Goodbye, Mr Stinky.

Reading an excellent post on Miss Snuffleupagus' blog has made me think about the man my friends and I knew and loved as Stinky - Mr Sinclair. He taught us History at A level and was simply inspirational. He never pretended to be our friend, if he had a sense of humour he kept it hidden from his pupils, but we adored him. Why? His knowledge of his subject seemed amazing, the passion he had for his subject unmistakable. He could be withering in his criticism of your essays, or of you if you had a habit of handing them in late - "Gentleman Loser, why is it you want to go to university when you so dislike writing essays?" Twenty three years later I can still feel that shame. Quite simply he was one of the most inspirational teachers I have ever known - certainly of all the teachers that taught me. Like a lot of fifty somethings during the late 1980's he got out of teaching because he could see the writing on the wall, the arrival of the National Curriculum and all of that - and although his early departure from teaching was very sad it was absolutely the right move for him. OFSTED would have hated him - learning intentions were decided upon five minutes into the lesson when we reminded him that we had done John Pym a couple of months beforehand. I imagine he would have been taken to task for his failure to embrace the new technologies and pedagogical orthodoxies but I can't help feeling that teaching is very much poorer for the loss of Stinky and his kind.

Fidem Serva

We are apparently in danger of becoming a society segregated along religious lines, so says the new campaign group Accord. The Rabbi of Maidenhead - not noted for its ghettos -fears that the current system damages community relations.

A long time ago, the Catholic school in which I taught was broken into and vandalised one weekend. The statues and crucifixes dotted around the school were well and truly Cromwelled. One colleague gave an assembly to the pupils containing slides depicting the damage done. I was very interested to note that the pupils who were most indignant and indeed hurt by these scenes were Islam. I was interested and surprised because of Islam's strictures against idolatry - I would have predicted that our Hindu pupils would have been more upset than the Muslim pupils. Perhaps they could see through their differences and recognise a shared sense of the sacred that had in some way been violated.

Yes - that's right Muslim and Hindu kids going to a Catholic school. If faith schools promoted bigotry - why on earth would Hindus, Muslims, Jains and Pentecostal Christians do such a thing?

Cycling To Work

Since November 2006, I have started to cycle the three miles to work. This move happened not as a conversion to eco-warrior status but because the other half dropped her hours at the job that gave her a company car. Walking would take too long (45 minutes) and despite the good local bus services, the bus would not be much quicker. As it is the bike ride only takes about ten minutes longer each way than the car journey did.

The wonderful people of the local bike shop have been enormously helpful in offering advice and support in what has turned out to be a new enthusiasm. Apart from the bike (ridgeback meteor - hybrid - pictured) I have found the other bits and pieces very helpful.

• Altura rainproof trousers (night vision ones) which are rolled up and in the bottom of the...
• Altura pannier
• Altura Jacket yellow - it just goes over my shirt and tie (I have a jacket hanging up at work) - I don't need a shower after getting to work (especially not wearing a rucksack)
• Flashing Lights
• D-Lock and cable
• Bottle cage and bottle - it is surprising how thirsty you get
• Pump and inner tube and tyre levers (not needed for punctures yet but a good security blanket)
• Bike stands (two - one at home the other for work)

Granny

On Saturday November 4th 2006, Granny would have been 100. Sadly, she passed away in 2004 and never got a telegram from the Queen. As a life long royalist she would have loved that.

Granny was one of ten children and herself had ten children, thirty four grandchildren and quite a few great grandchildren. She endured many hardships throughout her long life. She was marginalised by her family when she became a Catholic, she lost a son, Billy, during the Clydebank bombing. She gave birth that night to another boy, Tom who was born deaf. Her husband, Wullie was seriously injured from the blast and rendered blind. Tragically, Tom was killed in a scooter accident as a young man.

Shortly afterwards one of her granddaughters, Andrea died in infancy. Her eldest son, Peter died in 2002 as the result of an accident some twelve years before which had left him paralysed from the neck down. On the face of it, this sounds like a tale of woe. Jean Hastie was, however, one of the most cheerful people you could hope to meet. She had a great repertoire of one liners, an infectious laugh that often left her and others with tears of laughter running down her cheeks, and a wonderful sense of mischief. I enjoyed her piano playing and singing, the fact that she retained her love for the royal family and support for Glasgow Rangers F.C. despite, or possibly because, she was surrounded by Celtic supporting republicans.

I'm not sure of the best way to honour her special day, perhaps I could break the habit of a lifetime and support Glasgow Rangers this weekend (they're not playing on Saturday though and in any event they're playing so badly at the moment) , she wasn't a drinker so that rules that one out, and she wasn't one for solemn commemorations. Maybe the best way is to try and remember just how lucky I was to know and love this special woman.

In the pictures above, Granny can be seen as a schoolgirl in 1912 and shortly before she was married in 1931.

Ten and a half months later...

So is The Wire the best thing on TV in the last twenty one years? Yes - because apart from anything else this allows The World At War and most importantly The Phil Silvers Show their rightful place in the TV Pantheon. What about The Sopranos or The Wire? First allow me to explain why The Sopranos is not quite as good as The Wire. The Sopranos is great television, moving, funny, shocking but rarely meaningful. It's derivative which is not necessarily a bad thing but it depends on you getting references to The Godfather and the way a vicious crime boss is sometimes depicted as Homer Simpson is a touch of genius. But there's no moment when you say to yourself, 'That's just like my life!' Now I'm not 'police' and despite the fact I taught in an urban comprehensive in South London does not really make my life like Prez's school in season four but the way in which public service jobs have been reduced to target setting so that the targets are ends in themselves speaks to a very wide audience. All of the characters have their good and bad points there's moral ambiguity all around which makes everything seem more realistic. Towards the end of Season Three where a prominent public servant is spotted in a gay bar his hypocrisy and duplicity is not dwelt upon and preached about it's just noted - all of this resonates with our everyday experience of people. As has been pointed out already by somebody else The Wire is like a novel -you cannot skip the chapter it demands effort but rewards the viewer not just with TV entertainment but the the same reward that great literature brings. The characters are so strong and the acting is simply phenomenal - especially that of the school children. It is so easy to forget that these little guys are acting it's incredible.

What about The Shield? Well it too is great television brilliantly acted and superbly written - it too creates all sorts of moral dilemmas that test our consciences but for me it does not transcend the genre of a cop programme - and it is very much from a police perspective which is fine in itself but it lacks the depth of The Wire. The viewer is given less perspective of the LA politician and little insight into gang members despite it being about much of the same subject matter. Consider what the viewer has learnt about Baltimore drug dealing or teaching or municipal politics with what we learn from The Shield.

Episodes 10 - 11

Hooray! The Second Season is on its way from the good people at Amazon. We're running out! The series continues to get better. The sensitive treatment of a black police officer's lesbian relationship providing a very eloquent rebuttal of accusations that this show is simply for white heterosexual men. (I know at least one Asian woman who adores this show). I'm not convinced it is better than The Shield or The Sopranos but it is definitely up there with them.

Episodes 3 - 9

Yes - we watched quite a few episodes of 'The Wire' on holiday and it gets better and better. Anyone - no matter what job they do - can relate to the 'chain of command' theme that runs through this season. The depiction of the Baltimore drug dealers is often sympathetic and occasionally poignant. Sympathy for some of the police officers arouses similar levels of sympathy in the depictions of their day to day frustrations. Nobody is portrayed as an angel but neither is anyone painted as a devil. It's all shades of grey.

Great holiday with some magical moments. One of the most memorable was cycling back from Fakenham with my stepson along a very dark country lane lit by a full harvest moon that looked like a celestial ball of cheese. I could see something in my peripheral vision looked up and saw beautiful barn owl who had been following us. As I looked he glanced over and banked away from us..