New Zealand: The first week

Posted on February 22, 2013 by John

Finally – a blog post on my travels.

It’s been an eventful week; I’ve been derailed by illness and jetlag and panic about my seminar presentation. These – well some of them – being the excuse of any blogger… And on this blog in particular, almost 2 and a half years have gone by since I last posted. But hey ho – it’s mine and only the people who want to know will take a look. Otherwise it will just float around with all the other blogstuff out there, little untended unobserved satellites and bits and pieces of throwaway things.

View through window onto Lake Taupo

So here I begin summarising – or trying to – the first eventful week in New Zealand. Here on the shores of Lake Taupo – a weekend retreat with Garry and Helen and Caroline. As I write, the late afternoon sun is lighting up the spray from a water skier out on the deep blue waters of the lake. Waters which reflect the deep blue sky and stretch out to the mountains and volcanoes on the far shore, over which tiny wisps of clouds are settling. It’s really very nice here. And my first time on the North Island and my first time in a spa hotel in such a place…

Yesterday was also a first. The first time I’ve given an hour (well more than an hour) long seminar with pneumonia. I didn’t know I had pneumonia at the time. Just had to keep apologising for the cough and playing video clips when I was particularly breathless. People were kind enough to say it was good afterwards though! The diagnosis was only confirmed this morning when I went to the doctor at the suggestion of one of the technical team (thanks Paul)…but enough of the moaning about my physical condition. That’s only for inflicting on close family… so I’ll draw a veil over it except to say that the doctor was fantastic and had an amazing array of gadgets like Bones McCoy had. It was like going to a doctor in the future.

By the lake at Waikato Hamilton campus

So – ok – what – why who etc. I am on an academic exchange to the University of Waikato on the North Island of New Zealand. I am travelling with a colleague from the IOE, Caroline Daly, and being looked after by Associate Prof Gary Falloon and his wife Helen. We are funded fully by Waikato apart from some living expenses. Their generosity is a little overwhelming. This extends beyond the financial aspect into the even more precious commodity of time. Everyone wants to meet with us and everyone wants to hear about us and we want to learn about and from him or her. We are interested in the learning lives of people around technology and digital media with (generally speaking) a focus on children (me) and teachers (Caroline) and an age phase interest of primary (me) and secondary (Caroline). We are doing a seminar each to faculty members and a joint seminar they day before we leave at the end of week 2.

First morning at school of Education, Waikato

How and when did we get here? In an enormous Airbus with an upstairs and everything (though not for us) last weekend… Straight through from London to Sydney with about half and hour off in Singapore airport for good behaviour and to enjoy yet more airport security… About two hours off in Sydney then waiting for the plane over the Tasman Sea to Auckland where Garry met us and drove us to Hamilton – about an hour south – to the Novotel for week 1 (after Taupo this weekend, we move to Garry’s house. Generosity again. See what I mean?). So the journey began on Saturday night and ended on Monday afternoon, 18^th Feb, in Hamilton.

On day 2 – Feb 19 we had some orientation time in the morning though extremely disorientated by everything else. Jetlag. Plus (in my case) a feeling of deep, deep lack of wellness… But the sunshine and the welcome and the fact that Caroline was presenting first, certainly helped…She did a great job and set the bar very high, talking about the complex and fascinating Welsh project and evaluation of e-learning which was actually useful… Plenty of questions and a healthy audience and lots of discussion of teacher professionalism… They have a healthy respect for teachers and learners in New Zealand and – so far – a refreshing lack of catastrophic and unwelcome interference by ignorant politicians. Like I say, everything is a little odd for English people. Unfortunately there are signs that they might be moving to some of our greatest hits which have done so much to destroy morale and wreck our own system: National published testing, punitive inspection and so on and so forth. We should be looking at what they do so well and learning from them, how they produce such amazing teachers in beautiful classrooms, confident learners. Hey guess what? It could be they do the opposite to us. Seems to be working…

Leamington School Sign

And a school visit bears this out on the next day…bright and early on Wednesday the 20^th to beautiful Leamington Primary in Cambridge, a small town south –east of Hamilton. Schools in England are little fortresses these days, but we strolled through a sun-filled playground past a series of well maintained low rise wooden constructed classrooms, an outdoor swimming pool, a climbing frame, a growing area, trees, fields, into a classroom where the teacher Tonya welcomed us in. It would break the hearts of some teachers back in the UK to see the space and furniture, the equipment, the light and the rest. There are so many great teachers back home doing so much with very little in the way of resource or respect. And here I think they have both in abundance…

Leamington School boardwalk

Leamington School going out to play

Into the headteacher’s office to talk through some of the issues and his philosophy… They teach children. Not the curriculum. It takes me back. And it appears that in spite of this crazy child-centred approach they manage to take in phonics and real reading alongside one another (because I know you need both) plus some interesting things: Creativity, Independence, Excellence and more…They manage to achieve things with these children. Without OFSTED. Imagine that.

iPads in Year 6

After that we go on walkabout to Leesa’s class where we look at the children using iPads 1:1, alongside all the traditional paraphernalia of primary classrooms because you can do both these things. You don’t have to be an evangelist for one or the other. Here the children are adept with writing in all forms of media, making movies and music, playing games of all kinds and working together or alone. The furniture has had to be redesigned hereabouts and so there are a few traditional tables but lots of beanbags and inflatables to sit on. The atmosphere is productive and managed by a teacher who is clearly trusted and valued by the head. Trusted to experiment and innovate…Incidentally they have a great relationship with Waikato, benefitting hugely from support with equipment and offering in return their use as a site for research…

Later in the day we learn from Gary about his work, tracing the learning trajectories and activities in the use of iPads by means of some very clever research techniques. He’s working on papers and frameworks to account for these and it will be well worth reading when it comes out in the fullness of time (academic publishing being what it is).

Coming almost up to date we have Thursday 21^st to account for with me presenting in late afternoon and working most of the day on trying to feel well and on taking my presentation apart and putting it back together again. This was all back at Waikato University Hamilton campus and I do believe I have not yet mentioned what a beautiful place this is. In addition to being populated with generous and inspiring people, the setting is unmatched really. Student shops and cafes around a lake, ornamental gardens, woodland areas, a brand new library…really really good.

I was pleased I got through the presentation in which I mainly covered my research into learner lives and digital cultures. I had some god searching questions, including a bunch from Terry Locke who edits a great online journal and is a professor there who knows several people back at my workplace. A gentleman and a scholar and also a poet. We spend the early part of the evening at dinner with him and it’s a fascinating conversation ranging far and wide. I only wish I felt a little better and more able to enjoy it all (but enough of that because there is not much interesting about other people’s illness).

And so we are at Lake Taupo for the weekend, taking a break from work at the uni and so that will be the subject of the next episode…

Arrival in Sao Luis

Posted on November 5, 2010 by John

Sleep some of the flight to Sao Luis and then catch glimpses of landscape below – looks like nothing else – becomes more tropical as hundreds of rivers reach for the sea (take some snaps on my phone from the plane)…

Met in Sao Luis airport by Claudia the seminar organizer. Great to be met and we hit it off immediately; it is so hot and humid – really. Drive in friend Sabaque’s air conditioned car through the mad traffic and driving (makes Portugal look sane) to the hotel out on Calhau beach. Starting to feel collapsible and so I don’t do any more at this stage – but collapse for a short while. Claudia informs me that there will be 200 people there tomorrow. So, no pressure! I don’t feel quite prepared even though I am- hope I will not be as boring as I think I might be.

Walk along Calhau beach in the late afternoon on my own. Show my pale legs off to the world and paddle in a ridiculously warm Atlantic. The beach is a powdery one, the sea warm, the beach bars inviting, the palms lovely but there is also the flotsam and detergent at the near Eastern end which make this not quite a blue flag! Gets much better the further on I walk.

Turn back and get back to the hotel in time to work and worry about tomorrow.

In evening out with Claudia and Sabaque and technical support guy Jorges to lovely restaurant. A multilingual dinner. We have a fish stew with the local catch plus shellfish in coconut sauce with two kind of rice (including a kind of Arroz Negra). Get told about Sao Luis and its traditions and how I need to get to know them intimately. Sabaque wants me to drink a lot with him but this has to happen tomorrow if at all when I have done my talk.

Travelling to Brazil

Posted on November 3, 2010 by John

To Sao Luis for a UNESCO event where I am the main speaker…

Tuesday night 2 Nov

I am sitting at the“First Class Café” near gate 44A in Lisbon airport.

Waiting for the flight to Brasilia. The destinations here in the international bit are mostly former Portuguese colonies. There’s a massive queue to get onto the plane to Luanda. Was that in one of their colonies? There’s also Dakar weirdly but then I remember that the Portuguese got there before the French and they all tussled with the Dutch! And they were all enslavers!

I really wanted a meal but I joined the wrong queue and ended up buying some expensive fried snackery -croquettes and samosa-like cheesy pastry things.

At least the beer is as I rememer it. A nice cold Sagres.

Coming on to land over Lisbon was lovely – we flew over the Rio style Christ statue on one side of the Tagus, banked a little as we flew over the river mouth and right over the Rossio and various wide avenues which I recognized even at this height. Felt very nostalgic for good times there and tired enough to want to stay. But also excited about going to South America for the first time…

Tuesday – Wednesday night flight Lisbon – arrival in Brasilia 2/ 3 Nov

Long bus journey out to the plane at 11 pm. Did not get the joke being shared around me but I think they might have been saying maybe we were driving to Brasilia. Passengers are mainly – it seems to me – business or Brazilian returnees.

Flight good overall and managed a bit of sleep. Guy next to me shares his cough with me the whole way so we’ll see how that goes in the next few days. But views were sometimes great. Just before trying to nod off with Brian McBride’s music droning away I look out on a sky full of stars. Orion directly at the end of the wing tip. There are so many stars it puts me in mind of the skies in the Night of the Hunter! Later, after fitful sleep and being nudged in the back by “cough man”and the pillow sticking to the window with the cold outside (-71 degrees) I wake to a spectacular sunrise over the clouds. With an hour to go before landing.

Brasilia just appears out of the green below – a city placed here in the 50s and 60s as the nation’s capital. You can see the sprawl for miles on either side where the workers live and shape of the roads and the towers and so on. From the air it is supposed to look like a bird or a plane – futurstic anyway.

The airport is like the new Bilbao one in design (they must have seen this one!) with large open plan decks for embarking and arriving stacked on top of one another. The difference is the amount of greenery and tropicalia and fountains everywhere. My welcome has been one of the warmest ever from a border control person…horrified that I only had three days here! He indicated the 90 day visa newly stamped in my passport and recommended forgetting about going back for the full 90 days. Yes, but only if the others could join me!

Find a breakfast bar and accidentally push in because I don’t get the system but everyone is very relaxed and so it’s ok…nice peaceful few miniutes in prospect and then…

… bizarrely, whilst getting out laptop and sorting through bag I cut my middle finger on my right hand on something (I really don’t know what!) and start bleeding everywhere. Thank heavens for the Lifesystems first aid bag and some plasters. I have no idea where or how I’ve managed to release so much blood into the environment. It’s not too busy thankfully so people don’t seem to notice the extra clumsy and embarrassed English person fumbling with laptop, plasters and tissues.

Left: Finger incident ruins calm breakfast.

Thanks heavens for…

the Lifesystems first aid bag. Never leave home without it…

Dakar Thursday – Saturday

Posted on September 25, 2010 by John

Thursday

Longest day of work by far with the most
concentration and debate. My head
is cabbaged by the end. Out to the
pool and swim but it’s hard work. The week is catching up with me, the food and
the Powerpoint eight hours a day. Feel very sluggish. But better in the end for
exercise.

Meet everyone in the lobby and back in the
minibus for another meal at Just 4 U – same place as Carey and I visited on
Monday night. Good company and good conversation, very friendly finished in the
bar with Finnish and Mexican colleagues. Very tired and sporting my first bite
as it turns out. Very, very
disappointed not to have seen any live music in one of the great music cities
of the world. Combination of bad
timing and punishing Powerpoint schedule.

Friday

Another long day of Powerpoint and debate
but constructive with much agreement in the end on contentious issues. Skype with home and feel generally
homesick. Out in the evening for meal in local restaurant with Bernardo, Lucia,
Savitha and Linda. Great
atmosphere, plastic tablecloths and locals plus backpackers. Unfortunately is the start of a long
nightmare of a night for me –being really unwell all night. Cannot figure out
what in particular it was going through me but is vicious.

Saturday

Manage to persuade myself I am well enough
to join the trip to Goree Island , museum and monument to slavery. Out in cabs
to the port a short distance away.
Really very hot, my first time out in the morning African heat. Onto the boat and over the short calm
crossing to Goree. Could not be more
different from Dakar – no cars, older buildings, feel of rural Africa, kids
swimming off the shore as we arrive.

Familiar Dakar hassle starts as soon as we
step ashore but we have a guide who launches into a history of the island and
sweeps us up in his passionate description of the place. An island of 1500 souls, 1000 Muslim,
500 Christian in harmony.

Commemorates the various slave activities from 1536
to 1848, the shameful acts of English, Dutch, Portuguese and French over those
generations. And of the tribes who
collaborated. 15 – 20 men shackled in a room no bigger than the smallest room
in a suburban house. Holding pens to fatten them up for dispatch to the
Caribbean and to Brazil.

Their
identities gone – families split and renamed, father to Martinique maybe,
mother to Brazil, children somewhere else. The rest is genuinely moving, contemplative like a chapel, a
monument to reconciliation. The
last sight of Africa for many of the enslaved.

I have now been to museums on each point of the slave triangle
which tell this story in a way everyone should see at some point in their
lives if they can -visit the one nearest to you… Goree opposite Dakar, a
museum in Charleston SC and the one in Liverpool.

Wander in the heat, soaked in sweat, buy
one or two things from the many who approach, feeling very, very unwell again
by now. Another calm crossing and
a cab ride back to the Pullman to rest and try to get well enough to fly home…

Dakar days Sunday – Wednesday

Posted on September 23, 2010 by John

I’m in Dakar for a workshop/project launch
for a week. My first time in Africa.
There’s not been much time to get to know the outside world so far with
every day from 8.30 a.m. until 5.00 pm and crammed full of Powerpoint in the
Pullman Hotel.

But here are some notes anyhow which take
events from Sunday night until yesterday. More later…

View from my room, Island of Goree in the background

Pullman
Hotel – first impressions 19 Sept

Lobby, quiet hushed floorwalkers, dark oak
desk, ATM dispensing thousands of CFA for your Pound/Euro/Dollar…business
centre, Budget car hire desk with man in full national costume, asleep next to
a model of a 4 X 4 …over into the bar area and restaurant . bar leads off to
the left past the lifts, very low lighting, smoking permitted which completes
the feeling of being in a timewarp, orange / brown dark 1970s décor with low
chairs , businessmen and women,
sudden tv crews and local celebs, lone travelers splashing on a nice hotel for
the city – in the evening, bar has music with keyboard and vocal 70s / 80s soft
reggae/pop/soul…restaurant on the other side, brightly lit, spacious, airy
leading straight out onto the veranda and a wooden bridge over the road which
leads out onto a path and steps down to the coast and the pool, with the
Atlantic splashing out over the promenade and onto the loungers…the ocean there
is not swimmable, water quality poor and currents strong, beaches better
further up the peninsula or on the western side back up towards the airport…

Monday
night 20 Sept

Out for dinner down to Just 4 U…a long cab
ride diverted past floodedOutdoor bar area reached via a plank over some
wrecked piece of road – I don’t have repellent with me so feel a sense of panic
that we are outside –but negotiate a mosquito repellent coil. Is outdoor, no
music , Monday night very quiet, we take a table in the middle, family with
small child, bigger group, v beautiful serene barmaid/waitress. This time we
have Gazelle beer and although still full from lunch I order penne for us to
share for later. Thin feral cats and kittens wander begging between the tables.

We are a long way from the hotel but the
cab driver has waited for us. Back past the very dark roads and abandoned
buildings and up and away to the hotel.

Tuesday
night 21 Sept

Tuesday down to the pool after
the session

Warm water, birdsong, rich
little white
French kids and their Senegalese nannies, colonial feel down by the
pool, the
bar etc, loungers and the ocean beyond, swimming lengths with water at
eye
level looking across and out to sea, you feel you are out there…

In minibus through the streets to the
highway, looking out at Dakar on the way to Terrou-Bi, very plush
anywhere kind
of restaurant in a very posh hotel – with soft lighting and open doors
at the
back and breeze – on the western side of the peninsula- modern euro
cuisine
with some fusion and some African on the menu – global basically – out
the door
the moon is high and bright and looks beautiful through the fronds but
is very
hard to photograph, though Linda the research project director manages a
good job –
across the water, bizarrely is a funfair, with a little ferris wheel and
fairy
lights and helter skelters- glittering lights and lapping water and the
Dakar
moon. The funfair is called
Magicland.

Dakar Moon

Wednesday
evening 22 Sept – after sessions walk

Almost immediately leaving the hotel,
surrounded by people offering you cards, beads, art, phone cards etc etc and
blasted by heat, fumes, dust, light

they want to know your name, your time in
Senegal, what you think, will you go to their shop and on and on

The streets are full of cars, taxis,
weaving their way through, the pavements have crumbled and you walk in the
narrow roads but you get beeped the whole time…things calm a little further away from the
hotel so that the area around the hotel resembles an airlock, a decompression
zone through which you must pass from the opulence of the Pullman Hotel into
Dakar itself

Buildings on either side shops in doorways
a bizarre Carrefour store like encountering a Sainsburys or something, hardware
store everything shop selling hair colouring and hair care…

Coming out into a more open area we come
across a massive catholic church and go inside, cool and blue, with a dome and
a vision painted of salvation above and out the other side opposite the
ministry of communication, the road leads on down to the main market area and
the street hassle begins again in earnest as we meet someone who refers to
himself as Obama the president of the market place, we see the different
regions of the market and half guided and half trying to get away we find
ourselves in the art stall – I talk to a man called Pako who shows us his
friend’s stall – they are from the
south the Cassamanche region and selling paintings on glass, gouache/acrylic,
brightly coloured cartoons and one painting of Goree which I like. Carey starts
bartering for three small portraits and we use her nokia’s calculator to work
out the exchange rate and the amounts, the negotiations come thick and fast but
this is not hassle- just bartering – in between Pako asks me about his English
and reassures me throughout our conversation about teranga the hospitality of
Senegal, the language we are all using, how he doesn’t speak English very well,
how many days are we there etc etc I agree a price which he says is well below
what he would ask an American tourist. His judgement is that this pleases me…

We part and break away from them, and think
about a cab but carey recognizes a street she has been down and we get
ourselves back onto the Faure avenue that we know leads down towards the hotel

By now I am very hot and craving a drink of
anything though a beer begins to really appeal especially the Senegalese “Flag”
beer. Hassle begins again closer
to the hotel, the airlock effect with the numbers of streetsellers crowded
around the entrance area.

Into the cool of the lobby again and the
welcoming arms of the Pullman and its bar…

Looking back at October and the first part of November – up to 12 Nov

Posted on November 12, 2007 by John

Looking back at October and the first part of November

Sunday night (yesterday) sees me at the Union Chapel with Janet to see Kurt
Wagner. First up it’s the Clientele with a soft Mojave 3 type sound
filtered through Lambchop in a way. Thanked later by KW as dear
friends. Sure I’ve seen them before and not enjoyed them so much but
this time I liked them – boosted by a fourth member maybe? But nice
songs well played. KW comes down through the audience singing
something. Enjoying the acoustic. Reaches the stage and sits down as
per usual. But this time has a washing line above his head where he
hangs his songs as he plays them.
He is using the audience as a
sounding board for new stuff. It’s all really, really good – much
better than the last time I saw him solo. And he signs a copy of the
tour only CD I’ve just bought makes eye contact as he shakes my hand.
I also come out with a Lambchop DVD of the last tour (which I
thoroughly enjoyed last year).

Thursday last saw me at the National on my own at Shepherds Bush through circumstances
beyond my control. But it was Ok really. It’s not so bad to be
somewhere like that on your own. Saw the Broken Family Band first –
just getting into them when they had to finish but their albums have
made a great impression on me. Is there a better single out at the
moment than Leaps? Don’t think so. Will I hear it on the radio?
Don’t think so. The utterly conservative playlist of XFM won’t touch I
it – I wouldn’t have thought. Maybe it will be on 6Music? The
National were even better than last time – a great set drawing on
Alligator and Boxer mainly. With the beautiful About Today as an
encore again.
I know that Frances enjoyed them in Sheffield the other
day. And this give me a good feeling too. The bit where the singer
shouts “My mind’s not right” at the top of his voice over and over
again I know what he means (possibly). Actually he dedicates it to Robert Lowell and I do know because that’s a libe from Skunk Hour where RL realises he is going out of his mind.

Been a hectic month to six weeks of stuff. Work stuff and home stuff.
Just taking the weekend before the one just gone – it consisted of a night out on the Friday for me and Janet (sleepover for Jack and evening at Matt’s for Alice).
We took ourselves along to the Tapas place next to the cinema.
Nearly scuppered by the usual burst water main and attendant chaos in the locality
Saw Once after the meal – Irish, gentle, romantic, wistful and really made me want to go back to Dublin. I don’t think it’s the best film I’ve ever seen but it had a quality of naturalism about it – a sense that it could really be like this – though the recording studio was a million miles from the last one I was in.
Saturday was a restoring order to chaos day with lots of clearing up –then in the evening Janet was out and I walked up to Blackheath with Jack, Alice and Matt to the fireworks. Was weird without Janet who is the firework guru. Great display as usual but marred by the stupid music being played (Elton singing ~Circle of Life amongst other things). Utter crap.
You don’t need music – the whooshing sound and those siren-y bits are the music. Matt and Alice vanished to be with friends. Jack and I enjoyed some quality time including lighting sparklers and eating chocolate when we got back. Took some quite good shots on the phone of the tree by the church all lit up and Jack plus sparklers.

A couple of weeks ago
David Lynch. And Donovan, And Andrew. He was the best of the three in terms of what he said and the way he said it. DL was launching his transcendental education movement in the UK. It was fascinating to see him in the flesh and to think about the audience and why they were there, including the guy with the pyramid on his head, capturing his energy and using it most effectively. Half were TM advocates and the rest were film buffs/students and people pitching their theses and –in one case – their script. This was the guy who grew up in the circus and held the one finger press up world record (and brandished a copy to prove it). He gave his life’s work over to DL – well to Bobby Roth of the DL foundation. Some young women were there from a yogic flying school in Skelmersdale. And on and on.

After DL it was Donovan’s turn. Certainly TM must increase your confidence to the point of eradicating all humility. Here was an unreconstructed genius introduced by a movie fo his life in which he took a background role at many famous gatherings in the 60s – like a musical Leonard Zelig. I did not like this. I did not like his songs. I did not like his stories. They did not grab me. Let’s just leave it there because he clearly has something for some people. One thing he mentioned was going to India with the Beatles. He said they came back with their songs and he came back with his. Yes – they came back with Sgt Pepper, White Album etc and he came back with the Hurdy Gurdy Man. Fine for some people but not for me.

Oh and Janet’s birthday was in the middle of all of these days – loaded up her iPod massively and made some playlists, gave her a set of speakers for work and Alice chose her some nice clothes and Jack went for chocolates. Quiet really – we’re such a small, small family. No word from Oz – I guess something is in the post! Hope so.

Remembering September 07

Posted on October 2, 2007 by John

What?
Writing a holiday blog and then nothing at all seems to signify all sorts of things. Mostly one or other of these: Either “Nothing much of interest happens unless it’s on holiday” or “I’ve been busy at work”. Only one of these is actually true.
So with that in mind this is a way of writing up a whole month. But even then there are huge numbers of ways in which this recent past can be remembered. But not by reference to nice pictures taken on the Nikon which seems to be only for holidays. Nor from notes in a moleskin diary (these seem to be everywhere at the moment). So maybe the camera on the phone is a good place to start. The record here will only be of places where it seemed possible to take pictures and where there was time to do it – so it’ll be as partial and unreliable as anything else. I’ll try and make it chronological.
Here we go:
BOTANY BAY

Just before term started and we forgot holiday things we went to Botany Bay on the annual jaunt down there with the usual gang. Except Jack who was trialling for the new Valley Park Lions line up and couldn’t make it. A good day – we had to leave early. And there was a sit down rebellion which attempted to stop us taking Alice home. That’s when I took the picture and several of the older contingent tried to hide their faces.
JOSH RITTER
Saw Josh Ritter with Drew at Water Rats – he had a spare ticket. Last time I saw JR it was at Shepherds Bush (great, but a bit removed) so this time it was totally different – down the front in a tiny venue. Drew is a massive fan and that’s him taking a picture on the right hand side while I’m taking a picture on the phone.

What was it like? Great but unforgivable that he didn’t play Monster Ballads. His best song. I reckon.

NORWICH AWAY
Went with Jack to his first C Pal away game. He’s been nagging me for ages to go to one – we’ve been at every home game in the last four years or so – though we did travel to the Millenium Stadium for the Play Off final a few years ago. So the chance to met Pete F and family up in Norwich was too good to miss. And we did. Great afternoon in every way aprt from the football and that sinkling feeling of being in the downward part of the rollercoaster that comes with supporting Palace (maybe the most relegated and promoted team in the league???
Several brief visits to the premiership in recent years. Strange ground though – Carrow Road. Delia Smith’s influence is obvious in the catering arrangements. No Pukka pies and burgers– Roasted Mediterranean vegetable pies and Shiraz and Chardonnay available. Not really what a football ground normally provides…
The score? The game? Very dull. Norwich won 1 – 0 and Pete put some pictures up on Facebook afterwards of us all there in the series “Another Defeat”.

RESEARCH PROJECT
Some work took me back to Tower Hamlets to a great school there. And I marvelled at two things. The unchanged Whitechapel Market.
And the very much changed “Idea Store” – this is what they call buildings they used to call libraries in TH. Busy, full of life, books, café, people sitting there and using the free Internet etc
The research project? Very interesting.

DOOR TROUBLE
Meanwhile there is door trouble in the iShed. Just emailed a series of pics to Donna – the frames of the doors have faded quite badly and it’s only a little over a year. No word back yet.
Try and imagine this photo the right way round…

SOMERSET HOUSE BY NIGHT

Just noticed it in the rain walking along the Strand towards KC Union for a Euros Childs gig. Wonderful place. Still not seen the Courtauld pictures inside but looking in brings back memories of Lambchop playing there and the night near Christmas we went ice skating and Jack fell over and we had to get some jeans for him before the shops shut and that was that for ice skating for him (for the time being)…

EUROS CHILDS
Saw EC with Neil and Sophie. Neil got me a ticket while I was in Oz. Thought of all the times I’d missed him and the Gorky’s gigs I’d seen but this was something else – great night. Words I could use about this guy and his music? Brilliant, smile-inducing, great singing, great playing, keyboards and guitar (which he plays like a keyboard player plays guitar – you know what I mean? Kind of like me – but an awful lot better), great songs. His music? Part Welsh language, folk, electronica, lo-fi, beaches, short stories, 70s, sunshine, horses etc.
MORE FOOTBALL
Not so much hit and hope as C Pal – much more pass and move – that’s Jack’s team. Even though they went down 8 -1 in the opening game. They’ve redeemed themselves in the Selkent B league with a fantastic 5 – 0 victory. Their picture will be in the Kentish Times!

There are other things – some work worries and some work successes, home stuff but that’s up to date and will help me remember some things that I remembered to take a picture of in September 07.

Suits me

Posted on June 20, 2007 by John

I have to get a suit measurement for John’s wedding in Melbourne in a few weeks time…

First I called in at the Savoy Tailors Guild next to the Savoy Hotel in my jeans and crumpled work shirt, copy of the Guardian and my iPod headphones dangling from my pocket. This did not create a favourable impression with the gentleman "walking the floor". He looked at me like I was an insect. And not a colourful, interesting insect – more like a small, grey wood louse. Something you might burn with a magnifying glass when you were ten years old (as in that Handsome Family song). He directed me to Moss Bros in King Street – to the hire department right at the back. Here I discovered a whole new world of people getting ready for Ascot. A specially created Ascot tent in the middle of the shop floor was there for people to try things on which reminded me of Tracey Emin’s "Everyone I have Ever Slept With" (the one that was lost in the fire) but taller, wider. I explained my needs and the man on the front of house told me to take a ticket and sit down and wait for a qualified tailor and that the service would be ten pounds. I waited on the leather sofa along with all the Ascot attendees. I didn’t like the look of the tailors and they didn’t like me. They kept looking in my direction while they were working on other customers with a fixed, fascinated expression which was downright unnerving until I realised that in fact they were looking over my shoulder at the plasma screen which was showing a home makeover programme on Channel 5.

Eventually, unexpectedly, a soft, female French voice called out for ticket number 22. She didn’t look like any of the other tailors. I was both pleased and slightly alarmed, aware suddenly of out-of-placeness and scruffiness. She was very beautiful and took gentle but firm control of the whole process. I think her expression was not the insect one – it was more like pity or fondness. Maybe like looking at a kitten or a guinea pig with a limp. After taking the initial measurements she vanished and I thought that was that and she was leaving me to go and attend to a Sir Alan Sugar round the corner. She returned with a suit and we did a proper fitting and there was much crossing out on the sheet. She asked me to try on a waistcoat which was lime green with flowers on it. I think she was definitely enjoying the moment. FInally she asked me if I knew my shirt size. I didn’t really want to get this wrong -16 popped into my head. But I said no and she reached up – I would say quite tenderly – and measured my neck for a shirt. "You are a 16" she announced. And that really was that. But, as I handed my ten pounds over I felt the day was suddenly different. I had shared a moment. She looked away and called out "Number 27".

I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared

Things that don't fit anywhere else, travel and observating

Category Archives: Noticed