I would go out tonight...

... I get a phonecall, not a message, a real life phonecall with a human voice on the other end, very 1986.
It's my brother with a spare ticket for Johnny Marr!

A grainy photo which sums up a grainy yet wonderful evening with an absolute legend.

And yes, He played about six of his very own Smiths songs.

Tip top

Ways to lose that tip Mr delivery man.

Get ridiculously lost trying to find my (very central and easy to find) house and in the process make a number of mildly pointless phonecalls during which you persist in telling me "I int got a clue where I am or where you are either".

Use my loo ( Fine if you were working here for a little while but you were in my home for 45 seconds!)

Call me 'mate'. I am not your mate. You came to my home, dropped off some flatpack shelving and left. Call me anything, anything, but not mate.

Make odd comments about the pictures on my walls!

Be scarily reminiscent of Neil from The Inbetweeners.

Macca-pacca-stacca-beans!

You want to funk up your beans-on-toast? You want to add some jazz to your pauper meals? You want to revibe after yet another bloody day of all being in it together?

I think this may be what you have been looking for.

Heinz beans, simmered over a hob, with a good pinch of chilli powder for some extra soul.

White sliced is preferable, toasted, lashings of butter  and, this is the key, cut lengthways.

Then stacked, like a game of Jenga.

Pour the beans into the hole at the top.

Allow the beans to drain south for a moment or two. The hole in this stack was smaller than usual, See the second picture. This meant that the beans did not sink down as normal.

All being said, it brightens up those dull Tuesday evenings.

Gawd Bless 'er.

I'm no monarchist.

But...

I will be celebrating the Diamond Jubilee this weekend.

Because...

Frau Random Doubt has booked us into some cool community events.

The boys are really excited.

The telly is pretty impressive.

The Duke of Edinburgh is cool.

I love the coin stamp (see above).

She is an icon, I have been looking at images of her from the 1950s and 60s. She was a cool lady. 

George Orwell would have enjoyed it.

I am proud to be English, in my own quiet way.

We will be heading to the coast for a few days to hang out with friends and eat a lot of BBQ and picnic food.

It's half term and by god I'm tired and will do pretty much anything for a BBQ, some cold beer and a few days at the beach.

Republicanism will resume on Wednesday at around lunchtime.

Gawd Bless'em!

The Royal Wedding!

You don't need to scratch too far around here to discover that the vast majority of folk spend the vast majority of their time and energy on things other than the Royal Family.

However, we were given a day off.

Some of my favourite pictures from a long and busy day.

During an early morning stroll I took some pictures of details around the town. I loved these little flags on the fence.
Proper bunting. Handmade, triangular, criss-crossing the street. Proper bunting. My heart sang!

I love this shot. We helped host a party for the kids, Henry spent most of the time hairing about and eating. From time to time he was transfixed by the coverage, especially of the soldiers and horses.

Even this republican took the day off and enjoyed the spectacle!

Memories

It's 70 years since the Battle of Britain, our finest hour.

With this in mind I decided to grab my nearest old fella and place him in front of my class to tell tales and answer questions.
His lovely wife came along because, in her words "I was there too".

My new class sat for over an hour and listened to their memories, tales of air raids and blackouts. Mr and Mrs 'B' seemed to enjoy it and the kids were hooked.

Some highlights...

Where you scared?

"Absolutely!"

How did you feel when war was declared?

"Awful, just awful. Depressed, angry but resigned to get the job done"

Was everyone as cheerful as we are told?

"No, but everyone worked together and got on with things, we talked alot and helped each other because otherwise people would fall apart, and some people did fall apart and some people were unkind about them"

Did you like Winston Churchill?

"My family were NOT Conservatives, we did NOT like Churchill"

"Yes dear but he did do an awful lot to help us win the war"

"That's true, I suppose"

Was it easy to beat the Germans?

"We only just beat them, we survived the summer of 1940 because the Germans made bad mistakes and we were lucky"

Would you like a cup of tea?

"One thing everyone who lived through those years will tell you, you never turn down a cup of tea!"

Persuasion and voting habits.

Today we looked at persuasion and how people can be persuaded to vote for specific groups or ideas.

Three groups (Purple, Brown and Green) had different ideas for running the school.

The purple group wanted to start early in the morning and finish by lunch. There would be compulsory sports clubs after lunch.

The brown group wanted to slightly alter the length of the day, shorten some breaks but offer a wide range of cross cultural pursuits in an extensive afterschool programme.

The green group would keep the school day as it is, offer more trips and employ excellent teachers.

I consciously avoided words such as 'parties' or 'election' and a class discussion followed about the merits of the various groups. 

After a few minutes we held a quick vote, an opinion poll.

The purples were clear leaders, the browns were next with a tiny minority of children voting for the greens.

Pointing out to the class that this was just an excercise, I then amended some of the group's published ideas. The purple group promised greater choice at lunch, the brown group (second in the poll) offered a one hour breaktime in the middle of the day and the green group proposed to abolish all homework except for the Year Six kids taking exams.

The class went into a mild frenzy. "Can I change my vote?" "What?" "ONE HOUR BREAK??YEAH!"

I assured them that it was just an opinion poll and yes, votes, opinions and minds could be changed. Another fantastic discussion took place.

Another straw poll and then I asked the class.

"The Leader of the brown group is a  bully, would you still vote brown?"

"Even if he was a bully, he wouldn't bully kids"

"Sometimes you have to be a bit of a bully to get stuff done"

A heated debate but the upshot was a completely unchanged total for the browns.

"OK, how about this? 10 years ago on an exotic holiday, the leader of the purple group ate dog soup. Would you still vote purple knowing that the leader is a one time dog eater?"

Fury soon gave way to comments such as "It was 10 years ago" and "What does his diet have to do with running the school?"

"The leader of the green group has been married seven times"

"Was he horrible to his wives or did they die?"

"Loads of people get divorced"

A half hour of fantastic, open minded, open hearted political debate with some of the best 10 and 11 year olds around.

I hope nobody minds.

We've decided to break with the tradition of sending Christmas cards.

1. How many trees do we really need to chop down for this?

2. The postal strike?

3. It takes ages to write them out (and they must be handwritten).

4. We love you all anyway, just feel the love!

TV wonderland

I know things are bad but what's with the freaking funeral company ads?

Boxing Day!

Strolling through Hometown between fried breakfast and naptime we stumbled upon lots of slightly drunk posh folk on horseback.

Holiday

Just back from a couple of weeks away.
Just back in the 'got in the door, put toddler to bed, unpacked some bags, found the telly remote from the house we stayed in, and of course, found five minutes to blog.

Big news of the trip?

We've finally succumbed to membership of The National Trust.
I had always thought of it as a Pagan/Marxist conspiracy but it does offer tremendous value for anyone who enjoys the outdoors, all that free parking!

The world turned upside down

Cultural landgrab? Political/socio-economic blitzkrieg? I'm not sure what any of this means but let's just say, I've already begun my meandering journey to the next available polling booth and there's no way I'm voting Tory. But then what?

Henry visits The Feathers

An occasional visitor to this blog, The Wee Hen, makes a visit to a pub that his father was a much more than occasional visitor to, The Feathers (arguably the greatest pub in Britiain). For proof of his underage shennanigans, he poses by the bike on the wall (You know, the pub with the bike on the wall)

For the love of all things English

I have recently had the pleasure of teaching a certain 11 year old lad who is the very essence of all things English. He never gives up, is a fierce competitor, He likes going abroad but isn't completely sure about foreigners, He follows his footy with that bizarrely English passion, Is a great advocate of fairness and doing the right thing. He's a cheeky monkey but also worshipped by the younger kids and praised by adults. He's Bobby Moore lifting the Jules Rimet trophy on a humid summer afternoon, He's Terry Butcher's shirt covered in blood, He's John Terry's tears. This lad is all that and more and I really wish him all the best in his new school, He'll never do too well academically but I know that he'll shine in other ways.

There is, however, a slight problem.

He doesn't like pastry.

He admitted this to me the other day. We were chatting about lunch, what we would be eating that day. I told him of my admiration for a certain local baker who made the most delicious sausage rolls.

"I don't like sausage rolls, I like sausages but not the roll bit. I hate pastry".

"What? You don't like pastry?"

"I hate the stuff, Ever since I was little".

In my mind this is almost a disqualification to being English. I have a nightmarish vision of being hauled up before some shadowy Whitehall committee to explain and justify why this lad should be allowed to remain in the country, I'd have to reason with the pastry politburo, I'd have to beg them to allow him to stay.

This is like a Frenchman not liking cheese or wine.

This is like a German not liking meat or the ensuing fart based humour.

In order to illustrate my point I should like to offer the jury two pictures of my breakfast. I should like to add that the following images could cause offence and that they merely represent my occasional weekend breakfast. I use the images to show the creative genius the English employ when working in the media of pastry.


This breakfast roll contains sausage, bacon, egg and baked beans all rolled together in a tender, loving caress of shortcrust pastry. Fresh from the bakers for less than three quid.

The end view shows a bit more detail, including a bean, nestled next to the various pork products in the interior.

I simply have to ask, Why would anybody not love this delicious morsel?