Friday, May 24, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Savagery in the name of religion
A soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby, hacked to death in a London street. The murderers, purporting to be Muslims, talking to anyone who would film them on their mobile phones. The blood of the victim still on their hands and weapons.
The vicious killers waiting around for the police to arrive (some say 20 minutes later, even though the police station is just around the corner; even the police say 14 minutes) so that they could advance on them and get shot. Women passers-by approaching the victim hoping they could help or protect him, but he was already dead, almost beheaded.
Really, who wants to live in a world like this?
I am even more certain that religion is only ever, ultimately, a force for evil. Let's leave the caves and acknowledge that we no longer need this mythology to make sense of the world. Because on days like this, it clearly only makes nonsense of the world.
The vicious killers waiting around for the police to arrive (some say 20 minutes later, even though the police station is just around the corner; even the police say 14 minutes) so that they could advance on them and get shot. Women passers-by approaching the victim hoping they could help or protect him, but he was already dead, almost beheaded.
Really, who wants to live in a world like this?
I am even more certain that religion is only ever, ultimately, a force for evil. Let's leave the caves and acknowledge that we no longer need this mythology to make sense of the world. Because on days like this, it clearly only makes nonsense of the world.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
I haz a blankie!
JaeJae has a new comfort blanket. It looks to me like the fleece from the recently shorn llamas.
He loves it.
I'd really like to snuggle up next to him. Even if it cost an arm and a leg...
He loves it.
I'd really like to snuggle up next to him. Even if it cost an arm and a leg...
Monday, May 20, 2013
The Winner
Phillip's such a loser.
Vincent is a giant playing a little weed. Brilliant acting. But that hair...
Vincent is a giant playing a little weed. Brilliant acting. But that hair...
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Is it time to rest yet?
Another b****** of a week.
Monday was a wash-out because of the weather. Up at sparrow fart in case of a last-minute job, of which there was none, so spent the day faffing around and dozing.
On Tuesday I got the call to go to the Sixth Form site of an autistic school I often teach at. Edgy but nice. They are only two weeks into their new building and are still settling down. Maybe tomorrow it will be sunny and I can go to a zoo or something.
But no. In the late afternoon a call from an agency set me up for a day's work on Wednesday, at a Pupil Referral Unit in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. (A PRU is for the kids expelled from mainstream schools for chronic behaviour problems.) Spent hours agonising on which of about five routes would be best.
On the day, almost every route was clogged with traffic jams, so I kept ignoring the Satnav and eventually arrived in good time...to find the promised street parking was residents only. Sent to a nearby road and all was well. Spent two big chunks of the day sitting with a reasonably well-behaved boy while he took an exam. Finished just after 2.30, which was lucky, as I just had time to do a supermarket shop on the way home, before taking myself off to a local meeting, followed by a farewell drink for our co-ordinator, who has lost his job due to cuts.
Thursday had already been booked for the school where I do my regular Fridays. A couple of the kids were hyper, and the day ended I headaches for all staff. Wanted to go straight home for a relaxing rest, but pet supply shopping came first.
Friday was a bit less fraught than Thursday, but the evening was not very relaxing as I kept remembering my Saturday afternoon concert.
The theme was Spring (wishful thinking) and the accompanist had found a copy of the song I wanted to sing (Tulips From Amsterdam) but had forgotten to bring it with him. Then I discovered that my alternative (Here Comes The Sun) was down as an "also", so I ended up singing both.
More shopping on the way home, collapsed in front of the TV to find...nothing much worth watching, as I'd already missed the LOCI Season 10 reruns.
Hey Ho.
Monday was a wash-out because of the weather. Up at sparrow fart in case of a last-minute job, of which there was none, so spent the day faffing around and dozing.
On Tuesday I got the call to go to the Sixth Form site of an autistic school I often teach at. Edgy but nice. They are only two weeks into their new building and are still settling down. Maybe tomorrow it will be sunny and I can go to a zoo or something.
But no. In the late afternoon a call from an agency set me up for a day's work on Wednesday, at a Pupil Referral Unit in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. (A PRU is for the kids expelled from mainstream schools for chronic behaviour problems.) Spent hours agonising on which of about five routes would be best.
On the day, almost every route was clogged with traffic jams, so I kept ignoring the Satnav and eventually arrived in good time...to find the promised street parking was residents only. Sent to a nearby road and all was well. Spent two big chunks of the day sitting with a reasonably well-behaved boy while he took an exam. Finished just after 2.30, which was lucky, as I just had time to do a supermarket shop on the way home, before taking myself off to a local meeting, followed by a farewell drink for our co-ordinator, who has lost his job due to cuts.
Thursday had already been booked for the school where I do my regular Fridays. A couple of the kids were hyper, and the day ended I headaches for all staff. Wanted to go straight home for a relaxing rest, but pet supply shopping came first.
Friday was a bit less fraught than Thursday, but the evening was not very relaxing as I kept remembering my Saturday afternoon concert.
The theme was Spring (wishful thinking) and the accompanist had found a copy of the song I wanted to sing (Tulips From Amsterdam) but had forgotten to bring it with him. Then I discovered that my alternative (Here Comes The Sun) was down as an "also", so I ended up singing both.
More shopping on the way home, collapsed in front of the TV to find...nothing much worth watching, as I'd already missed the LOCI Season 10 reruns.
Hey Ho.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The Player
Poor David Kahane. Killed by mistake. Typical Vincent role!
This film always gets good write-ups when it's on TV, but I'm not a fan.
This film always gets good write-ups when it's on TV, but I'm not a fan.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
The Narrows
At last, a film in which he makes it to the end in one piece - and rather jubilant.
Vinny Manadoro is a great character.
Vinny Manadoro is a great character.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Kill The Irishman
Horror of horrors! I don't have the pictures from this film on Photobucket!
We'll have to be satisfied with this production photo of John Nardi.
We'll have to be satisfied with this production photo of John Nardi.
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Monday, May 06, 2013
Education US and UK Style
Time after time I watch aghast as TV shows show US university life. Women students demeaning themselves on "spring break", or even getting murdered. "Campus police" dealing with serious crimes without reference to the real police. Hazing rituals to gain entry to sororities and fraternities.
What planet is this? I can't speak for Oxford and Cambridge with their strange clubs (like the Bullingdon Club that our glorious leaders Cameron and Osborne graced with their illustrious presence and recruit those who will continue to "lead" us in future) but British universities otherwise don't have these weird anachronisms.
Anyone who's ever watched Morse knows that the real police handle crimes even in Oxford colleges. There is no such thing as spring break. Instead we have the Easter vacation, when we either go home for a month to study or relax, or work to earn much-needed funds.
As for sororities and fraternities, there is no such thing. Some universities are collegiate, and these colleges create alliances and loyalties. But this "pledging" - unless, as I say, some Oxbridge colleges have such ancient, occult and arcane practices that the outside pleb does not get to hear about - is thankfully absent from our places of higher education.
Now Freshers week...that's another matter. How to introduce new students to life away from home and drown their homesickness in pools of alcohol and vomit. You can sign up for clubs - sports, political, theatrical, apathy (no one bothers to turn up for meetings). There are outings to places where you can get blotto, often with benefit of free beer tickets.
The drinking games help - Bunnies and Fizzbuzz have always been popular. For those unfamiliar, in Bunnies, the Bunny Master waggled fingers either side of the head like bunny ears, and the person either side waggles the hand nearest the Master, who then points across the circle where the person they point at and their neighbours repeat the performance. Any mistake is subject to forfeit, usually a substantial swig of booze. Hence, the longer the game goes on, the drinker the players get, the more mistakes they make and the more hilarity is caused.
Fizzbuzz is an altogether more intellectual game. The players go round the circle counting, replacing every number with 5 in, or multiple of 5, with Fizz, and ditto 7 with Buzz. Numbers containing or being multiples of both are replaced with Fizzbuzz. The Master can reverse the order, just to make matters more complicated. Any mistake is also punished with alcoholic intake.
When I was a second year helping the Freshers to relax, we were in the Lake District at a posh hotel (one of many places we were never allowed back to...) and followed up with rowing boat trips out on to Windermere, the largest of the lakes. The people on my boat spent the next hour trying to strand one another on the many islands we landed on.
Happy days.
What planet is this? I can't speak for Oxford and Cambridge with their strange clubs (like the Bullingdon Club that our glorious leaders Cameron and Osborne graced with their illustrious presence and recruit those who will continue to "lead" us in future) but British universities otherwise don't have these weird anachronisms.
Anyone who's ever watched Morse knows that the real police handle crimes even in Oxford colleges. There is no such thing as spring break. Instead we have the Easter vacation, when we either go home for a month to study or relax, or work to earn much-needed funds.
As for sororities and fraternities, there is no such thing. Some universities are collegiate, and these colleges create alliances and loyalties. But this "pledging" - unless, as I say, some Oxbridge colleges have such ancient, occult and arcane practices that the outside pleb does not get to hear about - is thankfully absent from our places of higher education.
Now Freshers week...that's another matter. How to introduce new students to life away from home and drown their homesickness in pools of alcohol and vomit. You can sign up for clubs - sports, political, theatrical, apathy (no one bothers to turn up for meetings). There are outings to places where you can get blotto, often with benefit of free beer tickets.
The drinking games help - Bunnies and Fizzbuzz have always been popular. For those unfamiliar, in Bunnies, the Bunny Master waggled fingers either side of the head like bunny ears, and the person either side waggles the hand nearest the Master, who then points across the circle where the person they point at and their neighbours repeat the performance. Any mistake is subject to forfeit, usually a substantial swig of booze. Hence, the longer the game goes on, the drinker the players get, the more mistakes they make and the more hilarity is caused.
Fizzbuzz is an altogether more intellectual game. The players go round the circle counting, replacing every number with 5 in, or multiple of 5, with Fizz, and ditto 7 with Buzz. Numbers containing or being multiples of both are replaced with Fizzbuzz. The Master can reverse the order, just to make matters more complicated. Any mistake is also punished with alcoholic intake.
When I was a second year helping the Freshers to relax, we were in the Lake District at a posh hotel (one of many places we were never allowed back to...) and followed up with rowing boat trips out on to Windermere, the largest of the lakes. The people on my boat spent the next hour trying to strand one another on the many islands we landed on.
Happy days.
Sunday, May 05, 2013
The Break Up
Sorry for the squished up head. Another of those cases where I got the capture ratio wrong...
Still, Dennis Grobowski is a sweet character.
Still, Dennis Grobowski is a sweet character.
Friday, May 03, 2013
That Championship Season
Phil Romano. The only member of this midget cast capable of being mistaken for a basketball player.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
That Was The Week That Was
No, not the 1960s satirical show that launched David Frost's career. Just my week so far. Stick with it, it's worth it.
Monday was a write-off. I had a 2.10pm appointment for a lumbar x-ray to support my boob reduction case.
I got up at sparrow-fart on Tuesday in case I got a call to work, but hoping I could spend a sunny day at the zoo. I got a call to work. On the way home I spent the day's pay (which I don't receive till next week) on vet supplies.
I got up just as early on Wednesday in case I got a call to work, but hoping I could spend a sunny day at the zoo. I got a call to work.
This is casual as-and-when work, for an ASD school I've worked for a lot, but it moved over Easter into a brand spanking new building.
I don't know if US schools still have these in their classrooms (no, not Bobby's hand, the blackboard) but in Britain they are long gone.
We've had interactive whiteboards pretty well everywhere for about 15 years, and before that most places had drywipe whiteboards rather than messy chalk. Well, this school has super-deluxe models where the computer, DVD player, USB ports, electric controls for the windows and anything else you can think of are built in.
The teacher controls it with a remote keyboard which is about a third of the size of a laptop keyboard.
It is the most frustrating instrument I have ever had the misfortune to work with.
The buttons top left are the left and right mouse clicks. The ball at top right is the cursor mover, the rest of the ouse function, I guess. It is the most inexact, difficult to control piece of shit any man could have dreamed up (don't tell me it might have been a woman, we all know it couldn't be so).
There are lots of great sensory things in the playground, but sandpits? The younger kids spend all their breaktime putting it down their own and their friends' necks. Only a matter of time till it goes in some eyes...
Then there are the flower beds. The plants, which haven't rooted yet, never will, as they are a convenient handful to pull out and throw around.
Well, as there is a lot of walking to be done in this new building, and I was standing around cooking for a lot of the time, I was pretty exhausted by the end of Wednesday. But luckily Thursday dawned warm and sunny, and there was no call to work, so off I went to the zoo.
It was worth waiting for.
Firstly, the new male gorilla, Kumbuka, was with young Mjukuu for about the first time. They showed a professional level of acting indifferent. He looks at her, she looks away. He looks away, she looks at him. She circles round him. He pretends not to notice. He sits around nonchalantly, she gathers sacks and carries them up to the highest perch she can find.
I don't think he quite gets alpha male dominance yet.
Jae Jae was being particularly fetching. His back was to the window, then he rolled over towards the glass and treated us to these views of his beauteousness.
Jae Jae's enrichment included a piece of meat on top of his climbing frame, with a trail of blood leading to it. I stitched three pieces of video together and shut off the volume, but couldn't convert it into anything usable, so here are three pieces of rough footage for which you might want to turn down the keeper's commentary which is interspersed with crowd noise.
He follows the trail.
He makes his "kill".
He chomps his prize.
Monday was a write-off. I had a 2.10pm appointment for a lumbar x-ray to support my boob reduction case.
I got up at sparrow-fart on Tuesday in case I got a call to work, but hoping I could spend a sunny day at the zoo. I got a call to work. On the way home I spent the day's pay (which I don't receive till next week) on vet supplies.
I got up just as early on Wednesday in case I got a call to work, but hoping I could spend a sunny day at the zoo. I got a call to work.
This is casual as-and-when work, for an ASD school I've worked for a lot, but it moved over Easter into a brand spanking new building.
I don't know if US schools still have these in their classrooms (no, not Bobby's hand, the blackboard) but in Britain they are long gone.
We've had interactive whiteboards pretty well everywhere for about 15 years, and before that most places had drywipe whiteboards rather than messy chalk. Well, this school has super-deluxe models where the computer, DVD player, USB ports, electric controls for the windows and anything else you can think of are built in.
The teacher controls it with a remote keyboard which is about a third of the size of a laptop keyboard.
It is the most frustrating instrument I have ever had the misfortune to work with.
The buttons top left are the left and right mouse clicks. The ball at top right is the cursor mover, the rest of the ouse function, I guess. It is the most inexact, difficult to control piece of shit any man could have dreamed up (don't tell me it might have been a woman, we all know it couldn't be so).
There are lots of great sensory things in the playground, but sandpits? The younger kids spend all their breaktime putting it down their own and their friends' necks. Only a matter of time till it goes in some eyes...
Then there are the flower beds. The plants, which haven't rooted yet, never will, as they are a convenient handful to pull out and throw around.
Well, as there is a lot of walking to be done in this new building, and I was standing around cooking for a lot of the time, I was pretty exhausted by the end of Wednesday. But luckily Thursday dawned warm and sunny, and there was no call to work, so off I went to the zoo.
It was worth waiting for.
Firstly, the new male gorilla, Kumbuka, was with young Mjukuu for about the first time. They showed a professional level of acting indifferent. He looks at her, she looks away. He looks away, she looks at him. She circles round him. He pretends not to notice. He sits around nonchalantly, she gathers sacks and carries them up to the highest perch she can find.
I don't think he quite gets alpha male dominance yet.
Jae Jae was being particularly fetching. His back was to the window, then he rolled over towards the glass and treated us to these views of his beauteousness.
Jae Jae's enrichment included a piece of meat on top of his climbing frame, with a trail of blood leading to it. I stitched three pieces of video together and shut off the volume, but couldn't convert it into anything usable, so here are three pieces of rough footage for which you might want to turn down the keeper's commentary which is interspersed with crowd noise.
He follows the trail.
He makes his "kill".
He chomps his prize.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
Stuart Saves His Family
The very BIG Mr Smalley. Donnie's not Vincent's best look.
Can't disguise those curls though...
Can't disguise those curls though...
Monday, April 29, 2013
Saturday, April 27, 2013
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