Barnsley Thoughts

Watching re runs of the Young Ones and remembering the first time I ever saw Alexei Sayle, for some reason, puts me in mind of Charlie Williams,

http://ayup.co.uk/gods/gods0-4.html One of my first role models because he was a sucessful black man with a Yorkshire accent.

A further page details David Bradley, star of Kes, the first film I ever saw in which people spoke, on screen, with ordinary Yorkshire accents.

And Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Yorkshire_people - possibly not entirely accurate; it does claim that Billie Whitelaw is a Yorkshire woman despite listing her as “Born in Warwickshire” Maybe we own that now as well?

But best link - try out the Charlie Williams Joke Box here..

http://www.donny.co.uk/rovers/charlie.php

Barnsley Beckons

Redundancy has been drifting towards me for some time and is now nudging up against the shore line. I feel like I’ve spent forever leaving. It was first announced 17 months ago, and I’m very tired of answering the “when do you leave?” question. “Not soon enough”, is the answer. I have had a wonderful time working in this place for the last 16 years, but I’m really looking forwards to going.
More on this subject coming soon.

http://www.barnsleyandfamily.com/myhometownpage2.htm

a couple of interesting pics here of the Barnsley I remember

Tis the season of eleven plus results

The roads are empty. I whizz into work and am seated well before Ebenezer can make an appearance. The few lost souls in the office are unnaturally talkative and welcoming and there are no queues in the canteen.

The White Paper is causing a significant amount of comment about selection in schools. Yesterday the today programme had a fascinating item with Dr George Carey and Lord Stevens who both failed their eleven plus and talked very well about the shame and feeling of failure it engendered in them. My own child has just gone through this and didn’t get into the local grammar school, despite attaining superior scores and the highest possible reading age, according to the prior assessment of the County’s own Educational Psychologist.

Very interesting to me is the procedure when you want to appeal, at which point it becomes clear exactly how much success in this depends upon the ability of the parents and not the children. The appeals process in my county is off putting, messy, unnecessarily complicated, and I believe, very unlikely to be undertaken by anyone who doesn’t have a high level of education, patience and persistence themselves. It’s probably not conducive to the social mobility grammar scools are intended to promote.

The gathering of evidence depends upon my ability to display a high degree of organisation, to have kept meticulous records of my child’s achievement over the past few years , to recruit a favourable report from our headteacher (thank goodness we were nice to her) and to gather academic references to papers on my child’s medical condition from professororial friends who lecture in psychology and education in a variety of universities around the UK. But I expect it’s fair. All parents are equally able to do this. Aren’t they?

I’ve sent my documents in and continue to research more in preparation for my trial. I’m glad I have a broadband internet connection. So much more useful than trying to find books in my local library about obscure educational issues.

I’ve been given an appointment to go and “present my case” when it will be me against the County. Why the adversarial mode I wonder? isn’t “the County” supposed to be seeking to offer a fair and appropriate education to all those who can benefit from it, regardless of the parents’ ability to imitate Kavanagh QC?

I wonder whether the way I dress is going to affect them? The sober suit or the velour tracksuit? I expect the jury is trained to be impartial on these matters.

Don’t Cry For Me….

From one extreme to the other. I spent the 3rd - 11th In Argentina, working with my opposite number there. Amazing and, sadly, a good reminder of my various blessings. By far the worst thing is the skinny, scruffy children, five year olds tugging at the clothes of shoppers on BA’s answer toSouth Kensington. A crazy faced boy with his arm burrowing deep into a lamp-post mounted bin, as he retrieved a half eaten McDonalds. A collection of boys asleep in a broad shop doorway.

It was a far cry from the picture painted in my travel guide, which went on and on about what a crazy, great, hip, swinging, hot, hot, hot place this is. Looking back on it now, the description seems like that of a desperate teenager, hoping to plant a picture of a vacation that would force their friends to envy them, even though the reality was all a bit more sad and embarrasing.

Good things were many as well. A lot of friendly people, good food - with vegetables - means a lot to me when I’m travelling. Great, great wine, not that I got to drink much, beautiful avenues and traffic which, though at first it seemed murderous, was in fact much more decorous than its equivalent here, as 10 lines of cars wait patiently on each side of the massive July 4th Highway for all the pedestrians to cross, only nudging over when it’s safe to do so.

Very passionate TV and film makers. I saw some superb work on children and the media, some of which I would like us to emulate here.

http://www.me.gov.ar/escuelaymedios/

It was a heavy schedule in the end, but fortunately one day was a holiday. On that day, I went, on the advice of my lovely PA, to Colonia, In Uruguay. A bit daft to go all that way to one country and them immediately depart for another, but everything was shut in BA. Queuing up for the 3 hour ferry across the River Plate was long and tedious, and I resolved to get the fast one back. Only time for a nice lunch and a quick English tour of the area, before I was back across the river and into Argentina.

The travelling to and from Argentina was extremely unluxurious. On Standby from Madrid, I eventually got to BA to discover my luggage was in Barcelona. No car to meet me as I’d spent so long fruitlessly trying to claim my luggage, the hotel Plaza San Martin Suites on Suipacha,

http://www.plazasanmartin.com.ar/

refused to let me in till 1pm and it was only 10.30 am when I got there. They suggested I go out on the street for lunch, at 10.30 on a Sunday, having been travelling for 22 hrs, with no currency, no water, no luggage and nothing open. They also refused to let me call collect to my insurance company. Welcome to BA. The service got better after that. It could hardly have been worse. Maybe it was just the collection of press queuing up to interview me in subsequent days that made them all a bit more helpful. Whatever it was, it improved.

In one mad taxi ride I also managed a brief glimpse at La Boca and Casa Rosada, and a more leisurely walk round Recoleta in a downpour, as I visited the grave of Evita. Or Madonna, as I tend to think of her

Meeting Royalty

I was invited to be “presented” and was curious enough to put my good shoes on and drag my arse across town on a very cold night. It was a perfectly pleasant occasion, a good, interesting and committed speech made without much reference to notes, and a reasonably warm and pleasant mien, but I wouldn’t bother again. It’s slightly uneasy being part of a small group, where you aren’t sure who is supposed to initiate the conversation or move subjects on. There were one or two awkward silences as listeners struggled against the noisy acoustics, and struggled more to think of an appropriate way to make conversation. I don’t think that kind of protocol would be a useful way to govern social occasions. However nice the individual concerned. It’s interesting to think that our lives were governed by such etiquette at one point - and that in some places, similar codes still apply..

Maybe I should have gone to the Harry Potter preview instead. But that can be a weekend treat. At work I went to an interesting demonstration of a fantastic computer wall, a means of accessing content that offered great possibilities for the classroom and the living room, as demonstrated to a colleague in Tokyo. Only two years ago we were wildly speculating that such a thing might be possible at some distant time in the future.

Xinran

Xinran, a Chinese broadcaster who now lives and works in London at SOAS, wrote a collection of pieces about Chinese women. They are sober reading. For anyone who wonders why feminists can still be so persistent when so much of what they fought for seems to have been achieved, this is the answer. As increasing numbers of women now we apparently have freedom to choose, aim to return to full time homemaking, we’re in danger of believing that feminism was a lot of fuss about nothing. I think the ability to choose to work or not to work is a fantastic, and important choice, and still not enjoyed by many people. But having recently made just such a choice, I’m glad I came across this book. It’s reminded me how difficult getting here was, and continues to be for many women across the world. I recommend it. It’s got some tough stories, but I also found it uplifting.

November

On the countdown to Christmas it’s day one in the Big Brother diet house and the inmates are already arguing about how many calories there are in a packet of cashew nuts. Bilbo claims that as nuts, they practically count as a fruit serving. I maintain they are the gastronomic equivalent of eating lard. We have some way to go before mutual harmony prevails. Anyway, what the hell have I been doing since June? Well, it’s all been very exciting. I took a short trip to Tokyo. My second, and it’s changed so much, even since 2001. Last time, the underground had no English signs. Now it’s a model of bilingual ease. Not just signs, but even announcements on some lines.

I arrived in the afternoon with no one to greet me, despite the emailed confirmation that they would be. The only choice was to get on a limousine bus and head for the hotel, which I hoped was booked for me, the Capitol Tokyu. Three nights of insomnia ensued, during which I enjoyed the films loaded on my nice new ipaq. Well, I say enjoyed. That was true of “Bonfire of the Vanities” which I’d owned for years and never watched as I rarely get to control the master TV, but less so of “The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse” which was disappointingly shoddy. But I was so awake, I was grateful for it passing an hour. A bit like a prisoner who suddenly finds the Star crossword an attractive challenge.

The work was enjoyable and I met some good people. On my day off I took the tourist trail to Hakone, which is great fun - a “romance train” a local train through an impressive gorge, a funicular, a rope car, a pirate boat and a bus. I got on the wrong bus back, but it didn’t matter, except to put me on a more ordinary train which was unbelievably slow in comparison to the first train of the day.

The following morning I nipped across to the Tsentso-Ji temple and then into Akihabara. I had previously scouted out Laox and now bought a ceramic white PSP. I should have searched further for the best price apparently but time wasn’t on my side and I knew it was a safe bet. And at £116 it was significantly better than the £180 in the UK. I wanted to see the burial place of Confucius which was close by, but failed to make that, and returned to the hotel for a quick kip before the evening do.

On the last day I shared a journey to the airport with the French delegate, a very pleasant young man who kept feeling the need to explain new media to me. I listened patiently for the most part, only intervening at his most basic explanations. But he was a very polite young man and able to converse fluently in English while I was too cowardly to use my French. But the young can be so patronising. I expect I was much the same at the same age. Doesn’t stop me wanting to slap them round the head with an old ZX Spectrum though.

Menin Gate and Tyne Cot

Continental weekend for the bank holiday

Saturday May 29th. Despite the excitement of going abroad - which I always love - I am sorry to leave the garden which is beginning to look exciting to me. I realise this means I’m turning into one of those unbelievably old people who would rather stay at home and supervise the watering, instead of taking the opportunity to “club” in a Euro hotspot. But to a certain extent I’ve always been one of those. It’s just more focussed now. How will the new lawn cope without me? Will my seedlings survive? How can I stop the cat from laying on top of them if I’m not there? But I am strong. I grit my teeth, force myself to be sociable, pack and go.

And it is worth it. F’s friend is holding a party a short drive away from Calais. When we get there, the vast quantities of flowers and white linen proclaim this to be a wedding and it proves so. We sit and eat nice food at a variety of tables. At the first there is a mixture of french and english people so the question du jour has to be “Demain; Oui, ou Non?” “Oui” is the answer from all around our table. The party must be very unrepresentative as the answer on Monday’s Bruges news proves to be “Non”. Even though I can’t understand the Flemish language at all, it is is very easy to read the relief on Jack Straw’s face, and later on Tony Blair’s. If that is the will of the people, we will listen to it, they intone with suitable humility. But they seem strangely pleased. I know I am. Because, sad to say, I haven’t read the 500 page proposed constitution. Or even one page of it. In fact, I wouldn’t know where to get my hands on it. it is impossible to say yes to something I haven’t read and where I can’t trust the summaries - not that there have been any much in evidence.

Maybe there are some online

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2950276.stm

Yes, there are, but I still can’t be bothered to read it.
Anyway, I leap ahead of myself. The Constitution is part of the evening debate, also covered are the usual topics of the educated British middle classes - how early can we retire, give up our fabulous jobs and dedicate ourselves to self improvement and gratification? How much do our children’s babysitters cost? How shocked are we when people cross picket lines? Will ID cards be a bad thing or a good thing?

The evening is progressively colder and colder, although the generous flow of wine means I am too drunk to care.

The next day, on a fine, sunny morning, and after a quick trip round Azincourt, we set off for Bruges, where the weather rapidly turns rainy. We stay in the Montana Hotel. Bruges is unremittingly pretty. Not at all multicultural. I think I may be the only ethnic minority there. But everyone is very pleasant. We explore a couple of churches which are incredibly stuffed and overstuffed with paintings, huge golden organ pipes and fabulous pulpits, borne aloft by cherubs. We eat in an OK restaurant.

Monday is wet, wet, wet. We take directions for Ypres, or Ieper, as it’s called here. This is much, much more moving than I expected. The Menin gate is astonishing. More so with its long list of asian names. I find myself standing in surprising tears at the sacrifice of it all, and the oneness of humanity. Until a Belgian guns his car straight at me and I escape death only by an Olympic leap for the kerb. But the feeling stays with me. We drive to Tyne Cot, where the simple white block headstones contrast with the white crosses of the second world war, which we saw in Normandy last year. A startling pink swathe of poppies cuts across a head stone in the grey downpour.

It is bitterly cold and wet. If it’s like this in June, god alone can imagine what it was like in November after a few months of trench warfare. We try out the Passchendale Musueum, with its reconstructed trench system, which is also very impressive.

We have a late lunch in “The Poppy” on the main street of Ypres, and set off to return to Bruges., As we approach Bruges, the sky becomes bluer and it dries out, allowing us to take a boat trip around the canals. Skippered by a tall, skinny middle class native with a heavy hand for joky remarks and a shameless tout for tips, it is nevertheless a beautiful and impressive trip.

We eat in “Cafedraal” . Possibly the worst restaurant I have eaten in for a lot of money. I propose the chateaubriand, but when it comes it is a sorry travesty. pre hacked, cooked medium, despite my request for rare, with some waterlogged and unidentifiable vegetable, and apparently culled from some sort of stewing steak, instead of the excellent meat it should be.

http://bbq.about.com/cs/beef/a/aa010403a.htm

but the wine is good. Dispirited, we hand over the £80 and I resolve that is the last time I will eat in Bruges. But it is such a pretty place, I expect I’ll manage to find it in myself to backtrack…

Back home on Tuesday, today, and the good news is that the garden has survived.

A scorching day - up to Soho with B to attend a recording of a new radio programme. Beautiful.