class war - a review

An entertaining read.

Dave Coote is having a slow meltdown. The framing of his life is being challenged.

A changing job he can’t reconcile, a prime relationship that’s drifting. Pressures from a teaching career that has slid sideways and is now being inspected.

Add grit from a slapdash Academisation and privatisation of teaching. Scoundrels in the halls of power.

Maybe Coote is like the similarly named water fowl that feigns stupidity, hiding its intelligence to amuse itself, even at the expense of status.

Despite bursts of enthusiasm for classroom teaching, the depressive Coote is losing his grip, in a series of self-damaging situations, across a discovered corruption and somewhat miraculous love interest.

Coote is no Patrick Standish skirt chaser, and there's no 'Moon and Sixpence' separation and quest by Coote, more a "Nicky Hutchinson meets intern Alice McDonald" from Our Friends in the North. Generally, we see Coote as the person that things get done to, rather than as an initiator.

I know folk who have drifted through similar mid-life situations and found myself comparing Coote with how real life scenes had played out. The boss who crashed his family life and job to live on a boat with his lover. Lasted a few months and was very messy.

A different situation when innocent business trip photographs showed an old flame. Hushed spousal tones before a split. The list goes on but empirically there’s more of the expensive crashes than the happy-ever-afters.

For Coote we also get some faintly autistic sequences. Coote's world overwhelms, he displays anxiety, a feeling of social disconnect and need for time alone. Add some methodical descriptions of computer use and his sound system giving us almost pencil-arranging rules determining ways to do certain things. It’s cleverly written because the possible ASD hovers as a spectral shadow rather than as a bad actor pretending to be drunk.

I enjoyed reading the story, as the character continued to take ever more destructive forks in his road. Kind of sex and drugs and rock.

Thursday Thirteen looks up

1. I've been up a few hills recently, and the picture above is a recent example.
2. The saying on the stone is "Take a moment to behold as still skies or storms unfold"
3. I suppose it can be read in the other order as well "As still skies or storms unfold, take a moment to behold"
4. It's on the Cock Bridge to Tomintoul route, just before the Lecht ski station.

5. As well as the stone, there's the four obelisks, from which to dally and enjoy the view.
6. I've sat inside each of the structures and looked out across the scenery.
7. And looked through the peep-holes in the stone to see distant objects.

8. Like Corgarff Castle.

9. I've visited that castle in sunshine and in snow.
10. Just back along the way is a wooden shack that sells lovely warming soup - it tastes good whatever the weather.
11. And around here it is important to look up as well as along at the scenery.
12. I think it was Enid Blyton books where the Famous Five used to hide in trees because adults don't look up.
13. Whether it's always true or not, it's useful to remember.

Wordless Wednesday

On the Old Military Road, before the descent to Clattering Bridge.

two tribes referendum edit suggestion

The politicians continue their descent into squabbling about the UK membership of the EU ahead of the referendum in a couple of weeks. It isn't pretty and has become a useless and distorted form of debate.

The tawdry sound bites and invented facts spin on, designed by various advisors with their behavioural analysis spreadsheets. There's a countdown sequence and a few more tactical bombshells placed ready to be used in the last few days.

The whole proposition has become transaction oriented, despite the long-term effect of the result. The politicians cynically seek the single winning product feature to clinch their Remain or Leave argument on the 23rd June.

We all know that there is no right answer. That either way will open a route to more criticisms as the eventual scenario plays out.

I've already voted. I won't need to listen to any more of the idiot hokum until it's over and hopefully some of the crass so-called leaders get fired.

They probably won't though, despite breaking cover to show what they really think of their electorate.

Meanwhile, here's Frankie's take on polemics back in the Cold War. Over thirty years old, someone should re-make this for 2016.

mobile

A fairground ride like no other. An ordinary looking caravan. A treasure trove of music and digital wizardry.

Step into the caravan, a familiar place to shelter from the rain, to have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

But this is a caravan like no other. Where the kettle talks, cupboards open to reveal pop up worlds and the whole caravan is transformed into our solar system. A place where we remember who we are and where we have come from, as we shape who we want to be.

We are taught from a young age to aim high, to reach for the stars, to want more, more than our parents, more than the generations before us, to climb the social ladder. But as we break free from where we came from, what are we leaving behind?

Mobile is The Paper Birds’ second show in a trilogy about class in modern Britain. Made for audiences of up to 9 people at a time, this is an intimate 40 minute theatre show set in a caravan, based on interviews conducted in communities across the UK.

Mobile explores our sense of home, belonging, aspiration, and the realities of social mobility. Powerful true stories and dreams for the future are revealed through video projection, recorded interviews, original music and interactions with a performer.

Thursday Thirteen feat. a blackbird

1. We are still staying in the woods, in the Scottish lodge for the rest of this week.
2. It's one of those buildings that is kind of upside down, with the bedrooms downstairs and the living space upstairs
3. This works well affording a much better vantage point to spot red squirrels, rabbits and other wildlife from the balcony.
4. Local wildlife appears curious of visitors and when on nearby paths, woodland creatures will never be more than a few strides away.
5. Even the balcony gets its share of visitors. One was the blackbird shown at the top of this post.
6. Indeed, so excited was the blackbird at the prospect of getting some crumbs of shortbread, that it returned with one of its young.
7. The younger bird looked about the same size as the adult, but didn't have such a great sense of flight.
8. It took off and promptly flew into the glass of the balcony, with a gentle plink sound.
9. It was a low speed flying accident and the bird reverted to a nest-type chirping as it waited for the adult to either rescue it or feed it.
10. A few minutes later it took off again, this time getting itself caught in a space on the balcony between a corner wall and a chair. It could see through the chair, but couldn't work out how to fly/climb out of the space. Instead there as a great flurry of wings and feathers as it oscillated up and down in the space.
11. I rescued it by moving the chair and it promptly flew into the glass again - another low speed plink.
12. This time it flopped to a gap underneath the glass and I managed to persuade it to hop underneath and then to flutter down to the freedom of the grass below.
13. Undeterred, it immediately set about pecking the grass like a true professional, with no hint of its recent adventure.

Wordless Wednesday

Baaa,

lodge time

A few days back in our lodge in the woods.

One of our near neighbours is quite well known in this part of Royal Deeside. Yes, the Queen spends summertime in Balmoral which, whilst bigger than our place, shares the same local shops.

Unfortunately, there's been some drastic weather since the last time we were here. Last December the nearby village was flooded when the Dee burst its banks and it is only now getting itself back together.

All the way from Ballater along the river there's signs of damage, such as this Victorian suspension bridge across the river at Cambus O' May. Usually we'd cross here on foot, but since the destruction of last December it is closed.

Separate from the floods, the historic timber railway station buildings in Ballater suffered a major fire. The building is listed and there is much activity to put it all back together again.

It used to be the end of the passenger line back in Queen Victoria'a reign and she'd make her way from the station to Balmoral by royal coach.

Rumour has it that she opposed the extension of the passenger service past her own estate, although we did spot one of the ex-railway buildings in Braemar.

walled in or out?

Travelling to Scotland, we spent some time along the remains of Hadrian's Wall. Originally 15 to 18 feet high and running across the whole of the Great Britain between Solway Firth in the west and and Wallsend on Tyne in the east.

Built in 122 AD, supposedly to keep the 'barbarians' from the north outside of the Roman Empire, I suspect there was also a symbolism to the original bright white colour of the wall and its Roman mile spaced turrets and fortified checkpoints.

Quite a statement along the lines of beyond it 'there be dragons'.

As well as the wall's obvious military deterrent effect, there were also also a couple of wide ditches and a set of 'entanglements' added in the English side, so it looked as much about keeping people in the Empire as about keeping people out.

After Hadrian left, his successor decide to build another less well0known wall further north. Hadrian's wall started to become maintained by non-Legion locals and eventually fell into disrepair, being raided for its stone, which is now well dispersed in local stately homes, cathedrals and churches.

I'm sure there's some 'history repeats itself' lessons in all of this?

not qi working

A blip in communications at present.

I've been using Qi wireless charging for my iPhone, that's the kind where it doesn't need to be plugged in to the charger.

As they say, it was working fine, but recently seems to have plummeted to only give very short charged time for the phone.

I thought I'd thrown my extended battery into the bag for this trip, but unfortunately not, so I'm now nursing the phone until I can get properly re-wired.

Inconvenient, and like being in a pre-mobile world, but I'll survive.

head for the high lands

We've been heading north, this time to Scotland, but only after a detour through the Lake District. There will be a contrast between the busy roads of the Lakes and tranquility as we reach the Highlands.

Thursday Thirteen (V60) - Colleen sent me #TT #T13

Following yesterday's half Wordless Wednesday, I thought I'd try a Thursday Thirteen. (Hence today's picture of forget-me-nots)

1. Actually, it was Colleen's suggestion that I tried the #T13, which had also slid out of my regular blogging.
2. I can always remember that #TT was much harder to spontaneously complete than a #WW
3. The last one of mine I can easily track down was from 2012 and is linked to here:
4. I'm guessing that the gradual drift towards ever shorter messaging, such as twitter, brought about the shift away from WW and TT.
5. When I looked at the links for Wordless Wednesday, the highest number of participants in a single week seemed to be around 284. That's a lot of participation. Check it out here.
6. I probably started contribution to Thursday Thirteen back in around 2006.
7. There was another fun site called Michelle back in those days, too. Some will remember the message "Michelle sent me"
8. Thursday Thirteen was a good place to comment about a few of things I was doing that would maybe not get their own posts.
9. Like I've unpacked from last week's trip away and am about to start packing for the trip which starts tomorrow.

10. I'll be including walking boots, although I notice the temperature is currently about 9 degrees C cooler, where we are going
11. The bought in Switzerland Lowa walking boots got thrown away after they disintegrated in a field last year during a pop concert. A simultaneous de-sole-ing of both boots. We suspect they had been through a tumble dryer.
12. My current Lowa boots are light weight, although I still have some very high mileage heavy duty Vibram soled leather ones in the garage.
13. We'll be starting tomorrow's journey very early, with an aim to miss some of the commuter traffic.

Something else I remember is that I used to keep a rolling list of possible TT thoughts. The kind that spring into mind when on the top deck of a bus, or waiting for a tube train. I guess I'd better start that again. But first, back to the packing.