More Excuses

It's been another good week for excuses.

Flute players can only make a good sound with perfect embrouchure. Eddie Izzard calls this a 'kind of vegetable that flute players have to deal with,' in his Sexy Tunes sketch but it's all about your mouth. This week my pupils have had difficulty making a good sound and they've all had good reasons for it.

"I'm sorry, I'm just too happy, I can't stop smiling. Have you noticed that you have to be sad to make a really nice noise?"
"I ran here and I'm a bit sweaty, my flute keeps slipping down."
"My arm is all tingly, so I can't hold my flute up properly. We had hockey today, I don't like hockey."
"My lips are really dry."

This week we had an outbreak of lipgloss/balm. I struggled to think of a way of warning my pupils about the perils of lipgloss that was politically correct. I learnt about lipgloss from a sixth form pupil (who also happened to be the headmaster's daughter) when I was a 'turd year' (year 9), as our music teacher called us. The lipgloss was passed back from the violins. It was one of those extra shiny ones, that came in a clear bottle with a red cap which twisted off to reveal a sticky rollerball. I took it with glee, pleased to be part of the trendy, kissing potion club. Manda (I never did work out what happened to her A) snatched it from me, "You don't want that. It fucks with your embrouchure."
Her words come back to me every time I see lipgloss. With the cold weather a flautist walks a fine line between dry chapped lips and lip balm both of which are disastrous for beautiful tone.

Today, however, I heard the best embrouchure excuse ever.
"I'm sorry. I really mucked up in the class assembly. It was my moustache. It's really hard to play with a moustache."
I can imagine it would be but there are some very brilliant and talented flautists with a lip caterpillar. For example, James Galway, Michael Cox (BBC symphony orchestra) and Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull). We discussed these players and watched some clips of them playing.
"Are there any girls who play the flute who have a moustache?"
A good question to which I had to confess I'd never heard of any.
"Well, there you go then. You should warn all your pupils who are girls never to grow a moustache."

May I womansplain?

I find myself in a strange position of considering the possibility of defending Theresa May.

"Oh, Julia, you've changed," I hear you cry, "We thought we could rely on you to say how awful it is that she is cosying up to Trump."
Well, yes you can but...

I think you should talk to your enemies. How can you persuade them to your point of view if you don't listen to them and understand where they are coming from?

"But she seems to be agreeing with him," you shout in my face.

She could be. That would be worrying. She was a harsh Home Secretary, who I used to liken to the character in Hatrry Potter who wore pink fluffy outfits but was actually evil personified. I doubt that she and I share any values and I suspect that she won't condemn his immigration policy of not letting some people come home, or students from certain countries visit their parents until their course is over because she thinks it's a jolly good idea. However, she might just be playing her cards close to her chest.

You are frothing at the corners of your mouth as you spit, "WHAT! Didn't you see the lovey-dovey pictures? Holding his hand was the worst thing she could do."

I did see the pictures and I saw the video and I think she was holding his hand to keep it away from her ass. As they walked along the Colonnade you could see him put his arm towards her back before the view of them was obscured by a pillar, when you saw them again they were holding hands.

"But she was smiling!" You are not prepared to let me off the hook.

At the risk of womansplaining you need to know that this happens to women. It's what women do. A man tries to inappropriately touch you or makes a sexist comment in public and you smile and duck or grab his hand. Don't make a fuss. Never make a fuss. Just smile and keep going.  You might comment under your breath through gritted teeth, "Hands off, orange man!" if you feel safe but if there's any doubt you say nothing. I like to think that she felt safe because just before they let go he patted her hand in the way old men do when they don't want to let go.

It is quite terrifying that this man thinks he can treat a prime minister in this way just because she is a woman and we are all prepared to blame her.  Thank goodness she left Larry the cat at home.

Since I wrote this blog Number 10 has explained the hand holding by saying that Donald Trump grabbed her hand because he is afraid of stairs,which is the most bizarre thing for a president to be scared of but it would explain the hand patting.  She has also said that she doesn't agree with his immigration policy.

Ouroboros

When I was young I read a book. 

 That's not a surprise, I know.  I've read several.

 It was a book I've been thinking about a lot recently.  It was a science fiction/fantasy book called, 'The Worm Ouroboros,' and it disturbed me.  I can't remember much about it, except that it was set in the two kingdoms of Witchland and Demonland and it was really hard to read.  It was also completely frustrating because the story ended up at the same place it started and I felt as though I could start it all again and still have no clue about what was happening.  It had a picture of a serpent eating it's own tail on the cover.

That's how I feel about the world at the moment: a serpent eating it's own tail.  The same people that voted for Brexit because they wanted to make UK great again are complaining about the people who voted for Trump because they wanted to make the USA great again.  The same people who wanted Britain to have control of it's sovereignty by leaving the EU are complaining that the Supreme Court upheld the decision that parliament must have a say in how and when Article 50 is triggered because it is sovereign.  

I've been quite depressed about the whole political situation and I've been trying not to write about it because if I did I think it would be a huge page of, "AAAARRRRRRGGGGGH."

I can't help thinking that not writing is the wrong thing.  Not only has it made me more grumpy in real life I think we have a duty to call out the stupidity.  Donald Trump's presidency is only six days in and already he has rolled back affordable health care, withdrawn from TTP, made some weird announcements about Muslims, brought back torture, started an investigation into voter fraud (we can only hope that he'll find that votes for him have to be discounted) and he's going to build a wall and make the Mexicans pay for it.   I'm struggling to know what to write because it just sounds too bonkers to be real but it is true.  There is a madman in charge of America and our Prime Minister is taking some jam, a two handled cup (I'm imagining a toddler training cup) and a Bakewell Tart when she goes to talk to him.  Some people say that she shouldn't talk to him but without Europe, we could end up needing him much more than we would like.  

  

There has been much discussion of Trump's linguistic level, especially in his narcissistic tweets. Analysts say that he has a vocabulary of 200 words (most adults have 5000 at their disposal).  This is like a primary school child.  Yesterday he tweeted something that I wasn't even sure was English and it certainly didn't make sense.  

Looking for the positive, I'm quite looking forward to the amusement that comes from listening to small children try to find words.  Toddlers go through a phase of putting 'poo' in front of every word.  Maybe that's why he's so fond of Putin.  Small children also make up words with supreme confidence.  Today, I was working with a group and we were singing the planet song to the tune of 10 little Indians.  We'd sung it with numbers, "One little, two little, three little planets, four little, five little six little planets, seven little, eight little, nine little planets, orbiting around the sun," and I'd asked the children to tell me the planets they knew.  I was impressed with their knowledge. I had a class of four year old space cadets.  They had named seven planets.  I gave them a clue.

"There's a really small planet that's close to the sun and begins with Mer."

They were on it like a shot. Of course they knew Mercury.

The last clue: "It's a little one and it begins with P."

If you stood still and listened you could hear the cogs in their brains working.

"Oooh, oooh, Plercury!"

"No, sorry, it's not Plercury."

"Penis!"

It's the only thing that has cheered me up in weeks. 

Excuses

Any music teacher will have heard more excuses than you would think possible.

Each lesson starts with, "I'm sorry I haven't practised my flute but..."

This week I have heard:

1. It was Christmas
2. My flute was allergic to mince pies
3. I'm thinking about giving up
4. The saxophone seems like it would be a better instrument for me
5. I left my book in the spare room and it's only just been cleared out after my grandma stayed.
6.  My rabbit ate my book.
7. I just had a lazy holiday.

I have also been doing recorder work with key stage one children (which isn't easy with a headache)  They are supposed to have their own recorder but they can borrow a school one for the lesson if they've forgotten.  I don't make a big deal out of it.  They can just use one but they insist on telling me why they haven't got one.  The most common reason is, "My mum doesn't like recorders," but this week I heard the best excuse.

"It fell out of the car window.  I share my recorder with my brother.  We were driving to Scotland and my brother thought he was being so clever.  He was playing that piece that they  learnt in class.  You know, the sword dance.  He was playing it over and over.  He thought he was so clever.  He'd played it about a hundred times."

I was beginning to feel sorry for his parents. Trapped in the car with the same recorder tune a hundred times would make me not like recorders.

"Anyway," he continued, "the car window was open and he played the tune one more time. He thought he was so clever and his recorder fell out of the open window."

"That was unlucky," I said, thinking exactly the opposite.

"Yes," he said, "It was unlucky.  He could have played the sword dance all the way to Scotland and he thought he was so clever.  My parents would have stopped the car but we wouldn't have found it because it was on the motorway and a lorry ran over it."

I can't help wondering if this recorder flying out of the window of a 70 mile an hour speeding car wasn't quite as accidental as he was suggesting.

Trendsetter

I think I might have accidentally started a trend.

Trends are unexplainable and people are usually unsure about where they come from.  One of the latest, the dance move Dabbing, has been annoying and baffling teachers for a while.

"Miss, do you know how to Dab?" they shout down corridors.

 If you are a hip and trendy teacher, like me, then you will suddenly sneeze into the inside of your right elbow, while the other arm automatically extends because you have reached the age where independent control of your limbs can be a bit hit and miss.

"Oh, she's so..." you don't quite catch or understand the word they say and you are not sure if it means cool or embarrassing.

I like to think that the move was invented by a middle-aged teacher, possibly in America, teaching a module on hip-hop. I imagine a man, greying, with a bushy moustache and glasses, who trained as a classical pianist and now can't quite fathom why he's teaching this kind of music to kids who don't seem to be interested and who have never even heard of Bach and wouldn't know a Czerny exercise if it bit them. I imagine his classes liked him.  He worked to excite them and he was passionate about music.  As any good music teacher knows, moving is the best way to get children to appreciate music and so he and his students were bopping around the room when he remembered he hadn't put any deodorant that morning, sniffing one pit after the other in time to the quick beat of the music.  His students all copied and a dance move was born.

Today, I was teaching recorders to a year 1/2 class.  We had been playing B's for a while and had managed to go from a hideous squeak to a reasonably pleasant sounding, "Here comes the King," rhythm, that, while not strictly in tune was somewhere close to a B.  We were just about to have one more go when my hands got suck in a weird position.

"Shall I get someone?" asked the lovely teaching assistant.
"I don't think anyone can help.  I probably just need to rub them."
"There must be someone who can cover the class," she said.
I would never inflict teaching a recorder lesson on anyone else, so we just laughed at how odd they looked.

As I was forcing my hands to stretch I noticed the children trying to copy my hand pattern.  Later in the lesson, as we had switched to singing the gesture had spread and by the end of playtime, the whole playground seemed to be performing the new hand gesture.

It will be interesting to see what they call it.

A Long Wait

Time is a great healer and the NHS have worked this out. You might think that they are making people wait on trolleys in corridors because they have a lack of funds or because the doctors and nurses are tired and overworked but you would be wrong.

In this tautological era, where Brexit means Brexit and the talk is of a shared Society we need to remember that patients need to be patient.

I know this.

Honestly, I do but it was good to be reminded.

Yesterday, I waited patiently (even though I wasn't the actual patient) and I do feel better.

I went with my mum to the Royal Free Hospital for an appointment.  When you have something that doctors can see on a scan but they're not really sure of what it is they know you need to be an even more patient patient and will send you to a hospital that requires a two hour trip.  Public transport is designed to make you wait.

There's nothing I like better that sitting and eavesdropping on conversations when I don't have anywhere else to be.  It was like a little holiday.  On the train there was a woman who told us her life story.  We thought she was funny.  Because you have to plan for delays, you will arrive with time to spare.  When the hospital is on the edge of Hampstead Heath you can while away an hour patiently waiting in a coffee shop/bakery/health food cafe full of interesting people.  Young men will trip in and kiss older men and suggest the gang hasn't been together for a while.  They will tell stories and exaggerate.  They will try to impress by saying that they miss studying.  The young man will look shocked and say, "It must have been a long time since you studied."  The older man will tell of his studying medicine in Guatemala (just for fun) and how he can't practise in England because he would need to take a conversion exam.  He will tell how he completed the course in just two years because he is super good at waiting.  Then without hesitation he will turn the conversation.  "Have you ever been to Israel?" "Oh, you should it's such a massive party town."

Mum's appointment was at 3pm.  We went in at five to five and were back on the station by quarter past five.  We were patient but were kept entertained by the not so patient patients. The lady in the hat who kept pulling nurses aside and whispering loudly, "this is in total confidence, obviously."  was most put out.  She was convinced that people were being sneaked in ahead of her.  We were lined up on seats along a corridor.  Occasionally, a nurse came past with a trolley containing cups of water.  It's important to stay hydrated when you are being patient.  Along one edge of the corridor were half a dozen doors where people went when they were called.  Sometimes they came out of a different door.  The lady in the hat refused to sit next to me, "No, no, no.  I have lots of papers to look at," she said grabbing a chair and moving round the corner at the end of the corridor.  Not that she sat still, popping up and down to grab any passing person to tell them how she was going to make a formal complaint.  Her list of people to complain to was long and varied. One particular nurse was very patient on the lady's behalf.  When she was finally called in the doctor called her 'dear'. She didn't punch him.

The consultation was interesting.  The doctor looked at the scan and showed it to us.  She told us that they didn't really know what it was so they would have a meeting to look at it and call us back in six weeks time.  You know they are taking your condition seriously when they want you to do more waiting.

Next time, we plan to explore the Heath a bit more and I will take a book that I like.

Switching it On

I haven't blogged much recently.  I've been grumpy. I've not eaten enough vegetables, moved enough, I've watched too much TV and I'm reading a book that I'm not enjoying. Twitter is bonkers and although it is still making me laugh, reading Donald Trump and Vincente Fox Quesado's tweets are making me feel a little uneasy.  The idea of Wikileaks publishing the personal details of anyone with a blue tick (including their family) is terrifying me, so much so that I suggested that my daughter might want to refuse her pending verification and I spent one early waking morning deleting any Facebook profile picture that I wouldn't want to be used if I was murdered. (I left the pictures of cheese.)

I've been trying not to inflict my grumpiness on the rest of the world but this week something has really bothered me.  I was teaching a song on SingUp called Switching it On, about the invention of the lightbulb.  It's a great song with two part harmony and is perfect for a Victorian Topic.

The lyrics are:

On a dark and stormy night,

Ben Franklin flew a kite.To the tail he tied a metal key —Now it wasn’t down to luck,He was sure when lightning struckThat he’d shown the world e-lec-tric-i-tee.
Of course he didn’t think one day he’d switch it on, 
Of course he didn’t count on Volta, Mather and Swan,
Of course he didn’t count on Thomas Edison,
Thomas Edison —

I knew about Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan and I had heard of volts, so thought that Volta might have invented the battery but I'd never heard of Mather.  I googled "Mather," and the top results were a law firm, an architect and an engineering company.  "Mather light," took me to a light railway in Sacramento.  I checked SingUp's teaching notes, which told me to pick out the inventors' names and discuss what each one did.  Luckily, they gave their first names, so I googled "Sarah Mather," and found Eminem's half sister and a singer from American Idol.  I was beginning to think that this was SingUp's little joke, to see which teachers were paying attention but "Sarah Mather inventor," gave some answers.  

On April 16th 1845 Sarah Mather submitted a patent for an submarine telescope with a lamp attached.  It was designed for examining the hull of a boat from above the water but in her patent she thought it would have various uses, the lamp being used to light items for inspection under water.  No website knew anything about her, as a person.

I was stunned. Why do women get written out of history? 

The children just shrugged when I said that I could find lots of information about the men but none about the woman.  They weren't as horrified as I had been.  

"Would you like to see pictures of these people?" I asked.

They all agreed that it helps to see a picture of someone.  They suggested that Joseph Swan should have invented the electric razor or better still a lawnmower and asked, "How does someone grow a beard like that?"

When they saw a picture of Sarah Mather there was a stunned gasp.

"Oh, she's quite pretty, actually."

It was my turn to gasp.  Equality is such a long way off if the next generation can only see a woman's worth in terms of how she looks.  

New Year Honours

I love Christmas but I hate New Year.  I wish the two weren't packaged as one event.  New Year completely spoils Christmas.  The build up to Christmas is all twinkly excitement, fairy lights and glitter, where anything is possible.  Fat men in red suits can fly around the night sky aided by animals that look like goats with antlers, delivering presents to every child on the nice list. Tesco can fill your house with glitter with the aid of their dysfuncitonal wrapping paper and for days you wake up surrounded by glittery hope because you wrapped your presents on your bed.  After Christmas comes the time when you can't remember what day of the week it is, when you last got dressed or last ate anything but cold turkey or cheese.  Real life is replaced by the books you've read or the films you've seen or the walks you've taken with the dog (you have to do something about the turkey farts).  Then the build up to New Year starts.  Charlie Brooker depresses us with his 'Wipe' so we are forced to agree that the last year has been the worst ever so that we can't wait for the next one because in the words of D'Ream, things can only get better.

Then the press goes into full def-con mode.  It's all out war against the last year.  No expense is spared, list after list proves just how awful the last year has been.  We need this so that we can accept the new.  When I was young I used to think that New Year's Eve was the day that everyone died.  I would sit watching the TV, polishing off the remains of my selection box and flicking through my Beano annual wondering at how many people could have died on the same day.  In my child-like brain I decided that it happened to make room for all the new people that would be born that year. Even when I became a teenager I couldn't quite shake that belief, so that when my Nan died on New Year's Eve and my cousin was born later that year I could never quite forgive him.  

Then, just as the lists get to the point where a new year seems pointless, where you are sitting in your pants considering eating the mouldering tangerine that was in the bottom of your stocking they bring out the big list.  The list of people who have done good things, despite everything awful that has happened.  It's the carrot to balance the stick.  The thing that reminds us that we can do brilliant things.  The list is well balance to prove that any of us can be brilliant.  The famous sports personalities, authors, actors and captains of industry are joined by teachers, school governors, people who run clubs for kids, road sweepers and glass blowers. I've often wondered how these ordinary people get chosen.  I imagine the Queen with a whole load of applications on her breakfast table, reading them between each mouthful of cornflakes, poured from her Tupperware box. 

"Oh Phillip, I'm so bored of this.  They're all so good."

"Yes dear, pass the sugar, I know but what's the alternative?"

"Alternative, now that's an idea.Who is doing my alternative Christmas message this year?"

"I think it's the husband of the MP that was murdered,"

"Quite serious then. I liked it best when Marge Simpson did it. I'd like an alternative New Year's Honours list."

"You are the Queen, dear.  You could probably put anyone you want on it."

"No dear, there are protocols.  Can you imagine what they'd say if I gave a gong to someone for services to telly watching?  There'd be an outcry."

"It would be fun, though and it's important.  I mean, if no one was watching, what would be the point of all those services to acting, football or screenwriting? Who could you give it to?"

And that's how it started.  Obviously, it all had to be kept completely secret but it's really nice that the Long Suffering Husband is recognised for his great talent in life.  It's a skill he has been honing since his teenage years when he would cover the TV with a duvet so that his parents couldn't see the light through the bizarrely placed fanlight window in his bedroom.  This year, he has taken the skill to a whole new level, turning the spare room into a TV cave.  He is so dedicated to his art that I've barely seen him.  

We were meeting Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace at 11, for a late breakfast a couple of days before New Year and I needed a cover story.  The Queen was all set.  She was, apparently, at Sandringham but had niftily avoided being seen by pleading a heavy cold to get her out of going to church. I booked a night in the hotel that seemed perfect for a secret mission; the hotel where Ian Flemming had written James Bond, drinking martinis, shaken but not stirred in their famous cocktail bar.  I used the trip as an excuse to do some of the things that were on the LSH's bucket list.  He wanted to experience Ronnie Scotts, afternoon tea, the OXO tower and fine dining at a celebrity Michelin starred restaurant.  I thought that these experiences would prepare him for meeting royalty. My thinking being that if he could eat in these places without lowering the tone then there was hope that he wouldn't forget himself and call her Lizzie.

The restaurant were aware of our plebby status, showing us to a table in the corner. The LSH scouted the room for the rich and famous.  The overly dramatic redhead stumped him for most of the evening but the footballer and his niece on the next table he knew instantly.

Each time the waiter came over we were making the noises that you make when you are eating something delicious.
"More water, Sir?"
"OOOOm, Yummmm, Slurp.  Ooooh, Smack. Nommmm. Ahhh, that's good!"
"Have you tried the ice cream with the tarte tatin?"
"Not yet.  It's delicious anyway. I'm a bit suspicious of licorice ice cream."
"It takes it to a whole new level."
"Oh, wow. That's amazing. Yes!" I slapped the table.
The waiter raised an eyebrow, mentally accusing me of a Harry Met Sally moment.

We had chosen from the three course a la carte menu rather than the eight course Winter tasting menu that the footballer had gone for.  He had also plumped for the Somellier chosen paired wines. It all started well, " With the taramasalata we have a Sancerre Rose from the Domaine Andre Richeu.  It has a clean crisp taste that blends beautifully with the smokiness of the dish."

The footballer swished the wine around the over sized glass, pushing his nose deep in before taking an appreciative swig. His niece sipped more elegantly.
By the time they had got to the lamb dish (which is what I had) they were up to their sixth glass of wine and the niece had tripped and giggled on her way back from the toilet..  The footballer seemed surprisingly unaffected but was very happy to discuss some of his best goals.  The food was paired with a fairly bog-standard Cabernet.  By the time they were on the last course the waiter appeared.

"Ziss is ze glass of lighter fuel from ze famous vinyard of shelloil.  I zink you will rilly injoy ziss taste which will compliment ze nougat perfectly."

The LSH laughed aloud.  I tried to shush him but he was right.  The lights did look like condoms.

Luckily, the Queen was very relaxed, enjoying every moment of her wicked honour.  The LSH is now to be known as LSH AQG (Long Suffering Husband, Alternative Queen's Gong) for services to television watching but he is now in bed with a nasty cold.

I'll confess, the award has cheered up my New Year enormously. I might even make a resolution.  Something like, "I resolve to keep making up stories in the style of a thinly veiled narrative."