This cannot be allowed to happen.

It's a disgrace. I want you to write to your MP, your MEP, your MLA, your congressman... whatever applies. We need to organise rallies, petitions, non violent civil disobedience immediately. This is just wrong and someone needs to do something about it - it's time to make a stand.

Could someone tell me why anybody out there would possibly think it was a good idea to change the name of Campbell's Soup to Bachelor's.

Bachelor's!

Bachelor's make Super Noodles; they make Cup-a-Soup; Pasta Sauce... they do not make canned soup. There are iconic brands out there. Think of biscuits and you think McVities; think cereals and you think Kelloggs; think ketchup - Heinz; think of tinned soup... who did you think of? Bachelors? A brand being iconic doesn't make it the best; but it makes it iconic. I'm not suggesting that the soup will be any different taste-wise. But it won't be Campbell's.

Did Andy Warhol make a print of Cup-a-Soup? Would a pop art image of a supper noodle wrapper be as striking, as iconic as the tin of Campbell's Soup?

So I think you'll agree that changes (back) need to be made - as a matter of urgency. Do we really want a future where real food succumbs to the might of the army of dried food. I'll leave it in your hands.

The Mr C retreats to his cocoon to reappear months later as... Mr C

Where has he been? Months have gone by and this blog has remained mute.

I wish I could say that there has simply been nothing to write about - but truth be told quite a lot has happened personally, locally and internationally since I last put finger to keyboard. The world has been awash with educational, environmental, and ego-centrical happenings. Teachers have been suspended for slipping some of their own rather personal video footage into class presentations, teachers in Ireland have been faced with rather stiff pay cuts to help bail out the rest of society, politicians have been wallowing in mires of expense account funded self pity, some have managed to take their minds of it for a little trip to Copenhagen to discuss how we're all doomed. A lot has happened - and I have remained silent.

Well, no more.

I have returned to add a few more pennyworths. Obviously the two people who read my blog have long since lost interest and have moved on to reading worries of a haberdasher .com or something of a similar elk and I will have to try and appeal to a whole new set of readers.

Maybe I should take this opportunity to change the focus of this blog. I could write about anything I wanted. What would appeal to the masses? Maybe I could write about reality TV - I could dedicate this blog to the X-factor... except it has come to a conclusion and I am proud to say that I didn't watch a minute of the coverage - why bother when the papers tell you all the best bits anyway.

I could write about gardening. Except for the fact that my greatest achievements in that field have been to kill off practically invincible plants. When plants and shrubs picture me they see me in a hooded cloak carrying a scythe.

No - I will do what i do best and write about what I should write about. Why change the habit of a lifetime? (or at least the three or four years I've been blogging anyway.) If anyone has contact details for my readers could you give them both a call and let them know I've updated.

Thanks.

word of the day (part 4 in a 73 part series)

serendipitously seren·dipi·tous·ly (sēr’ən-dīp’ī-t-əs-lē) adv. lucky in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries, having or bringing good fortune; The word comes from the term serendipity, a noun to cover the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident, the fact or occurrence of such discoveries or an instance of making such a discovery.

Another word that made me smile. I just love the sound of it. Did you know that the word Serendipity was formed from an old word meaning Sri Lanka, Serendip? The English author Horace Walpole used it in a letter in 1754. It was part of the title of "a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of."

Someone should have pointed out to him the perils of ending a sentence with a preposition

and just like that - phsssh - it's gone

Summers seem so tender, with weightless afts spent watching waves
Caress the beach and gentle breeze make aspens sway.
Summers seem so life eternal, so everlasting;
Till back in room K2,
With pen in hand,
They seem to last but just one day.

Every year I say it – and every year it seems a little truer – but summers get shorter all the time. I remember the summers of my youth. Lifetimes they were! We did everything it was possible to do on this earth back then – and had time to spare.

Glorious they were. Walking through the country roads to friends' farms – jumping from great towers of hay bales, landing on a pile of loose hay on the ground twenty feet below. Spending days by streams, below bridges, racing tiny speedboats made from broken twigs or leaves. Eating berries from the hedges as we went. Planning great bicycle journeys that would open our minds and broaden our horizons and make us men. Summers back then were real summers. At least in my slightly rose tinted memory they were.

Now summers are solely a time to recharge. They have ceased to exist as entities in their own right and now I look on them only as a break in the school calendar. How I long for the time I used to see school as something which existed simply to separate the holidays. This year it felt like it was already August by the time I had locked my classroom door at the end of term. July just sort of disappeared. And August was over in the blink of an eye. If you were to ask me how I spent it I would um and ah for a while, look around the room for inspiration, clear my throat and say, “Did I ever tell you about the times we used to jump off bales of hay and play pooh sticks at the bridge…”

So here I am, at my desk, about to see my form class for the first time in six weeks that that have gone by like six minutes - like a train that has forgotten to stop at the station.

Truth be told it’s good to be back. Back to the grindstone, routines, challenges… etc etc. Don’t tell my pupils but I miss them when I’m away from work. It’s not a dislike of teaching that makes me long for the heady days of my youth. I wouldn’t want to lose the joys that exist from September to June. I just want my Julys and Augusts back. Please.

a selfish moment

Allow me a spot of self indulgence if you would. Excuse the unapologetically selfish tone of this entry – and pardon me if I offend. But I am royally annoyed today.

I teach a lot of pupils. Hundreds of the little blighters. And every one of them is unique – for better or for worse. In an average class of about thirty children I will have about thirty personalities, about thirty different ability levels, about thirty different learning styles. And I do my best for each and every one of them. But sometimes you have favourites. The ones who will brighten your day by popping a piece of work in front of you that will make the day a good one. I may have to look a bit harder to find them this year.

I’m happy for them – really I am. It’s in their best educational interests I’m sure – they will benefit greatly. It’s just I can’t help feeling a bit…

Today I learned that my year 10 class will be four pupils smaller than it was last year. Actually that’s not true – I have lost four pupils but they will be replaced by others so it won’t be any smaller – it just feels like it will.
My four best students have been headhunted.

Last year I really struggled with that class. They were hard work, there were times I was pulling out my hair in handfuls and I nearly always had to have a sit down to recover after the lesson – but we got there. Better than that we actually did pretty well. Four girls in particular did extremely well.
Over the summer another school contacted their parents and offered them places there. A grammar school. Of course the parents jumped at the opportunity – I would probably have done the same.

But the underhandedness of the whole thing makes me feel a bit uneasy. Usually where this happens it’s because the existing school recommended the move and arranged it with the other school. In this instance the new school found they were slightly undersubscribed for year 10 - obtained the pupils’ grades, contacted and arranged the move before we knew anything about it. In footballing terms it’s called ‘tapping up’ and it leads to things like Chelsea being banned from the next three transfer windows.

I don’t blame the parents or the pupils. In their situation I would find it hard to do any different. There is an argument that they have clearly thrived in our school so there is a risk that the change might not be completely advantageous, that their progress may actually not be as good in a different setup – but honestly I think these particular pupils have the ability to do extremely well in the grammar school.
I am, however, far from happy with the other school. It’s not even in the same town as us. Could they not have carried out their little cream skimming exercise closer to their own backyard?

I’ll miss them dreadfully. In a class of thirty pupils they stood out. They enjoyed English class and I loved reading what they would come up with

I know I should be happy for my ex pupils; be proud even that I played a part in their advancement. But right now I feel a little dejected. Yes they will go on to do well. And all the credit for their success will go to their new English teacher and all that hard work I put in won’t be given a thought. Instead I get to struggle with the rest of the class without the benefit of those occasional moments of inspired writing.
Hey, even teachers are allowed to be self absorbed and selfish sometimes.

a quiet as a church mouse

School with no pupils. It’s a strange, wonderful place. The corridors are empty, there are no PE bags hanging in the cloakrooms. Everything is eerily quiet.

In Church we have it drummed into us that a Church is not a building – that it is a collective of people meeting in God’s name.

Well a school is not a building either – and it’s not a work place (although it certainly feels that way usually) – it’s a group of people meeting to learn. The building, and the teachers, are just there to facilitate that learning.
Across the country teachers are returning to their classrooms a week before their pupils. They are preparing for the year ahead, doing a spot of classroom decoration, discussing action and development plans, deciding focuses for PRSD, welcoming new members of staff, enduring INSET…

This is a strange strange place when it’s quiet. It feels somehow wrong. Something’s missing. Without the pupils it has a dormant feel – an empty, hollow, shell of a building. A church without people is just a building – but it can be one impressive building; architecturally, aesthetically. An old empty church building has to be the single most emotive space possible . A school without pupils is just a collection of empty rooms and corridors – and I love it.

as fast as a speeding bullet

Doesn't life move quickly these days? Sometimes it feels like we are so obsessed with getting things done that we have forgotten how to enjoy doing them. Sometimes, I think our modern living blinkers are masking the glorious technicolour world around us.

I'm on a train at the moment - doing a train journey I haven't done since I was a very young child. The route takes us through some beautiful countryside, beside the mouth of the mighty Bann, along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, under Mussenden Temple and past Downhill beach to the point where the shores of Lough Foyle become the banks of the River Foyle. It is a particularly beautiful journey. Not that anyone seems to notice.

I'm surrounded by people on laptops studying spreadsheets and filling out reports; all around me people are on the phone to their office, to their husbands, to their friend Pat who moved away ten years ago to marry an english man and so doesn't know the tragic events in Stranocum this week or the trouble anticipated at the band parade in Rasharkin tonight.

I don't blame them. The pace of life orders that we see journeys, not as events, but as wasted time. Time that technology can harness and make useful. It makes me yearn for the time when people used to dress up for a flight in a plane, a time when whole families would get on the train and head for the sea. Days when the journey was part of the experience - not an inconvenient means to the end.

So, as we pass through God's beautiful creation, I smile wryly at all those around me who seem oblivious to it... And I spend the journey typing a blog about it on my Blackberry.

fill yer boots

Only in Ballymoney could you come upon a pair of boots filled with rubbish sitting on the pavement and only be surprised at the utter lack of interest from everyone who passed by them.

I've just been to Derry where I saw a drunk woman lying flat on her back swearing at unseen companions receive similar apathy. I've walked the streets of Dublin and London and Toronto and a few places where I've seen amazing sculptures receive similar interest from passers by...

But only in Ballymoney would you see this.

shoplifters amnesty

Now I should probably preface this entry by saying that I am not a shoplifter. I can’t say I have never ever shoplifted, but as far as I know the last thing I tried to slip off a shop shelf and into my pocket was a four colour bic pen from Mini’s when I was twelve – I got caught and ended up paying anyway. I am not a shop lifter because it’s illegal, it offends my middle class sensibilities, it goes against my moral upbringing and because I’m not very good at it.

That being said I want to tell you about a new collection I’m starting. Above you will see the first two parts of it. Two security tags from the same national supermarket chain. One came on a pair of trousers (and before you raise eyebrows I promise they were fair trade) bought in the Ballymoney branch and the second came inside the box of a cheap computer keyboard (the very one I’m using right now) from their Ballymena branch.

Much as I dislike the idea that I have inadvertently taken them there’s something marvellously ironic about stealing a security tag. It’s bad enough that the checkout staff forget to remove the tags when scanning them through – but its another thing altogether that the tags clearly didn’t actually do their job. Now I could tell you that I used magnetic cloaking devices, a black jump suit, infra red goggles, laser revealing smoke canisters, ropes, pullies and acrobatic skill to evade the alarms at the door – but actually I, um, walked out through them. It doesn’t fill you with confidence, does it?

So If I can collect two of these in the space of a week from one chain I reckon I should be able to pick up a sizeable collection over time. Unless I can think of some way to return them without looking like a particularly brazen shoplifter.

Be in no doubt

Doubt thou the stars are fire!
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.

Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2

300 and it I feel every one of them

My three hundredth post. And is it just me or is it getting harder to wrote these things? I really struggle to think of anything to say these days. On top of that it feels to me as if there just isn’t enough time in the day to do anything much? Is that just me too or is someone sneaking a few minutes out of each 24 hours?

So please forgive me if this 300th post is also one of the shortest – I just have nothing to say.

the greatest ever

The Wimbledon Tennis Championships have always been special for me. I love tennis, always have done since I used to batter a ball against the wall in a strange tennis-squash hybrid as a child. It is the one interest I shared with both my parents. I won't go on about it - I'd only be repeating myself - but, for me, Wimbledon holds a fascination. I am typing this at around 5 words a minute during the pauses between points in the 2009 mens final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. It looks like being another good one - but it will surely not compare to last year.

I watched the epic battle between Federer and Nadal along with my Mother in her room. By this point she was spending the vast majority of her time in bed and I knew in my heart of hearts that this would be the last time I would watch a tennis match with her. It seems a strange thing to say but I remember praying that it would be a good one for her.

And it was.

If you watched it then you remember how special it was. At nearly five hours it was the longest final in history. Five hours of high tempo, high quality tennis. High drama throughout. Rafael Nadal took a quick lead. At two sets up and with three break points on Federer's serve in the seventh game of the third set it looked like it was all over and Nadal was about to lift the trophy. Federer, often seen as invincible on grass, seemed deflated - but Federer managed to hold and went on to win the set on a tie break.

Then the comeback began.

The fourth set had the most amazing tie break I have ever watched. It didn't go as far as the McEnroe-Borg tie break in the 1980 final which ended 18-16 but the way this one swung and turned made it compelling.

At one point Federer was 5-2 down. He pulled it back to 6-6. Nadal took the next to set up championship point. Federer pulled back. Nadal won another point and set up another championship point. Again Federer pulled back with an amazing shot and won the set.

The final set was a nerve jangling affair with both players completely commited and focused on winning the match. It took sixteen more games to separate these two great rivals. In the end Nadal triumphed. The two men were exhausted - and strangely so was I.

Throughout the match I sat on the edge of my mother's bed. Occasionally she slipped off to sleep during the match. When her eyes would open I would tell what had happened, and she would smile. At the end of the match, despite the fact that we were both rooting for Federer throughout, she had a huge smile on her face and I made a silent prayer asking for Mssrs Nadal and Federer to be blessed. They had put on an amazing show just for her - and she had lived to see the greatest Wimbledon final in history.

So now as I watch the 2009 men's final alone it's a strange moment for me. Again it has gone for five sets. Federer is struggling a little and I am urging him to win - but not to make it better than last year.

that end of term feeling

I always struggle at this time of year. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it - I just find it difficult.

No one feels like doing any work - the holidays are mere days away. Half the class are already taking an early vacation and the course has been covered. The kids that are still here have just been watching DVDs all day and crave mental stimulation -- time for Mr C's 20 things you can do with scrabble.

Number 20 in 2o things you can do with scrabble is actually play scrabble itself. I leave it until last because it's always a little depressing when the teacher gets beaten by a twelve year old.

its marching season in london

I was covering an English class today. The pupils had been reading Buddy by Nigel Hinton.

It's a story about a boy who blames himself when his mother leaves home. His dad starts getting into trouble and things go from bad to worse.

Despite being pretty much a staple text wherever I've taught I've never managed to teach a class long enough to cover it from start to finish.

I'm not even sure where it's set. I just assumed London.

Anyway the class were drawing images from the novel. One particular pupil drew the house on Croxley Street where the action happens. Clearly wherever the book is set, judging by the painted kerbs, it's a loyalist area.

rainbows and sunsets

Kylie over at eclectrica writes about her stalker rainbows, how she felt they were there for her personal enjoyment. I feel the same about my sunsets. Every one of them unique, every one of them beautiful. Every one of them there just for me.

There's something about the awesome power of creation to blow our minds that... um... blows my mind. When I see the ugly sides of the human condition I often notice the vastness, complexity and beauty of the world around me and it never ceases to amaze me.

sectarianism to racism in three easy steps

I have rarely felt such extremes in my pride/shame of being Northern Irish as I have done in the past few days. In the space of a few hours I have felt horror that overt racism has become reared its ugly head in my province, relief that it was immediately condemned roundly by large numbers of press and public alike, then shame when the backlash happened and a series of bitter voices were heard on radio phone ins and news reports claiming that “they should go back where they came from”, “coming here and taking our benefits”, “they shouldn’t be here, that’s all I have to say on the matter,” “stealing our jobs while our own teenagers are struggling to find anything to do.”

For those who don’t watch Northern Irish news I should offer a quick spot of exposition. Last week over one hundred Romanian nationals fled their homes in Belfast after being attacked and intimidated by locals. The particular area of Belfast is known as the village. It’s a working class loyalist area popular with migrants attracted by the cheap housing. Racist incidents have been occurring there for years but this particular episode and some other high profile attacks have brought it to the national media attention.

And this one has had more of an impact on me than any that came before. While the petty squabbling and small minded ranting was going on in the big city, far from me and those I know, I was able to pretend I couldn’t hear it – persuade myself that I was living in a much more tolerant society than we had seen before. But this time it’s bit a lot closer to the bone – I know one of the Romanians involved, and I am terrified for her.

This particular girl is an ethnic Roma – a group that have been persecuted throughout Europe, and beyond. She is no stranger to abuse. I don’t think I’ve come face to face with anyone who has put up with as many hardships as she has in her life, and come up smiling again and again. So the fact that the collective nerve of her community has snapped and they are so scared they feel they have to sleep on a Church floor for safety… well, it takes a lot for that to happen.

I was speaking to her only a day before this all happened. She was in good spirits, as usual. She was always very positive about her situation and thankful to the “friendly” locals who had helped her settle in. I was always surprised by her attitude. I have been with her when people have ignored her, glared at her, hurled insults at her from across the street. I’ve seen it – and yet she didn’t seem to. She seemed to take it all as some of the challenges we face in this life that lead to blessings in the next. Her faith leads her to believe that anything that happens now is only temporary and as such can be endured. But more than that – she believes that through suffering come opportunities for blessing. She talks occasionally of times when the Police have stopped her when she was selling papers on the street to check her credentials. She smiles as she recalls the members of the public – strangers – who came to her side to make sure she was alright and accuse the officers of harassing her. This unexpected support, though rare, has more effect than a thousand dirty stares.

But I still cannot understand the anger people feel towards her. There is a lot of dangerous ignorance shading the public perception of this girl and her community. Far from “stealing our benefits,” this girl works two jobs to help support her family – neither of which the locals would belittle themselves doing. She lives in a grossly overcrowded house with no housing benefit. She wears clothes that she bought in a charity shop while standing in the rain earning money to pay for her baby sister’s shoes. She gets no benefits. It is a horrible irony that most of the people complaining about these immigrants actually receive far more government aid than the people they are complaining about. In fact, through the work they do and the rent they pay a lot of Roma contribute more to society than a lot of their neighbours.

A few weeks ago in Church the minister preached on Matthew 6:

Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? … Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these… But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

And my mind turned towards my friend. Her faith is sufficient for her. So sure is she that God will provide that she can ignore the madness going on around her. She makes do with the little she receives, safe in the knowledge that she will enjoy riches in heaven. And in that way I find her inspirational. She is happy with enough. How many of us can truly say the same. We are actively ordered not to worry – we are told here and in other passages that what we need will be provided and that what we want isn’t always what we need. I always took that with the qualification that, obviously, God wanted me to have what I wanted and that a little excess was part of the deal – everyone needs a bit of luxury in their lives, no? As the minister pointed out that Sunday how many times have we opened the fridge door, looked in at the shelves full of food and said “there’s nothing here to eat.” switched on the TV, flicked through the hundreds of channels, and said “there’s nothing on.” Looked in our wardrobes (bulging with clothes) and said “I have nothing to wear.” Excess has become complacency has become vulgar dissatisfaction. That isn’t a problem those Romanians have.

And though my friend showed little worry herself – I feel worry for her now. I don’t know where she is now. I have no idea whether she will remain in this country or leave for somewhere less threatening. Part of me wants them to go somewhere they can be safe – but I would hate for the racists to achieve their goal. Some reports have branded Belfast the race hate capital of Europe. That is a horrendous reputation to have – and actually far from accurate - but I can understand why people would say it.
I work in a school where in several hundred pupils there are no black kids, no eastern Europeans, no Hispanics. The cultural diversity is made up of about four Asians and a white American. It has been a similar story wherever I have taught. These kids have never faced other cultures; the closest they ever came was meeting people of a different religious denomination – and look how that turned out. When I asked my pupils their opinion of the Romanians I was literally shocked by some of the comments they came out with.

As I type this two teenagers are facing court, charged with ‘provocation likely to cause a breach of the peace’ and intimidation. They have admitted to involvement but claim it was the first time they have ever done anything like it. If found guilty it will be a small victory for sanity – but will it do anything to change the opinions of those (including many of my pupils) who still believe that immigrants are stealing our homes, our jobs and our society. The court case will do nothing to remove the fear, the paranoia, the ignorance that led to decades of sectarianism in our country and now threatens to manifest itself as racism.



Update (tues 23 June): This morning I heard that the majority of the Roma have decided to leave. Twenty five have already left; seventy five would be leaving asap. Fourteen have decided to stay. I am happy for them and I hope they find peace somewhere. I am sad for our society. We have a long way to go before our Christian actions reflect our Christian preaching
The Church where the Romanians sought sanctuary initially has been vandalised (three twenty year olds have been arrested for that attack) and several people (many teens) have been arrested on race related charges.

I now see a reason to like twitter

A Daily Mail poll which recorded 93 per cent of respondents as in favour of gypsies ‘jumping the NHS queue’ appears to have been removed from its website.
The vote, which yesterday provoked a Twitter campaign urging people to back the rights of gypsies in access to healthcare, was a huge embarrassment for the right-wing paper.

Anything which embarrasses Richard Littlejohn can't be a bad thing. After all he's been embarrassing the country with his small minded little britain mentality for years.

In his article Richard Littlejohn complained that the ’diversity' industry was taking “sadistic pleasure in persecuting the taxpaying majority”.

Littlejohn complained that “gipsies will be allocated a full 20 minutes with a doctor and allowed to bring their extended family into the waiting room”.
In the article he repeatedly ridiculed travellers who face limited opportunities right across Europe, in work, education and with regard to their health needs.
“One of the most striking aspects of the 'mobile community'” he said “is that they tend not to go anywhere - except flying to Florida on holiday twice a year”.

It pains me to think that there are people out there who agree with this man - but it joys me to see that there are a whole lot more who don't.

I still think microblogging is a flash fad which we won't remember a thing about this time next year - but thanks Twitter.

behind us the ocean

I have been terribly remiss in not posting this a long time ago. As many of you are aware I am a huge fan of the poetry of Katia Grubisic. The fact that she is a dear, dear friend is a huge bonus but it doesn't alter the fact that I am blown away by her poetic voice.
This is, as far as I know, the second of her poems to be featured on the Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate's website - It's been there for about a year and I've been meaning to post a link to it for about a year, but my good-intention-paved-road is well worn. Anyway, read and enjoy.


Behind Us the Ocean
by Katia Grubisic

Imagine arms you never want to get out of; imagine
a road that rises up to meet you and knows
exactly where you’re set to

before it comes. At the start of the highway, behind us the cliff
and the ocean’s creeping furor,
we photographed the mile marker of atlassed places.

Cardiff or Liverpool? you asked. On the sign the mermaid
laughed and we could not help
but follow. Now I can smell you

coming back, the trace in the shirt I wrap around
each same wavering time of night.
Is it a ploy to keep me

going? Meanwhile we never visited the local saint;
he still waits in his cave to slap us upside the head, wise
guy witness to my misplaced faith in a letter

posted from the mouth
of the river. I'll just put man in a car
possibly with troubled eyes, somewhere

between Cardiff and Liverpool. It is night I'll put
and they’ll find you. Would you believe
that, meticulously, fate would have someone else

at that junction, bizarrely suntanned arms
typing in the darkness? There is a typewriter
at the corner and I have been looking.

I can smell thunder beginning. You were there
when I dervished slow-mo in my wedding dress;
you saw me iridescent

like a street in the rain’s silence. Again the mermaid laughs;
we are drowning in it, her upside-down peals of lightning
and thunder that pass, but only diffusely,

into a misspelled late-nite coffee shop someplace
in the southwest. Where for?
Make your car comfortable, I say, take another

notion. Outside it is written
bikers welcome. Nope, we’re here
for the diffusion. I wouldn't worry too much; I accept as true

all kinds of things I shouldn't, you say. When I leave
I take the still-white sheet from the typewriter,
with its carbon and square familiar letters;

I take it all. Off we wander
across our respective suspension bridge
sat opposite ends of the world. Light stabs

through. Our shadows together on the rock face
indicate we are with each other. We are trespassing.
We have not decided for certain. Will we

recognise ourselves? Wear a fake yellow rose,
a mink stole. I will know you. The letters blow off, catch fire
on the way and one more time

the mermaid laughs. The storm has started, I type.
Possibly stormless, I put; in need of wrack
and calm, and you’ll be found. It has started. Enjoy your storm.

________________________________________
© Katia Grubisic.

what do you see?

What do you see when you look at this photo? A car? A particularly clean and shiny car that has been meticulously polished? A car so clean that even the tyres sparkle?

What do I see when I look at this photo? And what do I see when I look at my alphabetised DVDs, and my colour coded post-it stocks, and my overly sharpened pencils?
What do I see?
I see that I have a huge pile of exams papers to mark, of grades to collate, of reports to write; and the king of procrastination is sitting on his throne.

someone shut him up!

Is there anyone out there who likes hearing their own voice. Stupid question really - I know about fifty teenagers who seem to love nothing more than the sound of their own voices - but you know what I mean. How do you feel when you listen to your own voice mail message, or hear a recording of a speech or reading that you performed? I have a feeling that I am not alone when I say that I hate hearing the nasal mumble that comes from my mouth. It bears no resemblance to the voice in my head. The voice in my head is clear, coherent and free of any accent or blemish. The voice in my head is that of an orator, a confident leader of men... I hate the sound of my voice.

So it is with sad resignation that I report my discovery that it is not just the sound of my spoken voice that makes me cringe - my written voice is just as bad.

On two separate occasions comments I made in this blog have found themselves in the Guardian. Firstly some lines I wrote about Steve Irwin were quoted in their print edition the day after his death back in 2006. Then, a few days ago I became "Fellow 'tweechers' have responded angrily..." and "But one teacher-blogger counters..." in an article written by Jackie Kemp for the education section of their online edition, guardian.co.uk. The article 'Teachers banned from Twitter after indiscreet tweet - Council imposes ban after teacher's comments cause outrage in rural community' was about the teacher being investigated for using twitter during school hours in Scotland. I wrote an entry about it a couple of weeks ago.

As I read my quotes I was struck by a single thought - "I sound like a complete idiot." In my attempt to appear witty and clever I came across as anything but. As I read Kemp's article I felt my face turn red and I had a sudden desire to crawl into a corner and hide.

On the plus side she doesn't identify me (good for two reasons. a. Education chiefs won't track me down and put me in front of Joe McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-Educational Activities. and b. No one would attribute the crazed comments to me... well, until I drew your attention to them anyway) and she corrected my lack of commas - thanks Jackie.

one of the joys of a rural school

The school car park during the exams -- in my day a battered up 1979 chevette was enough to get you respect. Now it seems nothing more than tractor will do.

But what confuses me is the New Holland with the silage trailer on the back. Did they take a break to pop in and do a quick GCSE or two before getting back to carting silage? Surely they wouldn't have time...

mr C does math -- badly

I was going through my file today and I stumbled on something that I had been working on whilst subbing maths in a local grammar school. While I was there I was inspired to break out of the little box that constrains me, that stamps the label ‘literary arts and humanities’ on my forehead. I wanted to do something that would shatter the boundaries of perceived consciousness forever. I wanted to be the first English teacher to discover a modern mathematical law.

For too long we have been told that there are those who are good at creative tasks, those who are good with their hands, those who are good at seeing the big picture, those who are good at problem solving, those who are good with people, those who are good with shapes, those who are good with numbers, those who are good with words, those who are good with money, those who are good at spending money. Can we not shave off harsh corners and become more rounded individuals? Can a mathematician not write a sonnet? Can an artist not paint a scientific truth? A sociologist not gaze in wonder at a rock formation? A Historian not appreciate the idiosyncratic features of a foreign language?
Can a writer not master calculus?

If Leonardo Devinci teaches us anything it’s that we can multiskill. A painter, a mathematician, an inventor, an anatomist, a sculptor, an engineer, a botanist, a technologist, a musician, a linguist, a scientist, an author… Now he would have made a damn fine substitute teacher.

So I set about creating a formula that would change the world – and possibly make carbon neutral space travel a reality. I sharpened my pencils, looked out my most accurate rulers, protractors, compasses… and began

So there we have it. Mr C’s law of… well, I don’t know what it’s a law of. I only said I’d come up with it – I didn’t mention actually suggesting what it does. However I did take a stab at explaining how it works for those who, like me, feel more comfortable in the realms of literary classics than mathematical genius

And for those who struggle with my infantile scribbling:

The quality of κ is not constrain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from the hypothenuse
Upon the adjacent beneath. It is twice factored;
It factors the χ that adds and the ў that subtracts.
‘Tis greatest in the versin; it becomes
The triangle better than cosine;
His right angle shows the definite integral, 2α + κν;
It is enthroned in the hearts of trigonometric functions;
It is an attribute of Leibniz himself;
And mathematics pure doth then show likest Leibniz
When trigonometry doth season calculus. Therefore literaturalist,
Though poetical prose be your plea, consider this:
That in the course of geometry, none of us
Should see polynominals. We do pray for prime numbers
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render…
…The ratio of κ (to ½π²)

I thank you.

then they came for me; and there was no one left to tweet

I have to thank Mike & Alex for drawing my attention to this article on the BBC website. I hadn't heard about it before and, once you've taken a scan through it you'll understand why I found it a bit unnerving.

To paraphrase viciously, a young teacher in Scotland is being investigated because it was discovered that she had been updating her twitter page with messages, some of which referred to her classes and pupils.

The secondary teacher in Argyll and Bute is understood to have posted up to 38 updates a day on the Twitter site. One said: "Had S3 period 6 for last two years...don't know who least wants to do anything, them or me."

'The fool!' I thought when first I read about her. 'Every teacher knows that you can't publish information about pupils without explicit parental permission. She must be stupid to do that.' Except as I read through some examples of what she had actually written it began to dawn on me that she wasn't actually posting anything more revealing than I have here.

"The thought of having some of my S4 beyond exam time doesn't bear thinking about - for them as well as me I suspect."

In fact I imagine I have occasionally been a lot less anonymous in my musings than she has. She doesn't mention pupils by name, her comments seem fairly generalised and focus more on her than on the pupils she is teaching. So what is her crime? It gets worse for her:

Argyll and Bute Council policy states that teachers may access professional blogs which have educational value but are not allowed to have their own blog. However, the teacher in question has a blog on which she said she had been too busy using Twitter to update it recently.

For those who, like me, have remained immune to the lure of the tweet let me explain. Twitter is just a way to deliver mundane details of your life to many friends at once. Through Twitter you can develop followers who regularly check up on your feed. It's basically a way to make your stalkers feel more involved. I care nothing for Twitter. But blogging...

"Teachers are not allowed to have their own blogs." Um.

So, unlike the teacher in question - I don't tweet (or whatever it is) - I don't really see the appeal. But like the teacher in question, I do have a blog. Like the teacher in question, I occasionally mention anecdotes from my life as a teacher online. Like the teacher in question, I have been known to express dissatisfaction in life. Up to this point I have never been told that I was not allowed to do so. It seems if I were working in Argyll and Bute I would be breaching official guidelines.

And quite honestly that is ridiculous.

Now clearly I haven't read everything that this teacher posted. I'll be first in line to point and make disapproving facial expressions at her if she has been commenting on identifiable pupils. I will shake my head slowly if it turns out she has been bringing her school and its good name into disrepute. But if it's simply the case that she has been uploading her thoughts and feelings in a pointless, if slightly narcissistic webby kind of a way then what is she doing that it so different from all the twitter users in other professions? Exactly how has what she was doing impacted on the educational wellbeing of pupils in the Argyll area? How was it having any impact on anything until someone thought it necessary to bring it to the attention of the press? Absolutely ridiculous.

But it has had an impact on me. And that might be a good thing. It's been a wake up call about the comments I make. I need to take a lot more care when talking about school. I need to put more effort into making my comments more general and less personalised. I need to increase anonymity on many levels.
This annoys me.
When you work in education you soon find that your life revolves around a constrictive regime. You become bound up in targets and paperwork to the point that sometimes you need to poke a hole through which to breathe. We spend so long living by someone's rules that the idea of finding a place of our own where we can express our own expressions, where we can breathe in air that hasn't been passed through a committee process and risk assessment survey first.

Am I worried about what is happening to that teacher in Argyll? Yes. I really am. I would hate to think that other education authorities would feel the need to follow suit. If the situation arose where I was told that I shouldn't keep a blog then TOASNT would be gone quicker than... well, quicker than it went when I accidentally hit the delete button last year. How I hope it doesn't come to that. But from now on, in any effort to avoid names I will no longer mention Dave - he will now be 'the Welsh Castle Sketcher', Mike and Alex will become 'London's Bushmills Residents', Kylie - you are now 'the Sporadic Antipodean', Karen 'Florida's vg Bridget Jones', and Brazen Teacher (as if that isn't anonymous enough) will henceforth become 'Another Teacher at risk of being put under investigation because it seems we can't be trusted to update blogs without passing out sensitive information and ruining the lives of all those around us.'

Council officials were investigating whether she had put sensitive information on public display and whether it was during work hours.

"Council policy states that teachers may access professional blogs which have educational value but are not allowed to have their own blog." Wouldn't you love to live in a place where public workers aren't allowed to express personal opinion? You now have the choice of China or Argyll it seems.

a convenient mist

A ghostly image has been snapped at a museum prompting speculation that the spirit of the English scientist Edward Jenner could be haunting his former home. A photograph seems to have captured a hazy image of a man sitting on a chair in the attic of the Edward Jenner Museum in Berkeley, Gloucestershire.
-Huddersfield Examiner

I love a good story of things that go bump in the night. And this one has it all - good historical location, famous dead person, mysterious smokey apparition, cynical photographer who 'doesn't believe in ghosts' themselves but just can't explain what he's captured on film... Oh yes, all the ingredients.

Edward Jenner was a famous scientist who was resident in this particular house when he lived in Berkeley back in the 1700s. He is probably most famous as 'the father of immunology' and I remember being taught about him in school assemblies back when I was a wee lad (not in the 1700s) He pioneered a smallpox vaccine turning it from a fearsome disease which killed large numbers of people into an historical anomaly. If I remember correctly he noticed that milk maids didn't seem to get the disease as much as everyone else, then he reckoned it must have something to do with cows' udders. Instead of prescribing national milking service he deduced that the milkmaids were contracting a much less harmful strain of pox from the cows (cowpox) which was boosting their immunity to smallpox. And now, because of the humble milk maid and her cow-pox-pus oozing-blister-covered hands we no longer have smallpox. Genius.
If I am not mistaken Jenner was also the first person to note that when Cuckoos laid their eggs in other birds' nests, the newly hatched cuckoo chicks would push the rival eggs out of the nest. Something like that anyway.

"You can basically see through a doorway what looks like a figure reclining in a chair, only there is no chair there. Who knows whether it is Jenner himself?"

But back to the mysterious photo. It certainly looks the part, no? Unfortunately I remain unconvinced. I think perhaps I would be less sceptical if the photographer who took it wasn't in the process of taking publicity shots for the Museum's new 'Ghosts in the Attic' exhibition. A photo of a ghost in the attic when they're having a exhibition about ghosts in attics? It's all a little convenient, n'cest pas?

back to SNT

It's been so long since I've done any special needs work for any length of time I've almost forgotten what it means. But a couple of hours covering a special needs class this morning showed me just how much I miss it. I absolutely loved every second. And let me tell you why:

1. Working in an atmosphere devoid of any subcurrent. So often I am on edge when I teach - always worried about saying or doing anything that can be misconstrued. Sometimes I feel as if I have to view everything I say from every possible angle before actually saying it. Today everything I said was taken at face value - there was no cynicism, no posturing. It was such a refreshing change from the lesson I'd had before it where a pupil had confronted me. He knew he was wrong pretty quickly into the conversation but he couldn't lose face by backing down. I think I did an alright job of diffusing the situation - but it would have been wonderful not to have to.

2. In general the pupils love what they are doing. Our targets/assessment obsessed education system often makes me feel like I am training pupils to pass tests rather than actually educating them. And you can't inspire someone through paper 1 section B. People are inspired by feats of ingenuity - wonderful literature - art - the way the world works... not by 'you should spend no more than 45 minutes on this question. It is worth 18 marks.' In this class I was teaching the pupils what we needed to know - and they could see why they needed to know it. True they had forgotten most of it by the time I'd said the second syllable of lunchtime... but...

3. I miss the downright cheerfulness of a special needs classroom. Here there are no allusions to prison cells. The windows are huge and bar free (and sport a couple of rather beautiful stained glass designs I note - impressive), The motivational posters are colourful and... well, motivational. Even the over sized pencils and triangular big nib pens make me feel somehow better about the world.

4. The small class sizes must be a huge consideration. You simply cannot compare trying to control and teach 30 people, all with different priorities, in a cramped, airless classroom to this. My life is normally so filled with racing to cover all the objectives for all the pupils in thirty minutes that it is a joy to be able to spend time with individual pupils - helping them with their individual needs. What a relief it is to be able to take more time over a particular issue because some pupils seem to be struggling with it, safe in the knowledge that there aren't half a dozen pupils getting fidgety at the other side of the room because they're finished the task and are getting bored waiting to move on

I know this is all just temporary. I know that tomorrow I will be back to porridge - but let me take one more deep breath and enjoy it while I can.

talking of names...

Talking of names... It only just struck me today, as I was passing out classwork books to my year 11s...

...actually let me start a bit further back. One of the sub teacher's magic tricks I have yet to master is the ability to learn 300 names in a week. I am rubbish with names and my pupils know it. The trouble kids I (ironically) have no trouble with. I usually know their names in 30 minutes - but the quiet ones... usually i have just about learned their names by the time I leave to move on to a new school. Right now I rely on a less than reliable pupil to help me fill in the register for my form class every morning.

I do try. Really I do. One of the little things I do to try and memorise is making a point of handing out classwork books myself - it gives me a chance to relate the name on the book to the face on the pupil and where they usually sit in the classroom. It adds a minute or two to the beginning of the lesson but it works for me. But names are still a problem for me.

I've also come to realise that pupils are obsessed with names. Namely christian names.

'what's your name Sir?'
'mr Campbell.'
'your first name.'
'mr.'
'nawwwh... what's your real name.'
'why do you want to know?'
'we know all our teachers' names.'
'well then, let me be different.'
'why?'
'because it's important to be unique.'
'yeah - but what's your name?'

I have no problem with pupils knowing my name - I just have problems with the inevitable few who love to push boundaries. Maybe if I didn't make such a big thing of it they wouldn't care less. I've tried that though and it still results in a couple of mindless comedians yelling my first name across the playground to... actually I'm not sure why. Maybe they have their reasons.

Today as I was handing them back their work, the books had arranged themselves into an order which made me notice something I hadn't spotted before:

Matthew... Mark... Luke... Jonathon...

I made some comment about the names, how I had a biblical name too; which led to them asking what it was,

'1st and 2nd Corinthians'

For some reason they didn't laugh.

there's creative and there's insane

Sometimes parents bemuse me. Actually a lot of the time parents bemuse me - sometimes they make me freeze in utter shock. And one of the things that never fails to amaze me is the utter disregard they have for their child's future when naming them. Would you trust a lawyer called Sunbeam? A doctor called Fifi trixiebell? And cute as it may be when the little one is crawling about the floor at play group, they face a world of pain from the other pupils when they reach school.

I blame celebrities. They have now become the official role models of society and as such pretty soon I should expect to have classes filled with Apples and Peaches and Moxie Crimefighters and Audio Sciences and Sage Moonbloods. The Edge called his child Blue Angel and Nicolas Cage gave his child Superman's real name (Kal El, not Clarke Kent.) How can I respect men who could do this to their own flesh and blood?

Copying celebrities can be extremely dangerous. After David and Victoria named their son after his place of conception (Brooklyn) one couple followed suit - they tried to call their son Busstop.

Yes while Celebrities can be odd, regular folks can be downright cruel. Consider life if you were called any of the following: Nasdaq, Confidenze, Orangeyello, Stallion, Batman Bin Suparman, Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence, Laurel Hardy, Russell Sprout, Skye Rockett, Chris Cross, Mary Christmas, Barb Dwyer... the list is huge. You can check out a few that TheBabyWebsite.com found if you want more.

Some countries have laws against things like that. I remember a while back a Court in New Zealand removing a girl from her parents because they had called her Tallulah Does the Hula in Hawaii. They claimed it was a form of abuse and made her a ward of the state until she could have the name changed. That was extreme but I can understand why.

So what brought this on? Why am I suddenly so worried about names? Well this morning I encountered a pupil called Robert Sands. And anyone who calls their son that, then sends him to a Protestant School in a loyalist area of Northern Ireland clearly must be insane.

look before you lend

One danger of being a sub teacher is having to use what is available to you. You go into a room blind, not knowing how well equiped it is or whether you are going to have to spend twenty minutes searching cupboards for pritt stick or felt tips.
Of course you could always carry an emergency pack containing enough rulers, pencils, pens, erasers, set squares, sellotape, tipp ex, pencil sharpeners, compasses, protractors, exercise books, calculators, dictionaries, scissors, glue sticks, staplers, colouring pencils for thirty pupils... but sometimes I don't get up early enough to pack a transit van full of stationery. I make do with what I can - I am the Ray Mears of the classroom.

But sometimes it goes wrong.

Just now a pupil asked to borrow a pen. I was in the middle of helping a year 11 with imagination deficit disorder so I absent mindedly grabbed a pen from the teacher's desk and gave it to him.
At the end of a lesson punctuated with various giggling fits from around the room the pupil returned the pen with a look that can only be described as extreme pity...

reasons to be cheerful, 1-2-3 (four and five)

I was just thinking. My bank balance has seen better days, my car is long overdue a service, both my cameras need major repair work, I'm starting a new school with a whole new set of challenges, I'm under pressure with video editing work piling up around me... but it's all good.

Why?

Well several reasons:

1) I'm actually looking forward to the whole new school thing. It's a lot closer to where I live so I get an extra 10 mins in the morning.

And you know what they say, 'a change is as good as a rest.' They are clearly stupid; but there is an element of truth in that. As the school year goes on I notice distinct mood and behavioural changes. Usually in September I get up early in the morning and am one of the first to arrive at work. I am full of the joys of my profession and sprinkling idealism as I skip through the corridors. By May I am usually struggling to get out of bed in the morning and spend my days inventing new levels of cynicism. This morning I awoke and was ready to go at some ungodly hour. It's like I've moved back six months. Unfortunately it's my pupils perfecting the art of cynical thinking now.

2) Ireland won the grand slam - yes I am still living off that one.

3) The weather has been bizarrely clement, at times summery even. It's amazing how a change in the weather affects people. I know the weather we are having is happying people up because they're filling their facebook status (what's the plural of status? stati? states? status? statuses?) with messages of love and joy. And what could be a more scientific socialogical survey than a glance at facebook status?

Anyway, the sun is shining, the breeze is refreshing and I for one am much happier.

4) It's spring. And spring for my family means lambing time. My father has a flock of sheep and he usually spends his februarys (februaries?) and marchs (marches?) playing midwife to them. I help out when needed but luckily this year that only meant one call at 3am to come and help a ewe going through a difficult birth. I remember one year, during the foot and mouth outbreak when he was working nights in Belfast, that I was up most nights. But usually I am only the reserve help and I get to enjoy the postives rather than get my hands dirty.

So this time of the year means the fields are full of lambs. And there is nothing in the natural world more amusing than those little wooly comedians.

5) Mysterious laundry. I love a good mystery. Last week we had a power cut. They've been doing work on the power lines so it's been a regular occurence. From 9am to 5pm we were without power and I couldn't do any video work. So I jumped in my car and headed into town to pass time.

When we returned our washing line was filled with still wet laundry. We don't know who put it there, who owns it, why they put it there... It can't have been washed in our laundry room because the washer had no power... there seems no logical rationale. I love it. And I thought I'd tell you all about it now because eventually there will be some uninteresting explanation. Until then I'll enjoy letting my imagination run wild.

what a send off

I shaved this morning. I never shave on fridays - it's a quirk. But today is my last day at this school and they arranged for someone special to be here to mark my leaving - the President.
It seems they were in the UK on business anyway so it wasn't such a big deal for them to drop by for Mr C's swansong - it was the least I could do to shave.

Okay, it isn't Barack Hussein Obama II, it was the Irish President, Mary McAleese. And she isn't visiting because it's my last day in the school. I don't actually know why she's here; truth be told I'm not sure anybody knows why she chose to come here. I heard someone or other mention that she was attending some function or other somewhere... or other. But why the Irish head of state, the figurehead of Eire, Uachtaráin na hÉireann, the eighth President of the Republic of Ireland, then chose to visit a tiny town on the coast, go past the big shiny convent school, and stop at the tiny little state school with its crumbling buildings, cramped corridors and only three hundred and forty one (I counted) pupils - I can't think why she'd do that. I just checked her schedule on her web site and the visit isn't even listed - but she's here. Intriguing.

Not that it makes much difference to me. While most of the the teachers are attendinga meet and greet with President McAleese I'm out in a mobile covering two classes merged into one. The life of a sub, eh? I won't see the woman let alone get the chance to ask what she is actually doing here. My life will be unaltered.

Actually, that's not entirely true - I will see one benefit. You see I am on bus duty again today (and yes it is raining.) But today I will have a few big men in shades and sharp suits giving me a hand - I'm thinking there won't be any trouble.

how to predict the weather in north antrim

I'm teaching year 8 and 10 Geography at the moment. I have to admit that this has turned out to be more difficult than I had expected it to be.
I used to enjoy Geography when I was being taught it. I just assumed teaching it would be the same. It's not. I'm having to work hard to learn what I will be teaching, and anticipate potential questions or difficulties the pupils may have.

My year 8s are looking at weather. The biggest difficulty I have with this topic is explaining why, despite the fact that we've had nothing but glorious weather all week, and despite the BBC forecast predicting bright sunshine, when I am on bus duty it always, ALWAYS, rains.