The kettle that never boils

The kettle’s gone!

Our compact and bijoux staffroom boasted, until today, a coffee machine and a kettle. The coffee machine was rarely used, but the kettle was a popular item of staff sustenance.

The only problem with the kettle was the lid. This was insecurely placed on the top of the device and when boiling water was poured out; it fell off and scalded unwary hands that thought they were safe.

The tried and tested technique to avoid personal injury was to allow the thing to boil; switch it off; then with an expert flick of the index finger send the insecure lid flying thus allowing the more painful gush of stem to dissipate itself allowing the safeish pouring of water into the receiving receptacle.

This labour intensive and fairly dangerous method of procuring a cup of tea or coffee needed to be changed by the simple expedient of buying a new kettle. This solution was not really rocket science but in my school such thinking was regarded as dangerously radical. One thinks of Galileo and the repressive Roman church.

My suggestion that we simply buy one out of petty cash was greeted with incredulity. We don’t have any petty cash in my school.

The buying of a new kettle for the staff room needed discussion, planning and the writing of emails resulting in the writing of an order on an official order form.

Then nothing. No kettle. No action.

Until today.

The reason for replacing the kettle: that it was dangerous suddenly (after two terms of using it in its present state) precipitated its immediate removal from the staff room.

And nothing was put in its place. And nothing was planned to put it its place.

It’s a perfect example of how the school operates: petty bloody-mindedness augmented by officious obstruction. A minor (if possibly fatal) inconvenience inexplicably worsened to the detriment of staff comfort.

You can expand what is rapidly coming to be known as The Kettle Affair to cover all aspects of life in the school: bugger education is the colour of the requisition form for essential equipment the correct shade of puce.

One of the few Latin quotations I know (apart from salis populi suprema est lex, of course) is Ex Africa semper aliquid novi – there is always something new out of Africa. I now understand what that quotation means when I think of the novel and idiotic that pours from that alleged seat of learning every live long day!

Again and again I have to keep telling myself that this is actually real life and not some grotesque farce being played out for my amusement.

But every day, in spite of everything, kids are taught and most show every indication that they are enjoying their education. It’s amazing what teachers can produce in spite of the petty, stupid and self defeating restrictions imposed by people who know nothing of the educational process that they are there to promote!

One could say that this is yet another case of 'tell me the old, old story!'

Complete Complexity

Windows is up to its old tricks again!

In a moment reminiscent of the frightening old days of Apple messages like “Fatal System Error!” complete with graphic of a round bomb with fizzing fuse a message flashed up as I was using Word which basically informed me that everything that I had typed was lost and gone and would ne're return.

I entertained a faint hope that the incomprehensible information which sometimes appears to the left of the Word page telling me that Word has recovered something or other would spring into action and allow me to find the typing which simply vanished.

No such luck. Word will not be mocked by mere faith that things will work out.

So here we go again.

Not only is the evil disseminated through the world by the ever diabolically resourceful Mr Gates now working against me through the mechanism of World but also my screen has not shown up in school.

In spite of producing a colour photograph of the screen; the price; the part number; the address of the firm; its web site; its dimensions and the colour of the managing director’s eyes it failed to produce item in the school. It eventually transpired that I had not written out the information on the correct order form. So nothing was done. When asking for the Correct Order Form I discovered that none were actually available in the staff room. And no one knew where they might be had.

After asking five people for the Correct Order Form and getting no further forward in my quest, I eventually found someone who remembered that she had seen one sometimes in the recent past or at least knew where one might be found.

Clutching the Correct Order Form I filled in exactly the same information that I had given on the previous sheet. And nothing happened.

I am now in the Harry and Confuse phase of my plan of attack in getting a screen. I daily and duly pester people who I think might have some leverage and ask plaintive questions about screens and arrival. Things have reached that particular form of stasis which comes when the whole life of an institution is challenged through the bottleneck of a single person whose dead hand slows everything to a funereal dead march.

At the moment I am using pens which are inappropriate for OHPs on transparencies which have been provided by one of my colleagues from a previous school augmented by a donation by me from a previous educational institution, ahem.

There are no OHP pens or spare bulbs and I lack the necessary energy to start a campaign for them until I have the screen safely in my room.

This may take some time.

I am beginning to appreciate the excesses of the city which gave its name to the adjective which exemplifies the Heath Robinsonianly unnecessarily impossibly complex: Byzantine. Our school would seamlessly fit into the bygone world of the dynasty of Palaeologus. I have discovered that both literally and figuratively Yeats’ ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ fits the experience of teaching in our school!

Imagine what I would have been writing if I had needed textbooks!

It simply isn't done!

Just think.

At one time the growth of the computer was supposed to lead to the paperless office and from there to a paperless world.

It’s not even laughable is it?

Today (the last day of my oh so short holiday) was spent trying to control my temper after a visit to the agents for the flat and disagreeing with the assessment that they and the owner have made about certain payments for the repair of a tap. The rest of the day was occupied with sorting the papers by which my life is apparently ruled.

Spain likes paper; especially greyish coloured paper with an inky stamp on it. This would indicate that something has been photocopied (they love photocopying things) and by reason of the stamp has entered some sort of archive (they love making piles of paper and stapling them together and putting them away carefully) and thereby becoming wonderfully and terminally Official with a capital O.

Because any odd sheet of paper with reference numbers on it is treated with the same reverence that High Church Anglicans reserve for the similarly reserved Host it is essential that you go into any conflict with The Society of Paper Pushers (i.e. the whole of Spanish Mercantile, Political and Cultural life) it is best to have MAD. This acronym does not stand for Mutually Assured Destruction from those happy years of living a couple of minutes to midnight on the Atomic Clock, but rather for Manifold Augmented Documentation.

The on going joke (which isn’t funny once you’ve actually experience it) in this country is whatever documentation you bring with you to any bureaucratic confrontation you will always not have one essential piece of paper and you will Have To Come Back Tomorrow.

My documentation is now in such order that I will be able to go back in the afternoon of the same day rather than the next!

Toni has already consulted the lawyer in the family about the legality of the flat owner’s position and in the absence of a clear answer our anger continues to simmer.

Although it is a pity, because we are both happy in our present flat, we have to consider that if the owner is prepared to be petty about fifty quid or so, then what is he going to be like with the hundreds of pounds which is at the moment at his command in terms of the iniquitous Aval (don’t get me started!) and the two deposits that we had to give before we got the flat. It came as a very nasty surprise that we had to fork out almost a year’s rent in advance in various financial commitments before we were granted the privilege of paying our not inconsiderable rent!

Can you tell it still irks?

So filled with fury and indignation after the iniquitous actions of people not doing exactly what I want them to, the pressing question was how to dissipate such an unproductive feeling.

Yet again the good old menu del dia, eaten in the sun with vino tinto and casera came to the rescue. By the time that I reached the fideuá my mood was mellow and the tarta Santiago

with an ice cold smidgen of muscatel in a tiny shot glass meant that the harsh memory of injustice had faded to a vague description in someone’s blog!

And in the later afternoon I sat in the sun on the balcony and failed to complete the quick crossword in the Guardian Weekly.

What better way to end the holiday?

Don't bank on it!

Far be it from me to use this blog as a weapon against institutions that, in my perception, as far from fulfilling their objectives.

However.

When it comes to a bank like BBVA is becomes a positive duty to anathematize the whole bloody mess that has the temerity to style itself a financial organization.

They have managed, with that effortless idiocy that seems to be second nature to them, to cut our phone cut off! Admittedly the inconvenience has now been sorted out by a terrifying performance on the mobile by Toni who did a sort of replay of his masterly fury which was last vented on the hapless administration of our local health clinic.

The essential problem, of course, was bureaucracy. My initial account with BBVA (Rue the day! Rue the day!) was opened in Gran Canaria using my passport as proof of identity.

When I attempted to get at my money in a branch of BBVA in Terrassa in Catalonia with a renewed passport all hell broke loose. Spanish authorities do not understand the concept of having an identity card (i.e. a passport) on which the number can change. An identity card in Spain will have a number which will stay with the individual until death.

Eventually the problem was resolved after a less than edifying incident when I banged my hand on the bank manager’s desk and demanded all my money in cash immediately! Sometimes the histrionic can be the most effective form of rational discussion!

My account was transferred to the Spanish mainland and all seemed well with the world.

Wrong.

As a non Spanish person in Spain there are various degrees of who and what you are. As a British person in Spain you are a person from the EC and have a variety of rights. But, if you stay in Spain there are a variety of documents which begin to redefine your status. To live in Spain in some form of rented accommodation you have to prove, in a true Catch-22 style, that you already live in Spain! But to live in Spain you need to have proof that you live in Spain –and so it goes on back to infinity. There are ways of outwitting this piece of nonsense and, to be fair to the authorities, they do not seem seriously intent on checking the veracity of the assertions made.

If you manage to show that you actually do live in Spain you can get a document saying so, duly stamped by the local authority. This entitles you to another document showing that you are a foreigner (!) living in Spain and this document is regularly called for, together with any others (a photocopy of your passport always – this is an official reflex request) that come to the mind of any petty bureaucrat to prove that you are who you say you are and you live where you say you live.

So far so complex.

But, as you wend your way further and further into the tortuous paper labyrinth bedecked with the magic reference numbers so beloved by Spanish officialdom, your status subtly changes. Each scrap of paper meshes you ever more closely into the system. It’s like one of those incomprehensible Treasure Hunts where you have to collect seemingly incomprehensible and irrelevant clues so that, at the end, all will be revealed and you can claim the prize.

I now estimate that I can be asked for at least fifteen different pieces of paper by officials before they are satisfied that I exist and am Part of The System.

The changes in my status also, apparently, affected my bank account so that it changed or metamorphosed during the various stages before it was fully formed. This, in turn, affected the standing orders that I had so that payment was not made because of the lava turning into a pupae or whatever the banking equivalent in the evolution of my account was. Whatever happened, money didn’t flow to the right people and the telephone didn’t flow either.

My bank, of course, naturally, why would they, who am I to question them, did not deem it necessary to inform me that there might be problems and then when there were blamed me for it!

Some things are international; transfer of blame to the customer being one of them.

The really interesting thing is that, given the accumulation of sheer bloody mindedness on the part of my present bank I am eager to change to another.

The only thing that holds me back is the depressing thought of the amount of paper work that will be involved.

Prepare the photocopier; I would not go unarmed into the den of banker!

Wish me luck!

Click!

A spectator in the narrow streets of Old Sitges does not necessarily get the most flattering view of the gaudy glitter that is Carnival.

Pressed against the house wall which is literally inches from the gutter to avoid the edge of the floats as they sway and bump their way millimetres from your knees means that you are close enough to see beneath the gauze and paint at the mere mortals clothed in plastic cloth of gold.

As they walked, gyrated, skipped, slid, danced, ran, shouted, sang, and bopped their way along a depressingly large number of them had fags hanging from the corner of their mouths and the rest were either drinking from plastic cups or looking for a drink.

A drink I might add which was not so well hidden in the various cubby holes and spaces on the floats. A few of them had unashamed bars which were kept busy keeping the dancers in the mood.

To be fair Carnival in northern Spain is not, I presume quite the same in terms of warmth as the sultry climate of Rio – and that being the case given the length of time that the dancers had to endure in the inhospitable cold of Sitges they could well be forgiven for needing something other than the Spirit of Carnival to keep them going!

In my little cwtch along the route I was flanked by two formidable French ladies who had spirited conversations through me until I accepted the inevitable and moved to let them speak together. By doing so I gave up my position next to the wall and as the evening dragged its weary way towards midnight, the lack of stiffening began to tell on my back!

I decided to use my Casio camera and put my trust in the high sensitivity setting, so that I would not have to use flash. I convinced myself that the grainy appearance would add to the atmospheric quality of the photos. We all have to kid outselves along from time to time!

The floats were not massive, but their size was obviously determined by what could get through the tortuous streets of Sitges and sometimes there was precious little room for manoeuvre.

The tight squeeze obviously told on the speed of the Carnival which dragged to a halt almost as soon as it had started the descent towards the sea. This meant that we had more than enough time to appreciate the dear drum destroying level of music being pumped out inches from our ears.

The floats were impressive, but only at a speed which brought them into view at a slow walking pace at least. Stasis is not good for a festival which by its very nature should be one of activity.

After over two hours of eventual float after eventual float I was frankly bored and was trying to escape. Unfortunately escape was impossible as any attempt would involve the escapee intimately in the Carnival. There was also a very young, very serious member of the local police force (complete with gun, uniform, floppy hat and stern demeanour) stopping anyone trying to get off the wafer narrow pavement.


Eventually after yet another lull, I made my bid for freedom only to be caught up in an Operation of Michael Jacksons, closely followed by a Death of Elvises. My penultimate freedom dash was stopped by yet another Frill of Brazilian Sambaists.

Then I broke: I made a mental decision to smash my way through anything that came after them. No matter pharaohs, spacemen, cowboys, owls, eighteenth century scantily dressed noblepersons,

germs, bees, Heidis, leathermen, Christopher Columbuses, char ladies, waiters, lions and gas salesmen (all of whom, I assure you, did pass me) I would scream my way through them all and get to the car.

As it happened I managed to escape and just missed the voodoo dancers who were lurking around the corner. I was frozen and could barely stagger to the car and escape!

Carnival needs alcohol and a seat.

And warmth.

Well, I shall put it all down to experience.

The next parade is on Tuesday. Late at night. In Sitges. Last chance before the rigors of Lent make such jollifications impossible.

Apparently.

Unseasonal!

It rained.
It rains.
It will rain.

Not a good couple of days these lat couple of days, but there is always a band of light somewhere shining on the sea; that gleam of sun which Wales so often denied for weeks on end!

As if to match the weather the pollo from the place that we get Sunday lunch was sub standard as well.

And we didn’t win the Once.

There is just so much one can take; as long as one can dilute it with a little Rioja!

The good news, as relayed on my internet radio was the astonishing news that Wales had beaten England at Twickenham in the opening game of the Five, sorry, Six Nations Championship! I don’t want to be defeatist, but the tried and test scenario is now for Wales to burgeon with impossible self confidence, start talking immediately of The Triple Crown and convince themselves that the winning of The Grand Slam is a mere formality. Then comes the period of bitter recrimination when it doesn’t happen. I can imagine it all!

What this victory does do is that it allows me to enter school with head held high and look my English colleagues in the face. As we have Scots and Irish among the staff I feel there will be a group feeling of solidarity!

‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold was en engaging read. The opening sentences: “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973,” are arresting. This is one of those few times that it is worth reading the epigraph, or preface where the girl Susie worries about the penguin in a snow globe. “Don’t worry, Susie,” says her father, “he has a nice life. He’s trapped in a perfect world.”

These two quotations give the reader the gist of the book. It is a realistic fantasy if that sort of description makes any sense. Told from the point of view of the murdered girl as she describes her life in her own developing Heaven and her excursions to earth to watch her family, friends and murderer.

The book’s concerns are those of loss, guilt and coping within the relentless narrative of life.

This is a modern fairy tale, but one in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm where killing, maiming and unbearable pain are an essential part of the story. I recommend it as an uncomfortable book which is not unnecessarily cruel. A most enjoyable read.

The weather does not encourage me to go to an overcrowded Sitges and spend an age trying to find a parking space for the car.

Perhaps Tuesday.

More to learn!

Calçots in batter.

Just when you think that you have one aspect of foreign living sussed – they do something slightly different and you realise that you are still very much in the learning stage!

Another excellent menu del dia in the centre of Castelldefels just before retrieving Ceri’s working charcoal from the framers. This was the only real casualty in the move and so a nasty Habitat slip frame broke allowing the purchase of something rather more appropriate. And, of course, costing more than the original charcoal! Such is time and inflation – and buying the picture years ago!

Where to put it is an increasingly difficult prospect as I am disinclined to drill into virgin walls. The system of putting up sizable pictures here is two fixed hooks to fix into two eye screws on the frame. This has to be exact because there is no room for adjustment as far as I can see. Give me the old fashioned string at the back every time!

Today I picked up the third in the series of Catalan Artists from the newspaper: Gaudi. I have a few books on Gaudi and I assumed that this little monograph would not add much but I was mistaken as there were a number of pictures and views of edifices that I had not seen before. As the text is in Catalan I will have to use more imagination than knowledge to decipher what new insights the text might add!

The other book I bought today was the next volume in the National Geographic's Atlas Visual Patrimonies de la Human dad which this week was of France.

As you can imagine the wealth of buildings in France is a little overwhelming and the traditionally spectacular photographs of the National Geographic do more than adequate justice of their impossibly famous subjects.

The vast majority of buildings considered worthy to be part of the protected heritage of human kind are religious institutions. And those that aren’t, are royal. It is with conflicting emotions that one considers the disproportionate time, effort and money devoted to the construction in stone of monuments to the philosophically impossible and the politically inexcusable!

But often the sheer beauty of the proportions of some of those Gothic cathedrals and abbeys just takes the breath away. The Baroque is easy to resist and the French preoccupation with excessive ornamentation leaves me cold but the spaces that the Master Builders managed to create never fail to excite.

And the book is in Spanish, so at least I have a partial chance of understanding what it’s on about.

I am reading (as a Holiday Treat) a novel! I have chosen ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold. I should have finished this by tomorrow and write my response then.

I bet you can hardly wait!

Cheers!

Carnival!

The kids were as high as kites today in expectation of the King.

Not, I hasten to add, His Majesty King of Spain but an august personage of much more significance to the children: the Carnival King.

The entire school eventually settled down for the spectacle by nine thirty and awaited His Majesty whose first stop was our school.

Each section of the school from the very youngest toddlers to sixth formers put on a display of some sort ranging from a stomping march from the first classes to a spirited rendition of a line dance from the oldest.

My own kids found it very difficult to stay in their seats and anxiously awaited the arrival of their spectator parents before they finally settled down on firing the odd question to me to explain the non arrival of the Carnival King.

When he finally arrived on a golden throne on the back of a lorry complete with police escort and musicians who comprised a band of instrument players and a troupe of drummers the kids’ hysteria was complete!

The fact that he was so late that he was not able to witness the cavorting of years three and four as various kings, princes, knights, ladies and dragons faded into insignificance as the full extent of the troupe with which the Carnival King travelled was made apparent.

To my (admittedly) limited experience the personages of our Carnival visitors owed much to the Mardi Gras celebrations of the Deep South especially of New Orleans with an admixture of the Carnival in Rio for extra spice.

The King himself, with painted face and formal jacket covered in medals was accompanied by fan waving bewigged flunkeys and also by his Carnival Queen. His courtiers were characters ranging from blue suited, white faced attendants with plume topped helmets to skin tight lamé clad dancers sporting flamboyant headdresses of bright yellow feathers.

And your humble correspondent? I was clad in a purple cape edged with gold with a tunic of crimson and gold. This ensemble was topped with a crown which I felt expressed my understated aspirations.

To describe in words the glittering masterpiece that was that headpiece: sparkling gold, gleaming silver, the shimmering reflections from the cut up plastic mirror we used in a science lesson; the layers of border paper; the swish of tissue paper; the glinting flash of sun caught staples holding the whole thing together; the excess glitter flakes slowly floated to the ground – to describe this, I say, would be impossible.

I confidently expect my crown to be claimed by the Generalitat as a work of art which will need to be preserved for the nation.

During the Carnival dancing after the Carnival King had read the incomprehensible poems about the staff in Catalan saw one of the more extraordinary characters of his entourage – a near naked character wearing impossible high heels and a high camp high collar ask me to pose with him for a photograph! This inversion of the natural order confused and exhilarated me. Though in retrospect it did make me wonder just what I looked like for such a character to consider me worthy to complement his extraordinary appearance!

Sunday? Carnival in Sitges!

Bring it on!

Just a little hem!

And now for a test of my dressmaking skills.

The day of the Carnival Parade is almost upon us. Only a few short hours and our classes will be bumping their way through an ill rehearsed routine in front of the Carnival King.

And I, I will be resplendent in a cardboard crown augmented with fragments of glass and tiddlywinks counters; purple tissue paper and gold card; glitter flakes and silver pen.

Glitter flakes are a wonderful invention. They come in plastic sauce bottles with a clip up spout and, when tipped, disgorge a shimmering array of specs of well, glitter. These flakes are tiny and metallic and only a masochist who had not had his share of self immolation would ever give these to primary school children. I was careful and mindful of the cleaning repercussions and I still managed to create a wide zone of glittering chaos all around me. The idea of a class, any class, getting hold of these tiny objects of desire does not bear thinking about; as it is I confidently expect to notice gleaming spots of brilliance around those front desks that I used for my nefarious purposes for the next term or two.

The crown is made. The costume yet to make.

I have brought home three pieces of material and I have been urged to use a simple stitch to marry them all together into a coherent whole.

The word ‘simple’ and ‘stitch’ do not usually combine in my day to day vocabulary. I found that my simple puppy dog look when the proposed ‘stitching’ was talked about did nothing to get the garment made. It actually appeared that the advice that was floating about concerning the making of the costume was actually for my practical benefit and not, as I thought, simply for information!

You will gather that typing is a more enticing idea than any aspect of my life as a seamstress has for me. I can vaguely remember Dando (my name for my father’s mother, a probable corruption for the Welsh for grandmother) teaching me chain stitch as we roasted crumpets against the bars of the electric fire. But that was when my age was in the lower single digit area rather than encumbered as I am with more years than I care to enumerate. Chain stick has long been relegated to that area of memory that looks back with a nostalgic shudder to such things as sherbet fountains and love hearts. These things are best kept as memories and distant memories at that: there is not necessity for these uneasy memories to be refreshed by present experience.

Yet I feel sure that sellotape will be inadequate.

With a sigh he considered ending his missive to the world and looked with fear and loathing at the task which lay ahead. He hesitated only for a moment after which a new resolution filled him with the conviction that he would and could do this thing. No matter what cost; no matter the humiliation; no matter the ill reward – he would throw restraint to the wind and sew until his fingers bled. If necessary. If he couldn’t find the sellotape.

Haute couture be afraid. Be very afraid!

Choices: style or effect

Is my school ready for my Herod costume?

This is the sort of pressing question which taxes my brain nightly. The Parade for the Carnival King is fast approaching and as yet I have neither costume nor accoutrements to acquit myself with any dignity on the great day.

We have decided on a Knights, Royalty and Dragons sort of theme and worked out a mind numbingly simple scenario to occupy the long minutes when our year groups are in the limelight.

It’s funny how long ten minutes of parade and action seem in theory and how short they actually are when acted out by wildly enthusiastic young human creatures! I can foresee that there will be wild, bad natured rehearsal when the day is immanent. And god knows it is immanent enough when you consider that we will be flaunting our polished performances the day after tomorrow.

And the more immediate problem is that tomorrow is masks. And I haven’t got one. During this week I have made a sort of tricorn hat complete with national flower and feather and I have also made a pair of card glasses with gold and silver wings. Who knows what I will create for the morrow!

As for the golden creation that was my Herod costume; I have no idea where it is. It is either here somewhere in the flat or freezing in the inhospitable exile of my storage space.

Who knows?

Who cares?

Text denial!

When was the last time I read a book?

Aunt Bet sent me a copy of a Tolstoy story which I devoured: though I am still trying to work out the reasons for her sending me a story of a compulsively confessional murderer. The only other books that I have been perusing have been books of Catalan art. In Catalan. I have not so much read them as looked at the pictures!

I am obviously suffering from Novel Fatigue which comes about when all your narrative literature is locked away in a storage space and when each new book purchase creates a storage crisis in the flat.

I am going to have to pay a visit to Bluespace and rescue a selection of novels that I cannot do without. The only problem is that the rented space is so expensive that I have only rented enough to store the boxes of books which I have brought over and there is no space to set them out so that they can be consulted. Moving the boxes to see what they contain is like a giant three dimensional version of the little plastic puzzles which used to be popular.

You know the ones; they were made up of a series of little moveable squares which were contained within a frame work which allowed one square to be moved at a time. There is a computer version of this irritating little game too where you have to click on the empty square to move the one adjacent to it – or something. I never really had the patience to discover the finer details of how to work the thing!

I really do have to win the lottery!

You know it's worth it!

For my father the whole practical benefit of my education was demonstrated one Christmas when, using my trusty compass I constructed a six pointed star for the top of the tree.

This geometric wonder elicited a damned-with-faint-praise encomium on the value for money that Cardiff High School had provided for my family.

After a number of years the star became an essential part of my family’s cynical post modernist take on the shallow commercial promise that Christmas became. I might add that the grotesque parody of a tree that was topped with the increasingly tatty star only added to the general contempt that we felt for the festival.

If it wasn’t for my mother’s cooking and the increasingly hasty wrapping of excellent presents we might have given up the festival altogether.

My painstaking achievement of a cardboard star rose to mind this morning as the week of Carnival dawned in school. The promise of a funny hat (essential garb for day one of the Carnival week) was not fulfilled by Toni and I searched high and low in a fruitless search for a hat which I could (somehow) have made funny.

In the event I reached school with no hysterical headgear and therefore had to set about making something with which to pacify my class.

Minutes later with the help of a large sheet of black sugar paper and origami skills a dead Japanese slug would have been ashamed of I had produced something which could perch on my head.

Triangular in conception and reminiscent of the headgear of our greatest admirals in Britain’s Golden Age of Maritime Achievement and bedecked with lines of silver and gold this wonderful head covering also sported a yellow cardboard feather on one side with the worlds most badly drawn daffodil in similar yellow cardboard on the other. The band of golden boarder paper added that final touch of elegant distinction to a masterpiece of crafted paper sartorial style.

The kids were stunned which is just as well as it is very difficult to maintain academic respectability while looking like a poor man’s Robin Hood! Luckily the kids also had absurd headwear including one girl who had a white hat with a toy hippo wearing a bell. You can always trust kids to freak you out!

We had our first rehearsal for the detail of what we want the kids to do as our contribution to the parade in Carnival. The kids responded well to impromptu direction and a somewhat hackneyed storyline involving kings, queens, knights and dragons. The only problem, as the eight year old ‘court ladies’ pointed out was “We don’t do anything but stand around and then fall over.” Fair point! So I have decided that their actions will be in bandaging the knights as they creep back to court “bloody but unbowed.” All this to the music of The Grand March from ‘Aïda’ – never let it be said that we lack the intellectual courage to go for cheap emotional overkill.

With the crowd waving their sea horse flags!

Don’t ask!

Knit up the ravelled sleeve or something

Some people are good at lie-ins; I am not.

I think it is the combination of a dash of protestant work ethic added to a broth of Welsh non-conformist guilt and old fashioned Valleys determination that makes the ‘wasting’ of a morning lying in the ‘rank sweat of an enseamed bed’ (and that’s probably enough of that particular ‘Hamlet’ quotation, I think!) slightly - if not totally - immoral.

There is always the example of Paul and the summer of ’94 or whenever it was, where in a holiday period which seemed far too short for the incidents which it contained – I had almost 50% more holiday than Paul because I got up in the mornings!

I can remember during that surrealistic combination of life experiences that was that summer trying to fill in a calendar with what we had done and when and then panicking because according to our calculations, with the relationships of one event to another, we thought that we should have been back in work a week previously!

Needless to say, we were wrong in our calculations and there were more precious days of work free enjoyment to be had. As a time of unfeasibly full days of disparate enjoyment that summer will probably be unique in my experience. I was just about to give a ‘from this – to that’ example of the range of things that I did, but realised just in time that neither the alpha nor the omega are entirely decorous for a long standing Primary School Teacher (now almost three weeks!)

I will say that taking part in a street parade wearing a wheel trim around my neck and popping into a wedding after a blind date were two of the more ordinary events in that extraordinary period!

So, this morning was horizontal and we eventually staggered out into a vertical sunny world for lunch.

In an unprecedented piece of culinary magnanimity we decided to give a local restaurant another chance. We originally visited this place in the height of the summer and we less than impressed with the service and the food. This time the service was quick, efficient and grasping and the food more than acceptable.

It was only when we compared the price for what was little more than a series of tapas that we realized that yesterday’s meal of calçots and paella with wine was round about the same price. But, as the sun was shining and the sky was blue (bearing in mind that it is January) who cares?

In another fortnight or so Ceri and Dianne will be arriving for a few days. It will be a different sort of break for them than the last time as Toni and I will be working and only be able to see them in the evenings, but I have had a spare set of keys cut so they will be able to treat the place more like an hotel and take the holiday at their own pace.

I suppose I should be thinking about what they ought to bring with them from Wales that I have been missing, but, apart from their good selves, I am happy as I am here.

But there must be something that I want and which can easily be placed in hand baggage!

Once,yes, once for a laugh

This morning developed my sympathy for Sisyphus and his never ending task.

OK house cleaning is different in many ways from rolling a rock but I don’t find it any more rewarding.

With tile floors it should be easy to hoover up the dust and dirt; but it isn’t. I am beginning (rather late in life it must be admitted) to realize that there are different types of dust. I am sure if I had paid more attention in my physics lessons then I would be able to discourse learnedly on the positive and negative charges of dust particles and their adhesive affinities to places that should be easily cleaned. But I didn’t and I can’t. All I know is as follows:

1 A coloured bathroom never looks really clean no matter how you, what you and when you clean.
2 A wet mop moves dirt around and takes little off the floor.
3 Water needs to be changed every few squeezes (as if!) to prevent the dirt in suspension being transferred to the surface being cleaned.
4 Cleaning windows is impossible.
5 Metal sinks only look clean for a maximum of three or four nano seconds.
6 Putting real polish on nasty plastic pseudo veneered surfaces just smears.
7 Cleaning is largely pointless.

I feel that these Eight Observations could easily be expanded into a philosophy of life. Alternatively the hiring of domestic help could inspire me to compose a new list.

The Family is going to descend upon us today and I am finally going to get me Secret Friend Christmas present and we are also going out to eat calçots. Toni has suggested the beachside restaurant in Gava and I look forward to wearing a bib and being able to indulge in hands on eating.

Calçots are an odd institution. Whichever way you look at it, in spite of the exotic name, calçots are large burnt spring onions. I never really know if I should eat the burnt bits or strip the outer layers away to reveal the slimy inside.

The meal was a delight. The calçots were well cooked and slipped down nicely! The sauce was excellent and we had seconds! The only down side of eating calçots is that your hands get absolutely filthy and, as is usual for me, my area at the table looked as though I had not used my plate at all. I have decided that I eat with more enthusiasm and less reserve than I probably should!

The paella was good but I noticed that this one had more ballerinas (tiny bivalves) and square lumps of processed meat as part of the ingredients. I sure that this was done because it was cheap, but it did add to the taste and texture. Something to remember for my next paella!

The second volume in the Catalan painters series is of Ramon Casas.

He is a considerable painter but I think that he is a much more accomplished artist in charcoal and brush.

His portraits of just about everybody in the artistic world in his time are uniformly accomplished and interesting. I think that to have your sketch by Casas was a sign that you had arrived!

My little library of monographs of Catalan art is growing and Toni has to grin and bear it because it is part of his culture as well. I am now desperately trying to read Catalan to find out more about the artists. God knows how accurate my guesses are. I am likely to end up with the most distorted history of Catalan art ever!

I can always look at the pictures!

Just another day in . . .

I arrived at school this morning (Friday) to find it locked!

It was, to put it mildly, a surprise to find that the institution was not available for instant professional access 45 minutes before it was supposed to open for its clients! And it was cold because we (yes, we soon formed a little group; the dispossessed) were out of the sun. Such hardship!

Once inside (eventually let in by the disturbingly-like-one-of-my-last-sixth-formers 19 year old caretaker) it turned out that not only was the headteacher ill, but the head of primary was also hors de combat. As the head of primary is a full time teacher this meant that there was a class to be covered. How that was achieved, and by whom, I know not; all that I know is that my non contact periods were not touched.

The preparations for Carnival continue with this morning being the time to rehearse the walking downstairs with the chairs to set out the area where we are going to sit. I could now go into a length and expressively witty description of the contained chaos that ensued, but I would merely ask my more erudite and frivolous readers to think of E F Benson’s incomparable novels and you will get the flavour of it all!

We still have the rehearsal of the ‘dramatic interlude’ or more horrifically the ‘dance’ that have yet to be devised. This magnum opus of terpsichorean or dramatic force will be presented before His Majesty, The Carnival King next Friday. His Highness has condescended to grace our humble school with his august presence as the first stop in a crowded day. No doubt he will be suitably stultified by the mind numbing boredom that such infantile displays produce in industrial quantities. Thinking about it he may well be invigorated by the barely suppressed hysteria and air of murderous intent that teachers usually bring to these occasions.

As a lead up to this event, next week will be characterized by such jeux d’esprit as the wearing of funny hats, odd socks, amusing glasses and masks.

I can hardly wait.

As the Powers That Be were all ill today and as the secondary part of the school was going to give an assembly to the primary section on the importance of understanding global warming and how we can prevent it, it was left to me to introduce the guests and thank them for their efforts. It was just like old times with me standing in front of people and speaking.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

The end of times?

Be very scared when a Catalan driver waves to admit a mistake!

My drive to work this morning was almost the last I made. The vacant attitude of the driver who merged with my line of traffic with a complete disregard for the fact that I was travelling in a car on a collision course with his! For the first time for a long time I sounded by horn.

I don’t know if it is European Policy to fit all new cars with horns that emit an entirely inappropriately emasculated noise, but it is certain that stabbing the horn to express exasperation and mortal hatred produces a pathetic mewling sound which undercuts the savagery with which the centre of the wheel has been punched.

The only strategy to restore the blast of withering contempt and macho swagger that horns used to have is to ignore the noise that your car is making and resort to length of press to make up for the emasculated purring that emanates from the sequestered comfort of the engine space!

I braked rather than enter oblivion and indulged in extended horn depression.

To be fair to the murderously inclined driver he immediately waved to accept his total guilt and then waved again to show how heinous his crime was. This is unique in my experience in Catalonia: not only an admission of guilt, but also acceptance of magnitude! Unprecedented!

My OHP now sits in my classroom, still the centre of speculation and amazement from the kids. But this is a school after all so I don’t have either a screen nor do I have transparencies; nor indeed OHP pens. How many times can we remember from the past a new piece of technology arrive in a school only to be consigned to some dusty corner because the day to day necessities needed to make it work were not in evidence. Some things never change.

Carnival looms ever closer and the details of what the hell we are supposed to be doing with our contingent of the youth of Catalonia are something of a pressing problem.

Whatever we do is going to be done to the Grand March from Aida.

Culture in the midst of misrule!

Now might I do it . . .

Appearance and reality was a concept which I found pretentious and sententious when I was doing A Level and studying ‘Hamlet.’ Now I find the concept a way of looking at everyday life!

I am not, of course, suggesting that murderous Uncles snuggling up to their dead brothers’ wives while plotting the bloody destruction of their neurotic nephews are the ordinary stuff of the staff of our school – but I am suggesting that, in our own small way, we are playing out the plot of some creaking old melodrama.

On the surface we are the staff of an ordinary primary school; dig a little deeper and the seething resentments; the quotidian insanity; the raging conflicts; the exponential frustration and hysterical placidity are all components of a set of circumstances which are more redolent of the worst excesses of phagocytes in a self destructive battle against invading bacteria than the academic calm of an institute of learning!

God knows that the day to day life in most schools makes the turbulent life of the Medicis look like one of the more placid adventures of The Wooden Tops (ah! Happy memories!) There are certain aspects of school life carry on in an almost automatic way. Some things are so uncontroversial that even the most litigious minded member of the staff room or the office can find little to engender angst: not so in our school.

No matter how apparently insignificant the idea, action, thought or piece of bureaucracy connected to the life of the school – you can guarantee that a drama will be constructed, the scale of which would seem to threaten the Western Way Of Life As We Know It!

Just take yesterday. Change over time for lunch time duties? Conflict! Preparations for celebrating Carnival? Confusion! Going on a trip? Exasperation! Finding a projector screen? Frustration! Purchasing trivial items? Rejection! Conversation? Conspiracy!

And so it goes on.

My continued tenure of employment becomes more and more problematical: every time that I make a determined approach to the job some piece of bureaucratic nonsense makes me wonder about the whole prospect.

The real problem is the way in which the school is organized and the tortuous process by which a decision is finalized.

Our school reminds me of one of the more grotesque creations of Dickens where a Scrooge-like character doesn’t allow a single detail to escape his arid attention. This nit picking interference ensures that innovation peters out in a black hole of obstruction. Ideas in our school are like so many of the rivers in Spain – they peter out into an insignificant dribble of water which simply soaks away into the earth.

As long as you continue to regard day to day life in the school as a never ending source of anecdote rather than a productive working environment – then you might survive!

Ah well!

Shades of the metaphorical prison house are hastening towards me at a frightening rate!

There seems to be no area for compromise between my determination not to complete lunchtime duties and my employer’s equal determination that I should. The end of the month is the crunch time where the only position for discussion is whether I resign or am sacked! Being sacked seems to be a new feature of my working experience in Spain, or at least in Catalonia.

Meanwhile (as if nothing was looming!) I continue my life in school.

The poem a week has been started and the painting a week will soon commence. The paintings by Sitges’ favourite almost son – Rossignol – have been colour photocopied and laminated. They now bedeck our walls in readiness for the unit on the famous man. And shame on you if the name of Santiago Russignol is not one you know!

But news of the most momentous sort overshadows all I have heretofore mentioned: my OHP has arrived!

The kids were fascinated! They crowded around and expressed the astonishment more usually reserved for the extravagantly metallic and sleek forms of the latest computer! Such retro technology! Such style!

I do not, of course, have transparencies, pens or wipes and it took me a while to work out that the lens and the adjustable bar was actually stored inside the machine – that was a first!

Victoria (bless her!) turned up with a packet of transparencies which she assured me I could use as they had not been purchased with her own money. I have few scruples in education but using other colleagues’ money to finance my own little obsessions is almost one of them! I am sad enough a guy to tell you that using my OHP was a positive pleasure.

I truly cannot understand those colleagues who scorn to use this cutting edge technology of yesteryear. Have they no sense of post modernist irony? Do they really want to be defined by the bland unimaginative expanse of a dingy whiteboard? Why don’t they go all the way and espouse the merits of the unlamented chalk board?

There! I enjoyed that and I managed to push to the back of my mind my impending unemployment!

It doesn’t take much!

A picture is worth . . . ?

In a rented flat the question always facing you is how much damage can you reasonably do.

The problem, of course, is pictures.

We have been given carte blanche to drill into the walls to insert hooks to place paintings in the flat as long as we ‘make good’ (or fill in the holes) before we leave. The walls are painted a particularly virulent pastel yellow (yes, I know that is an oxymoron) rather than the more subtle and insipid British institutional choice of Magnolia. The yellow is also ageing gracefully and therefore will be impossible to match. If we have to rely on my Pollyfiller skills then the filled hole will look more obvious after my DIY skills have been exerted than when it was a gaping void.

So we do nothing; intimidated by the immensity of violating walls which look particularly smooth and virgin. While this Hamlet-like irresolution is limited the growth of our art gallery all our favourite paintings lie mouldering in what are actually clean, secure and dry conditions in my storage area in Bluespace.

It would appear that one real casualty of the move from Cardiff to Castelldefels is the little seascape by Ceri which we both liked very much. I still have faith that it is tucked away behind the wall of boxes which contain the majority of my books.

Another partial casualty was the working charcoal sketch by Ceri, part of which was developed into a rather sinister painting of stark broken tree trunks. It was a partial casualty because, luckily, the only damage to the picture was that the glass in the frame was broken. By great good luck the broken glass did not cut or tear the paper and so yesterday I was able to take it to be reframed. I hope that this framing will be more appropriate than the Habitat purchased slip frame that broke! It’s certainly going to cost more!

Having that charcoal back ready to be displayed makes me think of the large charcoal which used to be at the bottom of the stairs in Kennerleigh Road. In the flat there is not obvious space for this picture and I miss it. The charcoal depicts a gap in some sea rocks and, where it was placed you could almost walk into it: it seemed like a sort of portal to the actual landscape from the house!

Paintings like books are friends and they need to be available. I sometimes envisage having a sort of subterranean hideaway with all my books immaculately ranged on many shelves with the bookcases interspersed with all my paintings.

I also think about that painting by Zoffany showing the Tribuna in the Uffizi with paintings covering the walls making the gallery look like a very expensive jigsaw. Perhaps that is the solution to my paintings problem, though I think the chances of Toni agreeing to the saturating hanging of works of art is roughly on a par with the likelihood of That Woman becoming the Patron of Oxfam; donating her body to science and starting to become a regular on the soup run for London vagrants!

The obvious solution is to knock through to the massive flat next door and create a Long Gallery such as Clarrie had in her Brixton flat!

My dreams continue!

As indeed does the school work: but the things that I plan to do are fun things which involve cutting and pasting. It is sad to relate that some of my happiest times in education where when I was designing a front cover for a booklet or arranging some apposite illustrations to make a page of print look sexier!

Perhaps I’ve been a suppressed Primary School teacher all my life!

All is ashes!

It was good but it didn’t convince me.

I suppose that bel canto opera buffo is a taste which appeals to those dedicated opera enthusiasts who were yelling their appreciation in the performance of La Cenerentola by Rossini in el Gran Teatre del Liceu last night. Not me!

The story of Cinderella as told by the popular fabulists was not the narrative which was chosen by Rossini´s librettist, Jacopo Ferretti, who used a number of sources as well as the Perrault fairy story. The end result gives a story which dispenses with the magical element of the tale and which emphasises the moral aspects with the comforting fallacy that resolute and undervalued virtue will be rewarded.

The aspect which does not fit into the ‘realism’ of the opera in this production was the use of the rats.

Eight dancers in rat costumes with metallic rat faces were present throughout the production from their function as Cinderella’s rodent friends while she was sweeping at the start of the production and they reverted to their original positions at the end of the opera when we were given a rehash of the tired old convention of “it had all been a dream!” Although they were a magical element in the story as they stood on two feet after Alidoro had prophesied that Cinderella’s fortunes would change and often moved scenery and props, they were not as incongruous as you might think and were moving points of interest throughout.

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Although a severely moralistic opera, this is supposed to be a comic opera too and the costumes (Joan Guillén) reflected the humour of the conception. The fairy tale period costumes with flared coats and braiding made the singers look live moving chess pieces while the severe dress of Alidoro of black with silver stars gave him an appearance of a Masonic magician and indeed his manipulative overview of what was happening seemed closer to ‘The Magic Flute’ than Rossini.

The set looked convention enough at the opening of the opera, a large chimney dominated space with a flight of stairs stage right leading to a gallery stretching the width of the stage. This drab (quite fitting for a decaying castle) set developed steadily with the flying of the chimney revealing impossibly tall doors and the transformation for the palace by the sudden illumination of floor and back flats.

The coup de theatre that remains in the memory was the facilitation of the ‘disappearance’ of Cinderella after the ball by her walking through a flown mirrored flat which had a series of pivoted doors. As she pushed her way through the mirror the doors closed leaving Don Ramiro (Juan Diego Flórez) and Dandini (David Menéndez) staring at their own reflections: simple and very effective. When the mirrored doors were fully revolved they formed a giant picture of the prince’s coach with a practical window to show the passenger. This painted image was augmented by a model used by the rats to illustrate the coach’s accident and by shadow images to show the journey.

The direction was competent and effective with a few moments of inspired visual creativity. Act II was more interesting that the (overlong) first half and showed defter touches of confident direction.

But the singing takes pride of place in this sometimes sententious tale and the quality of the sound that we heard last night was impressive. With the exception of Don Magnifico (Alfonso Antoniozzi) who had replaced Bruno de Simone who was indisposed, the whole of the cast and chorus gave a rousing and effective rendition of the piece. Alfonso Antoniozzi was a more than capable comic actor but his voice lacked the power to make his portrayal fully effective.

Alidoro (Simón Orfila) was a commanding presence and his voice was deep and resonant. Dandini (David Menédez) was a competent and effective foil to the prince, in which role Juan Diego Flórez gave a show stopping performance in the second act which had a long and deserved ovation; Chlorinda (Christina Obregón) and Tisbe (Itxaro Mentxaka) were competent in their rather thankless roles, but Angelina (Joyce DiDonato) was the star.

Throughout her performance she had the quiet, but commanding dignity that the role demands and her voice was strong, assured and sweet. She rose, effortlessly, to the demands of the music and stole the show at the end of Act II. She almost made me believe that bel canto was worth listening to!

An enjoyable evening (though too stuffy, why didn’t the Liceu put the air conditioning on?) with an inventive production giving a colourful stage for superlative singing.

Meanwhile back in the so-called real world by recently reinvigorated teaching career seems to be drawing to a close. My attitude towards lunchtime duties (I’m agin’ ‘em!) would appear to put me on a collision course with the owner of the school. At the moment, as a concession, we only do four lunchtime duties a week! As we have to take the pupils down to lunch (after ensuring that they are all wearing their smocks!) and as we have to collect the pupils from the patio (school yard) to bring them up for registration and as a duty is half an hour, it means that teachers usually have less than twenty minutes as their lunch ‘hour.’ I find this unacceptable and I have stated that I will not continue to complete lunchtime duties after the end of this month.

Compromise appears to be difficult so it would appear that my career in the school is going to be limited to the next two weeks, but I intend to enjoy them as much as possible. I still have ideas that I want to implement in my classroom!

Such a professional!