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It was a year today
@ 2008-10-08 – 22:31:19
This is the last ... by timsuzi Pro @ 2007-10-07 – 22:32:20
This is the last time that I will sit in this room and type as tomorrow I must be gone from here. The children and I have spent our last weekend together in our family home and tonight the eldest, the youngest and I walked from room to room hand in hand and said goodbye.
My son and I then went out into the garden hugged and wept with the stars above shining down upon us so brightly. He promised me that when he grew up he would buy me a house in Cardinham, how blessed I have been with my children.
And now I am alone in an empty house and I need to find oblivion to stop the ghosts from our past haunting me and not letting me sleep.
Oblivion tonight is to be achieved through a bottle of Jura Whisky.Goodnight from Touchwood, Cardinham.
Tim xx
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When I thought of today ...
@ 2008-10-07 – 21:37:35
When I thought of today I remembered this poem,
When will the bell ring and end this weariness?
How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
I can haul them and urge them no more.
No more can I endure to bear the brunt
Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
of slovely work that they have offered me.
I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
Upon the woodstacks working wearily.And shall I take,
The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
Til I rouse my will like a fire to consume,
Their dross of indifference and burn the scroll
Of their insults in punishment? - I will not!
I will not waste myself to embers for them
Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot,
For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
Shall I have raked the embers clear: I will keep
Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
It all for them, I should hate them -
I will sit and wait for the bell.Afternoon in School DH Lawrence
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Things can only get better?
@ 2008-10-06 – 20:07:39
Do you remember how you felt on May 1st 1997? Did you feel that it was the beginning of a new era or did you think that Tony Blair's New Labour were just a party without any ideological core dedicated to just winning at any cost?
I remember that for many it seemed that with the Tories defeated then somehow life would not only be better but it would be happier too as if by slaying Thatcher's Dragon we could all venture out into the light again and see that the world was beautiful.
And now we are near the end and our relationship as a country with Gordon Brown seems like that between a couple on the edge of divorce. A time when even ones virtues come to be seen as vices and the brightness and joy of the wedding day seem to have happened to someone else so distant and alien does it seem.
Now I really should declare myself here as I was an early fan of Tony Blair and believe to this day that a Labour Party led by the virtuous John Smith would still have come just a close second to the Tories at election time and if you think that's ok then you really believe that it is better to be right and impotent rather than to compromise and have the power to really change things.
You see when Tony Blair said "Tough on Crime, Tough on the Causes of Crime" I really took notice. As a teacher I am part of a system that really doesn't hold to Tony's truism when translated to education which would be "Tough on Bad behaviour, Tough on the Causes of Bad Behaviour". We don't like to be tough on bad behaviour as that smacks of punishment and punishment is a 'bad' thing. So we explain, their behavior is a product of forces we cannot control or condemn, or it is a sickness. There is even still a little part of education that thinks that expecting children to behave is to coin a Seventies phrase "Imposing Middle Class Values on Working Class Kids" as if expecting kids not to victimise the weak is somehow the parallel of eating peas with your knife. Within that rather warped view bad behaviour is somehow almost to be sneakily admired as it is sticking up fingers to authority making bullies and thugs heroes of the Revolution if only they could be properly politicised.
So Tony seemed to be with me on that, acknowledging that crime and bad behaviour needs tackling face on as well as working to remove the causes.
I was also with him when he said he wanted to do what worked and not to be hidebound by ideology. This seemed to make perfect sense to me but sadly we disagreed on our measure of what worked for Tony that often seemed to be 'business' and not a cautious and thorough scientific approach hence the spreading of consultancy like some virus and solutions always 'top down' because Mr Blair and colleagues didn't trust the rank and file. Perhaps that was because they had lived through a Labour Party that had almost committed suicide and so they felt they genuinely did know best but that is no excuse for arrogance and a high handed refusal to listen to and value genuinely those that do the job which you wish to change. Through that attitude very little gets changed in education because those that have to do the job, do what works and simply pay lip service to the bullshit.
But I wonder what the people of Sierre Leone and Kosovo and also Northern Ireland think of Mr Blair and New Labour. For them things did get better and in a way that the rest of us perhaps hoped for ourselves but maybe we were foolish to expect politicians to make us happier, perhaps that is simply not within their power?
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Statue Competition
@ 2008-10-02 – 21:22:13
I wonder if any of you can identify where these four statues are?
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A School for Angels - A cautionary tale for the reluctantly good
@ 2008-10-02 – 20:44:20
A School for Angels
Are you sitting comfortably? Well believe me one of you won’t be by the end of the story!
Now you may find this far fetched but angels do in fact need training and have to attend school. Normally the selection process is straightforward with the obviously good recently dead being chosen. However, sometimes things don’t go quite so smoothly. People are economical with the truth in the interview with St. Peter, or claim a little overmuch in their cv’s. These people are easy to weed out in class due to their transparently evil answers to basic ethical questions and have to attend purgatory until they can gain a ‘Good’ kitemark. No the problems at angel school come from those that have actually led blameless lives but who really wanted to be a bit more, shall we say wicked, but were too afraid when alive to give in to their dark and devious urges. Now with the prospect of eternity ahead of them they feel a bit freer to experiment as what is one year of mischief when set against an infinite number of years?
Now our story concerns Tim, who certainly fits the latter category. Tim was rather surprised to be even attending the school in the first place what with the Not Believing in God which he would have considered to have been held against him. Still there he was at the front of the class fluffing up his wings and polishing his halo and wondering whether spending his afterlife in school was some cruel joke that fate had played on him as after all he had died of a heart attack in the middle of teaching a rather stimulating lesson on The Haber Process!
The room hushed and a rather tall, and if truth be told, somewhat scary angel entered. “My name is Veronica and I am the Head Mistress of this academy. Our teaching is a little traditional here but you know what it says in he Bible, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the angel’ She let out a little laugh and all the angels joined in hoping to gain a little favour with her. Tim winced, ‘How could they all be such toadies?’ he thought. At which point his halo fell off his head and hit the floor with a loud clang. The Head mistress looked at him and smiled. “No doubt we will be seeing a lot of each other in the coming weeks.” Tim gave her his best angelic smile before slipping his halo back on.
To be continued ……….
Things went quite smoothly for a little while but one day the angels regular teacher was ill. Didn’t you realize there are still illnesses in heaven? Whatever did you think happened to good viruses when they died? Anyway the lessons were covered by a supply angel. The topic of the day was ‘Intelligent Design’ and Tim and his new friend Dawkins had a rare old time asking ‘innocently’ about the human appendix and wasn’t it rather inefficient that 90% of cheetahs died before reaching adulthood which got the supply angel so flustered that she called for the Head Teacher for clarification and the Head Teacher herself got rather muddled too when it was pointed out to her that when the animals went into Noah’s Ark if two bacteria started on the gangplank by the time they reached the ark itself they would have multiplied about fifty thousand times which seemed a bit of an unfair advantage on all the other animals present and also in the cramped and potentially unhygienic conditions present on the Ark rather a health risk too. The Head Teacher suggested that while on the Ark the microorganisms had called a truce which conjured up the strange picture of large numbers of bored bacteria with nothing to do but swish their flagellae all day.
I’m sure Tim would have been forgiven for his innocent mischief making but that night in the dormitory he pushed his luck too far. You see Tim made a little discovery about halos which was that when thrown they made the perfect Frisbee and with a little skill they could be made to come back to you like a boomerang. So while all the other angels were tucked up in bed saying their prayers he was out in the corridor perfecting his technique. Now the speed at which the halo returned depended on the amount of spin put on it. Tim was getting quite confident and perhaps overdid the spin as his halo completed a perfect return journey but then shot over his head and through a stained glass window depicting Saint Jude ‘The Patron Saint of Lost Causes’. Before he could think of running a door swung open and there was Veronica, the Head Mistress.
“Tim collect your halo and report to my office immediately!” Was all that needed saying and Tim did as he was bid. Veronica’s office was a little way down the corridor, certainly far enough for Tim to build up a sense of trepidation. Inside, it was booklined, there was a desk with a plain chair behind it, a dark oak cupboard and surprisingly a piano and piano stool. On the desk was a laptop computer. Veronica switched it on.
“On your first day here I explained that our education was traditional and that also includes our discipline.” Tim shuffled awkwardly.
“I believe that nowadays it is customary to give choices to those that can’t behave. Is that correct?” Tim nodded. “Well here is your choice, you can go to Purgotary or accept my punishment which will be a soundly spanked bottom. To aid you in your choice I will show you a glimpse of your personal purgatory.” Deftly, Veronica selected an icon with a P
“Oh God not PowerPoint” Tim thought . But it wasn’t, the screen cleared and it was a movie. Tim recognised the scene at once and also recognised the person at the front. “Good morning class I will be your chemistry teacher for the next forty years. Today’s topic is permanent and temporary hard water.” Tim had already seen enough to make his decision.
“I’ll take the spanking.” He said.
“I think that is the correct choice.” Veronica said. “One more choice, however, will you be spanked for two minutes on your pants or one minute on your bare bottom?”
“Ill take the minute .” Tim said a little anxiously.
“Put your halo on the desk , fold up your wings and come and stand by me.”
Tim did as he was told. Veronica sat on the piano stool and turned Tim to face the clock on the wall. She swiftly undid the top button of his trousers and lowered them to his knees. She patted her lap and Tim lay across it. She put her thumb into the band at the top of his underpants and firmly pulled them down. Tim felt the cool night air on his exposed bottom. He turned his head to look into her eyes and then almost imperceptibly she winked at him and then the clock begun to chime and the first stinging swipe landed on his buttocks and Tim realised that after all that he had led a good life and was receiving his very own personal reward in heaven.
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The God of Small Things
@ 2008-09-23 – 07:57:50
I recently visited Lincoln Cathedral to hear my partner sing in a choir there and while they were rehearsing I was able to try and capture my impressions of the place with my camera. Now as you may know, I am an athiest but that doesn't stop me finding such places fascinating.
But I am seldom drawn to the grand views which although magnificent somehow don't touch me that much but instead to the small things, and in Lincoln particularly the stone carvings at the entrance. Perhpas that is a reflection of my athiesm as they feel human rather than something austere and other worldly. It as if the stone carvers were given freedom to express their imagination and as with music where the Devil has the best tunes it seems that Medieval Stone masons had most fun when they are depicting a Hell populated with fantastic demons and tortured sinners.
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The Tragedy of Sport
@ 2008-09-14 – 21:36:53
He would have known what the first line in his obituary would be.
It would not mention his record number of tries scored for his club, or his Man of the Match performance in the 1968 Challenge Cup final.
No, the first line in his obituary would be of his failure to place one simple kick between the posts denying the team that he loved and worked for a Title.
He was, the commentator said "A poor lad." and in a day when men did not cry publicly he struggled through the post match interview, so crushed as to be virtually inarticulate. Perhaps he already knew that this would be what he would be remembered for and no matter whatever else he achieved he could not remove this stain, just a simple mistake but one that he would carry with him always and which would taint all that he had done in an otherwise illustrious career.
Poor Don Fox, for all the wonderful things that sport had brought him it would now curse him and the curse would last as long as he lived as it also cursed Tony Underwood, no longer remembered, for his corruscating pace or the sensational tries he scored for England or as one of the great Sevens players but remembered always first and foremost as the man that was crushed by Jonah Lomu and that, of course, will be the first line in his obituary. -
I Remember
@ 2008-09-11 – 19:08:14
I remember the phone call when I first heard that I was to become a Father,
I remember telling my parents about you as we sat beneath their apple tree one late Summer evening and the sheer joy that it brought to them,
I remember my Mother running to tell her best friend,
I remember the night before you were born,
The midnight call to the ambulance and the blue flashing light as it slowly moved between the terraced houses to collect us.
I remember your first moments, holding you for the first time and singing Happy Birthday to you.
I remember sitting with a friend the day before you first came home and as we listened to Pachelbel's Canon in D I simply wanted to cry as the music seemed to tell the story of what your life would be, the music beginning so simply and returning always to the same theme but each time gathering in more richness and complexity as the life was led and experiences gained.
I remember collecing you and bringing you home in a taxi and carrying you through the door to your first home,
I remember the look of wonder in your eyes when you first saw a Christmas Tree,
I remember how you love my own Mum and how she could listen to you in a way that no-one else could,
I remember how shy but how beautiful you were when you sung,
I remember how being in the sea makes you come to life my dearest Selkie,
I remember how proud you were when you and I climbed a mountain in the NorthWest Highlands and your pleasure in the beer that we had to celebrate,I remember how difficult school could be for you but how bravely you faced it and how hard you worked,
I remember feeling so thrilled when I heard your exam results,And I remember all of this and so much more today, because today is the day that you begin your adult life, my darling daughter.
