And Then Back To School...

   In other ‘news’, as it gets close to the schools reopening, those not scheduled to collapse that is, I see how problematic it is for folk to afford school uniforms or to cook two hots for their tots in this cost of living circus - sorry, crisis. I wish one of our media seekers of truth would ask some of the poor crying mums they talk to a phew proper questions such as;
   Where's daddy; wot does your smartphone cost you a month; how much did that new tat cost; was it cheap getting your lips blown up like bumpers; is it expensive getting your hair multi-coloured; How big’s the TV you'll be watching this evening; Wot’s the cost of all those channels you can choose from. I'm sure there are more.
    I'd suggest that, dependent on the answers, would dictate the tug factor on many a heart. Some chance as they just let the mums talk to the telly; no questions ever asked...
    Coincidentally, today I ran into a spreadsheet somewhere someone had hand drawn wot was almost identical to the above. Great minds think alike eh? Whoa! Drop ‘great’ and insert ‘normal’, okay?
    Same with those poor doctors wot are so poor they’re reduced to laughing and dancing as they demand more with nary a thought on display as to the fate of so many they promised to care for. Shouldn’t they at least be crying with hunger and need? I’m sure many of those who’re indeed in need of their attention are doing just that.
   Wot a world of self inflicted misery we’re in so let’s have a bit o’ bass. Gurn on doc...

Quote; Doug Larson.

“What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of living high.”

And Then Yet More...

   Below please find a comment from Doonhamer regards Childhood Dayz. I did a post regards cap guns a little bit after a while ago but I’ll be damned if I can find it now but click this for caps. Whoa!! Found it with an Image or link that’s been deleted. Thanks Giggle.
   And below that comment, you remember trying to con a day or two off school?

Hey! We're you living next door? Spying on me.
Bazooka Joe had little waxed paper squares with cartoon stories.
Solid guns with caps, "Bombs" with caps. (long quarter inch (5mm?) wide reels of red paper with real small dots, caps, of gunpowder encased in the paper carefully spaced so that the each pull of the trigger brought a fresh cap to exactly the right spot under the pistol hammer. Disappearing all day into the woods only to return instinctively just when tea (posh folk had dinner in the evening, we had dinner at one pm) then play in the evening under the street lamp. Policeman that lived a few streets away and if you were naughty just brought you home, even when you were possibly old enough to go to pub for a couple of half pints of one and tuppence a pint heavy. A district nurse that knew all about you and your family and came on a bike, later a green Morris Minor. A bike that could carry four( And could be left all day anywhere without being stolen.) One on handlebars, one on crossbar, the driver and one on the rear carrier. Wifies at every window watching out for you - your safety and your sins, all to be reported.
Such larks. I could go on.

Now the school sicky...

“I cannot go to school today"      
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.       
"I have the measles and the mumps,       
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.       
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.       
I'm going blind in my right eye.       
My tonsils are as big as rocks,       
I've counted sixteen chicken pox.       
And there's one more - that's seventeen,       
And don't you think my face looks green?       
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,       
It might be the instamatic flu.       
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,       
I'm sure that my left leg is broke.       
My hip hurts when I move my chin,       
My belly button's caving in.       
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,       
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.       
My toes are cold, my toes are numb,       
I have a sliver in my thumb.       
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,       
I hardly whisper when I speak.       
My tongue is filling up my mouth,       
I think my hair is falling out.       
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,       
My temperature is one-o-eight.       
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,       
There's a hole inside my ear.       
I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...       
What? What's that? What's that you say?       
You say today is... Saturday?       
G'bye, I'm going out to play!”        
             Shel Silverstein.

Then I was reminded of skiffle by Timbotoo...

Quote;  Haruki Murakami.

“The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school.”

And Then They Teach….

Last night I was doing that whatchamacallit, TV channel surfing in a desperate attempt to find something, anything, worth watching while my little nest of vipers was in the kitchen rearranging her collection of stainless steel colanders. To cut to the end of this post, I found nothing. Nothing at all.

However, while clicking along in ever increasing desperation, I accidently stopped at that BBC channel three thingy. A big bar at the bottom of the screen helpfully informed me I'd stopped at a program entitled Tough Young Teachers which seemed to be some sort of documentary.

As I frantically tried to move away from this I fumbled the buttons and had time to hear one of the tough young lady teachers call out to her unruly class of, oh I don't know, twelve plus year olds, "Right you lot, listen at me……." She said what now? Listen AT me? Yup, that's what she said. She said 'listen at me'.

I finally got my fingers and the TV remote coordinated and clicked onwards to the the next channel of banality thinking quietly to myself, there being nobody else about at the time to think quietly with, how, like, sad that was and how sad squared it'd be if she was, like,  an English teacher, innit.

Quote;  Kurt Vonnegut.

"True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country."

And Then, Again, You’ve Got To Wonder….

Some interesting reading. Interesting and depressing; sorry.

This is truly sad.

“Just when you think our Government's obsession with wind power could reach no further heights of absurdity, we learn that it now plans for us all to shovel billions of pounds into the pockets of the Irish wind industry.”

Anybody know what’s going on? ‘Propeller Head’, care to tell us all about this cunning plan? Is it also true you’re trying to stop the power companies itemizing bills that would show the price for energy used and the subsidy price for that windy green stuff? That’s how the bills should look but it would most likely be you and your departments death knell.

Whoa, don’t forget the ‘back-up’!! You can read this stuff ‘till your head hurts can’t you? Like these China peoples heads.

This all seems to continue moving ever onwards, past the point of the ridiculous towards the totally absurd. How have we got to this point? There’s possibly a clue here; see if you can wrestle with this question;

Q: Teachers organised activities for three classes of 24 pupils and four classes of 28 pupils. What was the total number of pupils involved?

How’d you get on? Okay? I should jolly well think so too. It’s not that much of a toughie is it? I mean, who couldn’t answer a primary school kids question, right? Oh no. Please, no.

There is though, through all this ‘you couldn’t make it up’ stuff, just the tiniest hint of a happy day approaching.

Quote; Margaret Mead.

"My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school.”

And Then, Back We Go….

After a brace of childhood items over at the Filthy Engineers drum, and prompted by a couple of the comments relating to packs of five fags, I found myself drifting back to the photos below.

Fondly known to us kids as Fag Alley, on the left it’s much as I remember it and, right, gentrified, as it be today. Complete with yellow lines.

See the hangy down sign in the first photo? Just passed the walking kidess? That was the shop. The shop that sold fags in quantities of one, with a match, to us sea school reprobates after our midday nose bag. I’ve mentioned before I believe, that the trick was to be first to offer your pudding to the fat kid for two pence which was the price of a Park Drive and match. Or two and a half pence for a posh fag. Old money of course.

Did the lunchtime duty Masters know we were down there? Of course they did. Did they come on down to catch us? Of course they didn’t. Did they ever come down there? Yes, if they needed a light.

Now this may prove an interesting line of thought.

One day, we discovered the shop was closed. Not only closed but closed and gone for ever. We were all bereft! “What will we do now? Why has it happened to us?” we wailed and cried in our misery.

All of us bar one. That one kid, the smart kid, thought, “What did that shop guy do? He split packs of fags and sold them to us. I can do that and probably make a bob or two.” And thus, in today’s language, the smart kid became the lunchtime single fag pusher.

That kid most likely went on to become ‘something in the city’ or ‘something in organized crime’. Probably not ‘something on mans boat’.

The thing is, nothing changes does it? I’m sure it’s the same today, just a different product.

All things move on from our own childhood times and memories.

Also, the young need to rebel against their elders and be different, to a lesser or greater degree, don’t they? I remember a kid at school who decided he wasn’t going to sea but rather going to try for university to study English Literature. I guess he was as close as I ever got to knowing a member of the ‘beat’ culture. Poetry, jazz and the classics.

He rebelled at school by, one day, turning up wearing brown shoes with his uniform, for which he got a severe reprimand. Undaunted, he did the same the next day, took a beating with the ropes end so the following day reverted to black shoes. With brown laces and white socks.

Move quickly back in time and then, moving slowly forward you can see the progressive rebelliousness and the need to be different, advancing to where we are today, right?

A step at a time. My journey in time takes me to an age when growing your hair long was pretty damn rebellious and cause for arguments in many homes and schools throughout the land.

Then, when the long haired kids grew up and had kids, their kids rebelled by having long hair and a discreet tattoo. When the long haired and discreetly tattooed kids had kids their kids rebelled by having long hair and visible tattoos. When the long haired and visibly tattooed kids had kids their kids rebelled by having long hair, many visible tattoos and an ear pierced. When the long haired, many visibly tattooed and ear pierced kids had kids their kids rebelled by having shaved heads, many visible tattoos and multiple piercings.

Having reached this point, and as it’s pretty much de rigueur, what’s left for the next lot? Selective amputation?

Did I rebel in my youth? Sure did, in my own quiet way. In fact, a lot of people believe I’m still revolting……

Quote; Dave Barry.

“You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.”

Thomas Jefferson.

“Every generation needs a new revolution.”

And Then There Were Memories….

The Filthy Engineer has been posting, occasionally, about his early navy days. The latest post on this topic made mention of cutters, or as us poor sods up north called them, boats. We couldn’t get our tongues round ‘cutter’.

I thought I’d post a couple of pictures of the school wot I went to in relation to cutters and boats. These photographs are dated 1951. I rolled up in 1958 by-the-by. Yes, time does go back that far.

TRINITY HOUSE NAVIGATION SCHOOL, EARLY 1950’S

Once a week, down to the docks where the school had its boat. For those of an age wot know about this stuff, please note the rope falls, wooden blocks, lack of life-jackets, scull caps, knee protectors, safety goggles, safety lines and those clown cloths looking fluorescent hazard vests. But please note, as if you could fail to notice, the broad smiles. {Probably never seen a camera before.}

Can you spot the swot? My guess? Second photo, second kid in from the right. Why him? He’s wearing his hat chin strap. Bet he always had shiny shoes and did his homework. Pratt.

You can try the clicky thingy if you wish. They may get bigger, I’m not sure. The pictures I mean. The kids got bigger automatically, as they got older.

Quote; B. F. Skinner.

”Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.”