Start the Week #41

Greetings!

I hope you enjoy this latest missive, and the new time.

M. E. Rothwell

told me that he sends his out at 9 am Eastern Time, so I thought I’d try something similar. I like to shake things up occasionally. I’d be interested to know how this goes down.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

I am honoured, crow, drone, burble etc

As I said in a recent Note, a few days ago I popped onto Linkedin. I hadn’t been on there for ages, so I wanted to see what I was missing. The first post was by someone saying how delighted they were to have been awarded some honour or other; the second was by someone saying how excited they were to have written a book; the third was a private message from someone I’ve never heard of saying they’ve just written a great book and would I like to tell everyone about it?

Hello?

Believe it or not, there was a time when people were modest, and not falsely either. A few years ago I was listening to the radio, and they were talking about someone being given an award. When the presenter was reading out this person’s achievements he was in tears because he hadn’t realised people rated him so highly. I remember at the time being pleasantly surprised that he hadn’t been crying because the accolades weren’t effusive enough.

I mean, this is all pretty obnoxious, isn’t it? Birgitte Raisine, who writes at

The Muse

, commented, with regard to Linkedin:

Once you get past the slime-covered walls, the cauldrons of boiling ego oil, and the look-at-me pictures swimming in the moat, the fortress inside is actually rather thoughtful, passionate, argumentative, and (dare I say it) supportive.

Very beautifully put, I think, but frankly I’ve never really been able to get past the cauldrons of boiling ego oil (what a wonderful phrase!). I always feel I need a wash when I’ve been exposed to this kind of self-promotion.

I don’t even think it’s necessary, because people find out anyway. Whenever I’ve received an honour of some kind I’ve tended to tweet and blog about it once, on the grounds that I suspect the organisation responsible would like a plug. But I’ve always started with thanking the organisation — and have then moved on as rapidly as possible and hope that nobody will notice the announcement. The kind of ego self-massage referred to earlier is anathema to me. Whatever happened to the adage that self-praise is no recommendation?

Well, my moaning about it isn’t going to change anything, so let’s move on. But before we do, I thought you might find this nearly four minute clip of Spike Milligan being given a lifetime achievement award refreshingly parodying. Milligan was a British comedian who was one of the founders of a programme called the Goon Show. He was completely bonkers. I remember watching a live TV programme on which Bernard Brady was sitting there talking very seriously to the camera when all of a sudden his hair and tie started flying about all over the place. And then Spike Milligan came on the set wheeling a wind machine. Anyway, watch this. His acceptance speech is very funny, as is his remark about Prince (as he was then) Charles.

A lovely surprise

I discovered last week that, contrary to all the naysayers, there really is a benefit to be had from hoarding. And even from being on Facebook. Many years ago I worked at a school where I became especially friendly with a teacher called Carol¹. We got on very well, but she emigrated to Australia, and I got a job as a head of department and bought a house, and then spent several years working seven jobs to keep the roof over my head when the mortgage rate started to go bananas. Needless to say, I lost Carol’s contact details, and in later years attempts to find her online failed because I didn’t know her new last name.

Recently, I’ve been clearing out loads of papers, and came across a letter Carol had written to me back in 1988, complete with her surname. Five minutes on Facebook were all I needed to find her, so I pinged her a message, and now we’re back in touch again. It’s lovely.

She told me that she didn’t like the school we were both at, but that I was an oasis of humour and cynicism. That’s nice, but frankly it didn’t need much effort to be cynical. Let me take just one example of ridiculousness: the school counsellor.

Now, all credit to the school in one sense, because it employed a school counsellor before mental health for kids was a condition. Let me say one thing: if a child is experiencing difficulties and their mental health is suffering, I’m all in favour of a system in school for dealing with it. Note the word “system”. If a child goes to see the school counsellor, as a teacher I would expect to be given some kind of information or advice afterwards, even if the nature of the issue couldn’t be divulged. For example, a note like “Graham is suffering from low self-esteem issues/ recent family bereavements/ recovering from an illness…, so please don’t shout at him.”

But that’s not the way it worked in this particular school. The procedure was as follows: Susan says she is feeling upset , so can she see the counsellor? We teachers are not allowed to say “Upset? Right, and I’m the King of China.” We are not allowed to say, “Don’t make me laugh.” Because this was, supposedly, a mental health issue, we had to say, “Of course”. Then, as Susan was closing the classroom door behind her, she would throw a smirk back at her friends. Once in the counsellor’s office, Susan would be given a cup of tea. An hour later, as the bell for lunch sounded, Susan would make a dramatic recovery.

I even heard pupils saying, “I fancy a break and a cup of tea”, and then putting their hands up and asking to see the counsellor. You still couldn’t say anything because the pupil could claim, rightly, and with 29 witnesses to back him up, that he said he needed to see the counsellor and you said, or rather implied, that actually what he needed was a kick up the backside.

We had a mutual friend there, Melissa², who I was lodging with at the time. I used to give her a lift into school. Melissa, like me, was an advocate of renewable energy, but I wrote to the electricity board and asked to be sent a load of free car stickers with declarations like “Ice age? No thanks. Nuclear power for me.” So every day Melissa would squirm as my newly-festooned car pulled into the school car park and try to get out of it as fast as possible, hoping nobody had seen how she’d arrived.

Anyway, Carol and I have been exchanging emails and photos and no doubt we will enjoy having a good laugh about old times.

Recent writings

Here are a few very interesting articles I’ve come across recently:

I’m enjoying reading this review by Joel Miller. It’s a biography that looks beyond one person’s life. After all, people aren’t born or made in a vacuum.

‘A People Born of Trauma and Miracle’

I also enjoyed

Rebecca Holden

’s article about flying:

99. The sky’s no limit

Rebecca writes very engagingly, and what’s more she writes to me! We have a good laugh exchanging letters here, and she is due to write one to me on Wednesday. Do subscribe to her newsletter to make sure you don’t miss it. Rebecca and I will actually be meeting in person soon. Obviously, in a crowded place in broad daylight and with our spouses on hand. I mean, you can’t be too careful these days.

Charlene Storey

wrote a lovely article about growing up in a house full of books:

H&S Archive: Growing up in a house full of books

Stirling S Newberry

publishes loads of fiction — I don’t know where he gets his ideas from. Check out his flash fiction:

Flash Fiction

As for my scribblings:

This one has been universally panned³. Well, as

Sharron Bassano

likes to say, if you don’t like my peaches stop shaking my tree, or as I like to say, quoting Bessie Smith, if you don’t like my potatoes then why did you dig so deep? Here’s the article: go on, disparage me:

Mitchell Allen

and I collaborated on this one. What a couple of nerds we are. For paid subscribers only: go on, check out the free seven day trial.

In my latest reply to Rebecca I educate her on the fine art of making tea. I can see this is going to be an uphill struggle:

Well, that’s it from me. I hope you enjoyed this. Please subscribe if you haven’t already. If you really like my stuff and like the beefed up offering I’ve written about then take out a paid subscription because I have three feline layabouts to support.

Bye for now.

1. Not her real name, obvs.

2. See note 1.

3. Since writing several people have come along to say that they liked it, or appreciated it. So there!