Here’s today’s t-shirt, courtesy of Icelandic behemoths Skálmöld. While I may be atheist and very much a grump at this time of year, I think this shirt conveys the same kind of message. While a large portion of the world celebrates the nominated birth date of someone who apparently got nailed to a chunk of wood for suggesting that being nice to each other maybe would be worth a shot, the backprint of this t-shirt sums up the same message.
We’re all born equal. It’s individuals who choose to be arseholes. Don’t be an arsehole, instead help the world be a nicer place. And if anyone wants to try and nail me to something for saying so, then they’re welcome to try.
Today I get older but I really don’t want to concern you with that. It’s not important. I just found out that today is the anniversary of something of much more note – and I can’t believe that I only just heard of this recently.
Today, December 14th 2018, is exactly 100 years since the first general election in the UK where women were allowed to vote.
I honestly had no idea that this coincided with my birthday, and it completely overshadows an event I really don’t care much about any more anyway. Today is definitely a day to celebrate. Our nation took a massive step forward after the Armistice was agreed with Germany. The Great War ended, a General Election was called and 8.5 million women were given the vote.
100 years on and things are definitely better for women than they were back then, though there’s still room to go. So if you insist on giving me a present, there are two options:
Do something nice for a woman in your life – mum, wife, partner, daughter, co-worker, I don’t care.
Donate some cash to the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. Info can be found on their website.
It’s all well and good having a bunch of ideas floating around in your head, but getting the little buggers to flow out of there into a form that others can witness is a right pain.
I’m not sure if I have a novel’s worth of thoughts stuck in my grey matter, or just a bunch of scenes that might somehow clag together to form a cohesive story. Or a series of stories. It’s just hard to put stuff together in a cohesive form so that I can get them on paper.
Thoughts and ideas for more adult tales are mixed up with ones definitely more suitable for the younger audience. Which brings with it other problems… like the fact that any decent book for under-10’s needs pictures, and I can’t draw for toffee (or any other sugar-based snack). But, then I’ve seen kids’ books with really bad drawings in them that the author has done anyway and they’re quite charming. Or do I try to find a friend who doesn’t mind wasting their time slapping some paint down in exchange for getting a co-author / artist credit?
I’ve always thought that arrangement a little unfair as the author, generally, has the ideas but the time taken to write a 30-page children’s story must be far less than that taken to draw / paint the accompanying illustrations. However, the person with the word processor generally seems to win out in terms of both fame and financial recompense.
I’d like to say “back to the drawing board” but, as detailed above, that’s probably somewhat inaccurate.
Why orange? Well, I’ve got a nice mug of hot orange juice on my desk. Other teachers have tea, I have dilute juice. Less caffeine, more sugar. That’s got to be good, right?
The interesting thing with oranges is that old argument about which came first – the name of the colour or the name of the fruit. Well, from what I’ve read it depends on what language you speak. As far as English is concerned, we didn’t have a word for orange until the fruit was introduced – along with its descriptive name. This is why we claim to have a bird known as a “robin red breast” when the vast majority of our avian friends have a more obviously orange tint to their chests.
Simply, there wasn’t a word to describe their colour so we went for the closest – red. If we had a more agreeable climate for the growth of these little spherical bundles of Vitamin C, how things could have been different.
I really like oranges, but I don’t eat them too often. Partly as fruit’s so damn expensive, and partly as I’m too lazy to peel them. It’s much easier just to shovel grapes into your mouth, or bite into an apple. Oranges need preparation. And, failing, that, too much tidying afterwards.
The simplest way to eat them is to slice one into quarters and just gnaw the flesh out. End result is juice all over the place, bits of fruit stuck between your teeth, which if not taken care of might lead to oral health issues, and will have you run to Tustin Smiles. Also, if you are not careful, you might have possible – crunching on pips you didn’t spot earlier.
Alternatively, you have to remove the skin then part each segment, examine them for pips which are then discarded and *then* you get to eat the thing. Nah, too much effort.
I tend to aim for the fruit juice with “bits” in it. That way I can pretend it’s more healthy as I’m getting some of the roughage. It’s also very rare that I’ll spill it all over my face when I drink it, making it less messy than the original source fruit. Admittedly, though, this is precisely what I did on Sunday. Oops.
The end of lunch approaches, though, and I need to top up my mug. Given the class I have next I’ll need all the sugar rush I can get…
I have seven minutes before the bell goes and I’m out of free time, instead deluged with second-year pupils asking if they can “do work” over lunch. How playing an online tank combat game qualifies as “work” in any way, shape, or form is beyond me but what do I know? I’m only a teacher.
So what to do with those seven minutes which I could be utilising in a more productive manner, such as putting the finishing touches to an end-of-unit test we’re presenting to S1 next week? I know! I’ll tap something up on ye olde blogge because I’ve forgotten about it again!
Of course, I then spend half that time trying to find a decent image to put at the side. A task not aided by the poor selection now offered by Zemanta, a WordPress extension I used to use heavily. Sadly, they now seem to be pushing almost nothing but Getty Images which I prefer not to use. Once upon a time Zemanta would actually scour my own online resources (i.e. my flickr account) for relevant pictures which was very useful. But no more.
So now I have barely a minute left to rattle something off that might interest anyone passing.
Bugger. The bell has just gone. Hey, this writing to a deadline lark’s not as easy as they make out! No wonder Douglas Adams hardly wrote any books.
I have seven minutes before the bell goes and I’m out of free time, instead deluged with second-year pupils asking if they can “do work” over lunch. How playing an online tank combat game qualifies as “work” in any way, shape, or form is beyond me but what do I know? I’m only a teacher.