End of Term Reports 2

Tags

Chris Ofili, Gilbert and George, graffiti knitting, Man Booker, Pussy Riot, street art, toxocariasis, Warhol, women bishops, Yarn bombing

St Vitus’ School for the Academically-Gifted Girl.

Martinmas Term Report

Juniper Boothroyd-Smythe

Art

Juniper’s art project was imaginative and evidenced a global awareness of current textile instillation work.  Perhaps she should be aware that yarn bombing/ graffiti knitting is still considered a criminal offence and can invite prosecution.  Covering the local gold Olympian commemorative post box with a crotcheted balaclava incorporating the slogan Go! Pussy Riot! did not bring glory to the school, unfortunately.  Perhaps public art is not the forum for her underage protest.  Her domestic, interior piece Deadly Knitshade was worthy of an A*, but I fear that she may have plagiarised the title.

The Dean and Chapter would be grateful if she removed the string of knitted women bishops from the cathedral railings.  Point taken.

Drusilla Fotheringay-Syylk  MA, M.Phil

Tiger-Lily Brewer-Mead                                   Dec 2012

Art

A*

Tiger’s multi-screenprints of Pooh-Bah the pug with thermal imaging format made for a really hot art project this half-term and owed much to her visit to the Warhol exhibition.  The suspended Agnes C  poo-bags around the frame reminded us of the importance of the anti-toxocariasis campaign and issues related to wealth and waste.  I was grateful that the aforementioned receptacles were empty, from a Health and Safety perspective, so full marks for awareness of these matters.  Her justification of the potential medium was well-grounded in the traditions of Gilbert & George and Chris Ofili.  If she were to dabble in the elephantine variety, she would need to consider much larger containers and antiseptic handwash.

This was an improvement on her unmade bed installation from last half term, which we considered rather derivative, and grammatically unsound, given that the title Everyone I have ever had a Sleepover With ended in a preposition and that is something up with which we do not put.

D. F-S

Scheherezade Percival      Martinmas term 2012

English A*

Sherry’s narratives show urgency and her use of the cliff-hanger device makes each story seem of vital importance, creating suspense and keen anticipation in her reader.  Her moral fable: Nemesis House, about a couple who lust after a bigger and better home, only to be gazumped in a very public and humiliating way, could be seen to be a tale for our times.  Other vignettes with an ethical point included Role Reversal, the sad account of a man whose wife never cooked and who failed to be on the short list in a cookery competition.  Less successful was the rather didactic portrayal of the ageing masseuse who failed to attract a television cameraman.  It seemed a trifle far-fetched and somewhat untrue to life.  If Sherry is prepared to murder her darlings, so to speak, and to write what she knows, from her own experience, then we will perhaps have a future Man Booker winner to add to our alumnae.

D F-S

Tiger-Lily’s Sleepover

Tags

Alcopop, Epipen, Food, gender fluid, gluten-free, hypo-allergenic, Innocent smoothies, Juniper, Juniper berry, Merlot, One Direction, Pussy Riot, Rollo, Shopping, Sleepover, Strictly Come Dancing, Tiger-Lily

It was Friday night and Juniper was going to a sleepover at her friend, Tiger-Lily’s house.  Another three girls from their class were going too.

Carrie, Tiger-Lily’s mum, ensured that the girls would be comfortable in her daughter’s room.  There was a flat screen television, dvd, laptop and some futons.  Carrie had filled the mini-fridge with Innocent smoothies and she had confiscated the Alcopops from under the bed. Tiger’s brothers were directed to keep to their rooms, or to go to the playroom in the cellar and to leave the friends in peace.

The girls had brought their duvets, soft toys, pyjamas and mobile phones.  Soon they had changed into comfortable nightwear, over-sized anthropomorphic slippers and were ordering pizzas on their mobiles.  One Direction was blasting from the bedroom.

Juniper stood on the landing, crying.

What’s the matter, June? asked Carrie, solicitously.  Are you homesick?  You’ve only been here half an hour.

I’ve got too much prep, the child sobbed.  I can’t concentrate with all this noise.

But it’s the weekend, surely? placated Carrie.

Yes, but if I don’t stick to my three hour schedule every night, I won’t get an A* in all my subjects.

One night off won’t harm you, reassured Carrie. Have a slice of pizza.

I daren’t.  I’m wheat intolerant.

Oh dear.  Well, would you like a gluten-free sandwich and a nice mug of hot chocolate?

Can’t.  I react to dairy. Please don’t worry.  Mum gave me a packed supper.

She took a plastic tub out of her luminous satchel.  It contained two oatcakes and some tubes of paste.

Are you sure that’s enough? asked Carrie, watching the others fighting over the remaindered slices.

Positive.  I think I should go to sleep now.  It’s past my bedtime.

But, it’s only half past seven, the girls chorused.  We were going to watch last week’s ‘Strictly’.  Mum recorded it.

No, I’ve got to get up early to practise my flute.

So that was what the other case contained.  Carrie had helped Juniper to carry it into the house and it seemed really heavy.  The other girls were losing interest and had started to spray themselves with fake tan and apply hair straighteners to each other’s locks.  Juniper started to cough, so Carrie dragged a futon into the study next door and brought in a pillow, so that June, as she preferred to be called, could have her own space.

Maybe you’d like to sleep here then?

Yes.  I don’t really like girlie things.  My psychologist says that I am gender fluid.  You wouldn’t have a hypo-allergenic pillow, would you?  Feathers and aerosols make me wheeze a bit.

Carrie was beginning to worry about being in loco parentis to this child.

Do you have an inhaler with you?

Oh yes.  And my two Epipens.  Do you have dogs?  I thought that I could smell some.

Just the pugs, dear, but they sleep in the kitchen, next to the Aga and they are not allowed up here.

Juniper rolled up her Pussy Riot Rules sweatshirt and placed it on the futon as a make-shift pillow.  Carrie felt a failure as a caring mother.  Suddenly, Juniper shot a hand to her throat and said:

Oh, Mrs Brewer-Mead, I can’t be in the same room as a bowl of peanuts.  There seems to be one next to the computer.  They’re completely contraindicated for me.

Well, said Carrie, pretty much at the end of her tether, perhaps you’d be better joining the boys in the playroom until the girls want to put the lights out.  I’ll write a note to your form teacher to explain any substandard prep.  I’m sure you’ll get an extension.

Oh, thank you SO much, said Juniper demurely and trotted off downstairs in the direction of the cellar.

Later Carrie, after a large Merlot, thought that she’d better check on the boys as there seemed to be excessive noise from the cellar.

Ferdy, Rollo, Ming, Bill-come upstairs this minute!  It’s well past your bedtime and you are keeping the girls awake now that they have put out their lights.  Juniper, do you want…?

But the boys were reeling around the cellar, laughing uncontrollably.  Juniper was lying in a corner, incoherent and dribbling.  There were a lot of empty Alcopop bottles lying on the floor and the instrument case seemed to contain further supplies.

Wait till your father comes home!  Carrie shrieked.

She egged us on!  Ferdy grassed.  She said ‘Dewlap Gin’ was only 4% and, if it was for grannies, it would be all right.

Clearly Juniper was well-named and had more experience of the champagne flute than the musical instrument.  This was one child who wouldn’t be coming to Nutwood again, if Carrie had anything to do with it.

 

 

 

 

Blame Game

Tags

Balmoral Castle, Blue Moon, geraniums, Highland games, History, Neil Armstrong, Prince Philip, Pussy Riot

It has been a day of blaming people for acts that they very likely did not commit.  Two dead women were found stabbed to death, with a slogan daubed in blood on their kitchen wall: Free Pussy Riot.  Was this to incriminate the punk group’s supporters?

270 miners have been charged for the deaths of 34 of their fellow workers at a platinum mine during a strike, even though the police shot the strikers.    Blue moon.

Neil Armstrong’s funeral.

Coldest August night since records began.  Minus 2 degrees at Braemar.  Get the tartan coats on the Corgis.

My geraniums have not come out yet and now I will have to bring them in, if you see what I mean.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

Murray Mints Gold

Tags

Andy Murray, Ben Ainslie, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, James Naughtie, London 2012, Olympics, Pussy Riot, Roger Federer, Spice Girls, tennis

Sunday

Thunderstorms forecast.  Interesting for Ben Ainslie, I deliberated.

Twenty three medals up for grabs today.  Four weeks ago Andy was greetin’ on court.  I wondered who would be crying at the end of the day.  Would Federer treat Andy like a giant midge at a barbecue, ie/ like a harmless nuisance to be shooed away, or would he see him as a pesky wasp who might give him a fatal anaphylactic sting?

At 2pm I settled down on the sofa to start watching.  It was difficult as I had to keep flicking over to see Ben’s progress against the Great Dane.  Did that make Andy’s opponent a St Bernard?  I wouldn’t have minded being rescued from a crevasse by a brandy delivered on the rocks by the Swiss, to continue the canine and/or avalanche imagery.

Ainslie came in all flares blazing, having blocked the Dane’s wind.  That must have been painful for the Scandinavian.  I once read, in Suetonius perhaps, that Roman emperors, but can’t remember which one, had believed in never obstructing wind.  But Ben hadn’t been a Classicist, I remembered. Maybe Boris could give him a few lessons to round him off as a New Elizabethan.  Then James Naughtie could fit him into one of his programmes.

Hey, Andy was improving all the time and Roger was making unforced errors.  He won in three sets and Roger slunk off.  He looked as if he needed a brandy.  Andy even hugged a random child in the crowd.  Kim looked broody.

Meanwhile Jedburgh and parts of Pembrokeshire were being washed away, like Federer’s hopes.

The news is full of Pussy Riot.  Having worked in a girls’ school, I could recognise the concept.  One of the band members is called Squirrel and she was a spokespussy for the band. In a very un-Tuftylike pronouncement she accused Putin of being afraid of girls. Goodness knows how he will react to the re-formation of The Spice Girls. Probably pretty favourably, but he is only over on a flying visit to see the Judo and to get a lecture from Cameron, so he will probably miss their comeback.   David isn’t afraid of girls, I thought. He sends LOL texts to giant Squirrelly ones that you wouldn’t trust to teach your child the Highway Code, let alone the moral code.  But she is an endangered species now.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012