confused by the changing personalities and the tricky time structure that the book had. Essentially it is a book which is a study of the effects of abuse in a “modern” family with a special emphasis on the development of a daughter trying to make sense of a morally ambiguous background.

There were parts which were perceptive and enlightening, emotionally revealing and sometimes quite funny – but that was only after I had worked out which part of the family was speaking in what time frame.

It did eventually come together but what with attempted suicide, child abuse, bad language and fluid sexual relationships I am not convinced that it a good choice for our kids. It wasn’t for me anyway!

Well, still time for a little tidying, but only after dinner.

Almost another week down!

THURSDAY 16TH SEPTEMBER
Almost another week down!

Another pre-dawn journey to school and another tomorrow. At least I get a parking space easily and I can position myself at the most advantageous place for a quick getaway. Or what passes for a quick getaway given the hordes of selfish parents who try and get away from the school and don’t let me out into the main stream of traffic until their progeny in the back tell them who I am!



As there is usually a static traffic jam in the narrow streets that surround the school, drivers have a long opportunity to decide whether or not to let a parked car into the traffic. Some are so paranoid about keeping people out that they risk death rather than let a sliver of light show between their car and the next in line.


I have so far adopted the mores of the Spanish approach to driving that I now confidently drive into spaces which (to British eyes) are not in fact there – and yet no crashes!


At least tomorrow I will leave early to traverse empty roads and get a head start on all the Barcelona locals leaving the city for the weekend. I intend going precisely nowhere and doing nothing but read.

Today I have re-read “Flowers for Algernon” as we are always looking for new readers for the pupils. Books that I have read previously I have only considered for kids who have been native English speakers; thinking of English learners is a whole different ball game as far as suitability is concerned. I like “Flowers for Algernon”; the story is good and it has something to say; the central character is strong; the style is interesting and it is thought provoking. I don’t think that the American setting will prove difficult, but the language and concepts are challenging. Probably worth trying with an older class. Possibly.


My Language Arts (don’t ask I don’t know either) class have been given their choices from the reading books available for them. The selection has been devised by a colleague and over the past months I have read the majority of the books in the selection and enjoyed the vast majority.


This evening I have read “The Arizona Kid” by Ron Koertge. This is a coming of age novel about a boy from a small town in the east finding live and love on a racetrack in the Wild West. Billy, the short young hero of this summer romance, arrives in Tucson, Arizona to stay with his meticulous Indian arts selling gay uncle and work at a racetrack with a view to becoming a vet when he finally gets a full time job.


His burgeoning sexual frustration is eventually satisfied (quite tastefully) and the story eventually uses various narrative clichés to come to an ambiguously realistic ending. The generously spaced pages are easy to read, but it was one of the novels that I like least. The gay element seemed a little gratuitous and the raising of AIDS added little to the story. The concerns merely seemed to be ticking boxes of issues rather than producing an integrated story. Well, a pupil will be reading it tomorrow as a colleague needs the volume for a pupils who she left out of the original calculations.


Now for bed and an early rise.

FRIDAY 17TH SEPTEMBER
Rain wasn´t in the contract!

As far as I can tell there was something like a temporal slip this morning.



The alarm was set for its usual indecently early time when darkness covers the earth and the sun is not out to cheer the reluctant teacher along his chosen path of pain.


I made my usual stately progress in the dark with my mind set to automatic as I collected clothes after my shower and made my way downstairs to put the kettle on and set out my muesli.


Today, of course was slightly different as, switching on Radio 4 I listened in fascinated horror to the progress of the Bishop of Rome as he made his way around Britain.


I feel total revulsion at the respect given to this odious, homophobic, misogynist little man, the representative of a discredited and decadent religion. For once in my life I felt sorry for the queen having to be polite to this repulsive social wrecker.  Though, thinking about it, they are both German after all! 


The queen however has considerable experience in dealing with the less savoury heads of state; she did, after all, hob-nob with Nicolae Ceauşescu which gives her at least some guide lines about how to cope with people from whom one would not buy a second hand doctrine, let alone something which may prove to be useful. I wonder how many of the gaudy jewels that the Roman Church has could be legitimately described as blood diamonds. No wonder the so-called Bishop of Rome wears red shoes.


And he is going to meet the world’s most badgered Welshman, the Reverend Doctor Rowan Williams. I wonder what feelings will surge through the Bishop of Rome’s mind as he walks through Westminster Abbey and considers that the ancient pile was once one of his churches!


It is very difficult not to feel contempt for the monotheistic religions as their representatives make themselves more and more ridiculous as their outmoded and self serving doctrines spread fear and ignorance over the world. Seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Rome together wearing their absurd costumes and pontificating about the moral state of the world in Britain given the less than moral state of their all too vulnerable churches would be laughable if it wasn’t so truly sad.


And it’s raining.


The heavens truly opened this morning and the sound of my shower was almost drowned by lashing rain cleaning the pigeon shit of my car.


Driving to work was a nightmare and of course there was a broken down car plonked in the middle lane just to make sure things didn’t get boring.


I had to defy the law and from my (stationary) car use my mobile phone to let them know in work that the early start was going to be a tad later for me.


I must say that the shortened first lesson (thank you Frank for sitting in for ten minutes) seemed to be about the ideal time for all lessons. If only!


The rain has been stubbornly present throughout the day and its tempo has now been officially rated at “lashing” with melodramatic peals of thunder accompanied by OTT lightning adding the necessary son-et-lumière components to make the whole sorry day memorable.


The bracing temperature of the outdoor pool has finally prompted me to action and I have joined our local municipal sports centre so that I can use a heated indoor pool in the complex. For an outlay of something like €140 you get a year’s admission to the pool, gym and sauna.


It is my intention (weak flesh permitting) to call in for a swim immediately after school. This means going back to my old ways of having a “swim bag” in the boot of the car. I am now the proud possessor of a stout piece of plastic emblazoned with my photo which gives me access to all areas.


All I have to do now is use it!

Herd 'em up!

School Trips exist clearly to demonstrate to teachers that they really shouldn’t bother.



Admittedly I do not think that a school trip which starts with a long walk to an underground station (with the realization that there will be a long walk back to school from the station) is a good idea. “No bus: no me” sounds like a mantra that I should repeat if I weaken and think that another trip is a good idea.


The speed with which our students made their way to the station in the morning sunshine reminded me of that bit in “As You Like It” that compares schoolchildren to slugs – I do know it was snails really, but they were speedy compared to the funereal pace that our kids set!


The exhibition of photos of contamination and pollution that we were going to see was excellent, but not immediately attractive to cynical thirteen year olds. The images were ravishingly horrific and Suzanne suggested Yeats’ phrase “terrible beauty” as we looked at incredible pictures of squalor and smog and felt torn between what they represented and how they were represented. I think that there is a fair chance that a few of the images will stay in the memory of a number of pupils.


The pupils were even slower on the return trip and I ended up herding them forward and stepping on the backs of their shoes to get them moving! I prefer to enjoy trips rather than turn into a cattle drover.


I ended up teaching only one lesson today and that was literature “Of Mice and Men” – a novel specifically written for GCSE English in the same way that “An Inspector Calls” is the play specifically written for the same course!


I had a free period at the end of the day and, as I had started teaching early on Monday I was allowed (!) to leave early. I left at the start of my free period (rather than half way through) to visit an exhibition I had been told about that morning about the disappearance of The Aral Sea. As this could link in with pollution and contamination I decided to see what it was like.

The gallery is funded by the bathroom suppliers Roca and is in an imposing building behind El Corte Ingles on the Diagonal. My conversational GPS got me there and I emerged from the underground car park in an outside café within sight of my objective.


The gallery was hard to miss as there was a big sign with the title of the exhibition and an oddly shaped printed balloon with aspects of the arid desolation of what used to be a fecund sea.


Once you enter the gallery you are confronted with a dim space with a series of low tables (which turn out to be interactive computer screens) while on the walls there is a sort of frieze of television screens showing images of water. On the far wall is a looped film showing various people at a series of washbasins. They are life sized figures and I first thought that they were part of some performance art exhibit!


The bathroom element (it is a Roca building after all) is found on the upper floor which has an exhibition of their more futuristic sinks, baths and loos. Beautifully lighted, this selection of bathroom items is more elegantly sculptural than you might expect.


The most interesting piece was a combined bathroom sink and toilet! A brilliant idea and a severely elegant design – though I do feel a little strange enthusing about a loo!

The actual exhibition about the Aral Sea was frankly disappointing: the space may have height (and another balloon) but it is not large enough to show very much. What was there was effective, but not sufficiently interesting to justify bringing a group I think.


The best aspect of the visit was the quite extraordinary helpfulness of Françoise, the lady in reception. Speaking French, Spanish, English and Afrikaans – and probably Catalan and Italian - she has recently been appointed to her position and was eager to share her enthusiasm for the space and for the building. This is a cultural area to watch.


Dinner was in the Basque restaurant and was frankly dull. The garlic soup was tasteless with the shreds of the main ingredient merely confusing. The fish course was uninspiring and the ice cream (a separate course) quotidian. The coffee was OK and the wine drinkable. Something salvaged!


The last two days see me rising for an early start but at least Friday is an early finish at only four in the afternoon.


Oh good.

And time rolls on

I readily admit that the last two periods on a Tuesday is not the idea time that I would have chosen for my two hours with my Media Studies class – but that is how it is: two solid hours without a break.



I have a third of the 3ESO a term so that I will have taught all of them by the end of the summer. It should be an opportunity for me to experiment as I can do pretty much what I like as long as there is some way of getting a mark out of ten at the end of it for the kids.


I suppose that the only thing that limits the teaching is how much I want to spend devising something which interests me and interests them.


As the kids have no idea whatsoever about what Media Studies actually means I have a fairly wide area of communication to choose from.


I have started with Logos and will move on to adverts. I love deconstructing slick adverts; I only hope that the kids share my enthusiasms – and I have chosen some risqué, revealing and salacious perfume adverts to give a populist sheen to academic endeavour!


With such a short course I don’t think that I will aim for intellectual rigour and balance I shall just go for the gimcrack and gaudy. Again.


My timetable this year is much more draining with a few (!) instances of three lessons on the trot with no break. I am thinking of appealing to the International Court of Justice as I am sure that such timetabling is contrary to the United Nations definition of slavery or something.


At the moment I am rejoicing in a revision to my timetable which means that I am actually one period under the number that I had last year. This will not last, but I am going to enjoy it while the weeks tick by.


Tomorrow the trip to the photography exhibition (which takes up two of my free periods) which I am supposed to look at through the eyes of an experienced Media Studies teacher. Roll on the history of art lessons!


Before I succumbed to the coma that the end of the day encourages I decided to make a visit to the multi storey second-hand car emporium on the way to Sant Boi.


The building houses a collection of different car dealers and you have to wend your way down aisles lined with shining vehicles to make your choice.


Almost as soon as I was through the doorway I was confronted by a Peugeot convertible in gleaming black. Although the door was locked it was, unsurprisingly easy to reach into the car and open it from the inside.


The seat was too high for me, but when it was lowered (mechanically!) the driving position was comfortable. The demonstration of the roof closing mechanism was deeply satisfying and I took it as an omen that the information display on the dashboard was actually in English. “Prepared, just for you!” the salesman smilingly said.


The car was coming up to three years old and was reassuringly expensive.


I wandered through the other floors and saw earlier and smaller versions of the Peugeot convertible as well as some exotic versions in other makes. There was a virulent yellow Opel convertible which looked exactly the sort of car that Medallion Man would want to be seen in.


When I had looked at every bloody car in the place I came back to the first one that I looked at and found, horror of horrors, Medallion Man sitting inside having the roof mechanism shown to him.


He was one of those wrinkled men too old to be covered by the phrase “of a certain age” wearing a heavily embroidered Polo Club shirt with the collar turned up. I had seen him sniffing around the car earlier and so I knew that he was wearing the wildly inappropriate three-quarter shorts and canvas shoes. I was rather disconcerted to think that I might be looking at cars which attracted that sort of person. But it is not likely to dissuade me from an act of astonishingly extravagant self indulgence. Too late to stop now!


As I have no money it was not difficult to walk away from the gleaming carriages, but I can feel the infection spreading and rendering useless all those rational faculties that should be reminding me that I am not that interested in cars!

In spite of terminal exhaustion at theend of the day augmented by the visit to look at cars and with only a large amount of encouragement from Toni I dragged myself like the wounded Grendel and slipped into what I expected to be the icy waters of our recently cleaned pool.

The sudden shock of instant refrigeration was not as severe as I expected and I actually able to pretend with very little effort that my swim was almost delightful.

Each day makes the immersion a little more hesitant as I expect a repetition of the never to be forgotten day in Maesteg in the open air pool when the superintendent asked me to dive into the pool and retrieve some clothing that had been discarded by somebody trying his life-saving certificate.

As I dived in so the vicious and vindictive coldness of the water smashed out all the oxygen out of my body. Somehow I did struggle don to the bottom to get the clothing and reappeared on the surface and handed them to the superintendent while trying to gulp some air into my tortured lungs! I have no desire to repeat this experience. I was a resilient six year old then; today I am not.

And it is still only Tuesday.

Equilibrium of freedom

A grotesquely early start was rewarded by the unexpected beneficence of two (count them!) extra free periods. One from the lack of need for two teachers for the Current Affairs class and another from our present unhealthy preoccupation with robotics which took away another of my classes for some sort of pep talk to get the students up to the level of enthusiasm of their teachers!



My gained time was spent reading a new reading book for the first class in secondary and preparing a handout for the trip that I am going on to see a collection of photographs of pollution around the world.


All of the previous typing is of course displacement activity to take my mind away from the terrible fact that the day was gloriously sunny and I was staunchly in school and not lazing out on the terrace of the Third Floor. Every time I flit my way between buildings I experience the warm seductive blandishments of fine weather tempting me to chuck it all in and turn to the lotus and start eating.


Simple practicalities dissuade me from doing anything rash – at the moment, but if this weather keeps up then my resolve will become somewhat fluid! However, should fluid fall from the heavens then I will be back on the straight and narrow path to academic resentment!


I am continuing to swim each time I arrive back home though the water is become daily more eventful with the increased precipitation of various bits and pieces as the trees in the area try and replicate themselves, so I emerge from the pool with what is left of my hair filled with damp pollen and various pods and pine needles. The pool persons are notable by their absence and the pollen is now forming interesting patterns on the bottom of the pool. When the growth tries to drag me under I will desist from my efforts to ignore the chilly water into which I plunge daily.


I must find the real indoor swimming pool before it gets too cold.

Serious Thoughts?

Perhaps I ought to start by extending to the Catalan people on their National Day the heartfelt apologies of the British People for leaving them in the lurch when supporting the wrong side in the War of the Spanish Succession when we assured them that we would never desert them. I’m not sure that our support for the Hapsburgs was any great shakes anyhow and our policy of never interfering in Europe (unless we had to) was one which should not have been ignored. Only ourselves to blame really. Though the effects of loosing on Catalonia were slightly catastrophic. Still, all a long time ago now; have another glass of Cava!



My contributions to the celebrations of Catalonia’s National Day were restricted to lying in the sun; glancing at the wispy cloud and starting to read “This Thing of Darkness” by Harry Thompson.

The book follows the career of Robert FitzRoy – the inventor of the shipping and weather forecast; pioneer of the use of lightning rods on ship;: introducer of the word “port” for “larboard” to eliminate confusion; constructor of meticulous navigation charts for Patagonia, Chile, the Falklands and Tierra del Fuego; introduced a system of masters’ certificates for ships’ officers; pioneered the use of the Beaufort Scale and introduced the word “dinghy” for what used to be called the “jolly-boat.”


But what he will actually be remembered for is that he commanded the “Beagle” and took Charles Darwin on the voyage which eventually resulted in the production of “The Origin of the Species.”


This is a fascinating read. Its 700 pages read like a novel (and the author has taken some liberties in the actual historical facts) but it packed with convincing detail and the author gives an assurance that he has done his research to make the casual descriptions as realistic as possible.


This is a novel of contrasts – not only in the dramatic action of the narrative, but also in the conflicts of personality, politics, religion and society that make us this monumental read.


Although flawed by his adherence to a view of religion Fitzroy shows himself to be an amazing character with firm adherence to a rigid set of moral, religious and social attitudes. His sense of duty is astonishing and his achievements remarkable. And he is a worthy “hero” in this novel/biography. Although the reader is, unsurprisingly, drawn to the iconic figure of Darwin, he is presented in such a way that his essential egoism and moral cowardice lessens him as a figure when placed beside the relatively unknown commander of the boat whose professionalism and honour shine out from the page.


The title of the book is a quotation from The Tempest a reference to Caliban by Prospero: “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” “This thing of Darkness” is a remarkably apt title for something which charts the journey (literal and spiritual) of two friends who come to markedly different conclusions about the way that life developed. For FitzRoy the “darkness” could be a reference to the illness that he had, diagnosed as manic depression by doctors long after his death, but it could also be a reference to the fact that he facilitated Darwin’s journey and through that encouraged Darwin’s developing thought which veered away from the religious principles that FitzRoy kept to throughout his life.


This is also the story of a clash of cultures in a more widely spaced geographical sense as the British brig comes into contact with “savages” whom FitzRoy believes can be brought to Christianity and Civilization, though his aspirations are doomed to failure.


This is a gripping read where insight and adventure appear in almost embarrassing confusion and whose length is fully justified by the content.

I have also read “The Deathwood Letters” Three Tales with a Twist by Hazel Townson. These are empty stories whose selling point is that they give a modern twist to the epistolary novel. They are slight and unconvincing and not what I thought they were going to be like when I ordered an inspection copy. Ah well, a decent reader for the first couple of years of English learners will have to wait for another and better written book.


Tomorrow sees the final day of classes that make up my week. Unbelievably we have only had four days with the students and this Monday will finally mean that I will have seen all my classes. In fact I am still waiting to see one class which I take for two periods on a Tuesday afternoon as my first meeting with them was hijacked by the science department as an introduction to robotics!


Wednesday sees a trip into Barcelona to visit the photographic exhibition which I visited with Suzanne before the start of term. My accompanying the students on this trip has to be justified with a handout from media studies; which is now my subject for two periods a week!


In theory I have some free time tomorrow to get lessons up and going but my possible loss of two teaching periods because the paucity of students in those classes will be driving the management up the wall with anxiety to find something punishing to take their place. The only thing you get for nothing in our school is indeed nothing. I dread to think what they will find.


But find out I will in short measure!

Life in the early lane!

THURSDAY 9TH SEPTEMBER

The second time this week that I have risen at 6 am and it is not the last as Friday too is an early start. I am trying to persuade myself that I am an “early” person and that this unnatural greeting of the dawn is good for my soul.


Rubbish of course, but you have to delude yourself somehow if you are to get through the year!


There is something to be said for getting the pupils so early as they are mostly stunned into academic compliance as the disenchantment with the whole school system does not usually take over the personality until after lunch!


It does make the day unnaturally long and one feels that it is about time for lunch at about 10.30 am. But lunch is at 2.00 pm! And then school goes on until 4.45 pm.


The author and illustrator of the book that a group of kids are translating are going to come and visit to speak to the pupils and see how the translation is going. If things keep t the timetable that I have in mind then the rough draft of the translation should be ready by the first week in October. This is a positive teaching experience – though god knows I am not really teaching them anything as the finer points of translation from a language that I do not speak with any fluency are somewhat lost on me. I can, however, look at the English that the kids are producing and make suggestions about where they might need to concentrate. At least I hope that is what I am going to do; otherwise my function is going to be confined to sharpening the pencils they use!


I also had an unexpected free period as the numbers of pupils who are going to take a credit on Current Affairs are not sufficient to justify two teachers.


The worrying point here is that I will have two periods for “other uses” and all the other uses that I can envisage are not enticing.


FRIDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER


I have now seen all my classes but one (with one class appearing to have disappeared up its own lack of interest) and only Media Studies is remaining for me to inflict what I think the subject entails.


Considering that this week has been one in which one day has been without the kids, all my colleagues are totally exhausted. We kid ourselves that this is simply a function of the “first week” and that we will become immediately acclimatized to the horror in succeeding weeks. I am not fully convinced by this as three early starts, ploughing on to five o’clock is not my idea of fun and I do not think it ever will be. But, for the sake of my sanity I will restrain my plaintive cries of desperation and ruggedly soldier on for another few days until I decide to plumb the depths of despair.


Friday is the day on which I have an 8.15 early start, then after a break I teach for three hours straight and then another hour after lunch. I do not think that this is ever going to be the sort of day where I am able to take it in my stride. Even with leaving early at “only” ten to four in the afternoon, it is still a killer of a day.

This weekend is an odd one because the 11th of September is Catalonia’s National Day.


In an oddly quirky way, reminiscent of the British inclination to glorify magnificent defeats (Corunna, Dunkirk etc) Catalonia decided to make the day on which the 1714 Siege of Barcelona ended their national day. The Catalans had (with British encouragement and effusive protestations of absolute commitment to the Catalans) supported the Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne in the War of the Spanish Succession. The 11th of September was the day on which they lost. The victorious Bourbon line (which reigns in Spain today) exacted a Draconian revenge for supporting the “wrong” side. The British, of course, abandoned the Catalans to their fate; as is the way in these dynastic struggles.


So the 11th of September commemorates a cataclysmic defeat which redrew the boundaries of Catalonia and destroyed the defences of the city of Barcelona. Each to his own! Oh, and by the way, this National Day was first instituted in the far off and distant days of 1980! I do like instant tradition!


Unlike the UK just because the day falls on a Saturday we do not get a substitute day to compensate for it being on a weekend.


The most logical thing to do is accept that nothing will be open and merely retire to the beach to laze in the promised sunshine. There are, after all, worse ways to spend ones time on a bank holiday.


And a little light reading, I think!

. . . and early to rise - is a bloody mistake!

In this worst of all possible worlds I got up at 6 am to make it to school for an 8.15 am start and discovered that this one was of the two days when I could have come in at the normal time.



In the way that one does, I tried to make the most of it and managed to prepare all the materials for my lessons in the new space available and even gave myself a congratulatory cup of tea in the time before my first lesson began.


I am gradually meeting my groups and trying to extrapolate what it is going to be like teaching them for the next year. One group has been oddly split to allow a group of talented English students to translate a Spanish children’s book into English. This will be published in the same format of the original and will be on sale in aid of the disaster fund for Haiti. This is an amazing opportunity for a small group of kids to be able to cite a published work in their CV’s for university and beyond! The chosen few have taken to the task with gusto and are pleased and excited.


The sad thing is that this task will only occupy them for a limited period and then we will have to think about how to teach the split group for the remaining two and a half terms.


My group of Current Affairs students looks as though it is going to be strangled at birth and I shudder to think about what might take its place.


No one, at the moment, is taking anything for granted with timetables and class lists and any free time is being regarded as something which can easily disappear at the touch of a computer key. At the moment, for example, I have neither a lunchtime duty nor a playground duty. What I do have is a library duty on a Tuesday, but this is regarded as such a light, insubstantial thing that it is in imminent danger of being added to with something much more irksome.


In my first year class hordes of pupils descended and we ran out of desks. I sincerely trust that this is an aberration and some re-jigging of student personnel can be accomplished without delay – and certainly before I give them any substantial marked work!


In spite of the fact that my early leaving on a Wednesday is because of my early start on a Monday (which this week was a teacher only day and at the normal time) I still too the time off because I arrived early this morning and worked. So there.


I had my customary swim and the water was a little warmer than it has been in the last few days: inscrutable are the ways of pool water and their retention or otherwise of heat from what remains of the sun in the tail end of the summer!


Two more days to the weekend. And it can’t come a day too soon!

Don't take things for granted

Today was remarkable.



Leaving at the end of work it only took me five minutes to go the few hundred yards to the slip road to the motorway and thence to freedom. Five minutes, believe you me, is absolutely nothing, especially bearing in mind the total selfish chaos which characterized the morning arrival at school.


Parents always act as though the school has only one pupil: their offspring. It therefore makes no difference if they single, double or even triple park. It is as nothing to park on a zebra crossing; to park across three parking spaces; to block entrances; to stop exits; to throw doors open into oncoming traffic; to back, walk or run out into the road; to fail to indicate; to stop suddenly – to do any damn thing they please, because they are the school.


We teachers of course know that this is fallacious thinking: we are the school. The parents and their fecundity are merely the means to facilitate our continuing existence.


The motorways to school were reasonable (for city motorways) and I found myself grumpily reassessing the time which would allow me to sleep and get to school when I hit the slip road off the motorway to my place of work. That is to say I didn’t hit the slip road for a considerable period of time as I was held up in a scarcely moving line of traffic waiting to join the cheerful chaos of the roundabout where what seem to be hundreds of lines of traffic meet.


Spanish drivers are not given to flashing their lights to encourage hard pressed car owners to join their lane of traffic. Flashing lights are a sign of impatience and hatred. I have known drivers speed up in the inside lane to stop me joining it even though immediately after I have insinuated my way there they join the outside lane!


The roundabout is our own version of L’Etoile we may not have a triumphal arch but by god we do have bloody minded drivers who merely point their vehicles in the direction they intend to take and then press the accelerator.


The real problem is that the exit I need is one lane wide and sometimes I seem to be the only driver who actually sees that there is not room for two cars. People who are in the lane for going left suddenly decide that they want to go right and cut across my path and go down another slip road to a motorway.


By the time I have negotiated the roundabout the road then lurches upwards in a one in one gradient at which point there is a set of traffic lights. When you finally get a green you then have to contend with drivers cutting across you again as they disappear down yet another slip road to a motorway.


By the time you have negotiated the obstacle course of parents decanting their kids with unseemly languidity kissing their progeny as if they were consigning them to an unspecified stretch in the Chateau d’If and finally found a parking space you are in no fit condition to teach. This is par for the course with most professionals!


So I was not looking forward to the departure from school. Well, that’s stupid, of course I was looking forward to it, the long wait in an unmoving caravan of little emperors being ferried back home in expensive cars was what I was not looking forward to.


But the traffic was “moving” – obviously five minutes for a couple of hundred yards is not quick but for us this period of time indicate a formula 1 type acceleration away from the place. And here is where it is remarkable.


The reason for our speed of egress was that the crossing was controlled by the police. Yes, police actually speeding up the traffic. A unique experience. I even forgave them their predilection for whistles; I even waved my thanks as I sailed serenely down the slip road and sped home. It won’t last of course.


Once home and changed we rushed to the beach and there, despite grim looks and prim warnings, I charged (walked tentatively) into the rolling waves which were churning up the sand and spoiling the neat manicured appearance of the beach. After being tumbled about by waves which really were quite rough I lay on the beach and the brisk breeze ensure that powdered sand coated every crevice. One is prepared to put up with a damn sight more than that to lie on the beach in September!


Tomorrow reality really does kick in with the first of the 8.15 am starts, but it does mean that I go home early and miss the end of school rush.


Early arrival home and, in spite of the shower we have just had and the clouds which I can see in the sky, the possibility of another swim in the sea and a more tranquil number of lengths in the pool.


It a way of life!

Fear so near you can almost touch it!

I had my swim in darkness this morning and felt fully awake and tinglingly refreshed by the time it had ended.


I got to school to be met by suppressed hysteria from all, amid frantic attempts to get some of the simple administrative tasks done at least. My attempts to find out who might be in my classes was, I suppose, doomed to failure from the start. “I can give you a list off the top of my head” and “the information is on my computer at home” were two of the responses which didn’t really help in any tangible way, but they at least showed some sort of willing.


Probably the best aspect of the Lurking Horror that is tomorrow is that my worst fears have not been realized (so far) and I remain without a form. As is traditional in schools the first couple of periods have the students with their form teachers so that they can be given books, advice, warnings and pleas in the fond hope that they are prepared for the long slog to the end of June in 2011. Dear god what a(n) horrific thought!


For two of my new courses I have no idea what to teach; or to put it another way I have no end of ideas of what I would like to teach but I don’t know just how much can be squeezed into a course which is only a term long and in which I have two periods a week: under 20 hours. One of the courses has to include the translation of a child’s book into English and the history of modern art from Cubism to the present day. The other is Media Studies and here my central project was based on a computer program which doesn’t seem to want to work. What is a “dedicated graphics card” and wouldn’t some sort of more casual and lackadaisical one work just as well in a raffish and debonair sort of way?


The only way to survive is to lurch from weekend to occasional day to major holiday. September is already partly gone and there is a holiday in Barcelona on the 24th when I will make a State Visit to the UK for a significant birthday party of an ex-colleague. The 11th and 12th of October form another break and then there is my own significant birthday when the possibility of changing the car becomes a reality.


Reality of course, would mean that something as essentially frivolous as a convertible would not be considered, but, on the other hand there is something irresistibly decadent about spending more money to get less car that I find strangely beguiling.


The convertible version of the car I already drive is expensive and I would end up with a two-seater with room in the back for a child with rickets and a stunted mermaid with no legs. The version up from my present car is substantially more expensive (I mean substantially) but it does look more elegant and it has a more realistic pair of back seats where people would not have to be suffering from post-war diseases or be members of a fabulous race to be able to enjoy the ride.


The drooling imagination will have a field day with pondering the choices. I might add that I have not seen in the flesh any version of either of these cars and I am determined (a last shred of intelligent thought) not to commit myself to anything until I have had a test drive.


I fear that my school work is going to take a very poor fifth or sixth place while the bulk of what I am pleased to call my mind is engaged in fascinating possibilities far removed from the conditional and changing perfectly good active sentences into ponderous, unlikely and cumbersome constructions in the passive!


On the positive side the neighbours left last night and a bottle of Cava was carefully opened (you do not find me wasting any of the precious liquid at the cost of a vulgar popping of the cork) and consumed mostly, it has to be said, by me. Their departure lifts a pall from our little community and one source of bellowing imbecility is now presumably depressing the neighbours in the city.


On the negative side it has now started to rain. I am a great believer in the Pathetic Fallacy (even if my hero Ruskin meant it as a condemnation) and here, as thousands of teachers gloomily think of the morrow the heavens themselves show their sympathy in an effusion of ethereal tears!


On the even more negative side, there are few things less appealing than the sight and smell of wet pupils whose natural volcanic warmth ensures that all classrooms take on the feel if not the appearance of tawdry saunas!


I can hardly wait!

In the west the sun is sinking!

I was reduced to swimming widths today at the shallow end because that was where the sun was. Then I realized just how whimpish such activity was and boldly swam my way into the cool, murky shadows.



There is a definite “end of era” feel to my lengths as the working week this year is going to mean my getting up at six in the morning just to get to my classes in time and I think it unlikely that I will rise at half past five just to have a swim in the dark!


The great thing about the David Lloyd Centre was that it was on my route to school and home again and often, having spent the journey debating whether or not I would call in to have a swim, I would find that the car had made the decision for me and I was already through the gate. At that point I always went with the flow, so to speak, and felt better for it. It is always good to counteract one form of fatigue with another. The draining effects of teaching can be strangely counteracted by indulging in another exhausting activity. Well, it worked for me anyway.


All of this is to force myself to join the town pool and call in after school as a way of surviving the onslaught of classes which is my burden this year.


I went to three different supermarkets this morning to get the goods that I wanted. At times like that one does miss Tesco. That organization’s burgeoning hubris as it gobbles up any commercial opportunity that comes to mind may make the territorial ambition of Alexander the Great look like debating whether to purchase a beach hut in Torbay – but one does miss the “one stop provides all” approach of the larger Tesco stores. None of our choices of Alcampo, Mercadona or Carrefour are at the same level and their “own brand” products leave something to be desired. But, shopper to my fingertips, I rather enjoy meandering my way up and down the aisles and remaining impervious to the less than enticing “ofertas” thrust beneath my sceptical gaze.


Tea bags, for example. In Carrefour I can at least get hold of PG Tips. I miss few gastronomic delights from my home country, but to go without tea bags (proper tea bags) is simply unthinkable. So, a few bonus points to Carrefour for at least stocking the items.

They sell the tea bags in packs of 40 and 80. The 40 tea bag box costs €1.92 while the 80 costs €4.35. One feels that some of the finer points of economic theory have gone slightly amiss on that form of pricing! So I bought three boxes of 40 – and would have bought more but they only had three boxes.


This is not the first time (and not only in Spain) that I have calculated that it does not pay to buy in bulk. Most people do not work out the sums and merely assume that more is less and pay the price for the privilege.


Talking of value, three bottles of reasonable Rioja for €4.35 is value for money whichever way you drink it – and a nifty little carry box was included! It’s an odd old country.


Our obnoxious neighbours seem stubbornly static and have not left for their town house in the city. Every sound they make (and there have been suspiciously few recently) is gleefully interpreted by us as activity of imminent removal. Even as I was typing more “going away” sounds reached my ears; sounds like cases being dragged along producing that distinctive sound that only little nylon plastic wheels on tile make.


To my almost incoherent joy, inspection showed that the large van like car that the head of the household affects is on the drive way, back door open and packing has begun!

I have set out the Cava glasses on the table so that when Toni and his mother come back from their walk we can toast the departure of the Dysfunctionals and look forward to a more peaceful autumn, winter and spring. It’s a good bottle of Cava so I trust that this is not a false dawn of hope! We want the whole family to go at once, not leave one or two members behind to extend the period of misery. We have specific and damning objects to each and every one of them. Good riddance!


This is an odd Sunday as Monday is not the real start of school. We have been there without the kids since Wednesday and they will not arrive until Tuesday. It is therefore possible (indeed essential) that the typical Sunday Sadness which is common to all teaching folk be denied its full force today as however frantic tomorrow might be, it will be chaos without the customers – and that has to be a good thing.


I have now opened the kitchen window so that the opening of the gate and the starting of the car will be clearly audible to me and I will be able to twist my face into a falsely wistful smile at the retreating exhaust of the family to whom we refer with jocular detestation as The Scumbags.


Meanwhile I am hopelessly unprepared for the start of term. So no change there then: though I would say that the lack of names of the pupils in my classes; books with which I am supposed to teach and access to the technology which we are all supposed to use with gusto are not necessarily my fault. Possibly.


I shall keep my thoughts fixed on a convertible!

Stereotypes and Rites of Passage

Just because one has sense it does not mean that one is sensible.


I am looking to replace my car as it is now three years old and will be getting into the testing period when I will, year on year pay out vast sums of money to get the damn thing through.


I therefore went to the Peugeot garage and asked for the cost of a new car giving mine in part exchange. I was asked what model of car I wanted and I said a replacement of what I had got. They have made a few improvements and I think (!) at last that I will be able to play one of my iPods through the music system.


Safe, unimaginative and lacking in imagination – but sensible.


Then, the seeds of discontent (sown some time ago by Jane in Sitges) sprang into full flower with the simple enquiry about why I hadn’t considered a convertible.


As soon as the question was voiced the experience of the drive to the last wine tasting in Sitges with the wind whispering through where my hair would have been in a previous age came back to me with seductive force.


Why hadn’t I considered a convertible?


With United Nations Day looming and access to the vast wealth built up by a grateful government over the last thirty years or so getting ever closer to my grasping finger tips, surely this purchase was more than a possibility!


I am getting to the age where such a purchase will be met with raised eyebrows and pitying exasperation by those people who don’t have one and who will not be allowed to buy one. Issues of practicality will cloud desire and the dream will remain a dream.

As a concession to sense I am considering the Peugeot version rather than a more expensive brand. I wonder if they do real leather seats.


Enough.


This was the enthusiasm of yesterday night, who knows if it will survive the rigours of four days of school with actual kids to make it to the showroom next weekend and find out the cost of reality. This is something to ponder, but not with too much of my brain otherwise the tempting idea will disappear with the waking up of reason!


Waking up was not something that II did convincingly this morning. I woke up at the “right” time because I always do, but I made the mistake of turning over and going back to musing and letting my mind go into free fall association – or that half or quarter sleep which is so comforting and has an insane logic all of its own.


Eventually the Protestant Work Ethic kicks in (usually almost immediately with me) and I wake up properly. As it was a Saturday after three days of school (even without the kids) I felt that I was entitled to a lie-in.


I did however have my swim in the increasingly icy waters of the pool. Anyone watching my progress up and down the pool might have been intrigued by my erratic progress as I crawled (with my best strokes) snake-like down the pool. I was, of course following the pattern of sunlight as it shone above the trees and dappled the water. The water of the pool was of that degree of coldness that is described as “you can get used to it – just” that is only one stage away from being un-swimmable.


I am determined that Monday, being the last of our four short days without the kids, will also be a swimming day for me with a short dip before the school day starts. It will be sign of my seriousness whether I find out details of the indoor pool in Castelldefels to continue the regimen of activity that I have kept up during the summer.


As I have to stay alive to get back all the money (with compound interest and adjusted to reflect today`s prices) that I have paid into the superannuation fund over the years, I suppose it is in my interest to stay healthy!


Swim on!

Schools! Don't ya just love 'em!

How often have management (and teachers) in school been seduced by the sheer vulgarity of the blandishments that high technology seems to dangle before their dazed and drunken eyes. A few flashing lights and incomprehensible techno-babble and they are hooked.


I thought of this as I viewed the fifty (count them!) computers that the school has just bought to facilitate a pilot project using them extensively in class.


They are the wrong size, far, far too big; they are not rugged and designed for heavy school use; they have batteries which do not last a full working day; the collection, distribution and return has not been thought out; class teachers do not know how to use them; material is not available for constant computer teaching – need I go on?


It is another story of resources which are going to be squandered and forced use with inappropriate resources. But, there again this is a pilot study and a few teething troubles can be expected and who knows, this time something positive may come out of it. Possibly.


Faces of my colleagues are looking a little drawn as they (and i) realize just how little time there is before the Great Unwashed descend on us and expect to be taught.


I have been attempting for the last two days to find out exactly which students are in my groups. The English Department has given me a full list but my other classes of media studies, history of art and current affairs are titles without pupils. Frantic work on Monday will probably get me the names and then they all have to be reorganized into electronic form. Happy Days!


With any reasonable luck our summer neighbours should leave this weekend. Spain is getting back to work after the summer break; school is restarting; the weather is getting cooler and visitors should now go home. Especially the dysfunctional collection of selfish ignoramuses we have been landed with. Still, shouldn’t really complain, they were a damn sight better than they were last year!


The bottle of Cava is cooling in the fridge to be opened as soon as we are absolutely certain that they have left.


Meanwhile there is the expectation of my camera returning, fully repaired on Monday and attempts to make the program (which has been downloaded on a trial basis for 30 days) to work.


At least these two things will take my mind off Tuesday!