To Edgware and Back

2008-03-26T20:20:00.001Z

ON TRAVEL WRITING

I recently purchased a cheap second-hand copy of Paul Theroux’s The Kingdom by the Sea. That’s the one in which Theroux goes on a journey around the British coastline; according to the Wikipedia entry for Paul Theroux it was poorly-received when it came out but his publishers found some nice comments to put on the back anyway. Well, I’m not sure if ‘best avoided by patriots with high blood pressure’ is a nice comment, I suppose that depends on your point of view.

Anyhow, it’s a long time since I read anything about travelling in my own country, and even though this one is a tad dated (it was first published in 1983) I look forward to giving it a go. Once I have worked my way through several other books that currently make up my ‘to be read’ pile, that is.

Moving swiftly from the ‘to be read’ pile to the ‘recently read’, I find a number of relatively recent travel books among the tomes I have worked my way through over the past year. I enjoy travel writing (heck, I’ve even written some myself, not that it’s been published at the moment), and so here are my travel-related ‘recently reads’, with vaguely critical comments…

Slogging the Slavs by Angus Bell. A new writer on the scene, Angus Bell is a Scotsman living in Quebec who undertook a journey through Eastern Europe in order to … play cricket. The resulting book is very, VERY good. I had not thought to ever see someone combine cricket with Eastern Europe - two things which fascinate me, and I had long assumed that they were mutually exclusive! Angus Bell writes well, whether describing an unlikely cricket match in Vilnius, hostel shenanigans or border-crossing mayhem in a clapped-out Skoda. One of those travelogues which one can read safe in the knowledge that you never quite know what's going to happen next. More, please.

Blood River by Tim Butcher. Tim Butcher is an established journalist, and it shows in that his book bears the hallmarks of patient research and a good eye for detail. His attempt to go where Henry Morton Stanley (a predecessor of Butcher’s at the Daily Telegraph) went before is a truly great journey, and Butcher manages to combine his travelogue with a pertinent look at a country that, despite its potential, has somehow gone back as the world has gone forwards.

Hold the Enlightenment by Tim Cahill. A selection of articles and essays by the highly adventurous and at times insane American writer who is not, NOT to be confused with the footballer. The more dangerous the situation, the better he gets. If you do nothing else before you go travelling yourself, get this book, and pay careful attention to the chapter ‘Professor Cahill’s Travel 101’.

Around the World in Eighty Treasures by Dan Cruikshank. I like this guy on the telly, and here is the book spin-off from one of his many programmes. It does what it says on the cover, telling the reader about some of the world’s most phenomenal man-made sights in the process.

¡Guerra! by Jason Webster. Very interesting and informative - historical research and travelogue combined. Aimed, I suspect, at readers who know not very much about the Spanish Civil War; that would be me then, among others. Webster combines a history lesson with his own visits to the sites where the action took place to paint a picture of Spain that tourists would not usually see.

Through the Embers of Chaos by Dervla Murphy. OK, so I’m the Balkan obsessive who never quite made it out to the Balkans … unless you count a couple of days in Dubrovnik. Dervla Murphy does what you’d expect Dervla Murphy to do, travelling around on her trusty bicycle and staying with ordinary people throughout the region, revealing as she does the human side of this fascinating yet tragic region. This one now has pride of place on my bookshelf, next to Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. One day, I shall go there. One day…

2008-03-19T19:25:00.002Z

REJECTED … TWICE

It isn’t every day that you get something in the post that’s addressed to you in your own handwriting. But today, I had two such items – SAEs, of course – awaiting me when I got home from work.

I wasn’t really surprised – I knew where they’d come from because I’d sent off copies of a book manuscript to several literary agents on Saturday. I knew instinctively that they contained rejection notes, if only because if you assume that they’d got the manuscript on Monday, they couldn’t have read it in one day and posted a favourable response the next day. I suspect that they might not have bothered reading it at all, or given up after a couple of pages.

It took me five minutes between opening the envelopes and reading the letters inside. Weird that. Maybe I wanted to delay the inevitable, and let my hope last that little bit longer.

Both were rejections.

Interesting, though, the way they were worded. ‘I wish I could help but I can’t take on any more clients’, said one, and in slight variation the other said: ‘I am sorry we can’t help but our client list is now full’. Hmmm. Oh well, at least they sound better than ‘we wouldn’t take this stuff on in a million years, now sod off’.

One of them even promised to send me the manuscript back if I sent them a large enough SAE. I might just take them up on that. Or maybe I could be cheeky and ask them to post it to another agency….

2008-03-15T18:54:00.002Z

‘STYLES IS A W***ER’ – BUT HOW DOES HE COPE WITH THIS?

(This entry contains strong language. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Whoever it was who first coined the phrase ‘the beautiful game’ as a means of describing football obviously didn’t have Watford versus Stoke City on a wet Saturday afternoon in mind.

Displays of silky skills were not on the menu for this Championship top-of-the-table clash. This was a meeting of two physically-minded teams more concerned with getting a result than with the niceties of the game, and I can imagine a few Premier League-centric journalists of both TV and the papers shuddering at the thought of either of these teams intruding on their perceived football Elysium next season.

For a 0-0 draw, actually, it was quite exciting. A few missed chances, some truly awful passing, long balls that went nowhere, goal-kicks that went out for throw-ins, a bit of shirt-pulling, studs flying into tackles. Plenty to get worked up about. Not top-level stuff by any means, but no quarter asked for or given. This, by the way, is the sort of stuff that fans of clubs like Watford and Stoke City are used to seeing on a weekly basis. We went a man down early on when our captain (not long signed from Stoke, ironically enough) was red-carded for a foul that barely warranted a booking, we missed a dubiously-awarded penalty, we missed out on a genuine shout of a penalty. It wasn’t a dull afternoon out by any means.

As you can tell by the above paragraph, the drama this afternoon was added to somewhat by one of the more incompetent refereeing displays of the season. The ref, a Mr Styles, took ineptitude to a new level, to the extent that he had both sets of fans chanting ‘Styles is a wanker’ and other ditties even before half time. A few other samples: ‘You’re not fit to referee’, ‘You’re so shit it’s unbelievable’, ‘You’re going home in a Watford ambulance’, ‘You’re shit and you know you are’, and so on. Plus shouts of ‘You’re a fucking disgrace’, etc. If you’ve been to an English football match, you’ll get the idea.

(The ‘Watford ambulance’ one always makes me smile, by the way. Who goes home in an ambulance? Ambulances take you to the hospital, not your home. And with Vicarage Road Stadium being next to Watford General Hospital, if he did get severely beaten up as that chant implies, he wouldn’t need an ambulance to get to A&E.)

I really don’t know how referees do it. Not make bad decisions, sometimes punish people for trivial infringements, occasionally let major offences go unpunished and so on – anyone can screw up on a regular basis. What I mean is, how do they put up with the sheer volume of shit that gets metaphorically thrown at them, week in, week out?

As a not-very-good teacher, I know what it’s like to have a classroom of thirty teenagers thinking you’re shit. Styles, though, had 15,000-odd people – the majority of them working-class adult males – shouting about how shit he was, and more besides. He was called all sorts of names you wouldn’t want to repeat to your mother, had threats of bodily violence, all sorts of allegations about his personal life and various obscene gestures directed at him … from both sets of fans. That’s really something.

How does he cope with this? What was he thinking? What sort of person is he to do a job where everyone’s going to moan about what he does? What on Earth motivates him to do this? And this is just his Saturday job; what happens to him when he turns up to work on Monday? I hope he doesn’t work with any Watford fans, is all I can say.

But enough about the ref.

What we can take away from today’s afternoon at the footie is that the race for automatic promotion is still wide-open. Bristol City lost, so Stoke with their one point from their trip to Vic Road go top on goal difference. We picked up a point too, so we’re three off the top now. And three clear of West Brom, who lost today. It’s close in the Championship.

And that’s how it ends – Watford three points off an automatic promotion spot, with a game in hand. Just like we were this morning. So it’s a case of ‘as you were’, then.

2008-03-09T16:37:00.002Z

THE DAY I MET PETER MOORE

It’s not every day you get to meet one of your favourite writers. And it’s definitely not every day that you get to go to a pub with said writer.

I spent yesterday afternoon in Central London at the TNT Travel Show in the New Connaught Rooms near Covent Garden. For my troubles, I picked up a lot of literature about overland trips in various parts of the world, a free copy of Australia, New Zealand & Fiji: The Independent Travellers’ Guide (‘£9:95 where sold’, it says on the spine), some info about backpacker hostels in Scotland and a free mug advertising a travel company called Globalvisas.com.

And then, at 4:30, I attended a talk by Peter Moore.

For those who don’t know of him, Peter Moore is an Australian travel writer who, in his own words, goes on grand journeys and writes about them. He’s been a favourite writer of mine ever since I first read The Wrong Way Home (London to Sydney without recourse to aeroplanes) several years ago. His style of travel – independent, using public transport – struck me as the sort of travelling I’d like to do, if I ever got the chance. And, when I got the chance, that’s the sort of travelling I did.

The talk was called ‘Discover the Hidden Side of Africa’, and was all about the importance of getting to know the local people in the places you travel to. This struck a chord, especially as I’ve travelled through Africa by public transport myself, and did a fair amount of inter-action with the locals in the process ... even if most of them, on learning that I’m British, wanted to talk about nothing but Arsenal.

Afterward the talk, he said that if anyone wanted to meet up for a pint, he’d be in the pub down the road. A chance not to be missed by half-a-dozen or so fans, yours truly included.

Great times! Peter, I was delighted to discover, is as down-to-Earth in real life as he is in his books. He told to us about his future projects, and told us among other anecdotes about his (mis)adventures the story about the goat tethered to the roof of an Ethiopian bus. The great thing was, he was prepared to listen to what we all had to say as well. After a pint or so, it was as though it wasn’t a writer talking to a small group of fans, but a group of friends talking about their travelling experiences.

He seemed to like my recollection of the hotel manager in Aswan who told me that my name means something very rude in Egyptian-Arabic. Even to the extent of writing ‘to Nick (AKA Fuck)’ when he signed my copy of Vroom with a View…

2008-02-18T15:49:00.005Z

MY TOWN, MY TOWN
(or, Nick’s attempt at writing a travel guide-style description of the place where he was born, and where he still lives)

Known to most Londoners simply as the name of a road and one of three final destinations for north-bound Northern Line trains, Edgware marks the north-western extent of the suburban sprawl that is Greater London.

Historically, it was a small town located along the Roman road between London and St Albans, a notable curiosity being that the place comprised of not one parish but two, the boundary being the road itself. Even today, with the area having been developed out of all recognition with the coming of suburbia between the two world wars, this sense of division can still be observed, for Edgware on the eastern side of the old Roman road is part of the London Borough of Barnet, while on the western side one finds oneself in the London Borough of Harrow.

What you call that old road, nowadays part of the A5, depends very much on whereabouts in London you are – in Edgware, it’s simply the High Street, and does not actually become the Edgware Road until close to Marble Arch.

As befits an outpost of suburbia, Edgware is a residential district which holds little that would be of interest to the curious visitor. It is perhaps best-known for having a high Jewish population; the area contains more synagogues than churches, and has its own Eruv.

Stepping out of the Tube station, one is presented with a parade of shops, the names of which would appear unremarkable in any British town or suburb, and a traffic problem repeated in small town centres throughout the country. Turning left, one soon comes across the entrance to the local covered shopping centre, originally the Broadwalk Centre when it was built in the late 1980s but now designated as ‘The Mall’. It is adequate for local needs but hardly the most impressive in North-west London. Local landmarks are but few; by far the tallest building is an office-block called Premier House, while recently a large gym-and-flats complex has replaced what was once the cinema.

Further down Station Road is one of Edgware’s oldest buildings, St Margaret’s Church, located just before the junction with the High Street, the old Roman road. Once the centre of Edgware, the High Street still retains some shops but is, especially towards its southern end, an unlovely combination of car dealerships and an assortment modern buildings including a Travelodge hotel, with the Community Hospital further down.

One brief historical note: Fans of the eighteenth-century composer Handel may be interested to note that he lived in Edgware for a short time; he performed on the organ in St Lawrence’s Chuch on Whitchurch Lane, and nearby Canons Park once housed a mansion, Cannons, built by one of his patrons, the first Duke of Chandos. Praised by Defoe and satirised by Pope, that building was demolished long ago, with the pillars at the entrance to the exclusive Canons Drive still standing as reminders of a bygone age.

(NB: as you can probably tell from that last paragraph, I’ve got the local history bug. More to (probably) follow.)

2008-02-16T09:34:00.003Z

THAT’S IT, CAMPBELL. ENOUGH’S ENOUGH

This week I have converted. I have finally grown fed up with something, and have therefore switched to something else.

I refer to my choice of radio station for my morning drive to work. I am the sort of person who prefers to listen to the news at this time of day, rather than put up with the inane self-loving drivel that so sadly afflicts breakfast-show DJs when they’re not playing music of questionable taste. So I’ve been a Radio Five Live listener for several years.

But no longer. And my reason for deserting Five Live can be summed up by two words: Nicky Campbell.

I have no doubt that Nicky Campbell is a fine journalist, even though he was once responsible for Wheel of Fortune. But as a presenter of a morning news show, he is little short of irritating. He is a constant stream of mocking asides, awful puns and an accent that changes like the wind, depending on who he’s talking to and whether or not Scotland has recently cropped up in conversation.

Yes, Nicky, mutter us listeners, we know you’re Scottish even though you try to hide the accent at times. Get over it, please, because if you don’t, we can’t. Also, please cease referring to the fact that listeners can see what you’re doing on the webcam. Some of us are driving. We can’t. And even if we weren’t driving, if we want to see what the presenters are doing while they’re presenting, we’d watch the telly. And, for the love of God, if your put-upon co-presenter stumbles over the odd word, please don’t remind her, and all of us, about it for the next five minutes.

After years of groaning, moaning and occasionally screaming ‘Just read the bloody news!’ at my car radio, I’ve had enough.

Congratulations, Mr Campbell. Your unique style has turned a loyal Radio Five Live listener into an occasional Radio Five Live listener who prefers Radio Four in the mornings. I’m a devotee of the Today programme now.

So it’s goodbye Nicky Campbell, hello John Humphrys. Mornings will never be the same again.

2008-02-08T21:27:00.000Z

COP SHOWS SET IN THE PAST: GREAT TELLY!

There are times when I am not really a fan of police dramas – a case of too many of the damned things, perhaps. But there are two new examples of the genre on the box at the moment which I am enjoying very much, and I think I know why. They are not as other cop shows. This is because, although they are both set in London, they are set not in the present day but in the past.

City of Vice has been on Channel 4 for several weeks now, and takes the concept of police procedural drama back to the time when the very idea of an organised police force was in its infancy. I refer to the Fielding brothers’ efforts to establish the Bow Street Runners, precursors of the Met, back in the mid-eighteenth century.

London at the time was, for those unlucky enough not to be a member of the upper classes (ie. most of the population), mired in amoral Hogarthian squalor (literally so, for this was the time when that man produced his paintings); life on the real-life Gin Lane that was the Seven Dials really was nasty, brutish and short. And criminal too – so much so that the novelist Henry Fielding, fed up with the lawlessness of the nation’s capital, applied to become a magistrate and got the money from Parliament to set up his own police force.

The drama based on these real events could have been done so very badly, but it’s a credit to the writers and the main actors, especially Iain McDiarmid as Henry Fielding, that it’s actually very good. Even the CGI sequences using a period map, which could’ve been very cheesy, actually works by giving us an idea of whereabouts in Georgian London the action is taking place. Even the swearing (of which there is a lot) feels both authentic and highly original; when did you last hear a magistrate tell a criminal gang leader to fuck off?

Anyway, time to move from the 1750s to the 1980s.

The other one, Ashes to Ashes, isn’t really new, being a spin-off (or is it a sequel?) to the excellent Life on Mars, which ended last year. This one pulls of the neat trick of being the same, but different at the same time. There’s a time-travelling cop who may or may not be in a coma and imagining the whole thing. And there’s Philip Glenister as DCI Gene Hunt, a television icon of our times. But the time-traveller/coma victim is Keeley Hawes, not John Simm. And she, along with Gene and the gang, are policing the London of the early 80s.

On the basis of just one episode so far, I thought it was great. Alex believing she’s in a coma from the start, with references to the late Sam Tyler, made for something different from the main character not knowing what the heck was going on.

There were 80s cultural references a-plenty (walkmans, watch alarms, the red Audi Quattro…). And Philip Glenister was clearly having a ball, so all is well in the world. The scene that re-introduced the Gene genie, complete with screeching tyres and guns, was well done. As was the speedboat scene towards the end, complete with a mention for those 80 icons, the A-Team. I do love it when a good plan comes together.

I’m not entirely convinced by Gene and the even-more-neanderthal Ray as wine-drinkers, mind you.

2008-02-07T19:10:00.000Z

THE NEXT BEST-SELLING THRILLER?

I’ve just bought a new book, a thriller to be precise, which I’m looking forward to reading when I have a few spare hours – that’d be half term then.

It’s The Shakespeare Secret, a novel about the hunt for a serial killer whose modus operandi is to model his murders on death scenes in Shakespeare plays, which promises ‘startling true revelations’ about the man himself. Sounds great, especially for this occasional Shakespeare fan.

What I don’t like is the reviewer quote on the front cover. These get my goat at the best of times – any fool can say ‘fantastic’ about a book, and in the content of the review a throwaway word like ‘fantastic’ might mean something very different. Here, it is at least more than one word – ‘plot twists worthy of The Da Vinci Code’. Oh, please.

Yes, I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. But it wasn’t really that good, was it? I actually preferred Angels and Demons to be honest. And, let’s face it, the rest of Dan Brown’s stuff is rubbish, and I notice he has yet to publish another book since making us all sit up and take notice. Maybe, like J.K. Rowling, now that he’s as rich as Croesus he doesn’t feel the urge to write any more (she, you will recall, really took her time churning out the later Harry Potter books; not so motivated as she had been at first, I reckon).

But that’s by the by. My real gripe is this – are we now obliged to compare any new fast-past thriller to The Da Vinci Code? Maybe we are; the cover design, for example, is not a million miles from Dan Brown’s best-seller. I suppose we judge all new things on the merits of those that have gone before, and in the world of thrillers the ‘next best thing’ will indeed be the ‘next Da Vinci Code’.

On a more flippant note: If they make The Shakespeare Secret into a movie, I hope that it will not be trumpeted as the ‘next Da Vinci Code’.

One last point: I note that the author is called J.L. Carrell, and that the ‘J.L’ stands for Jennifer Lee. Why is this? Do her publishers think that if they just call her ‘Jennifer Carrell’, people won’t bother to buy the book? How very J.K. Rowling of them.

2008-01-21T20:21:00.000Z

INCONVENIENT TRUTHS

Al Gore is not the sort of person I usually have much time for. As a politician, worse still a left-of-centre politician and – shock, horror – an American politician, he is the type whose mention on the news (if he ever features on it here on this side of the Atlantic) has me reaching for the radio dial or the TV remote control.

So it was with surprise that I found myself watching the DVD of An Inconvenient Truth last night. I had my reservations; Mr Gore’s politics and the controversy over the 2000 presidential elections aside, I wondered at how a doco about global warming could have won a man the Nobel Peace Prize. Must’ve been a stitch-up, I thought.

I cannot deny that An Inconvenient Truth is in many ways not great telly. Basically this is Mr Gore’s travelling lecture on the dangers of climate change, which he’d been doing for some time before he made it into a doco-movie, with a voice-over (by the man himself) and some extra footage of a much younger Mr Gore apparently questioning industry leaders about the effects of their industries on the environment twenty years ago. The graphics are cheesy, and although the references to Mr Gore’s political career were fewer than I’d expected (being cynical, I’d expected that subject to more or less take centre-stage) there was still too much of Al Gore rather than what he was supposed to be talking about. And yes, being British I suppose I’m bound to say that David Attenborough did a much better job when it came to talking about the dangers of climate change, and what we can all do about it, in his two-part 2006 doco Are We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth?.

But that misses the point somewhat. The point is that Mr Gore, for all his former-vice-presidential politician’s bluster, is a man who does actually give a damn about what’s happening to this little planet of ours, and wants to do something about it.

Let’s face it, the US of A contributes more carbon emissions to the environment than anyone else. So it makes sense that the climate change message really, really needs to be taken to the Americans. And, legend that David Attenborough is, he’s not really the man to take the message about global warming to the Americans, on the grounds that he isn’t American himself, and that most Americans have probably never heard of him. But they do know about Al Gore, the man who but for some dodgy vote-counting in Florida could have been their president.

So if there’s anyone who’s going to take the message to America and really help to make the world safe for future generations, he’s the man.

Climate change is an issue which is so important that we really should leave politics to one side. Mr Gore, I salute you.

2007-05-19T11:16:00.000+01:00

EVEN I HAVE MY LIMITS WHEN IT COMES TO TRASHY THRILLERS

Confession time. My name is Nick Young, and I like reading action-thriller novels. Yes, I enjoy the odd paperback action-thriller novel or two. That’s why I’m such a fan of Wilbur Smith, as I’ve previously said. I also quite like Frederick Forsyth.

But I have my limits. Some thrillers are just not worth reading, although I’ve only found this out by, err, reading them. Take some of Alistair Maclean’s later stuff, for example. Really – compare something like Where Eagles Dare with, say, Floodgate and you’ll know what I mean. Or Douglas Reeman (aka Alexander Kent) – read one, and you might as well have read them all. Who’d have thought naval action could be so repetitive? Some of Jack Higgins’s more recent stuff is rather formulaic too – not a patch on his better books, like The Eagle Has Landed. And any Bond book that’s not written by Ian Fleming isn’t worth your attention – trust me, I’ve tried; John Gardiner is no substitute. Although, let’s face it, some of Fleming’s was pretty ropey; The Spy Who Loved Me, anyone?

Some of the thrillers on my bookshelf are truly forgettable affairs. I once wasted several days of my life trawling through such tomes as The Last Six Million Seconds (John Burdett) and Resurrection Day (Brendan DuBois). Those two are still taking up valuable space on my shelves somewhere; I would sell them on Ebay but I’m not sure if I want to inflict such drivel on other people. I’m not mad keen on Andy McNab either. And don’t get me started on Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.

The extent of my limits is at the moment being well and truly tested by one Matthew Reilly. I read one of his books a couple of years ago; I’m not going to mention the name (to give you a clue, the title sounds like a certain Alistair Maclean adventure) but the basic premise was that one US Marines officer could take on, and take out, the entire French Special Forces and at least two companies of the SAS before flying a top-secret jet aircraft that he’d never previously set eyes on, and then outwitting a cabal of American NCOs who secretly control the US military. Well, they did. Once this bloke had finished with them, they weren’t in a position to control anything.

I like my thrillers to be believable, and I like characters who I can at least sort-of relate to. I get neither of these from Matthew Reilly. His problem is that he goes in for non-stop, high-octane and frankly far-fetched action to such a silly extent (see above) that you end up knowing next to nothing about the main character apart from the fact that he’s some sort of unbelievable, highly-trained super-human who never breaks sweat or puts a foot wrong. I don’t much care for that; even though thrillers are by defintion action-driven, I like to be able to see the characters as people who develop in some way as the story progresses, and at times show themselves to be ‘only human’ like the rest of us. Even Alistair Maclean, never one given to much character development, allowed his protagonists to show themselves as ordinary human beings at various stages of the proceedings. And Ian Fleming took the time to develop the Bond character over the course of his novels. Lieutenant what’s-his-name seemed to be just some kind of generic Arnie-type soldier.

Yet here I am, reading a Matthew Reilly novel again. God, it’s hard going; such is the unrelenting pace that I just can’t get into it. This one is all about a quest to find the parts of an ancient gold capstone that’s got something to do with the Seven Wonders of the World. Secret cults enter into it, and the Vatican is of course on hand to provide the villains. Such is Dan Brown’s legacy to the thriller genre! No doubt one of the group of multi-national ‘goodies’ will turn out to be a villain as well, but I don’t think I’ll really care by the time I get that far.

After that, I’m going back to John Buchan.

2007-05-11T18:50:00.000+01:00

IN PRAISE OF WILBUR

This time, I want to write about my all-time favourite author – an author whose books I enjoy so much that he influenced where I wanted to go when I finally got the travel bug.

That author is Wilbur Smith, and I think his books are fan-bloody-tastic. It’s thanks to him that I wanted to go to Africa, and if I ever meet the man I will thank him for it.

I just love they way in which he describes that wonderful and unforgettable continent, especially its amazing yet brutal wildlife. He shows that friendship and loyalty across racial lines can exist even though Africa is plagued by racial and ethnic problems (as he unceasingly makes clear, this goes deeper than ‘black versus white’), and he doesn’t shy away from telling of the situation like it is – conservation, for example, is a strong theme.

I read his latest book, The Quest, within days of it hitting the bookshops (sadly I did not manage to arrange things so that I could attend a signing; meeting the man himself would’ve been incredible). Not quite his best – at 75, he seems to be veering more into mysticism, and the quest for the source of eternal life that is the cornerstone of the novel is perhaps a reflection of the fact that the man himself is getting on a bit these days – but still damned good. It’s a continuation of the ‘Ancient Egypt’ series, namely the amazing River God, its sequel Warlock and and the set-in-the-modern-day-yet-connected-to-the-series novel The Seventh Scroll.

At present, though I am fully immersing myself in the world of Wilbur Smith by re-reading the entire ‘Courtneys of Africa’ series – in my opinion, his best. It consists of five novels – The Burning Shore, Power of the Sword, Rage, Golden Fox and A Time to Die – that, although the can be read separately, as a series they really capture the development of South Africa in the twentieth century, primarily through eyes of a remarkably well-connected English family but the vast cast includes most if not all of the many races which make up that incredible country, while thanks to the large number of characters all political viewpoints are incorporated, so we get a veritable spectrum of opinions.

The action is still the best part, though.

Right now, I’m on A Time to Die – the story of a hunting expedition in Zimbabwe that goes wrong once the protagonists cross into war-torn Mozambique. Western/liberal prejudices about Africa are confronted head-on, and the action is frankly unrelenting. Wilbur always provides an action-man as the hero, and Sean Courtney (junior), ex-Rhodesian army hard-man and big game hunter extraordinaire, is one of his best characters.

The only thing that worries me is that one day I will run out of Wilbur Smith books to read.

Anyway, after much though, here’s my top five (in no particular order as that would take forever): When the Lion Feeds, Rage, A Time to Die, Elephant Song and River God.

Wilbur Smith: A king among authors. Dan Brown and his ilk are mere pygmies when compared to this man.

2007-04-24T18:12:00.000+01:00

SAINT GEORGE, AND OTHER WOULD-BE PATRON SAINTS OF ENGLAND

So the feast day of Saint George has passed for another year, to the usual calls from various parts of the media to celebrate England’s patron saint in a more vigorous manner. Seemed like a lot of re-hashed articles from last year, really. And the year before that. Some do celebrate it, of course. England flags not seen since the (football) World Cup have been spotted adorning cars and pubs, and no doubt a few pints of good English ale were raised in the saint’s name last night. A few people may well have even worn a red rose as a button-hole, and sent greetings cards.

Some say we shouldn’t celebrate St George’s Day. They point to St George being a Christian saint, out of place in today’s multi-cultural society. They also point to the adoption of symbols such as the red cross on the white background by the far right. I’m not such a person. I see no reason why the people of an historically Christian country should not commemorate their country’s (Christian) patron saint if they choose to do so, and to be honest the only way in which to reclaim our national symbols from the far right (if indeed they have been wholly appropriated by such people) is to adopt them for our own, once again. I’m one of those people who thinks St George’s Day should be a public holiday, in fact. Just so those of us who wish to celebrate being English can do so, even though this is by definition a most un-English thing to do.

Amid all of this palaver about St George and the meaning of being English, which is what one has come to expect from 23rd April, there are the more unusual calls for St George to be removed as the patron saint of England. He wasn’t English, people say. Never even went to England. In fact, you can go further and say that England didn’t even exist when he was around.

It’s not as if he’s exclusively England’s man, either. As well as England, he’s also the patron saint of Canada, Ethiopia, Greece, Montenegro, Portugal and Serbia, the Spanish regions of Aragon and Catalunia, and the cities of Beirut, Istanbul, Ljubljana and Moscow. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s also the patron saint of several organisations, most notably the Scouts. Our man is the most international of saints.

So how’s he become England’s saint? St George, as much as anyone can make out, was a Roman soldier from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), who was executed for his Christian beliefs at Lydda, Palestine in 303AD. By the 5th century, he was venerated as a martyr in both halves of the Roman Empire. The English connection, however, did not appear until Medieval times, when he apparently appeared to the Crusaders during a battle in the Holy Land some time in the 12th century. They took the story back to England with them, and thus St George became well-known among the English. Later, Edward III – well-known for his adoption of chivalric values – declared him to be England’s patron saint, and by the 15th century his feast day, 23rd April, was celebrated on a par with Christmas.

Time change. Veneration of saints generally died out in England during the Reformation, and it’s only recently that St George has started to be commemorated by the English again, and that’s in partial response to rising Scottish and Welsh nationalism. With the idea of Britain seemingly falling apart, the English are looking to their own identity.

Which, I suppose, is why some say that St George should be replaced by a more authentically ‘English’ saint. I’m not sure I buy that argument, but it has got me thinking. Who exactly are these genuinely English saints?

Well, I’ve done a quick bit of research and narrowed it down to five. One holy man, three kings (one of whom was also a holy man) and a soldier. Only two of them lived in a country called England, while one of them wouldn’t even have understood the concept of ‘England’ as we know it…

In order (of when their feast-day appears in the calendar), they are as follows:

St Edward the Martyr (962-978)
Proclaimed King of England as a boy, and murdered several years later – probably on the orders of his step-mother who wanted her son (Edward’s younger half-brother) to be King instead. Not exactly renowned for being in any way especially holy, particularly because he didn’t die for his faith; his veneration as a saint probably owes more to his unjust and untimely death.
Feast day: 18th March

St Cuthbert (c.634-687)
The holy man of the Dark Ages, most closely associated with the island of Lindisfarne but spent much of his life travelling around the Kingdom of Northumbria spreading the word of Christianity. He was famed as a miracle-worker even during his own lifetime, and the Venerable Bede described him as ‘the child of God’.
Feast day: 20th March

St Alban (date of death disputed – could be 209, although some say 305; depends which sources you read)
A Romanised Briton, possibly a soldier, who lived in Verulamium and gave shelter to a Christian at a time when such people were being persecuted throughout the Roman Empire. He secretly converted to Christianity, but the authorities found out and had him executed. He is said to be the first person in all of Britain to be martyred. An abbey was later built on the site of his execution, and the city in which he lived now bears his name.
Feast day: 22nd June

St Edward the Confessor (1004-1066)
The King of England best-known to generations of schoolchildren as the one whose death sparked off the succession crisis that led to the battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. In life, Edward was a famously devout Christian who gave generously to the poor and founded Westminster Abbey, which is where he was buried. He was widely regarded as England’s patron saint until St George was adopted.
Feast day: 13th October

St Edmund the Martyr (841-869)
King of East Anglia, he was defeated by the Vikings at the battle of Thetford and killed soon afterwards, possibly by ritual sacrifice after he refused to share his Christian kingdom with the pagan invaders. It is said that they tied him to a tree, shot numerous arrows at him and then cut his head off and threw it away. After finding the head and reuniting it with the rest of his body, his followers buried him at what would become known as Bury St Edmunds. In pre-Conquest England, he was venerated as England’s patron saint.
Feast day: 20th November

So, there we go. Just think, it’ll be a whole year before we get to talk about this sort of thing again.

2007-04-05T10:20:00.000+01:00

SOMETHING HIGHBROW? DEPENDS WHAT YOU CALL HIGHBROW…

Let me make it clear – I am most decidedly NOT a ‘high culture’ sort of person. Not for me the trips to the opera or theatre; give me the movies (most recent viewings by me include Casino Royale, Night at the Museum and the excellent Hot Fuzz), the footie and a good cricket match anytime.

I’ve only ever been to see two West End shows in my life; the first was The Mousetrap, many years ago – and no, I’ve never told anyone who the murderer is – and the second was Spamalot last November. I didn’t take much to the latter, which I only went to see because I quite like Monty Python’s Flying Circus; in the event, the stage version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail struck me as something aimed squarely at American tourists and other people who go to West End musicals on a regular basis. Not my thing, really. And they committed the heinous offence of including Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which as any fool knows actually featured in The Life of Brian, but was obviously crow-barred into Spamalot because it’s the best-known Monty Python song.

But let’s face it, that’s not really ‘high culture’, is it?

But I’ve heard of something that’s definitely ‘high culture’ that I want to go and see. Unlike many former English Literature A-Level students, I’ve retained a usually-very-well-hidden soft spot for Shakespeare. These days, that means that I occasionally like to watch a well-acted movie adaptation; the Olivier Henry V, or Kenneth Brannagh’s epic version of Hamlet (although watching that takes some doing as it’s the only film version of that play – Shakespeare’s longest – that includes the full, unedited text). Last year, while I happened to be teaching Othello, I made a point of getting hold of a DVD of the RSC version, the one with Ian McKellan as Iago. Superb.

But I have never seen a Shakespeare play in a theatre. It’s something I’d quite like to do, and I really am not fussed as to which play, although I’d prefer one of the tragedies. There is one condition, though; there has to be a bloody good actor in the lead.

So imagine my joy when I heard that McKellan himself is to play the title role in King Lear. A brilliant actor who is just the right age for that particular role, in a play I even know a bit about as it was one of the ones I studied at A-Level! Sure, it’s in Stratford, but it’ll surely end up playing in London, won’t it?

But no! Disaster. McKellan, he who has played Shakespearean kings so well before (I really must get hold of the videos of his Richard III and Macbeth), has made a small yet significant decision with regard to how he will play Lear, which will I fear prevent me from going along.

I refer you to Act 3, Scene 4. Having descended into madness after divvying up his kingdom between his daughters (leaving out the only one who really loves him), Lear is out wandering on the Heath during a storm – along with such types as Kent, the Fool (loyal servants both) and Edgar (who’s there because he’s pretending to be mad). As befits a madman, Lear reaches the point where he asks the Fool to ‘unbutton here’, at which point the stage direction reads simply ‘tearing off his clothes’.

McKellan, of course, proposes to do that very thing, exposing his own very thing in the process. All in the name of getting the play ‘just right’, or so we’re supposed to think. Or, to be more cynical, think of the publicity.

It seems that this is a fashionable thing to do on the stage at the moment, what with Daniel Radcliffe having exposed himself to the audience recently, but quite frankly I don’t see the point, if you’ll pardon the pun. As some joker pointed out in the letters page of one of London’s many free newspapers, there’s nothing magical about going to see a play which has only got mentioned in the papers because it’s the one in which Harry Potter gets his wand out.

Now I’m no prude, but I’m not really sure that I want to go and see any play where the leading actor quite literally gets down to the bare essentials. Not because it’s just gratuitous nudity for the hell of it, but as a reasonably well-balanced heterosexual man I have issues with the idea of paying good money to see some bloke’s penis, even if he is a world-renowned and highly-talented actor (McKellan, that is – not Radcliffe). If nothing else, how am I supposed to talk about it afterwards, when everyone will just think ‘oh, he only went to see it because that bloke took his clothes off’?

So there you go. I want to see Ian McKellan in King Lear, but I don’t want to see his dick. Now there’s a dilemma I never thought I’d have to face.

2007-04-03T09:49:00.000+01:00

REFLECTIONS ON THE WORLD CUP (SO FAR)

A few thoughts, based on what’s been happening so far.

1) I cannot help but start with the event that has overshadowed all others at this World Cup – the murder of Bob Woolmer. Why? Was he about to blow the whistle on a match-fixing cartel, as has been claimed? Or did it have something to do with the fact that Pakistan had just been knocked out of the tournament? The former is by far the more plausible theory, and it shows that match-fixing is regrettably still alive and kicking; until it is eradicated, it will be a horrible stain on our great game.

2) Speaking of which, was the Pakistan-Ireland game fixed? I don’t think so. Cricket is taken so seriously in Pakistan that I highly doubt that any Pakistani cricketer would be so stupid as to deliberately throw a match in order to ensure that his country did not get out of the group stage. They burn cricketers in effigy over there when they lose, you know. God alone knows what they’d do to one of their players who deliberately prevented them from progressing in the World Cup. And such theorising detracts from the wonderful achievements of the Irish team – a lesson to most of the bigger teams in terms of how much can be achieved by a happy and well-motivated side.

3) The ICC says that Internet sites like YouTube shouldn’t be allowed to show footage from the games as they’re the ones who should control who should be allowed to broadcast said games. Haven’t they got more important things to worry about? And no, I don’t mean searching people at the turnstiles to make sure they’re not smuggling in rival brands that the sponsors wouldn’t like to see spectators consuming.

4) Where is everybody at the games? I cite the England-Ireland affair at Guyana as a prime example here. OK, so the Barmy Army and the wonderfully-named Blarney Army didn’t much fancy the trip to Guyana (which, as not enough people seem to realise, is actually part of the South American mainland) – but where’s the atmosphere at the grounds? This tournament’s being held in the West Indies for heaven’s sake! Memo to the ICC – drop the damned prices for the rest of the tournament.

5) So India – the most-supported cricketing nation and therefore the biggest source of revenue for the modern game – failed to make the Super Eight. Why all the hand-wringing about how such a thing shouldn’t be allowed to happen? (not exactly wise words given the contemporary climate of match-fixing, you’d have thought.) It’s happened, and the reason for that was because they didn’t play well enough to get past the group stage. If you have a group stage like we’ve had, you’re going to get a few upsets. Just including all of those minnows merely to increase the numbers and hoping that they’ll kindly go home so the big boys can play each other – which I suspect was the prevailing ethos at the ICC when they came up with the current format – is demeaning to all concerned.

6) Much though I love cricket, I am surely not alone in thinking that there’s been too much of it this winter. We had the Champions Trophy, a five-Test Ashes series (of which the less said, the better), the Commonwealth Bank series and now the World Cup … and that’s just from the English perspective. Then, coming up this summer, we’ve got two Test series and a couple of one-day series thrown in for good measure. Our cricketers need a decent break! No-one, not even top international sportsmen, can sustain international-standard levels of performance over an extended period of time. Is it any wonder why so many of them pick up injuries?

7) What is going on with the England top order? In a Test scenario, opening with Joyce and Vaughan, with Bell to follow, would be a sensible approach, albeit slightly questionable given that Vaughan is still struggling to regain his proper form at the moment. In a one-day scenario where the run-rate counts for so much, it’s ludicrous and can cause all sorts of problems in a run-chase against quality opposition. And it’s not as though the lessons of the past are not there for all to see if they could be bothered. Remember when England opened with Brearley and Boycott in 1979? It would be far better to do what they did in 1992, when they promoted Botham to open the innings. So, Freddie to open the batting, anyone?

8) Who’s going to win? Probably Australia, though I’d love to see the Kiwis walk away with it. I’m still cheering for England, mind you.

2007-04-02T19:51:00.000+01:00

SPOT THE APRIL FOOL ARTICLE

Well, it’s something I enjoy doing when reading the papers on 1st April. A wide range of subjects to choose from in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph – scientists develop the ‘perfect biscuit’ at a cost of £91,000 (surely a packet of Hob Nobs doesn’t cost that much?!), the prospect of the leader of the SNP becoming Scotland’s next First Minister, and the Home Office wasting £125,000 of taxpayers’ money on a piece of abstract art that’s too big for the place they want to display it. Actually, given that the Home Office couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery without something going wrong these days, that last one is quite plausible.

No, the spoof article is clearly the ‘Paris to host the opening ceremony for the London Olympics’ piece, complete with a picture of the Eiffel Tower with some fireworks going off in the background, and details of how the Queen, ‘who will be 86 in 2012’ will travel by Eurostar to the ceremony. Glad to see someone’s still got a sense of humour.

2007-03-28T22:47:00.000+01:00

ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT FOR LIFE ON MARS

Which is a shame because, now that Top Gear has finished, it’s my favourite thing on TV right now. Maybe I like it because I’ve always had a soft spot for the decade of my birth, for all its obvious faults. Or, more likely, maybe I like it because it’s just so entertaining, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously like a lot of drama series do. And Philip Glenister is of course amazing as the unrepentantly un-PC Gene Hunt. It’s a modern classic of television.

Only two weeks left though – like not enough TV shows these days, Life on Mars is set to end while it’s still on a high, with Sam’s ‘is he in a coma, is he a time-traveller or is he just nuts?’ dilemma set to be resolved (one way or another) at the end of this, the second series.

Naturally, I’ve got an idea about how the whole thing will end. My pet theory (which I’ve had for at least three weeks now) is that Sam will wake up in the present after ‘dying’ in 1973, perhaps while saving the lives of Gene, Annie et al. While re-adjusting to life in the present day, he’ll stumble across evidence (an old photo in the Police HQ or something, showing the cops of ‘73 with him visibly prominent) that there really WAS a Sam Tyler in 1973.

I also reckon, having seen the trailer for next week’s episode, that presence of the DCI from Hyde will question the whole idea of Sam coming from the 21st century by saying he remembers him from when he was stationed at Hyde – a week before the whole thing is resolved as outlined above.

I could of course be wrong. But you heard it here first!

2007-03-14T21:22:00.000Z

READING LIFE

Books read recently: Wilt on High by Tom Sharpe, The Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell, Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin

Currently reading: An Accidental MP by Martin Bell

To be read: How to be a Bad Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes, The Strange Death of Tory England by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

That’s how it’s looking right now on the reading front. Reading has been a great passion of mine for many years, and as a teacher (albeit not a very good one), I am always pleased to see a student reading a good book.

I only really got into Tom Sharpe last year, and in all honesty the only thing that surprises me about that is that I’d never thought to read any of his books before. They are truly hilarious, a wonderful concoction of absurd characters and situations. My favourites are the ones involving college teacher Henry Wilt – based, so they say, on Sharpe’s own experiences in the murky world of further education. Life is absurd sometimes, and Tom Sharpe helps us to appreciate that.

On the other hand, Bernard Cornwell has long been a favourite author of mine; as a keen historian I’ve always liked historical novels and Cornwell is the best of the present-day historical novelists (well, joint best – George MacDonald Fraser’s hard to beat). That said, though, I’ve thought for a while that he’s been flogging a dead horse by churning out so many Sharpe adventures – just because they’re his most popular books (thanks largely to Sean Bean) doesn’t mean to say they’re his best. My considered opinion – and I’ve read most of his stuff – is that Cornwell was at his best when he wrote the Warlord trilogy, a retelling of the Arthurian legend without the Medieval glamour. His most recent creation, a series about the events of Alfred the Great’s time, is in a similar vein. The Lords of the North is the third, and by no means the last, in this series. England is seemingly at the mercy of foreign invaders (in this case, the Vikings), an inspirational leader attempts to rally against them, and the story centres around a central hero who seems to have as much in common with the invaders as the defenders. Talk about bringing the past to life - Cornwell does it wonderfully.

Thirdly – Rebus. My liking for detective fiction goes back a long way – to Enid Blyton’s Five Find-Outers stories to be precise, graduating to Sherlock Holmes when I was a teenager and culminating – when not branching out into thrillers – in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse mysteries (the best of which, if you ask me, is Death is Now My Neighbour). There only being a finite number of Morse books, I moved my detective reading to Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks books afterwards, but felt something lacking therein; Morse, I felt, was always the better detective – and, let’s face it, Dexter the better author. Ian Rankin now fulfils my needs for detective fiction. Detective Inspector John Rebus is very much a detective in the same mould of Alan Banks and the late E. Morse, which is no bad thing really (how boring would a story about a detective who always does things ‘by the book’ and never gets into trouble with his superiors be?), although I do prefer his later adventures such as Resurrection Men and The Falls, written after the character was fully formed and with several plots going on all at the same time. And Rankin brings Edinburgh to life like you wouldn’t believe.

And the current book? Martin Bell is a man who I’d admired since his reports on the war in Bosnia in the early 90s, when the schoolboy version of me first became interested in the Balkans - a region that would fascinate my undergraduate self a few years later, strange that I have yet to fully visit and appreciate that part of the world for myself. But I digress; in 1997, when Bell ran for Parliament in one of the more bizarre events of that general election, he went down in my estimation as I was convinced that he was little more than a Labour stooge masquerading as an Independent. I was wrong, of course – he was his own man, and in fact you could say I came around to his way of thinking in that my limited experience of student politics convinced me that the best sorts of people in such circles are the genuine Independents, honest people who go by their conviction of what is right and fair, rather than any party line or naked ambition. Besides, any man who can write a book like Through Gates of Fire, which I first read a couple of years ago and was seriously impressed by, is nobody’s stooge, and nobody’s fool either. And now, a mere ten years after his election as MP for Tatton, I’m reading his version of what happened then and afterwards for the first time.

Once that’s done, I look forward to perusing the last two books on the above list. As a keen if very amateur birdwatcher (as in ‘the feathered kind’) and an interested if somewhat detached observer of the political scene, it should make for some interesting reading if nothing else.

2007-02-17T11:07:00.001Z

A TEACHER’S NADIR (PART TWO)

There was of course only one solution to the dire situation that I’d got my Year 8 lesson into, and that was to request the help of a more senior member of staff. It’s something I’ve always hated doing, because I see it as an admission of failure on my part, but if it’s the only course of action left then it’s something that must be done.

Some teachers have an uncanny ability to silence a class merely by walking into it. I, of course, am not one of those teachers and I know that I never will be. Such teachers are very rare – you’d think that most Heads or Deputy Heads would have that ability but that’s not the case; more often than not, they rely more on the authority of their position (although that needs to be backed up by a forceful personality). It was lucky for me on Wednesday that my Head of Department has that ability.

Unlike me, he didn’t even have to shout – very few have heard him do so and apparently it’s a fearsome sight (and sound) to behold. I couldn’t believe how he did it, but he did – and the rest of the lesson passed reasonably peacefully; a sort of enforced truce, if you like. Even I managed to calm down. He came back a couple of times to check up on things, and was responsible for dismissing the class at close of play.

The lesson-from-hell over, I needed to reconsider my options. I know that I never want to have a lesson like that ever again – no-one does. But it goes further than that; for the past couple of weeks I have been wondering if teaching really is for me, and I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t.

Luckily for me, I’m not obliged to serve out some sort of notice period at the school where I taught that lesson because, technically, I’m a supply-teacher. At least that’s some consolation.

Time to move on, then. The job-hunt starts here.

2007-02-15T19:57:00.000Z

A TEACHER’S NADIR

It’s Wednesday afternoon, the lunch-break is over and the final lesson of the day may begin (such are the ways of the timetable that there’s only one double-period after lunch). In History, the Head of Department is teaching an A-level class, while on the other side of the corridor the part-time supply-teacher – drafted in after the previous part-timer quit back in December – has got one of his Year 8 classes. It’s assessment time, which in this case takes the form of groups of pupils giving a power-point presentation about the life of Elizabeth I to the rest of the class. They’ve had a week to do it – last week’s lesson even involved using the sacred departmental laptops to start on this – and it should be a nice, straightforward lesson for all concerned. Sit down, take in the presentations, do your own, maybe offer some constructive criticism (when asked) about how the other groups might have done it better.

That’s the theory.

From the start, it does not go well. A group has volunteered to go first (which is good), but whether or not the rest of the class will quieten down is debatable. Group Number One are, frankly, unimpressed with this, and nor is Sir. But eventually there’s enough quiet for them to start. Not that the quiet lasts for very long – everyone knows exactly what these kids are going to say because they’ve all prepared some sort of presentation on the same topic. This group has a tough audience.

A good teacher could and should be able to quieten the rest of the class down, and get them all to face the right way. But Sir is not a good teacher – his obvious passion for his subject is in no way matched by his classroom management abilities. His main technique, after waiting for silence and getting fed up with the time that takes, is to shout, which isn’t good by anyone’s standards. Shouting louder than your class is not a recipe for ensuring co-operation. Also, he’s inherited classes that had a crap teacher before he came along – one could say he was on a losing wicket from the start. The department of which he forms a small part is considered to be one of the best in the school, but these particular classes, after nearly a term being taught by his predecessor (whose stint was quite literally over before Christmas), are in no position to appreciate this. Frankly, he’s in way out of his depth, and he knows it.

For the past couple of weeks, things have been getting progressively worse for this teacher. A reasonably promising start before Christmas has evaporated, and now he’s struggling to control his classes. The Year 9s have been unbearable. Yesterday was not good, although the Head of Department – one of the very best – remains supportive. These Year 8 presentations haven’t gone according to plan – one of his other classes has already been so woefully under-prepared that he’s had to give them more time; in that lesson, the one before lunch, he resorted handing out the textbooks and setting plenty of written work after it became apparent that the presentations that had been prepared were of a very poor standard. Plus, some pupils were quite frankly not mature enough to be trusted with a computer-plus-interactive-whiteboard to deliver said presentations.

At least the afternoon class’s presentations are of a good enough quality – not that you’d notice in the growing chaos. Sir has got two jobs on his hands now: Make notes on the presentations in order to work out what marks to give each group, and maintain order (no prizes for guessing which one he finds the more tiresome). He’s not a happy man.

The first group make it to the end, and having had to put up with the others talking through their own presentation they’re not in the mood to make life easier for anyone else. The second group, five of the more unruly boys, are under-prepared but willing to give it a go anyway – or they would be if one of their number would stop trying to do finger-puppet signs in from of the interactive whiteboard. And when they do start, their unusual backs-to-the-audience delivery technique (no written notes means they have to look at the screen to read off it) endears them to no-one. It’s chaotic, and in the interests of trying to maintain some semblance of order Sir has to stop them half-way through. They can try again at the end, if there’s time.

Third group – these are the smart girls of the class. Their information is very good, and as for detail – well, it’s overkill; rumours abound that they’ve got a presentation of over thirty slides (thirty!), which prompts groans all round. Sadly, what these girls have in terms of historical detail – we’re talking pictures and character profiles of at least half-a-dozen men rumoured to have offered marriage to Good Queen Bess, and a blow-by-blow account of the Spanish Armada – they lack in terms of ability to deliver a presentation. You’d barely hear them if the class were to be silent (which, of course, they aren’t).

Each group has saved their power-point presentation on the school computer system’s hard drive (only a few have memory-sticks). This is a problem because it means every new group has to first log onto the system to retrieve their work. That takes time, and of course in the inevitable delay between presentations people start talking. Loudly. The main topic of conversation from groups who’ve already presented, believe it or not, is ranting about how no-one showed them any respect. Replies consist (mostly) of ‘well, you should’ve spoken clearer/made it more interesting/kept it shorter’. No-one believes this for a minute. The atmosphere, fraught since the start, deteriorates. And the noise level rises…

Group Number Four shouldn’t have a problem – they’ve emailed their presentation to Sir himself (this being the 21st century, the school has provided him with a ‘work’ email address so pupils can do this), so this logging-in business shouldn’t be a problem. All Sir has to do is go on the Internet, open his email account and there is the presentation. Well, there it would be if the group’s designated emailer – using an account that cannot be accessed at school thanks to the firewall which prevents you from accessing Hotmail – had typed in Sir’s address correctly. But he hasn’t, and the presentation is lost. We have no presentation here; can the next group please come forward?

The tension is racked up a few notches. After glancing at the clock and realising that he has half an hour left (why does time go by so slowly when you’re having a shit day?), Sir wonders briefly if his professional dignity will allow him to walk out of the class, and out of the school, there and then (Answer: No). He resolves to stay, although by this time he’s one very pissed-off and angry teacher. Pissed off with both his class, and with himself for allowing things to get this far. This is getting to be like a textbook example of a ‘how not to do it’ lesson.

To be continued…

2007-02-12T17:52:00.000Z

EXCUSE ME WHILE I SUSPEND MY DISBELIEF

If you’re a regular reader of this blog (in which case, thank you!), then you may be aware of my frustration regarding certain spectator sports. It’s been a difficult winter following the (mis)fortunes of the England cricket team and Watford Football Club, but at least I now have something to celebrate in both instances.

First of all … let’s look at the cricket. What can I say? A most remarkable turnaround, we’ve gone from no-hopers who thought it was great that we actually managed to beat New Zealand to a team which has beaten the World Champions in their own backyard. The Commonwealth Bank Series Trophy – well, it’s not the Ashes but it is at least something to show from a long and often difficult tour. A big, big WELL DONE to Freddie and the lads; I won’t lie and say I always thought they could do it (because I thought we’d never make the final), but it’s fantastic to see us back to winning ways again.

I don’t even know when England last won a one-day competition overseas, or when the Aussies last lost such a contest at home. But it’s great timing with the World Cup coming up shortly – when we’ll have our captain and our best batsman back. And Freddie – he of the legendary all-night victory celebrations – might have sobered up by then as well.

And the footie? Well, playing against a team who are just as crap as we are helps a lot (even worse than us actually – at least we scored our penalty). Shame we can’t play them every week! Seriously, though, it’ll take a comeback of England cricket team proportions to keep us in the Premier League. That mindless optimist who is Adrian ‘Aidy’ Boothroyd probably thinks we can do it, but he’s not fooling anyone round here. But wasn’t everyone saying that about Freddie Flintoff when he said he thought England could get into the Commonwealth Bank Series final a fortnight ago…?

2007-02-08T17:50:00.000Z

SNOW JOKE, SOME OF US ARE STILL TEACHING

So, a couple of inches of snow and the country grinds to a halt … again. Did you hear about all those schools closing? Well, I’m here to say that they didn’t all shut up shop today. The place where I do most of my teaching was open for business as usual – the Head said NOT OUT, so in we all were … when we got there, that is. It took me over an hour.

The pupils were of course totally hyper, thanks largely to the white powdery stuff on the ground outside, but it should be noted that they’ve been like that for a couple of weeks anyway. Yesterday I found some of my pupils from a certain year group to be particularly unbearable, although I was subsequently reassured to hear several colleagues moaning about the same year group. At least it’s not just me then. But they were more up-the-wall today, thanks to the snow.

I was on general cover today, not teaching my beloved History. Strange, though, how my classroom management (such as it is) is usually better when I do cover than when it’s ‘my’ lesson. If I can get a class to work quietly when I’m covering a lesson (it does happen, you know), why the hell can’t I do so when it’s my lesson? Still, at least it’s improving my confidence as a professional. There are times when I really like teaching, and today was one of them.

Come 3:25, of course, the big snowball fight at the gates started in earnest. It had been on the cards ever since the day started really. With nothing to keep me in school after home time, so I had to run the gauntlet … not difficult really as there were several senior members of staff making sure the kids didn’t get out of hand. No hits on either me or my car as I left, I’m pleased to say.

But WHY were the kids so hyper? They were excited because it was snowing. I’m not against that – snow is the sort of weather that brings out the child in all of us. Even though I know it’s going to be a hassle when I wake up and see snow out of the window, I’m still excited by it. But that doesn’t explain everything; yes, they were excited, but surely not THAT excited. Unless they’re all drugged up on processed food and e-numbers – which is possible. But I prefer another explanation.

I remember when it snowed when I was at school, and I’m pretty sure we were never like that. Yes, we liked it better than when it rained, but we weren’t shouting for no reason and climbing the walls because we had to sit inside and do our lessons. So what’s changed? Then I figured it out – back in the 80s, when it snowed, the snow stayed for several days. If we were to go further back, we’d find that the snow stuck around for the best part of a month.

Nowadays it’s a lot rarer, so the ‘oh look, it’s snowing’ excitement is condensed into a shorter time period. A couple of weeks ago, it snowed and the stuff had all melted away come home time – not even enough for one snowball (or rather, slush-and-grit-and-mud-ball). Even today, kids were worried that the snow would have all melted by the time we finished, so they’d be denied their fun. Back in the day, we knew that there’d still be snow at the weekend, never mind the end of the school day. So no sense of urgency to make the most of it immediately. Unlike today, where if you don’t make the most of it now, you’ll lose out because the snow will have gone by tomorrow.

We get much less snow than we used to, and it lasts for a shorter period of time than it used to. We’re obviously the poorer for it. A practical example of Global Warming that kids can easily relate to!

2007-02-02T21:18:00.000Z

‘COMING TO THE PARTY’

Well, I didn’t think England would manage it this winter, but there it is. WE’VE ACTUALLY WON A GAME OF CRICKET AGAINST AUSTRALIA. To be honest, I thought the Test Match Special boys had finally cracked and were indulging in a very tasteless wind-up when I tuned in today. But no, it’s true. England beat Australia … at the ninth time of asking.

So in the words of Freddie, we finally ‘came to the party’! A bit bloody late, mind you, and it’s more than we deserved given some of our recent performances. Still, a win against the Aussies is a win against the Aussies – even if it is against an Aussie XI minus Ponting and Lee. But hey, we’ve not had much to cheer about at all this winter, so...

Before I go and celebrate by watching the highlights at the ridiculously late time the BBC shows them, I’d just like to say that, as a Middlesex supporter, I’m obviously very pleased for Ed Joyce. Hopefully this will lead to a successful international career.

2007-01-31T22:05:00.000Z

TIME FOR A NEW BACKPACK?

That’s the big question. Or one of them at least. Fact is, I’m planning a few trips this year – probably nothing major due to budgetary constraints, but you never know where I might end up or how long I might take. I’m never that sure when I grab the backpack and head off somewhere. For example, last year’s trip to Eastern Europe was supposed to be two weeks, not six. And Ukraine never figured in my original plans.

But back to this year’s plans. First up is a trip to the Lake District, which will probably take place some time in March and where the plan is to ‘do’ Helvellyn – my favourite mountain in these fair British Isles. Now, I’ve climbed Helvellyn before, but never by the ‘classic’ route – up the knife-edge ridge that is Striding Edge. The plan, such as it is, will involve camping by Red Tarn overnight and then heading up Striding in the morning, coming back down via Swirral Edge.

I’ll need the backpack for this, of course. But is it still up to the job? Or, after several years of sterling service, is it completely past it?

There’s a sentimental side to this – I’ve had the backpack for several years now and it’s accompanied me on all of my adventures in that time. This picture shows me lugging it up Mount Kenya (which you can see in the background). I must have been the only trekker there who hadn’t opted to pay for a porter to carry the backpack. Must’ve had some sort of ‘tough guy’ thing going there. I made it to Point Lenana, but when it came to Kilimanjaro some time later I went for the porter option; the porter did not like the backpack as it’s impossible to carry it on your head. Porters on ‘Kili’ like to carry as much luggage on their heads as possible. Moses, my guide on Mount Kenya, reckoned that that’s why Tanzanians are shorter than Kenyans.

At the top of this post is a shot of what it’s like now. What you can’t see is that a couple of seams have been re-sewn and one of the straps has broken. This ‘make do and mend’ philosophy is all very well, but sooner or later one of the shoulder-straps will go. That, I think, will be the time to declare that enough is enough.

In case you’re wondering, the whole ‘flag’ business started in Africa when I found a souvenir shop in Nairobi selling sew-on-badge flags for most African countries. It continued into Eastern Europe last year. I won’t tell you how long it took me to find somewhere in Kiev selling a Ukrainian flag badge…

2007-01-31T21:22:00.000Z

ECONOMIC MODELS ... ACCORDING TO COWS

I recently got an email from a mate. Basically, it explains different economic models, political philosophies, religions etc. according to ... cows. I found it quite funny. Here is a selection.

SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows, and you give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.

ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them.

BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.

IRAQI CORPORATION: Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a Democracy...

WELSH CORPORATION: You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive.

AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

ANCIENT ROMAN ECONOMY: You gather an army to kill any neighbours who might want to steal your cows.

ANCIENT GREEK ECONOMY: You send your cowhearders to attack your neighbour's two cows in case they might produce more milk than yours, look prettier or think of themselves as being better.

CATHOLICISM: You are guilty for not milking the cows. So you milk them and feel guilty for milking them.

METHODISM: You are forbidden to milk cows.

PAGANISM: You sacrifice the cows.

NEO-PAGANISM: You wait until the Christians have milked the cows, then say that it was your hard work.

ATHEISM: There is no cow.

ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM: Since the cows are female, you must milk your cow from in front of a veil as seeing a milk nipple will force you to commit indecent acts with your cow.

SCIENTOLOGY: You have two cows. Both are descended from alien bovinoids transplanted to Earth by the Moo-Moo-Oomian race forty-one thousand, nine hundred and one years ago. If you master the correct milking technique, the Moo-Moo-Oomians will sense it and return to take you to their home planet, where the bovinoids have now evolved to the state where they milk themselves, saving you a lot of trouble.

SATANISM: You paint inverted crosses on your cows and cavort around in black robes. Actually, you actually prefer goats.

BUDDHISM: You believe you were a cow in a former life.

EXISTENTIALISM: The cows tremble with fear realising they are no longer part of the herd.

2007-01-27T15:19:00.000Z

READING ABOUT CRICKET

I was listening to the cricket on my way to work yesterday morning, though God knows why. Having plumbed new depths in the one-day tournament (to have the opposition coach comment that you’re not providing his team with enough of a challenge is surely the ultimate insult, or at least coming pretty close), England started digging. I suspect that the likes of Strauss and Collingwood, to mention but two of the touring party, would very much like to be on the plane home as soon as possible. It’s a sentiment I share. Bring them home before they humiliate themselves any more, say I.

Rather than moan about what’s happening in Australia, which is just depressing, I’m going to divert my attention by reading about the game instead. And one of the great benefits of cricket (unlike, say, football) is that the literature surrounding it is amazing. Here’s a few of my favourites, suitably categorised.

BEST OVERALL
It’s got to be The Art of Captaincy by Mike Brearley. Now, any Aussie, and any Englishman with a reasonable sense of perspective, will tell you that Mike Brearley wasn’t worth his place in the England team as a player, he won two Ashes series against second-rate Australian teams because of the Packer crisis and he never captained his country against the dominant team of the time (ie. the West Indies). Be that as it may, here was a man worth his place in the team purely because he was by far and away the best choice as Captain. As befits a psychology graduate, he had (it was once said) ‘a degree in people’, and was able to motivate players as diverse as Boycott and Botham into giving their all for their country. And he was the mastermind behind the greatest turn-around in the history of cricket (I refer, of course, to 1981). His book is a cricketing classic, and a must-read for anyone interested in the subject of leadership.

PLAYER AUTOBIOGRAPHY
A very common but generally unsatisfactory category of cricketing book. Unsatisfactory due to the fact that these are by and large ghost-written (ie. by a journalist who’s had close access to the player in question) and lack insight. Plus, the titles are generally mundane, predictable and crap. I cite the lamentable Botham: My Autobiography as an example here. Talk about an exciting story, badly told! But at least he waited until he’d retired – one of the reasons why there’s never enough insight is that the players are still, well, playing, and books by players who haven’t retired are subject to censorship by the ECB – wouldn’t do to have a man still playing for England being critical of the set-up, and all that. Allan Lamb actually retired prematurely after they tried to ban his autobiography (called … well, I’m sure you can guess), while Mike Gatting ended up on the receiving end of a hefty fine even though his ‘ghost’ came up with the clever ruse of describing the Shakoor Rana affair in the third person. So: to be a good autobiography, it needs to have been written after retirement. And not all players need a journo to help them out either – my two top cricket autobiogs are both by ex-cricketers who can write for themselves and, unusually for this genre, are full of insight into their respective careers. Step forward, Opening Up by Mike Atherton and A Lot of Hard Yakka by Simon Hughes.

BIOGRAPHY
At least you know that there’s a journalist writing this. Usually prepared to be more critical than an autobiog for obvious reasons, as well as deliving more into the player’s, err, private life than the player himself would prefer. My choice here is the generally excellent David Gower: A Man Out of Time by Rob Steen. The way in why Gower’s unjustifiable omission from the 1992/93 India tour is dealt with is spot-on – the England management was stupidly, arrogantly, disastrously just so WRONG to prematurely curtail the career of the best English batsman of his generation.

THE TOUR DIARY (PLAYER)
Ghost-written, under contract … just what I hate about the worst sort of autobiogs, but unavoidable in the case of the player’s tour diary, which invariably comes out within a year of said tour. Admittedly I still need to read Mike Gatting’s account of the 1986/87 Ashes series, but I want to avoid being too Ashes-centric as it’s a painful subject at the moment. So, for a spot of light-hearted comic relief that seems to capture the essence of one of the (English) modern game’s more interesting personalities, my choice is a certain Middlesex spinner’s account of touring the West Indies in the early months of 1998. Postcards from the Beach by Phil Tufnell is my choice here.

THE TOUR DIARY (JOURNO)
Cast aside the frolics of the player’s account for the journalist’s-eye view. Critical where necessary (or even when not needed at all, as in the case of Martin Johnson), combining at its best an account of the Tests played with a flavour for the country. My choice is unavoidably dated, but I would argue that Australia 55 by Alan Ross is a cricketing classic. As well as the delights of Hutton, May, Tyson, Cowdrey et al coming from behind to retain the Urn, it paints a vivid picture of Australia as it once was, back in the day when England travelled to the place by liner and had plenty of preparation time before a crucial series.

GRASS ROOTS
You’ll notice that all of the above are about professional cricket (OK, there were amateurs on Hutton’s tour Down Under, but you know what I mean). Cricket is far more than just the top level, and one needs to get a sense of perspective on the game by looking at it at the lower levels too. We’re talking village cricket, Sunday seconds in the park stuff here. The best book for this aspect of our wonderful game is without doubt Rain Men by Marcus Berkmann. As a cricketer whose enthusiasm for the game is infinitely larger than any talent for it that he might have once possessed, Berkmann speaks for many who play the game for fun. OK, perhaps ‘fun’ is the wrong word here. But it’s a cracking read, utterly hilarious in parts.

GENERAL HISTORY
There’s a good one on this by the late Benny Green, but my favourite one-volume history of English cricket – I’m sure you can’t get a one-volume treatment on world cricket, and as an Englishman I’m perfectly happy with an account of how the game grew in my own country – has to be A Social History of English Cricket by Derek Birley.

ABANDONED ON A DESERT ISLAND
There can only be one candidate for that old chestnut, what’s the only book you’d have if you were to be abandoned on a desert island and only allowed to take one. In such circumstances, you need a volume of weight, substance and – how can I say this – enough variation in content to make sure that you’ll always manage to find something you’ve not read before. The choice is obviously the new Wisden Anthology 1978-2006. Like previous Wisden anthologies, it’s one of those dipping-in books of which I personally can never get bored.

SO WHAT NEXT?
Next up on my list – despite what I said about those ghosted autobiogs earlier – is an interesting-looking 2005 Ashes cash-in by Michael Vaughan, Calling the Shots. His time as Captain from when he took it over after the farce of the last World Cup, up to You Know When. I’m hoping to get some sort of an insight into how he was able to take England to such heights – whitewashing the Windies and a record unbeaten run in Tests as well as … well, you know. As someone who suspects that the current depths the England team have got themselves into stem in part from Vaughan’s absence due to injury, I hope to learn a little bit more about the man himself, and how he managed to get the England side ‘up for it’ as skipper. Because it’s something he’s now got to do all over again. And boy, has he got his work cut out.

2007-01-16T22:23:00.000Z

DAY OF THE UNION?

Today, for what it’s worth, is the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union – so the BBC informed me and everyone else who listens to Radio Five Live this morning. That’s the agreement to merge the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland, thus forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The two kingdoms had of course shared the same monarch since 1603, but it was in 1707 that Great Britain was actually created.

But is today really the anniversary? A quick check of the relevant records shows that today is simply the anniversary of when the Scottish Parliament ratified the Act of Union. The English one didn’t do so until March – the Parliaments of both countries had to ratify it, of course. The whole thing didn’t actually come into effect until 1st May. So maybe the Beeb is announcing the anniversary too soon.

Pedantic? Me?

Anyway – regardless of the actual date, we’re all agreed on the year at least. So, is anything being done to commemorate this? Well, sort of. The government has decided to … mint a commemorative coin. And that, seemingly, is it. Well, it’s better than nothing. Given that this is the government that has done more than any other to undermine the Union with the complete and utter hash it’s made of devolution (or, how to create a new layer of bureaucracy and a new gravy-train for politicians, financed by the ever-more-put-upon taxpayer), I can’t say I’m surprised at the lack of purpose when it come to commemorating this important event in our history.

2007-01-16T21:16:00.000Z

AT LAST! ENGLAND WIN A CRICKET MATCH IN AUSTRALIA!

So, at times even my sports-related pessimism is unfounded (see my last cricket-related prediction for more details). But here’s the news from Hobart: In the three-way one-day knockabout that is the Commonwealth Bank Series, England have beaten New Zealand by three wickets. They got 205-9 from 50 overs, we replied with 206-7 after 49.5 overs. The winning runs were hit by Freddie, who looks to be in fine form after being relieved of the burden of captaincy. Yet more shades of Botham here?

OK, so it’s not a win against Australia. That would be too much to hope for! As it happens, though, the Kiwis got spanked by them as well – and the view Down Under is that this game was ‘two poor men fighting over a penny’, but I don’t care. We needed a win – against anyone – and now we’ve got one. The bad news from Hobart is that our recently-returned captain got himself injured during the match. England, bloody England – always a cloud to any silver lining we might get. Hey ho.

Still on a cricketing theme, I heard on the radio this morning that rather than give the whole victorious Ashes squad MBEs (now who would do such a daft thing like that?), the Australian government is to issue a set of commemorative stamps instead. The expensive one that goes on letters to England depicts the whole team celebrating with the Urn. Just in case we didn’t know. Nice touch.

2007-01-14T10:14:00.000Z

END OF THE UNBEATEN RUN

These are bad times to be an England cricket fan, as I’m sure you are no doubt aware. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Of all the batsmen we could have lost to injury in the one-day tournament, we had to lose Kevin Pietersen. I note that the odds on us not winning a single game Down Under have been slashed in the light of this news, and no wonder. In the one-day game, he’s the only decent batsman we’ve got. Or rather, the only decent batsman we had. I’d hoped we might sneak a couple of wins against New Zealand, but now I am less optimistic.

It’s not really a good time to be a Watford fan either. Rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table with a mere twelve points, facing relegation regardless of whether or not we sell Ashley Young (who, by the way, is not a relation). General consensus in the Rookery End before yesterday’s game against Liverpool was that he’ll go, and that Boothroyd only turned down those offers of £7million because he’s holding out for 9. Better, so the people sitting around me said, to take the money now, as his value will fall if he’s still at Watford when we get relegated at the end of the season.

Everyone also expected us to lose. As the part-owner of a Vicarage Road season ticket (with first dibs on all Saturday games), I was there despite a cold that saw me turn down the offer of work on Friday for the first time in ages. Turning up to a game I expected my team to lose, despite illness. It’s almost on a par with staying up all night to listen to the final day’s play of a Test match that you just know your team are going to lose. I must be a masochist of some sort.

I have the utmost respect for Adrian ‘Aidy’ Boothroyd – here’s a bloke, after all, who got us promoted in a season when everyone expected us to get relegated (ie. last season). Despite Watford’s current predicament, which even he won’t be able to get us out of, he’s the sort of manager who commands respect. He’s got a very bright future in the game.

Sometimes, though, he just makes me laugh. His programme notes in particular have this effect on me – as exercises in mindless optimism go, they just about take the biscuit. Here’s what he said in yesterday’s programme, concerning our win last week: ‘it continued our unbeaten start to the new year’. So, a lucky draw on New Year’s Day followed by a win in the FA Cup against lower-division opponents counts as an unbeaten run? Please, Aidy, I appreciate that you’re trying to look for the positives in a poor season and gee us all up, but I’m not in the mood.

It was just our luck that we were up against Liverpool yesterday, a team smarting from getting knocked out of the FA Cup by Arsenal live on ‘proper’ (ie. terrestrial) telly last weekend, and then getting absolutely spanked in the other cup tournament by (again) Arsenal. If ever there was a must-win game for the Scousers in red (or rather, their away kit of white and green in this particular instance), it was this one. If only for pride’s sake.

They weren’t exactly good. But then, we weren’t exactly adequate when compared to such opponents, so it didn’t make for the thriller that the people at Sky were obviously hoping for when they scheduled it as today’s early kick-off, live on TV game. We lost 3-0, and it could have been more had it not been for our goalie. Despite what the scoreline says, he really is our best player right now. Not that he’s really ‘our’ goalie at all, we’ve got him on loan for the season – which is why, next time he gets called up for the England squad, he’ll be referred to as ‘Manchester United’s Ben Foster’. No mention of us. That would just be embarrassing. Like today was for us Watford fans. One of those days when I should’ve, and indeed could’ve, just stayed in bed.

It wasn’t an entirely wasted day though. After the game, I walked into town and bought a new Berghaus fleece in the sales. Took me over an hour to drive out of Watford though.

2007-01-11T16:40:00.000Z

THE CAR LIVES!!

It was a Day of Reckoning for my car earlier this week. My trusty G-reg Peugeot, which has over 100,000 miles on the clock and a faulty central locking system, had its MoT and, to be frank, I wasn't very optimistic. Be that as it may, the car has PASSED. So I don't have to worry about replacing it just yet - not that I could afford to at the moment. For now at least, the 205 remains my preferred mode of transport. It may be the oldest car in any school car park it happens to be in on a working day, but it still gets me from A to B. And it can get up quite a speed on an open road too. Plus, it's now got new brake discs.

On the telly, I've been following Ray Mears in his new series looking for the sorts of food our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have eaten. I think he's a great TV personality who's done much to popularise survival skills (yes, I am a bit of a fan), and the stuff he and the Professor revealed last night surprised me in that I never knew how much edible stuff is, well, out there. In an age of processed foods and rampant consumerism, we can learn a heck of a lot from finding out about what people used to eat. And it'd probably make for a healthier diet too.

Book-wise, I'm reading Andrew Lycett's biography of Ian Fleming - a most fascinating (if flawed) man. What I've found very revealing is the extent to which Fleming deliberately used product placement in the James Bond books, not that he was paid to do so from what I can make out (he did this more as a statement about Bond's lifestyle). This wasn't something I picked up on last time I read the Bond books, which wasn't so long ago; I have copies of several on my bookshelf, and a point of re-reading Casino Royale before going to see the movie. It does add some kind of context to the blatant use of product placement in that otherwise excellent film though - it's certainly worth bearing in mind that for as long as James Bond has existed, he has been used as a vehicle to promote certain brands.

Other news: I was back at the swimming pool today when I unexpectedly got the afternoon off work (the teacher I was covering for turned up during the lunch hour; his course had lasted for half a day rather than the day he'd been expecting) and took advantage from a health point of view. Yes, I'm sticking to that resolution! The exercise is being kept up (and as far as diet is concerned, crisps are definitely out). I did twenty lengths again, and once more I found myself sharing the changing-room with a school party. I didn't recognise the uniform, so it's obviously not a school I've taught at, but I did chuckle when two lads were given a detention by their teacher for wasting time when the should have been getting changed. Now there was a teacher who knows what's what.

2007-01-05T18:18:00.000Z

YOUNG ON CRICKET
(That's N.J. Young, b.1978, right-handed middle-to-late-order batsman, formerly of the University of Derby 2nd XI (one appearance) and Hendon Edgware CC; probable holder of the 'most ducks in a season' record for the latter, qualified for membership of the Primary Club on at least one occasion; loyal supporter of Middlesex CCC and England)

As I may have mentioned before, I'm a cricket fan. This is not exactly the best time to be an English cricket fan, although to be honest it's better than it used to be. Really, it is. Look at the ICC website if you don't believe me, and note that England are still the second best Test match side in the world (http://www.icc-cricket.com/test/).

But but weren't we utterly humiliated Down Under? Yes, but despite the spineless loss of the Ashes, this is not a 'bad' England side. Below-strength and inadequately prepared, but not a bad collection of players. There is of course room for improvement (there always is), but we shouldn't forget that we do have some quality players in our team. And, of course, let us not forget the very high quality of the opposition. We were thrashed, but remember that we were playing against the best team in the world. In a sense, it's a bit like the situation when England were 'blackwashed' twice by the West Indies in the mid-80s.

That's not to say that this series wasn't highly embarrassing - it bloody well was for us back here, it sure as hell must've been for any English supporters who made the journey Down Under and I hope it was for the players as well. But hopefully we can learn from this. There are four things in particular:

1) Better preparation at the start of the tour. England need at least three first-class games (preferably of four days rather than three) against quality opposition before the first Test. Whose idea was it to send the boys into Brisbane after just one three-day warm-up game? And what was that 14-a-side nonesense? Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Easy when you think about it.

2) Selection should be on current merit rather than favouritism or past achievements. Chris Read and Monty Panesar had both performed very well against Pakistan in the summer but were dropped to make way for Gereint Jones and Ashley Giles. Why? Don't give me the batting argument. Just select your best players based on how they are playing at the moment, please.

3) The only geniune all-rounder should never, ever be additionally burdened with the captaincy - something that should've been figured out years ago; it didn't work for Botham back then, and it hasn't worked for Flintoff here and now. Don't we learn anything?

4) Stop pandering to the players' needs - or rather, what they think they need. For example: Let's insist on 'no WAGs'. Until at least the third Test. They're a distraction. These guys are professionals for heaven's sake, they can live without their families while doing their job for their country surely?

And, after the ranting, here's a reason to be cheerful - with Warne and McGrath retiring, Australia will never be as good (or rather, as great) as they have been in 2006/07.

So where now for England? Forget the World Cup, we will beat Canada and Kenya but no-one else. It's the summer Test series against the Windies and India we should look forward to - two series that we should, by rights, win.

So … what to do with England. where do we start? How about the Captain? No question here - once Michael Vaughan is fit again, it should be him. Andrew Strauss as second choice. I said he should've been skipper this winter purely because it was preferable to over-burdening Freddie Flintoff. Not that I'm biased at all, Strauss being a Middlesex player...

Batting next. Given that Trescothick and Vaughan will return, those two more or less select themselves. If this is the case, Strauss has problems as he had a much poorer tour than Cook, who has the makings of a great opener. Bell and Pietersen are 'givens', although they've both got lots to learn - Bell should look at converting those fifties into hundreds, while KP needs to play more for the team than for himself, and start seeing himself as a cricketer rather than a celebrity. With those two at 3 and 4, that means one of the others mentioned above dropping down to 6. Meanwhile, I think that Robert Key and Owais Shah both merit another chance at Test level. So that's those two plus Collingwood fighting for the other batting place, ie. the number 5 spot; I back either Key or Shah.

And so to Freddie. Captain no longer but still a vital component of the England machine. Despite being the only man worth his place as both a batsman and a bowler, I think he should be moved down to 7, with another batsman in at 6. The downside is that this will weaken our bowling attack (should we play a specialist spinner - Panesar being the only viable option here - that would leave us with two pace men not inlcuding Freddie) but it's either that or a ridiculously long tale, and I think our batting line-up needs to be strengthened.

Pace men? Freddie aside, and assuming the above and therefore only two more places, it has to be Hoggard and Harmison; the latter was disappointing in Australia but now that he’s focussing on Test cricket only I think he’ll be more of an asset. Hoggy meanwhile was without doubt our best bowler out there. Simon Jones will, I fear, not be returning to Test cricket any time soon, if ever. Of the others, Plunkett deserves more of a chance than he's been given, although Mahmoud should get the nod if we need to play four quickies rather than three plus a spinner. Anderson? Well, should any of the above get injured…

Spinner - see above. Panesar without a doubt. Prefer to have Hoggy as nightwatchman if we're going to use one though.

Behind the stumps: Read ... for now. We would do well to blood young Davies (the Worcestershire 'keeper) at some stage over 2007 though.

My selection for the summer Tests (in batting order):
Plan A: Trescothick, Cook/Strauss, Bell, Pietersen, Key/Shah, Vaughan(c), Flintoff, Read(w), Hoggard, Panesar, Harmison
Plan B (ie. without Vaughan): Trescothick, Cook, Bell, Pietersen, Key/Shah, Strauss(c), Flintoff, Read(w), Hoggard, Panesar, Harmison

And not a Surrey man among them! Problem is, though, Tresco and Harmy may not be touring again. So perhaps I need to rethink.

But hey - bring on the Windies. I'm saying we'll retain the Wisden Trophy this summer. You heard it here first.

2007-01-03T14:31:00.000Z

P.S. - SWIMMING RESOLUTION

Not long got back from the pool. There was a school party there as it happens, even though I thought that most of them were going back tomorrow. I actually recognised the uniform as being from a secondary school where I've taught, but luckily the kids didn't recognise me. Anyway - my swimming. Twenty lengths, as per the plan. Six breast-stroke, five back-stroke, nine front-crawl. Phew! Yes, I did feel knackered at the end ... who said keeping fit was easy?

2007-01-03T12:23:00.000Z

NEW YEAR, NEW START ... ?

So, welcome to 2007. Like just about everyone else, I've come up with a few New Year's Resolutions, first of which (in terms of how this is being written rather than overall, you understand) is to not let this blog slide. One posting since August is a pretty poor outlook, and I'll try not to let that happen this year.

The next NYR is that old chestnut, getting fit. I do genuinely believe that I need to do something here; a quick check on the scales tells me that I'm more than a stone over what I should be, and my exercise regime, or rather the complete lack of an exercise regime of any sort, is clearly at fault here. So I'll be going swimming once I've finished this; the target is 20 lengths for today since I haven't done it for a while. And then, once I've got back into the pool, I'll be attempting to go swimming at least once a week. I might even get the bike out of the shed as well, as January progresses.

In terms of general health, 2007 might see me trying to cut down on my consumption of beer. Well, the thought's there. I think I'll need to watch out for the flying pigs on this one though.

Career? It's getting sorted. Shortly before Christmas I landed myself a two-days-a-week job as (glory be!) a History Teacher. It's technically until summer but I'm on probation until the end of January. Since this is the best chance I've got with a view to completing my NQT year, I will be endeavouring to make the most of it.

And what of the book? Well, I'm sorry to say that I've let that slide. I blame the may distractions of the Internet, but that is no way for an aspiring travel-author to behave. I must, must crack on with this. Most of the chapters have already been finished, a couple are mostly completed and three or four (including the introduction) are still unwritten. A big, BIG resolution for this year is to finish the book, give it a title (current favourite is Somewhere in Africa) and send it to a publisher...

As for my various sporting interests, well it is not fun being an England cricket fan right now (don't get me started on all the mistakes that have been made Down Under) and in the footballing world it's not great being a Watford fan either. I'm the joint owner of a season ticket and the only good thing I can say about it is that at least I saw their only League win to date. There's not much I can do here apart from continuing to offer my (relatively) unstinting support.

Oh ... and then there's my love life. Don't snigger, it does exist and in fact 2006 was more successful for me in this aspect than most previous years. There are some things I don't really like to talk (far less boast) about on this blog, and this is one of them - but last year was unusually good for me in this department. Things are at the moment looking up for 2007 by the way. I won't go into details now but I'll keep you posted as far as my modesty allows. Let's just say that Internet dating is involved.

The final thing to mention is my car - a trusty old G-reg Peugeot 205 that's done over 100,000 miles. I've had it for five years, and the MoT is due ... at the end of this week. I'm not exactly optimistic here, it's more a question of hoping that all goes OK. We shall see...

2006-10-18T21:35:00.000+01:00

So … the first posting since August. The trip to Eastern Europe took longer than expected – two weeks became six weeks because I didn’t really want to come home! Here is the full account of what happened since the last posting (from Vilnius!), based on two rather large e-mails sent to various family and friends, plus an ‘epilogue’ to describe what happened after the events thus described.
Am currently back in the more mundane world of supply-teaching, trying to pay off the travel-induced overdraft. Still working on the Africa book – more than half of the chapters have now been written. And wondering where to go travelling next, of course.

'HISTORY OVERDOSE?'
Well, my travels have now taken me to Poland. Already I'm way over the length of time I thought I'd go travelling for, but what the heck. There probably won't be much/upply-teaching offers for the first couple of weeks of term, so I might as well spend those weeks travelling around Eastern Europe for a while longer.
My only regret so far is that I didn't go to the KGB museum in Vilnius - and the only reason I didn't was that the day I went to it (which also happened to be my last day in Vilnius) the place was closed. All museums in Lithuania close on Mondays, it seems.
How do you get to Poland? Well, if you're me then you 'do' the overnight bus from Vilnius - the result of which is a case of severe sleep-deprivation as we stopped for what seemed like ages at the border (I can't seem to sleep on buses that aren't moving), and then we had to change coaches at Bialystok at 4 in the morning! Sadly on the new coach I was in a seat next to the brattish child who smelt of vomit - the mother had evidently fed it loads of sweets, perfect stuff for a long-distance bus ride. So the child was feeling poorly, and the mother had rather sensibly decided to sit across the aisle from it rather than next to it. This did not stop her from talking to it in Russian for several hours though.
Not a lot of people know that I've got a GCSE in Russian (grade 'c'). This does not mean that I can talk Russian though - I've not really done that since I was at school, and even then I was pretty bad. I've been using a few stock Russian phrases on this trip though - great if you're trying to communicate with Russians on the market stalls, bad news if you're talking to a Lithuanian!
Warsaw was memorable for the rain ... and the rain. I don't think it stopped while I was there. I did the usual touristy stuff like looking round the Old Town - which was rebuilt in the 70s after being completely flattened in WW2 - and went up the Palace of Culture and Science. This massive Stalinist-era archetectral monstrosity is the largest building in Warsaw (and therefore the largest in Poland), and was built by the Russians as a 'gesture of friendship' in the 50s. More like Stalin's way of letting the Poles know who was boss. Most Poles tend to hate it as a result of this, and who can blame them? They say that the view from the 30th-floor viewing platform is the best in Warsaw - because it's a view that (by definition) does not include the Palace of Culture and Science.
Their history seems to me to have been one long story of what it's like to be located in between two regional Great Powers - as I learned while sheltering from the rain in the Historical Museum in the Old Town. It was partitioned out of existence in the 18th century, and when it became a country again after WW1 it only lasted twenty years before Hitler and Stalin divided it between themselves. But the Poles maintained a sense of their own independence - which in 1944 resulted in the very bloody Warsaw Uprising. This was the Polish resistance's attempt to free themselves from Nazi rule before the Russians arrived - and for a few months they actaully held out, despite being hopelessly outgunned. While this was happening, the Red Army stopped on the banks of the Vistula river and refused to help the Poles - it suited Stalin's plans to have the more virulent patriotic Poles out of the picture, and here was an opportunity to have Hitler do that for him. In fact, that's why Warsaw got pulverised in WW2 - when the Nazis put down the uprising, Hitler ordered that the place be razed to the ground, and when the Red Army finally did arrive, Warsaw was just a pile of rubble. The Old Town may look 17th/18th century, but in reality it's a lot more recent than that.
If you think I'm being a bit of a know-it-all about the history of countries I'm passing through, that's because I am. I have on several occasions on this trip been labelled a 'history geek' due to the fact that I seem to know rather a lot - too much than is good for me perhaps. I explain that this is because I teach history (well, sort of - history teacher sounds better than supply teacher), and I make a point not to get too carried away when talking about it. Although WW2, an area that I consider to be a speciality of mine, is a very popular topic among backpackers. As is teaching - many backpackers are students who've got no idea about what they want to do when they graduate. I just try to tell them that teaching's not as easy as it sounds (and I should know). Lord help everyone else if two backpackers who are teachers get talking though. I should know that, too.
In the hostel, I learned that doing vodka-shots after a few too many beers is not a good idea, especially if you're trying to impress an American blonde you've only just met. Slurring your speech and almost passing out do not make for a good chat-up technique. I've never been able to stomach vodka in any case, but out here it's so unavoidable that it's almost obligatory - someone in the hostel has always got access to a bottle and a couple of shot-glasses.
From Warsaw to Krakow - the old capital of Poland that survived WW2 almost intact. The main poster-boy here is the late Pope John Paul II, who when he was called Karol Wotyla was the Bishop of Krakow. He's still very much revered here - Poles are almost 100% Catholic in any case, and Krakow seems to have more nuns than the rest of Poland put together. There's not that much JP2 souvenir tat though - it's a little more tasteful (so no fridge magnets ... or if there are, I can't find any...).
Krakow's got a very big castle on the hill, which is full of loads of 'castle' stuff like 17th century furniture and tapestries in the state appartments, loads of broadswords in the Armoury, etc. If I sound a little jaded with it all, maybe it's because that's the sort of thing you'd get in most tourist-trap castles. After a while, they all tend to look the same - but perhaps I've just been to too many castles, and am overdosing on history a bit. Right next door, the cathedral was, well, a very impressive cathedral, though I probably needed to know a bit more about Polish medieval kings to make going round the crypt worthwhile (and I said I was OD-ing, right...?). Appropriately, I ended up exploring the place with a fellow-historian, in this instance an Oxford undergraduate. We only got taking because we were both wearing university sweatshirts...
The Dragon's Den cave was pretty cool though - that's the cave that you leave by. Legend is that Krakow's founder, the fantastically-named Prince Krak, killed a dragon by the banks of the Vistula before founding a city there.
There's a salt mine near here that's on UNESCO's world heritage site list. The Wieliczka Salt Mine is a big tourist draw - underground chambers carved by hand from solid rock-salt, and with very few exceptions, everything down there has been carved out of the stuff you sprinkle on your chips. Some of the displays are fascinating, but after a while it's just a case of overkill; impressive though the achievement of carving vast caverns out of salt underground is, I felt that it had been overdone. Oh well - you can't have everything.
Being a history-obsessive does have its advantages, and I claim that the pub quiz is one of these. The hostel I've been staying at here in Krakow does such a thing on Thursdays, and my team won ... several free beer tokens. Actually, it was a joint effort among all of us, but when I said that they just said I was being modest. Not that any of us were complaining about not having to buy drinks for the rest of the evening, though.
Not far from Krakow - one and a half hours in the bus - is Oswiecim. It's a medium-sized Polish town that until WW2 was more or less unknown. These days it's one of those places where you have to go if you're in the area; it's perhaps better known by it's German name. Auschwitz.
I didn't actually want to go. The Holocaust is the one aspect of history that I know both depresses and upsets me, and as a rule it's an aspect of history that I do NOT particularly wish to discuss. As I said, I find this topic both distressing and upsetting, and perhaps as a result there was (so I said) a case for my not wanting to know too much about it. Everyone staying at the hostel either had been or was going to go, but it wasn't a place anyone really wanted to talk about. Some spoke of being upset, others spoke of feeling guilty for not being upset there. I said I wasn't going to go - but I went anyway, along with most of the tourist population of southern Poland; there were many posh tour-company coaches in the car park, and the guided tour did give a sense of 'we mustn't stay here for too long because there's another group behind us'. I learned a few new things (there are two separate camps, for example), and when looking at the ruins of the crematoria I did feel very overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the slaughter. Man's inhumanity to man is well-documented throughout the ages, but this was just taking things to terrifying levels. Unlike some, though, this was most definitely not a place where I wanted to linger. I know that I sometimes approach certain things with a goulish fascination, but here I just felt revolted and sickened by what had happened, and I wanted to leave.
And now, a change of topic and some good news. Viktor Yushenko, the president of the Ukraine who the Russians tried to poison, is a pro-Western leader, and as a result he's recently abolished his country's hitherto-archaic visa regulations. If you're a Brit, an Aussie, a Kiwi, a Canuck or a Yank, or from anywhere in the EU for that matter, you no longer require a visa to enter the Republic of Ukraine. I've booked my train ticket for Lviv, and I leave tonight. My new travelling target is Odesa, by the Black Sea.
I'll keep you posted about how I get on. And I'll stop boring for Britain about history in the process.

'UKRAINE: MY KIND OF COUNTRY'
Picture the following situation: It's 5 o'clock in the morning, and not only is it dark but it's raining ... heavily. You have just got off a train in which you have spent most of the night trying to sleep. Not only have you just arrived in a new town, but it's your first town in a new country - a country where you are not only unable to speak the language but are unfamiliar with the alphabet that that particular country uses as well. No-one else appears to speak English. You're not really sure whereabouts the station is in relation to the rest of the town. To cap it all, you have no money in the currency of this new country.
Welcome, folks, to my first few hours in Ukraine. I'm well aware that the above situation isn't everyone's cup of coffee, but I like this sort of thing - it's one of the reasons why I like travelling. New places, and all that. It wasn't too bad either. I found a waiting-room full of folks who obviously couldn't get a bed elsewhere, and managed to grab a chair for a couple of hour's sleep ... until the cleaners came along and kicked us all out. You don't want to mess with Ukrainian railway-station cleaners. Then I got my arse in gear, found a forex window where I could off-load my remaining Polish zloty and change them into Ukrainian hryvny, off-loaded my backpack at left-luggage, washed (even in this situation I prefer old-fashioned soap-and-water rather than the so-called 'Australian shower', which involves spraying deoderant on all vaguely smelly parts of your body while remaining fully-clothed), breakfasted (tea, and some deep-fried doughy thing that's actually quite nice even though I still don't know the name of it), sorted out my ticket to the next destination (Odesa, that very evening) and set out to explore the town I happened to be in. It's called Lviv (aka Lvov), and is noted for its very large number of churches.
The Ukrainians, by the way, were the first people to stamp my passport on this trip. Such are the 'benefits' of EU expansion! I quite envy the Aussies for all the stamps they're getting on their European trips - but I don't envy them their visa fees. They DO need visas for Ukraine by the way.
When I say I can't understand the Cyrillic alphabet, by the way, what I mean is that I just haven't studied it at all since I did my GCSEs - and it's amazing how much of it I can still understand (well, it took a few days to get used to...); pity I cannot say the same for the Russian language (and yes, I know that the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, but it is very similar to Russian).
One of the things I do like about Ukraine is the pivo - that's beer for those of you who haven't had the privelige of travelling in Slavic countries. Unlike Poland, it's perfectly acceptable to swig from a can or bottle in the street, and most Ukrainians will happily take advantage of this. Most street vendors will happily sell cheap cans as a result. Slavutin and Chernigivsky are the brands of choice, and on average it's 3-4 hryvny a can. Now that's my kind of country! The exchange rate is 9:50 hr to the pound, by the way. In the bars it's usually 5-10 hryvny for half-a-litre of pivo. Definitely my kind of country!
Anyway - Odesa. Black Sea port, famous for being the location of the pretty damned impressive Potemkin Steps - one massive staircase that leads from the town down to the port. The steps are famous for appearing in the Eisenstein film 'Battleship Potemkin', and that's why they're so named. I was rather disappointed, as I'd assumed that they'd been named after Grigory Potemkin, the C18 Russian statesman/general who conquered most of what's now Ukraine in the name of Catherine the Great (he was also her favourite lover, by the way). The battleship was named after him, though (the film is based - loosely, some say - on events in the 1905 Revolution, when the crew of the battleship 'Potemkin' mutinied over their rancid rations and sailed to Odesa to support the people there who were protesting against the Tasrist authorities. I liked those stairs - there's a clever optical trick whereby you can only see the series of landings from above, but you can only see the steps from below. Plus, they're twice as wide at the bottom as they are at the top, but unless you've got a tape-measure handy there's no way you can tell this. The steps also had lots of vendors selling old Soviet-era tat; I couldn't resist buying a medal and a couple of badges (that's the sort of stuff I like buying! Lord knows what I'll do with it though).
Odesa's also got a few beaches - I went to one of them, Lanzeron, and can now claim to have swum in the Black Sea. Turns out I didn't go to the decent beach that the boss at the hostel was raving about, but what the heck. It was a beach - albeit one that looked as though it had seen better days (specifically, back in the day when Odesa was a top holiday destination for the many peopes of the Soviet Union; I even met some Latvian girls at the hostel who could remember being taken there on holiday in the 80s). The hostel, by the way, is Aussie-run. A party place, in other words. There's nothing wrong with that when you're on holiday.
From Odesa, it was another overnight train to the Crimea. This time, I went by 'platskartny' class, which is the really cheap one where there are no enclosed compartments. Bad if you like privacy, great if you like to see how the locals get around. It was quite an experience!
My first stop in 'Krim', as the locals call it, was Yalta - kind of like a former-Soviet version of Torquay, only much hotter. They've still got their statue of Lenin, and these days he overlooks the local McDonald's - a nice ironic comment on how the Cold War turned out that's enough to make a man turn in his mausoleum. As well as cheap beer on the sea-front (and cigarettes, sold individually by the babushkas - not that I'd know if they're cheap or not because I don't smoke these days), there are also plenty of photographers with various exotic animals (should you wish to have your pitcure taken with said animal) plus plenty of photographers offering punters the chance to dress up in various period costume. Russian and Ukrainian holiday-makers seem to like that.
I was only really in Yalta to see one thing - well, apart from all the women (Ukrainian women, the younger ones that is, are generally stunning, by the way). I wanted to see the Livadia Palace, where the 1945 conference took place (yup, you can't keep me away from history for long!). I managed to get into a tour group, but the guided tour was in Russian - still, I saw the room where most of the discussions took place, the room where Roosevelt had his one-to-one chats with Stalin (did Churchill know about this?), the room used as FDR's bedroom (ground floor, what with him being in a wheelchair and all), plus a few photos on the wall that you won't find in your avergae textbook - Churchill puffing away at his cigar while joking with FDR (quite possibly about the ridiculous sovenir fur hat he's wearing), while Stalin leans over as if trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. The Brtitish and American aides in the background keep their distance from their Russian counterparts - or is it vice-versa? Upstairs, by the way, are a few rooms devoted to Tsar Nicholas II, the man who had the palace built as his Crimean home-from-home. Well, Yalta was a top Russian holiday-destination even then. Loads of pictures of him and his family, always a sense of impemding doom when one looks at these with the benefit of knowing what happened to them. Rasputin, by the way, is only conspicuous by his absense.
I also went to the Swallow's Nest - that famous cliff-top castle (or rather, early C20 folly) a few miles further along from Livadia. You must've seen pictures of it. All I can say is that it is rather small - smaller than you'd think. And you're not allowed inside as it's a posh restaurant these days, although you can walk around the balcony, admire the stunning sea-view and peep in at any diners who might be inside!
Balaklava next - officially it's a suburb of Sevastopol but in actual fact it's a separate town. I went there by matrushka (minibus-taxi; very popular although not as cramped as you average African matatu; not as poorly-maintained either). Not only was the HI youth hostel in Balaklava the cheapest place to stay in the Crimea, but I also wanted to go to the place anyway for several reasons. It's where a famous battle took place, it's home to a former top-secret Soviet submarine base, and there's a PADI-accredited dive-centre there. I'd be mad not to want to go there! First - the battle. We're talking the Crimean War here - the battle of Balaclava (as the historians usually spell it) was all part of the British Army's attempt to attack the Russian naval base at Sevastopol (of which more later), and is best-known today for that combination of military bungling, misunderstood orders and suicidal bravery that was the Charge of the Light Brigade. I may not have been too sure of the precise location of the 'Valley of Death', but my tourist map (exclusively in Russian) did show me vaguely where the British battlefield memorial was. I emphasise the word 'vaguely'! It's about a mile or so out of town, and against my more reasonable expectations I actually managed to find it ... in the middle of a vineyard, which in turn isn't in anything approximating a valley - perhaps the lanscape has changed since 1854. Turns out that two years ago, Prince Philip visited that very spot to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the battle; I don't recall hearing about that in the news so I assume that Phil the Greek didn't say anything to offend the locals on that occasion. So I can now claim another battlefield visited! Shame I couldn't find anyone selling any wine there...
Then to the top-secret submarine base - now a museum. During the Cold War, Balaklava was never mentioned on any maps (and I know because I've seen a map of the area dating from 1986, the place just isn't there), reason being that it was 'home' to the Black Sea Fleet's submarine base. It stayed secret until 1993 - and the only reason the base isn't used any more is because: a) the Black Sea Fleet has declined in terms of strategic importance to the Russians, and b) after they built the base, they started building new, more powerful subs that were too big for the base... The tour was in Russian (!!) but luckily they provided an explanation-leaflet in English, and some of the exhibits were fairly self-explanatory (even I know what a torpedo looks like, for example).
And the diving! Four dives in two days, that's 14 dives in total in my log-book, and I can now claim to have dived in 4 different countries. One of the divemasters, Ivan, had a trident-gun that looked like something out of 'Thunderball' with which he went fish-hunting; Viktor the cook prepared what he'd caught for lunch. Visibility was superb, although it was very cold at the bottom - in contrast to the glorious weather at the surface! The dives generally went very well, and it was very tempting to stay for a few more days and get some more dives in - but then it's been tempting to stay on for longer at most of the places I've been to. Heck, I could still be in Riga...
And now - I'm in Kiev. I've been exploring the city, visited the famous caves monastery where all the 11th century monks are buried. This was the first monastery in what was then Kievan Rus, the monks lived and worshipped in caves and when they died they were buired there - and the fact that being in caves preserved the bodies remarkably well convinced the locasl that they were indeed holy men! It's still a major site for Orthodox Christians (which is what well over 90% of Ukrainians are, even though there are several sects, one of which even acknowedges the Pope as its leader rather than the Kiev or Moscow Patriarchs), in fact most of the people there weren't tourists at all, just locals who took the whole thing very seriously. I even felt a bit out of place as the only person who wasn't carrying a candle and crossing himself repeatedly.
Then there was the Great Patriotic War (WW2) Museum - which is topped by the frankly massive 'Rodina Mat' statue which domiates the skyline here. An exhaustive amount of exhibits relating to the Eastern Front (all labelled in Russian, of course!), loads of military hardware outside (tanks, a Mig-21 jet, more tanks, etc), plus a separate museum devoted to 'foreign wars', with particular emphasis on the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. I didn't expect to find a museum about that, I can tell you
The footie fans among you will of course know that Kiev's most famous footb all team is Dynamo Kiev - although some of you might be interested to know that one of the other Kiev teams is called Arsenal! Anyway, Dynamo are playing at home tonight, and this tourist has got himself a ticket. Let me emphasise this - in Kiev, a ticket for a home Premier League game involving the country's most famous team can be bought on the day by just about anyone who's interested for as little as 5 hryvny (10 if you include the programme). Like I may have said earlier, this is my kind of country.
There are a few downsides to Kiev though - there's a big litter problem for starters. The Metro is clean and cheap though - a plastic token for one ride is yours for 50 kopecks, and the Metro really is the quickest way to get around. OK, so they don't have any signs saying the names of the stations, but you'd be surprised how quicky you can get used to that.
There are also plenty of tacky souvenir stalls around here as well - loads of matrioska stacking-dolls, not that I'm too bothered about that as there's nothing here that's as good as the 'Russian leaders' one I bought in Moscow years ago, they've really gone downmarket noe (who on Earth wants a Tony Blair one, I ask you!). On the plus-side, there's loads more Soviet-era medals and badges! Actually, this is getting a bit silly now, I need someone to stop me before I pay a shed-load of hryvny for a gunmetal Lenin bust, KGB wristwatch or one of the more expensive campaign medals (and there's Nazi as well as Soviet stuff on sale here, you know, a man like me could blow his overdraft out of the water on totalitarian kitsch if he really wanted to)...
Budapest next. Another country! Then Slovakia. Then Prague. Then - quite possibly - home. I'll have to see how it turns out though - I've not exactly been sticking to any plans so far this trip. But first, I need to go to the Dynamo Stadium to watch a football match.

EPILOGUE: 'KIEV TO EDGWARE'
1) The final score from Sunday night at the Dymano Stadium: Dynamo Kiev 1, Illichevits (from Mariupol, somewhere by the Sea of Azov) 0. A generally unremarkable game, very little evidence of fouls or play-acting as you'd get in the Premiership though. Attendance: c. 10,000 - in a ground that's got a similar capacity to Vic Road (all uncovered seating mind you).
2) Also in Kiev - a big open-air pop concert in Independence Square, very well attended by loads of partying Ukrainians. It featured most of the countries biggest pop stars, plus a few Russians. Mostly - no, entirely - euro-pop, which is v. big there because Kiev hosted last year's Euro-Vision. That is the sort of thing that Ukrainians love because it means that everyone else is taking note of their country for once. A bit like the Orange Revolution and getting into the quarter-finals of the World Cup, then.
3) Train from Kiev to Uzgorod: 18 hours (kupeny class, 75 hryvny), then half-an-hour on a local train to the border town of Chop. It's a forgettable little place but it is the only way of getting into Hungary by rail - a 5-hour wait for the train, then 4 hours on a surprisingly modern express to Budapest.
4) Budapest: Went to 3 hostels before finding one with a bed. Spent a couple of days there - went to one of the many spas in town, where I got to spend some time in heated outdoor pools, saunas, v. cold plunge pools, etc. Also went to the 'House of Terror' (old secret police HQ) and Buda Castle - the city is actually 2 cities, Buda (west of the Danube) and Pest. My hostel, like most places to stay, was in Pest. Cheap boozers, and yes they still remember a certain football match played at Wembley in 1953. Hungary beat England, I think. 6-3, they say. They've not had much to cheer about since.
5) Anti-govt protests outside the Parliament: I was there! Loads of nationalist kitsch on display (and for sale), they all wanted the PM to resign after he'd admitted to lying in order to get himself re-elected. He didn't, as far as I know. I hung around for a while, then went off to the pub.
6) River trip! Took the hydrofoil on the Danube to Bratislava. Big lock gates on the river. Three times as much as a train ticket, but what the heck - now I can say that I have travelled on the Danube.
7) Bratislava - a bit boring! Castle was nothing like the one at Buda. Or the one in Krakow. Or Vilnius, etc. Spent Saturday afternoon getting pissed in a pub with a random Sunderland supporter, watching Premiership football.
8) Train to Prague. The Ukrainians are still the only people to have stamped my passport (apart from a Polish border guard who, from his superior's reaction, shouldn't have stamped it in the first place). Made the mistake of going in the smoking compartment.
9) Prague - fantastic! Did the full walking tour, went up to the castle, sampled the beer, etc. The 2002 flood is now the stuff of legend, most buildings by the river have a 'high-water mark' painted on them. 2002 is higher than any of the other floods that have hit Prague over the years - and it got much higher after we left. Great hostel too - the 'Clown and Bard'. A 36-bed dorm, right at the top of the building. Great atmosphere.
10) Day trip to Plzen (Pilsen) to check out the Pilsner-Urquell Brewery. That's where they invented lager in 1842. The tour was nothing special but it made for an interesting excursion.
11) Back in Prague, hanging out with a load of drunken Scotsmen in the Old Town Square. The reason? Heart of Midlothain were playing Sparta Prague in the UEFA Cup, and they'd taken over the place to have a party. Minimal police presence - not like when Spurs had been in town the previous week. The only police action involved confiscating a football and arresting a girl in a tartan mini-skirt who got into an argument over the bill in a cafe. I only knew about this because her dad was busy telling me all about the history of Hearts when one of his mates came over to tell him that his daughter was in trouble with the cops! One of the jocks offered me a free ticket (his mate was still comatose from going out on the town the night before - this at 7pm), I'd've taken it had I not already booked my train ticket out of Prague for 9pm that evening.
12) In the space of 26 hours: Overnight train from Prague to Frankfurt, express from Frankfurt to Paris, short walk from Gare d'Est to Gare du Nord (they're right next to each other, so no need to mess around with le Metro) TGV up to Lille, local train to Calais, wandering round Calais trying to find the ferry terminal, ferry to Dover, train to Charing Cross, Tube to Edgware. Home! After a two-week holiday that somehow turned into a six-week jaunt across Eastern Europe…

2006-08-29T10:28:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm back in the world of backpacker hostels - I arrived in Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania) a few days ago, after spending some time in in Riga. Actually, I started in Estonia, with my self-imposed boycott of flying resulting in a three-day journey from Edgware! It cost me loads more than a cheap flight to Tallinn would've done, but what the heck. This journey was by way of Denmark and Sweden, and over the course of it I found a place where the beer is even more expensive than in London. It's called Stockholm - though fellow-travellers assure me that Oslo is (gulp) even more expensive; advice which has not encouraged me to go to Norway any time soon.

So ... Estonia. Tallinn old town is picture-postcard gorgeous, and very lively at night. My hostel of choice was right next to the bars and located one floor beneath a strip-club, so it was a case of sleep-deprivation on a level the KGB could have merely dreamt of (if you'll pardon the pun). Plenty of drunken Brits on stag-dos, but otherwise a freindly emough crowd, even if the place has become very touristy. Still, I did get to see all the sights, and saw things in the 'Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments' that made me wince - to think that a human mind actually came up with the idea for some of that stuff nearly beggars belief. And the president's house out in Kadriorg Park has the least-enthusiastic changing-of-the-guard you'll ever see (the effect not being helped by an off-duty soldier turning up at the side entrance with a takeaway).

From Tallinn, I went to Latvia via Parnu - a seaside town that was to all intents and purposes 'dead'. Nice beach, no atmosphere - and not many people either. I was the only person staying in my hostel of choice - a strange way to 'celebrate' Estonia's Independence Day (the 1991 declaration as opposed to 1918 - all three Baltic republics have two), but there you go.

In Riga, I got to fire an AK-47 in an old Cold War bunker out in the suburbs, visited loads of castles out of town and got the chance to go partying every night. The hostel was run by an Aussie, which tells you all you need to know; every night he organised trips to a local nightclub that wasn't of the type haunted by Brits on stag-dos. That's a recent phenomenon out in the Baltic states, and it's happened because Easyjet now does cheap flights to Riga.

The hostel in question is generally popular but some backpackers avoid it like the plague because it's well known as the 'partying' hostel, and not everyone wants to go out and stagger back into the dorm at 5 in the morning. The AK thing was organised by the hostel, and most of the blokes staying there went and had a go at once stage or another. We had to get a tram out into the suburbs, and then go through someone's back garden to get to the gun club, which is based in a concrete bunker that looked as though it could've withstanded the worst-case scenario of the Cold War (if the Americans had ever wanted to nuke Latvia, that is). The instructor was a drunken Russian who's idea of a 'safety talk' was to merely give us ear-defenders and pin up the targets (a man with a gun vaguely resembling James Bond) before handing over a gun. I got to fire three types - a pistol, the AK and finally a pump-action shotgun. Surprisingly, I wasn't the worst shot - that honour went to a Korean backpacker who was the only one of us with any significant previous experience of using firearms, on the grounds that he'd done his national service.

Some guidelines for staying in hostels in this part of the world...

1) If you decide to decorate your backpack with sew-on badge flags of the counties you've visited, you'll find that the loudmouth Aussie in your dorm has managed to buy a larger flag badge, and paid less for it than you did.

2) Every dorm will ALWAYS contain at least one loudmouth Aussie, who'll try (and usually manage) to persuade everyoen to go out of an evening - after he's slagged off New Zealanders in general, and told any Englishmen present that we've got no chance of retaining the Ashes.

3) Drunkenly arguing about cricket with Australians is a bad idea. In an alcohol-induced wave of national pride, I disputed said drunken Aussie's claim that Australia has produced the world's greatest-ever batsman - which resulted in my claiming that Geoff Boycott was better than Don Bradman. Still, at least I didn't mention the Bodyline series (I think).

4) No-one knows the name of the fit Latvian blonde on reception who all the blokes fancy.

5) Australian jokes about Kiwis are the same as English jokes about the Welsh - yup, I mean all the ones involving sheep. Just change the nationality.

6) Australians who voted to keep the monarchy do not really exist. Or if they do, you'll never meet them - or they'll never admit that they voted that way in front of a Brit.

7) Ditto Americans who voted for George W. Bush. But at least that can be explained by the fact that over 50% of Americans don't have a passport, so any Yanks ('Seppos', as they Aussies call them) who you do meet are in a minority back home anyway.

8) You really don't want to know any of the stories about what happens in the hostels in Amsterdam. Cameras and unconscious/sleeping female backpackers are involved.

9) Don't believe what Lonely Planet says about hostels. They said that the one I'm at here in Vilnius is a 'party' hostel but it's really dead quiet; just as well after Riga I suppose!

10) If you forget the name of the attractive Aussie girl you got off with last night, avoiding her while trying to find out her name (ie. by asking everyone else) is guaranteed to make her think you're an emotionally retarded Pommie bastard.

11) Not that it really matters, as she's leaving for Tallinn tomorrow anyway - shortly after you'll have headed off in the opposite direction for Vilnius.

12) It's actually very difficult to find a souvenir shop devoted to tat like fridge magnets; most of them sell posh amber jewellery, which most backpackers could never afford as it would mean spending two or three night's worth of beer money in one go. Old Soviet memerobilia (medals, KGB cap-badges, Red Army hats, etc) is limited to open-air stalls run by ever-surly Russians.

13) Everyone will have seen something more interesting in a museum than you. Mummified severed hands from the middle ages in Riga's Museum of History and Navigation are easily beaten by the stories that bloke in the York City shirt is telling everyone about the exhibit in a St Petersburg museum (the name of which he can't remember) that is said to be Rasputin's penis.

14) People who go to bed early expect to get woken up at five in the morning, but they can get their own back by waking the piss-artists by getting up before midday. Anyone who's really put out by the piss-artists also has the right to move to another hostel - it's not as though such places are in short supply in these parts.

Vilnius is by far the more 'eccentric' of the Baltic capitals - it's the only place in the world with a memorial to Frank Zappa ('done' by the man who used to make ther Lenin statues) and the breakaway indendent Republic of Uzupio - a suburb full of drunks and drop-outs that declared independence in the 90s. There's not really much to see there, but the Angel of Uzupio statue is impressive, and just about every wedding party in Vilnius goes there to get their photo taken. Eleswhere in town, there's also a shrine to the Virgin Mary that's said to perform miracles - and it's based in an arch over one of the main streets into town, so whenever I go past it I always encounter loads of pilgrims staring up at it. Sometimes there's a full-blown service going on, with all of the congregation in the street.

Yesterday I went out to what must surely qualify as the tackiest of all tourist destinations - and if (like me) you're a mug for totalitarian regime-related kitsch, you'd want to go to. I refer to the Soviet theme park 2 hours south of Vilnius, which contains all of the old statues that the Lithuanians got rid of in 1991 - along with all manner of weird scoialist-realist art and state portraits of Stalin, Brezhnev, etc. Lithuanians in general don't really like to talk about that sort of thing, but the theme park is very popular - after all, where else can you get a picture taken of yourself next to a 60-ft statue of Lenin these days?! The place's attention to detail was worryingly superb - right down to the surly security guards, the waitresses in Pioneer uniforms and the bleak Soviet-style menu - and the watch-towers with loudspeakers playing Red Army marching tunes. And as for the tat in the souvenir-shop - well, I still don't know why I didn't buy that Lenin shot-glass...

Oh well - Poland next. I'm going to try to find out what the visa situation is regarding the Ukraine while in Warsaw. What's that you say? Start of term? Who cares - I'm travelling again, and loving it!

2006-08-13T17:37:00.000+01:00

‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘this is for one person, without a car?’
‘That’s right,’ said Sally, ‘and £236 is the cheapest cabin there is available.’
‘It doesn’t have to be a cabin. Couldn’t I just kip in the bar area, or something?’ At least I wasn’t daft enough to suggest that old favourite, ‘deck class’. That may be de rigueur when you’re island-hopping in the Aegean at this time of year, but it wouldn’t do for the North Sea. In fact, it’s probably unheard-of on North Sea ferries, and with good reason.
‘No, it’s cabins only. Sorry.’
‘But £236? Are you sure there’s nothing cheaper?’
‘No, that’s the cheapest we can offer if you want to go on the fifteenth. There’s been a lot of demand, you know, because of all the problems at the airports. Actually, it’s cheaper the earlier you book it. In fact, you get ten pounds off if you book online. I could give you the web address…’

I already knew the ferry company’s web address. It was from there that I’d got the phone number that had connected me to Sally, a call-centre employee who (poor thing!) has to work on a Sunday in August. At least she sounded more English than Indian - a call-centre closer to Basingstoke than Bombay. But I’d wanted to speak to a human being to verify the price issue. £236 sounded very, very steep for a one-way ticket without any vehicles. Even on an overnight ferry to Denmark in the holiday season. Having verified that it was the cheapest, I thanked Sally and turned once again to the computer. Three minutes later, my bank balance (still in unusually good health) had taken the required pummelling, and as a result I’m on my way to Denmark on Tuesday.

Denmark is not my final destination. The plan (such as it is) is to visit the Baltic Republics, and I’ve long harboured the notion of getting there via a combination of ferry and train rather than flying. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer my travelling that way. Even though I’ve already (in all probability) paid more than I would have for a simple flight to somewhere like Tallinn – provided you can fly anywhere from England at the moment without experiencing hideous delays and/or cancellations. Although, as books are apparently not allowed as hand luggage any more, it would doubtless be a very boring flight were it to actually take off.

I had hoped to go out on Monday, but the Harwich ferry only leaves on odd-numbered days, contrary to what I read in my copy of the Thomas Cook European Timetable. To be fair, though, it’s a four year-old copy of said book from the summer when my brother and I went Inter-Railing.

I usually belong to the turn-up-on-the-day school of traveller, but in this day and age we happy-go-lucky types do tend to suffer, especially (so it would seem) when travelling in Europe. Thanks to the Internet, you can book you train or ferry tickets weeks or months online, and even get money off for doing so – as Sally had informed me. The likes of me tend to suffer as a result, so I’d thought it would be best to play on the safe side for part of the journey, and at least book myself onto the Harwich-to-Esbjerg ferry rather than turn up with my passport, bank card and backpack only to be told that the thing was fully booked. The rest, I blithely assume, can take care of itself. Train to Harwich, train from Esbjerg to Copenhagen, train to Stockholm, ferry across the Baltic to Tallinn. Shouldn’t be too tricky – I reckon on three days.

Yup, the travelling game is afoot once again. I’d’ve gone earlier – ideally, I’d’ve liked to have been somewhere in either Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania around about now, but circumstance found me in Devon last week (I got back yesterday). A few days of exploring Totnes and Dartmouth, and even some scuba-diving off Babbacombe Beach. The latter was my first diving experience since South Africa, and I enjoyed most of it. Those dry-suits can be tricky things, though. In Totnes, I took a look round the castle, and I defy anyone to find a more ‘classic’ example of a motte-and-bailey fortification. I may well expand on this at a later date. There was also the issue of cheap books to be had at the market-stalls – which is another fascination of mine which I will no doubt be alluding to in the future at some point.

On the way back, I experienced the unmitigated nightmare that is Bridgwater Services on the M5 – over a fiver for a cup of tea and a tuna sandwich, to be consumed amid swarms of families with small children. Avoid if possible, folks – next time I go to Devon, it’s the A303 and a Little Chef stop for me (which I would’ve done anyway, had it not been for the delays I suffered on that road on my way down; not that the M5 was much better).

Anyway, today is a general laundry day, and tomorrow will see me doing some final planning for my next trip. I might even consider booking myself into a Tallinn hostel in advance – just to play it safe. Or maybe not. Such a thing is of course dependant on when I’ll actually arrive in Tallinn, and I’m not taking an arrival time for granted just yet. I reckon on Friday morning, though.

2006-08-03T09:53:00.000+01:00

Two weeks into the summer holidays, and writing aside (I finished the chapter on Mount Kenya yesterday!) there has not, alas, been much happening. I'm off to Devon for a few days next week, and after that it'll be my eagerly-anticipated Baltic odyssey - but until then I'm concentrating on the book.

Not that that has been my sole concern. The pub quiz team of which I happen to be a member has been doing very well of late, despite the absense of a couple of the guys who are on holiday. But we still won on Monday, much to the annoyance of the barman who does the quiz. He doesn't like us much because we don't buy many drinks - but then, the reason for that is that we invariably win the 'spot prize' part of the quiz (first person to get to the bar and say the correct answer wins), and the prize is always free booze. Why buy the stuff when we can win it?

On the reading front, I've recently finished a rare beast indeed - a well-written and entertaining sports autobiography. I usually avoid these on the grounds that such books tend to be ghost-written pap that doesn't reveal very much, but I am pleased to say that 'Flat Out, Flat Broke' by Perry McCarthy is different from the others. It helps, I suppose, that Perry McCarthy did not reach the heights he should've done in his sport (motor racing), owing to a combination of bad luck and an inability to raise sufficient funds despite busting a gut (and selling his house) to do so. Formula One from the perspective of a 'nearly man' rather than a champion - definitely worth reading.

It's also worth noting that Perry was the original Stig on 'Top Gear' (the black-clad one). That wonderful series sadly ended on Sunday. It's one of my favourite programmes, and I love the mad challenges even though they do look a bit set-up at times. The 'van challenge'in the last programme of the series was a classic though - not that it's quiteup there with the caravan holiday and the winter olympics. Jeremy Clarkson, by the way, is my celebrity claim to fame. I once urinated next to him in the hospitalty area toilets at the British Grand Prix.

I had a crack at motor racing myself last week - karting to be precise. A mate of mine asked if I fancied going racing for the day at Buckmore Park in Kent; turns out his dad's work was having a racing day out and they needed a couple of 'extras' to make up the teams. I ended up taking part in a three-hour endurance race, during which I drove for roughly an hour. I didn't set the world alight - I spun off several times and ended up incurring a time penalty for driving like a maniac and trying to ram the other karts! My team-mates didn't seem to find though - it was all part of the fun really. This attitude towards the race is reflected by our position - 13th out of 15 teams.

As befits the out-of-work teacher, I've also been watching various videos and DVDs. While visiting my brother last week, we got through most of the 'Star Wars' trilogy and most of series one of the fantastic 'American Dad' (that's the one with the talking goldfish and the alcoholic alien. I recommend that you watch it). Back home, it's been the classics - 'Ice Cold in Alex' (my all-time favourite movie) and 'Went the Day Well'. Yesterday I treated myself to the series one DVD of 'Black Books' and sat through the lot. I'd only seen a couple of the episodes before, and it was absolutely hilarious. The only downside is that after watching the out-takes as well, I've now got Bill Bailey's guitar solo 'Who will buy my books today' playing on a continuous loop in my head.

Speaking of books, I really ought to get back to writing mine.

2006-07-30T22:14:00.000+01:00

There are, of course, many places in London where something famous, infamous, important or even vaguely well-known once happened. And, London being the ever-developing place that it is, many such places are now unrecognisable from the way they had been when that event happened. All those blue plaques, for example, that tell the casual viewer-in-the-street that so-and-so once lived in this house, or that the first such-and-such was performed in a building that used to occupy that site. Such a site no doubt looks nothing like what it did when that event took place, but it’s still deemed important enough to record that This Is Where It Happened. Yet although the place looks nothing like it did back when That Event took place, one thing at least has stayed the same – the name of the place, or at least the street it’s on. For example: Pudding Lane today may be unrecognisable from Pudding Lane when the Great Fire started there, but it’s still called Pudding Lane. And the companies that operate all those walking tours are only doing so because people quite obviously want to be shown those places where Something Once Happened, however much the venue may have changed.

Yet there are a few places where even the name has changed – and this piece is about one such place. Today, it’s a very busy road junction, the place where the Edgware Road meets Oxford Street as it morphs into Bayswater Road, with Park Lane coming up from the south. Nowadays, it’s called Marble Arch, on account of a gateway in the middle of the junction that was originally intended for Buckingham Palace. If you doubt the arch’s royal connections, one of the information-signs will tell you that, technically, only members of the Royal Family are allowed to pass under it. Not that there’s anything there to stop you or me doing just that – although if you really want to give it a go I’d recommend using the subway to get to it rather than trying to cross the road. It’s very busy, you see.

Looking at it today, it’s hard to believe that from the Middle Ages until the late eighteenth century, this was one of the most famous – or rather, infamous, places in all of London. It’s older than that, of course – a road junction on this site goes back to Roman times. What’s now Oxford Street, Bayswater Road and whatever else it’s called in the various places along its length was originally a Roman road connecting Camulodunum (Colchester) with the West Country, while the road going off it heading north was none other than Watling Street, which went to Verulamium (St Albans) and then on towards Wales.

An important road junction, then. But that, of course, is not why it was so … well, significant. What made the place so notorious that during the Medieval period it became the venue of choice for public executions in London. The place was named after a small river which ran close to the junction. They called it Tyburn.

Tyburn wasn’t the only place of execution in London, although its location does reflect the tradition of gallows being located at a junction or crossroads. The site of Camden Town Tube Station was once another venue for the gallows, while Pepys refers to witnessing a hanging, drawing and quartering at Charing Cross. Tower Hill was also a famous execution site (more beheading than hanging), as was Execution Dock in Wapping (the latter being reserved for those condemned to death for crimes committed at sea). Yet it’s safe to say that Tyburn was the most notorious.

They called it the ‘Triple Tree’, on account of the gallows itself being triangular in shape – as you can see if you take a look at Hogarth’s depictions. The condemned would stand in a cart, which would be driven beneath the gallows itself, where they would have the noose placed around their necks. Then, the horse would be prompted to pull the cart away, leaving the condemned hanging from the gallows, slowly dying. The concept of a ‘long drop’, involving as it did instant death, only came much later.

But that is just part of the story. A Tyburn execution typically involved a procession from Newgate Prison in the City, where the condemned had usually been held prior to the day of their execution (invariably a Monday). They went to Tyburn in an open cart – this procession being as much a part of the public ritual as the execution itself. And that’s the point – this was very much a public event. Such occasions were incredibly popular – public executions always drew a big crowd, a few of them no doubt drunk. Street-traders would try and hawk their wares among the crowd, and doubtless pick-pockets tried their luck as well, especially among the more well-off spectators. For this was not merely a day out for the lower classes. James Boswell is quoted with reference to Tyburn as having a ‘horrid eagerness to be there’. Taking a more intellectual view of the proceedings and what they signified, Doctor Johnson remarked that: ‘Executions are intended to draw spectators. If they don’t draw spectators, they don’t answer their purpose’. That was the point of executing criminals in public – punishment as public deterrent, although in Tyburn’s case it does seem more like punishment as public spectacle, entertainment even.

All those involved, whether as spectators or participants, were doubtless aware of that. These, remember, were highly popular events – perhaps more popular than anything else on show in London at the time. Tyburn executions were deemed worthy of being recorded by Hogarth. The executioners were famous in their day (one of them, Richard Jaquet, alias Jack Ketch, survived in legend long after he’d died). And among the condemned a sense of theatre existed also; some wore a white cockade in their hats to show their defiance (or maybe innocence?), and it was not unknown for them to wear their best for their last journey. Lord Ferrers, convicted of murder, had enough of a sense of occasion to put on the suit he’d got married in before being taken there. And the spectacle didn’t always stop there. Jack Shepperd, the thief and escapologist who was one of the most famous of eighteenth-century London criminals, met his end only after a botched attempt to escape from the gallows itself.

This may seem like a rather gruesome thing to write about, but then London does have a rather gruesome history, and it’s irresponsible of the historian to ignore that fact. Our ancestors could be a pretty gruesome lot, although perhaps that’s an unfair judgement by way of the prejudices of our own time; better perhaps to say that they lived in a time when death was much more commonplace than it is now – just think of those high mortality rates. If we were alive in, say, eighteenth-century London, then we’d most likely be members of the lower classes (let’s face it!), and in all probability the chance to watch someone – who we may well have heard about thanks to all those pamphlets and word-of-mouth about notorious criminals of the day – meet their maker would have been as attractive a proposition for a day off as throwing a sickie to go to Lord’s or a football match would be for our twentieth and twenty-first century descendants. Someone – I really should find out who – once remarked that the past is like a foreign country, on account that they do (did!) things differently there. The past is like a foreign country. Whoever said that was absolutely spot-on.

Development did for Tyburn, or course – well, it would, what with London being London, ever developing and moving on. Nothing much stays the same, but it was ever thus. By the 1780s, the Oxford Street area was becoming a fashionable residential district, and it just wasn’t appropriate to have a large drunken mob in the area to watch a public execution any more (and not because of sensitivities over the actual concept of executing criminals in public - that came later; it would not be until the mid-nineteenth century that public executions were stopped in this country). The authorities moved the venue of such events to Newgate itself, Tyburn Lane got a new name (Park Lane), and London moved on. By the mid-nineteenth century, the place had a new arch, and with it a new name that had nothing to do with the place’s grisly past. History, or rather, London, had moved on.

Today, of course, you can go to the place that was once Tyburn, and find it inconceivable that this was once the venue for public executions. Indeed, to modern sensitivities it’s very hard to imagine a public execution at all, especially when you’re standing at a busy traffic crossroads. And that’s the point, in a way. We have moved on, but the venue, however changed, remains; it has, after all, been a traffic crossroads since Roman times. If you want, you can cross over to a traffic island at the Edgware Road junction and see the commemorative plaque set in the pavement – that tells you that that spot was once the site of ‘Tyburn Tree’. Try, if you have a few spare minutes in that busy traffic-spot, to imagine the place a few centuries ago: the smells, the gallows, the condemned man in a horse-drawn cart, the baying mob…

Chances are you won’t be able to. I know I couldn’t. But that is what used to happen – indeed, happened for several centuries – at that particular place.

2006-07-22T10:55:00.000+01:00

It has been a good week - knackering, in the heat we've been having. But a good week nevertheless.

Aside from the fact that the summer holidays have started, I also received a parcel in the post this week. Turned out to be a heavy package that I sent home from Nairobi last September! As well as various cheap souvenirs, it contained my 'I've climed Mount Kenya' certificate, my 'I've crossed the Equator' certificate, a couple of rolls of camera film and (most importantly) this first two volumes of my Africa travel diaries.

These volumes cover my Cairo-to-Cape trip from Egypt down to Northern Kenya. I really did think that they were gone for good, and with them my chance of ever writing a decent book about my travels - for other chapters I've relied heavily on the strictly-kept day-to-day accounts of what happened that are my travel diaries. But now that they're here, there's no excuse!

And, what with having no work, I now have the time and the resources to get writing. Watch this space!

2006-07-15T09:43:00.000+01:00

I didn’t intend to get hooked on ‘Big Cat Week’ this week, but that was what happened. Chances are that the reason for my getting hooked was due to the location – last year I went on a safari in the Maasai Mara and fell in love with the place straight away, and watching ‘Big Cat Week’ on the telly brought it all back and made me want to return to Kenya.

There were plenty of lions when I was in the Mara – and for much of the time they were mating couples. Yes, it was rather funny watching lions doing it for the first time, but by the time we got to the fifth couple it was a case of ‘oh, they’re at it again…’. It’s a fact that although the act itself is over in a matter of seconds, they mate every fifteen-or-so minutes for several days, and during that time they don’t hunt because the male won’t let the female out of his sight. Typical male, thinking with his dick? Well, there is that – but he also doesn’t want any other males muscling in while the females in heat.

I did get to see a pride though – six or so cubs on a rocky outcrop with a male standing (or rather, sitting) guard over them. The males guard the pride rather than hunt because they’re better at fighting than the females – odd when you consider that with so many other species it’s the females who are so good at defending their young. The male I saw, though, didn’t seem to mind all the vehicles that came his way, as he was perfectly happy to let them get between him and the cubs; a sign, if you like, of how the animals of the Maasai Mara have come to regard vehicles as being utterly non-threatening.

What you never see in wildlife documentaries is the amount of traffic on the plains – the Land Cruisers, Land Rovers and matatus (white minibuses) carrying all the people who’ve paid to see the place for themselves. Before long I was attempting to get an ‘unconventional’ safari photo by incorporating both animals and vehicles into the picture! And one of the mating lion couples I saw must have been exhibitionists because they were doing it in front of no fewer than a dozen vehicles!

I was lucky in that the company I went with – Wild Rovers, the ‘safari arm’ of the excellent Nairobi Backpackers (http://www.nairobibackpackers.com/), does all its safaris in a Land Rover; most of the other vehicles I and my fellow-backpackers saw were matatus which wouldn’t have looked out of place in downtown Nairobi. At one stage we even had to go and rescue one of them which had got stuck in the mud – as we were the only Landy around, we were the only ones who could pull them out.

The one animal I did not see in Africa was a leopard; aside from almost an hour looking at a tree in the woods near Lake Nakuru where one had been sighted earlier in the day, the nearest I got was a dead gazelle in South Luangwa that my guide reckoned had been killed by a leopard, which had subsequently scarpered (the fact that it was located by the bottom of a tree was a dead giveaway, apparently). So I saw a leopard kill but no leopard! Just how difficult they are to spot (no pun intended) was shown by the TV camera shots – Saba Douglas-Hamilton (who can go on safari with me anytime!) described Bella, the leopard she spent the week watching, as ‘an apparition’.

I was particularly struck by the misadventures of Toto the baby cheetah; by Wednesday I was surprised (if anything) by the fact that he was still alive after being chased by both baboons and lions. It reminded me of a particularly rare sighting last year that I was able to see, that of a cheetah with five cubs (although you can only see four in the picture because one of them was a bit slower than the others).

It was rare because with cheetahs the mother has to bring up the cubs on her own – there’s no support unit consisting of other females and a dominant male as there is with lions – so as well as hunting she’s got to defend the little ones as well. That means she can’t hunt when there are other predators around – and as far as cheetah cubs are concerned just about everything is a predator. That’s why so few of them survive (the one with five cubs had had seven originally, my guide told me). On ‘Big Cat Week’, little Toto was missing presumed dead by the end of proceedings. Sad, especially for Jonathan Scott who had become so attached to him, but that’s just the way things work in the wild – especially if you’re a baby cheetah. Funny how it's sometimes the predators - or at least their offspring - who are more vulnerable than most.

Wonder when the next Africa-based wildlife documentary is on?

2006-07-11T20:00:00.000+01:00

Ah, the summer holidays. Less than two weeks of work to go, and then some time off. Like all teachers, I cannot wait until the end of term. If nothing else, it’ll mean not having to get up early – I can be a lazy sod at times, and am really looking forward to a few days getting up very late and doing not very much once I have got up. The only disadvantage is that as I’m a supply teacher I won’t get paid – my full-time colleagues do of course get paid for the six weeks they have off, and us mere supplies sadly do not. Even so, I don’t want to spend the whole summer doing absolutely nothing. I want to go somewhere.

I’ve already decided that some kind of travelling will have to get done here; to have six weeks off and not travel would be an unacceptable waste of a good opportunity. Sadly not of the six-months-trying-to-get-through-Africa variety (we’re talking budgetary constraints here as well as not enough time), more a few weeks lugging a backpack around Europe. Eastern Europe to be precise – there are too many places in that part of the world that I’ve never really got round to visiting (most of it in fact!), and unlike the rest of the world it can be done from here without having to splash out on a plane ticket. I’ve already got my copy of the relevant Lonely Planet guide, it’s now a question of deciding whereabouts to go.

The plan, such as it is, involves heading for the Baltic Republics, on the grounds that: a) I’ve not been there before, and b) I’ve always rather fancied visiting Lithuania at some point. I figure (as a result of loitering around Stanfords for long enough to extract the relevant information from the Thomas Cook European Timetable) that I can get from Edgware to Tallinn in three days by way of Denmark, Sweden and a couple of ferries. Once there, I’ll figure out what to do next – no point planning too far in advance.

But whatever happens, it’ll be good to get the backpack out again.

2006-07-09T12:37:00.000+01:00

I wasn’t in London on 7th July last year. I was in Cairo – had been for about a week, and was about to get an overnight train to Luxor, the start of a journey that would ultimately end in Cape Town.

I found out about the bombing via the Internet – to be honest, I’d only gone online in the first place to get some sort of idea about how the Olympic bid had gone. What I got on the BBC’s website that day was something very different.

My first thought was to e-mail home and check if everyone was alright – easily done, but I subsequently spent a very troubled few hours waiting for a reply. Eventually, my Dad got back to me; he’d been planning to go to Hyde Park that day to see a VE Day exhibition of some sort, but by the time he’d got to Edgware Station they’d already closed the Tube down. He’d subsequently watched events unfolding on the telly.

Via the BBC’s website – my most useful source of up-to-date news throughout Africa – I learned what had happened. I used to be a regular user of Russell Square Tube Station, so it made for uncomfortable reading – although the most potent image was that bus. Over the next couple of days, I noticed that a lot of people were offering me their sympathy once they found out where I was from. Egyptians are well aware that their country has been on the receiving end of suicide bombers in the past, while the Americans I encountered had several things to say about it as well. You Londoners aren’t alone in this, they said, but you’ll get through it. We all will. Only once (in Sudan) did I encounter a grinning fool showing me his Osama Bin Laden wristwatch.

To be honest, the bombings then didn’t have much of an impact on me over the next few months – while I was heading through Africa, I was more concerned with the rioting that was happening in the countries I visited. I avoided serious unrest by a matter of days in Khartoum, Addis Ababa, Kenya and Zanzibar – had I been in those places a week earlier or a week later, things could have turned out very differently.

But then, that’s me – usually more concerned with what’s happening that might affect me directly. There are times when I get so wrapped up in what I’m doing that I don’t just miss the bigger picture but ignore it completely.

The bigger picture hit home yesterday though. Driving to work yesterday, and listening to Radio Five Live as usual, I heard a statement read by a man whose girlfriend was one of the people who was killed on that bus that got blown up on Tavistock Square. She shouldn’t have even been on that bus (she’d only caught it because the Tube was down), and the bus shouldn’t have even been there (it had been diverted). She was on the phone to her boyfriend when the bomb went off. I can only begin to imagine what to poor bloke went through; I’ve never met him and I probably will, but his story very nearly moved me to tears – and that’s rare.

Yesterday I was in Central London, and I happened to be walking through Tavistock Square. The memorial there – a plaque and a few flowers from close relatives, no more – had a sort of quiet dignity to it. Later that day, I saw the Blitz memorial near St Paul’s. It was bigger, of course – more names to accommodate – but there was a similar sort of dignity to it.

It’s not just that which sticks in my mind though – there was a senior police officer on the radio as well, and he made a very important point about London in general. If the bombers had hoped to subdue the place, he said, then they are very much mistaken. Londoners are not submissive types, and do not allow such actions to disrupt their daily routine. The impression I get from the past few days is of Londoners doing very much what their forbears did in 1940 – bombed, but never submissive. They mourn the dead, yet they also know that life must go on; to submit to the will of the bombers (be they of the Luftwaffe or Al-Quaeda variety) would be to admit defeat, and that will never happen. Not here. London is unbeatable. It has survived attempts to destroy it before, and will continue to do so.

2006-07-04T20:49:00.000+01:00

Highlights from watching the England-Portugal game in my local pub last Saturday:

With five minutes to go before kick-off, where is everybody? We had more people in for the Sweden game, for God's sake. Then I realise, as the punters suddenly pour in, that everyone has obviously left it until the last minute. Everyone's amused when Beckham’s microphone fails to work. With half a pint left, I quickly get another one during the national anthem. Saves going to the bar during the game.

There’s a family sitting at a table in front of me – and the little boy wants to buy a bag of crisps. The bar staff don’t serve him (they’ve had police in before during games, making sure they’re not serving anything to anyone under-age). With bad grace, the dad goes and buys the crisps. I contemplate stealing his chair – for two seconds. He’s bigger than me, and to be honest I’d rather stand anyway.

On around twenty minutes, I get chatting to a group of people standing close to me – a lad who looks a couple of years younger than me, plus two girls – a brunette who’s obviously the lad’s girlfriend and a blonde, who has hitherto had her view of the game blocked by yours truly. The rest of the first half is punctuated by footie-related exchanges. My views on watching England being a frustrating experience are rebutted by the lad, who comments that it ‘beats watching Man City’. He’s been a City fan for nearly twenty years, though he doesn’t sound Mancunian. My admission to being a Watford boy is treated with delight – ‘you must be lovin’ it right now.’ I modestly admit to having been at Cardiff. The girls aren’t letting on who they support.

Half-time – and most of the punters head to the beer-garden for a few minutes’ respite. My new friends and I stay by the bar. The blonde is worried about penalties already – which prompts us all to reminisce about Italia ’90. I point out that England have actually won a penalty shoot-out in a quarter-final – against Spain in Euro ’96. ‘Ah, but we did have Psycho playing then,’ says the City fan. Blondie points out that the last time we had a shoot-out in a quarter-final, it was two years ago in Euro 2004 – and we lost … to Portugal. We wonder what Sven’s saying to them, and depressingly conclude that it’s probably not much. And so the second half starts.

Off goes Beckham. ‘Shouldn’t be playing anyway’, mutters a bloke in a red England shirt by the bar. The cheers for Lennon coming on indicate a large presence of Spurs fans – but then, this is North London. Any hope that Sven’s suddenly realised that his beloved captain isn’t at his best are quickly dispelled by the camera-shot of DB with his socks off and an ice-pack on one of his legs. ‘That’s just so he can save face,’ says one would-be pundit, a touch unkindly.

Wayne Rooney’s red card. Actually, no-one notices just what he’d been stamping on (that came later), and everyone rages at the perceived injustice of it all. ‘What the fuck was he supposed to have done?’ ‘It’s a fuckin’ Argie ref, what do you expect?’ ‘They shouldn’t be allowed to tell the ref what to do.’ Many dark mutterings about the sort of reception Christiano Ronaldo can expect at Premier League grounds if he stays with Man U – that is, if he makes it onto the field after Rooney’s finished with him in the dressing-room.

Peter Crouch comes on – and I’m the only one predicting that he’ll score. Several punters wonder why the hell Sven didn’t take Lampard off instead of Joe Cole.

With about fifteen minutes of the ninety left, blondie makes her apologies and heads to the loo. More than one spectator threatens to lock her in there for the rest of the game should England score within the next couple of minutes.

By the eighty-five minute mark everyone’s on edge, but full of praise for Owen Hargreaves. Hard to think that we all booed him when he came on against Paraguay.

Some bloke standing near the telly, who's probably had too much to drink (but then, who hasn't?) berates the rest of us for our lack of passion – ‘You’re not fuckin’ cheerin’ the lads on!’ He tries to start a chant of ‘Ing-er-land, Ing-er-land, Ing-er-land’ – but most of us are just too tense to take this seriously.

As soon as extra time started, blondie starts worrying about penalties. ‘I can’t take a shoot-out’, she moans. She’s not the only one.

But thirty minutes later, that’s what happens. It always does. No-one is convinced that England can win a shoot-out, although I predict (with a confidence I don’t entirely feel) that with Paul Robinson in goal we’ve got nothing to worry about. A Spurs fan standing by the bar agrees that Robbo is a ‘fuckin’ good ’keeper’.

I’m hugging blondie – and some other random woman in my general vicinity – as Portugal miss their first penalty. Our elation will not last for long. By the end of the shoot-out, everyone’s numb, although not entirely shocked by the nature of our exit. It’s happened before … to many times. Nevertheless, grown men (among others) are close to tears.

Why, I wonder aloud, do England have to make things so difficult for themselves? Why can’t we have one tournament, just one, when we don’t end up making such a damned mess of things? ‘Because we’re England,’ says a bloke in what looks like a size-XXXL England shirt. He’s got Beckham’s name and number on the back but that doesn’t stop him slagging the man off. And Lampard. And the ref. And Sven, most of all.

Everyone disperses – some stay for a consolatory pint, but no-one’s really in the mood. Blondie and I belatedly introduce ourselves to each other before heading our separate ways. England are out, and the English World Cup Dream is once again on hold. The story of our footballing lives, really.

Same place for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa then, folks?

World Cup Flagwatch – the latest:
35 sightings: Italy
29 sightings: Portugal
20 sightings: Ghana
15 sightings: Brazil
11 sightings: Trinidad & Tobago
8 sightings: Iran
7 sightings: Poland
3 sightings: Spain
2 sightings: Sweden
1 sighting: Angola, Australia, Germany, Serbia & Montenegro, Switzerland
Non-qualifiers but flying the flag regardless: Israel (1), Wales (4)
Plus: One Union Jack

2006-07-01T10:17:00.000+01:00

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s paper. One of the Daily Telegraph’s men in Germany reported that many young Deutchlanders are keen followers of the England team, and that their ideal final would be an England-Germany affair. With Jurgen Klinsmann’s boys now through to the semis after proving that the Germans are still the world’s best when it comes to penalty shoot-outs, it’s a distinct possibility.

I’d welcome that, because the apparent German love for the English is reciprocated here. Germany is my favourite European country bar none, and Berlin is my favourite European city (narrowly beating Prague and St Petersburg). Last year, before I quit my job to go travelling, I had the opportunity to spend two weeks in Germany as part of a school exchange programme. I’m still not sure why the school’s Languages Department asked me if I’d go; I can’t speak German, and they knew that here was one History teacher who’d already handed in his notice. One of my more cynical colleagues suggested that, as the other two teachers going were women, they wanted a token male teacher and reckoned I could do with a break from the classroom (as one of the other teachers going was my head of department’s housemate, this is very likely). Whatever, I was put up in a house near Ludwigshaven for two weeks, courtesy of a German bloke called Berndt who taught English (which solved the language problem easily enough).

Berndt’s two main interests in life (apart from his dog, a German Shepherd/Mastiff cross called Tigger who always wanted to play ball with me in the courtyard) were football and beer, so we got on famously. He was a VfB Stuttgart fan, and so like all Germans who hail from outside Bavaria he hated Bayern Munich and hoped to God that they wouldn’t win the Bundesliga (alas, they did). An attempt to get tickets for a VfB game sadly failed (it was a sell-out), but we did manage to watch the Bayern-Chelsea Champions’ League game on TV … with German commentary. And both of us were cheering on Chelsea – him because he wanted to see Bayern lose, me because, well, Chelsea were the English team.

I had a lot of time to myself at Berndt’s place because he was more or less snowed under with his marking (ever the teacher’s curse – I’d got out of that by failing to collect in any homework the week before we’d flown out) so I did spend some time exploring a few nearby towns. The Reiss-Museum in Mannheim, I recall, had an excellent exhibition about Pompeii. And I also had to go on the school excursions to various places – we went on a boat trip along the river in Heidelberg, where several of our Year Nine girls spent most of their time trying to quiz me on whether such-and-such a teacher was going out with so-and-so (more fool them, for I was always the last to know as far as staffroom gossip was concerned – when my head of department got engaged, I found out a week after everyone else). In keeping with my self-imposed football theme, we had a tour of the Fritz-Walter-Stadion in Kaiserslautern, where I shocked everyone by knowing exactly who Fritz Walter was. You can’t beat me on World Cup trivia.

One day Berndt – no doubt keen to show his English guest something nice about the area (he was very disparraging about Ludwigshaven in general) – did take me to the picture-postcard town of Weinheim, a day trip which involved a walk up a hill to a castle/schloss that gave spectacular views over the (mostly flat) surrounding area – meaning we could see as far as Mannheim. He was a fantastic host, keen beyond all reasonable expectation to make me feel at home and show me something of German life – he recommended the best beers, talked me through the often murky world of post-reunification politics, and he was an excellent cook. I’d never had sauerkraut before, and I must say I loved it. Being from Swabia, Berndt also rustled up a regional speciality called maultaschen (I think that's how it's spelt) – meat and spinach inside a dough ‘pocket’.

We only once mentioned the war – and that was only when I asked (I had to!) what the Germans’ nickname for the English is. He explained that the nearest thing to that is ‘Tommies’ (after the nickname for the British Soldiers of the First World War), but that they don’t really take the mickey out of the English much, because by and large they like the English. But they can’t stand the French. So we drank to Anglo-German friendship.

There was one thing about Berndt that I didn’t find out about until I got back home, when a colleague who’d been on the exchange trip before asked me if I’d met his boyfriend. Strange though it may sound, I’d had no idea about his sexuality – he’d never once let on. It’s not really something that comes up in conversation, is it? Everyone else knew that he was gay, of course – and seemed surprised that I hadn’t twigged. Not that it bothered me – he was a great host, and for two weeks he was a good friend.

He’s one of many people I’ve encountered who I wish I’d kept in touch with – I did make a note of his address but sadly lost it. I recall that Berndt said that he was trying to get himself tickets for a World Cup game or two. I hope he did – and I hope he’s enjoying it out there. And I hope he enjoys the England-Portugal game this afternoon as much as I’m sure he’d have enjoyed seeing his country go through to the semi-finals last night.

World Cup Flagwatch – the latest:
28 sightings: Italy
26 sightings: Portugal
17 sightings: Ghana
14 sightings: Brazil
10 sightings: Trinidad & Tobago
8 sightings: Iran
7 sightings: Poland
2 sightings: Spain, Sweden
1 sighting: Angola, Australia, Germany (YES! I’d been hoping to spot a car flying a German flag!!), Serbia & Montenegro, Switzerland
Didn’t even qualify but flying the flag anyway: Israel (1), Wales (2)
And finally … one Union Jack. Well, someone had to be flying it instead of the Cross of St George!

2006-06-27T19:35:00.001+01:00

Well, the second round is almost over (I write this with only the France-Spain game to go), and the prospect of a few days without football beckons. I must say I’m relieved, as World Cup fatigue has well and truly started to kick in and I need a break before the quarter-finals. There is only so much football I can take, I realise – and since the 9th of this month I have quite literally forsaken all else whenever there's been a match on.

I was there in front of the telly when Mexico played Angola, I made a point of watching ten-man Italy draw with nine-man USA (or did nine-man Italy draw with 10-man USA? I'm not sure - but then I had had a couple too many glasses of wine at the time), and I furtively listened to the denouement of Group A at work on my little portable radio, even though the reception inside the office was crap. I have tuned in every weekday morning to Radio Five Live to hear Nicky Campbell tell me the lastest from whatever German town he’s spent the night in (I’m not sure if he knows which one sometimes). I’ve watched all four England games in the pub, and somewhere about my person I bear the mental scars. I think they go well with the mental scars incurred from watching every major international football campaign involving England since 1986; I can only hope that we do not have to go through a penalty shoot-out at any time in this World Cup.

Perhaps the supreme example of this football addiction came last night, when I turned down the prospect of going to the pub with my mates (and this on a quiz night) in order to watch the Switzerland-Ukraine game. Serves me right. If by chance you missed that particular fixture, may I commend you for your foresight; you most certainly did not miss much.

My ‘second team’ is sadly out – and I liked what I saw about them. I refer, of course, to the Aussies – playing their hearts out to the last, undone only by a dodgy penalty decision. Playing with 100% commitment throughout, never giving up and trained by one of the best coaches in the business.

Unlike my own country. We seem to have a more literal different definition of the term ‘playing your guts out’, if those pictures of David Beckham are anything to go by. But he scored when he had to. I knew there was a positive thing we could take from the Ecuador game, and that was it.

I still believe England will win it – albeit more in hope than on the evidence of what I’ve seen so far. If nothing else, we’ve got a weakened Portugal next game (two key players suspended, another doubtful due to injury), and no chance of meeting the likes of Germany, Argentina or Italy until Sunday week in Berlin. Sure, we played badly against Ecuador, but they were worse, and we won. Brazil in the semis? Bring them on, I say – England must start to play well soon, and I am convinced that they will raise their game to suit the opposition. In Sven I trust. Well, there’s not a lot else I can do, is there?

Other news: In its capacity as some sort of sponsor of the England team, Texaco is currently giving away what it calls ‘The Official England Squad Collection’. These collectables are plastic discs measuring just over one-and-a-half inches in diameter and depicting members of the England squad – what’s up lads, couldn’t you afford to mint commemorative coins this time? Us lucky punters get one free with every £10 we spend on petrol – and, what with my local garage being a Texaco outlet, I’m building up a collection. Thus far I’ve got two Frank Lampards, two Paul Robinsons and one each of Peter Crouch, Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Luke Young and Shaun Wright-Phillips. Yes, I’m aware that the last two on that list didn’t make the final squad, but nevertheless there they are on the official plastic disc collection. One wonders who was left out of Texaco’s selection, and whether or not they chose a fifth striker. It’s a tricky business, this World Cup collectables game. I reckon that is was ever thus, though – somewhere, I have a 1998 World Cup coin with Paul Gascoigne on it, and I recall quite clearly that he didn’t go to France that year.

World Cup Flagwatch – the latest:
21 sightings: Portugal
20 sightings: Italy
16 sightings: Ghana
12 sightings: Brazil
10 sightings: Trinidad & Tobago
8 sightings: Iran
5 sightings: Poland
2 sightings: Spain, Sweden
1 sighting: Angola, Australia, Serbia & Montenegro, Switzerland
Didn’t even qualify, but flying the flag anyway: Israel (1), Wales (2)

2006-06-25T10:49:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was a day spent in the heat of Central London – and in order to get away from said heat I took refuge in a few museums. The British Museum has often been a favourite of mine (well, it’s free…) and ever since I did my Master’s at SSEES in the nearby University of London it’s been the sort of place I’ve popped into for the odd hour.

I used to really enjoy wandering around the Egyptian exhibits – those sarcophagi and bits of monumental pharonic statues (evidence of an ‘edifice complex’, perhaps?) aside, I think that the story behind the Rosetta Stone is fascinating. In fact, if you read the blurb next to it you’ll note that a namesake of mine was involved in the attempts to decipher it in the early nineteenth century. But yesterday – the first time I’ve been to the BM since returning from Africa – the Egypt section left me feeling a bit flat. I suspect it’s because I’ve since been round the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Giza Pyramids, most of what Luxor has to offer in terms of ancient monuments and the temples at Abu Simbel; even one of those makes the BM’s exhibits seem rather puny in comparison.

Yet because of the vast range of items it has, the BM always has something new, or rather something you haven’t seen before. That thing for me yesterday was the Lewis Chessmen – three-inch high chess-pieces dating from the twelfth century and carved out of walrus ivory and whales’ teeth(http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/goto?id=OBJ566). They looked so enchanting; I just loved the attention to detail, especially the almost comic-like faces of the kings. Stuff like that never ceases to amaze me.

Elsewhere in London, my wanderings took me to the Cartoon Museum on Little Russell Street (http://www.cartoonmuseum.org/) – only a couple of rooms, but some great examples of political/newspaper cartoons throughout the ages, from the eighteenth century to the modern day. Upstairs there was an exhibition devoted to childrens’ comics. As a former avid Beano reader, it took me back. It’s the sort of out-of-the-way place that’s most definitely worth a visit.

Heading down towards Trafalgar Sqaure after that, I opted to take in some art of a ‘higher culture’ sort at the National Gallery. Now, I don’t know about you but I’d heard that art galleries and the like are these days seen as good places to meet single people – so yes, perhaps there was an ulterior motive at work here! Sadly I didn’t meet the girl of my dreams while gazing at a Constable landscape (or even a Monet), so I just looked at the pictures instead. I’ve never been a great one for art (it was my least-favourite subject at school), but I did like Turners ‘Fighting Temeraire’ (www.j-m-w-turner.co.uk/artist/turner-temeraire.htm). I strongly suspect that this is the historian in me at work. HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun ship in Nelson’s navy and was at Trafalgar; Turner’s picture shows the ship at the end of her period of service, being tugged to the place where she would be broken up. An old ship-of-the-line, being taken to her end by a steam-powered tug – if that’s no evocation of progress and new technology replacing the old then I don’t know what is.

Art of a different sort could be found yesterday in the square itself. I’ve heard it said that proper Londoners don’t go near the place because it’s too touristy – but I say ‘sod that’ – it’s our city, so why can’t we enjoy it? Alas, poor old Nelson is covered in scaffolding at the moment, but down by the fountains, among the tourists and the pigeons some Dutch artist was at work making these rather large ‘creatures’ out of bits of cane, that move by wind-power. Sadly I cannot for the life of me remember what they were called – something-beesten is the best I can do –but it was well worth a peek. It looked interesting (from a ‘curious diversion’ point of view); the guy had worked out how to get the ‘legs’ on these things to move properly, and had clearly devoted much time and effort into getting them right. The world would be a sadder place indeed if people like him weren’t around.

I saw a Routemaster bus as well – I thought they’d all gone, but evidently Red Ken hasn’t managed to find them all yet. I love the old Routemasters – how can you not love a bus that doesn’t require a bus stop, where you can just get on it whenever it’s stationary (or even slowly moving)? On impulse I got on – just in case there aren’t any next time I go ‘up town’.

For some reason, I ended up at the Monument. As I’m sure you know, it commemorates the Great Fire, being located as it is close to Pudding Lane. I’ve climbed it before, but that didn’t stop me wanting to go up it again. I wasn’t alone, although the rest of the people there were tourists. After knackering myself out on the steps (they say it’s got 311 of them – that’s rubbish, there must be more than that), I took in the view – the Belfast, City Hall, the Tower, the big tower-blocks of the City, St Paul’s, Westminster in the middle-distance, the River – oh, London. I love it. Even with the tourists – heck, if they want to come and enjoy this fine city of ours, then let them come (says I). A French couple were asking everyone to take a photo of them, while an American was trying to convince his son that the Crystal Palace radio mast was actually the Eiffel Tower (‘you can actually see France from here!’), I assumed he was winding the lad up but on second thoughts maybe he genuinely believed that?

Back on the ground, it had just gone four. I noticed that a nearby pub was showing live football. Well, I had to go in for a pint. Germany-Sweden had just kicked off, hadn’t it?

World Cup Flagwatch: the saga continues…
19 sightings: Portugal
16 sightings: Italy
12 sightings: Ghana
11 sightings: Brazil
10 sightings: Trinidad & Tobago
7 sightings: Iran
5 sightings: Poland
2 sightings: Spain, Sweden
1 sighting: Angola, Australia, Serbia & Montenegro, Switzerland
Didn’t qualify but flying the flag anyway: Israel, Wales (one apiece)

2006-06-21T18:52:00.000+01:00

One of the advantages of having been a Watford fan for the past twenty years is that, come the World Cup, you’re so used to seeing mediocre football that when England start playing badly it doesn’t seem to be out of the ordinary. I made this point to an elderly Liverpool fan in the pub last night during the England-Sweden game, just before Sweden scored their first in fact, and he countered by pointing out the obvious difference – expectation. As a Liverpool fan, he expects his team to do well, and the same counts for when he’s watching England. As a Watford fan, by contrast, my expectations tend to be pretty low – which at least means that, when we do do well (the season just finished, for example) I’ve really got something to shout about.

But England … well, Liverpool-supporting acquaintance expects as much of England as he does of his club. As a Liverpool fan of many years (not a trace of Scouse accent, mind you), he's more or less conditioned to the notion that Liverpool should succeed. For me, it’s a bit more complicated - or even contradictory. Yes, I do expect England to do well, but at the same time I’m not that bothered when they play crap. Watching football as it’s played outside the Premiership (and, no doubt, by some Premiership outfits) does tend to leave you a bit immune to watching a side play badly. Yes, you know they’re playing badly, but it’s all relative. Maybe I just can’t adjust to the national team, in terms of the fact that there’s more quality on the pitch than I’d expect to see at the sort of game I’d usually go to (ie. at Vicarage Road or Underhill). So England are playing badly? I may know that they can do better, but I’m still aware that my football-supporting experience has generally made me used to watching something that’s far from the idea of the ‘beautiful game’, so I can live with it – for now.

Actually, today I’m pleased with England. We may have slackened in the second half (what DOES Sven say to them at half-time?), but we did only need a draw. Seven points from three games is good enough – we’ve still won the group, after all. The World Cup, to borrow and mis-use an old cliché, is a tournament of two halves, and England are the sort of outfit who’ll up their game once the serious stuff – the knockout stage- begins. OK, so our strike force looks decidedly dodgy (God, how we all winced at the replay of Michael Owen going down – by the time they showed it on the screen for the third time, grown men were averting their eyes), but I still think we’ll give a good account of ourselves.

World Cup Flagwatch (apart from England)
11 sightings: Brazil, Portugal
10 sightings: Ghana
8 sightings: Italy, Trinidad & Tobago
7 sightings: Iran
5 sightings: Poland
1 sighting: Australia, Spain, Serbia & Montenegro (or maybe a Ducth fan who'd put his flag on upside-down?), Israel (yes, I know they didn’t even qualify – but I’ve still seen one flying from a car!)
Oh, and NO Union Jacks!

2006-06-14T19:23:00.000+01:00

My reading material of the moment – football-related stuff aside – consists primarily of the following: ‘Of Mice and Men’, a couple of Maths textbooks and a tatty old edition of ‘GCSE Physics’. It’s my own fault really. One of the things about my current job, that is to say, home tuition, is that I have to concentrate on the ‘core subjects’ – English, Maths and Science. It’s quickly become something of an attempt at blagging my way through the curriculum of three subjects I never trained to teach; indeed, in the case of two of them I haven’t even studied them since I was sixteen.

I did a fairly convincing job at pretending to be an English teacher in a comprehensive school before Easter, but this one takes the biscuit. One of my pupils is supposed to be studying ‘Of Mice and Men’, and it just so happens that his teacher is probably one of very few people who didn't actually read it when he was at school. I wouldn’t have minded if I had (it’s miles better than some of the dross I had to read in English). After two weeks of relying on the CGP guide (which explains all the relevant themes as well as giving an amusing two-page summary of the plot in the form of a cartoon strip), I’ve decided that reading the book itself may well be an idea. And once we’ve got through it, we’ve then got ‘Othello’ (which I’ve also never studied) to come. At least I know where I can get my hands on a video for that one though.

But Maths and Science are the killers. I thought I’d got rid of those two for good when I finished my GCSEs, along with Business Studies and French. But now in my capacity as a home tutor I’m obliged to teach them, up to and including GCSE standard. If my pupils were all bottom-set material I might just be able to get away with it, but they’re not. A couple of them do seem to know their stuff, so I’m finding myself constantly trying to swot up on a subject just before I have to teach it. Just about the only clever thing I’ve done so far is state that until further notice all Science lessons will in fact consist of Physics, because at least that way I only have one of the sciences to worry about. And the Maths! Until yesterday, I couldn’t have told you what quadratic equations were if you’d paid me. Today, I taught a lesson on quadratic equations. Luckily for me, my lack of knowledge of this mathematical concept was obscured by my pupil’s desire to learn about what was happening in terms of the football (and I sympathise, because the Spain-Ukraine game sounds like it was much more interesting). Tomorrow, I have the joy of teaching electro-magnetics, or is it thermo-dynamics? I’ll check the textbook beforehand.

Personally, though, I’d much rather be soaking up the World Cup atmosphere somewhere in Germany. At least the timing of the England-Trinidad game doesn’t coincide with any of my lessons.

World Cup Flagwatch (apart from England, because trying to count the England flags I've seen on cars would just be silly)
6 sightings: Iran
5 sightings: Italy, Trinidad & Tobago
4 sightings: Brazil
3 sightings: Poland, Portugal
2 sightings: Ghana
1 sighting: Australia

2006-06-11T16:52:00.000+01:00

Well, after one heck of a lot of build-up, the World Cup is now under way. This is where I turn ‘couch-potato’ for a while, with no match being deemed unworthy of my undivided attention. A couple of weeks of paying special attention to countries I wouldn’t normally consider thinking about in a month of Sundays beckons. So far, the only game I haven’t watched from the sofa has been the England one, which I saw in the pub.

It was as sweltering inside the pub as it was outside, and everyone was making sure they got their fair share of fluid intake (admittedly of the alcoholic variety). I was one of a small minority who hadn’t got themselves kitted out in England regalia of some sort (and it’s quite surprising the sheer amount of England-related stuff you can get right now; here at home we’ve even got a bottle-opener with the Three Lions badge on it that plays the theme tune to ‘The Great Escape’). With England shirts going for £20 each, it looks like being only a matter of time before I succumb though.

Yes, England were disappointing yesterday – blame the heat or the fact that (as I pointed out to anyone who’d listen) England never seem to do well in their first game in a World Cup, or just take the less technical option and blame Sven if you like. Why does he always seem to get his team to lay off the pressure in the second half? And just what is Hargreaves doing there? Is he blackmailing Sven or something? It may have been an own goal (although the papers today are hinting that FIFA might credit David Beckham with it), but let’s face it – 3 points is still 3 points. Hopefully they’ll get their act sorted out by Thursday (and don’t forget that Trinidad lost to Wales in a pre-tournament friendly). I still say we’ll win the whole thing though.

On the radio the other day, Graham Taylor (say what you like about him, but among us Watford fans he ranks somewhere near God) reckoned that Argentina will win it. I’m not so sure about that – Ivory Coast were unlucky to lose against them last night, and they do have the toughest group. Besides, Argentina winning would involve Diego Maradona prancing around in the stands, and I've never forgiven him for the 'Hand of God' goal. I’m backing Australia to cause at least one upset, and possibly make it to the last eight. Listening to the coverage courtesy of Five Live, I cannot help but think that I’d love to be in Germany right now, probably basing myself in a campsite somewhere near Frankfurt. The atmosphere out there seems fantastic. Pity I wouldn’t have the nerve to quit my job – were I still in day-to-day supply it would be most tempting, even though I’d then have to get some grotty job over the summer to pay off my debts (those black-market tickets would’ve cost a fortune, would they not?).

But I’ll just have to resign myself to watching it on the box. As far as the telly is concerned, I’m still not sure about Ian Wright as a pundit – although Martin O’Neill looks set to have a good tournament in the studio.

Well, I must dash. Wouldn’t want to miss Mexico versus Iran, would I?

World Cup Flagwatch
(my ongoing log of all national flags that I’ve seen displayed on cars just before and during the World Cup, not including England flags which are quite simply too numerous to mention round here)

4 sightings: Trinidad & Tobago
3 sightings: Iran, Italy
2 sightings: Brazil, Portugal
1 sighting: Poland, Australia, Ghana

2006-06-09T19:00:00.000+01:00

Oh, the irony. In six months of travelling through Africa, the only case of sunburn suffered by yours truly was when my feet got oh-so-slightly burned in Zanzibar. But last weekend, after a couple of days in Devon, my arms were a rather bright shade of pink, and I was stocking up on after-sun.

It being half term last week, I was determined to get away from North London for a time. I spent a couple of days in Nottingham at my brother’s place, getting roped into helping him and his girlfriend out on their allotment. Then I headed down to the West Country, where my mum, auntie, cousin and grandma invariably hire out a caravan for a few days – we have relatives down there (another auntie) and we’re the sort of family who like to stay in touch with each other.

Anyway, my time in Devon was spent mostly on the beach – Exmouth one day, then at Charmouth just over the border into Dorset. Odd to think that, my short visit to Hastings aside, the last time I was on a beach was in Simonstown in South Africa, where I had penguins and a scantily-glad German girl for company!

But back to Devon. We all met up in Paignton, and after a meal we somehow ended up looking at all the tacky souvenir-shops (‘Grockle-shops’, my Devon-based aunt calls them) and marvelling at how summer seems to have finally got started. With five female relatives in tow, it was a wonder how I ever got away from the shops, but I did manage a quiet stroll along the sea-front.

The following day, it was down to Exmouth – a place I’ve visited a lot over the years. This time last year, we’d gone there and spent the whole day in our waterproofs, so wet and overcast it was. This year, we had bright sunshine and lots of traffic to contend with – although we did eventually find a parking-space. It seemed that we took a while to set up our ‘beach spot’ as well, but then we did seem to have taken rather a lot of stuff with us.

Wandering along the beach, and enjoying the half term break like everyone else, I could not help but feel out of place – here was I, a single 27 year-old, more or less surrounded by family groups. But what the heck – it was a lovely day, I was at the seaside, and all seemed well in the world. A typically English holiday scene, with all families overburdened with beach-going stuff; I’m sure that when South Africans go to the beach at Plettenberg Bay or wherever they don’t bother with half the stuff the English seem to take. How do they manage? Perhaps it’s less of an ordeal for them because they’re more used to it.

I got back home on Friday night, and the decent weather has obviously followed me back from Devon – and stayed here all week! At least now it feels as though there ought to be a drought on – unlike the week before half term, when it seemed to be raining all the time. After a week off school, or rather the home tuition job I landed myself in a couple of weeks before half term, it’s now back to work for what has always struck me as the worst time to be at school; it’s just so damned hot that no-one seems to want to be in classes. I certainly don’t, and if the weather stays like this I’m not sure how I’d cope if I were in a classroom. And then, of course, we have a major distraction in the form of the World Cup. Which you can be assured will feature, a little too heavily at times, on this blog.

The home tuition job means much time spent in the car, although I am based in an office. So at least I can now boast some office-related experience on my CV, should I ever leave teaching.

My book of the moment, by the way (picked up as part of a load of second-hand paperbacks in Nottingham – I’m quite a fan of browsing round second-hand bookshops seeing what I can pick up), is ‘Full Tilt’ by Dervla Murphy. I’ve read some of her books before, and she truly is one of the great travel-writers; this one (one of her early works) has her cycling from Dunkirk to Delhi, by way of Iran and Afghanistan. I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it again – if you want escapism, there’s nothing like a decent travel-book. And Dervla Murphy is one of the best.

World Cup Flagwatch
(my log of all national flags, apart from England of course, seen displayed on cars during the World Cup)
Brazil, Trinidad, Iran, Ghana, Portugal, Italy, Poland

2006-06-03T14:41:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd add a photo of myself onto this blog. Here's me celebrating Watford's victory in the play-off final...

2006-06-03T14:32:00.000+01:00

Well, it’s now June. It’s finally started to feel like summer, and the whole country has gone World Cup crazy. There are England flags everywhere, and you can’t even go to the shops without seeing someone in an England shirt. I won’t be flying a St George’s flag from my car though – not after the last time, when the one I’d taped to my aerial got stolen … along with the aerial. And as for shirts – well, I’ve got a replica heavy-cotton red 1966 model, and that’s good enough for me.

I, though, have been on a football-related high for quite some time now – since the play-offs, in fact. I was there in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago, thoroughly enjoying myself (for the most part) as the mighty ’Orns demolished Leeds United to secure a place among the elite of English football. Oh yes, Watford are once again in the Premier League, back where we don’t really belong and looking forward to the campaign ahead. I think that this time we have a better chance of staying up – under the legendary Graham Taylor back in 1999 it really was a case of too much, too soon (we’d only been Champions of what was then Division Two a year previously), and since then the club has come through and (hopefully) learned a lot as a result of their experiences. An attempt at big spending under a big-name manager went horribly wrong after GT left – Gianluca Vialli, a man nowadays as unpopular as Dave Bassett among Watford fans, spent lots on players who failed to perform, sending the club into near-bankruptcy in the process and then had the cheek to try and sue us! Now, though, we’ve got in Adrian Boothroyd one of the best young managers in the country, and I’ll bet you now that he won’t go down without a fight. And you can bet that we won’t be blowing every penny we’ve got in the process – that’s never been the Watford way, and it never will be.

The Cardiff experience was wonderful – more so, I reckon, than my previous big Watford day out, to the play-off final at old Wembley in 1999. The Millennium Stadium is a place that really has to be seen to be believed; when I emerged onto the stands I had to stop for a few seconds to take it all in, for that place is truly huge, and the fact that the roof was ‘closed’ simply added to the effect. And what a game! No-one who saw it could dispute that we’ve earned the right to be a Premier League team, although it will obviously take a lot of adjusting before we get taken seriously in that regard. Premier League defences ought to take note of Marlon King though – he may not be in the Jamaican team this afternoon because he got drunk the other night, but watch out for him in August. And remember the name of Adrian Boothroyd, because you’re going to hear a lot about him from now on.

I’d travelled up with a couple of friends – a father-and-son who live near me. Reminded me a bit of the time, back in the late 80s, when my Dad took me and my brother to the games. Dad couldn’t make the play-off final, alas. Just as well I had those friends though, as I hadn’t much fancied making the trip on my own. In the event, we spent most of the journey swapping football banter, and have since agreed to ‘team up’ to travel to a few Premier League away games. Old Trafford is somewhere near the top of our list.

And so to the World Cup. I’ll stick my neck out now and say that I reckon England will win it, with or without Wayne Rooney. We’ve got a goalie who they’ll soon be comparing to Shilton and Banks, our defence must be one of the best in the tournament, I’d say – and a midfield containing Gerrard, Lampard and Beckham has got to be feared. But then, I also said we’d go all the way four years ago, and look what happened then.

I can’t seem to get away from references to 1966. That tournament has surely been done to death by now – yes, it was the only time England have ever won the World Cup, but surely there isn’t an English football fan alive who doesn’t know the whole story already? It’s as though ’66 has become a millstone for the English – our only major footballing triumph, to be rolled out when all else has failed, Geoff Hurst, the world’s most over-played piece of commentary, bring out the red shirts to remind ourselves all about it, etc. If only we’d won it more times, then we wouldn’t have to rely on it so much; we damned well should have won it more times, but then you could also argue that we shouldn’t have won it at all (Russian linesmen and all that), so perhaps it’s best if we leave the past alone for now.

There’s a lot of hype about the whole thing – way too much. I reckon that it was ever thus – although the extent of commercialisation is perhaps a recent phenomenon. Although there was much commercial overkill in 2002, I’m not sure that it wasn’t as much as this. Especially as far as those flags are concerned. But I quite like the flags. For so long, the Cross of Saint George has been derided as a ‘racist’ flag because of its use by certain political organisations, and I think it’s just great to see that it’s now been reclaimed for the country as a whole. But companies cashing in and newspapers going mad is something that could be seen as far back as the 1970 World Cup, and probably before then (if, like me, you weren’t around for that one, I recommend that you read Jeff Dawson’s excellent ‘Back Home’ for an idea of what World Cups used to be like).

As I write, England v. Jamaica is on the telly. 2-0 to us so far. Bring on the World Cup, I say.

2006-05-20T15:42:00.000+01:00

Given what I’ve had to say about Watford on this blog, it may surprise you to know that I’ve got my ticket for the play-off final tomorrow. But then, I’ve supported Watford for a long time – too long to go off them after not being able to get a ticket for the Luton game, and too long to allow myself to be seduced by the lure of the terraces of Underhill. The ticket was £44, and as I was working all week (!) I had to ask my Dad, who had a day off, to go up to Vicarage Road to get it on Thursday. So that’s another big favour I owe him.

Dad, of course, is the man responsible for my being a Watford supporter in the first place – it’s the team he supports, so back in 1986, when his eldest was starting to get interested in football, it probably didn’t occur to him to take me anywhere else. Keen historians of the game will no doubt realise that that was when the Hornets were still in the old First Division, managed by Graham Taylor, and boasting players like Luther Blissett, Tony Coton, John Barnes and Nigel Callaghan. My first game, for what it’s worth, was a 1-1 draw against Machester United towards the end of the season – so roughly 20 years ago. Luther scored for us.

The fact that I’ve been a Watford supporter for twenty years did cross my mind when Dad and I went along to the home leg of the semi-final against Crystal Palace – not much of a game in itself, but then we had already beaten Palace 3-0 at their place, and it would have required the mother of all screw-ups for us to have lost on aggregate. Not bad for a team who were cast as hot favourites for relegation when the season started.

I suppose that I started with Watford at the wrong time – not that I had much choice in the matter. I first knew Watford as a top-flight outfit containing some very good players (see above), and it took a while for my younger self to realise that this situation was not exactly in accordance with the club’s history. Unlike Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal (those teams that most of my friends at school supported), we did not have a long and distinguished history at football’s top table; we were the gatecrashers. We’d only got into the top flight four or five years earlier, and if you look at the club’s history you’ll come to the conclusion that we’re the sort of club who should, by rights, be languishing in what used to be called the Third Division (nowadays known as League One), with the occasional foray in either direction.

And that’s where we were supposed to end up this season. But then, you only need to look at Watford’s history to know that we are not exactly the sort of club that does what we’re supposed to do. Storming up from the Fourth to the First Division in five years is, for a club like Watford, just not supposed to be The Done Thing. Nor is claiming a UEFA Cup spot (back in the day when only the Champions went into the European Cup) in your first-ever First Division season. And nor, for that matter, is having the temerity to get yourselves promoted to the Premiership a year after you were crowned Champions of the Second (old Third) Division.

Being a Watford fan has its advantages. As you may well have gathered, one of them is the thrill of never really knowing what’s going to happen next. Sure, you can say that about a lot of clubs, but I’ll bet that we get that thrill more than most. What did those other clubs expect of their season back in August? I’m sure Chelsea fans blithely assumed that another Premiership title was theirs for the taking, so no pleasant surprises there. Manchester United fans probably reckoned they’d end up in a Champions League spot. And I’m sure that it was not beyond the expectations of Sunderland fans to think that they may well end up getting relegated. No sane Watford fan would have predicted that we’d get anywhere near the play-offs, yet here we are in the play-off final, in a game which is, so they say on Radio Five Live, the most lucrative of the entire season – because the winners will be in the Premiership, and by implication that means they’ll get many millions of pounds. It may not seem like a big deal to the Roman Abramoviches of this world, but it is to the Graham Simpsons.

There’s one man we’ve got to thank, of course. Adrian ‘Aidy’ Boothroyd came to Watford at the back end of last season as a hurried replacement for Ray Lewington, who’d managed to get himself sacked with several games left to go. That Aidy was able to stave off relegation then was pretty miraculous. But he then told Chairman Simpson and the rest of the board that he expected to get promotion the following year. Apparently, at least two board members fell off their chairs in astonishment when he said this. Yes, things looked bleak. Boothroyd was untested as a manager (in fact, at 34 he’s still the youngest in the League), and the squad consisted mostly of untested youngsters. And now look at them – play-off hopefuls, with the highest scorer in the division to boot. He’s called Marlon King, and I suspect that we haven’t had a highest scorer in any division since we had Luther up front. There’s even a Marlon King tee-shirt that bears the unforgettable slogan: ‘Jesus Saves – but King slots home the loose ball’.

So once again, we’re a club that’s punching above its weight, with an ambitious, tactically astute manager (I’ll stop short of using the word ‘genius’ for the time being) and a young squad who quite clearly want to go places. And the next place is Cardiff. As Aidy himself would say: ‘Come On!’

And I’ll be there tomorrow to cheer him and the boys on. It won’t be my first play-off final – I was there at Wembley back in 1999 to see one of the greatest-ever goals at that famous old stadium; scored, of course, by a Watford player (Nicky Wright – injury may have cut short a promising career, but in scoring THAT goal he had a career highlight that many pros would’ve gladly killed for).

I’m not the most consistent of Watford supporters; there have been a couple of seasons since that day in May twenty years ago when I didn’t go to a single game. But I’ve never been ashamed to admit that I support Watford – even if it has been most unfashionable to do so (OK, there was one time I didn’t admit to it – but in mitigation that was when I was teaching at a school in Luton. Believe me, that’s one place where you don’t want to be identified too closely with Watford). That’s the thing, really; at least you can’t go calling us a bunch of glory-hunters, as you can so many Chelsea and Manchester United ‘fans’ these days. Yes, I support a highly unfashionable football club (even the colours aren’t exactly trend-setting – who else has a yellow home shirt?), which doesn’t properly belong in the Premiership and probably never will. But just you try and stop us.

2006-05-11T13:09:00.000+01:00

It’s one of ‘those’ weeks. Meaning that this week, like last week, has so far been the sort of week where there hasn’t been much by way of work. School sin my local area, it seems, don’t really need a supply at the moment. Or rather, they don’t need that many.

I could be due to SATs – for those readers who aren’t acquainted with the British education system, they’re a form of compulsory testing that certain year-groups have to undergo. Well, they’re in full swing at the moment, and at such a time it’s probably the case that less teachers go off on courses or try to throw a sickie.

I have only done one day’s work this week – and I only did two last week. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to work, it’s just that my supply agency hasn’t called. Or I’ve called them, and they’ve said that there’s no work. Which means that I have too much time on my hands at the moment. And not much to really do. OK, so the cricket’s on the radio, but the problem with just listening to that all day is that it’s a rather passive way of spending one’s time, isn’t it?

It seems to me like I’m in a bit of a rut at the moment. I really do need some sort of challenge, something to focus on in order to liven things up. I read a book yesterday called ‘Yes Man’ – I’ve read something by the author before (Danny Wallace, who strikes me as being the sort of bloke I wouldn’t mind sharing a drink or three with in the pub), and I rather like the sort of things he gets up to. He always seems to inadvertently get involved in the sort of mad challenge that I wouldn’t mind having a go at myself – in this case, setting himself the goal of saying ‘yes’ to anything and everything, and seeing where this leads him. Well, for the most part it leads onto a few more interesting experiences than he might otherwise have had – and all because he chose to say ‘yes’ when he would have previously said ‘no’.

It may sound daft, but he’s got a point. No, I’m not going to start saying ‘yes’ to everything – but I think the message (if that’s what it is) is more basic than that: Get out more! Open yourself up to new experiences! That’s what I need to do more of. It’s not as though I’ve never done that sort of thing – heck, last year I quit my job and went off travelling through Africa for six months – but it is certainly the sort of thing I should do more often.

Just because I don’t have some sort of coherent challenge, it doesn’t mean that I should stay in this damned rut. Time to find some way of getting out of it, I reckon!

2006-05-07T17:03:00.000+01:00

I’m writing this in the back garden on a Sunday afternoon. The laundry is drying on the line, the birds are singing and the inescapable sound of aircraft overhead is present and correct. The Sunday supplements are spread out on the table next to me. Half an hour ago the sun was out, but now the sky seems to have clouded over. It’s a relaxing Sunday afternoon, and I’m taking a break from writing my book in order to write this. Welcome to late spring, North-West London suburban style. Life, at the moment at least, is good.

With the weather taking a turn for the (slightly) warmer, my bike has started to make a few customary appearances on the road. As ever, I always seem to torture myself whenever I take it out for a ride by trying to tackle some of the hills in this area. Whether or not I will tackle the London-to-Southend ride again is yet to be decided.

As a supply-teacher, I do of course have no marking or planning to do over the weekend – one of the main advantages! I also have no work lined up for the forthcoming week, but that is sure to change tomorrow morning. It’s not the most ideal of situations but it will suit me very well for the moment.

For this avid follower of the news, it has been an interesting week. Charles Clark, Two Jags Prescott and his secretary, the local elections, the reshuffle – where does one begin? Well, if I did then this entry would be a very long one that would involve much referring to the Daily Telegraph and the BBC in its various forms; I’ll just state my incredulity at the fact that Two Jags has managed to keep his salary and perks while losing most of his ministerial responsibility (same pay for doing less – nice work if you can get it!), and add that my highlight of the week as far as politics is concerned was Have I Got News For You on Friday night, still as good as it ever was.

Closer to home, the Conservatives have not only held Barnet Council but have increased their majority, with my local ward now being represented by three Tories. So much for the KBA’s anti-Tory campaign, proof perhaps that some of the local residents are less than keen on the local (league) football club’s continued survival/presence. Or that sport and politics obviously don’t mix.

In terms of sport, Watford seem to be on course for the play-off final, having unexpectedly beaten Crystal Palace in yesterday’s away leg. Roll on Tuesday evening at Vicarage Road! Good news also for Barnet, who have managed to avoid relegation. The World Cup looms large, although this time you won’t catch me making any predictions. Not after the last time, when I firmly believed that England would demolish Brazil in the quarter-final and go on to win the whole tournament. And the Test series against Sri Lanka starts very soon; Sky may have the rights to televise it but at least Channel Five has not only bagged the right to show the highlights but is doing so at a sensible time. Bring on the cricket, says I.

My only real rant at the moment is about something I read in the paper earlier today, a claim that under a recent EU directive which has been approved by Parliament it will, as of 2010, be illegal for traders of any sort to refer to imperial measurements. It’s so daft it’s probably true, and to me at least it indicates that someone somewhere in government has lost any last vestiges of common sense and perspective that they may have once possessed. Was anyone with any sense consulted on this? Clearly not, because if they had been then this situation would never have come about because that ridiculous little diktat would never have got anywhere near the law-books. Such small-minded tinkering can only be for the worse (new petty-minded and silly rules making criminals out of honest citizens), and do much to enforce the notion that this country is slowly going to the dogs. I’ve never much liked the EU, and most of what I hear about it tends to convince me that we’d be better off out.

2006-04-17T20:51:00.000+01:00

Well, today I took a break from being a Watford fan and joined the massed ranks (well, the 2,700-strong crowd) at Underhill, home of the not-so-mighty Barnet FC, who are currently somewhere near the bottom of League Two (formerly known as the Fourth Division). My main reason for this was that a couple of mates were going and asked if I’d like to tag along; I didn’t see why not. Plus all that stuff I’ve previously said about Watford, of course. I ended up with more than I’d bargained for.

‘The Bees’ are in effect my ‘local’ League team (being the closest to where I live), but this was only the second time I’d ever seen them play, the first having been over ten years ago. I think it would be safe to say that, apart from some extra seats and a new-looking building in one of the corners, little has changed – it still has the air of a non-league ground, which is all part of the problem (see below). To be honest, one of the reasons I’d wanted to go was because I wanted to have the pleasure of watching a football match while having to stand, something that you don’t get to do at Vicarage Road any more.

In terms of atmosphere, Underhill’s East Terrace (adults £13) certainly had more going for it than Vicarage Road’s Rookery End, with the fans generally being vocal for greater periods of the game, and more creative in what they sang (or maybe that’s just because I’ve never heard the Nicky Bailey tribute to the tune of the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘I predict a riot’ before!). Yes, I know it’s an old cliché that fans who have to stand are more vocal than those who have to sit, but it’s still true. And it makes a difference.

It’s fair to say that Barnet aren’t the greatest team on the planet – how else could you kindly describe a side that can’t finish off an opposition which has been reduced to nine men? Be that as it may, they did end the match with three much-needed points thanks to Liam Hatch scoring his first goal of the season, which will doubtless help them greatly in the relegation dogfight (they’re now 21st and have still to play two of the teams currently below them), but by rights they should have buried Mansfield Town. Still a bad win is better than a good anything else. Three points are three points no matter how you win them, and all that. However, just for once I found myself really enjoying watching a match, not something I’ve been able to say about recent trips to see Watford.

And the fun wasn’t over after the final whistle – for the Keep Barnet Alive campaign (www.k-b-a.co.uk) had planned a protest march afterwards. As a non-Barnet fan I clearly had no right to be there, but I picked up a ‘Save the Bees’ poster and tagged along regardless. Besides, one of my mates had offered me a lift home, and if the High Street was going to be bought to a standstill he wouldn’t be going anywhere fast.

The protest was against Barnet Council, which has (to put it mildly) been royally mucking around with the club’s chances of finding a suitable venue for a new ground – which it needs if it wants to have any ambitions with regard to staying in the League, reasons being that Underhill is too small, not enough of it is covered and there’s too much of a slope. The council has so far proved remarkably obstructive towards any attempts to come up with a suitable new venue, and quite frankly Barnet fans are sick of it. Football and politics are two things that shouldn’t really be mixed, but try telling that to Barnet fans who are desperate to make sure that the Tories don’t retain control of the London Borough of Barnet at the local council elections in a fortnight’s time. They just want a decent future for their club, after all. You’d think it wouldn’t be too much to ask for. I’d never been on a protest march before, but what the heck; wanting a decent future for a local football club is a better cause than most, especially in an age when so many smaller clubs appear to be very close to going to the wall. So today I (lifelong Watford supporter that I am) marched for Barnet.

With police escort, we marched from Underhill up past Barnet Church, then round the block and back down the road to the ground. Someone who’d got hold of the club’s loud-hailer got us to ‘do’ the terrace rendition of the intro to ‘The Final Countdown’. We chanted ‘Save the Bees’ and ‘Tories Out’, and cheered all passing motorists who honked at us. We laughed at the motorist who got annoyed by the fact that he couldn’t pull out onto the main road because we were marching on it. And everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. No violence, co-operation with the police, all very friendly. And all done in the best of causes. At least I can say that, for once, I’ve done something vaguely constructive on a Bank Holiday.

2006-04-16T18:15:00.000+01:00

This world in which we live can be a strange place at times. Fascinating and wonderful it certainly is, but every now and again I do get the impression that it’s a bit unhinged. Somewhere we have not so much lost the plot, more deliberately ignored it and gone off on our own mad tangent.
Modern life certainly throws up more than its fair share of evidence that we’ve all gone mad, and much of this can be attributed to that dreadful phrase ‘consumer society’. Before I start to sound too much like a Daily Mail editorial, I’m going to get straight to the point. I’ve had enough of the greetings card industry.
I’m sure there must have been a time in the not too distant past when we only really bothered with greetings cards on a handful of occasions – Christmas, birthdays, baptisms and bereavement are the four that spring most readily to mind. Add ‘new arrival’ and retirement to that if you like. Do we really need anything more?
Oh yes we apparently do; the problem with the above is that, Christmas aside, there are rather obviously going to be slack periods of business for all those people who work in Clinton’s, the Birthday Shop and the like (Smith’s doesn’t really count, as it doesn’t just rely on greetings cards). Yes, birthdays tend to come around once a year with the regularity that they always have, but as for the rest – well, we’re hardly talking about regular occurrences, are we?
In order to be assured of some decent, year-round trade, the greetings-card industry has upped the ante over the years by coming up with a whole load of commemorative days for which we, the Great British Shopping Public (‘the consumer’) just have to buy cards for.
Well, Easter’s an annual festival anyway, so that’ll do for starters (more on this later). Mothering Sunday, once little more than a yearly commemorative service at church (which I think has something to do with the Virgin Mary) is now fixed on our calendars as Mothers’ Day. Obviously that’s not fair on all those dads out there, so we’ll need a Fathers’ Day as well. And who could forget Valentine’s Day? All that tacky lovey-dovey stuff in the card shops around February makes me feel a bit queasy, if it hasn’t already given me the urge to stick two fingers down my throat. I’m not just saying that because I’m single, by the way. I really cannot understand why anyone who’s in a genuine loving relationship feels the need to prove their love by splashing out on a mushy card and other assorted bits and pieces once a year; whatever happened to the spontaneous gesture?
I, as you may guess, have already drawn the line (at Fathers’ Day, if you must know). But the list goes on – Grandparents’ Day (forget that; my sole surviving grandparent gets her card on Mothers’ Day), St Patrick’s Day (regardless of Irish origins or lack thereof), Secretaries’ Day (the 19th of this month, according to the sign in Clinton’s), even St George’s Day now has its own set of cards. I always thought that the English reticence concerning our patron saint was down to one of our more charming character traits (reluctance to make a big fuss about things), but it seems that the greetings card industry has other ideas.
Maybe the Americans are to blame here. They seem to have more special days than us, and no doubt their greetings card industry has its own set of cards for Presidents’ Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and all that. And as for marketing a new special day, well the industry’s tendency to do this has even been satirised by The Simpsons. Ours, perhaps, has learned a few tricks from theirs.
And these aren’t just any cards that we’re being prompted to buy – no, they’re presonalised cards. Cards specifically aimed at all manner of relatives. It’s just not good enough to get any old card for your auntie’s birthday, it’s got to be a special ‘auntie’ card, and so on. Which makes buying the things a bit tricky, as many of these personal cards which seem to occupy most of the shelf-space at Clinton’s are, for want of a better word, a bit crappy. As are all those ones showing characters from Little Britain. Yes, it may have been funny the first time around, but that’s no reason why I should have to look at Messrs. Lucas and Walliams in their various guises every time I want to get someone a birthday card.
It was the Easter cards that got me thinking here. Easter seems to have evolved into some sort of chocolate-eating frenzy, just like Christmas seems to have lost its way somewhere along the line (although it’s worth noting that in both cases there were special festivals at the same time of year in pre-Christian times; that, however, is an argument for another time). Like Christmas, you can now get a personal Easter card for any sort of relative you might ever conceive of wanting to get one for, and if you’re a bit cheap there’s always the charity packs. But one card in particular drew my eye: ‘Happy Easter From The Dog’. Yes, forget buying a card for someone, you can now get a card that’s supposed to be from the family pet. And I wonder why I despair sometimes!
There is, thankfully, an alternative to this consumerised idiocy. If you don’t agree with what the greetings card industry are pushing onto us, you don’t have to buy into it. My mum has hit onto the right idea here – she makes her own. She gets the material from the hobby-craft shop, and then makes a card as and when it’s needed. It’s more personal than anything she’ll ever find at Clinton’s, and what’s more it’s a nice little hobby as well. She enjoys this sort of thing, as does my auntie, so there’s no way I’ll ever knock it. It’s not my cup of tea, but as alternatives to the greetings card industry go it’s a very good one.
Anyway, rant over. So long as I don’t get an Easter card from my brother’s pet goldfish.

2006-04-11T22:41:00.000+01:00

This week I am a gentleman of leisure - the week between Palm Sunday and the Easter weekend is definitely one when all schools are on holiday, therefore there's no work around. As it was, I only worked for two days last week. Thus far this week I've distinguished myself by doing not very much, apart from fulfilling various family commitments and socialising with my mates in the pub. My brother's in town at the moment; we've always got on well so this is a great time for catching up.
As I tend to be the type who, if not careful, will lose touch with friends and acquantances even if we live in the same area, I'm always impressed by the way my brother managed to make the effort to get in touch with so many people when he's around.
I, or rather we, never did go to that Watford game; it turns out that the reason why the club refused to sell us tickets was because the police, ever fearful of crowd trouble at Watford-Luton games, had advised/told the club not to sell to anyone who hadn't bought three home tickets via the official channels (ie. from the ticket office). This was confirmed on Saturday - and, to add insult to injury, I received an offer to purchase a season ticket in the post that same morning. For the moment I'm taking my custom elsewhere - which means that I'll be up at Underhill (the home, for now, of Barnet) with a couple of mates on Easter Monday. Before then, the cricket season is starting with the traditional MCC v Champion County (Notts this time), so a Friday trip down to Lord's may well be on the cards.
On Saturday lunchtime, though, I was down in Sussex for a Golden Wedding anniversary - some very good friends on the family who I regrettably haven't visited in recent years - more catching up! After the party, my brother and I spent some time by the beach - we used to visit that part of the country a lot when we were younger (staying with the couple in question) and have many fond memories of weekends spent there. There are times when I do love certain parts of England, and on that afternoon I was strongly reminded of how the Sussex coast (in between Hastings and Rye to be exact) is one such area. Oh, happy days.

2006-04-04T21:10:00.000+01:00

It’s not very often these days that I go to a football match. I support Watford – have done since I was a kid – but I’ve never been the sort of fan who turns up to games week in, week out. I doubt that I ever will, but I do like to go every now and then. I enjoy the atmosphere at football matches, and there are times when I find the crowd to be as interesting (if not more so) than the game itself. But I'm not a regular match-goer.

Since my return from Africa, I’ve been to one game - which took my total for the 2005-06 season up to one. Suffice to say, I did not see Watford at their best on a very cold Saturday afternoon in January when they got annihilated by Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup. I should have known better – aside from that time we made it to the semi-finals a few years ago Watford’s record in the FA Cup has been incredibly poor. We’re lucky if we make it past the third round, and this year was no exception.

Anyway, that was enough to put me off the idea of going along to any more matches for the next couple of months, although the club had been thriving in my absence and as far as the league is concerned they’ve continued to do so. Considering that the financial situation is very bad, the manager had no previous experience of being a manager and most of the experienced (and therefore better-paid) players had been sold pre-season, the club has done fantastically well to be in a play-off position. Hats off to Adrian ‘Aidy’ Boothroyd and the boys, says I.

For all football fans, the fixture that ‘really matters’ is the one against your local rivals. Think Arsenal-Spurs, the Manchester derby, or Glasgow’s ‘Old Firm’. Well, the Home Counties, Herts v. Beds rivalry between us and ‘The Scum’ (alias Luton Town) is as intense as any of those I’ve just mentioned. The passions that are raised when these two clubs – similar in terms of being seen as unfashionable by the game’s elite and in terms of past achievements (both graced the old First Division in the 80s, we made it into Europe, they won the League Cup, etc) – come together. It must be the Hertfordshire Constabulary’s biggest overtime-spinner ever devised. It’s the only time when Watford, a club blessed with a generally friendly and hooligan-free fanbase, is cursed with that catch-all phrase ‘crowd trouble’. Kick-offs have been delayed due to rioting in the past. Pitch invasions and punch-ups in the stands are nothing new.

I’m no hooligan, and I’ve never gone to a football match looking for trouble. But I love those Watford-Luton derbies. There is quite simply an added element of excitement that you just don’t get if we’re at home to, say, Preston North End or Burnley. And just to make it even more exciting, I have relatives who support Luton. A damn sight more passionately than I support Watford, mind you. So, what with us playing them at home this Sunday, I wanted to go.

Oh no you don’t, says Watford Football Club. You need to be on our database if you want a ticket for this one. Like most clubs these days, Watford has a database of supporters who’ve bought tickets from their ticket office, and relying on this obviously reduces the chances of any Luton fans infiltrating the home end and causing trouble (this has happened before, although why anyone would want to watch a local derby in the company of rival fans is beyond me). Although I’m usually a casual, turn-up-and-pay-on-the-day sort of fan, I am in fact on their database. That’s all very well, but I fail their second test. You need, so the bloke behind the desk said, to have bought tickets for three games this season. I fall somewhat short of this attendance criteria. In fact, I’ve only ever heard of them doing that for big cup games before. And it means that I won’t be making my way to Vicarage Road next weekend. Clearly my club does not need the likes of me going along to cheer it on in such a big game.

Oh well, so long as it’s not on Sky – although given that it’s a Sunday kick-off it might well be. This may sound perverse, but Watford’s record in televised games is appalling. It’s almost as though we’ve been cursed by Sky. If you had the misfortune to watch us in action against Crystal Palace last Friday you’ll know why; how any team could come out for the second half 1-0 up, watch the opposition’s number nine get stretchered off and go on to lose 3-1 (scoring two own goals, yes TWO own goals in the process) is beyond me. It is, as somebody once said, a funny old game. But when Watford are playing and the Sky TV cameras are there, you won’t see any Hornets fans laughing. They’ll be chanting more rude things about Andy Gray than usual, I grant you that – but they’ll end up on the losing side.

I haven’t quite given up yet; if they don’t manage to sell all their tickets by match-day, I will doubtless have the opportunity to go. But as things stand, the club doesn’t seem to want me to do that. Perhaps I should just take my ticket-money elsewhere.

2006-03-31T20:00:00.000+01:00

I read somewhere not so long ago that teachers are among those professions more likely to not want to admit to what they do - a phenomenon apparently connected to the tabloid press hysteria about paedophilia. Well, I've never been ashamed to admit to being a teacher - in fact, saying this seems (among my non-teaching mates and acquaintances) to generate a response along the lines of 'how do you manage?' and 'I couldn't do that'. This continues when I go on to say that I'm a supply teacher. I all honesty I sometimes wonder how I manage, and whether or not I'm in the wrong job.

But I take heart from the fact that the schools I go to seem genuinely pleased with my efforts (several have said that they want me back), which is just as well given that I have no chance of getting a permanent teaching job. Well, if you had as bad a time in your first and only permanent teaching job as I did, you wouldn't stand a chance either. Not with the references that the school in question doubtless gives out in relation to my inglorious two-and-a-half terms there (I have never seen a copy of this reference, by the way; not sure if I'd want to either).

I've even found the time to mix with fellow-supplies. At a large comprehensive on Monday there were four of us, and although we'd never met before it didn't take too long for us to find out that we were in the same boat (and from the same supply agency) over lunch in the staffroom. It seems that my opinions about certain schools in the area are quite common!

This week I've had some genuinely good moments - one of my more effective mentors at a training placement once told me that every day of teaching contains at least one 'golden moment', and although I had few enough of those in my NQT year I do think that he was right. Several children (and parents!) have thanked me for teaching them, and at times I've felt genuinely good about myself as a teacher. At this rate, I might be able to make a career of it!

In case you were wondering about what a week in the life of a supply teacher is like ... wonder no more. Here's a week of my professional life in diary form, in the style of the TES 'Thank God It's Friday' column to be exact (this was actually submitted to the TES but rejected!).
Enjoy!

MONDAY
At 7:30am, the agency rings to tell me that there’s a day for me at a comprehensive school. It takes me nearly an hour to get there, and after fifteen minutes of a Year Nine cover-lesson I’m wishing I’d said no. Luckily for me, the Assistant Head is on hand to restore order and acquaint me with the school’s disciplinary procedures. I adopt a more firm attitude for the rest of the day, and at 3:30 I escape relatively unscathed.

TUESDAY
No work this morning, but there’s an afternoon at a primary school. This turns out to be less work than usual, as the Year Five teacher I’m supposed to be covering for takes the first part of the afternoon’s maths lesson, leaving me to supervise the children afterwards. With two TAs in the room, the afternoon passes without incident. After dismissing the children, I get a call from the agency; a middle school within walking distance from home needs someone to cover Year Seven for tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY
No work has been set, but that’s not as tricky as it sounds because the two Year Seven teachers swap classes for certain subjects, so really I’ll be doing two lessons, twice each – Shakespeare in the morning and RE after lunch. There are plenty of resources I can use for Shakespeare – enough to hide my hitherto non-acquaintance with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For RE I find out what religion they’re studying (Christianity), photocopy a page from The Childrens’ Bible and get the pupils to do mock-newspaper reports about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Even though most of the pupils aren’t Christians, it works rather well.

THURSDAY
My irreverent take on RE wouldn’t go down well at today’s school, a Roman Catholic primary. I’ve got Year Five all day, and plenty of work has been left for them. In literacy they’re writing their own horror stories. We have a fantastic plenary on what sort of imagery they can use, and a discussion about monsters (vampires and zombies seem to be very popular). Over lunch, a TA tells me how impressed she is with the class’s behaviour today – and attributes this to my secondary school teacher approach and expectations.

FRIDAY
Another school, and another Year Five class. Lots of work has been left, although one boy in particular is reluctant to do any of it. He’s more concerned with his collection of football cards, which he’s convinced has been stolen by another boy. Eventually I send him out of the class, to the surprise of no-one. According to the Head, he’s the most difficult boy in the school; in that case, I’m relieved that it was only football cards that pre-occupied him today.

2006-03-23T18:55:00.000Z

At times, I get the impression that for all my ambitious plans to see various parts of this wonderful world of ours, I'm missing the bits of it that are somewhat closer to home. I suspect I'm not alone here, as most Britons probably wouldn't go out of their way to visit places of interest in Britain. Or maybe that should just refer to Londoners? Either way, such places are so often deemed to be 'too touristy', and the last thing any Londoner wants is to look like a tourist in his or her own city. How many Londoners do you see traipsing round the Tower? Not many, I'll bet. I have traipsed round it, though, and I conclude from this that it's my fellow-Londoners who are missing out. And missing out on OUR history! Why should the history of our city/country be something just for the tourists, I sometimes wonder?
But it isn't just places in London that suffer from this; as I realised yesterday when I headed out beyond the M25, but still under the Heathrow flightpath, to Windsor. I'd taken the day off from supply-teaching today to go for a job interview there - no, not teaching but in advertising. Frankly I'm considering getting out of teaching and I've been applying for a few non-teaching jobs, and this is the first one where they've got back to me and asked me along for an interview.
Well, the interview itself went OK but didn't last too long, so at around 11am I found myself in Windsor with nothing much else to do for the rest of the day. As a historian, I couldn't face the prospect of just going straight home. I'd only ever been to Windsor once before, for the parade when I'd got my Queen's Scout Award, so it's not as though I've ever really had the chance to look around there.
Rather than go straight to the castle, though, I made my way through the town to the Thames and went for a most peaceful walk along it - peaceful, that is, except for the jet-planes overhead making their final approach to Heathrow. Walking along by the river and watching all the birds, I felt rather contented - it was, after all, a nice Spring day, and here I was on the outskirts of what strikes me as a fairly attractive town. I wished I'd taken my camera, for I got a fantastic view of that town - skyline dominated of course by the castle - from one of the islands on the river.
Back in town, after a pub lunch I got my ticket for the castle (£13:50!). This is a castle that, being well and truly on the high ground, really dominates its surroundings; as the Queen herself would probably say, one really can see for miles. It's medieval castle-building on a grand scale if you like, and although there have of course been later additions it's not difficult to see where it all started - what's now the Round Tower probably started life as the motte (ie. the fortification on top of the hill), with what's now the 'lived-in' area constituting the bailey. I've heard somewhere that this was to the England of Edward III what Versailles was to Louis XIV's France, and for me at any rate that's an apt comparison.
A tourist-trap it most certainly was - there were even several blue badge guides by the statue of Queen Victoria worrying about where they might have lost their Japanese charges - but I do think that the castle manages to rise above all that. The state apartments frankly blew me away (and I've been round stately homes and palaces before), what with all those paintings, gold-leaf everything and displays of old-fashioned weapons, not the least of all Henry VIII's last suit of armour (made when he was a big man in every sense of the word, and was so heavy he even had to be winched onto his horse).
I could only see the quadrangle, where I'd paraded with all those other Queen's Scouts, through a gate (like the living-quarters, it's out-of-bounds to members of the public), but St George's Chapel - where we'd had the service - was open. To judge from the mutterings of others, I'm not the only one who thinks that all those fold-up chairs seem out-of-place in the gothic-style setting though; why can't they get some proper wooden pews in? In the choir, I inadvertently walked over Henry VIII's grave, or at least the slab which covers 'his' vault; for company, he's got Jane Seymour (wife number three), Charles I (with or without the head, one wonders?) and one of Queen Anne's children. Up above were the banners of the present-day Knights of the Garter, among them Edmund Hilary, the Emperor of Japan and Margaret Thatcher, plus several members of the Royal Family (mixed company or what?).
This being a twenty-first century tourist hotspot, there is of course a souvenir shop in the grounds (three actually), where one can buy such tasteful items as (tin) replicas of all those bone-china plates one's just seen in the state apartments, cushions with 'God save the Queen' stitched on them and all manner of royal-related books; they've even got an Elgar CD on as background music. For the tacky stuff, one needs to look beyond the castle grounds; the high-street souvenir shops cater for those after fridge-magnets, Union Jack thongs and Charles & Camilla tea-towels. As an avid occasional collector of souvenir fridge-magnets, I was rather disappointed by the fact that the one showing the castle looked nothing like it. Truth be told, I was more tempted by the 2005 Ashes commemorative plate (not that I bought either). Still, I'll bet they love it when a coach-load of Americans pulls up.
Oddly, though, you only have to walk a few yards down the hill (away from the castle and its attendant quaint tea-rooms and souvenir shops - in the direction that Queen Victoria's pointing, in fact) and you could be in any modern British high-street - Woolworth's, betting-shops, Austin Reed, the Post Office, even down to the buskers playing the pan-pipes. Which if nothing else just goes to show that Windsor's not just for the tourists. Reassuring, to be honest.
And finally - moving away from Windsor - as a cricket fan I cannot let the events of this week pass by. England's first Test win in India for over twenty years, and that with a decidedly less-than-full-strength side; what a performance! If stand-in skipper 'Freddie' Flintoff were not already my hero, he would be now.

2006-03-22T16:56:00.000Z

They call it dromomania, I believe - whoever 'they' are. That's the scientific word for the urge to travel, and it looks like I'm a sufferer. How else can I explain the fact that, less than three months after returning from Africa, I'm starting to plan my next 'big' trip?
In fact, a lot of the things I've been doing this week denote an obsession with travelling. On Saturday I went to the TNT Travel Show in London - during the course of which I attended a talk by the incomparable Peter Moore (my favourite travel author). I've spent more time than I should have spent gazing at the big world map on my bedroom wall. I've got a couple of articles for various travel mags on the go, although doubtless they will soon find themselves being converted into rejection letters, such is the lot of the would-be travel-writer. And I'm currently making my way through Dervla Murphy's 'Through the Embers of Chaos', about her travels through the former Yugoslavia.
The latter had an appeal to me because, back when I was an undergraduate, I developed something of an obsession with the former Yugoslavia. In the late 1990s, this was hardly surprising given what was then recent - indeed, still-happening - events, although the fact that two of my lecturers were very much Balkan specialists did play a part in this. My BA dissertation was about what happened in Yugoslavia during the Second World War (and believe me, this has plenty of parallels with what happened there fifty-odd years later). I still recall vividly the first time I read 'Bridge on the Drina'. Surprisingly, this did not at the time materialise into a trip to the region (although I did go through part of Croatia during an Inter-Railing holiday a couple of years later), although a full-blown Balkan adventure is on the cards for some time in the future. I'm only part-way into Mrs Murphy's book, and my awareness of what happened in 1999 from a Serbian perspective (that of the people, not the late unlamented Slobodan Milosevic) has already increased dramatically. I for one will never be referring to that conflict as a 'just' war again.
But that's not the next big plan. Or at least, not quite. I've decided that my next 'big' trip will be to Central Asia, the ex-Soviet 'stans' to be precise. Uzbekistan, containing as it does the legendary cities of Bokhara and Samarkand, has a major appeal (it has done ever since I read Fitzroy Maclean's 'Eastern Approaches', in fact), as does Turkmenistan, a full-blown old-style dictatorship whose leader has what we might politely call an 'edifice complex' - he's named one of the months of the year after himself and has even got a large statue made out of solid gold, for heaven's sake. A statue of himself, of course.
But how to get there? I don't really fancy flying - as Peter Moore says, all you do is wonder about the places you're flying over. Why can't I go there overland? Across Europe to Istanbul (therefore going through the Balkans, of course!), then through Turkey and on into Iran (provided the Americans don't bomb it back to the Stone Age first) and then the former Soviet Union. And why should I stop at Central Asia? Surely it's possible to go from there into China, and thence on to Peking - sorry, Beijing - itself, taking in the Great Wall on the way? I remember seeing pictures of that as a kid, and by God was I impressed. To actually see it, and walk along it ... well!
Staring dreamily at a world map can be dangerous. From thinking about visiting Uzbekistan, I'm now thinking about going overland from London all the way to Beijing. And somewhere at the back of my mind is a small voice that says that, rather than doing the sensible thing and flying back from China, why not come home by train: Take the train to Mongolia, and thence through Siberia to Moscow (the Trans-Mongolian Railway, of course), and then through Northern Europe to one of the Channel ferry ports?
Dream on! You may say. Yes, at the moment it does look like a remote prospect, when I am to all intents and purposes sans ready cash, being as I am in debt to my credit card company. But believe me, this trip is going to happen. It may well take a few years to save up for, but it will happen.
We all, after all, need something to aim at. And this dromomaniac has found his next goal.

2006-03-18T09:06:00.000Z

I've got something to celebrate - or at least reflect on with a small amount of pleasure - this morning. For once, I have actually managed to fulfill a new year's resolution.
This year, in an attempt to improve my mind (or something like that), I set myself the challenge of reading a Dickens novel. He's one of those authors who I've always thought I should be reading but have never actually got round to; usually I tend to read thrillers, detective stories or travel-lit but every now and then I feel that I really ought to be reading something a bit different. This feeling was most apparent at university, when I went through a small phase of reading stuff by Joseph Heller and Albert Camus. Actually, I only started reading those in an attempt to come across as more of an intellectual, and when no-one noticed I just went back to Inspector Morse and Flashman. At least those are books you can actually enjoy.
Anyway - Dickens. I'd decided on 'Hard Times', and as the title suggests I did find it rather hard going - every now and then he'd mention a character who I'd forgotten about because I was reading the book rather slowly, and I had to refer back to find out who that character was. But, as of yesterday afternoon, it's all over - although I'm still none the wiser on a couple of points. After all that stuff about improving myself as a reader, all I've discovered is that I'm just not much of a Dickens fan
It probably says more about my reading habits than anything else, but in my view 'Hard Times' doesn't really compare with another book that I've recently been reading: 'The Falls' by Ian Rankin. I hadn't read any of the Rebus books before, but since I'm a bit of a fan of detective stories it was perhaps inevitable that I'd get round to him sooner rather than later. I read all the Morse books ages ago (and if I'm honest I still haven't fully forgiven Colin Dexter for killing him off), and since then I had found detective-related solace in the Banks books by Peter Robinson. Banks, however, strikes me as a bit of a Morse clone (albeit with a more troubled love-life) - so I went for something else. OK, so Rebus is another character in the 'provincial detective who's a bit of a loner' mould, but I think I prefer him to Banks. I'll certainly be reading more of Rankin's books in the future. I might even re-read 'The Falls' at some point, after I've read some of his others.
Which is more than can be said for the last author I'm going to mention in any great detail today. The third book I've been reading recently has been one I've wanted to get round to reading for a while now - it's a travel-book (of sorts) called 'Yet Being Someone Other' by Laurens van der Post. A couple of years ago, I read a couple of his books - 'Venture to the Interior' and 'The Lost World of the Kalahari' - and absolutely loved them. In addition, what little I knew about the author marked him out as a rather fascinating individual - war hero, friend of C.G. Jung, mentor to Prince Charles, etc. During the course of the past year I read a couple of his novels as well - rather like precursors of Wilbur Smith-style adventures, they were (this is no criticism coming from a Wilbur-fan such as myself). And then I read the biography of van der Post, and what regard I had for the man ended.
I suppose it happens to us all - we respect someone until we find out about what they were really like. In Laurens van der Post's case, it seems that he was a charlatan, with many of his 'adventures' being wildly exagerrated if not just made up, and most of those interesting anecdotes of his being little more than lies. In the light of these revelations, reading one of his 'autobiographical' books such as 'Yet Being' seems to be a singularly useless venture, and one which I suspect I will never complete. When I come across him talking about an adventure of his, I just think 'now that just didn't really happen, did it?'. What's the point of trawling through all those little stories about what he did when he was a young man when I know damn well that the old boy made up the lot? Suddenly there seems little point in reading it.
So, if anyone is after a second-hand paperback by either Charles Dickens or Laurens van der Post, then I'm your man. As for the Ian Rankin, I'm keeping that.

2006-03-13T21:15:00.000Z

It may interest you to know that my main 'pet project' at the moment is writing a book. No, it's not about supply-teaching but about my travels through Africa. I travelled from Cairo to Cape Town in six months, and I reckon I've got a few stories to tell. Whether or not I am able to tell them in a coherent and reader-friendly way is yet to be seen.
The book is based mostly on a diary I kept throughout the trip and a series of rather long-winded e-mails I sent home to various friends and relatives. With a little more foresight I could've done a blog instead, but it's too late for that now. The major snag so far is that I've lost the first two volumes of the diary - the ones that cover Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and northern Kenya. I made the mistake of posting them, along with some souvenirs, from Nairobi and they haven't arrived home yet. Naturally I hope that they'll turn up, or else the chapters on those countries will be rather thin on detail.
Anyway, I'd like to give you some sort of flavour about what sort of adventures will be featuring in the book. Obviously posting a whole chapter on here is a step too far (at the moment - if I get round to doing that it'll be in order and for reasons already explained I haven't started on the Cairo chapter yet).
So instead you're getting a couple of the e-mails - they're both about my experiences of Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan.
Enjoy!
Nick

My travels have now taken me to Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. Keen historians will no doubt recall that Khartoum was the place where General Gordon was killed, and it was later recaptured for Britain by General Kitchener (he of WW1 'your country needs you' poster fame; in fact as a result of his Sudan antics he was given the title 'Lord Kitchener of Khartoum'). Geographers may be more interested to note that Khartoum is the place where the Blue and White Niles converge; and having seen them for myself I can confirm that there is a distinct colour difference - the White Nile is a much lighter shade of murky brown than the Blue one.
So, you may be wondering, how did I get here? Well, from Aswan I took the (weekly) ferry to Wadi Halfa, the northern Sudanese port. The ferry itself was not exactly something you'd see on the Dover-Calais run; it was much smaller, passengers could (if they wanted to) sleep on 'deck class' and the canteen had a much more limited menu (rice with a couple of lumps of what I think was chicken - this was included in the cost of my ticket). I went first-class, which meant that I got an air-conditioned cabin which I shared with a travelling Egyptian 'businessman' who took up most of the space with his many boxes full of merchandise he doubtless hoped to sell to the Sudanese. Up on deck, people just grabbed any available space (underneath the lifeboats was most popular - there was at least some shade), but for the less discerning there was steerage - lots of benches below decks; as far as those were concerned, possession seemed to be ten-tenths the law. The passengers, many travelling in family groups, were mostly Sudanese (there were about half a dozen or so Europeans). This journey took about 18 hours, and at the end of it there was some considerable delay as all the passports were handed back (the ship's passport office, which doubled as the passport officer's cabin, could only be reached through the canteen!). Fortunately us Europeans (plus the token Korean) were given some sort of priority; we got our passports back first. Judging by the transport running into town, some people took hours to get off.
My first place in the Sudan, Wadi Halfa, is best described as a nondescript transit-point; it's where the ferry from the north meets the train (and many vehicles) coming from the south. The town consists of not very much - and it only comes 'alive; when the ferry's in town (and even then it's not exactly the place to be; people only go there because they need to get to somewhere else). The hotels are in fact compounds consisting of several huts, which is where the rooms are (two beds plus a light if you're lucky - most of us opted to sleep outside); the toilets are of the 'squat' variety and if you want a shower you need to find a bucket and fill it from the communal water-butt (although you do get the privacy of a cubicle).
After a night in Wadi Halfa, I got the train south - although I did spend most of the day hanging around the station as no-one seemed very sure when the train would actually leave (plus there wasn't exactly much else to do after I'd gone through the rigamarole of registering with the police, a legal requirement for foreigners entering Sudan which involves wandering around the police compaund trying to find the relevant official to stamp, sign or otherwise approve the all-important document (which gets filed away at the end; you get another official stamp in your passport).
The train ride itself was an epic 46-hour journey, mostly across featureless desert - which meant that dust got everywhere (all of the windows, and some of the doors for that matter, remained open throughout - it would've got unbearabley stuffy otherwise). I was in first class, which meant I got to sit on a supposedly 'comfy' chair rather than a bench; as there were 6 to a compartment I was grateful that some of my fellow-passengers decided that the corridor would prove a more comfortable space to sleep (!), and although any position I managed to adopt did seem like a variant of the 'stress position' I did somehow manage some sleep. The dining car served lukewarm soft drinks only; food was of the bring-your-own sort (as was bottled water - I got through loads), although there was food available at the several stops which were made (not all of them scheduled - one stop occurred because the engine broke down in the middle of the desert!). This particular railway line (one of very few in Sudan) was built by the British - to be precise, General Kicthener's army; judging by the signalling devices (which I had ample time to look at during the stoppages), the originals (turn of the century - 19th/20th that is) are still in use. The rolling stock is more recent (the engine was a diesel), but it's stuff that stopped being used in Europe a while ago.
Anyway, 46 hours after starting, we arrived in Khartoum - and I, covered in dust and in need of a decent shower, set about getting a taxi to my chosen hotel (most of my 'chosen' accomodation is stuff in Lonely Planet, for obvious reasons) - only to find that it has closed since my guidebook was published (last year) - I thought that the cabbie was only telling me this because he couldn't find it, but on later inspection it turned out to be the truth. Instead, I went over-budget for one night - and I must say that the en-suite bathroom (with hot, yes hot, running water) was greatly appreciated! Actually took a look at myself in the mirror before hitting the shower - lots of accumulated desert dust and several days growth-of-beard were not a pretty sight! My shirt was absolutely filthy.
Have found more suitable (ie. cheaper) accomodation today, and managed to explore the 'central' area of Khartoum. Most of the people seem to prefer walking to driving (probably out of necessity), and there are lots of buses (the main bus terminal, not far from where I'm typing this, is very chaotic). The roads are for the most part tarmac-ed, although there is the occasional (big) pothole, and open drains run at the sides. Where there is a defined pavement, it can be quite a jump to get onto it! Have also got myself a photography permit (another necessity for foreign visitors - Sudan does seem to be a bit of a bureaucratic nightmare). It's quite easy to find your way around though as the city is laid out on a 'grid' system (apparently, so I read somewhere, on the orders of a certain British general whose surname began with 'K').
The currency can be confusing - offically, it's dinars (there are about 430 of them to the pound), but this is as a result of a currency revaluation; Sudan used to use pounds and everyone still refers to prices in pounds; as there are ten old pounds to the new dinar, this means that when someone quotes a price of 4000, they actually mean 400 dinars. To make it worse, they somethings drop the 'thousand' when referring to pounds, so 4 also means 400 dinars!
In case you didn't know it, alcohol is banned in Sudan thatnks to strict Muslim laws. No doubt many of you are now wondering what possessed me to come here!! On the plus side there are no touts of street hasslers, a definite bonus after Egypt (in fact, the Sudanese people do appear to be genuinely nice).That's all from me for the moment - I'll hopefully update you later in the week (by the way, the weekend around here centres on Friday as that is the Muslim holy day). While here, I hope to visit Omdurman, which (in addition to being the site of a famous victory by a certain general whose name escapes me but who definitely appeared on a few posters during WW1) is the home of a massive souq and a camel market! There are also some whirling dervishes but they only do their stuff on Friday afternoons (I missed them by several hours yesterday; something to do with being on the train).

Am currently still in Khartoum, where it is absolutely boiling (well, over 40 at any rate), although I'm reliably informed by a few people I've met going in the opposite direction to me that Ethiopia is experiencing a 'rainy season' at the moment, boy will that come as a relief!
My Khartoum-based ramblings have taken me to the souq at Omdurman, where just about anything is on sale and it is v. easy to get disorientated and lost in! Unlike the big souq in Cairo, though, this one is decidedly NOT aimed at Western tourists, and so has a more 'authentic' feel to it (tourism is not exactly a major industry in the Sudan, even the Ministry of Tourism, where I had to go for my photography permit, is by far the most run-down of the many government buildings here).
Omdurman is also 'home' to the famous camel market, and I have to report that my attempts at finding this were more difficult than anticipated. Not that you'd think finding a camel market would be that difficult, but as it wasn't shown on the map in my guide book I had to resort to asking for directions; even after I'd worked out the phrase for 'camel market' in Arabic - 'souq al-jamal' - all I got was confused looks and protestations that they'd never heard of such a place (which I found rather odd; surely if you lived in a suburb that was home to the biggest camel market in the country you'd have at least heard of it?). In desperation, I turned to the most common form of public transport in Omdurman ... the motorised rickshaw.
I don't know if you've heard of these, but they are basically small, three-wheeled vehicles with enough space for 2 people in the back (which is usually covered), and powered by a small 2-stroke engine. The drivers of these vehicles (which are cheaper than taxis) are, in my opinion, certifiable, but they are quite useful for getting around Omdurman, which has many narrow and unpaved streets. Here are three reasons why motorised rickshaw drivers are insane:
1 They love to 'personalise' the vehicles by decorating them. This sounds OK, but a very popular means of decoration is to stick loads of stickers and/or hang lots of soft toy 'mascots' on the winscreen, thus partially (or even entirely) blocking their view of the road.
2 Trying to overtake larger, more powerful vehicles and then playing 'chicken' with oncoming traffic is very popular among motorised rickshaw drivers.
3 I don't know how common this actually is, but one of the drivers I used pulled over mid-journey and extracted from underneath his seat a plastic coke-bottle filled with what looked like the most cloudy and disgusting water I've yet seen (there were even strange brown bits floating in it...); he then said one word of explanation - 'benzin' - before using this substance to top-up his petrol tank. In short, he kept his spare stash of petrol in a coke-bottle underneath his seat. To add to this madness, he'd offered me a cigarette when I got into his vehicle; I'd refused but this didn't stop him from lighting one for himself...
Needless to say, you do not find motorised rickshaws in Khartoum itself, most likely they are banned from everywhere but Omdurman.
Well, to get back to the camel market, the MR drivers didn't know where it was either, but I did get a tour of one of the out-of-town souqs as a result (this was much more 'rough & ready' than the main souq and appeared to specialise, for some reason, in metalwork.
Well, I was by now determined to find that damned camel-market, so the following day I returned to Omdurman. I was a bit more lucky this time - I asked for directions from someone who knew (roughly) where it was (although his main direction was that I needed to get a bus as it is in fact quite a way out - not that I understood his explanation of where I could get a bus from).
However, I was able (by blind chance) to flag down a motorised rickshaw driver who also knew where it was - or at least he knew a man who could speak English and give him directions. This done, the drive to the camel market took just over an hour (which I reckoned off for somewhere supposedly just out of town), although much of this was fairly 'round-the-houses'. By houses here, I mean houses where the bricks were made of what looked very much like mud (hey, it probably was mud), and where the streets were unpaved and deeply rutted with tyre-tracks. Donkey and cart appeared to be the favoured mode of transport among the locals, many of whom had not much else to do but stare at a motorised rickshaw trying to negotiate said ruts (and also the many large puddles that had formed mid-street; I'd rather not know what was in these). If nothing else, here was a side of Africa which I'll bet not many tourists get to see!
Eventually, the mud houses gave way to tents (think 'refugee camp' tents rather than Scout camps...) - it looked as though there was a whole town where there were no buildings, just tents or shelters crudely constructed out of anything the inhabitants could find (even plastic bags). The journey ended when the track we were on stopped, and about half-a mile through the sand was another encampment, this one with more than a few camels surrounding it. We had, it seemed, arrived; my driver indicated through sign-language that he could take me no further, and the last I saw of him was him pushing his vehicle out of the sand.
I set off to explore this encampment, and although I found camels I did not find any evidence of any camel-trading. The people here were a lot more wild-looking than the inhabitants of the mud houses and encampments that we'd passed, and all appeared to be 'traditionally' dressed in turbans and flowing galabiyya robes (OK, you get people in those in central Khartoum, but these guys looked as though their clothes hadn't been washed for a while). None of them seemed to speak any English, which got me a bit worried as I was without any form of 'return' transport.
Next to this was a solid stucture, which turned out to be a police compound. I was called over to this, and as luck would have it the sergeant there spoke English (as it happened, he was also a Christian; I'm not quite sure why he told me this but he seemed pleased when I told him that I'm a Christian too).
He then showed me round the encampment - which, it turned out, was a Bedouin encampment right on the edge of town (which explains why the people had a fairly wild look to them - they're people who, even today, spend most of their time living out in the desert). Apparently the Bedouin do most of the camel-trading; they bring in the camels from the deserts of Western Sudan, and the people they sell them to at Omdurman usually take them to the north, and often onwards to Egypt. Apparently I had picked a day that was not a major 'trading' day, alas. Still, I hadn't bargained on going to a real Bedouin encampment.
Once he'd shown me around and made sure I'd seen the camels, the sergeant was most keen to make sure I got transport back into town - helpful, but he did seem very eager to simply send the Westerner on his way (a shame, as I'd've quite liked to spend some more time there) - all of a sudden he started to give me the impression that I shouldn't really be there at all (and here's another thing: Why exactly WAS there a brick-built police compund next to nothing but an encampment used by Bedouin camel-traders?). Anyway, a pick-up truck plus driver were soon commandeered, and I was on my way back to Omdurman (a journey which took less than half the time that the motorised rickshaw had taken).
Further 'fun' ensued in Omdurman, where despite the language barrier my driver and I quickly worked out that neither of us had a clue where we were, so we stopped by some traffic police who promptly stopped directing traffic in order to direct him back to where he'd come from and find an English-speaker to tell me where I needed to go. They actually seemed more keen on meeting a genuine Englishman - Western tourists not exactly being common round here - than they were at doing their job. Surprisingly, they seemed to quite like the English; I thought they hated us on account that we're not only the former colonial power but our government also supported George Bush in the Iraq War, which the Sudanese opposed. Or maybe its just that the Sudanese are, if nothing else, a most hospitable people, despite everything that's happened to their country. Anyway, they soon found someone to show me where the buses back to Khartoum could be caught (the guy even paid my fair for me, and expected nothing in return; yes, the Sudanese people are very hospitable indeed!).
One final point - albeit one for the historians. I actually managed to find a relic of Britain's colonial past the other day - the 'Melik', the last survivor of Lord Kitchener's gunboat flotilla, now in a rather sorry state by the banks of the Blue Nile (it's not actually in the river but aground 20 yards from it, part of the hull buried in the ground like the 'Queen Mary'). This ex-gunboat (which still has one of its guns at the front) is nowadays the HQ of the Blue Nile Sailing Club (an institution which, like its base, clearly had its heyday when this place was ruled by the British), and most of its store-rooms seem to be crammed with dusty old sailing gear. It is on a very nice-looking stretch of the river though; apparently the ground around it is used as a campsite, but aside from a toilet block there wasn't much evidence of this.Am in Khartoum for a couple more days, and after that the plan is to go south-east to the town of Gedaref, and then onto the Ethiopian border.

2006-03-13T20:21:00.000Z

I thought of Africa today. I usually do on most days, at times when my thoughts generally tend towards the 'I'd rather be there than here' variety. Today, this happened at 9:15 am. I'd spent an hour in the traffic getting to some comprehensive school or other that the supply agency had told me about not long after I'd finished breakfast, and I had Year Nine first thing. I'm not usually a fan of Year Nine, and this morning I had one of the 'bad' Year Nine classes. I cannot think of anyone in that situation who wouldn't rather be someplace else; Malawi, for instance. Or maybe South Africa - it's further away.
Fifteen minutes into that first lesson, I'd already shouted myself hoarse, confiscated a football and was wondering where the senior-teacher-on-patrol was. Any attempt at enforcing some sort of discipline resulted in an argument, which I secretly knew I'd lose because I didn't know how to back up my vague threats - deliberately vague, you understand, due to my very incomplete knowledge of the school's discipline policy (well, someone had at least tried to explain it to me). Yes, it's obvious that mobile phones are banned, coast can't be worn in class and they shouldn't really be using those handouts to manufacture a squadron of paper aeroplanes. But how to get that message across? If I left the relative safety of 'my' desk to deal with any miscreants, some little bastard would just run up to it and grab that bloody football, ensuring more chaos. Just how the hell was I supposed to enforce these and several other rules about noise levels onto a bunch of grotty, work-shy teenagers who couldn't give a damn and who regard me as a joke because in their eyes I was not a 'real teacher'? I was out of my depth, and I knew it.
It helps if you know their names. I didn't, of course - and asking them is useless because if they're the misbehaving type (and if you have to ask them their name then you can bet that they are) the name the tell you is not any name by which they have ever previously been known. What about the regsiter? Forget it, with that noise.
After half a lesson's worth of ineffective crowd control, I'd had it. Luckily for me, a regular teacher happened to be in the class next door and the assistant head happened to be patrolling the corridors just in case something happened (most secondary schools have a senior teacher 'on call' at any given time these days). Order of some sort was restored, but all I wanted to do was go home and contemplate an immediate career change.
Luckily for me things got better after that. The next class (also Year Nine) consisted of a much more pleasant group of people, and Year Seven after break was a breeze. I like Year Sevens because you know there's a good chance that they'll shut up and listen if you ask (or shout) for silence. The whole teenage rebellion thing hasn't kicked in ... yet. A couple of verbal warnings early on will probably calm them down.
It was better than Friday, though - well, apart from those Year Nines. On Friday I'd been to another secondary, and in four one-hour lessons I can honestly state that the total amount of work done was zero. True, work had been set (in three of the lessons), but the thing about cover-lessons is that the pupils treat them as a joke. Consequently, supply-teachers are a bit of a joke as well; if I had a pound for every child who's said to me that I can't tell them what to do because I'm not a 'proper teacher'...
I opted for a messy compromise (compromises with pupils usually are). I'd ingore the blatant lack of work, provided they weren't too noisy. Like the ICT lesson where everyone 'forgot' the work on databases and surfed the Internet for an hour. OK, I'd tried to find an ICT teacher who could explain it to them (I knew I couldn't!), but in the absense of anyone who could say what they had to do for Module Two there wasn't really much else I could do.
Or the science lesson where no work had been set (yes, it does happen every now and then); after checking with the science department I got some worksheets that may or may not have had anything to do with what they'd been working on. When the class turned up, I was greeted with a call of 'You know we're not going to do that, don't you?' Throwing professionalism to the wind, I replied 'Of course I know that. So long as you keep it quiet I don't really care what you do.' This earned me the temporary nickname of 'Safe Sir', but little else. My mates on the teacher-training course used to joke that I modelled my teaching on Simon, the Andrew Lincoln character in Teachers. I don't, but I felt like him then.
Still, at least 'my' classes today got some work done. They may not have abided entirely by the rules because 'sir' didn't have the nerve to enforce them to the letter, but some work did get done. A slight improvement, but there is still a very long way to go. If nothing else, being a supply-teacher does at least mean that, if and when I do end up with a permanent teaching job, it will never be this bad.
Nevertheless, I still wonder if being a supply-teacher is really my thing. It probably isn't, but then it probably isn't for most teachers who for various reasons end up doing it. But at least I don't have to spend my evenings catching up on all that marking and planning I should have done over the weekend.

2006-03-12T11:56:00.000Z

First of all, welcome to my new blog. What you'll get on this is a view of the world from a twenty-first century, twenty-something Englishman: A suburb-dwelling supply-teacher who likes cricket, beer, football, reading and a few other things I won't bore you with right now. I also love travelling; in fact not so long ago I was backpacking through Africa (which would have made for a slightly more interesting blog, admittedly - but I hadn't thought of that at the time), and I'm going to start with a reflection on how things have been since I and my backpack wandered off a plane at Heathrow shortly before New Year, after six months away.
Good Thing: To be honest, it's quite nice just being at home and being able to live out of a wardrobe rather than a backpack. I don't have to worry about whether I've paid for my bed tonight, or when the next coach or minivan is leaving town.
Bad Thing: I'm sure I'm not the only backpacker who's returned home to find that he has somehow on his travels acquired a sense of wanderlust or, to put it bluntly, 'itchy feet'. Having not long been travelling for six months, I want to go again. Sadly, my bank manager probably won't let me for some time.
Good Thing: I'm now earning money. In fact, I've paid off the overdraft and am now trying to pay back the credit card company.
Bad Thing: See the last Bad Thing. Supply-teaching may be varied work, and it's certainly unpredictable, but it's just not as exciting as going round Ethiopia by public transport, trekking up Kilimanjaro or doing all sorts of insane activities on the Zambezi river.
Good Thing: Beer. African beer is all very well - some of it, like Hansa, Windhoek and Tusker, is very good beer indeed. But some of it, like Castle, is most certainly not. But then I'm a real ale fan in any case, so being back home means that I now get to drink proper beer again. And my local pub does do a very good pint of Bombardier.
Bad Thing: The price of said pint of Bombardier. Whenever I've come back from somewhere abroad I've always been struck by how expensive the booze is in England than anywhere else.
Good Thing: Believe it or not, television. Aside from the odd football match, the Oval Test match and occasional news updates from BBC World, I didn't really miss TV in Africa. Back home, though, the Beeb has been going through something of a purple patch. Life on Mars was the best thing on the box since ... well, since they resurrected Doctor Who last year, and I loved the Winter Olympics.
Bad Thing: As you may have noticed, Life on Mars is now sadly off the air, and the Winter Olympics are over for another four years. Some nights, there's hardly anything good on, apart from repeats of The Good Life.
Good Thing: Now that I'm back home, I can at least catch the Test cricket on the radio - something which proved impossible during the first four Ashes Tests when I was kicking around in Ethiopia and northern Kenya. Getting updates via the BBC website in a dingy Internet cafe in Bahar Dar just isn't the same as having Aggers and co. tell me what's going on. For some reason I'd assumed that I could get Test Match Special via the BBC World Service. Most of the time, I couldn't even pick up the World Service, and when I did they certainly didn't mention the cricket.
Bad Thing: Have you heard how England are doing against India this morning?
Good Thing: At home, I don't have to pay by the hour for Internet access.
Bad Thing: I don't have anything interesting to say in my e-mails. Not so long ago I could write about catching the world's most uncomfortable train (Wadi Halfa to Khartoum, in case you were wondering), going to the Masai Mara, scuba-diving in Lake Malawi, quad-biking in Swaziland or visiting the Zulu battlefields. For what it's worth, I've still got thos e-mails somewhere; I might get round to posting them on this blog at some stage. Telling all my mates about supply-teaching and going to the pub just isn't the same.
Ah well, that's enough for now. At least one of the joys of being a supply-teacher is that I don't have to spend my entire weekend worrying about planning and marking.
Nick