Jeremy Beadle RIP

Is it just me, or does there really seem to have been a disconcertingly high number of deaths recently?

Jess is a "Good Girl"

Yes, so I have been declared by the deputy head (JD, as he will now be known) at my school. I'm so proud, and didn't feel in the least bit patronised or undermined as a young woman. (I'm not being thoroughly sarcastic there, but obviously there is more than a small trace.)

I earned the accolade by compiling a "dossier" of YouTube videos created by kids at my school, which I stumbled upon after suspecting some bullying videos were on there. Most of the videos (shot on mobile phones, which are BANNED at school - this, I suspect, is the reason JD has taken it so seriously. He sees children flouting the rules as making a personal attack on him.) were just extremely stupid: kids being silly on the bus; kids egging each other on to drink muddy water from a puddle; etc etc. But two were disturbingly vindictive and aimed at one particular, ginger kid in my Year 9 class.

Stupid kids.

Hilariously, I found myself in the predicament of having to explain why I'd set my Year 10 the homework task of watching a video on YouTube and analysing the use of Gothic features. No, it wasn't the fact that they were on YouTube, it was the term "Gothic". Not only did the word remind JD of those horrible kids called "Goths", but he was worried about the repercussions of studying anything Gothic in a Catholic school. I had to then explain why "Frankenstein" has extremely Christian themes, that the kids are very aware of these, and that they need to explore the social and historical context of the novel in order to achieve a good mark for their coursework. JD seemed satisfied by this, saying that he had no idea what it was about.

It was only when I walked back into the English workroom that a colleague pointed out that this conversation had taken place around the corner from my gory display: the background is black, there's a border of red paper made to resemble dripping blood, and HORROR written in Chiller font.

It's funny having to justify this kind of stuff. The fact that kids love it and therefore engage with it doesn't seem to be enough. But the idea that classic texts and even Shakespeare texts need explanation is ludicrous.

As an introduction to Macbeth, my Year 8 class were talking about superstitions. One girl mentioned that she and some friends had tried the "bloody Mary" thing and done an Ouija board. After talking about it in depth (haha), I advised the class to never mention any of their dealings with evil spirits to anyone in the senior team . . .

Another member of my department remarked that if her daughter had to read The DaVinci Code, she's definitely complain. Not because she's Catholic and doesn't agree with its content, she added, but because it's so shit.

Spot on.

Heath Ledger is dead

It's hard to comprehend this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/movies/23ledger.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Oblique Strategy of the day

"The tape is now the music."

I'm having difficulty with this one.

Me on YouTube

I've gotten round to making myself a YouTube profile, so if you're on there, please befriend me: my username is ELSPECTRE82. I've already favourited (a neologism?) loads of cool and not-so-cool videos, and maybe one day in the future I'll get round to making some grainy montages of my own, complete with 80s-style-graphics and a terrible soundtrack, perhaps dedicated to my favourite hunk actor . . . that being the manner of most YouTubers.

Now I'm going to reheat yesterday's Chinese takeaway . . .

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp on The Culture Show tonight (I've never seen Tim Burton doing an interview before), and also the second episode of the new series of ER - maybe Saturday night TV is looking up?

Leave Dandy Dan alone!

Someone keeps coming to my blog through a Dandy Dan referral, and it's freaking me out. Why would someone be so obsessed by a picture of Dandy Dan?

If that's not it, then why not just bookmark http://troutinthemilk.blogspot.com?

It's weird, how people stumble across your rantings and ravings . . .

Further evidence of global insanity

Kevin Keegan returns to Newcastle United.

Our letting agent immediately fixed various problems around the house (anyone who has ever rented knows how bizarre this is).

OMG Pope Tea on YouTube

The Pope has pulled out of a visit to Rome's main university, after students and academics began protesting. Benedict XVI won't condemn the Inquisition's treatment of Galileo, and even quoted an Austrian scientist who said the treatment of Galileo was "reasonable and fair"! Indefinite house arrest and death threats if he didn't recant. Bizarre.

Other news: I was told by a colleague (after telling her of my weakened state) that tea-drinking can reduce the body's absorption of iron. I've done some research, and apparently this only relates to the iron found in plants, not meat, and also that if you have extra Vitamin C then it makes no difference (however, to make sure, you should have your cup of tea with your meal or up to an hour after). Who knew? Tabloid heading: TEA CAUSES ANAEMIA.

I'm feeling pleased with myself because I tipped off Laura from The Modern Age blog about Ryan Adams' antics on YouTube, which include this piece of footage from Ryan and the Cardinals being on tour:




And some other totally random stuff:




And some other really lovely stuff, like this (SAD DAYS: found footage of dreams):




Long post over.

PS. The girl whose legs were badly broken is stable and well enough to have more operations on her legs.

I feel so fucking miserable now.

I didn't ever expect to be trapped in a web of empathy like this.

Monday morning . . .

I'm definitely in need of some of Brian's advice, and he says, "Use filters."

These are two excellent words for my present situation.

Firstly, I have so much marking that I'd probably cry if I didn't filter it into varying degrees of importance. Besides the usual books, I have 32 Year 8 Horror Stories to read, I have 4 classes of Christmas writing tests to mark, 32 GCSE coursework essays etc. Soon I will have another 32 mini-essays on "Holes" by Louis Sachar. How I will get through this mammoth load of marking is yet to be revealed.

Secondly, I'm not in peak physical condition, and almost fainted in briefing this morning. I had to shuffle out of the door to avoid keeling over. The problem there was that I'd been ill all weekend, and in briefings everyone is crowded into the staffroom which quickly becomes very hot and stuffy. Very few people are early enough to grab a chair, so it's more likely that you'll be standing, and that the senior team will be going on and on and on about something or other. Today I was phasing in and out (filtering?), unable to focus on what they were talking about, until the head of 6th Form started telling us about a girl who was knocked down by another 6th former on Friday.

We thought that the girl had "just" broken her leg, but she's now in a critical condition because the breaks and fractures are extremely severe, and the trauma of undergoing two long and complex operations led to her kidneys beginning to fail.

See how succinctly I can put it? Instead, we had a chronological account of every horrible detail of the poor girl's experience in hospital.

The girl also has two younger siblings in school, neither of whom have been told just how ill their sister is. I teach one of them tomorrow, and I have no idea how to cope with the situation. If he doesn't know how ill she is, then it would be strange to ask them to say a prayer for her, and obviously being a heathen, asking kids to say a prayer when I'm not obliged to by school rules is not something I'd do anyway. Still, I want to show some support.

Best, I think, to just give them a shitload of tasks and get them to work quietly and/or loudly.

I'd like to be able to filter this out, but the impact of something like this on a school is staggering. You see head teachers on TV giving speeches about how good pupil X was and it makes relatively little impact on you, but in the actual school there's a shift in everyone's concept of reality .

I hope she's ok, particularly for the sake of her two siblings (how awful to think your sister has two broken legs and then for her to die - I think their parents have made the wrong decision about not telling them), and also for the kid driving the car. His life now will be awful enough without something worse happening to her.

I don't have prayers, but she's in my thoughts.

Random Eno advice for any weekend projects

"Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities."

Crap graphics on TV News - love 'em.

On ITN News they just had CANCELLED rubber stamped onto a picture of Hollywood glitz. Hilarious.

I know extraordinarily little about the writers' strike. I should probably find out what they're actually asking for . . .

WTF . . .

is Ryan Adams playing at? Check out his myspace, where you can listen to four strange rock tunes by one of his alter-egos, 'Sleazy Handshake'. I repeat - WTF?

I don't agree with Robert McKee's outlook on the film industry and the business of writing, but when it comes to self-editing he's both astute and pithy: "No one has to see your failures unless you add vanity to folly and exhibit them."

Indeed.

In other news I managed to fix the "broken" central heating with ease late last night, thus feeling like a complete fool for spending the day wasting electricity on energy-consuming heaters and boiling the kettle repeatedly in order to perform ablutions of some nature.

Water pressure - that's all it was. Let more water in = higher pressure = boiler works.

Idiot.

The cold

It's around 3 degrees, and we woke this morning to find our boiler flashing. Unfortunately there is nothing to tell us what this means, and we don't have an emergency number for our letting agent. I've left a message (the apparently check their phone regularly at the weekend, but this doesn't seem to be the case) and written an email, but we've had no word. So I'm holed up in the living room with the electric heater, doing school prep and wondering how many times we'll have to boil the kettle to get enough hot water to wash in (by tomorrow I'm going to be in desperate need of a hair wash) . . . It's not a good state of affairs.

"Overtly resist change"

That's what the random oblique strategy said. Interesting, because at this time of year, everyone's going on about their plans to be different or do new things. I've thought vaguely about some things I'd like to improve on or to change, but nothing so rigid as a set of "resolutions". If anything, I was thinking about how bizarre the words "resolve" and "resolution" are.

I resolve to be a better person - I am resolute about this - I will therefore have a better resolution.

Do we really want to resolve all those untidy endings? Sounds pretty boring if you ask me. I do not resolve to be unresolute.

So my nonresolutions are:

To attempt to have some fingernails (same as every year)
To structure my leisure time so that I can be more productive and spend time working on the projects that make me happy (I always aspire to achieve more, but never can because I never rethink my procrastinating and lazy habits).
To watch less television (relates to the above, obviously).
To spend my free periods and lunchtimes at school productively, and reduce the amount of crap I purposelessly haul to and from school.
To go round to (more) people's houses more and invite them to ours.
To complete and be happy with any of the following: a short story (or short play), an EP, a set of screenprints or artworks.
To file things straight away (if this requires tidying or reorganising my current filing
system, then so be it).
To travel more.

I think that those are all about not changing and more about being better at being me. But that might be bullshit.