BookMark: Thought for the day

Grammar: schools

2010-02-09T13:59:00.003Z

We were at an event in a Norfolk school at the weekend. In the main hall was a display featuring a recent school visit overseas and other 'information boards,' featuring lots of diagrams and annotated posters.

Being the curious type I read though the information from start to finish and it was both interesting and illuminating. However, I was also horrified to see so many spelling mistakes and elementary errors in the grammar being used. I suspect there will have been some kind of editing process so this wasn't just down to the children concerned. They will no doubt have submitted their accounts which may well have been used for other materials - possibly online - as well as these front-of-house advertisements for the school: prime real estate.

If teachers or administrators aren't up to standard, how can children be expected to be?

Remembrance Day

2009-11-11T20:17:00.003Z

As today marks another year since that first armistice was signed in 1918, I went to Hyde Park Corner just before 11.00 this morning. I go there every year to just observe the silence for a few minutes and think about things.

I think about the horrors of war and imagine what those poor men, young and old, must have gone through. Just as they are still going through it today in another pointless war. Except of course, though my imagination is rampant most of the time, I can't really imagine the true depths of despair nor the dreadful conditions that had to be endured. My grandfather told me little bits but the larger pieces he had chosen to block out probabably represented the raw material that would never become refined.

As the guns blasted off their salute to the fallen, just a few hundred metres away, I thought of Granddad once again. He was a gunner and the wonder is that he wasn't completely deaf by the time I got to meet him. How did he cope? How did any of them cope?

They shall not grow old but I do. With each year that I remember I seem to get a bit closer to the truth somehow but isn't it ironic that we are still surrounded by deaf ears - just as so many were then as they sacrificed their futures for us all.

Staying quiet

2009-09-21T12:51:00.002Z

I came across a Jewish proverb today:

"A bird that you set free may be caught again, but a word that escapes your lips will not return."

We have to so careful when dealing with others don't we? I often wish I could just 'tell the world' but I think I'd want to swallow my words pretty quickly if I did. However, fictional accounts of real situations and real people has to be the way forward, both for my own sanity and also to ensure the message is delivered.

The swaying branch

2009-09-13T10:54:00.004Z

I've been watching a tiny bird this morning - I think it may have been a wren - clinging tightly to the branch of a tree in the orchard. It's quite a breezy day today in East Cambridgeshire and the little bird's perch has been blown up and down and from left to right. Yet still it clings tightly. Perhaps it knows that, though flimsy, this is the safest place. It relies on what it knows.

I likened this to our day jobs. we cling to them because this appears to be more secure than leaping off into the relative unknown. I have always believed also that, should we fall, God will pick us up again and help us on our way - perhaps catching us on branches further down that we can't always see because of the foliage of the day to day.

Then I wondered: what if God is trying to say to the little bird and to all of us 'Look! I sent this wind of change to make you think about your long-term security (I'd have given you a calm and sunny and altogether more stable day otherwise). Perhaps you'd be better off choosing a stronger branch of the same tree now or maybe even leaving the orchard altogether and finding a calmer place.'

How do we know which it is other than have faith that He knows what He's doing even if we don't?

The sands of time

2009-09-10T13:33:00.001Z

I was daydreaming as usual on the train this morning and wondering where the time goes. I've been concerned lately that I am going through an age thing whereby I'm beginning to forget things, which leads me to think I'm losing my grip in general. Back in the real world I think it's more to do with stress over the day job and having a generally very busy life.

However, I came across this quote from Jean Paul which kind of repositioned everything: "The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the more clearly we should see through it."

I thought that was quite brilliant, or maybe it was just that I could see the sunshine more clearly with the lifting of clouds?

Brick walls

2009-08-17T13:16:00.003Z

I'm just back from a glorious week in the Dordogne. Planning for my return to walk I was imagining various workplace scenarios: there's been a crisis, all is good, nothing has changed etc...

In conclusion I decided that holidays were a welcome break from banging your head against a brick wall. Then I found this quote from Randy Pausch: "Brick walls are not there to keep us out; brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

Do I want to escape or do I value the security that comes with bricks and mortar?

Secret Virtues

2009-08-10T06:38:00.005Z

I read this quote from Bertrand Russell this morning: "No one gossips about other people's secret virtues." I'm on holiday in France's Dordogne at the moment and am sitting on a terrace outside our cottage, high up over rolling countryside. The mist is hanging in the valleys below and the church bell of St Crepin has finished tolling. It really is a beautiful scene on which to paint words and images.

However, devoid of life's clutter and traffic I spent yesterday examining my releationships with wife and children. Isn't it funny how we swing between hopeless love (and erotic) thoughts to those little, niggly affairs that get under our skin. How easily we focus our view on the really beautiful or the really disappointing, forgetting all of those hidden truths below which are inevitably good.

Cleanliness is next to door handles

2009-07-29T14:05:00.003Z

At the offices of the day job and largely because of fears over swine flu, notices have suddenly appeared in toilets reminding us to wash our hands and, for those not yet out of potty training, how to do so. There are also very large, red warning signs on the inside of all toilet doors which, rather then telling us we're leaving the safety of the toilet and entering the poisonous corridor outside, are reminding us that not washing our hands is akin to attempted genocide in a densely-populated office.

However, there is a paradox to all of this. What about the door handles, used for re-entry to the world. Having washed hands and wiped or blown them dry, everyone uses the same handle. Even on a recent trip to Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, they had cleaning gel at every entrance but the same 'single opening door exit mechanism' or SODEM for short. Toilet door handles are clearly the most dangerous aspect of our office life.

What we have we should hold

2009-07-29T13:30:00.003Z

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." This quote came from Oprah Winfrey.

It's true, isn't it, that we do focus on the cup half-empty - be it things we don't have, or things that other people have but we don't, or the bad news that we're getting near to the bottom of the glass, rather than enjoying what we have left?

I think we're especially bad at this in England. A thickset middle-aged man got on the train at Letchworth Garden City this morning and rather bumptiously demanded that a couple with a young girl removed their suitcase from the adjacent seat so that he could sit down.

They did so with good grace and you'd think that was fair enough except he then made great play of wiping invisible dirt or dust off the seat before descending to their level. The little girl, who must have been no more than five years old, and clearly excited by the way she was chattering non-stop, asked her parents, quite loudly: "Is the man unhappy because he's not coming on holiday with us?"

Fear

2009-07-25T17:51:00.003Z

"Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends,” so said Shirley MacLaine.

It's a really profound quote isn't it, because fear comes in so many forms?

Maybe the most prominent is a fear of the unknown. Meeting someone for the first time can be scary because of how they might perceive you; what they might think and try very hard to disguise, and because of what they might do to you or someone else.

Meeting someone on a regular basis might be equally traumatic because of your previous expereience of them: you understand what they think of you; you can see through their rhetoric, and you know what they already have done to you or others.

There is someone I meet on a regular basis during the 'working week'. I have tried so hard to make friends but that person fears that letting their guard down will let me into a place they try to keep concealed. Or maybe they know that I occupy it already?

Insanity

2009-07-23T16:13:00.003Z

I was reminded of Einstein's definition of insanity this morning: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

As the train and I passed through Royston and Baldock and Letchworth as we have done for some sixteen years now, I was wondering how we can really change the things we probably need to change without altering those things we simultaneously desire to stay the same.

I can't change the train, nor its route from Cambridge, nor its London destination, but perhaps I can change my perception of the journey I'm making through life and remind myself that there are any number of intermediate points where I can step off if I really wanted to. It might slow me down but, on the other hand, it just might speed things up?

No flood warnings in future

2009-07-09T14:04:00.003Z

I picked up this blog post this morning.

I hadn't realised they were building the new Middle Level at St Germans. My parents used to live in nearby Magdalen and I remember the two huge bridges there which took traffic over the Ouse and the artificial channel.

Strange to think that the risk of flooding appears to be as great as ever - especially to those of us in The Fens - and yet we're dismantling a system that has been in place since perhaps the greatest of floods in 1953. I know it makes economic, and probably practical sense, but the issue regarding spend on flood defences all along the Norfolk Coast is really one of 'at what point do we just sacrifice the people living there or in the hinterland?' Presumably when we are deemed to be of no further economic or practical use to the government?

Missing child

2009-07-01T12:13:00.003Z

I was reading the report on Keith Bennett, the little boy murdered by the Moors murderers forty five years ago. Greater Manchester Police have officially called off the search. His mother just wants to know where the body lies in order to give him a proper burial.

As I crept out of the house this morning, leaving three sleeping children, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't be seeing them all again this evening. I obviously don't know for certain that this will be the case but neither does it really enter my consciousness that it won't. Perhaps it should and more often. Perhaps we do take life, if not our own children far too much for granted?

The carnival is far from over

2009-06-27T14:27:00.002Z

I've just been watching the floats go by here in Burwell. We missed the first carnival when we moved here and then again last year because our eldest son was graduating from The Royal Ballet School on the same day.

Our daughter goes to Burwell Guides, who this year celebrated the Suffragette movement as part of the overal theme of 'Ages in History.' It's good to witness such innocent fun in the Cambridgeshire sunshine especially when you remember those dark before female emancipation.

No more hens

2009-06-22T12:21:00.003Z

We were heading home down Isaacson Road in Burwell over the weekend when our daughter suddenly became aware of a moorhen (sometimes called marsh hens apparently), ducking and diving in and out of the hedge next to the path. What she hadn't spotted were about a dozen or so moorhen chicks, gamely trying to keep up with their mother and representing a ragged formation more likely to come from Red Bull than the Red Arrows.

At one key point, mum decided they should all cross the road and head into the fields beyond. Unfortunately that message was only partially communicated and not all team members received or understood it. The result was that about ten chicks safely made it - albeit in two stages - but at least two didn't. They were run over by motorists who almost certainly hadn't seen their tiny forms and may not have stopped if they had.

Our daughter was really upset about it, even though she knows it happens all the time (yesterday we also saw a dead badger on the road to Swaffham Prior). She was most upset that, though this particular social network was based on family strength and solidarity, the message still hadn't got through to every member.

Midsommer in Midsummer

2009-06-20T18:34:00.002Z

Living in a chocolate box village like Burwell in Cambridgeshire, we often think about the TV programme Midsommer Murders where unexpected murders pile up from the most unlikely sources - all in beautiful, quintessentially English villages like ours.
We thought about this again this afternoon when we went to the vicarage for the annual church summer fete.
The garden was populated with the usual plant sellers, book and cake stalls and games for the children - all washed down with copious amounts of strong, sweet tea. The raffle was drawn by a large but befuddled gentleman who consistently messed things up and applauded loudly by knitted ladies in twin sets and men of a certain age with bulging stomachs over bulging legs, exposed below bulging shorts.
All in all a collection of suspicious characters that could have appeared in Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage' all those years ago. In fact not much has really changed since then and I love Burwell all the more for it.

Swine flu in Burwell

2009-06-19T12:42:00.002Z

It's official: three cases of swine flu have been diagnosed in Burwell and the local primary school has been closed.

I've just walked down to the bank and noticed some children playing on the village green but, as this news article indicates, noticed a lot of the locals looking at them incredulously as though all children in the village should currently be unseen and unheard.

In a curious way it reminded me of the story of Eyam in Derbyshire - near to where my sister and parents now live - when Plague hit the village between 1665-6. One thing we don't share with the Peak District in the Fens are of course the peaks, though some would say outbreaks like this are the very troughs of our existence?

Opening old lines of communication

2009-06-16T07:24:00.003Z

My son and I have been trying to work out where the station between Bottisham and Lode in Cambridgeshire was located. It's obviously hidden away in fen farmland somewhere and we plan to walk over there next weekend to try and find out.

When the children were younger, our holidays and weekends often took in old or disused railway lines or windmills, as well as recreating the scenes through the model railway in the loft room. Those happy days always took me back to my own youth, watching the trains on the main line at Woodcroft or from the apple tree at the bottom of the garden, just managing to glimpse the trains away to the south-west where only houses can now be viewed.

I saw a story suggesting old lines of communication might be restored. I'm not a subscriber so can't get the full detail but the links that trains offer me with the past will always be there, however hazy.

Reach out

2009-06-14T19:24:00.002Z

After a day of gardening and generally rushing around yesterday we had a relaxing day in our Burwell garden this morning. We devoured the Sunday newspaper, coffee and cheese and cucumber sandwiches, all to the backdrop of Michael Ball's radio programme and in glorious sunshine.

This afternoon I went for a walk with my eldest son over Devil's Dyke and and round a series of leafy footpaths to Reach and then back again for an evening barbecue. It's all been there for us this weekend and was just a case of reaching out to touch it

Blooming

2009-04-21T12:52:00.003Z

I went for a walk in Hyde Park today. I'd forgotten how lovely it is - especially around the Serpentine. Working in a basement office with barely any natural light, it's easy to forget that everything is man-made, including the 'issues' and 'problems' which seem to be so urgent. Life - real life - goes on outside as it always has done.

My only regret was that the bluebells have almost all gone away (the Genesis song 'Ripples' from Trick of the Tail came into my head as I was strolling) and I missed them in full bloom. They won't ever be exactly the same again and I now have to wait another year for a chance to see their delicate blues and enjoy those hopeful spring fragances. How blessed are most of us to be able to sense such beauty? And how sad is it that it passes most of us by...

Rod of iron

2009-04-13T09:59:00.004Z

I read Rod Liddle's piece in the Sunday Times yesterday about thuggery in the Metropolitan Police. Strangely, the night before, the boys and I had watched The Changeling on DVD. The film, stars Angelina Jolie and is set against the backdrop of police corruption and thuggery in late 1920's Los Angeles. Given the Wall Street Crash was just around the corner and the 'Crunch' affecting economies today, I found the symmetry interesting. Unfortunately - and because it affects us all closer to home - I found the alarming burglary statistics in the same paper more of a concern: the county of Cambridgeshire is witnessing one of the steepest rates of increase in the country.

However, as we are informed or entertained by the media, real life may paint a different picture. Our son got attacked in Cambridge City Centre recently but I have to say the police follow-up was fantastic and I couldn't fault it.

What matters most is each of us

2009-04-09T16:51:00.003Z

I was walking down Newmarket Road towards the medical centre in Burwell this afternoon when I heard a siren behind me. Away in the distance an ambulance with flashing lights was racing towards and eventually past me, heading towards the centre of the village. My first thought was to pray for the poor person or person(s) it had been called out for and my second was 'thank goodness it wasn't for me.'

I then thought how great a thing it is that potentially one person's need can lead to the emergency services being called out to attend, potentially causing many other road journeys to be delayed. I've also had this fault when a train has been delayed or held in the station while a passenger has been attended to. Yes, it can cause timetable chaos and yes we often raise our eyes and curse inwardly that this has happened on our journeys, but in our increasingly sophisticated and networked global village, I think it's great that an individual's needs can still have such an impact.

The church at Quy

2009-04-01T08:15:00.003Z

I wrote a poem a couple of days ago about the church at Quy. I pass it on my journey from Burwell to Cambridge whenever I'm commuting to London and admit that I say a cheery hello to it each evening when I'm on my way home again. In a funny way its clock face always conjures up the Rupert Brooke poem: The Old Vicarage, Grantchester.

Swaffham Bulbeck

2009-03-30T10:45:00.002Z

Swaffham Bulbeck is a small Cambridgeshire village, about five minutes away from our home in Burwell and yesterday our son, Sam, played his last 'home' match of the season there for Burwell Tigers. It was a close game against Great Paxton who went into a 2.0 lead, but Tigers came back to win a thriller 3.2 with just two minutes remaining.

They play on the village green at Swaffham Bulbeck, which is an idyllic setting in which to play football, though the ball does keep running off the side of the green and over the road, necessitating frequent halts in the road traffic - something even Premiership players can't claim when their shots go wide!

For a long time I've thought about putting together some pages on Cambridgeshire and other parts of East Anglia that I've visited or which mean something to me. I saw it as a kind of personal map in words and pictures. I've put the first page together this morning, featuring Swaffham Bulbeck.

I've also loaded a different image of St Mary's church on my photoblog

Spring

2009-03-21T10:56:00.002Z

I was told yesterday by people in the office - who had 'Googled it' that it was the first day of spring. When I was younger, March 21st was always the first day of spring so I thought then that maybe time was moving backwards rather than inexorably forwards.

Apparently there has been a major debate and it seems that the compromise is the night of 20th/21st March - a bit like the actual time of putting the clocks back or forward?

Returning to reality for a second - or has that already passed - the sun is shining and Josh, or big black cat who is terrified of his own shadow - is running about on the lawn trying to catch flies. Must be spring...

Finally, Thomas Cranmer was burnt at this stake on this day in 1556. Now, if time is moving backwards, perhaps there's still time for him to escape?