Weekend

Ahhhh! They've gone. All those adolescents with their hang-ups, aspirations and habits - a microcosm of working class English culture - bawdy, disinterested, foul-mouthed individuals mixed in with wholesome, hard-working " proper" students who look you in the eye and want to make something of their lives. They've gone with their bloody mobile phones and their bloody MP3 players, muddy shoes and cheap jewellery, eye shadow and scuffed footballs, manila folders and Nike bags. With a week's worth of emotional detritus, I remain here in the humming room where I have passed so many hours, spouted so many words, corrected so many lines, read so many books, fought so many battles. Ahead of me - the weekend, stretching out like a vast plain. Far in the distance I see horsemen riding towards a pine forest that sweeps up to faraway mountains. Every weekend it's the same but it always ends up like Groundhog Day - blink and it's gone, Monday morning comes round again and there's another week of hassle - fighting at the frontline for knowledge and decency, success and understanding.

So what of this weekend? Takeaway curry from Hamid's. Two or three pints in the pub. Back home to the mess that is my back room decorating project. Gotta make some progress this weekend - paint the ceiling and the picture rail with some wallpapering tomorrow afternoon. I've also got to fit in four or five hours of marking of students' papers following their recent "mock" exams. Don't think me and Shirley will be able to take time out to see The Tigers play Stoke City - there's too much to do. Tomorrow night, Saturday night, we'll treat ourselves to a few drinks at the pub. Our son, Ian should be home tonight - he's had a week's holiday and he's been staying down in London with friends. We've missed him. I think he's found time to visit three or four museums. I recommended the Tate Modern which is a fantastic home for some superb modern art - so beautifully presented - not busy and cluttered like some art galleries...

Click above for Tate Modern link...

Joan, the school cleaner, interrupted me just then, wiping the table tops, sweeping the floor. She showed me a picture her partner took in France - a marvellous purple sunset over a remote fishing lake - what the French call an "etang". I'd have been proud of that snap if I'd taken it myself. Gotta go - the weekend awaits - I'm "born to be wild"! Yay....!

Pineapple

Thanks to Brad the Gorilla for directing me to the fruity personality quiz. I was happy to discover that I am a pineapple - much more like me than Bambi for Chrissakes! A pineapple is well-protected on the outside but sweet and juicy on the inside, kind of exotic with a good top knot.


You are a Pineapple...the traditional symbol of
friendship, you embrace everyone as a
friend...you are loyal, kind and always there
for a friend in need...

What Kind of Fruit Are You?
brought to you by

Ties

Who the hell invented the tie (necktie to American cousins)? I remember when I was training to be a teacher in Bonny Scotland, about to begin my first teaching practice at St Mungo's Academy, Alloa. The night before, I had to practise putting a tie round my neck for the first time. It was a khaki coloured woollen tie that my father had kindly lent me. Then, as now, the tie is considered de rigeur for male teachers in the United Kingdom. Women can get away with lots of things - T-shirts, cheesecloth blouses, smart denim jeans but for male teachers the expectation is that every morning of our working lives we'll put our necks in a noose.

I have had to don a tie so many times that it's now second nature to me - I could tie one in my sleep. Over the years I have accumulated a big collection of ties. Unfortunately, some have food or toothpaste stains on them and one or two have been irrevocably damaged by snagging on car seatbelts. I have learnt that washing or dry cleaning ties never really works out - sometimes it's to do with the inner wadding but no matter how carefully you clean a tie, it never ends up right.
As I was on the subject of ties I decided to nip upstairs to arrange a small sample of my ties over a wardrobe door. There's my TFNS (Thank You For Not Smoking) tie which I wear every year on National No Smoking Day, there's the zigzag military zie my father gave me before he died, a palm tree tie I bought at the Walmart in Panama City FL,Christmas and birthday ties from my lovely children - Ian and Frances, a gaudy Picasso silk tie my mother bought for me in Hong Kong. The wardrobe conceals a further sixty of the damned things. I swear that if I make it to retirement I'm going to make a bonfire of them - not because I don't like ties but I dislike the pettiness that they represent in my profession - as if being a good teacher had anything at all to do with the way you look.

As time has passed, I admit that I have enlarged. I am not obese by any means but with each slight enlargement my neck has grown accordingly. There's nothing worse than going to your wardrobe to grab a clean shirt only to find that it has "shrunk" and the top button just won't meet the hole like it used to. Finally you manage it, with blood pumping around this fabric neck shackle and you are able to knot your tie, spending the rest of the day looking like a beetroot and speaking like you've just inhaled helium. Menstruation? Childbirth? Such matters are as nothing when compared with the dress code issues that western men face each day!

Details from tie collection

Dog

- The Rodeo Drive Terrier (formerly Yorkshire Terrier)

The word "terrier" should evoke notions of determination and terror. If you had never seen one before, you might expect a Yorkshire terrier to be a large, fearsome, noble and finely tuned king of beasts as would befit the great county of Yorkshire. Instead, I am ashamed to admit that the dog which bears our name is a very pathetic specimen indeed. These yapping little creatures with their stubby little legs and effeminate fringes, these malodorous and pampered nuisances are as obnoxious as French poodles and do not deserve to be associated with England's finest county - Yorkshire. Consequently, I am unilaterally renaming this horrid little breed the Rodeo Drive Terrier and from now on the British Bulldog will become the new Yorkshire Terrier. The bulldog has all the characteristics of a typical Yorkshireman - intelligence, muscularity, handsomeness, ferocity, a free spirit, loyalty and enormous physical appetites - both reproductive and nutritional. Farewell to the old Yorkie and arise the new hound of the moors and wolds!

The New Yorkshire Terrier

"What you looking at bonehead?"

2006

Another new year arrives. Fireworks illuminate the sky over Shanghai. It's a time for looking forward with hope and not a little trepidation given the various newsworthy events that scarred 2005. I just telephoned my brother Robin in France. What a disturbing start he and Suzy had to the new year. On New Year's Eve, they drove down to Barcelona in his new BMW SUV with British number plates. Surprise, surprise - in a traffic jam, a scooter passenger opens the rear door and snatches their little overnight bag containing passports, credit cards etc.. Then half an hour later, as Suzy tries to book a hotel room, another scooter rider slashes one of the tyres as Robin sits in the vehicle but he doesn't get out - apparently it's a common thieving technique in Barcelona - get the driver to change the tyre and then muscle in and either steal possessions or the vehicle itself. They drive off tailed by a scooter but at traffic lights, Robin "accidentally" reverses into the would-be thief sending the little bastard sprawling.

They visit a police station and spend three or four hours in the interesting parallel universe we call officialdom. They are so pissed off with Barcelona that they just head home. Whooah! Didn't Freddie Mercury sing about Barcelona? "Such a beautiful city" states a travel correspondent in "The Times", "the modern capital of Catalonia". Fireworks bursting, auld lang syne, peace and goodwill, champagne corks popping and desperate greedy young men stalking the city like wolves in search of their prey.

Me and Shirley, we visited the pub. I bought old Pat McGough from Ireland a pint and wished him a happy new year before we all piled round to Ros's house for drinking and buffet food - including my legendary salad rice with roasted pine nuts, coriander and red pepper. We left there at three in the morning though I swear I could have drunk beer until dawn. I danced with Linda and chatted with Ian, laughed till tears ran down my cheeks and walked the short distance home, only to fall asleep on the couch, waking for what Americans laughingly call "the rest room" at around six.

Later, I discovered that a celebratory rocket had driven itself a good few inches into the middle of our lawn - I wonder if it was a mystical sign - warning or promising something about the year ahead. You never know for sure what's going to happen...

Happy New Year Everyone!

Gorilla

On the left, I know this will amaze some of you, we have a picture - not of an actual mountain gorilla but of a plastic gorilla moneybox - anatomically accurate in every fine detail - available in large supermarkets right now under the brand name of "Brad the Gorilla". The recommended US retail price is just $4.99 (UK £2.90). One unique feature of this designer money box is the rear slot - not shown in the photograph - into this accommodating slot, owners are invited to insert coins of any size or denomination - activating a typical gorilla alarm cry - "AA - AA - AA - AAAIIIIEEE!"

Buy yours now while stocks last!

Smileys

Having seen interspersed smileys in Friday's Web, I was thinking of making an amusing tale with smileys but it seemed like such hard work so instead I came up with this random display of selected smileys. Wonder how Smiley Central make money? It's all a mystery to me.