Glasgow Bank Holiday?

Tags

Bank Holiday, Edinburgh, Elizabeth Frink, Glasgow

…. actually, no.  Edinburgh 6/5/19

Photo by Candia, with apologies to Elizabeth Frink- and Glasgow.

Syadvad

Tags

Absolutes, Bank Holiday, Ben Kingsley, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Gandhi, geiger counter, Hobnobs, Ipad, Jain, Kathiawar, Ofsted, outsourcing, rank order, syadvad

Castor!  Pollux!   Have you done your prep?

Brassie was just checking that everything had been cleared so

that the family could enjoy the Bank Holiday.  She hadn’t noticed any

scholarly activity going on in the boys’ room.

It’s all under control, mater, said Castor.

No worries! Pollux chimed in, not even looking up from his Ipad.

Are you sure?

Yeah, we outsourced it.  It should be e-mailed back to us from India by

Randeep in time for Tuesday period 4.

What?!  Brassica thought she was going to explode.

Well, explained Castor, Mr Milford-Haven was telling us that he was

snowed under by marking and that he had read about the latest

service where teachers could send their guilt pile abroad and have

scripts marked in a far continent for two quid… I mean pounds. 

He had registered his mother’s glare.

I don’t know why you don’t like the idea, Mother Darling, Pollux

chipped in.  You send out our ironing, don’t you?

It’s not quite the same thing, their mother pointed out grimly.

Teachers are supposed to gain knowledge of their pupils’

apprehension of their subject from assessing their charges’

responses.

Mr Snodbury doesn’t pore over our work, Castor replied.  He

told us that he climbs up to the galleried landing over the

vestibule and, if the coast is clear, he scatters our exam scripts

over the banisters.  He says that he has an instinctive awareness

of who is hot and who is not.  He can tell by looking at the writing

if they are any good, or not, without even reading them.  So he

picks them off the floor in  rank order.

Apparently he has an inner geiger counter that tells him who

should be top.  He was born with it and he says that is what

makes him a good teacher, added Pollux.

I don’t believe what I am hearing, Brassie said.  It is a pity that

there will be no one in the office on Monday, as I would like to

speak to The Headmaster about this.

Oh, don’t Ma, both boys chorused.  Snod is the best teacher in

the school.  Everyone knows that.

I wonder if he even had teacher training, pondered their mother.

He said it was a waste of time, Pollux volunteered.

Oh yeah, agreed Castor.  In that History lesson he said teachers,

like soldiers, only learned in the field.  He told us that the difference

between theory and practice was as great as learning to stick a

bayonet in a sandbag in a training camp in Kent and actually going

over the top in World War One.  That’s why some people call

teaching ‘classroom warfare’, he said.

I think that was a totally inappropriate thing to say to young

impressionable people, Brassie said, tight-lipped.  I’ll deal with

this next week.  Now, what was this prep that you sent off? 

English, or…?

Maths, answered the twins.  It’s not exactly difficult to grade. 

It was all multiple choice.

I suppose the staff are relying on your honesty in feeding back

the scores?

Yeah.  Chillax, Mumsie.

Brassie gave Castor another severe look.

Anyway, laughed Pollux.  Mr Milford-Haven told us that practically

everything is subjective.  Even Gandhi just managed 64% in Kathiawar

School Exams and only achieved a ‘fair’ in Arithmetic.

And this is the standard of the people who will be marking my sons’

work! thought Brassie bitterly.

So what happens if you challenge Mr Snodbury’s scores? she persisted.

You don’t, clarified Castor.  The last boy who questioned Snod’s addition

had a mark subtracted for impertinence, so nobody says anything now.  We

don’t mind.  It all comes out in the wash.  That’s what he always says.

I see, said Brassie.  She would have to discuss this with their father.

Clearly the only marking that was being done in that school was the

defining of masters’ territory.  The way they still sat at those high desks

as if they were inviolate inside some Caucasian Chalk Circle of their own

making made her blood boil.  She could only hope that Snod, The Senior

Master, would trip up as he stepped down from his raised dais to go to the

Staffroom at break- like that Millipede, as the boys called him. He needed

taking down a peg or two.

She felt like encouraging her boys in non-co-operation, something

that funny little man in the loincloth had advocated, she seemed to

remember.  Ben Kingsley, yes.  She’d seen the film with Cosmo when

they were courting.  Passive resistance. It would be interesting to see

how Senior Management would handle that mode of soft insurrection.

It might bring the institution into the twenty first century.  Goodness

knows how Ofsted had ever rated them ‘Outstanding!’  Maybe the

Inspectors just made everything up so they could go home early at

the end of a difficult week, eating Hobnobs in various base rooms and

frightening the life out of those who still had any remnants of vivacity

and enthusiasm for their subject.  Fools!  Did they not know that they

were being assessed on whether the Hobnobs were the chocolate variety

and whether the coating was milk or plain, according to the predilection of

the individual interrogator, eh, Inspector?

She was surprised at her strength of feeling!

It would serve the staff right if they encountered a bit of opposition if

they were contemplating posting off her boys’ precious outpourings to

a country where the Jain concept of ‘syadvad ‘ was rife.  All views of truth

are partial.  Ha!  What she paid the school fees for was confirmation of

Absolutes.

And she could hardly chide her little darlings if they were merely

anticipating and enacting the vile policy of those who were supposed

to be their guardians and mentors.

The Long Day Closes

Tags

Bank Holiday, Hill fort, Metaphysical poets, Stockbridge Down, Violets

Another Bank Holiday over, Candia, Brassie sighed on the telephone.

She was always tired at half term, as the twins wore her out with

their irrepressible energy.  She had to find low budget activities

that involved a lot of physical expenditure, but were not too demanding

of financial outlay.  These kinds of activity meant that the hyperactive

Andy, the manic Border Terrier, could be included.

Running up and down hill forts and challenging Castor and Pollux to see

how fast they could do a circuit on the ancient rims was a good ploy.

She actually enjoyed climbing Stockbridge Down on her own, or with

Candia, once school had resumed.  The elevation gave them a

perspective on their lives and the banks of violets produced Metaphysical

thoughts, similar to those expressed by the poets themselves.  Those

steep walks took on an entirely different character.

So, did you write your poem, Candia?  Brassica asked.

Yes.  Would you like to hear it?

You know I always want to hear your poems, Candia, Brassie replied.

Oh well then…

SUNSET OVER STOCKBRIDGE DOWN

The sky is nacreous over Stockbridge Down.

Damp, grass-scented air carries the trilling

liquefaction of a nightingale’s song.

A Somborne field is bloodstained with poppies.

The dry brown earth is cracked under our feet.

Green spindleberries and sloe haven’t reached

their apotheosis.  The violet bank

is invaded by rose bay willow herb.

We sit on a ridge and watch that huge disc

eighty four million miles away, setting

over Danebury Hill Fort, where others,

cradled in that ring, did the selfsame thing

a millennium ago.  Down below

the detail of little houses is lost.

The wild oat sorters that look like black crows

moving diagonally across fields

have finished their task.  The light is fading.

Rabbit colonies are in their warrens.

A busy family day’s activities

have ceased.  Fatigue sets in and soon we’ll sleep

in the same landscape as Iron Age Man,

nightingales, seeds, grasses and the old sun.

Someone sitting here in years to come

will tap into collective consciousness;

will feel consensus, a consecration

and a universal empowerment

to carry on the eternal struggle.

Chelsea Flower Show (Not)

Tags

Alan Titchmarsh, Bank Holiday, Ben Weatherstaff, Chelsea Flower Show, Cromwell, Dadaism, Diarmuid Gavin, dogulator, Existential, FT, geometrie vegetale, Hans Arp, How To Spend It, leaf spreader, leprechaun, mauvaise foi, NGS Garden scheme, Nihilism, pension forecast, pikestaff, Poundcafe, Roundhead, Secret Garden

Depressing news.  Depressing weather for the Bank Holiday.  Diarmuid Gavin

even pronounced the hundredth Chelsea Flower Show unimaginative and

somewhat disappointing.

Chlamydia looked out at the rain-soaked patio of Costamuchamoulah

must-seen cafe.  Leaves swirled around and became mulch on the

flagstones.

She picked up an NGS brochure which was advertising various local gardens

which were to open in Suttonford to support the Anacondas In Adversity!

charity: a cause which she and her daughter, Scheherezade, fervently

espoused.

She prayed for a meteorological change while stirring her Mocha, thus

destroying its award-winning fern imprint in choco-powder.

How much had she paid for this caffeine indulgence?  As much as could have

bought her three houses in Stoke-on-Trent. Really, social and even solitary

caffeine was becoming a luxury she could ill afford.  If her pension forecast

was anything to go by, she would be better supporting a Poundcafe

expansion from Kirby.

She flicked through last week’s FT supplement, How To Spend It.  Maybe

someone could publish a spoof version and add a final ironic Not to the title.

She picked up a less pretentious publication and started to read an article on

dogulators.  This had nothing to do with the abominable practice of dogging,

but was concerned with the various means and strategies for calculating

one’s canine friend’s true age.

Clammie thought that the formula was fairly simple: multiply by seven.

Apparently, like pension forecasts, it was a lot more complicated and involved

the recognition that some breeds age at different rates and that there are

periods when the pace accelerates and then slows.  No wonder she was so

confused about how her age of receipt of pension contributions kept varying

and she found it hard to focus on the ever-receding pot of gilt as it miraged

out of sight under the insubstantial rainbow of her transient life.

She would have to do some work to increase her contributions.  Maybe she

could create a garden design and take it to next year’s Chelsea show?  It

couldn’t be so hard to gain a gold medal.  There seemed to be a plethora of

them.

She had heard Alan Titchmarsh, no doubt irritated by Gavin’s criticisms, use the

terminological inexactitude: iconoclastic, in reference to some of the designs.

She had conjured up the image of a Cromwellian regiment of out-of-control

Roundheads smashing up garden gnomes with their pikestaffs.

Hey! What if she created a moving installation using such a – she hesitated to

adopt the over-exposed abstract noun that had broken out all over Chelsea-

using such an innovative concept?  She was sure that Diarmuid would be up for

a bit of Celtic licence as long as no one smashed a fibreglass leprechaun.  An

art garden would be the answer to her spiritual stagnation.  No- wait!- an Arp

garden.  Now she was really feeling her creative sap rise!

Yes, Hans Arp had made woodcuts of leaves and forms and had just thrown

them together at random.  She could imagine sitting on that elevated bench

with Alan T, discussing her concept.  She would refer to Dadaism and

geometrie vegetale and might even call the plot an Existential Garden for an

Age of Nihilism.

It would be a space where she had lost the plot!  She would have at its centre

two huge sculpted dice which would turn on an axis, like swivel-headed loons.

People might have to return a six to enter; or not.

She would impress Titchmarsh by echoing Arp: My garden represents a

secret, primal meaning slumbering beneath the world of appearances.

Chance points to an unknown but active principle of order and meaning

that manifests itself in the garden’s secret soul.  Alan would be blown away

as if by a giant leaf vacuum.  And the non-existence of any supporting

rationale would contain the ambivalence of the aforesaid appliance, as it

would contribute to a kind of chaos theory that, just like the leaf blower,

moved concepts around rather than forming them into a neat structure

and creating something useful, such as a compost heap.  The leaf vacuum-

a metaphor for our time.

Secret Garden?  She could place a rusting metal outline of a Ben

Weatherstaff figure leaning on a spade at its centre and a robin

could buzz around on elastic over an empty wheelchair.  That might

suggest hope.  On alternative days she would replace the wheelchair

with a vandalised shopping trolley, representing mauvaise foi.  Brilliant!

Next year Diarmuid would not be bored, she could assure him.