Kulture Kosts

Today is not likely to be marked with a white stone.

It took me one and a half hours to travel the 20 or so kilometres from Castelldefels to Barcelona this evening.

In the normal course of events this would have worked me up into an intolerable fury. This evening I had allowed one and half hours travel time to ensure that I arrived at a reasonable time to take my seat at the opera for the performances of ‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ and ‘The Diary of One Who Disappeared.’

The Liceu has a civilized technique for dealing with those unfortunates who believed that the road system of Barcelona was designed to facilitate the movement of cars. The opera had already started when I arrived and so I was ushered, with another harassed looking individual, into a small viewing theatre where a televised broadcast of the performance was being screened.

After a certain time an usher appeared and drove us all to the lifts where, on our appropriate floors we were met by other uniformed ushers who positioned us by the appropriate doors so that we could access our seats in the short interval of applause before the second opera started.

It was smoothly done, but I still feel that I have been cheated of an opera.

Comments on the Janácek would be based on a limited experience of the production but I have to say that it looked interesting with the soloist stripped to the half in a hole in the stage. At once point he was surrounded by writhing undulating bodies – and this was after his head had been grasped in the naked thighs of the soprano! Ah, the wonders of modern opera production.

‘Bluebeard’s Castle’ was a production with interesting moments but not, for me, satisfying overall.

There was extensive use of gauze screens which allowed a series of projections which facilitated the creation of extraordinary ‘rooms’ and, most effectively a three dimensional line grid to emphasise the nature of the relationship of the two singers.

The Bartók was better sung than the Janácek, but the orchestra was the real star with superlative playing throughout.

The lighting was adventurous and effective but not slick enough to be completely convincing.

The most impressive coups de theatre were in the Bartók when the barrier to the final room was a sheet of water and when uplighting from a stage floor grid provided a short of magic carpet for the singers when there was a projected overlay of a cityscape.

An enjoyable evening: if a shorter one than intended.

And after: the most expensive bocadillos ever.

I am reminded (forcefully) of a traumatic occasion when I had a cup of coffee in the next café down from the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysées. I made the vast mistake of taking my coffee sitting down outside. I had no idea that there was a sliding scale of extortion, but when the bill arrived I went into cardiac arrest! It has remained a symbol of rapacity throughout my life. Its status as the most expensive causal drink in my life (allowing for inflation) was almost supplanted by the extortionate beer in the arcades of Milan.

Now the bocadillo shop on the Ramblas in Barcelona is vying to become the new Café of Shame. Itemising the individual overpriced delicacies is too painful, suffice to say what should have been a snack cost a couple of quid actually cost €27 – given the present dismal rate of exchange that’s about £21! Words fail me! And the parking was £5 too.

God knows I don’t find it at all difficult to get rid of money.

It’s a sort of gift.

The dragons are coming!

Culture Week approaches and I find I now know more about Welsh love spoons than is reasonable and proper.

Those kids don’t know what they are in for next week: dragons, flags The Welsh National anthem, Welsh hats and feathers, clay, paint and sweat!

And no money to make it happen of course. I only hope that Dianne’s largesse arrives in time to add a certain gaiety to the occasion. Then at least there will be music and a real flag to wave!

Still, in terms of our school, next week is whole mad incidents away and not to be thought of as immanent.

My planning for the week after next has to be in tomorrow. The fact that I can type that without dissolving into a quivering mass of neurosis shows how far I have developed or degenerated – depending on your point of view.

I have discovered a hitherto unrealised fascination for the Wirral. That splendid local authority there has devised a whole scheme of mathematics for primary school children. On the web. Available. Downloadable. Understandable. Wonderful!

Without the internet our school would grind to a halt. Well, I certainly would!

Of course, the really important element in planning is akin to the truism that voting is unimportant, it is who counts the votes that is the crucial question. Planning is all very well, especially when it is printed out in a detailed format – but who is teaching it?

Since I have been in the school no one has looked at a single lesson that I have taught. It follows, therefore, that I could have been teaching anything. I might even have been following the planning that I submitted. Who knows?

Who cares?

We are getting nearer to the date when I will know if I am to be teaching in the school next year. You might well ask, why, if all that I have written is even remotely correct, could I even consider continuing in the place. A fair question.

It is sometimes said that a teacher’s class is his or her own kingdom. If I can make that a reality for next year then continuing is a possibility. Assuming that I am allowed to continue. All is up in the air.

Each day the kids in front of me urge reality while the ‘going ons’ around me in the larger academic context suggest that a Surrealistic approach would be the best attitude to adopt for survival.

I think that my present responses are more a function of the rather unsettled weather that we are having (and are due to have) than a placid philosophical stance.

Perhaps I will be more reasonable after the visit to the opera tomorrow evening: a double bill of ‘Bluebeard’ and ‘Diary of one who disappeared’. Leoš Janáček and Béla Bartók. You have to be impressed with a programme which includes composers with so many accents. Such sophistication!

Culture indeed.

An easy life

The plot thickens.

My future in primary education in my present school seems, how shall I put it: not necessarily long term.

My worst fears were that, with my present illegal contract, I would be farewelled with no more than a wistful sigh and certainly with no ‘holiday’ money to make the cruel summer months more bearable. A tentative enquiry elicited the delightful fact that I would be getting a whole month for my vacation entitlement. Not as much as my present colleagues, but I begrudge them nothing as they were present in the school during the truly unbelievably horrific days (now the stuff of legends to frighten student teachers) of the beginning of the year in September.

As far as I can gather they were virtually reinventing education in a school that they could hardly believe had been open for some 13 years! As far as they were concerned the school was a clear slate. They had no data on any of the students and no syllabus or curriculum to follow. They had no idea what the previous years of students has been studying or what stage any of them had reached.

And they hadn’t been told the date of the end of the school year! They were actually asked to sign a contact without knowing this passingly important date!

So things got steadily worse except for those times when they were getting rapidly worse!

One breathless colleague (always with an eye on the corridor in case she was overheard) told me with a wry smile that this year was much (much!) better than last year!

The days ahead to en end of June seem long indeed. We have a day’s holiday during ‘Culture Week’ and then a long weekend some time or other and then long full weeks to the end!

I am sure that my institution will find something exciting and illogical and illegal to fill my remaining time before the end of term.

One waits with interest.

At this point I should be turning to something light and positive: well, Toni is feeling better after a touch of gastro enteritis.

Hooray!

Oh, and another thing . . .

As is usual in our school, every meeting has the quality of a scorpion: there is always a sting in the tail.

This time the sting concerned the fate of those children whose parents were tardy in picking them up. The previous solution to these extraneous kids was to place them in the library after the school gate was closed fifteen minutes after the stated exit time of the children. The parents are charged an extra amount for this facility.

This was the practice time out of mind, and certainly since September of last year. Suddenly in April it turns out that this is not, was not and never has been the traditional way in our school. The new solution is for class teachers to stay with their charges. As some of our parents obviously regard the school as a child minding service with attitude this will mean some of us staying way past our official end time.

Although this sudden change in accepted behaviour is something which is second nature to the administration of the school, this particular innovation is absurd even for them.

I have used up all my exasperation and disbelief in trying to come to terms with the way that we are treated I felt that before we wasted too much time in futile anger we should “ask for clarification” to give the non teachers a little more time to consider the implications of their new ‘ideas.’ As usual I await developments with weary interest.

I have just finished reading ‘Vernon God Little’ by DBC Pierre. Like ‘44 Scotland Street’ it is supposed to be a funny novel. There are a few laugh-out-loud moments but the essential force of this work is comic and not really funny.

To call the ‘hero’ of this novel a modern Holden Caulfield is to link it with a challenging coming of age novel, but it can well sustain the comparison and shrug off the implied derivative nature of Pierre’s prose.

Like ‘Catcher in the rye’ ‘Vernon God Little’ manages to find a convincingly authentic ‘voice’ for a dispossessed generation. What I find interesting in this novel is the extent to which the plot takes a central position in the narrative.

The story is one which engages the reader and then when fully hooked by the narrative development the author overlays an ironically fantastic reading of society which forces the reader to adjust his perception of the action.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and would recommend it without hesitation. Any novel which includes the phrase that “normal times went howling from town” in the first paragraph has got my vote. And I do assure you that the succeeding pages will more than justify the ‘howling’!

Meanwhile Culture Week approaches.

This unfunded extra in the curriculum now occupies an ambiguous place in the course of the school year. Today we had what purported to be a timetable for this event. Needless to say it was nothing of the sort and merely emphasises to us the fact that, yet again, the hapless teachers are left to make the whole bloody thing a success.

Par for the course.

And the weather was less than good today.

And I came home to find Toni ill in bed.

It just goes on getting better.

And, relax!

What a fine city Barcelona is!

A walk along the sea front from Barcelonetta to Plaça de Catalunya shows the city at its best. From the intelligent modern development of the seaside Paseo to the centre of a confident city you can feel a vibrancy and intensity which is city living at its best.

Our lunch in Port Olympico was supposed to be paella but a casual glance at the menu and that was transformed into mixed tapas (mediocre) and a mixed sea food (exceptional) and for less than we could get it here in Castelldefels!

The only thing that kept me going in our extended promenade was the knowledge that, at journey’s end we would be visiting Habitat (old habits die hard!) to purchase sun loungers and a little folding chair which I could use as a small table on the balcony. As Toni’s mother pointed out (we met Toni’s sister and her in fnac) we are truly prepared for the summer.

On our return home I once again returned to my latest book taken from the select library in the staff room of my school. This book is ’42 Scotland Street’ by Alexander McCall Smith,

a new novel from the bestselling author of ‘The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’. That’s what it says on the cover.

I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ and I had great hopes from this novel.

The genesis of this piece of work is outlined in the entertaining Preface to the novel. A chance meeting with Armistead Maupin and a sympathetic editorial staff on The Scotsman and a new serialised novel was born.

The book shows its origins. I found it strangely unsettling until I got used to the episodic conventions that are necessary to sustain this type of writing in a modern newspaper.

When Dickens was writing his episodic novels he was granted much more space than Maupin and Smith can use. This means that the ‘placing’ of information for later development has to be much more obvious and rapid than can be allowed in a full length novel with the usual character development spread over a number of pages.

The situations and characters are much more obvious that one would tolerate in a normal novel and there is the expectation that any scrap of information given to the reader is going to be utilized at a later date.


There was also a sense that the characters had sprung ready formed onto the page and the suggested lacuna was fairly obviously going to be utilized in a later episode.

There were minor infelicities in character description: would the narcissist Bruce, really have referred to his hair as en brose rather than spiky? And all the other characters seem to like the phrase too as it applied to him with monotonous regularity. Pat is a jigsaw of a character with no real sense of an overall conception to unite all the disparate elements in her portrayal.

I suppose that I should remind myself that this is a self proclaimed comic novel and so there must be a certain latitude allowed in the way that characters are introduced and developed, though I still feel that many comic opportunities are lost.

Bruce’s stealing of Todd’s underpants and stuffing them in his sporran is a situation worthy of Tom Sharpe, but the end result is mildly amusing rather than hysterical.

There are loose ends: who is the recluse on the ground floor? Where is the car? What is going to happen to Bertie? Will Pat find true happiness? Is Matthew a real character at all? And so on.

My qualifications, however, should be viewed in the light of my wanting to find the sequel to this volume!

I have been frustrated in my desire for paella for the second day running. ‘We’ eventually decided to have chicken with the sort of trimmings that you can get from our local spit roast chicken place and ate on the balcony.

The sun had not reached us so the meal was eaten by three gently shuddering Catalans and me. I am now sitting (in the new comfortable chair) on the extreme edge of the balcony and having my right arms heated by the strip of sun that is slowly advancing across the surface if the tiles.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Do what you have to

Why are there so many times when saying what you think is right is impossible, or at least difficult and inappropriate?

A few little words can change so many things in ways which are difficult to predict.

I was delighted to hear that the craven submission of HM Government to the dictatorial demands of the illegal regime in Saudi Arabia has been highlighted by the courts. The investigation should be reopened and the truth (whatever that is) should be revealed. There might be ‘costs’ exacted by the Saudis, but perhaps they might be worth paying to gain some sort of self respect in the murky waters of International Relations.

Jesting Pilate’s question of ‘What is truth’ seems to be one which is a perennial accusation to anyone who thinks about their actions. What is ‘true’ in international relations on a supra national level it also true on a much more domestic level.

At the end of Asimov’s vastly entertaining ‘Foundation Trilogy’ there are a series of ‘endings’ until the final truth is revealed. As I remember one of the short chapters was entitled, ‘The truth that satisfied’ and I suppose that is the level at which most of us live.

Sometimes we are able, if we care to, to make a difference and force the ‘truth’ to a more ‘real’ level.

What I am saying in my usual roundabout way is that I had an opportunity which I did not take. I participated in a communal lie of omission which allowed the superficial to become the commonly held perception.

I did it for the best of reasons, of course; of course, naturally. As we all did. But I can’t help feeling that we have all participated in a vast deception which does us all no real credit.

And life goes on.

Day by day we get nearer to the summer holidays and release.

Today Toni took an occasional day to wait for the repair of the dishwasher. Let me first encourage everyone to avoid the brand Taurus as neither the machines they make nor the service they offer after sale is or any real quality.

Life without a dishwasher has been hard. Even using a crap machine like a Taurus has been better than actually washing dishes in a sink.

I must admit that I had forgotten the various grubby techniques necessary to wash dishes by hand. Given my complete lack of faith in the efficiency of Taurus (more than well justified) I actually bought a white plastic dish drainer! Such a retrogressive purchase but one which has been essential in the relearning of the manual techniques of crockery cleaning.

It is not one in which I want to become too expert.

We're watching!

Today the intermittently cloudy sky allowed enough bright sunlight to illuminate the brittle smiles of The Chosen Ones.

We have among us, stalking the glass sided corridors of our fragile institution, An August Personage. He is conducting the first of our two inspections.

In the discussion prior to his arrival I willing volunteered to be observed and to take part in an Informal Discussion with the Personage. I have to say that my well intentioned offer was met with incredulous laughter. I find it rather an encouraging thing to be considered not the most secured armament on the planking!

As today is one of my lunch duty free days I take the opportunity to leave the school entirely and go to the adjoining sports centre and have a menu del dia. When I entered I found a group of our teachers being regaled with a story by the Personage. Was it my imagination or did I detect a tremor of disquiet ruffle the easy equanimity of that comfortable group?

I like to consider myself more of a Mrs Danvers person than Mrs DeWinter, or perhaps a more rational version of Mrs Rochester. Interesting that fire is a connecting feature; but that needs to be considered at a later date when my brain can get back into some form of literary criticism which is working on something more substantial than ‘The Ice Giants’ or ‘The Masked Cleaning Ladies’ courtesy of Treetops Guided Reading Scheme!

Tomorrow is the last day of the inspection and we will be free of August Personages until October of next year.

By that time who knows what will have happened with us.

Today a computer appeared in my classroom. This is positive. It does not work and is not yet connected to a network. This is negative. It does not have a printer. This is also negative. Two negatives with every positive.

That’s about par for the course!

Patmos revisted!

Wheels within wheels: the surface tells you nothing!

I have ever been fascinated by the relationship of the ostensible with the real. I have not always been able to recognise the difference and have sometimes mistaken the one for the other. But even my mistakes have been, um, instructive.

Today was the day when the first inspector arrived in school and began the process which is leading towards the actual practical inspection. Life continued much as usual with a certain heightened tension notable in the senior staff.

The atmosphere in school is negative with an advanced sense of unease permeating all the teaching areas. Perhaps the most dispiriting element in the equation is the general air of weary resignation. This is not the most productive atmosphere in which to work.

My aim is to set up my own ‘teaching republic’ within the school so that I will have a base from which I can venture forth into the lunacy of the institution secure in the idea of a refuge of semi sanity to which I can return.

This is not the ideal way to organise a teaching regimen but needs must when the devil drives!

So, what have we got to look forward to? Our school being our school, we do SATs. Of course we do. We have two inspections looming. Culture Week is an ominous cloud on the near horizon. Contracts for next year are non-appearing, but you never know. Who is leaving must be decided soon so that next year’s class allocation can begin. Reports will have to be written. Parental interviews have to happen at some time or other. Wish lists (sic) have to be written for next year. The list goes on. And every item I have presented is replete with the possibility of endless complication.

I need to sit down with a good drink and an empty mind and drift away for a little.

That last paragraph sounds quite unnecessarily depressing and disturbing, whereas I am really quite excited by the future.

I am in a situation where anything is possible. Nothing is static. Major decisions can be made with a casual disregard for the consequences which is astonishing.

The Old Chinese Curse of ‘May you live in interesting times’ has come to be my daily watchword.

Who can fail to be unmoved when each day in work could easily be your last; when everything can change in the twinkling of an eye; when change is the only absolute on which you can rely?

I feel drawn to paraphrase (with affection and respect) one of the greatest ‘last words’ from a very gallant lady, “I realise now that a blog is not enough: one must have a private diary too.”

Roll on revelation!

Recompense

Lying in the sun on my new padded lounger, sipping Rioja while listening to ‘Satyagraha’ on my ipod. A picture of self indulgent happiness. Well, for me anyway.

This indolent wallowing in sensory excess was a just reward for the horror of the morning.

The flat has reached that level of scruffy unkemptness which activated all of Toni’s tidying impulses – which I ignore at my peril.

Toni wealds a mop like an ancient weapon of war. Like a knight of old going to battle with his trusty lance, he harries the dirt from the floor with an expression of personal vindictiveness illuminating his face as his sacred Crusade continues.

I usually banish myself to the kitchen and make desultory cleaning gestures of varying levels of ineffectuality because I know that I will meet my Waterloo in one particular area of kitchen cleansing.

I let few things annoy me. Apart, that is, from people with tiny dogs; boys who wear baseball caps backwards; sunglasses frames on ordinary glasses; motorists who don’t indicate; people who eat crisps in public; rap music; the ‘royal’ family; stupid beards; Spanish television; The Bishop of Rome; clouds; Andy Warhol; drizzle; the novels of William Faulkner, and things like that.

But some things do annoy me. Computer programs that always let you down. Always. And the one thing in the kitchen which is impossible to clean.

I fail to understand why the Advertising Standards Agency or something allows the manufactures of electric hobs to claim that they are easy to clean.

Ever since I was hoodwinked years ago into buying a sleek looking electric hob I have been virulently against them. I eventually replaced the electronic disaster with gas. I have yet to find anyone who actually, seriously, prefers electricity to gas with which to cook.

The radiant rings look nice the first time you use them and then the failing battle to keep them pristine. Almost immediately they look shabby soon developing a misty ring of grubbiness which remains, spoiling the reflective gleam that sold the bloody thing to you in the first place.

I used every single proprietary liquid, foam, cream and spray on the market and nothing worked.

It was, therefore, with something approaching despair that I realized that the flat had a shining, new electric hob.

The cleaning equivalent of the Via Dolorosa started almost at once. Pristine to pissed off in one simple cooking experience.

Today was the day that, to match the manic cleansing of Toni, I decided to clean the hob.

I used a foam which advised leaving the activated liquid on the surface for ‘some seconds’, which I did and then used a scourer to make an impression on the cloudy accretions. It is a cruel fact that, when wet, the surface gives the impression of being clean. It is only when you wipe off the detergent and dry the hob that all your old filthy friends show themselves to be far more resilient to the cleansing liquid than your decomposing flesh!

Three bloody times I treated the surface, with increasing ferocity. An exploratory scratch with a nail resulted in the destruction of the nail and the triumphant success of the resilient residue.

I am ashamed to admit that I rather lost it after that and decided to chisel the rest off. Luckily I restrained myself in my fury and the only steel that was used to attack the hob was a small paring knife. After the grisly work of the knife, another application of the corrosive liquid.

And it’s as clean as it is ever going to get.

God rot electric hobs to a hotter hell than any that they have visited upon hapless users on earth.

What tape?

Although it is only April, there is a definite ‘end of term’ and ‘end of year’ feeling in school. For the veterans who have been in the school since September and survived the total chaos of the first few months, there is a sense of ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ and simple ‘escape!’ And I think that I have used enough quotation marks for one simple paragraph!

I have been trying to assess how many of the present staff will be staying in the primary sector of the school to be in place for the next academic year. As far as I can tell, out of a staff of eleven, at least six will go with another two likely to leave as well. Of the remaining three, one would prefer to teach PE rather than be a classroom teacher, the next is an NQT and the last is me. I will have had precisely two terms experience of primary teaching.

Gives you confidence for the next term!

One of the main reasons that this school has been able to survive (in spite of the mass exodus of staff at the end of each year) is its location. Sitges has an immediate appeal. Not only is it an internationally famous resort, but also it is within easy reach of one of the most high profile cities in Europe – Barcelona. The chance to teach in such a desirable place is very tempting. A decent salary from teaching and the facilities to enjoy extensive beaches and a lively night life must be very tempting to a young teacher looking out at the grey skies in Britain.

It’s a pity the imagined blandishments of teaching in Sitges are, indeed, imaginary!

I have been told that all (ALL) of our jobs have been advertised in the TES and that the applications are pouring in! Not only does this give me no confidence about my continued career in the school, but it also suggests that the cynical view of there always being someone to take the place of any recalcitrant teacher in post is true.

As people appear and are interviewed what do we, the battle scarred survivors, say to the fresh faced innocence that will only see the sun and the sand and not the reality of teaching in a private school?

We have interesting times ahead of us.

Toni’s nephew having destroyed the pair of binoculars which live on the balcony – there are only so many times you can drop an optical instrument on tiles and expect it to survive! This wanton destruction did at least afford me the opportunity to purchase a new pair.

MediaMarkt is a beguiling electronics store in many locations in Catalonia. Unfortunately there is a branch in Gavá, which is only a short car ride from the flat. I remember once having to go to PC World to return a faulty gadget and was horrified to discover that the computers in PC World had a complete list of everything that I had purchased. Not only there, but also in Curry’s. The inventory was extensive and as I gazed in increasing disbelief at the unending catalogue of ‘essential’ spending on things that I had bought in the stores I began to wonder why I didn’t simply redirect my salary directly into their coffers rather than continue the pointless irritating glitch of having the money alight fleetingly in my bank account before it went to its rightful home!

Well, PC World does not exist in Catalonia (its close cousin PC City does however) but MediaMarkt is rapidly talking over the grasping role of the British store and taking the pittance which is left after the payment of the rent from my salary!

Still my gadget ration keeps improving.

Some time back I had a solar powered gadget charger. It was elegant and reasonably priced and it worked. For a couple of short weeks. Then died.

Never one to deny a worthwhile gadget idea a second chance I have now had a chance to evaluate my ‘power monkey’ (the new 'funkily' named replacement) and solar charger. This was much more expensive than the one I had previously, but the ‘power monkey’ seems to be much better made and tells you via a little screen whether the item is charging. This is more encouraging than just hoping for the best as was my first experience with these things!

So far so good, and I am busily seeing how many of the multitude of chargers I can pack away if I rely on this odd little larvae like power unit with its interchangeable end bits.

Time will tell, but I always live in hope!

What a way to end.

Before children are released back into the community from our tender care at the end of the day, they are not allowed to pass through the gate and out into the real world until they can point to a parent waiting for them.

One girl in my class excitedly pointed through the fence at a shadowy figure and gibbered out that it was her mother. I asked her how she was so sure, “Ask you mother a question to prove that she is your mum!” I said.

The girl thought for a moment and then innocently asked, “Is it true that you have 42 years?” Collapse of all concerned to the bemusement of the girl herself!

It is not often that you get a smile at the end of a hard week. I took it as a good sign for the rest of the weekend.

I have borrowed another book from the shelf of books in English in school: ‘Vittorio the Vampire’ by Anne Rice.

It is truly awful little potboiler. Within the first few pages her central character writes, “I have been in bed with the dead since 1450’ – well, he is a vampire after all! But, lest we should think that we are going to be treated with a faux piece of historical writing we are assured that we should not “look here, please, for antique language. You will not find a rigid fabricated English meant to conjure castle walls by stilted diction and constricted vocabulary.”

And she’s right.

What you find instead is sloppy language which uses lazy anachronisms in expression as a short hand way to vague period authenticity.

Considering our central character has “devoured over four centuries of English, from the plays of Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson to the abrupt and harshly evocative words of a Sylvester Stallone movie,” his language is signally lacking in verve and interest.

I suppose it is disingenuous to feel that my choice of a novel with a title like ‘Vittorio the Vampire’ lacks profundity, but it does. I suppose that the story of how a privileged noble Renaissance Italian boy becomes seduced into becoming a vampire after his heroic vendetta against the un-dead who slaughtered his family is something more for the beach than the study!

I should have waited for more sun and sand!

The hardy first!

This afternoon was notable for the first sighting of a man in the sea.

There have been the usual loonies cavorting in the water who find fulfilment in wearing tightly fitting rubber and balancing precariously on thin pieces of expensive fibreglass while travelling at unfeasibly high speeds on choppy water. Not forgetting, of course, their even loonier associates who, not content at zipping across the waves add a further dimension of horror by wilfully adding a jerking height to their progress by attaching themselves to kites.

But bone fide swimmers have not been in evidence until today. The fact that the hardy swimmer was a gentleman advanced in age adds a dimension of guilt to those of us who live by the sea and have the waves tantalizingly close at hand, yet scorn to experience the heart stopping shock of the icy waters of early April.

Perhaps a weekend of fine weather can tempt the less hardy.

Or not.

Anomaly

Today has simply not been right.

A day when everything has been vaguely unsatisfactory, or at least seemed so.

There hasn’t been quite enough time to get things done; there weren’t quite enough photocopies to do round; the A4 plain paper ran out

Those were the meandering maundering thoughts of your hard pressed writer yesterday; and indeed as far as he got in writing something. He arrived home and, after an ineffectual attempt at intellectual conversation welcomed semi consciousness and retired to his bed.

Today comma however comma he is revivified and able to let his fingers stutter their way across his invitingly plastic keys to gibber out his message of the day.

Today has been no better. There is a definite negative atmosphere in the school. I have not yet been able to define this negativity with any degree of precision, but it is there!

I tried today to pin down my dissatisfaction. One of my colleagues suggested it was the difference between my approach to the school and the attitude of those who were looking at this term as the last that they were spending in the institution. Might be true! Shocking as it may seem, I am looking to continue my Primary experience into a further term. I have convinced myself that there are intellectual, professional and financial reasons to do this.

I may, of course, be deluding myself!

Meanwhile I have been trying to protect myself in my putative future employment, but I shall say no more than I have to at the present moment.

Today was brightened by the fact that I have a free lunchtime. This, of course, in my present employment is a luxury of which I take full advantage by leaving the school at the start of the lunchtime and eating in the sports centre next to the school. A rather decent menu del dia. Thank god.

This is a fragmented entry. I really don’t feel inclined to make it more fluent.

Something is wrong!

What do you fear most?

Terminal 5 has touched a deep fear in all true Brits.

We fear that Terminal 5 is an accurate symbol of everything that we have become. Grand Projects in our etiolated hands end in chaos: Wembley Stadium, The Millennium Dome, The Millennium Bridge, The Millennium Stadium, and The Scottish Parliament Building. Over budget, over time, not fit for purpose – you name it and we muck it up.

My first reaction (no, that’s wrong, my second reaction) after the Olympic Games were ‘awarded’ to London was, “Oh God what an embarrassment the opening ceremony is going to be in the unfinished stadium!” My first reaction was of course, “Ha, that’s one in the eye for the French!” Though not necessarily in those exact words.

But we do seem incapable of staging a big event without disaster running in parallel. In Terminal (how appropriate is that word!) 5 the chaos has been extended over days and now I understand that there are 25,000 cases lurking in the bright new corners of this immense warehouse of a building.

I was talking with a senior colleague in the school playground this morning (in short sleeved shirt and bright sunshine, I might add for my British readers!) and she was bewailing the degenerated state of British society. A British society which she has left. A British society of which she is no longer an integral part.

I am sure that British people living abroad have a complex relationship with their home country: part sentimental; part dismissive; part nostalgic, part resentful; part condescending; part rueful. I should stop there, I am aware that I am generalising from a very small example base.

When Toni wants to irritate me, he calls me an ex-pat. When I want to irritate him I explain, patiently, that I can never be an ex-pat or foreigner because, where ever I am I am British and therefore everyone who is not British is, ipso facto foreign, not I!

While I do not miss being in Britain every time the sun comes out in Catalonia and warms my bones, I do care passionately about what happens there in my absence. I also need to hear English spoken and life without Radio 4 would be immeasurably poorer for me. I realise that this sounds contradictory, but it is a simple fact that you cannot live for half a century in a country without it imprinting itself on you deepest consciousness. I can be, I am, happy in Catalonia but Britain will never, can never, leave me.

This is my usual long winded way of saying that I am always conscious about and very sensitive about criticism of my country from people who have left it.

I use the example of a school.

You can work in a school for years and within a term of your leaving the personalities working there will have changed. Within a year the normal turnover of staff will mean that, should you return the number of strange faces will be bewildering? In any case, given the size of the school I left, hundreds of pupils enter and leave each year. In the school that I am in at the moment years 3, 4, 5, and 6 comprise about 100 pupils! The Primary School staff comprises 9 souls with some ancillary help. A single member of staff leaving therefore means more than 10% change. A few months can change an institution like a school out of all recognition.

As with a school so with a country. One can listen to Radio 4 all through the day but that only gives you a highly selective view of the concerns of ABC 1s in their fifties (I understand that is the demographic of the Radio 4 audience!) it is not the same as living there. All the seemingly insignificant trivia of actually living in the country is passing me by: I have only the big picture rather than the actuality of life there now.

Meanwhile the weather forecast is for sunshine for the next four days.

How shallow I can be!

I love it!

Tme for change?

Tomorrow we look at another flat.

We are fed up with the attitude of The Owner Squared. The Prime Owner is the Dominatrix of our school, but the owner of our flat runs her a close second in the dislikability stakes.

We miss a garden and our own parking space - one which does not require a practical knowledge of n-dimensional Boolean algebra to negotiate. I also want space for the rest of my books.

The places that we can afford which we are likely to get offered with extra space are back from the beach. This is a real dilemma. We enjoy looking at the sea and being so close to the beach, we also have a 20 m swimming pool. It’s unheated, but it’s there! We may find it difficult to give up some of the facilities we have with the flat in exchange for a house with a garden.

Everything will be further away and the beach will be a car ride away, rather than a short stroll.

It may well end up with our seeing how well off we are where we are and remaining put.

It will at least be interesting to see what else is on offer and it may stimulate us to look further a-field for something different.

I have now finished re-reading ‘Against Nature’ by Huysmans. I certainly did not enjoy it as much as I remember the first time. Yes, there are descriptions which are just as astonishing now as they were the first time that I read them: drink and perfume – what wonderful conceptions Des Esseintes had to enjoy them. They still read well. As a picture of self indulgence it is surely unsurpassed. Except of course that is not the right word for him.

It is emphasised in the Prologue that Des Esseintes comes of ‘an impoverished stock’ and his almost inevitable decline into exclusive personal sensuality is a function of his family and his families’ money.

It is not just the concepts that he is able to make reality for himself that fascinate the reader; it is also the detail in which Huysmans is able to imagine them for his reader. As with some of the work of Borges, I don’t question the reality of the more obscure authors that Des Esseintes dismisses: his reality becomes my reality and I accept a sort of truth which informs the whole of this extraordinary work.

To call it a novel seems to be out of place, yet it is surely a work of fiction created by Huysmans the junior clerk in the Ministry of the Interior, not an autobiography of Huysmans the moneyed aesthete.

Perhaps the work is now of interest chiefly for its seminal portrayal of man alone against the universe and for the occasional bon mot. Take, for example a passage which describes his reaction to reading Sidonius Apollinaris (who?) “ . . . he had to admit a weakness for the conceits and innuendoes in these poem, turned out by an ingenious mechanic who takes good care of his machine, keeps its component parts well oiled, and if need be can invent new parts which are both intricate and useless.”

“Intricate and useless” would seem to describe the life that Des Esseintes had and is living. But such a phrase also gives a clue to the reason that ‘Against Nature’ also has a commendation by Lord HenryWotton in

'The Portrait of Dorian Gray’!

However repulsive Des Esseintes appears in the work, it would be hard not to sympathise with his howl of anguish at the end of ‘Against Nature’ when he cries, “Like a tide-race, the waves of human mediocrity are rising to the heavens and will engulf this refugee, for I am opening the flood-gates myself, against my will.” Any casual reading of any edition of ¡Hola! magazine might encourage one to subscribe fully to Des Esseintes depression!

But this is Sunday. Holiday under the meaning of the act.

Loosen up!

In the name of Science!

The horror! The horror!

I slept in till after twelve in the afternoon.

I put this down to the stress of the four days of this first week (Dear God! we have the whole of the uninterrupted summer term ahead of us!) and, in some sort of way that I haven’t fully worked out, to Toni’s fault as well!

Having got that accusation off my chest and thereby proved that the extended slumber was not my own indolent fault we may proceed.

A watery sun barely warming the bricks of the balcony is not inviting. The desultory flapping of the awning in an irritating breeze and the pile of ironing waiting to be completed combine to make this more of a Sunday of Resentment rather than a Saturday of contentment.

What we need is Toni’s family to threaten to turn up: we are then galvanized with a manic energy and all the chores that should have been done during the week are completed in a frenzy of domestic cleanliness!

Today will mark our first visit to a Garden Centre. The visit is provoked, not by a lust to recreate the little piece of camp Paradise that was the garden in Wales, but rather to purchase a few green plants for the science lessons next week.

Buying something for school without the requisite correctly coloured and filled in order form is on the same level of difficulty as charming quarks or whatever it is atomic physicists do for kicks, but I seem to have short circuited the system and been given permission to ‘go and buy.’

I am not so naïve that I haven’t worked out that being told that I can buy and being pay for what I have bought are two different things. It is almost worth the cost of three or four cheap green plants to observe the convolutions that the school system will have to go through to refund my money.

There are so many possible ways for them to say no:
Not from one of our approved suppliers
Things should not be bought on a Saturday
The receipt is not correctly set out
Approval was not asked for in the right tone of voice
The receipt is not detailed enough
The receipt is on the wrong coloured paper
The receipt was given to the cashier on the wrong day
Only plants of a certain sort can be bought
The plants did not have a certificate from the Spanish Horticultural Society
Do the plants have a safety clearance for schools?

Perhaps I should work in the finance department in the school I obviously have a flair for the production of reasons for refusal. I would be perfect!

The plants have now been bought. A rather startled looking assistant in the Garden Centre listened with the rather pained expression that I have come to expect when I speak extended Spanish. I must admit that I was quite impressed that, with my limited vocabulary, I was able to explain that I needed six cheap leafy plants for a science experiment in my school to show the effect of sun and water on one plant as normal and the other with leaves cut off!

After one of my extended Spanish monologues I reach a point of intellectual exhaustion that Shakespeare himself could start reciting the Sonnets and I would barely look up!

I have now bought a web cam. I am not entirely sure why, but Toni bought one and it is a gadget so I went with the flow.

Needless to say, Toni’s purchase worked like a charm while mine took ages to load various drivers and other bits and pieces and then sulkily informed me that it would not work.

So I took it back.

Instead of immediately giving me my money back a little man appeared and proceeded to set up the camera with an in store computer. This took some time before he too reached the point at which the computer started to sulk. Instead of immediately giving up he started clicking with a vengeance.

Now, to be fair I had used the full repertoire of my computer knowledge to facilitate the installation of the web cam. I had sworn at the machine, roundly insulted the camera and eventually restarted the computer. I do not see what, in reason, I could have done more.

The assistant’s frantic clicking did, however, produce a picture from the camera. To my horrified disbelief, I could see that he was expecting me to go home and do the same with my computer. In fluent adrenaline stimulated Spanish I whimpered that I had no idea what he had done and therefore would not be expected to emulate his magical fingers on the keys.

His response came in machine gun Spanish and I had to hold up a hand to stem the flow. Admitting that I had not followed what he said, he asked, “English?” And I relaxed and prepared to be enlightened. In a response that would have done credit to the most obtuse Englishman abroad, he then repeated what he had said, in Spanish! Bless!

It took a little time for this new ‘language’ to register but, amazingly, we did eventually understand one another. And I returned with the camera and duly installed it.

Quite enough linguistic and electronic excitement for one day, I think!

Moderation? Never!

However much I despise Spanish television. And I despise it a lot. The interminable advertising breaks: truly a misnomer. Advertising is the main business of Spanish television – the programmes are the ‘breaks’. If you don’t believe me, try watching a film on Spanish television! At 1.00 am during yet another advert marathon, you loose all interest in the film and decide that bed is the more interesting alternative!

Although Spanish television clearly indicates the worth of the British television licence fee, it does have a few redeeming graces. Spanish television takes delight in employing lip reading experts to decipher the sotto voce exchanges between the good and the great so that they can be broadcast to the nation. Barça players often are to be seen putting their hands in front of their mouths when speaking to their fellow players during a televised game. They know that a juicy aside to a team mate could make the national news. They have become a little more circumspect, though their political leaders seem to forget very easily that they are constantly being watched.

Months ago the exchanges between Sr Juan Bourbon of Spain and the President of Venezuela not only made national news but became the lyrics of various pop songs.

It was therefore with something approaching fury that I came home from a rather good evening meal in a new restaurant, to find the television playing an extract which had the octogenarian parasitic German dwarf having scoffed yet another meal at the British taxpayers expense having the temerity to criticize the British Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister, a man elected by a democratic vote; a man who got into the position to be elected to high office by virtue of his ability, unlike the stunted head of a dysfunctional family noted for its grasping insensitivity who attained her position by being born in the right bed and having an irresponsibly selfish uncle too stupid to realise that his only hope to be anything other than the fully justified high profile vacuum that he eventually inhabited was to accept his destiny and grab hold of the money tree that was the British throne with both hands.

His niece has never underestimated the gullibility of the British public in actively supporting an outmoded, anti democratic, totally indefensible institution like the monarchy. She has been surrounded by sycophantic adulation for most of her life and she has now actually come to believe that she deserves it.

Her longevity in post has given her the illusion that she is some sort of Elder Statesman, wise in the ways of the world. I truly think that she actually lives her delusion that she has been governing the UK for the last umpteen years. She hasn’t governed for a single solitary moment. She has no remit from the British people to do anything other than look ornamental, read the speeches that she is told to read and occasionally snip ribbons and look interested when local politicians on the make engage her in small talk.

Ah, that’s better!

There is nothing like venting spleen on our so-called ‘royal family’ to clear one’s air waves.

I finally did some ‘lesson planning’ in accordance with the definition of the school under the amused supervision of a senior colleague. Something was sent to senior colleagues and they said thank you. That apparently means something; enough anyway to keep everyone quiet and reasonably happy!

So it goes!

Normality?

Not a single cough last night!

I feel as though someone has run over me with a steamroller and squeezed out every last ounce of vitality but at least I didn’t cough – can something approaching reasonable health be far behind? [Rhetorical.]

Our absent colleague surfaced yesterday at 4.30 pm after a day in bed; she would be well advised to stay off until Monday, by which time (please God!) she will be well enough to resume her duties! A class and a half of small demanding monsters is more than any sinful mortal should have to have to endure. I know not what sins I am atoning for but they must be heinous ones. (And just a little foot note to any readers, no, I do not want you to suggest any sins that might come to mind!)

The one bright gleam on the murky horizon is that tomorrow is Friday and that means a weekend. The truly sad thing is that this week as been a short one as the Monday was a bank holiday; god alone knows what depths of mournful sadness I would have reached with an extra day!

There is an uneasy sense of anticipation in school as we all fear impending events. What those events will be we know not, but we fear them nonetheless!

I am too tired to think, let alone write.

I look to the weekend for inspiration!

All that teaching!

A full day of teaching. No frees. Just small noisy kids for hour after hour.

And a colleague was absent, so we two remaining Year 3&4 teachers had to split her class and take an extra contingent into our own classes.

At one point I ran out of chairs and, as the day progresses I swore that the little buggers were actually reproducing themselves. They certainly seemed to expand in numbers as the hours ticked by.

The only thing which keeps my sanity is that we are teaching sixteenth century Spanish history and have centred out attention on The Spanish Armada. I am very much taking the ‘plucky little Protestant Britain takes on the overwhelming might of the arrogantly Roman Catholic repressive autocratic Empire ruled by the megalomaniac Philip II’ sort of unbiased approach to the teaching of this sensitive subject. As I have a class comprising Spanish, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, British, Turkish and Argentinean children with relatives which take in a variety of other nationalities, it ensures that it is impossible not to offend someone in however a professionally non partisan way you attempt to teach the subject!

Added to this is the incessant refrain of my name as twenty or more little voices vie for my undivided attention and then the almost unbearable tension as I listen to fractured English attempts to add some completely irrelevant contribution to whatever ‘discussion’ we happen to be having.

My wrong headed encouragement of my English class to use dictionaries more means that as I introduce some subject or other little hands will go up. And believe me primary school children have hands up staying power. You can ignore the waving appendages for what seems like hours and, undaunted they will maintain their dogged stance seemingly knowing that they will outlast your callous indifference to their arms’ suffering. And, of course they are right. You do always give in.

And when you give in and ask them for their contribution they inform you with glee that they have found the dictionary definition of a word that you used fifteen minutes earlier! In spite of your incredulous dismissal of this pointless interjection, it encourages everyone else to start looking for their own words and soon a rash of hands is waving about like a nightmare crop of human limbs. It is at this point that an overwhelming desire for a large scythe comes unbidden to the mind of the caring teacher.

On the lunacy front, The Owner has instituted a locked door policy. Ostensibly this is to ‘protect the children’ from outsiders gaining access to the main school. Its actual raison d’etre is to separate teaching staff from the administration.

At the end of school today, one of my kids was complaining that her sprained ankle was hurting her and she wanted to call her mother and go home rather than stay on and participate in our of the ‘clubs’ that members of staff are forced to run after the kids have finished school. The normal way for primary school kids to leave the premises from my room is along a corridor, down a double flight of stairs, across a playground, up a steep slope and out to the exit gate. Alternatively they can walk along the same corridor then walk through a doorway and out into the entrance foyer. For a child with an injured foot, the second way is obviously the better.

But not with a locked door. Phoning from the head teacher’s room on the other side of he locked door was futile as one phone in administration was constantly engaged and the other only led to the voice mail! The situation was eventually solved: not by the door being opened but by a member of staff carrying her the first way on her back! I felt a momentary pang of macho guilt at a foreign colleague usurping my duty of care, but my thoughts were still operating on the British level where the piggybacking of a child up and down stairs would be health and safety professional suicide!

While we were waiting on one side of the locked door we joined a tots’ teacher with her little brood. They were stranded on the wrong side too and were unable to get to the buses that were supposed to take them home!

Situation normal – again!

On a more positive note I have drunk all the cough mixture, towards the end of the bottle upending it and draining it with gusto. And I haven’t coughed as much! I trust that this bout of illness is at last fading away to mere inconvenience.

And the weekend is only two days away.

Roll on

And the sun shines!

A day of glorious sunshine, unsullied by obtrusive clouds and warmth draining winds. And of course, at the same time, the first day of the summer term.

God never seems to tire of setting up these little jokes. A period of indifferent weather for the holidays and then wonderful weather for the start of term! I suppose that this divine spitefulness could also be taken as a sure and certain manifestation of his care and regard for us: an omnipotent deity still taking time out of a punishing schedule to inflict his creations with dissatisfaction with their lots – but at least recognizing that they exist to be taken advantage of.

Talking of Jesuitical reasoning, our school seems plunged in an unending game of ‘Guess who you can trust.’ A wary sense of impending disaster characterizes the atmosphere in the school. We are all expecting some sort of unreasonable pronouncement about some aspect of school life from The Owner. Our best guess is that she is going to extend the length of the school term and probably make some other outrageous demand.

There is much at stake. Not only is there the question of the payment for the summer holiday but also the payment of the so-called ‘loyalty bonus’ of €1,500 paid in twelve monthly instalments and all monies are reclaimed if the teacher does not work for a full year. As I started work in January I seem doomed to repay some of the beggarly salary that The Owner gives to her subjects. I also stand not to be paid for the summer holidays as I will not have worked for the full academic year.

Today was also the first day of the new system of lunch time for the staff. Eating in the staff room has been unceremoniously stopped and colleagues now have to eat in the maelstrom which is the kids’ canteen! Needles to say I have forsaken the canteen forever. Bloody awful free food is woefully insufficient inducement to eat in a cacophony of juvenile excitement.

I went and sat in the car on the road outside the school rather than have anything whatsoever to do with the new ‘arrangements.’

Tomorrow is a free lunchtime! So I will betake me to the sports centre for a menu del dia and bugger the lot of them.

The continuing story of the planning is reaching a climax as I struggle to understand what the bloody hell I am doing. I can’t really pretend that things are becoming any clearer but I am gathering about me vast drifts of paper containing all sorts of pious educational platitudes and various incomprehensible strategies for (apparently) teaching the young.

I’m sure that it is only a matter of time before the gnomic hieroglyphics of education speak become intelligible to me and I am able to weave some form of acceptable burble that will satisfy the powers that be that I have cracked the planning code!

I hope.

And talking of hope our Inspections draw nearer.

I have to say that expecting a positive outcome from an inspection of our place is like asking a planning development officer to come and look at the caldera of Vesuvius and pass it as suitable for housing!

But if you walk around our school you will see teaching and learning proceeding as if the school was normal.

Just goes to show how appearances can be deceptive!

Roll on the next crisis!