it snowed today - in my car

It's odd how events can build up detail by detail to a somewhat unexpected eventual effect.

Take today for instance. I bought a Starbucks latte - not unexpected so far. It was too hot to drink immediately so I set it on my dashboard and set off. I drove below a flock of starlings that made a mess of my car if you know what I mean. I drove to a drive thru car wash to clean it. For some reason the car wash wasn't working so I decided to drive round to the front to inform a member of staff. The windows had steamed up while I was stopped and I couldn't open them because they were covered in... well... So with my vision impaired I drove - bumped into a kerb - my coffee went all over the dashboard, the seats, the floor. I cried.

Luckily i had wipe things which I was able to use to clean up the dashboard and upholstery things for the seats and floor. Unluckily some of the coffee had gone down the vents and I couldn't get at it - so I left it to dry.

My car smells of stale coffee (It wouldn't even have been so bad if it was Costa Coffee - I like the smell of Costa Coffee)

The thing is, once I returned to the car after a while and the coffee in the vents had dried, I turned on the engine. Air came up through the vents and with it little flakes of dry soya milk floated up and around the inside of the car. It was a beautiful moment. Unexpected, slightly icky, but very very beautiful.

something special

Yesterday as I was driving home I had an idea. It was -5 degrees C and so many salt spreaders had been out that there was a thick layer of salt on the road and all the cars were covered in it. The car washes get closed down if the temperature drops too low so no one was cleaning it off. I got home and filled a bucket with warm water and set about making my car cleaner than it had ever been before. It positively sparkled and I immediately jumped in and went for a drive. where did I go on this momentous occasion? Tesco's of course. I went to buy groceries (and to attempt to impress one of the checkout staff) but for one glorious hour my car was by far the shiniest vehicle on the roads. I had a special car.

Why did I do it? Let's face it, looking down at it in the car park now it is just as covered in salt as the rest of the cars. But just for a short moment it was something different from the rest; and I've come to realise that the term special is just as relative as terms like better or faster or larger. As a special needs teacher that's a big realisation. You can't be special all of the time - sometimes being special is easier than other times - sometimes being special isn't what I really want or need at a particular time. What is important is that I am the best I can be in my own little world - and that I clean my car from time to time.

Strictly Who Do You Think Dragons' Apprentices Dance With... on ice

It has to be said that I don't watch a lot of TV these days; well, not compared to when I was a student anyway. I don't know if its a lack of time or general disinterest but I rarely watch more than a three hours a week (and most of that is Match of the Day so it doesn't count - watching sport is a healthy pastime) Having said all that I am fairly good at keeping abreast of TV land through the tabloid press and television listings in the Independent.

Yesterday I sat down to watch the Northern Ireland v Wales friendly match. As anyone who watched it will tell you this was not the most exciting match in history and I was forced to change the channel occasionally to avoid falling asleep. On the other channel was Dragons' Den, a show where people put their ideas to a bunch of rich people hoping to get a hand out... except no! This couldn't be Dragons' Den - it's ITV. And I'm pretty sure Richard (the man of the people... but certainly not my people) Madeley doesn't host Dragons' Den. It turns out this was a completely different show called The Fortune. In this show people put their ideas to a bunch of rich people hoping to get a hand out... hmmm... sounds familiar.

So ITV have decided that it would be a good idea to churn out a low grade rip off of a BBC2 show as peak time viewing. Have they looked at BBC2 ratings? The whole point of BBC2 is to provide a quality alternative to ratings chasing peak time programmes on BBC1 and ITV. Therefore it stands to reason that a copy (and a particularly bad copy at that) of a BBC2 show is hardly going to be a ratings winner. Or maybe the TV bosses know something we don't - maybe they have some research showing that pairing Richard (doesn't like Danii Minogue cause she calls him a letch) Madeley with an arrogant, football club owning, surfer wannabe would make dynamite viewing. Oops.

It's not as if they can claim ignorance - looking at ITVs weekly peak time viewing at the moment suggests that they've tried all this before:

Dancing on Ice... a complete rip off of the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing... but with ice.
You Don't Know You're Born... a complete rip off of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are.
The Tycoon... a complete rip off of the BBC's Apprentice... which was a complete rip off of NBC's Apprentice.

Will someone please come up with something original and send it to ITV. If only to stop me complaining about it online. It was still more interesting than a Northern Ireland against Wales football match though.

life is like a snowball

Life is like a snowfall - nice and pretty to look at but bloody freezing when some skitter of a 10 year old lumps a bit of it at the back of your neck.

This morning I awoke to a white world. Very picturesque. I walked across the yard noticing just how big my footprints were (could this be related to the size of my big feet?) I cleared my car and set off along the unsullied road - beautiful. half a mile later I joined the main road where the glistening white turned to brown sludge. How quickly things change.

I work with children - lots of them. Sometimes I struggle to believe that these street savy teenagers were once innocent and naive. But sometimes... just sometimes one of them will say something that will remind me that these are not yet fully formed cynical adults - there is a glimmer of that innocence hidden behind the smart comments and dishevelled uniforms.

And now. as the pupil beside me keeps remarking, the snow is falling again - who knows, maybe it'll cover up that horrible slush with a fresh layer of glistening virgin snow.

spooky

Okay. That was a bit odd. Can anyone offer a suggestion as to why when I tried to post earlier someone or something was typing over what I was typing. It was surreal. I would type a couple of words and then ....... would appear. Then it would change into words. Here we can see a transcript of the post I was trying to make:

benefit is that yet have the suspects only those
what????
most who really the you leave the house
who are you?
Las most Vegas for the rest are tied to the ring in the U.S. now has gone a lot of us
what is going on?
of what was going on the one is going on behind one is going on was going on
weird
Who really believe that needs you to the U.S. you to the U.S. to 00 and a civilian lines are due to the essence of
are you even making sense?
the agreement into having a good thing for sure what you really believes that the GES heat the U.S. to double the civilian side to the essence of the remote having a good time for what the CC in the U.S. media from the
I'm getting bored
in the listserv in the Mr. Kessler is the limit on the Russian children than a year to us and 9090 lead in a in this league and its
oh i give up
that the defendant and I know and what was then known as my long years....

Well anyone any the wiser? I'm thinking of googling some of the stuff typed to see if I can find where it came from - maybe I'm being contacted from beyond the grave by some city analyst... or maybe some aliens interested in US Economics.

how does it feel being 30?

Much the same as being 29 but with more people asking how it feels to be the age I am.

I am now entering my 31st year. Many people have done so before and many will do so after me but it still feels like it is something a bit special. Maybe it was my colleagues presenting me with a cake in the staff room on Friday morning, or maybe it's the two cards sitting on the mantelpiece from my family, or maybe it was the email I got from my internet service provider wishing my many happy returns and offering me some special birthday deals on things I don't need.

I have to say that the biggest difference between being 'in my twenties' and becoming a 'thirty something' is in perception. Let's face it - what major changes can happen in the few hours between going to bed at 29 years, 364 days and waking up at 30 years? The head of the English Dept did offer to carry out a bit of stage makeup on me to change my appearance tomorrow - maybe paint on a moustache or something - but the best I can really do to change my appearance for my new chronological classification is to wear my new tie. Definitely more a 30s kind of a tie than a 20s.

One sure sign I'm getting older is the onset on senility. This morning I got up, had a shower, brushed my teeth, squeezed some shaving gel into my hands... and promptly rubbed it through my hair. I don't know if I somehow mistook it for shampoo or whether I, subconsciously, felt I should shave my head. Either way it's a disturbing action. Could it be age related?
Sometimes, in our eagerness to categorise things, we create boundaries. The problem with boundaries is that they are very narrow things to separate vastly different things. Imagine what life would be like in our little Island if the border wasn't so much a line between two countries and more like a slow gradient of levels of Irishness. People could admit to watching RTE more than the BBC yet still prefer Roast Beef to Irish Stew - Petrol prices could gradually get cheaper rather than jumping suddenly either side of the Foyle - so many problems solved in such a simple way.

My pupils don't see it that way though. A 29 year old teacher is still a young teacher - inexperienced yet approachable whereas a 30 year old teacher is old guard - old fashioned but authoritative. Well, usually. When I ask them what age they think I am they tend to say 45. Yeah, thanks for that.

an irishman abroad

Don't transfer windows make football exciting? I know you probably don't like to admit it but I'm sure many of you were on the edge of your seats with tension wondering whether the free transfer of Steve Aitken from Stranraer to Stenhousemuir (two of my favourite Scottish teams) was going to go through without a hitch in the final seconds of the window; I know you shook your head, as I did, when Ashley Young joined Villa for almost £10 million - I could hear you: "He's good... but £10 million!" You sighed when Hearts brought Tomas Kancelskis over on loan because you knew that here was yet another player whose name you would struggle to chant at the next Edinburgh derby... I know you did all of that - we all did, and it's ok to admit it.

But my favourite signing of all was Reading bringing Alan Bennett over from Cork for an undisclosed fee. I'm assuming the 72 year old Playwright will slot seamlessly into the Reading defence where he will be expected to use his height to deal with crosses and make dry comments about his family in a Yorkshire accent.

As a Newcastle fan I have long learned to ignore the majority of comings and goings in January. Even when we do sign someone decent he gets injured after two games and we're forced to play the twelve year old son of the reserve team coach anyway. I've even become immune to the money thats thrown around the league these days - Although if I can't pay off my student loan soon I may be forced to sell some of my year 8 literacy group. In the meantime I'm off to the old Vic to see a musical by Watford's new goalie.