Massive Attack's Meltdown

On Monday night, as part of the South Bank Centre's Meltdown Festival, I took a bunch of kids from school along to participate in the performance by a band called Elbow.

The girls were brass players who had been asked to play on Elbow's track "Starlings" - where they play strategic brass "blasts" throughout the piece (6 times to be precise).   They were to be hidden in the boxes around the stage and then suddenly the lights would come up on them and they would just randomly play their concert G chord in the middle of the piece.

The concert was spectacular, the performance amazing, and what an opportunity for our kids.  Here are some comments from the Elbow message boards afterwards (all typos their own!)

"If I never go to another gig again I could die happy after last night!
From start to finish an amazing night, Fleet Foxes supported and were brilliant, very funny and very talented guys.
Then Elbow, Guy walked on wearing all black and a trilby (this is relevant for later), started with Station Approach and that set the tone for the rest of the show, the fact that the venue was seated mad no
difference to the incredilble atmosphere. Guy waved to his family who were in the Roayl Box, then we had Bones of You, Leaders of The Free World (dedicated to George W), Grounds for Divorce, Mirrorball (with 3
mirrorballs sitting on the stage, creating a great effect), The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver and Great Expectations.
As Great Expectations finished, what sounded like a tape of Any Day Now started in the background, it was a choir of 35 blokes, dressed all in black wearing trilby's. They had all been recruited specifically for
this show and had 2 days practice. Guy called them Geoff not sure which.  Geoff stayed for the rest of the show.
Next was Starlings, with trumpeteers in 4 of the boxes at the side of the stage as well as the guys on the stage, and the mixing desk man. Followed by a song they had only played once live before, because "we are s*** at it, and if Geoff wasn't here we wouldn't try it" Presuming Ed (Rest Easy). Some Riot was next and a storming version of Newborn which got a standing ovation. Geoff was still joining in with every song.
Then Grace Under Pressure, which Guy cocked up after Geof had started it off, the song finished with Geoff and Guy giving each other the finger Stops was the penultimate song, before the whole crowd stood up for One Day Like This, which blew the roof off the Festival Hall.
I didn't think I had the words to describe this gig, but I have waffled on now. Amazing."

And a comment too from Guy, the lead singer:

To everyone at charles edward brooke school and the centre for young musicians last night was one of the greatest nights of our lives. Thanks for your skill, absolutely perfect. All our love elbow x

Plus a few pics taken by the professional guy in the rehearsal.  If you look close you can see yours truly with a tenor horn...

The One Where Kevan Comes To Visit

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of a visit from my brother in law Kevan for a couple of days.

Originally he was going to arrive in London on the Thursday, but the pull of my obviously wondrous charm was just too much (hehehe) and he arrived a day early.  Unfortunately for him I was working at school til late with Concert Band rehearsal, but we made arrangements to meet up at Charing Cross to go for a stroll on the river and a nice meal before returning to Chateau La Jean's.

It was a pleasant evening, although poor Kev has been suffering the effects of jet-lag the past few days so he wasn't really up to much.  We ended up in Chinatown for a bit of food, then headed back home.

The next day Kev hit the town and I hit the school.  But crashed.  Very tired.  Kev is staying in my room and is a bit of a snorer!  Although he told me to wake him up if he snored, I couldn't do it.  I just put my earplugs on instead - and they worked a treat!  Actually, I'm not being fair to Kev, it wasn't that bad...

Anyway, he did the London Big Bus experience, and then we made arrangements to meet up in town again for food and a show.  We went to my favourite place, Wagamama's (Beck, Kev has now been indoctrinated to the Wagamama's experience, and guess what, he actually liked it!) and then we went to see my favourite show, Avenue Q.  Now before you think that I dragged poor Kev to all the things I wanted to do, and didn't give him a say in it - let me tell you that is completely not true!  Kev wanted to do all these things too - and he really enjoyed Avenue Q - although it wasn't until Friday afternoon driving down to Portsmouth and listening to it in the car that he got some of the jokes, because the guy doing the sound mixing in the theatre really was quite rubbish.  But he really enjoyed the show no less - so much so that on Saturday night in Portsmouth he wanted to try and find more theatre to see!

Kev tries Wagamama's

So Friday.  Kev headed out to Greenwich to see the Royal Observatory, and I headed off to the munchkins at school.  We met up at the Oval after school and set off for Portsmouth, in search of a B&B.  Do you think we could find one?  I mean, we arrived quite late because the traffic, to be fair, was absolutely diabolical, so that immediately made it a bit more tricky to just rock up somewhere, but the other reason we had trouble was, do you think we could actually find any?  There just didn't seem to be a definitive area where the B&B's were!  Eventually we found a place - but it was a hotel B&B - and the only room they had was a double!  It was good though - the B&B had wi-fi - so the two of us sat there on our laptops being terribly antisocial!

Saturday morning saw us, after a gorgeous breakfast, heading off to the Historic Dockyard to check out Nelson's Victory.  We had a wonderful time too - it took most of the day to be fair - we saw the Victory, the Warrior, the Mary Rose, checked out the Maritime Museum, the Mary Rose Museum... and then did a tour boat trip of the harbour!  It was really good, we had a really good time.  By mid-afternoon though we were starting to flag a little, and seeing as the place we'd stayed the night before only had that room for one night, we had to find somewhere else to go - so we headed off again in search of more B&B's.  This time though, we went to Tourist Information first and found out where they would mostly be.  We found a nice little one (twin this time) and had a bit of a rest before the evening's adventures.

Basically, Kev had suggested on Saturday morning that he'd enjoyed Avenue Q so much, that he wouldn't mind seeing something else.  The only problem was we couldn't see anything that was actually on in Portsmouth - but then I saw a sign in the window of the Salvation Army thrift shop - "125th Reunion Weekend of Southsea Citadel Band" - yep, you guessed it - we went to a band programme!

I would love to say that it was wonderful, the music astonishing - but let's be honest, for starters the average age of the bandsmen would've been 150 not out!  In fact, Kev and I brought down the average age of the audience too.  Actually the programme was pretty good, the bandmaster played the xylophone and he was pretty amazing, and the soloist David Daws was very good on the cornet.  The other soloist, David Duffey, was actually a bit past his prime, but he gave a fair stab at it.

The sad thing about the whole experience was the way we were treated when we arrived.  It was right on the start time, and the hall was packed, and as we walked in, a bloke said we could have the last 2 seats (which were in the front row).  We went to take them but the lady on the door jumped up and practically hyperventilated that we hadn't paid our admission yet.  Of £2.50!  Seriously!  Like they wouldn't have been able to recognise us later on and get the money then... we were the youngest there...

Anyway, the next day it was unfortunately time for Kev to head back home, so we chuffed off to Heathrow, enjoyed a coffee and another d&m conversation on the way, and then it was time to say goodbye...

I have to say I really enjoyed Kev's visit - if you're ever this way again Kev...

At the Warrior

At the Victory

Salvation Army Southsea Citadel

Big Brother 9

Lock up your TVs!  The worst bunch of derro wannabes are back on the box!

Yes, it's Big Brother 9, or should I say Big Boring Whine!  I can't stand this show, it's full of the most socially inept whackos and wierdos on the planet!

Now that being said, normally I wouldn't have even wasted the blog space on this complete and utter mundane drivel - but shock, horror - one of the "contestants" (read: misfit miscreants) is a girl I taught at CEBS a few years back!  My worst nightmare - 24/7 CEBS on the box...

What a success story she totally was, ending up on Big Drivel.  What a fabulous role model and inspiration for all the others back at CEBS.  Listen, do us all a favour love, get off the box!

Canal Boat Wrap Up

The last few days on the canal boat trip were pretty uneventful except for a few things.  We got through the 29 locks at Caen Hill relatively quickly on Tuesday (just over 2 hours I think it was), and then it was time to say farewell to Stella at the town at the top, Devizes, where we did a little bit of necessary grocery shopping.

The afternoon was spent moseying along the canal until we didn't want to drive anymore.  The weather was relatively nice, so we pulled up for a bit of afternoon tea and then it was decided we would video our dramatic re-enactment of Makeda's run in with a psycho ginga on the canal a few days before.  Turns out Makeda had accidentally hit the ginga's boat on one of the narrow bits of the canal, and the woman had turned it into such a palaver, screaming out about how this is her house, we wouldn't like it if she hit our car... yada yada... and then getting her mate "Dave", who happened to be just wandering along the path, involved too.  It was apparently quite amusing, this altercation - so much so that we just had to immortalise it in film.  Unfortunately we haven't finished the edit yet, but when we do - stay tuned, it'll be posted here.

On Wednesday morning we negotiated the turnaround and started on our way back to Bath.  This meant that on Wednesday afternoon we had to contend with the 29 locks at Caen Hill again - but this time we were on our own and often had to fill the lock first before we could go in, so it meant that it took much longer, more like 3 1/2 hours or so.  We moored up and that evening played several renditions of "Things", a board game Erik brought from Canada, which is very funny and very good.  Oh and "Articulate".

Thursday was a relatively easy day, nice enough weather, good company on the boat and all.  We ended up mooring up at Bradford-Upon-Avon for the night.  As the weather had been nice during the day we decided to have a BBQ - but just as we got the BBQ lit, the heavens opened up - and we had to cook our food underneath the shelter of an umbrella and finish it off in the oven!

On Friday the weather was nice again, so much that no-one really wanted to drive - everyone wanted to stay on the roof and enjoy the sun - so we spent most of the day still moored at Bradford.  I started to go a little stir crazy mid-afternoon so I went for a walk into town - such a cute little town too, lovely architecture and cute shops.  Late afternoon we set off as we realised the boat had to be returned Saturday morning, 9am, so we needed to be in striking distance of Bath.  Turns out we had underestimated how far out we still were, so we decided we would need to be up early on Saturday to make the last hour or so for 9am. 

The only problem with this was that when we got up Saturday morning, the engine wouldn't start.  At all.  So we had to phone up Anglo-Welsh and they sent out an engineer to fix the battery.  We'd actually had quite a lot of problem with electricity on this boat, unlike last year, and many times we would have no power if we hadn't revved the engine enough during the day.

Suffice to say that it took a while for the guy to fix the problem, and we didn't end up getting back to the marina until around midday.  It had been an enjoyable trip, but now we had to face the long drive back to London...

Anyway, here's a slideshow summary of the trip:

Thank God For Blundies!

I would like to take this opportunity here and now to say thank you to the good Lord for giving some individual the inspiration and talent to create the world's greatest shoe.

I refer, of course, to that wonderful Aussie icon, the Blundstone boot.  These shoes have to be the best shoes ever!  Made for that 'hard yakka', in my experience they are the perfect hiking boot, dress boot (well, sort of), snow shoe, travel shoe and now canal-doing-the-locks-in-rain-or-shine shoe.  I would've been lost on this trip without them!

Especially as for the first 5 or so days it rained quite a lot.  Not very pleasant when you're out there doing the locks.  But in Blundies - well, you're laughing (almost).

So thank you very much Blundstone, if you ever need someone to join your advertising compaign, you know where to find me...

Five (or Six) Go Mad In Somerset!

Well being the May half term, a couple of us from school decided to brave the Canal boat adventure again - this time the Kennet and Avon canal, which runs from Bristol through Bath and on to Reading, and boasts over 100 locks (we're not going to get to do all of those though!) and the famous Caen Hill locks, one of the "Seven Wonders of the Waterways" - a stretch of some 29 locks with 16 straight in a row!  It's going to be absolutely amazing!

Our intrepid explorers are - Erik (the "Chief Engineer" and general organiser of the whole thing), Q (the "Admiral"), Stella (the "Mutineer" as she will be leaving part-way through), Makeda (the "First Mate"), Michelle (the "Cabin Boy" on account of she has a complex about looking like a boy when she is soaked through from rain doing the locks), and myself (the "Pirate" on account of that was the only badge left!).

We picked up our boat, the Axbridge (from the AngloWelsh Boat Company), from Bath on Saturday afternoon and set off as quick as we could, off to cover as much of the canal as possible.  Unfortunately this canal is one of the more populated ones, and seeing as you can't go very fast at the best of times (and certainly not when going past other boats), we really didn't make much progress on that first day.  We didn't even make it to any of the locks!

But obviously the journey up from London and the bit of boating we did on the first day must've really taken it out of us all, because we slept so late the next day!  We didn't get underway til about midday, and it was raining, so it wasn't really very pleasant, but we stopped off at a lovely pub enroute for Sunday lunch, which was gorgeous.  The sun then came out, we made a bit of mileage, achieved a few locks, and generally felt very good about everything - until we accidentally hit another boat whilst trying to negotiate a narrow bit of the canal.  The woman from that boat came out, yelling and screaming at Makeda, saying "I'm gonna knock your teeth down your throat!".  Suffice to say we hoofed it out of there pretty quick!

Our boat is not the best narrowboat I've been on (listen to me, like a seasoned pro - although I've only been narrowboating twice in my whole life!).  It supposedly sleeps 6 - if 4 people don't mind sharing - and if 2 of those 4 don't mind having to set up their bed every night by folding down the table and all... And the electrics are rubbish.  If you don't rev the engine enough, or just motor slowly throughout the day (and remember you can't actually go fast as there are a lot of boats moored in this canal), then you don't have any electricity later in the evening.  It's pretty ordinary, actually.

Anyway, Monday.  We were up marginally earlier than Sunday and set off in two teams of three as the weather was really bad, raining very heavily (and at times even sleeting).  We accomplished several locks throughout the morning but then the wind came up.  It was blowing us all over the canal!  One bloke we passed advised us to pull up after the next lot of locks, as we were fast approaching the famed Caen Hill flight of locks - and there's just no way you can stop once you start them - they apparently take 5 hours to negotiate!

So we waited out the wind a bit and then decided to press on towards Caen Hill, in the hopes that we might actually make it up there.  At the start of the ascent, we stopped off at the ranger's station - and he told us we didn't have enough time to negotiate all the locks, we would have to moor up overnight at number 29 (some 7 away from the start of the sequence) as he was locking them all up for the night.

Which is exactly what we did.  We moored up, and then had to walk up past the 16 in a row which we would negotiate the next day, on our way to the Black Horse for our evening meal.

Moored up for the evening at Caen Hill locks

The flight of 16 locks at Caen Hill awaits us tomorrow (with another 6 at the top afterwards!)

The next day, Tuesday, the sun came out, we got up early (8am thank you very much) and then with another boat proceeded to make our way up the flight of locks.  I'm very pleased to report that as each lock was 'ours' (meaning that the lock level was at the level we were going in at - as opposed to requiring us to empty or fill the lock before we could go in), it was much quicker and we managed to do the whole thing in just on 2 hours!

We pulled off at Devizes wharf, at the top of the locks, said goodbye to Stella (who was making her way back to London) and headed off to do some shopping!

A much needed lunch break was taken after this - and now, as I write, we're heading off for our turning point - so we can turn around and do it all again - I hope not today though...

Procrastination Is My Passion

I'm supposed to be marking for the AQA so I decided to hop on blogger and post some meaningless ramblings.  Procrastination is my middle name after all.

I hate marking.  It really really REALLY SUCKS!!!  It prevents me from doing everything else in life, like, I don't know... something!  Anything but this!  I HATE IT!!!! (I will however love to get paid when I eventually finish it all...) 

And while I'm at it (my whingefest!), I hate that I'm not allowed to go to Thorpe Park tomorrow like everyone else.  The whole of Yr 7, 8 and 9 (excepting the naughties who have to stay back at school) are going to either Thorpe Park or Chessington - but because I'm not a tutor, I don't get to go.  No, instead, I have to 'help' load the kids on the bus (what am I going to do?  Hoike them up there in some sort of over the shoulder flingfest maneouvre?  Or just shove 'em into the bus like a Japanese train conductor cramming 'em all in in peak hour?).  And then I've got a whole day on my lonesome in the music department, 'supervising' those who haven't been allowed to go on the trip... bummer...

Roll on half term...

Murphy's Law

It's Murphy's Law, isn't it.

You see, I've been at Jean's for three or four months now, and I've been getting my mail redirected from Wavertree Road, because let's face it, sometimes you forget to give your address to someone / company that you really need to still get mail from, but in the heat of the move, you didn't inform them of the change.  That's why mail redirection is so good, because you can catch those odd few that you really want (and binning all the annoying junk mail, safe in the knowledge that when the redirection period is over, it'll keep going to your old address and annoying the new tenants there).

But a couple of weeks back I noticed that I was getting someone else's redirected mail.  Someone else from the same street I had lived in - Wavertree Road.   And not just the annoying junk mail stuff, no, I got her credit card bill and everything.  If I had been a wily criminal, I could've done some serious injustice with that information.  But no, I dutifully phone up some burke at Brixton Royal Mail sorting centre and politely (-ish!) voice my concern - especially as if I'm getting Ms V Rose's mail, then where is my mail going?

I wish now I hadn't.  Why?  Because of Murphy's Law...

You see, I got home today to discover a "redirected" letter  - and this time actually addressed to me - but alas, it was from the London Borough of Lambeth.  Apparently, on the morning of 2nd May, my car, Ruby, entered a so-called 'box junction' and stopped there when prohibited.  What?  What does that mean?

£120, that's what that means!  Or £60 if I pay it within 28 days.  £60!  And to think, if I hadn't phoned up Brixton Royal Mail, I might not've got the silly "penalty charge notice" and therefore could've got away with it!  But knowing that the redirection is now back in action, I'm sure the blighters would've been able to get through to me again (and that would've cost £180!).  Aaaaggghhh!!!

The real bum is that Ruby floppin' parked by a 'dropped footpath' (again, what on earth is that?) two weeks ago and cost me £60 then!  Seriously, if this car can't learn to behave, she'll have to go....!

That being said, though, they'll not get a penny out of me without a fight! I've looked at their "set of 4 photos", and if you check the time stamp in each one, no real amount of time has lapsed - which would've been the case had I stopped in the "box" for a while. It's only a matter of seconds - which is what you'd expect if I was driving through normally... so look out Lambeth, I'm comin' for ya!

Meanwhile, here's one of the lovely pictures they took to commemorate the incident... Annoying so-and-so's...

Now Is The Month of Maying

You may (or may not!) be wondering why the internet silence?  Why has there been a distinct lack of blog postage in recent weeks?

The answer is very simple.  It's May.

"Hmm," I hear you say.  "What's so special about May?  Isn't it supposed to be a time of joy and happiness at the onset of spring - you know, "Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads are playing, fa la la la la" and all that?  "Each with his bonny lass, upon the greeny grass"...?"

Ah, dear reader, allow me to enlighten you.  The month of May is the worst month of the year for the many thousands of secondary school teachers in the UK, for the simple reason that it is the time when all the coursework, all the marking, all the crappy paperwork for the GCSEs is due - or, if you are a KS2 (primary) or KS3 (up to Yr 9) teacher - you've got SATS exams to deal with.  And at the same time, some silly Burke in Parliament thought this would be a good time, every year, to hold elections - I swear, every year I've been here there've been elections in May, always on a Thursday (why? Like who can even get to a polling booth then, right?) and as many of the polling stations are schools, they have to close - so you miss a day (good for me, bad for the kids).  And at the end of May is when the SATS exams and GCSE exams start - which means frantic revision sessions with those students who think you should just drop everything and help them out now (when you've been trying to all year but they just wouldn't have a bar of it then), or even more frantic, panic-stricken revision sessions with those students who haven't done a scrap of work all year and suddenly realise the exam is today and they don't know anything!  So with 15 minutes to go before the exam is due to start, they're banging down your door wanting you to teach them how to do melodic dictation!

But before we even get to all that - the marking, I mean - you've got to get the work out of the kids.  They've had 2 years essentially to do the following:

1.  Compose (and record to CD / tape / Minidisk) a piece of music for a special event

2.  Perform (and record) a solo piece

3.  Perform (and record) an ensemble piece.

4.  Compose a piece of music in a given style (question set November 2007).

That's it!  And you don't even have to be able to notate the music you write, no sir, you can just do it all in Cubase or Sibelius and let the computer figure it out for you!  And you have almost 2 years to do all this!

So you'd think, with that amount of time, the kids would get the work in well in good time before the deadline.

Yeah right.  And I'm a monkey's uncle...

So lately, my whole life has been:  get up early, go to school, spend hours upon hours sitting with kids literally forcing them to finish their work, beg students to record something - ANYTHING - that could be construed as a performance of some kind, stay back late at school mastering to CD, recording performances and the like, come home, stay up late marking the bleeding stuff.  What a life!

And the problem is, there's a huge pressure on the kids to do well, of course - but most people don't realise there's an even bigger pressure on the teachers for the kids to do well - because if the kids fail, or achieve poor results - that gets reported in the Government's dreaded "League Tables" - and if you are below the Government's so-called 'Floor Target' - they could close the school!  So the pressure is really on...

And on top of that, I've done (yet again) something very stupid.  I do it every May - and every May I say to myself, "Not again, Kyles" - but alas, every May I still do it.  Exam-board marking.

Literally, its a huge pain.  The paperwork alone'll kill you if you're not careful.  It takes days, nay, weeks - six weeks to be precise - to do this work.  And they only pay some ridiculously low fee per candidate that you mark - its really not worth it.  But I do it every year because, hey, it earns me nearly £800 - and that's £800 I wouldn't have had, £800 I could spend on a trip - or my house - or something.  So I do it.

But this year has been completely ridiculous.  I have 44 schools' work to mark - and so far nearly every school that I have received has had huge errors in paperwork that have meant that I haven't been able to mark very much at all.  This is a real pain because the week after next, we're going away on the canal boat again - and I can't bring this marking with me to do (what a Nige I would be anyway if I tried to) as firstly, it's too bulky, and secondly, you're not supposed to do this work in public, for the candidate's privacy.  Like you could anyway, right?

So at the moment the bottom of my cupboard is full of these blasted purple packages, and I'm being seriously anti-social and just trying to get them finished before the deadline.  Suffice to say, I can't wait til it's all over... and you won't be seeing me much on here for now...

Ruby Finally Has A Win

Finally.  After so many trials and tribulations, Ruby has a win.

One of the many difficulties in driving a car in London has to do with the congestion and the narrow streets.  Drivers have to be much more courteous and willing to give way so that traffic can flow freely (well, as freely as possible).  This can prove very difficult in the narrow streets, where you have cars parked on both sides of the road, and really only enough room for one car to pass.  So what usually happens when two cars meet head on in this situation, is that the car that reaches a potential passing point, or gap in the parked cars, first, is the one that pulls off to the side to allow the other to negotiate a difficult passage.

The only problem with this is that in recent years, the level of intolerance and road rage in British drivers has been on a sharp increase.  This has particularly been the case in the male member of the species, especially when confronted with someone he perceives to be weaker.  This happened to me late last year, when I was returning home late one night from band practice.  I met a "white van" man head on, about 11pm, on a narrow road.  He came to a suitable pulling over place first, but blatantly ignored it, and pressed on - leaving me with no room to pass him.  I realised he had done this on purpose, and decided that I wouldn't move - why should I, he should've pulled over first!  He started f-ing and blinding, waving his arms up and down in the air, and I just calmly gestured for him to go back.  He then slams the van into gear and starts coming for me like a madman.  Of course, in hindsight, I should've just stayed there and called his bluff - would he really have rammed into me? - but this is England, the land of the yobbo (apologies to all those lovely English people I know though who aren't yobbos...) - and I guess in that split second I didn't really want to find out - so I gave in and reversed back.  Of course, as he passed, he gave me a few more salient words, coupled with appropriate gestures...

Then about 3 weeks ago, on my way home from school, I encountered a similar situation, this time with an African woman.  Again, she had the opportunity to pull over first, but didn't - and she refused to back up, and I refused as well - and she stupidly tried to pass, scraping my wing mirror in the process - and then pulling over to check the damage to her vehicle!  Fortunately Ruby didn't suffer on that one.

So last night, when I was on my way home from a night at the theatre with a friend, around 11.30pm, at almost exactly the same spot as the wing-scraping incident, the same thing happened again.  This time it was an African man - and rather than pull over at the first available place, he edged the nose of his vehicle just beyond the gap.  What an idiot.  Anyway, I don't know what happened, but I guess I just snapped - why should I have to keep backing back or giving way to these fools?  So I just sat there, and refused to move.  And so did he.  And I gestured for him to go back, and he didn't.  We were at an impasse.

So I did the only logical thing I could, turned off the engine and shut off my headlights (making sure the doors were locked in case the idiot got out of his car and tried to do something stupid).  And then a miracle happened.  The man gave in, and reversed back!  But the best moment was when I drove passed him - and he saw he'd lost out to a woman - he was not impressed...

One small step for man, one giant leap for courtesy and decency...