After a month off from blogging I now feel the need to share words of wisdom with the world again. This year's marking of Film Studies AS exams was a bit of a trial I'm afraid. I still quite enjoy the process, it's just a labour of love (sic). I always find new things to use for the next year. Even better was the cover essay by Rob Young in Sight & Sound this month on Old, Weird Britain called "The Pattern Under The Plough". I recommend standing around in W H Smiths reading it (a railway station is a good bet) or, if you have a trendy bookshop that you can drink coffee in whilst reading, go there (I do miss Borders, not that I ever bought anything because I could read it!). Loads of ideas for next year. Mind you, today I was ousted from my teaching room of the last 5 years and forced in to a much lesser room where, as Catweazle used to say, "nothing works".
Ah well, I've been moaning all day about that and tomorrow's another day. I'll moan then, too.
Still, where was I? Oh yes, marking. Mrs Dave seems to have finally finished marking too. She marks Psychology AS exams which means that she gets to claim squatter's rights over the computer for a month because AQA have ICT knowledge. I, however, mark for WJEC (aka "The Welsh Board") who are still roughly somewhere about 1962 and require us to mark proper scripts with real writing. Thank god. Anyhow, I finished last weekend just in time to be able to rush up to London last Tuesday evening to The Albert Hall to see Jackson Browne and David Lindley.
If you caught them on BBC4 last Saturday evening from Glastonbury, then you'll know what a cracking set they played. Live - and I've never seen Browne live before - they were fantastic. An acoustic set followed by a full band set. My friend John and I had to rush out a bit early as we needed to keep ahead of the crowds. After all, we had twenty odd stops on the Tube to get back to Newbury Park where we'd parked. Have you ever tried to get a train back late from London to East Anglia? Okay, a rhetorical question there, then.
This isn't a review of the gig really, just a little reminder that I'm still around and ready to make facetious/smart-arsed comments on your blogs.
Summertime and the living is. . . well, quite hot really, isn't it?
4 comments:
Glad you've not died or done a premature runner in Harvey.
"The Pattern Under The Plough" is the title of one of George Ewart Evans' books (I think I mentioned him a few posts ago) -- worth a read, esp. on the East Anglian horsemen's societies.
Glad JB was good -- don't know how you put up with the hassle of the travel, though.
(word verification: deram ! I'm beginning to think a cult or form of divination could be based on these... Maybe I'll set up a blog with the sole purpose of sharing verification words...)
Mike
Hi Mike, yes your mate Ewart is mentioned in the article. I haven't read any yet but now all the marking malarky is over for another year, I'll check him out.
Deram, of course, was the record label that bands like The Moody Blues were on in the 1960s. But some of them are wonderful. I meant to start keeping a record of them.
Glad you are back. I missed you!
Hi Andy, good to hear from you too. Actually I'm about to go off to Yorkshire for a week with Duke of Edinburgh Gold. Then it's straight down to Southampton for Second born's Graduation, so it'll be a while before I write again but I'll be back soon!
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