Not a great deal going on really. Teaching is good and my students are coming on nicely but I won’t ever being going into great detail about them (privacy and all that). I found that for some of them I’ve had to find very creative ways of teaching to find something that suits them (homework – tell me a story on your saxophone ) but at the same time it’s been very rewarding.
Having a quiet couple of weeks with it being Easter holidays and all. Seems odd to actually be sitting in the house all day again. I had a lesson with my good friend Omar Puente last week which was great. Had Rob’s family over on Saturday so made a huge chilli in the slow cooker which went down well and jelly with loads of fruit in it for pudding. Kiddy food is ace!
At the moment we’re trying to work out how much money we need to do various jobs round the house and garden. First is getting a base sorted for a shed which should be about £30 and a weekend for what we need to do. Then it’s the more expensive building a bigger patio, some walls and a fire pit/bbq.
This past weekend we started having fires at night in the garden, just dug a hole in the ground so that the wind was a little bit less of a problem. There’s an area of grassland close to our house where people just seem to dump stuff. My neighbour got new metal gates the other day and miraculously some old wooden gates appeared that same day. Really annoys me when people who seem to take pride in the appearance of their home don’t extend that same principal beyond their fences. today I found a smashed up picnic bench and a wooden frame of somekind that will do for kindling so the fires will burn on.
Have spent most of today on my local Freecycle group trawling for anything that I can put to good use. Basically it’s people giving away thing they would have otherwise thrown out. Off to Horsforth to collect some pictures/frames in a little bit. So far I have got a set of portable Aiwa speakers (for rob to use with his laptop), a Sodastream (just need to find somewhere that does gas cylinders for them) and about seven or eight purple throws which make the futons in my livingroom look a lot better as well as somewhere to on at the fireside. Now just hoping I can get some stuff to help do the garden and a new compost bin since the lid blew off the Blackwall dalek in the last big storm a couple of months ago and was nowhere to be found (and evil Blackwall people say they don’t sell lids on their own and want to charge us more than three times what we paid for a new compost bin which will have the same problem).
Right I better go get these pictures/frames since rush hour is finished.
Ok so I wasn’t going to start blogging until I had the rest of the site sorted out but yesterdays events in Boston USA was just far too tempting. Rather than explaining every little detail you shall learn of these events by the power of youtube.
HEALTH WARNING
Remember side-effects of watching American news broadcasts can include:
paranoia
that a beer will cure all you worries
fear
an over whelming desire to buy consumer goods
suddenly feeling like you really need a gun to feel “safe”
Hoax???? Yeah right. Hoax would mean there was intent to cause a panic. Hoax would mean that the PR folks who thought this up would have had to have said to the people they sent out to put them up by the way you might get five years for each ad you put up but hey it will be a job well done. Hoax would mean that the authorities of Boston hadn’t over reacted whilst in the other cities of the United States where these adverts appeared up to three weeks ago (!!!!) did nothing. Infact the continued insistence of some media outlets of using “Hoax” suggests one serious case of denial from the authorities.
Now I don’t have a problem with the way the responded after receiving reports of the “devices” as if there had been explosives of some kind then this would be a very different story. My problem is what happened after they were told that there was no danger and it was just plain and simple viral advertising… The media storm continued. Rather than making a statement saying we had to act this way to protect our freedoms and all the usual stuff it is now time for name-calling and finger-pointing.
So we all know what’s coming. Despite five-and-a-half years, a few wars here, no weapons of mass destruction there, the reason given to “explain” this continuing over reaction could only be one thing. Yup you guessed it, 9-11. I am sure Americans made a big song and dance about how their way of life would not be changed and that they would overcome this tragedy. Obviously it’s still too soon to be thinking in a creative and orginal manner.
Of course the Moonites are now public enemy no. 1 and are suspected of having obtained cheeses of mass consumption whilst harbouring Wisdom bin Cube. The American Military are preparing for an all out strike on the moon once they get their five remaining soldiers who aren’t in Iraq or Afghanistan through basic training. Estimates are so far around the half hour mark :
This is a big red button, push it. Got that soldier? Uhhhhh Is it this one sir? No that’s flush for the toilet.
Are we doomed to end up like the Americans; suspicious of every package, scared to leave our homes because of the things we’ve seen on our TVs, news stories produced by government agencies, war mongering in every part of the world that has some oil reserves lacks the freedoms and civil liberties or our own (diminishing by the day but in theory we still have a few), all whilst glued to the sofa eating enough processed greasy crud to feed a family in the developing world for a week and a half in twenty seconds.
So who can save us from this terrible menace to our way of life? But the real question is am I talking about the Americans or the Moonites?
) but at the same time it’s been very rewarding.
Is it this one sir?