I signed this girl's petition - climate change

Michael Gove is taking climate change off the national curriculum. He has been bad news for education in this country. For example, he wants people to set up free schools which don't have to teach the national curriculum. Then what is the point of the national curriculum? Either he should support it across the board or he should scrap it.

 the petition, which was earlier gathering over 500 signatures an hour, has been signed by teachers, pupils and lecturers. One Leeds teacher commented: "I teach undergraduates and study for my PhD in a geography department. Like Esha, me and my students owe our passion for researching, understanding, preventing climate change - the defining challenge of our generation - to lessons first learned in school. The government wouldn't dream of letting young people leave school without a modicum of skills for economic survival. It smacks of hypocrisy that learning about sustainability and building a skill and knowledge base for our longevity as a species is of such a low priority by comparison."

A further 2,000 people from student network group People and Planet have emailed Gove in the last two days to try to persuade him to put climate change in the curriculum. "Our experience working in schools and colleges has shown us that teaching about climate change is crucial to ensuring a new generation of young people who understand and are able to be leaders on climate change, taking action to protect the environment and human life. Without knowledge and understanding of the social, economic and environmental impacts of climate change, how can we expect young people to be ready to deal with the impacts and help find the solutions to climate change that will play such a huge role in their futures?" said a spokesman for the group, which is active in most universities and colleges.

Students, members of the UK Youth Climate Coalition and others plan to approach academics, universities and schools to take part in the formal consultation around the plans, which closes on 16 April.

Chris Addison at the Queen Elizabeth Hall

He gave us a good long show, but started by using the foulest language, calling us fucking fuckers and so forth, and I realised that the effect of this abuse was to make us nervous, so that we would laugh nervously - it's just a tactic. Not at all funny. The audience was sophisticated and mainly of late middle age. I think we were hoping for witty political analysis - I know I was. I was disappointed.

Not only did he tease the middle class audience, which went down very well as they recognised themselves in his references to Farrow and Ball paints, picking blackberries and Waitrose, but he also targeted the most ignorant class, and the latter was a problem for me as I don't like to laugh at people less fortunate than myself.

I think a lot of people felt like that. There were sectors of the audience who didn't like the trivial stuff Addison was dealing out, and I think the obscene stuff about the man playing with his dick went down particularly badly. When a man is in his 20s and is talking to students he can do this. Chris Addison is now 41 and a parent. It is a completely inappropriate a) activity b) talking point. This is a man who simply doesn't  know 1) how to be an adult 2) how to do an act as himself. His act seems to be borrowed from all the other stand-up comedians, especially Michael MacIntyre, and I particularly noticed that in his references to "camp". At one point I recognised something he had borrowed from Alistair McGowan - who is a very talented mimic, whereas Addison is not.

He had a London audience who are, as he recognised, intelligent and educated, and he had a chance to talk about anything he wanted, and he chose to talk about cleaning his computer with his dick.

Gradually we got to know the guy, and he just seemed like someone who liked to remember himself as he was at university. Those were his times, and in spite of his great successes as an actor in good TV series, he hasn't really found himself since.

His comments on our political elite focussed on the appearance, voices and backgrounds of the personalities. These are things they can't do anything much about. It would be a better idea to criticise politicians for their effectiveness or otherwise where change is actually possible.

He ended with some good points about the necessity of having real debates instead of saying "Sorry, that's just me. End of." As though the speaker had the power to settle an issue by being pig-headed. The four of us all agreed that this was a good point about something irritating, increasing and plain wrong.


Addendum: The Guardian reviewer wrote that Addison targeted "the poor". I think of them as the ignorant. Often they turn out to be quite well-off. But generally, the Guardian reviewer and I agreed, though he's not such a prude as me, of course, and he gave Addison a grudging 2 stars, warning him if he carries on like this he's likely to lose his audience.

Modern Times

When we were children there was a TV show on Saturday nights which showed clips from silent movies. Usually the extracts just showed one comic sequence from a longer film. Last night we went to see the whole of Modern Times, a Charlie Chaplin film, which was an hour and a half long, the longest silent film (apart from The Artist) I have ever seen. The sound track was played live by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The film was an anachronism - made in 1936 when other directors had long abandoned silence and mime - but Chaplin believed his Tramp character just wouldn't work with dialogue. It also tells a tale of American life during the Depression era - unemployment and strikes, hunger and theiving, abandoned children.

It was Chaplin's story. His early life, his London childhood, was terrible, as bad as it could possibly be, with a father who abandoned his mother, his parents having at first made an uncertain living on the stage, the mother becoming unemployable and the children having to go into  the workhouse, and the mother eventually sinking into madness. The father became an alcoholic.

 Charlie was nearly always on his own; he was a street child like the character Goddard plays in Modern Times. He joined a troupe of boy dancers who went around the music halls doing clog dancing. So he survived, and then worked up a comedy act of his own.

He was clearly a talented dancer! The way he moves during the sequence where he goes mad with spanners in his hands is beautiful - it tells of a sensitive nature being wounded by brainless, repetitive work, which is exactly what he wants to say.

Then there is an amazing sequence of blindfolded roller-skating, too, graceful and thrilling.

The joy of dancing is an individual joy, and this individuality is what the Tramp cannot surrender. Here he goes into the men's room to have a smoke, but the factory boss spies on him through a huge screen (shades of Big Brother). So a political question is posed through this film - how far must men surrender their individuality to benefit the economic system? Chaplin is clearly not on the side of capitalism. He sees that if it is allowed to rage untramelled, many people will lose their souls or their sanity, and that, judging by the depression, strikes and unemployment, it doesn't do its job of keeping the population fed, and hopeful of leading decent, fulfilling lives.

There is a scene where the Tramp character inadvertently ingests a large amount of cocaine, in which his expressions of surprise are hilarious - this leads to his decisively defeating a group of jailbreakers single-handedly. Apparently Chaplin worked out the comedy sequences on set with the cameras rolling, and they took days and days.

In early films the Tramp's character was brutal and mean, but by this time Chaplin had developed the character into a sweet-natured and hapless clown. However, he does cause other people to have accidents - I'm thinking of the waiters and the In/Out doors, and the mechanic trapped in the machine.

Here you can see Chaplin going through the machine.

He also wrote a soundtrack to the film. The music we had last night must have incorporated the themes he wrote - "Smile" being one of them. I kept expecting him to sing - but when he does sing it's a gibberish comedy number. Chaplin wrote "Smile" - a classic song of about covering up your sadness and hardship - and that's what he says to Goddard just before the last shot.

Fascinating that he was one of the richest and most successful men in the world, but was making films that harked back to the terrible times of his boyhood.

I would like to see ALL of the Chaplin features. He was a wounded man and an artist.

Variable hours

The unfortunate thing is that I have a variable hours contract, and I think this means I have to teach whatever comes up. If I were to be asked now if I could teach these three completely different classes, I would say no. I had no idea that planning the activities and so forth would take so long. I have enough difficulty with the class I am doing.

I have been persuaded into teaching all these classes next term and I am in a cold sweat at the very thought of it. It is only for 12 weeks, they say, and then it's all change and I might get a better deal. I applied for a part time job but I am about to start working 4 days and planning the lessons on the other 3. Which means a 7 day week.

I don't know how much of this fear comes from the recent experience of being out of work. Maybe I have got used to being a lazy slob? If so, 3 months of this kind of pressure - including organising and marking exams - will put a stop to that, so I should be grateful, shouldn't I?

I was hoping to apply for a place on a distance learning MA course, but to do that I would need the kind of deal where I can rely on so many hours teaching and no more.

Call the Midwife

Oh isn't it wonderful, Call the Midwife? I cry every week. Last week's was spectacularly wonderful as the doctor and the woman formerly known as Sister Bernadette were at last able to express their feelings for each other (by smiling bashfully and fondly). The doctor has the most delightful dark eyes.

The convent became the location for a miracle when the nurses, after knitting furiously all night, produced a lovely blanket which was clearly (to any crocheter or knitter) composed of crocheted squares.  Praise be!

And Chummy DID NOT DIE. Gawd, I was so relieved. I love them all.

Capital by John Lanchester

I was very surprised by reviews that criticize this book for a lack of 'plot'.

The reader is introduced to a cast of characters who live in or work in one street, and they represent the global character of London. London attracts the world, because in London there is a chance to make a living - even for an illegal immigrant. And apart from the old lady who has lived there all her life, all the characters have a greed for money, for business, or for better chances, and a number of them are sick with envy.

The plot asks us to consider our relationships with money and with each other. The two people who end up with the happiest prospects are tested with a huge suitcase of money, (funnily enough, just like the people in The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window) but their decision sets them up for happiness.

In the banking world we are introduced to people who are neurotic about making money, and we glimpse where this leads in terms of shaping a warped personality and the far-reaching effects of neurotic reasoning.

On the domestic front there is one character who is not properly drawn, is a stereotypical rich man's selfish wife who has no inner life at all. Is this possible? She seems to have a kind of charm, but her sense of what she deserves in material terms has gone through the roof, for no reason at all. Yet such people exist, and we only need to look at pics of Victoria Beckham to get the general idea, and know that our reaction to such pics are what fuels the whole ghastly circus.

But in London there is also love, courage, resilience, family loyalty and decent behaviour.

I felt that the book did an injustice to Banksy. I think people look at the commercial items with Banksy's work on them and imagine that he makes money from them. He doesn't - he does try to make it clear to the world that these items are nothing to do with him - the whole point of his work is that it is political and provocative, not commercial. There is a character in the book who is sufficiently like Banksy to constitute a kind of libel. Also, Banksy is far funnier and more intelligent than the pseudo-Banksy in this novel.

 Banksy's works have dealt with an array of political and social themes, including anti-War, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, nihilism, and existentialism. Additionally, the components of the human condition that his works commonly critique are greed, poverty, hypocrisy, boredom, despair, absurdity, and alienation.^[110] 

 Although Banksy's works usually rely on visual imagery and iconography to put forth his message, he has made several politically related comments in his various books. In summarising his list of "people who should be shot," he listed "Fascist thugs, religious fundamentalists, (and) people who write lists telling you who should be shot."^[111] While facetiously describing his political nature, Banksy declared that "Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world, I can't even finish my second apple pie."

I found all the characters hard-going to start with but by a third of the way through I was drawn in and thoroughly enjoyed the book after that. I am sorry to finish it.

A happy day

Today I didn't have to teach or do anything much, so I started by going on a long walk by the river with my daughter's school. I parked in the road where I grew up, outside my friend's house, and I was so glad to be active again after a week sitting at my desk, in the car, or in the classroom. I whizzed along as fast as my shoes would allow. But my shoes are rigid walking shoes and though good at protecting the feet, they are not  flexible enough for fitness walking and I know my feet will ache tomorrow.

There were signs of spring by the river - a small bunch of violets growing in the Rivermount steps, a few shivering daffs, catkins. After 2 hours my legs were really tired and I was glad to stop. Then I took the knitwear that I had bought in the sale back to the shop. I went and had coffee and a cake with my mum who had a lot to say about hospitals and the way they treat old people, and dementia. Sometimes I think my mum has dementia but there was not the slightest trace of it today.

I got back and looked at my emails and finished my book and wrote a book review. Then my daughter told me that a boy had asked her on a date to a coffee shop and I took her on her date. She met the boy, who looks like a decent sort of lad and is a lot taller than she is. Obviously he knows a good thing when he meets one, and apparently he can run fast.  I think that it is a good thing that he can be bothered to run fast, but I haven't really thought this through...

too much time lesson planning

Today I spent half the time marking assessments to find out my students' strengths and weaknesses, and half the time planning a lesson. It is a good lesson but my planning has taken far too long, and I have been offered more teaching hours, so if I am to cope I must really shorten my planning time.

Has anyone any tips?

The River this winter

Around here, when we say "the river" we mean the Thames. We know it very well because we row on it and in the summer, occasionally we swim in it. We keep an eye on it and we get a feeling for beauty through it. The river is not a natural river, because at some point it was dredged, changing its profile from a saucer shape with a huge flood plain, to a flat bottomed U shape. On both sides, the banks were reinforced and people built nice homes alongside. They started as holiday chalets that the owners accepted would be flooded sometimes, but now they are brick and concrete houses that have to be insured for hundreds of thousands of pounds. So a flood costs the insurance companies millions.

My niece is in this picture - and friends of mine.
To avoid flooding, the river is carefully managed. The policy is to let the water out to the sea as fast as possible, reach by reach. This means that the bottom of the river is scoured of all the jelly-silt that used to build up, which was the breeding ground for all the water life, and it also means that we rowers cannot use the river, because the stream is dangerous. This winter we have had a lot of rain (and sleet and snow) and I have rowed on the river twice. A few years ago I rowed on it every week! But this winter has been awful.

Here you can see the new style houses on the other side of the river. They have replaced modest, flood-able dwellings. I resent the way the river is managed just to save the stupid people who invested all their money in a house on a flood plain. Get real, people! Have a look at the properties further down at Hampton and Sunbury - yes, they are floating. You need to get yourselves a houseboat.

Nice, huh?

Today there was a race at Hammersmith and my husband rowed in it - he said the wind was awful and there were huge waves. At least one crew capsized due to the river conditions, and had to be rescued by the safety launches.

Maybe it was a bit like this (the Boat race, 1912)

On the Tideway, the river is not affected so much by the rain and floods, but it is nearly always rough down there. the wind! the Waves!

Pride and Prejudice vs. Persuasion - no contest

The fact is, though I admire the narrative subtlety of Pride and Prejudice, I am not convinced by it emotionally.

In P&P you have Elizabeth, whose talent for the gab is matchless. Whilst Mr Darcy glowers inarticulately she  is able to take great pleasure in her ability to tease him. He takes himself so seriously. Yet he is one of those people whose actions speak for them and he clearly redeems himself by the trouble he takes to save her silly sister (and all her family) from scandal. But Elizabeth doesn't take her own emotions seriously - so why should we?

But in Persuasion we have Anne Eliot, who is far lonelier than Elizabeth, because Elizabeth has her dear sister Jane as a confidant, but Anne only has her bossy friend, and has two ghastly sisters, one of whom is a whiner and wants to make use of her for free childcare, and the other of whom is superficial and a snob. She also has to bear her snobbish father who doesn't appreciate her. But like Jane Eyre, Anne does not need to refer to anyone else for approval. She is self-contained, and has high standards of her own to live up to.

In Persuasion we also have Captain Wentworth, who is confident and vigorous and high-spirited, determined to enjoy his leave, and to show Anne that although she turned him down he is very much recovered and set on marrying some other pretty girl. He thinks that Anne hasn't aged well, that she looks quite plain. He is quite a physical creation who catches girls when they jump off steps, and Jane Austen makes one feels his tall, attractive presence as the women plainly did.

He is, in spite of his experience of managing men at sea, too impulsive, and even prone to panic in moments when he should take a lead. But at such moments, in some strange instinctive way, he knows Anne's moral and mental strength and her capability set her ahead of most women, and by the end of the novel he knows that she is the only woman in town worth having, and he almost despairs at the thought that he has lost his chance.

But Anne's love for him had never died. For his sake, she reads the navy Gazette, to find out what he's doing during the years they are apart. He's the one that floats her boat, he's the main attraction, the least stupid of men, the best company in the world. In screen versions they always kiss - in the book they don't need to kiss. One is so pleased for them both! In a world full of charlatans and fatuous idiots, two people of genuine character have found each other and it seems so miraculous!

I am sure that Anne will be far happier when she has a role as a householder, wife and mother - I imagine she will be quite transformed by happiness.

Click on this link to see Mr Robert Webb give us his truly astonishing Mr Darcy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deJ9lpNBZUA

Gardening

People are often complimentary about our garden, but there is no reason for this, unless, like last year, clumps of  scarlet tulips have come up like elegant soldiers on parade, and clouds of forget-me-not supply a contrasting blue. But how often does this happen? Tulips either come up once and disappear, or come up in ones and twos at different times. Last year's tulips seem to have disappeared, and this year's are going to come up at different times because I am experimenting with different colours.

The crocuses came up and didn't bloom because the weather is so grim. The shrubs are always reliable and they look as though they are perking up a bit. But the fact is, the best things in the garden are ferns, grasses and mosses. Today we split some ferns that have been too successful - let's hope they don't die! but it's quite likely as the operation they have had has been radical and merciless.

I keep getting rid of shrubs and planting herbaceous stuff, but the conditions seem to be wrong for the small stuff as it just seems to fade away. I guess I keep the garden centres going. Last year I planted crocosmia and alchemilla mollis, which was just lovely, and a peach coloured heuchera, and a sea holly, and it is hard to know if anything is going to survive except forget-me-nots, which always self-seed all over the place.

That song in your head

It's very annoying when the song in your head lasts for weeks, months or longer. A couple of weeks ago I was in a shop when the Eagles' Tequila Sunrise came on the playlist. Not only do I now have this song in my head while I am awake, but when I wake up in the night it is the first thing my poor brain registers. Oh God, "Take another shot of courage, wonder why the night will never come, you just get numb..." It is such a beautiful heartbreaking song. It could be about anything - no wonder it inspired a movie. (I have never seen the movie; it looked a bit rubbish.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQRMEK0NulA

Today I decided to take action! I downloaded a few Eagles tracks and I am going to listen and sing along at least five times, until it is all out of my system (I hope). I don't know if this works but I shall experiment.

Another excellent Eagles track is called Wasted Time. It's sung by a man about how a woman feels when a relationship breaks up after a long time, and it is very understanding and the arrangement is just gorgeous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdIcAS0DzZU

For many years the default song in my head (it came along when there was nothing more current playing in there) was called Rainbow Sleeve, sung by Rickie Lee Jones. I liked it and found it comforting, especially the last bars. I never wanted rid of it - I miss it now its gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvLd8FgDBMw