The nuance of cheese

 I didn't write yesterday and have completely lost track of which day of cheesemas we are now on.  

I had a headache (maybe too much cheese) and thoughts were swirling around, refusing to be caught.  This happens sometimes, so I decided to have a cheese free day and not subject you to my randomness.

The trouble was that I was thinking about the word nuance.  

If you think about one word too much it can be difficult to take it seriously.  The word goaded me. 

"Ha, yes, you are right I'm a weird word.  Nu.  New. No I don't know if I'm an English word.  Maybe I'm French.  Yes, blame the French.  It's always the fault of the French."

"That's not a very nuanced approach," I told the word.

I had listened to a programme on BBC Radio 4 called, 'The death of nuance.'  I couldn't stop thinking about it.  I wasn't even sure I knew what nuance meant, except that my observation of the subtle differences in life and a steadfast refusal to believe in a binary world possibly means that I love nuance.  In the programme they suggested that you keep a day book, to note the subtle differences you notice.

"Who doesn't do that?" I shouted at the radio.

The word was right.  It is French, from the word nuer, which means to shade.

Adrienne has a new 30 day Yoga programme, which started yesterday.  I have now been using her videos every day for too long to count and you could be fooled into thinking that they are all the same but they're not.  The subtle differences are in how you breath, how fast or slow you move, how you think.  Yesterday, on day one, when I was contemplating the word nuance she said, "I want you to think about the nuance, whatever that word means to you," and my head exploded.

The news had upset a lot of teachers.  Particularly a headline in the Telegraph which said, "Teachers demand all schools stay closed."

I was confused.  It didn't seem like a particularly inflammatory headline.  If it had said, "Lazy teachers call for longer Christmas break," then I wouldn't have read the article.  However, I also thought the article was balanced.  It said that Gavin Williamson was under pressure to keep all schools from returning fully next week.  The unions, who represent teachers, had been trying to get him to listen to their member's concerns that with this new variant of the virus the measures that are possible to be put into schools are just not going to be enough.  No where else are people being told that they can have over thirty people from different households in a room and that remain safe.  The article used the word 'shambles' about the government's response in how they have handled these latest school decisions.  This, from a pro-government paper seemed quite strong.  It said that he had already added schools that he had forgotten and now had included the whole of London.  Teaching unions feel that he hasn't listened to them and have advised schools to make their own decisions, if they feel that they can't keep their staff, children and the community that they represent safe.

That's how I read the article but it's all about nuance isn't it?  Other's could have put their own interpretation on the words.  I appreciate that schools are never closed (except in the holidays and at weekends) but they are for the majority of children.  It might be lazy of editors to use the word 'closed' in the headline but I'm not sure how else they can say it in five or six words. 

The government may be hoping for a fight with the teaching unions to deflect away from their incompetence but my feeling is that teachers should resist getting drawn into this.  As soon as you start to defend your position you lose all sight of the nuance.  You get drawn into the I'm right and they are wrong argument, when we all know that it's so much more complicated that that. If we talk about the subtle differences, rather than the headline statements then I'm sure we will find that we have more in common than that which divides us. (I'm sure someone famous said that)

I, personally, would love schools to be open.  I have the best job and I want nothing more than to be able to do it, normally.  However, these aren't normal times.  The virus spreads in schools because it spreads with human contact.  It is impossible to teach without human contact.  The makeshift arrangements we have for home learning (no matter how good they are) will never work properly and the gap between those who know how to learn and those who don't will widen further.  This might have been enough to suggest that being in school was a risk worth taking, especially as children don't seem to get very sick, or die but not now.  Not this close to the vaccine solution.  I'm going to use Jonathan Van Tam's train metaphor to tell you why I think this.  

JVT said that the vaccine is like a train.  We were all on the platform with a lion, eating a few people at a time and were waiting for the train to come and save us all.  When he made the analogy the train was at the lights waiting for approval that the vaccine was safe.  Now, the train is in the station and we are trying to get everyone on it.  Sensibly, we are putting those that lions find the tastiest on the train first but there are lots of people and a short platform.  It's going to take some time.  We are so close.  If we hold our nerve we could save lots of people from the lion.  Yes, a few will still be eaten but it's the best we can do. However, we've just found out that the lion has a couple of mates who have joined him and they are super hungry.  These lions breed in schools.  Luckily, it's been the Christmas holidays and so schools have been shut for a couple of weeks.  Reopening schools normally (or possibly, even at all) at this time is like chucking extra lions on the platform, which, frankly, seems not only irresponsible but also negligent. 

That was a bit depressing.  Sorry.  Back to nuance.  The nuance of my cheese situation is not just that I've still got cheese left in the fridge, it's that I have some St Auger, Cornish Cruncher and a little of the white stilton and ginger.  The chili flavoured cheese and charcoal wrapped goats cheese are finished, along with the Bavarian smoked cheese.  We were coming to the end of cheese every day.  The epiphany could have happened by the 6th but the Long Suffering Husband decided to by more of the Bavarian smoked and a new wheel of Camembert, because, "a Sunday afternoon, watching films and dipping French stick into baked Camembert is what you need right now."  I can't disagree.  I might even finish the After Eights.