Potato Headed Year 5

I saw a boy walking across the hall. He is a blonde haired year 5 child who looks a bit like a potato. He is always nice and polite. Today, he was bent over slightly, clutching a pillow to his ear.

"Why are you holding that pillow against your ear?"

"I've got earache."

I don't really know how that works.



Wow. Look at this. It looks like it is for real from a corporate event website. We did something like this on a much smaller scale today. I asked children to lead each other around the playground. The child who took the piss out of my gloves the other month didn't have a partner so I led him around blindfolded, then allowed him to lead me around.

It was a strange experience. First of all my partner told me "Now you're going to walk into a tree," and I shouted at him to stop mucking about or I'll take the blindfold off, and then he led me round the playground very well, saying re-assuring things to me to stop me feeling scared in my blindfold. At one point, walking down a slight hill, I felt scared and my heart beat a bit faster.



I went to the podiatrist today. She promises that I will no longer have to buy £120 trainers for running in. Then she charged me £120. She also said that all my back pain will go away and I believe her.



I got one of these to record Elly speaking. Today though I started using it to record everything I'm supposed to do, for example to blog about potato headed boy. It has increased my productivity. Usually my time after school consists of me walking around, drinking tea and getting involved in discussions about the best sort of exercise book or the rude behaviour of Barton Gilbert. Today though I did all the stuff I needed to do before I started mucking about. It has made me into a classroom tyrant, as I can play my memos to the children over and over again to make them do things, and is brilliant. A great thing to get if you're the kind of person who
ends up looking into the distance and trying to remember what music to download once you get onto limewire, or what book to get out at the library.

Smoke lingers 'round your fingers

My shoes are really filthy tonight. I've been walking around london.

First off, what did I eat today in London?



I started off with these. Officially, I ate them in Cambridge, so perhaps they don't count.

Then I went to New World. I had...



and

prawn dumplings and barbeque pork and chinese broccoli and those long thick prawn noodles. Glutinous maximus. Sky High my G.I.

After this I hung around here for a while salivating...



I felt a bit intimidated by this place though, and by the time I'd worked up enough courage to storm in and demand patisserie and coffee there was a queue a mile long, so instead i went here...



and had mocha and chocolate cheesecake.

By now I was on a binge and ended up at posh McDonalds...



and purchased a crayfish and rocket sandwich, a packet of crisps and a bottle of water. I got halfway through the sandwich and decided it was horrid so I walked up to a vagrant looking man who was shivering with a KFC cup in his hand. I offered him my food but he told me that he was on medication and couldn't eat food so could I give him some money instead. I couldn't even give my food away.

Finally, I had one final binge here before I caught the train home...



where I had the works - 3 pieces of chicken, 2 hot wings, chicken dipper and a bottle of water. I topped it all off with a

.

I love my eating disorder.

I think it was the horrific realisation that London offered nothing better in terms of clothes shopping than Cambridge that set me off. Also, there wasn't a single t-shirt for sale - OH MY GOD. I am listening to radio 6 and it is playing Mudhoney. I've not listened to this for a while. You Got It. Keep It Out Of My Face. I can play this on a guitar. How great. No, it's finished now and it wasn't very good. Great intro though. That, and this sabbath on the radio now, or this sabbath rip off leads me into one about Nathan Barley's in their ironic heavy metal t-shirts.



There are so many of these genetically modified mullet heads around. It is truly abhorrent. Every clothes shop had at least 2 of them, and I saw a pub full of them, wearing their heavy metal t-shirts. My hatred nearly spilled over when I saw this boy with a blonde mohican and disco shoes on. Oh dear goodness gracious.

There wasn't a single t-shirt for sale that was less than £25. For a fucking t-shirt. What a disgusting rip. I ended up in GAP. We've got a Gap here. At GAP I saw bo' selecta. Give a shit. More excited to see the woman who played the horrible, horrible pregnant woman in the office xmas special. I actually stalked her for a little bit, wanting to go and tell her how brilliant she was, but bottled it of course.

I got v. depressed but luckily met up with fenella (still can't make it change colour fenella) and had lots of fun going into digital camera shops and suggesting again and again that we could come to some sort of cheap arrangement for a digital camera. I winked and nodded and whistled a lot, but it didn't work in any case. Fenella nearly brought the ipod shuffle and then bottled it halfway through the queue in the apple store. I am pleased about this because the shuffle looks shit.



I could hear a voice on the tube home saying over and over again how much he hated fucking england and fucking poverty and this fucking place fucking fucking fuck. I was reasonably intimidated by him. He also kept saying that everyone in the country is sad, that it is a sad dead country. I found it even more worrying when I looked up to see he was holding a baseball bat.



On the escalator into Kings Cross there was an appalling woman standing facing back at me shouting at her friend. She looked very straight and not very handsome, but she was whining in her loudest voice about her lover, who had "disgusting, unacceptable ginger facial hair." I thought she was really offensive and looked at her in a funny way.



Fenella and I also met a very sweet student in John Lewis. He is studying design and wants to start a revolution. He believes we all consume too much and should try to exist on less, that we all want to go faster and have more when we don't really need it. We had a nice chat with him, gave him our blog addresses and encouraged him to use a blog to start his revolution. Then we went off and felt a little sad as we searched for a replacement ipods and digital cameras. Hi Student.



What a lovely day. Wrote in my new diary on the train journey home about a horrible child with adhd who kept shouting "It's making me weary," and kicking seats until I got up to move to a new carriage. As I got up to move, everyone looked at me as if I was the one who'd been shouting for the last 20 minutes, but I figure I get enough of this shit at school.




Got home to find Polly has a furious cold and Mick has a little less cold. Had a long night thinking about my life in general and decided that my running has to be pruned back rather dramatically, as it's stupid to have a family and a job, but to be obsessed by running huge distances to the point where I can't relax until I've run.



Once I have run, I can't be any sort of partner as I have to sit on the sofa covered in ice. Right now I need to be the Daddy, not the elite, so elitism will have to go on the back burner for a while. Hopefully though this will be a positive step, as I'll be well energetic and my right knee will stop crunching and the ligament behind my left knee will stop aching and my right foot will stop hurting and I won't be stressed all the time about having to do 10 miles. There seems to be little point in being totally healthy if it means my emotional life is fucked and my relationships are fucked. Might as well be fat again. This last sentence sounds as if I am going to go and get fat again. I'm not, I'm just making a promise to myself not to run longer than 45 minutes until Mick can say "Daddy".

O.K. now some free good stuff.

This week I haven't got any new music, or listened to much. I have listened to a bit of internet radio and have got two links here that are worth following:



Since Nathan Barley started, I have become a big fan of Julian Barratt. I have a minor obsession about him since Jon insists that we used to be best mates with him when we were at college. When I say best mates, I mean that Jon reckons he used to come and see the pollfish, our band, all the time and that he really loved us. Translated into realish, this means that Julian Barratt probably came to see us once. Anyway, Jon went to the real university as opposed to my patronising teacher training college, and perhaps he did have some sort of relationship with Julian. I certainly had never heard of him until he started appearing on the telly in an advert for a vodka jelly kind of alcopop drink. Then I became very jealous of him. How come someone who wasn't funny in an advert was now a famous comedian and Jon and I were drones? Surely this was a massive injustice and a sad indictment of the unjust times we are now living in. I have inadvertantly followed this man's career, as he seems to be bouncing about everywhere, landing, finally a part in Nathan Barley. Not just any part, the big part. GOD DAMN. How dare this once audience member of mine be mates with Chris Morris? So unfair did I find this chain of events that I missed episode 1 of Nathan Barley and was gleeful to see the bad reviews of it. This has all changed, of course, and I watch it now and admire and respect Julian Barratt. I have also checked out the mighty boosh in which he is particularly funny as a pathetic man. Both he and Noel Fielding are funny. It pisses all over little shitain. Listen to it. (and Fenella, I am particularly proud of that link.)

Also, I listened to knowing me knowing you twice this week.

There was also a good interview with Woody Allen on thursday's front row.

These links will die after the shows are next broadcast, so get 'em while they're hot.

Today I go to Ely to see Elly. Polly says I'm not to lie in bed blogging while the midwife is here, so I'm going to clear up the bedroom for our visitor. She's just coming to tell us what to do about sick Mick.

Fruit

Gillian Mckeith says i should eat fruit seperate from my main course. Apparently this will stop me farting, so i am eating fruit first. So far, not a parp.

"I think seeds need earth, because if you did the experiment in space it would just float, and when you put water on it it will just fall down, and you will not be able to grow it in space,"

Good God.

Mick does exist.

False smile.

It is snowing right now.

Snow

The children are excited because of the snow. I can hear them saying "This is the heaviest snow we've ever had..."

"Once, I remember my mum picked me up and the snow was so heavy,"

"It's not setting,"

"It will,"

"If it's heavy enough it will,"

"If the ground is wet and it is heavy enough it will,"

"It's settling on the window,"

"We're meant to have 3 inches of snow by Saturday,"

"Actually I'm going to get a long coat today,"

They took everything out of my pigeon hole and put it in a box in my classroom. Now I keep saying "I didn't see that" and they say "It's in your pigeon hole"

I don't know why this is on my board. I think it is to get the children to look at the important things I wrote.

My desk. It is excellent. Note maths plans, maths sat, empty water glass, new diary, wallet, question cards - these are the best things - see them in the top left corner? They are cards with the names of all the children in my class on them. I read them out instead of asking children to put their hands up. That way, everyone must be focused all the time.

IMG_1866

IMG_1866
Originally uploaded by davidtrent.

I have found flickr. Is it good? Fenella, what is the point of flickr? Is it better than Hello?

So I said I love the Futureheads. Today I read the back of the guardian music mag, and saw that they have re-released the lp with a free dvd. Good. I think it's nice when a band are little and people buy their music - buy, not download, and then they get big big big and they give all the new people who like them now because edith bowman likes them now a dvd and i don't get a dvd.

I'm 33, have a full time job with great responsibility and potential, two children of my own, a ridiculously healthy and fulfilling lifestyle and I'm bitching because I want a dvd of the Futureheads.



I ran for 15 miles. I have a great new gps speed and distance heart rate monitor with an irritating feature. The light button is the same as the off button. Imagine me this evening, clad in skin tight lycra, pummelling away through the sunset with the mantra "I am the elite, I am the elite," fueling my 7.42 min/mile pace, beating my virtual partner by 250 ft and feeling generally good. Then I hold down my "light" button and turn off my watch, cancelling all my stats 1/3 of the way into my run. My mantra changed to fuck it, fuck fuck fuck - and it became audible. I seamlessly morph from Paul Radcliffe to mental beardy bloke, hobbling around clutching at his wrist and swearing in the flick of a switch. Still, I ran 15 miles. I am the elite. I am the elite.



Elly brought me some gloves at the boot sale. I got a flumps video and showed it to her this afternoon when I wanted another half hour sleep. I thought they'd be better after a few years absence, but no, they are worse. Animation consists of arm movements only. One song was about clouds, and during this Elly asked me to turn it off. She even started reading her books throughout the last episode. Elly usually puts the T in Telly. The Flumps are the antidote. Also got a door hanging bouncer and a lot of books.

Gmail

I am such a knob. I have been waiting a year for a gmail account, and it finally came today. First I put in david trent and i couldn't get davidtrent@gmail. Then i tried davidt and various other combinations. Then I tried wanky woo and it said no-one else had wanky woo, so now my gmail is wankywoo@gmail.com. After about 3 seconds of laughing at how hilariously subversive I had been, I was very upset to realise that I had totally shafted myself, as the idea was to get a fast webmail to use at work, and this is entirely inappropriate for a junior school teacher to send out around the educational community. I don't know whether to be sadder that I used wanky woo in the first place or that I now feel that I can't use wanky woo any more. 10 years ago I wouldn't have thought twice about using wanky woo as an email. 10 years ago I would have used "fuckadog". (fuckadog wasn't available by the way - i did check)



Wow, I just got two cool books to read to my class - "The Day My Bum Went Psycho" and "Zombie Bums From Uranus"

"The Day My Bum Went Psycho" starts like this:

"Zack Freeman woke out of a deep sleep to see his bum perched on the ledge of his bedroom window."

Brilliant. Much better than the crimson petal and the white which is going on and on about two prossies at the moment. I also heard that it goes nowhere, so don't know what to do.

Here is my record reviews of the week:



More Adventurous - Rilo Kiley

Prejudice around this one because Word have been bigging them up so much. They are right though. Great, and there's one song that sounds like "find a girl, settle down" by westlife and cat stevens, which suddenly turns violent and sharpness and I rewound it and listened to it again and thought "oh, that is really very good".

So Rilo Kiley = YES.



LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem

Nathan Barley.

LCD Soundsystem = REALLY NO.



Athlete - Tourist

Wires is good. I didn't listen to the rest of it yet. I like wires though. Apparently they are christians. Apparently they go to a church in Deptford called the rock.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1401227,00.html

http://www.hotric.org.uk/main.html

Good for them. Good for their slyly evangelistic stance. Wherever I look, I can see that everybody wants to be part of the rock scene. I played that song to my class again and again and again. They liked the farting synth.

Athlete = Wouldn't go out of my way to invite them round for tea, but i'd let them in if they turned up on my doorstep.



Paul Simon - Paul Simon

It is as good as the coat he is wearing on the cover suggests it might be. The sort of album that gets you to buy a whole new system so you can listen to music in bed. Brilliant.

Paul Simon = Essential. Speaking of essential, here comes this year's essential album so far...



Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

This is horrible. It is a loud album which sounds ok when you listen to it quietly. You could read a book to it. You could listen to it while you run, but it won't make you sprint. Just like Franz Ferdinand. Just dire. Get the Futureheads instead. Elly won't listen to the Futureheads. They hurt her ears. She couldn't give a teddy about this lot though. Apparently they wanted to form a band after seeing New Order at Reading.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1404817,00.html

Gosh. How exciting. I wanted to form a band when I realised that you could earn shitloads of money and have a house with a swimming pool and say funny things in smash hits and have thousands and thousands of people clapping and screaming at you and chanting your name. Indie Barleys. New Order's new single sounded good the other morning though. A bit like they used to sound on the lp with a blue sleeve that came after low life, but more every second counts than bizzarre love triangle.

New Order - Sugar with that?

Bloc Party - what was it that inspired you to start coming round my house for tea?



p.s. if you have little kids, to get them to be really cool, sing a new obscure song to them slowly over and over again as they drop off to sleep for three days running. Then play this song to them, either in the car on the way back from nursery or on the ipod whilst jumping off furniture shouting "parkour". This way your child will become brilliantly educated musically. Mine likes "Drop The Pressure" by Mylo at the moment, can correctly identify Nick Cave and Dizzee Rascal (favourite tracks being Everywhere,Hype Talk and Stand Up Tall - I taught her Hype Talk by shouting "Inside Outside Raa Raa Raa, Too many man talk nuff blah blah, Talk like Daddy ain't got a temper, hit 'em with the force like skywalker," over and over at her when I picked her up from the nursery and carried her to the car one day, then played it to her straight away - permanent favourite now - cracking song too) and screams her head off when she hears Pressure Drop. This week will see if I can crack her futureheads aversion.

Snowdrop Walk

The only way to get Elly to walk around the woods today was to blow bubbles at her. Sadly she stomped all over the snowdrops in order to get to the bubbles. Lovely snowdrops. Pretty snowdrops.

Mowing The Lawn

This is what happened when Polly tried to mow the lawn yesterday. The mower didn't start, so Polly tried to get my attention. I was lying on my bed, winding my new son, and then suddenly a bang and a crack. Polly thinks that smashing the window is a cost effective way of getting my attention. It will cost approx £170 to fix.

The King William IV, Heydon

Chishill Rd, Heydon, Royston, Hertfordshire, SG8 8PW



My parents had some american friends who came over to the UK to visit in 1977. They had a red thing in their bag called Merlin. They showed me how to play with Merlin. Merlin was the best thing I'd ever seen. He played tunes, most prominently a tune I'd never heard before that they told me was called Mary Had a Little Lamb. He also played noughts and crosses. He played another 4 games according to the computer magazine, but I don't remember them. I played with Merlin all day, and felt the future gently getting moist under my 6 year old fingers. Mum and Dad's friends left that evening and I missed them.

Mum and Dad had another american family who they were friends with. One evening as Mum tucked me into bed, she told me that they would be coming over to visit on my birthday and that they would be bringing me a present.

They brought me a brown jumper.

That, my friends, was my first big dissapointment. Being handed a SOFT parcel, when Merlin was HARD, HARD SHINY PLASTIC. I remember running off to my room and crying. Still, to this day, I experience massive present paranoia. This increases around birthday time, and is almost too much when a baby is born. A whole staff room scanning my face for a reaction on opening a packet of dungarees. This is the stuff of nightmares.

I went to eat at the pub above. It was also dissapointing. Don't go there unless you like chopped liver placed on a piece of toast which has been wiped around the inside of a deep fat frier. If you also like steak and kidney pudding which can't be cut with a steak knife, this is also a good place to go. Such good write ups, such shit food.

I deleted my last post

Because fenella didn't like the picture. she thinks it is too big and that it will cause people with dial up to cry. All those of you who read my blog and have dial up have my sympathies. Here is a tiny little winkle sized picture for all of you. I hate dial up.



I had a baby boy. I had two weeks off work too. It was great not to be at work. Now I am having the children re-create web pages using powerpoint. The ICT suite is behaving itself this week, since the transmitter got replaced. Does this mean that the reason the suite hasn't been working properly since we purchased it was due to a faulty transmitter? Could be.

My legs hurt. I am wearing a strap around my knee. My calves also hurt. Standing up is enough effort to make me need to sit down.