Put it down to fatigue!

Is it a comforting sign of residual professionalism that one can tell when one has been teaching appallingly badly?  I sincerely hope so because yesterday was a day when a short film could have been made about me entitled “How Not To Do It” in the teaching profession.

I was tired and resentful at the early start of the day and the heady descent to the depths of technical and intellectual incompetence culminated in truly awful Media Studies lessons which drew a long day to a sad end.

The day did not end with the end of lessons, as I had to write an exercise for one of the next series of examinations which are the icing on the cake of this glorious term!

This morning I was greeted by a serious faced colleague who told me that he had bad news; I was being searched for to take a substitution.  As I was not officially supposed to be in school at that time, indeed I was half an hour early for the official starting time of school, I immediately lost my temper.  As it happened I could have saved my energy as no one said anything to me and I didn’t say anything to any member of management who might have been able to do something about it!

I also had to work before my official start time anyway when the content of the exam for the 3ESO was discovered to use words and phrases that we had not said were in the exam.  In our school this gives rise to bitter recriminations which make Emil Zola’s “J’accuse” look like a gentle reprimand!

 

This meant that I had to write yet another exercise for the exam this time using “Phrases using the word ‘end.’”  Teaching English as a foreign language is a bit like finding that First Aid in English has come back from the grave and this time is it personal and grammatical.  If our kids are at a loose end they can find themselves ending up putting phrases on end and in the end producing passable English; which might help them make ends meet.  You see how sad I have become!

The poor kids of the 1ESO are, as I type, busily and neurotically filling in their examination papers.  This will be the first of the exams that I will have to mark before the end of term.  The second will be tomorrow and that will have to be out of the way well before the end of term.  I am sure as hell not taking with me on holiday!  Which I might add is in seven and a half days – and counting.

My new (Stewart recommended) book has arrived and, in spite of my determination to reserve this book for the sands of Grand Canaria, I have read the first of the twelve novels contained in the volume.

I do not blame my legendary lack of restraint for this indulgence, but rather the arrival of a new, and of course expensive, reading light.  This is a floor standing Alex light which, I am assured, is perfect for the more mature reader.  I have to say that it does what it say on the tin – or in this case on the elegantly expansive cardboard box in which it came.

I have been told that where I have placed it is (obviously) wrong and I confidently expect the writhing, seething, pullulating mass of wires which surround my chair (giving it the look of imperfectly formed nest) will have been “re-arranged” and “tidied”.  I dread the result!

I consider book lovers to form a distinct (and of course higher) branch on the evolutionary tree – but they can be difficult for the lesser breeds without the book to understand.

For a Book Lover it is essential for books to be within reach at all times and in all places.  The ideal is to have bookcases full to overflowing with tottering piles of books around which one has to navigate to get from place to place.  There should be a system ordering the arrangement of books which only the owner fully understands and even he is subject to surprise when hunting for a specific volume.  Books should be capable of charting a life with specific editions linked to developments in knowledge and income!  Books are the windows of the soul rather than eyes and a much more reliable guide to inner depths!

I have now read the second of Joseph Hansen’s Brandstetter novels (ten to go!) and am thoroughly enjoying them.

They seem to be plot heavy – but that is a function of the detective novel – with a satisfying complexity.  There are some self-conscious pieces of description which the writer obviously enjoyed writing and can sometimes be a little intrusive for the reader, but there are felicities of expression contained in these set pieces which make up for their being spotlighted.

The USP of these novels is that the central detective, in fact an insurance investigator, is gay – and in the two novels so far read homosexuality has played an important part in the plot: I hope that the sexual proclivities of the central characters does not become a predictable element in the explications of the narratives.

Brandstetter himself is developing nicely as a character as parts of his life are being expanded in the sub plot which is his personal life.  The loss of his long-term lover to cancer and his finding of a partner through the ramifications of a case have given a line of development which hopefully will be extended through the remaining novels.

My task is to try and limit my reading so that my intention of taking it on holiday is not negated by my having read all 1200 pages before I go!

Meanwhile, the marking of the examination papers will be something to limit my reading possibilities.

In yet another example of the way in which the children in the school seem to have a power which is out of all proportion to what I regard as normal or professional, an examination has been postponed for a day because the kiddiewinks would otherwise have had two examinations on the same day.  Something not to be contemplated and certainly something which has never, ever happened to me in my academic life.  One wonders what world these pampered children think that they are living in!  I keep telling myself that I don’t really care about what they do in the school – but I do!  Sometimes I have to bring to the front of my mind the sage advice of my colleague, “Remember Stephen, you are not in Britain!”  How true!  How true!

At times, when engrossed in the second novel, “Death Claims” by Joseph Hansen, I dragged my eyes away from the printed page when prompted by the squawks of excitement from Toni as the Barcelona game in the Champions League produced a profusion of goals and an almost certain progression to the next stage and even Manchester have secured a good goal to nil lead in Chelsea’s ground, which promises well for their progression too.  It would be good to have a British team (if only in name rather than in terms of players) in the final in Wembley.  I can’t believe that I am writing such things.  Where will it end!  The wind might change and I could actually start enjoying football!  Perish the thought!

I have already started reading the third novel. 

I am indeed an addict.

Still counting!

So, we begin the twelfth week of this appalling term, where time does actually seem to have stopped!

I am drained of enthusiasm and think of the next ten working days with unalloyed horror.

Right!  That has got that out of the way; now I can get on with the normal day to day resentments of working in a school!

My Internet radios take it in turns to be skittish when it comes to performing without multiple key pressings and sotto voce curses.  I am sure that the basic cause of all dissatisfaction is the varying strength of the Wi-Fi signal which seems to be variable, to put it mildly.

In a house whose structure is of reinforced concrete there are bound to be some areas which are pretty well shielded and restrict access to the signal from the router in the living room.  This I accept.  What is difficult to accept is the seemingly arbitrary distribution of areas where the signal penetrates.  The whole point of the last purchase of a portable Internet radio was to allow me to have Radio 4 where ‘ere I walked.

This has not been quite as simple as I had hoped and I will have to draw a ‘map of availability’ colouring in a floor plan of the house to show those areas where the civilizing influence of Radio 4 reaches and those ‘dark places’ beyond the pale!

In the way of equilibrium in this place I have discovered that I have gained a free period but have lost it by taking the class of a colleague: surely the lord giveth and the lord taketh away!  Still, this is a class which I have not had as a class for two years and it is nice to see them all again.

It also, of course gives me an opportunity to use The Machine, knowing that the “audience” that I have will fully appreciate the quality of the product that they see in front of them, their eyes attracted by the hard cold light of the white logo tantalizingly out of reach!

I am amazed that the kudos I still get from owning The Machine continues, in spite of the fact that time, the new computer’s foe, has worked against its unique position in the gadget world.  The MacBook Air is no longer alone in the field of metallic sleekness; there are pretenders to its throne and I think it is only the illuminated Apple logo which keeps its reputation alive.  Whatever!  It is the only time that I have been in the vanguard and held my position for so long!  At what cost!

The old feelings of separation are still there as I have found constant problems with the connectivity of The Machine with the school system - and the linking of The Machine to any of our printers has been impossible.  It reminds me of my first “real” computer, which was a Mackintosh, and that was constantly out of sync with everything else in the school which used the PC environment. 

I remember with real bitterness the number of times I believed colleague or advertisements which claimed that a particular program was compatible with Mackintosh as well as PC.  It was never, never true – though I persisted with a child like devotion to the Mackintosh and continued to believe what I was told for years longer than I should have!

I have now returned to the faith, though I am using a suite of programs which have been adapted from Windows and, for the first time in my experience, they actually do work as well on the Mac as in their normal PC environment!

I am still waiting for Publisher to be added to my programs though that may be still some time in the future.  I live in hope that a grateful school will see fit to get it for me!  Fond hope!

Today was the sort of day where one felt that evil persons with stirrup pumps spent most of the time busily draining teachers of any dregs of enthusiasm that they might once have had some time in early September last year!

This term is at least four weeks too long; and believe you me that shows in the attitude of staff and pupils.

The sooner educational establishments break the absurd tyranny of adjusting terms to match the arbitrary date of Easter the better.  The fact that people’s futures are decided by the date of the first full moon after the Passover is ludicrous.  This idiotic anachronism determines, year-by-year, the arrangement of terms which has a real effect on the performance of students – and rarely to their advantage!

In spite of intellectual and physical prostration I mustered enough residual energy to go out and have a burger in the excellent café near the old flat.  A couple of glasses of wine later and the evening seems to have gone!

Nine working days left to escape!

Never let it said that I am closed to new experiences.  I am now an experienced flashmob member!

Today saw Castelldefels’ participation in an international day of the book for kids.  My friend Caroline is involved in Inter-Libros (a charity which recycles books in Spanish and sends them to needy parts of Chile) and the cash raised in the fiesta is going to fund the rebuilding of a library in Chile.

 

A part of the celebrations was to be the first flashmob in Castelldefels.  This was done in a very decorous fashion.  The signal for the start was the striking of the midday bell of the church in the centre of Castelldefels.  On the stage which had been set up in front of the church one person started reading a children’s story in Catalan over the loudspeaker system, then it was taken up in English, then in French and lastly in Spanish.  Or possibly the Spanish and Catalan may have been in the other order.  One has to be politically sensitive in these parts!

When all four languages had had their amplified seconds of prominence it was the turn of the rest of us.

Throughout the crowds around the stalls which made up the fiesta “sleepers” were stationed who on a given sign from the stage opened books of their own and started reading in whatever language was most congenial.

We were told to read in a “loud voice” and I took them at their word and read the opening page of “The House at Pooh Corner” in a characteristically stentorian voice.  In English.

Two English ladies came up to me afterwards and asked about the book I had read from.  When I said it was Winnie-the-Pooh one of them said that it was a classic and one of her favourites and, when she saw my Methuen paperback (3s 6d or 17½p) she exclaimed about the “Classic” edition – which I suppose means that it used Shepard’s illustrations rather than the new better known American versions!

It was actually quite a moving experience reading in public in a confusion of voices and it was especially gratifying to see the number of books in raised hands when we were all asked to show our books at the end of the short reading.

I couldn’t stay very long in the fiesta because The Family was due to arrive.  And arrive they did and almost immediately we went out to lunch in our “local” restaurant by the sea.  Although the menu del dia is substantially more expensive at the weekends (€17) than it is during the week (€13) I have to say that the meal that I had was well worth it.

The arroz caldoso is a rice based fish stew which was eventful and delicious.  I had merluza marinera which turned out to be a large lump of slightly smoked white fish with two very large prawns and a fish sauce.  To finish off I had tarta whisky – which is an odd choice for me, as I don’t like whisky, but I enjoy the flavour in this particular cake which has whisky and cream poured over it.

Wine, water, bread and gaseosa were all included and I did not begrudge the extra euro for the coffee with ice at the end of the meal.

Tomorrow sees the unbearably long slog which is going to be the last two weeks of this impossibly interminable term.  At least after Monday we will be down to single figures of working days!

Time passes.

What's new?

As promised today has been glorious and I even managed to keep my natural British desperation at bay and not resent the amount of time away from the sun taken up by having lunch.

That meal was taken in a new restaurant which we hadn’t noticed before opposite one of our favourite eating places which was filled by hordes of the retired today.

 

Although I cannot say that both of us were brought up on a strict regimen of Kim’s Memory Game, we do take some note of our surroundings, as therefore this “new” restaurant was something of a shock.  Encouragingly it had signs encouraging me to believe that there might be a decent drink of bitter there as well.

The meal cost €13 for two courses with either a sweet or coffee to finish.  My starter of scrambled eggs with mushrooms and asparagus was excellent – and what a difference fresh ingredients make to a simple dish!  The second course was cod au gratin with a small mound of vegetables julienne – delicious.  As is usual in Spain, the sweet was the weakest course: a custard tart with strawberries in gelatine, acceptable but little more.

The beer was more problematic.  It appeared that they had various “real” beers on tap, but it soon transpired that the only one which was of interest to me was the Murphy’s Red which is some sort of Irish bitter.  It was and, served in a long, elegant and fluted glass which contained far less than a pint, it was a taste of home – in a way!

All in all a decent meal with only the long delayed return of our change marring an otherwise enjoyable occasion.  I cannot imagine what was going through the minds of the waiters if they thought for a single solitary second that they were getting a tip of €10!  This is Catalonia, such things simply do not happen!

I have spent the rest of the afternoon lying out on the balcony of the Third Floor pretending to read.  The new electronic e-book was to hand but not turned on.  I am, after all, duty bound to do some groundwork for the holiday in Gran Canaria!

Tomorrow: The Family!  And the chance to see the Parisian photographs of various Disney characters looking apprehensive at the determined approach of two young Catalans!

I have been informed that the brightness of today is unlikely to be matched by the gloom of tomorrow: perhaps I might turn on the e-book!

Time marches on!

After today I can allow myself to start the countdown to Gran Canaria in terms of days rather than weeks and, if I only include working days then it is only just into double figures and after Monday it will be down to single figures.  By such arithmetical means do we keep our sanity!

Bear in mind that this term is thirteen weeks long without any significant break.  The only break that some colleagues have had is a week with a group of kids on holiday!  At least I had two long weekends and only part-time meetings for the other three days of the Fiasco Week.  Three months of a solid school term is a ridiculous concept - and an even worse reality!

 

Disturbingly, I am informed by a knowledgeable Scot of my acquaintance that Gran Canaria has taken on a worryingly lush-green persuasion.  This is usually indicative of an unnecessary profusion of water which is totally contrary to my requirements for a satisfactorily arid holiday.  I do not fly to an island off the coast of Africa to be surrounded by a profusion of succulent grass!

I reassure myself with the knowledge that each day into April is a day nearer to the security of the summer and that in Gran Canaria sun is usually so dependable that even the most paranoid Briton can usually dispense with the nervous early-morning daily ritual of twitching aside the curtains to check that the sun is performing as ordered.

The holiday is rapidly approaching a mythic status in my mind becoming a future cornucopia of rest, relaxation and delight.  In short it is now the only way to get through the next term with anything like a simulacrum of intelligence and personality left inside the hollow form of the teacher shapes that we inhabit!

I am now stuck in the library with, unusually, kids!  At this point on a Friday I am usually left alone in glorious isolation and can stare at the sun on the balcony with impunity.  Now there are kids catching up on lost work and there are three members of staff in here!

I am about to start on my second three period stretch without a break in two days: this timetable is a positive delight – but only when seen from the perspective of the weekend when it is behind you, and emphatically not on a Sunday when it is all before you.

It is true that for teachers the traditional low point of our lives is late afternoon on a Sunday when the reality of the following day and consequent week cannot be ignored.  It is the time to do frantic work for the morrow or feel guilty about not doing work.  There is no escape from the inevitable feelings of dread and or guilt which deadens even further a typically dead day!

To celebrate the end of the week (ten working days to go to Gran Canaria!) we went to Sitges to pick up my long delayed repair of my glasses.  As I have now replaced everything in the glasses apart from the lenses the shop I go to gave me a 25% discount and so I “only” paid €60 for a thin piece of metal forming the replacement nose piece!

At least dinner in our “usual” restaurant was better value for money!

Time to ponder

Moral, social and personal dilemmas are diverting when they are the stuff of narrative in novels, but they are very different when they leap from the pages of a story and intrude in the reality of ordinary life - if reality it is!

It is always difficult to find the right degree of separation from problems to allow one the luxury of cool perspective; though perhaps such distance is a disadvantage rather than an aid to action.

Distance, also, lends anything but enchantment to the view, but distance also is a physical reality.

Enough!  Moping is no substitute for action and a firm belief (although often wrong) in “Anything Is Better Than Nothing” allows for a satisfyingly limited approach!

The sun, as usual emerged as soon as I got to school and seeing the shadows playing on the screen of the computer as my fingers dance on the keys is not conducive to tranquillity while waiting for a lesson to start: the call of the sand and the sea and a good book is hard to resist!

I have ordered a reading lamp from Amazon.  This is a direct result of the “one-click” evil that Amazon encourages.  This cuts down the so-called hard work of Internet buying to a single click on the mouse.

A single little click and money is magically drained from my account and, who knows, something nice may or may not turn up in a week or so!  Probably not actually turning up, because, as far as I can tell the delivery companies only deliver slips of paper to the addresses telling people that they were unable to make contact and therefore etc.  As I have seen one of these pieces of paper with a time and date after the time I found it!  No wonder I am cynical!

After putting the clocks forward the extra hour of light that we have in the evening really makes a difference.  I am sure that I went back to the UK to live I would probably develop SAD immediately!  Though I have noticed that the Daylight Lamps are now very much cheaper than they used to be!  Which is more than can be said for the lamp that I have just bought.  Why is it that everything I touch turns to gratifyingly large expense!

I have now officially given up trying to find a reasonably priced copy of any of the Dave Brandstetter novels of Joseph Hansen as recommended by Stewart.  I thought in my touchingly naive way that I would download an electronic version: as if!  I attempted to get Amazon to send me a very reasonably priced second hand copy but they refused point blank to send such cheap things to “my location” and I have resorted to buying one on-line at full price - which should arrive just in time to accompany me on my trip to Gran Canaria - which I might add will start in a little over two weeks and a few days.

It is a little disconcerting to discover that I have ordered the omnibus edition of all twelve novels that are apparently in miniscule print and spread over 1,200 pages.  Should keep me quiet for a while!  Even if incipient blindness (for all sorts of reasons) may well follow!

As part of my continuing flight from socialism I am now “looking in to private health insurance”: never a day goes by but I seem to drift that little bit further away from my political inheritance!  I haven’t even kept up my right to vote in British elections or claimed my right to vote in local elections in this country.  Such political indolence!  Though looking at the political situation in my home country I think that I would have a hard time justifying my long-standing political allegiance and voting for the only other party likely to form a majority government is something which I cannot countenance.

And talking of blind prejudice, when is That Woman going to do the decent thing and strong-arm her way into the Great Grocery Shop in the Sky?  The newspaper that hides her wax image from sight is beginning to yellow with age and I have a reoccurring fear that it will spontaneously ignite and deny me the personal pleasure of starting the conflagration to consume her.

Another pet hate concerns the so-called royal house of Windsor and the rapidly advancing wedding.  Even in Spain we are regaled with information and pictures of this couple: as if they matter in any sense more than a youngish couple getting hitched.  The sooner we ditch the whole of this imported family and become a republic the better.  It says something for the extent of my loathing of what this family represents (with the possible exceptions of the odious Duke (!) of Edinburgh and the self seeking Duke (!) of York the family does not possess enough personality for them to be cordially hated for the debased quality of their individual personalities) that I would cheerfully have seen That Woman be regaled by despots around the world as President of my country rather than the set of Germanic dwarfs who currently hold positions of prominence by virtue (!) of a dallying uncle and being born in the right bed!

One doesn’t want to keep harping on about injustice but today I teach five periods; have a substitution for one more; have a departmental meeting in a further one.  Making a Grand Total of seven (7) periods directed time in one day.  This is patently absurd, though I appear to be the only person saying it!  At least in the UK there were only five periods in a day and so what I am doing here would have been impossible there!  And our wages have been frozen this year as well!  It just goes on getting better!

But the sun is shining and, although slightly hazy, there are sharp shadows on the tiled floor of the staff room balcony – to which I will now repair and take a little of what our local star has to offer!

Spring is sprung!

The clocks are now firmly forward and I am getting up in the dark again.  There is something truly depressing about starting one’s day in darkness.  I know that this is the start of a short period of adjustment and that soon daylight will lighten my way to school so that I can illuminate the minds of my unfortunate charges!

And the evenings are lighter longer; so yesterday after having a snack “dinner” in town we were able to stroll back to the car after 8 pm in gently darkening sunshine.

The Most Expensive Tea and Coffee Shop in the World is an almost irresistible draw for me.  I am fascinated by the impedimenta of tea and coffee making where the shop seems to have cornered the market in excruciatingly expensive tea pots, cups, mugs and tea making equipment - which it sets out in alluring displays with small, carefully hidden price tags.

 

I presume that they make their money by potential customers handling the goods, finding the price tag and then immediately dropping the article in shocked disbelief – and then having to pay for the broken pieces.  I have grown wise to this and now only look at the price tag when the article is firmly and safely located on the display shelf so the only damage that I do is to other customers when I shy away from the pot or jug with a startled whiney of pain and collide with another potential dupe!

The tea, however, is delicious and well worth buying as long as you never look at the receipt and simply put the change you are given directly into you pocket without checking how much things cost.  To do otherwise is to court madness and despair!

Talking of M & D there are now two weeks and four days left to Grand Canaria.  Not, of course that I am counting.

I am not sitting in my accustomed place in the staff room of building 1 and am now located at the foot of the table around which colleagues work.  I am also facing the wall on which notices are placed and one in particular has caught my attention.  This is the one which lists those unfortunates who will have to do a substitution for a colleague.  I know that I gain a period tomorrow as the 3ESO are all out on a trip, but I also know, as sure as night follows day that I will gain precisely nothing.  Even from a distance of twenty feet I can see the rising curve of the “S” and the descender of the “p” which shows my name is among the damned condemned to another class.  Though thinking about it, it could just be normal paranoia there are, after all, other names with the same sort of outline as my own. 

Indeed that last statement is true!  It is not my name – but I still do not hold out any real belief that I will keep the period free: the school is too small and we never seem to have supply teachers so all the burden of any disruption in the staffing is carried by the staff.  The true pessimism of an experienced professional!

The New Device continues to cause problems, especially with the loading of electronic books.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the skittish attitude that The New Device has towards acceptance or rejection.  The same format books loaded in exactly the same way do not have exactly the same response from The Device.  “The Girl of the Limberlost” – of book of which I have heard but do not necessarily want to read – has loaded without a problem, but “Queen Lucia” which I do want to read when I want to read it, refuses to form an essential part of my electronic library.

Music, however, which is usually a more difficult element because everything I have is tainted with the exclusivity of iTunes adheres to the electronic innards of The New Device with the enthusiasm of the blue rinsed ladies of a certain age for any public school educated leader of the party that opposed the foundation of the national health system!

I shall persevere as The New Device’s small size makes it ideal for the future holiday in the sun – which I might have mentioned is two weeks and four days away!

Dinner this evening was decided on an instant whim and comprised a delicious selection of the pinchos from the Basque restaurant in the centre of the playa of Castelldefels.

And now, time to subside!

Where is elsewhere when you want it?

Today is one of those dark days when you truly and sincerely know that you do not want to be in work.  Any work.  Anywhere.  But which an attitude does nothing positive, except to make one feel more depressed and helpless.  So, more thinking about Gran Canaria is called for to counteract such negative thoughts.

It doesn’t help that today have developed into a gloriously sunny day and I am trapped inside.  But let it pass, let it pass.

This particular time on a Monday morning and stretching towards the early afternoon is a free time for me in which I am supposed to get everything else for the week prepared.  It is sometimes very difficult to do as I sit here with the sun beating down on my back and the sunlight pointing the way towards the door and escape!

My little corner of the living room is rapidly becoming overloaded with books and the detritus of modern electronic living.  With a flamboyant disregard for any reasonable standard of useful purchase I have bought a 7” mini electronic book – to go with the others that litter my living space.

I have some justification for its purchase: it does have a colour screen and it is far nearer the size of a thin paperback and so can be tucked away in more (and smaller) pockets.  It is also a MP3 and MP4 player and so (in theory) it can play films and music.  The music I have mastered as it seems to accept the music in my iTunes library without any problems.  The loading of films and their display is a much more tricky problem because I am not a 10 year old geek!

As is usual in basic gadgets there are the usual problems which should not exist.  The loading of books only works occasionally and then the titles of the works mysteriously disappear.  I am now getting used to a gentle message which informs me that there may have been “minor” problems that will affect the display and therefore I get nothing.

Another problem is that after loading it seems impossible to switch the damn thing off in anything like the accepted way.  If I try and close it down via the e-book itself then The Machine informs me that an illegal operation has taken place but, as it is me, it will “attempt” to minimize the problems when I next load up the device.  If I close the device down via The Machine then the device stays at the level of the uploading screen and nothing I have yet done removes it until I press the reset button.

I am well used to the “reset approach” to recalcitrant machines and I am pleased to note that, in this case, it operates just like an ordinary button.

I know that I should use the manual (which is in-built and in Spanish) but I am trying to reclaim lost youth by relying on my innate connection with machines to take me through the difficult bits.  I may yet weaken or indeed age!

The profusion of electronic books in my possession emphasises a growing concern: the build up of books.

In the recent past I made a statement to myself that each new book that I read and kept would have an equal and opposite reaction by the disposal of an old one.  This (almost) admirable determination has not been anything close to a guiding light and the darkening piles are beginning to grow.

I have still not bought a single electronic book; my electronic library consisting entirely of out of copyright ageing books which I have not read and those classics that are a delight to re-read.  At some point of other I must make the fateful decision to enter the electronic commercial world.

Thinking about it: there is more likelihood of my opening up a whole new area of electronic expenditure in the purchase of e-books than there is in my throwing a single volume away.

But, on the other hand the situation is now critical and shelves are, in some cases, more than triple stacked and it is only the fact that the shelves have doors to keep the astonished stares of people away from the cultural mess that make the present situation acceptable.

Once again I make the rash assertion that this summer (!) I really will do something to bring order to the charming disarray that produces juxtapositions of volumes that stops me in my tracks and encourages me to read.

Why should I destroy such serendipity?

It is not the irregularity of medieval streets that make them attractive to the modern eye?  Why then should stultifying conformity to a librarian’s rigidity be the guide for ordering the arrangement of books.  Or is that merely a licence for indolence?  Perhaps.

Cloud has now modified the day and made it slightly less attractive to the incarcerated.  The real problem is that this is a school of extensive views and there is always a vista to tempt the unwary from an unshielded window!

Although there is little sun at the school in the distance I can see a gleam of golden light admittedly on the roofs of the buildings in the industrial zone next to the harbour rather than the rippling sea itself, but tempting none the less.

Reading Time!

In spite of putting my watch an hour ahead in good time, so to speak, it appeared to have reverted to the old dispensation when I woke up.  At least, in the modern world, most of the other time related gadgets that I possess seem to adjust themselves automatically. 

In the olden days when laptops were in their infancy I can remember the true horror of the clocks changing.  There was always some machine that one forgot to adjust - until things went wrong.  And then you could never find the instruction to find out how to change the damn clock!

Everything important and time sensitive seems to have changed itself and, as I have to get up at half past six tomorrow morning for an early start to school, it is in my interests to wake up on time.  On the other hand . . .

“The Ghost” by Robert Harris is an undemanding read which you can enjoy in the secure knowledge that you are in a safe pair of writer’s hands.  There are fleetingly interesting details about literary life which are engaging, but this is very much the sort of book to read on a sunny beach – and none the worse for that.

The progress of the novel is interesting especially as you know that the ex-prime minister at the centre is Blair for whom Harris obviously has a certain quality of loathing!

I was disappointed by the denouement and the clunking way that the final message was spelt out was frankly juvenile and more clichéd than interesting – but still a good read.

Niall Ferguson’s “Civilization: The West and the Rest” was a much more satisfying read.  This is much more my sort of book: sweeping historical generalizations interspersed with real history and fascinating anecdotal fragments.  This is a book for the interested general reader and its central thesis that the West had a series of six “killer aps” which help explain its ascendency for the last half millennium, but do not guarantee its continued pre-eminence in the new world older in which China and other countries not considered to be part of the conventional West are surging their way to the top!

It is an engaging read and the style is closer to a novel than to an academic tome.  It also has pictures and graphs and maps: who could ask for more!

I even managed to finish the Ferguson sitting outside this afternoon in the unexpected sunshine.  Given the lashing rain in the night and the dull start to the day, the sunshine in the afternoon was a definite bonus.

Three weeks today: Gran Canaria!

Barking dogs even taint sunlight.

That sounds like a cryptic clue from one of our more abstruse broadsheet newspapers and there should be a pair of brackets containing the number of letters.  But it is actually a simple statement of fact.

The dull start to the day gave way to encouragingly bright weather; sunlight but with a fairly cool breeze.  It was after all the weekend, what could be wrong with the world?

The dogs.  The monomaniac barking of the hapless (and obviously brain damaged) canine incarcerated next door!

We tend to regard slavery as a generally disreputable aspect of the human condition.  Britain can take some pride (but not much, given what we did before abolition) in its earlyish rejection of slavery: enslavement is wrong.

Why, therefore it is acceptable for people to buy pets and then lock them up like the stupid bitch next door.  And I am not referring to a female dog.

Her pestilential life forms are kept in a fenced-in and malodorous cage under the house: captives.  She feeds them of course, but to my mind they are like the bloated degenerates who inhabited the harems of luxurious sultans: indolent and castrated!  Truly the keeping of “pet” dogs is a demeaning impulse.

The only time we got away from the barking was when we went out to lunch in the hotel that we have tried once before.  An excellent meal of cauliflower cheese, salmon and strawberries – on separate plates!  Excellent.

Roll on the weekend!

Injustice may be a relative concept, but it clicks into sharp relief when you are the victim.

In school today I am going to do something that would have been impossible in my educational establishment in Wales: teach six (count them!) lessons in one day!  There we had a five period day from just before nine in the morning to half past three in the afternoon.  How different from the school life of our own dear Catalonia!

Theoretically it would be possible to teach eight periods a day of lessons ranging from fifty to fifty-five minutes!  School starts at 8.15 am and finishes at 4.45 pm, so teachers can be in school for over nine hours as we are not encouraged to leave the premises for lunch.  We are like a closed community!

Yesterday I received my latest issue of stamps on a first day cover.  I always feel slightly guilty as I take each cover out of its protective envelope and gaze at the stamps.  I know little about the community of stamp collectors but what little I do know would seem to indicate that my main reason for collecting (aesthetic appreciation) is the lowest form of motivation for the true aficionado.  Not, of course that I class myself as anything like an authentic stamp collector.  When have I ever evinced even a momentary interest in phosphor bands or perforations or colour shift or the like?  I just look at each stamp as a mini work of art and long for the days when we might get another set as satisfying as the Social Reformers of 1976 by David Gentleman.

I have to admit that the latest issue of British stamps featuring 10 of the world’s threatened species are remarkable showing full-face shots of the animals – the image of the golden lion tamarin is especially effective.

The Post Office appears to be continuing the gimmick approach to its stamps (highlighted by the moving stamps of Thunderbirds) by having two of them designated “intelligent” which means that if the elephant and tiger stamps are scanned by smartphones the owner will be able to watch “exclusive” video footage on the phone itself!

I have been looking through the totally inadequate web site of the Post Office and I note that even though I have a standing order for each new set and mini-sheet set of stamps to be sent to me I have not received all of them.  I will have to be more careful and ensure that I am getting what I am due.

I have now, using the computer in the IT room to which I was condemned to take the lesson of an absent colleague, found a list of all the commemorative stamps for QEII and I have painstakingly gone through my collection of FDCs to find out where the gaps are.  They exist and they are many!  Do I really want to fill those gaps up?  A rhetorical and real question.  The fact that I have found a web site with what looks to be quite reasonable prices for my missing covers is tempting.

On the other hand . . .

Season change?

A suspiciously clear drive in to school this morning.  The sun was shining and even the motorcyclists were behaving with a less than suicidal attitude towards other motorists!

The mornings are getting pleasantly lighter and there is something soul enhancing about travelling to school in daylight rather than in pre-dawn darkness.

This weekend (?) sees the clocks going back or forward or whatever which means that we will be an hour nearer to darkness yet again.  On the other hand it also means that we are that much nearer to the summer!  I mustn’t allow myself to count the days to the two-month release!  That way lies madness!

 

Today is Budget Day in Britain and the speculation is, to put it mildly, tired.  It seems as though the tax threshold is going to be raised to something like eight thousand pounds a year which is certainly positive from my point of view – though from the point of view of the economy and its management by the present bunch of self-serving idiots who govern the country at the moment, I am not so sure.

At the moment I seem to have slipped below the radar of the tax authorities and I have not had significant communication with them for years.  Perhaps it is time for me to approach them and ask what is going on, or perhaps I should adopt the advice of those more learned in government and “leave well alone”.

I am not sure of my tax status as a British citizen domiciled abroad.  As far as the Catalan and Spanish governments are concerned I am a normal tax paying citizen, paying into a pension fund from which I am going to gain nothing – and there doesn’t seem to be an “opt-out” option which would enable me to boost my meagre payment from the school.

Last year, following the advice of colleagues, I made the effort to go in to the tax offices with all my documentation of my employment history and ended up paying the government more, whereas everyone else that I know was given some form of payback to soften the blow of having so much money ripped from their fragile salary.  C’est la vie!

I should have done some marking during the time that I have before the start of my first period, but the general climactic conditions and my predisposition to sulk about being indoors when the sun is shining all contributed to my sulky reluctance to put red pen to paper.  I am relying on my “library” period as a time when I can do those things that I have not done – and it delays the work for another couple of hours!

My individual welcome back has now included doing a cover for a colleague.  There is a sort of equilibrium in the giving and taking in a school situation that I expected that I would be chosen because of my “uncovered” period in the UK.  People had to cover my classes (why, you might ask as it was a period of absence known in advance) therefore I have to pay back.

Even allowing for “breaks” this interminable term winds its way on with inexorable slowness.  I think that the musing that I do on the trip to Gran Canaria makes it more intolerable.  The absurd lateness of Easter this year has unsettled all the usual internal clocks of teachers leaving a general dissatisfaction and an aching sense of longing for freedom!

Now that I have a new Internet radio, which is very much more reliable than the old one, I am listening to Radio 4 with more regularity.  The advantage is that it keeps me up to date with what is going on in the world in a much more convincing way than the media in Spain do.  The disadvantage is that it keeps me up to date with what is going on in the world!  I now have much more to worry about in a completely futile way!

The only time in my life when I have savings, the whole of chaotic progress of the world seems bend on destroying them.  From world financial crisis to natural disaster everything tends to make my savings less.

I am still recovering from the horror of finding that the “unexciting but dependable fund” into which my savings were placed for “steady growth” on the advice of a “financial advisor” lost 40% of their value in one extended swoop.

I still amuse (if that is the term) myself with speculation about what I might have bought if I had done what I usually do when I have money – and that is spend it.  I eventually worked out that I could have had a world cruise (with outside cabin and balcony) for two; drunk nothing but Champagne and bought a Rolex watch – especially if I had converted the pounds sterling into euros as soon as I had the pounds in my hands.

What seemed like excellent value when the euro was 70p doesn’t seem quite as good when, on a good day, the euro is trading at 86p.  Ah! for the good old days when the peseta was devalued to keep pace with the loosing value of the pound!

It looks almost certain that in the next financial year the wages of teachers will not be increased.  As inflation is forging ahead with scant regard for the normal factors which should be in play with the sort of financial crisis which should be governing our lives, teachers are getting more and more poorly paid.

Presumably, there has to come a time when even our supine profession makes some sort of stand against what is going on in the so-called profession.

Our type of school has an outstanding court case against the government to try and claw back the 5% decrease in grant that was given to our school to pay part of the teachers’ salaries.  We do not know what will happen if the schools loose the case and have to carry the reduction for the foreseeable future.

I am not sure what my reaction to a reduction in my salary would be.  I mean, I know what my reaction would be, it’s just that I don’t know how negative my reaction would be and what action, if any, I would take.

If I am truthful I think my presence in the school is becoming more and more unreal as the routine becomes more and more natural.  It may be a paradox but I am living it!

 

It is now, officially, Spring and the weather is living up to its designation.  From where I am sitting I can see a may tree whose branches are loaded with blossom and walking out onto the balcony you meet the wafting cloud of that sickly-sweet, slightly miasmic perfume of the tree.  As we have brisk breezes as well the scent is swept away only to assault you afresh as soon as there is a lull.

The air is fresher and the vistas a little clearer these days and I am waiting for the solid lump of heat that usually strikes the shirt and tie in late April and early May!

Meanwhile one more day to the weekend.  And three weeks on Sunday: Gran Canaria!

 

It starts again

In the strange way in which the mind plays with logic, I now find myself missing my aunt more now that I have returned to work than when I was in Britain.  I am sure that this will pass and that the closure that I felt when I was there will become a living reality.

However, another reality is now demanding attention: the everyday life of a school.  My absence has been filled with work which needs to be marked and work which will need to be continued.

The chocolates that are a necessary sweetener to colleagues after a visit (for whatever reason) to a place other than the immediate vicinity of Barcelona have been generally well received: Tesco strikes again!  They will all be gone by first break!

No one has yet mentioned the holidays, but I feel that the magic date of the 15^th of April is at the forefront of each and every thinking teacher’s mind.  It certainly is the case with me – and the sooner we get there the better.

As is always the case in this place, there will be yet another series of examinations before the term is allowed to die and the function of the holiday period is to give us a breathing space to prepare for the next series of tests which will fill the summer term.

 

Any day now I will start counting the days to the end of June when the “real” holidays will start.  Before these halcyon days there is the problem month of May that on my calendar is quite clean.  This means that there are no occasional days, or saints’ days or anything else to break up the relentless chore of teaching day after teaching day.

The Pauls have expressed themselves open to the idea of reinstating our weekend gallivanting which characterised our time in Cardiff.  Although we would be departing from different starting points we could certainly and easily join up for a continuation of the triumphal progress that we made through such cities as Berlin, Milan, Dublin, Bilbao and Venice.

The seat of the Painted Whore of the Seven Hills has been suggested for the next trip and as I have never been to the stronghold of Jimmy Red Socks I am rather taken by the idea.  We will have to check the flights and hotels and see if we can meet up.

Previously we used to set an upper limit of fifty quid for the flights: this is now unrealistic and we will have to rethink our parameters.  Although it is still possible to be pleasantly surprised by the low cost of some flights, one is caught by the necessity of coming back on a Sunday as work beckons on the Monday.  I think we my be able to get flights for just over €100 if we are lucky.  Still, it will be interesting to find out if a re-start of the weekend visit programme is possible at all.

The familiar tiredness set in as soon as I got home.  Even a quick trip to town and a most unsatisfactory tortilla bocadillo were insufficient to invigorate my jaded perceptions. 

I have been encouraged to believe that, given the absurd luck that characterised my unfortunate memory lapses during the visit to the UK I should invest in the chance to win the absurdly large sum of money which is now being offered to gullible punters in the Euro Millions!

In spite of my firm belief that lotteries are taxes on the stupid, I have indeed invested some of my hard earned money in a few lines: hope springs eternal!

Back again!

Back in Castelldefels.

More importantly, with The Machine securely in my grasp, rather than having it wing its way around Europe before finally coming back to me.

Toni was quite insistent that I not use The Machine and he even (for the second time in history) urged me to buy two books (!) so that I would read rather than type during the flight.

Needless to say I took his urging seriously and using the “buy one and get the second half price” offer of W H Smith’s I am now the proud possessor of “Civilization: The West and the Rest” by Niall Ferguson and Sebastian Faulks “Faulks on Fiction”.

I started reading the latter first as it looked the less taxing read and of the 28 books mentioned I had read 21 of them – which was 2 fewer than Faulks himself as he said that 23 of the books were re-reads for him! 

I look forward to skating over great fiction in the hands (what an uncomfortable mixed metaphor!) of a more than competent writer!

The Niall Ferguson purchase was an almost instinctive one given my response to “Empire” and “The Ascent of Money” I am his devoted slave and he comes close to toppling Jared Diamond and his “Guns, germs and steel” from my favourite non-fiction “it-makes-you-feel-intelligent” read!  But not quite.

The journey from Cardiff to Bristol Airport was smooth, misty and uneventful; traffic jams only remarkable by the complete absence.  The flight was called in good time and took off promptly, landing a few minutes early.  The taxi was immediate and, as we approached Castelldefels the sun, obediently came out and blazed.

The house has been restocked and I am trying not to think too closely about the return to teaching tomorrow.

As no attempt was made to find a supply teacher for my “three day absence known in advance” I have bought two boxes of Tesco Chocolate Collection as sweet gesture to my colleagues who have had to cover for me.

What keeps me going is the thought that the holiday in Gran Canaria starts four weeks yesterday: roll on the 17^th of April.  As a mark of respect to the sacred nature of the period during which I shall be away, I shall insure that my iPod has The St Matthew Passion which I shall (as I have done before) listen to laying prone on the beach in the seasonal sunshine!

Give me another two weeks and I shall start counting the days!