Femi Kuti and the Positive Force

Every November, for around 10 days, the London Jazz Festival takes place at music venues all around London.  The festival is absolutely magnificent, its a wonderful opportunity to hear some absolutely top quality musicians from all round the world at very reasonable prices - and because its an annual event, you'd think I'd be able to sort myself out to find out in advance what's going on, so I can give myself the best chance at scoring some top seats for some brilliant gigs.  But alas, this is me we're talking about - and whilst I can make a fair stab of organising stuff in my job, I'm rubbish at it in my home life.  So again, the Jazz Festival arrives - and I manage to secure very cheap (£2.50 anyone?) tickets for the kids to some good gigs (its part of the 'New Audiences' programme), but I never manage to book anything for myself.

So last night I was sitting there at the Royal Festival Hall with 15 or so kids from school waiting to see Femi Kuti, son of legendary Fela Kuti, and as you do, I was leafing through the festival brochure - and kicking myself.  Absolutely kicking myself.  Why?  Because I discovered, whilst sitting there, that tomorrow night, Saturday night, Herbie Hancock was performing.  Herbie Hancock!  Wow, that would've been fab - and I say would've, because as we all know, the tickets would be sold out by now (and they were - I checked).  So what an opportunity missed.

But I'm determined not to miss anything else if I can.  So hopefully, fingers crossed, this week I'll get to see Take 6, Andy Sheppard (who wrote the Saxophone Massive thing I did last year) and maybe even Chick Corea... if I can get tickets, that is...

So anyway, back to Femi Kuti.  The concert was pretty good, my only criticism was that it went way too long (for me with my 15 kids who needed to be home at a reasonable hour).  Femi didn't come on until the second half, after the supporting artist Ayo, a French singer who was very good.  But anyway, when he got on - well, I obviously never saw Fela Kuti in real life, but from all accounts, he was very flamboyant, energetic, extremely talented performer - and this was how Femi was.  To be fair, I wasn't quite expecting all the dancing, and all the singing (and all the political stuff) but hey, it was still a very good concert.  He played both trumpet and saxophone, and really wasn't bad at either.  Oh and a bit of keyboard too.

So let's see if we can get to anything else in the Jazz Festival, eh?  Need to make the most of these opportunities while I can...

 

The Most Stupid Thing I Ever Heard

For those who don't know, my school is in a borough of London called Lambeth. It's one of the toughest in terms of gangs, gun crime, knife crime - and generally some parts of the borough e.g. Brixton are considered to be very unpleasant places to live. This has repercussions on the classroom (seeing as many of the kids live in Brixton), as we have some of the toughest, hardest kids you would ever hope to meet. You know you can cut it as a teacher if you can teach in a Lambeth school (and by teach, I mean - keep the kids in the class and not killing each other!).

So that's why I think this has just got to be the most stupid, most absurd thing I've ever heard:

Foot massages calm unruly pupils

Disruptive schoolchildren in south London will be given foot massages by therapists to help get their aggressiveness under control.

Reflexologists will visit 74 primary and secondary schools in Lambeth and tend to children under 13.

Lambeth Council has budgeted £90,000 next year for reflexologists from London-based charity Bud Umbrella.

The council said it makes "no apologies for using different and innovative methods" to tackle aggressive children.

"We need to deal with the root causes of young people's behavioural problems and nip them in the bud" - Lambeth Council spokeswoman

Bud Umbrella's website says the therapy can calm aggressive feelings, improve listening skills and concentration as well as relieve anxiety and stress.

A spokeswoman for Lambeth Council said: "We make no apologies for using different and innovative methods, but this obviously won't replace more traditional ways of dealing with anti-social behaviour.

"We need to deal with the root causes of young people's behavioural problems and nip them in the bud."

The council said it had put an extra £2m into youth services and its programmes used traditional and innovative measures to tackle anti-social behaviour.

It said its programmes had led to a 50% increase in attendance and 60% decrease in exclusions among young people in the borough.

Reflexologists apply pressure on specific points on the feet to treat a number of conditions.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/7707019.stm

Published: 2008/11/03 18:43:52 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

What?!  You've got to be kidding, right?  Now isn't that the most stupid thing you ever heard?  

You know it was so stupid that even LBC, "London's Biggest Conversation" had something to say about it - and I can assure it was not in the least bit complementary.  What stupid burke thought up this one?  Any idiot can see that this is a completely ridiculous idea.

So when little Miss X (because I can't use her name, I'm still at the school) kicks off this week in my lessons, I'm supposed to be assured that her behaviour will be dealt with seriously and severely by a ... reflexologist?  (What does that even mean, anyway, aren't they just people who test your reflexes?  Suppose it wouldn't be so bad if Miss X got a whack on the knee with a hammer when she got sent out...) 

It seriously beggars belief, and poses the question - what planet are these people on?! - cos it sure ain't the same as the rest of us!  I dare any of the idiotic bureaucrats who came up with this dumb idea to come into my classroom after their 'treatment' has been administered - and just see how 'beneficial' its been to the student... bet they wouldn't last 5 minutes in the class!

What is the world coming to?

Oh How I Hate Packing!

Aaagghhhh!  I have literally been tearing my hair out the past few days with this silly packing!  I'm beginning to think that coming home was not really the smartest idea I've ever had...

You see, there's not enough room in my room to build the boxes, dump stuff, document every single tiny little thing that I pack, actually pack the stuff - and then try to heft the box down the stairs ready for the fella to pick up this week.  Its just madness!  So I started to move everything I needed to pack out into the garage, but the weather has been rubbish, and it is absolutely freezing cold in there - so there's no way I can stay any length of time in there and pack.  Therefore Jean suggested I put everything in the living room, as it'll only be there a few days, which I've done - but it is still painstakingly slow going - and very emotional, too, as I try to chuck out as much as I can.  But you can't chuck out photos, and you can't chuck out souvenirs that you bought, and you can't chuck out many clothes as - let's be honest - I won't be paid for about 2 months, so I won't really be able to go out and buy new clothes now will I?

So I had made quite good progress on the packing front, and then today I phoned up Anglo Pacific to book my collection date, and found out that every single little wooden thing has to be put into a different box, to make it easier for the customs guys - so that has now meant unpacking everything already packed!  Aaaggghhh!  It's enough to make my brown eyes turn... RED!!!!

Anyway, bring on Thursday when the whole bang lot will have had to have gone...

Tearing my hair out!

Two hours on, and there's still so much to pack! 

(in fact it looks like there's even more to do than there was before...!)

Three - The Internet Non-Provider

I'm just feeling the need to vent some anger!

I'm with the crappest internet provider on the planet!  Seriously! I phoned them up about 2 weeks ago, absolutely fed up to the back teeth with their poor service, and got some bloke in Delhi on the phone trying to solve my problem.  Which, I might add, he obviously didn't - BECAUSE I AM STILL HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM!!!!!! AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

There's only a handful of internet sites I visit regularly at home - facebook, youtube and blogger.  And every evening, without fail, these websites simply will not load up!  This is why my blog output is so pov, because I have to type it up in Word or Stickies or something, then copy and paste when I am on an internet connection that doesn't cost me £15 a month and ISN'T CRAPPY OL' THREE!!!!!

It's like, tonight, I have been online for an hour and a half, trying to type up 3 quick blogs - and I get part way through and this happens:

Now I know you probably can't read that - but what it says in the lovely red writing on the bottom is 'Could not connect to blogger.com.  Saving and publishing may fail...' which means 'The internet dropped out again you dufus and saving and publishing?  No chance!'  Do you know how annoying this is? Aaaaggghh!  You see, obviously as a woman I am able to multitask quite effectively, so I'm doing several things at once.  Being a Mac, my computer can handle it absolutely no worries.  But Three and their dodgy internet?  No, they suck!  I'm trying to send an online birthday card on facebook, upload some video on youtube(so I can put it on blogger) and update my blog - and my internet provider lets me down without fail - you could lay money on it!  Both sites can't be connected.  It's madness for me to be paying £15 a month for this non-service - yet when you phone up and complain, they tell you their service in your area (like the man in Delhi can really see this information) is working fine.

It's working so fine that Stella doesn't get her birthday card and thinks I've forgotten, and I can't upload video I wanted to post on my blog - which doesn't matter, as I can't save to my blog anyway!  I'll just have to go downstairs and use the neighbour's free internet instead (obviously they're not with Three!).  So everyone, take heed - do not get your internet connection from three - unless you like paying good money for absolutely nothing...

Big Bangin' Fireworks

As many of you will know, November 5th is Guy Fawkes day in Britain.  This essentially stems from some gunpowder plot where a fella called Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament but the plans were foiled, and he was hung, drawn and quartered for his crimes.  How that now constitutes into 'fireworks night' I don't quite know - but basically its a good excuse for the Brits to put together a dirty great big pile of rubbish, stick a fake figure on it (calling it the 'guy'), set off a load of fireworks (nearly taking off their arms in the process) and release the inner pyromaniac in all of us.

So Laura, Sara, Katie, Andy and I set off on Saturday night to the display in Carshalton.  It was really good too, the fireworks went on for ages, and were, to be fair, rather impressive.  Not 'light up the Harbour bridge' impressive, but still - for a local display, they were pretty spesh.  And the music was really good (well, except for the unfortunate Celine Dion moment, but I guess we can forgive them that).

I couldn't quite believe just how many people turned out for this event, considering that at any time the heavens were about to erupt and dump a deluge on us (like it had been doing all day).  The one bad thing about it all was that with the weather having been bad all day, the park was like "Wet 'n' Wild" - slip and slide!  I was lucky not to stack it several times, including the one where Laura and I did a little slam dance (which caused a twinge in my back as I landed wrong - ow!).

Afterwards we went back to Katie and Andy's for chili jacket potatoes and to watch Wallace and Grommit (seeing as I have never seen any of the episodes and Laura had been going on about it because we were at the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes recently...) - it was really good, a top evening!

Anyway, here's a bit of video I captured on my phone:

Keeping My Eye On Barama

Now, I know this is going to be a big whacked out for many of those who know me, as although you know me as a practising Christian, I'm not normally prone to outbursts about profound Christian concepts, and particularly not stuff about end times theology (not like I once did as a teenager, put it that way).  But recent world events coupled with some stuff at church has got me thinking about this, and I wouldn't be being true to myself or my faith if I didn't put pen to paper (electronically speaking) and share my thoughts in a Nostradamus type way. You can choose what you do with them. Anyway, the reasons for this thinking have been a combination of Major Mingay, Gill Bonner and the Songsters, a movie I watched and the US election coverage on the BBC. How? Well, there are Major Mingay has been preaching a series called 'Cosmic Jesus' which is about the book of Revelation, Gill Bonner did a devotion at Songsters on Thursday night about Barack Obama, I recently rewatched 'Left Behind' (well I needed to have a perv on Kirk Cameron) and finally, the BBC haven't stopped showing their coverage of the whole US election and its effect on not just the US, but the whole world. So there I was on Thursday night, listening to Gill talk about Barama, and I suddenly got to thinking about Barry Smith. Barry Smith was a NZ evangelist who used to travel around the world preaching eschatology (that's 'end times theology' to us plebs). He wrote several excellent books, which I can highly recommend, especially if you, like me, find Revelation pretty heavy going - First Warning, Second Warning, Third Warning and Final Notice. In these books, and in his sermons, he would talk a lot about the signs of the times, and how they point to Jesus' Second Coming. There's lots of schools of thought on exactly how this will happen, but the end result is usually the same - Jesus takes the believers back to Heaven, and the non-believers get judged and sent to Hell (that's it in a nutshell). Another good series of books about this were written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, called the 'Left Behind' series. They actually made this into a film, and I was watching it the other day. In this series, suddenly millions of people vanish from the face of the earth, and then a charismatic, incredibly intelligent, well-spoken leader rises as the head of the UN, who eventually becomes the leader of the whole world. This is a young man who is able to relate to so many different people because of his international background. They made these books into movies, and if you can excuse the obviously much lower budget than your average Hollywood flick, they are really quite gripping and quite well done. So anyway, I'm rambling a bit now - but all this has got me to thinking about Barack Obama. Can he be this leader that is prophesied in the book of Revelation and Daniel, who will bring about a 7 year peace treaty in the Middle East, but breaks it after 3 1/2 years? Could he be the antichrist that is prophesied? Now before you think I'm completely whacked out, I urge you - do your own research. I typed in "Barack Obama antichrist" and "Barack Obama 666" into google, and I've seen the hundreds of webpages and blogs that others have written along these lines. I checked some of them out, and some of them don't even quote the bible properly - so how they think they're making a plausible argument is beyond me. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just telling you that I'm going to be watching Barack carefully, matching up what I know from my own research with what he does - and if I see signs of the following, I'll know that its true: 1. He will confer a 7 year peace treaty in the Middle East and break it after 3 1/2 years. 2. Either at that time, or at the end of the 7 years, there will be a mass vanishing of people - the Christians will have been taken into Heaven 3. He will cause everyone to have a chip or some sort of device implanted in their right hand or forehead so that they can function financially - there will be no more cash, no more fantastic plastic - you will be your own walking debit / credit card. 4. Then there will be a series of plagues and devastations before the final judgement. I know, you think it all sounds nuts - and that's ok, but if ever any of that happens, you'll remember reading this, and it will get you thinking. I suggest reading the LaHaye / Jenkins books, and having a look at Barry Smith. Anyway, that's it. That's why I'll be taking a closer look at Barama when he comes to power...

Meanwhile, here's the trailer for the Left Behind movie:

Barama and The Fish N Chips Man!

I don't know about you, but if I hear one more thing about the US elections, I'm going to scream.

I mean, last time I checked, I was still in the UK, not the US.  So why is it that every time I turn on the TV, or the radio, or heaven forbid, read a newspaper, I am bombarded with US election crap?  They're reporting more on that here than they do for their own election!  Like, even LBC, the radio station I normally listen to in the morning, are broadcasting their daily breakfast show this week from Chicago, so we can get more involved in the elections!  Honestly, I could care less!

I understand that the President of the United States is a very powerful man, and we know that the current one has seriously mucked up various countries around the globe, pulling the Poms and even us Aussies blindly into the muck too - but really!  None of us have a vote in this election, so do we really need to be bombarded with all this hullabaloo?  I know, its history, history, history - but it isn't my history!  

Today, whilst they were waiting for the result, they got so desperate for 'new' news (let's be honest - how many times can we hear the reports of people queuing around the corner yada yada yada to vote, care factor really), that they even crossed over to Kenya to do a report on Barama's (I can't be bothered to say Barack Obama) Kenyan grandma.  Honestly!

And as for McCain, the fish n chip man, well, did he even have a chance?  Of course not!

I'm glad that the whole thing is now finally over... maybe now we'll have some peace and quiet....

The Search For Janet Foss

Here's episode 2.... what do you think?

In Search of The Yorkshire Yeti

This week, having been the half term week, I went away with my friend Laura to the Yorkshire Dales for a week of walking.

We had an absolutely fabulous time!  The weather was really good (despite being cold), and we did heaps of walking around Ingleton, Malham and Hawes.  We ended up walking some 33 miles in total, which was pretty good!  We used a fab book which I had been given by a lovely old man called Tom on my last trip up to the Dales - the book was Mark Reid's Walking Weekends in the Yorkshire Dales - I can thoroughly recommend the walks in this book, they were just brill.

Having taken a video camera this time, and with not much to do in the evenings, we decided to have a bit of fun... so here's the first episode in our "In The Wild" series... see what you think!

Totally Tapas!

So recently at Sutton they've reinstigated the "Friday Night Food Project" - only now it's the Saturday night food project.   Basically what happens is that each month, one of the small groups gets together and caters a night of food from a different country.  Last month Gill and Adrian's small group did Sweden - and let's be honest, they cheated - they bought a load of meatballs and stuff from Ikea!  Don't get me wrong, it was lovely, and the entertainment was brill, but still - it was cheating.

Anyway, this month it was Steve's small group - which basically consists of him and Neil (and Col occasionally).  Last year when it was Steve's group's turn, he asked me to join in, as the theme was Oriental food - so we cooked up a load of Chinese food, had green tea and so on as well - and I taught the fellas how to make sushi.  It was a huge success - so when it came around this time, Steve was anxious to ensure that we lived up to our reputation.

The theme this time was 'Totally Tapas'.  We decided to make a whole load of tapas dishes - gazpacho, croquetas, chorizo, garlic mushrooms, nastillas... so Col and I went around Steve's the week before for Sunday lunch, and we downloaded the various recipes and planned what we would make.  Then, on the Saturday, we met at the hall quite early (well I was a bit later because I was giving Jamie a piano lesson - he has his Grade 3 exam in a few weeks).  Steve and Neil were there from 9, and then went shopping, and I joined them later at 11.  This might not seem like a big deal to you, but put it this way, the evening didn't start until 7pm, and we basically cooked all day non-stop!  In fact, the only break we had was a quick, on-the-go coffee and toastie from Tariro's (which is based at the hall anyway, so it's not like we got to leave the hall or anything).

I'd decided to do gazpacho and croquetas, and then help out with whatever other dishes I could.  The gazpacho (cold vegetable soup) was easy enough - although took a little while on account of we had about 50 people to cater for - but the croquetas!  Well they also were easy enough, but took ABSOLUTELY FOREVER!!!!  Have a look at the recipe here.

Those things are well fiddly, and took so long to make that I didn't get to help out with much of any of the other recipes (other than to make non-alcoholic sangria, which went down a treat!).  But we had an absolutely brilliant day preparing all the food, non-stop whistling (particularly of 'Doh, a Dear' - because Steve's son Alex had come into the kids' hall next to the kitchen and started playing it on piano - nothing is so difficult than to get rid of an annoying tune like that from your head!).

Our culinary efforts were very well received by those in attendance, so it was all worth it in the end.  What a fab day!