~Prince of Thieves~

Most people know that I’m a sucker for good television. I have, for example, spent most of these last few days catching up on season 3 of “Battlestar Galactica” because I know Andy wants his DVDs back, and season 4 has just started on US TV. I watched maybe 8 episodes of season 3, and then the first 3 episodes of season 4, loving pretty much every minute of it, despite the somewhat emotional storylines.

Most people also know that I’m a sucker for bad television. Television that only appeals to a certain minority of individuals. Usually because it is quirky, has actors that I like in it, or some other strange combination of things.

One example was Gene Roddenberry’s “Andromeda” which still counts as one of my favourite shows of all time, through a combination of a) having Kevin Sorbo as the lead; b) having quite interesting storylines for at least the first 3 seasons; and c) just being quite cool in unexpected ways.

A second example is the BBC’s “Robin Hood”. While there were some cringe-worthy moments throughout the series — as there tends to be with anything the BBC produce really — I found the whole thing generally camp, entertaining fun, and I especially liked the new slants on old characters, and the general dynamic of the cast.

I’ve always liked the legend of Robin Hood. I guess it’s the archery thing. I’ve always seen Legolas in “Lord of the Rings” as kind of an elven Robin of Locksley, and I did — perhaps I should be ashamed to admit this — like the Kevin Costner film “Prince of Thieves”. Some things that film did very well. It’s a pity Costner and Mastrontonio had about as much chemistry as lead and water.

This chemistry is one of the things that the new Robin Hood does well. It helps that they have several episodes to work the relationship between Maid Marian and Robin over. It helps that Lucy Griffith and Jonas Armstrong have considerable onscreen chemistry. And it helps that the characters have more depth than a 2 hour movie could hope to portray.

It was this depth that Lucy Griffith was inclined to talk about in a recent interview I read. I thought it was interesting because, for some strange reason, I’d never really considered the nature of Robin and Marian’s relationship properly. In most of the versions you see of the tale, Robin gets the girl. You’ve only got two hours to play out the storyline after all. So the BBC’s version, which now runs to about 26 episodes over 2 seasons, has to make that relationship more complicated. This is what Griffith said, and I found her take on it not only very interesting from a story point of view, but from a personal perspective as well:

“…she's essentially in love with somebody that she can't have, as far as she can see. And I think that would make a lot of people cold, especially towards the person in question, because there's kind of a bitterness related to that person, even though you're really in love with them. So she's kind of quite cold throughout the whole thing.”

That just makes me wonder, at the moment, all things considered. I do have this tendency to fall for the girls I can’t have, and while I don’t paint myself as some great tragic figure or romantic legend, I do wonder if eventually this will be how things play out for me…

Anyway, back to somewhat more positive things.

Firstly, draft two of the novel is complete and I’ve begun work on what I call the Continuity Crunch, where I’m buzzing through it and tidying up all the story mistakes and errors and weaving the plot threads more tightly. If I get the little details sorted — making sure bit characters have the right hair colour throughout, for example — then the third draft should literally be just tightening everything up and making it the best story I can make it.

Secondly, I managed to get into the Age of Conan beta, which I am quite looking forwards to. The client is a hefty 12 gig, which is taking a while to download, but it’s the first MMO after Warhammer: Age of Reckoning that I’ve been looking forwards to playing. Robert E. Howard’s world in the Conan novels is quite dark and gritty and bloody, and that’s definitely something I think will sell to angsty gamers.

And finally, “Doctor Who” is on tonight. Dunno if you like what Russell T. Davies has done with the reinvented “Who” this season, but I’ll watch anything with David Tennant in.

You’re now up to date 

~J

#~Maybe I’m Brainless…

…Maybe I’m Wise~#
-Fiyero, Wicked: The Musical

It has been a long week. It feels even longer than normal. I spent Tuesday to Friday at a new school which has seen me teaching English the whole time. Out of the 5 or so classes I’ve taught, only one shows any signs of intelligence or appeal to me as a teacher. The others are brutally arrogant in terms of attitude, and they are large classes too. I hate large classes. I managed 7 weeks at Pensnett simply because in awful classes, there generally weren’t many kids. At Wolverley I’m dealing with 30ish people in a class, and if 2/3 of them are misbehaving, how the hell does one make the lesson productive for the other 1/3? I don’t know the answer, and this either makes me a bad teacher, or there is a fault with the school. I’d like to err on the side of option two, but my own pessimism automatically ensures I assume a considerable amount of option one too.

Anyway, I have an offer of 12 more weeks at this school. I’m honestly not sure I could stand that. After four days of being a real English teacher, planning lessons for myself etc., and I honestly think I may be spot on when I say full-time teaching is not for me. Large classes, the workload, and the general “I have to care for the kids” attitude just doesn’t fit my idea of work/life balance anymore. I just want to do day-to-day, have a mercenary attitude, and do my best while I’m there. Either that or quit teaching and find something else to do. Or teach abroad, which is apparently both lucrative and less restrictive.

So this coming week, I’m back to Pensnett for Monday as I know the English department are having a moderation day. I’ll be taking over the same classes as before so that will be easy enough. Then four more days at Wolverley. I’ve already told the boss that I don’t think I’m the guy for a long-term post at the school, but I’m not sure that sunk in. Apparently the head of English has said good things about me. Hardly surprising. Without blowing my own trumpet too much, I know I’m a good English teacher. I’m just not so good at managing the behaviour of so many horrible students at once. And I’m poor at handling stress these days, so I need to avoid it as much as possible.

Speaking of the joys of illness, I’ve managed to screw up my back again. I think it was last February when I did something to it. The muscle that stretches round the small of the back, over the kidneys, twinges horribly, and it’s a pain if I try and stay in one position for too long. Lying down is the most comfortable for the longest period, but that’s obviously of little use if I want to get anything done. Fortunately the chair at my PC is good for the posture so I can sit down here for longer periods of time than I would in another chair, but I still have to get up and move about fairly regularly. Stretching helps, kinda. It hurts first, and then it helps.

So that’s not been the best of weeks from a work standpoint. Teaching with a bad back is horrendous by the way. Not quite as bad as trying to teach with a migraine, but pretty darned bad. What else have I got up to this week?

Well, I bought Assassin’s Creed for the PC. I’ve been looking forwards to this for a long time, and while I haven’t devoted too much time to it yet, I’ve been really enjoying it so far. The pace is quite leisurely and slow, but I have a feeling I’m being more cautious than necessary. I need to push the boundaries and see what I can get away with. For those of you who don’t know the game, you take on the role of Altair, a 13th Century assassin during the Crusades. Your job is to assassinate 9 key political and sociological figures in order to actually stop the Crusades from wiping out the East. It takes a leaf out of Prince of Persia’s books, allowing you to perform amazing feats of agility, as well as being able to free-run up most of the architecture in the game. Apparently the game plays very well on keyboard/mouse, but I do fancy trying it on a gamepad if I can find mine. The controls aren’t QUITE as intuitive on the keyboard as I had hoped and while they can be reconfigures, I think a gamepad would be better. We’ll see. So yes, AC is a beautiful game, with a sweeping soundtrack, and I’ll let you know my final impressions later on.

I also ran out of books in reserve this week. I’ve been left with Lukyanenko’s ‘The Night Watch’ which I’m working my way through, but I do like to have a couple of novels on the go if I can. So I went out and bought some more last night: Gregory Maguire’s ‘Wicked’ and its sequel ‘Son of A Witch’, both of which I’ve been interested in reading since Amanda told me that I’d like the musical based on the first book (which I do. It’s very very good!) I’m a big fan of alternate reality type books, or reinterpretation books, and have been ever since I encountered American McGee’s ‘Alice’ on the PC. While ‘Alice’ was, unsurprisingly enough, a reimagining of ‘Alice in Wonderland’/’Through the Looking Glass’, ‘Wicked’ is a reimagining of Baum’s ‘The Wizard of Oz’, centring on the activities of the Wicked Witch of the West, and what made her wicked in the first place. Have only read the first fifty pages or so, so again comments and opinions on the book will come later.

Also, while on the subject of what I’m reading: if you’ve seen the film version of Night Watch/Day Watch, please read the books too. After the first half of Night Watch in paperback, everything makes considerably more sense, even if it is translated from Russian.

And finally, I finished the second draft of the novel a while ago, and have been doing some odd jobs on cleaning the text up into a presentable manuscript. There are a considerable number of continuity errors, and I’m now resigned to the fact that, for the second novel at least, I should actually write a plan/notes out rather than doing it from my head.

And that’s been my week.

~J

~Never Surrender / Never Say Die~

“When They Try To Break You Down
You Can Take It, That Don't Shake You
When Your Back's Against The Wall
The Thrill Of The Fight's Got Ya Standin' Tall
Never Surrender
Never Say Die”
~ Stan Bush

It’s a funny old life. Until yesterday I was saying how Pensnett High School wasn’t quite as bad as OLCC. Sure it’s a rough school, but I’d never been physically threatened, much less assaulted.

This changed yesterday.

Yesterday I was mostly being a PE teacher. This was a worry of mine anyways, as PE lessons are generally difficult to control and, especially in a sports hall, my hearing ain’t so good. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, but in big, echoing environments with lots of people talking at once, I find it tricky to distinguish individual voices, especially ones two feet below my altitude.

Double this with the fact that I’m not a PE teacher, was working with someone else, and was teaching mostly shitty classes, it was a recipe for disaster. And it was, though I have to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

It all started because a little chav kid decided to wear his hat indoors.

Now, normally when you ask a kid to take their hat off, they are reluctant but will do so upon a repetition of the instruction. Now, this particular child was already an issue because he hadn’t got his PE kit, so he was strutting round the gym in his big, dumb coat and hat. Bear in mind that the kid is about 4’ tall. It was a comical sight. But I can’t stand people that wear hats indoors, and it’s against the uniform code anyway. So I asked him to take it off.

He refuses. Okay, no massive surprise. I ask him again and he continues to refuse and walks off. However, one of his mates decides to knick it off his head and passes it to me. Fair play really. So I have the hat, and tell the kid he can have it back at the end of the lesson.

Bring the fun.

He’s not happy. He literally starts shouting at me that he wants it back now. Come on, that might work with his parents but it isn’t going to work with me. Give him something just because he isn’t happy and he’ll be a disaster in later life. A real spoilt brat. This was affirmed when, instead of accepting that he was being an idiot, he tried to snatch the hat out of my hand. When a simple snatch didn’t work, he tried to wrest it from me. First with one hand. Then with two. I’m not actually a particularly strong person despite my 6’4” height and broad shoulders. I lack upper body strength. But I do have a decent grip and a fairly high pain threshold. And no shitty, bad-mannered little kid is gonna get one over on me in a contest of strength.

Snatching, swiping, verbal abuse. The hallmarks of a train wreck of a kid. I realised about this time that I was probably just making trouble for myself, but I’m pretty stubborn, and since it seems a fair few parents can’t raise their children with any kind of manners or respect, I’ll be damned if I’m not going to at least try and teach them that. (I know: sounds horribly idealistic doesn’t it!)

The kid actually wandered off at this point, seemingly defeated. He went to sulk in the corner. Or, rather, he went to badmouth me to all the other Non-Doers of PE that were sat on the benches. One of said children, a not-particularly-pleasant girl then began acting as some kind of messenger for him, variably threatening me, pleading with me to give him his hat back, and telling me I couldn’t do what I was doing.

Apparently, telling me that he “has to go home at lunchtime and needs his hat” is a rational bargaining chip. Yes, because his “hundred quid hat” is a vital part of his ambulatory functioning. Sigh. After about ten minutes of constant back and forth by this girl, I began to get fed up. I was trying to help the other member of staff deal with a) controlling a fairly large class of kids in a big room; and b) moving another problem child who had apparently gone into some kind of mental shutdown and was just standing there refusing to move. Was kinda freaky actually.

Five minutes till the end of the lesson and Chav Kid Sans Hat comes charging at me as I’m helping kids put the mats away. He goes for the hat, which I have tucked under my arm. He missed, and I reaffirm my grip on it and cross my arms over it. Both he and two other kids proceed to try and snatch at it. None succeed. He starts calling me every name under the sun. The air is practically blue at this point but I’m so fed up with him that I’m not going to relent. Ideally I would have used the interim time to store the hat somewhere safely, but I didn’t have the time. Too many kids needed managing.

So when wresting the hat off me fails, the kid starts building up into a frothing rage and starts punching me. Literally balling his fists and wailing at me. It sounds bad, and in a way it obviously is. It’s assault. But I barely felt his attacks. I don’t know if I was just angry and full of adrenaline, or if he was just a weak little shit, but despite about four punches to my crossed arms, two to my chest and one to my stomach, I didn’t really feel threatened. I was extremely annoyed though. My professional attitude was fast slipping, and the kid was very lucky I didn’t use my elbow to polish his teeth. Accidentally of course.

It turns out that this kid has a member of the support team looking after him. For some reason she missed the first half of the lesson – helpful that – and was of limited use in this confrontation. She had to drag the kid off me. I could have quite easily kept him at bay, and I suppose in retrospect the use of necessary force to push him away would have been appropriate. But generally it’s not worth my while to come into contact with a kid. Generally the law seems to take their side, no matter the circumstance. Call me cynical if you will.

So yes, I handed the hat over to his support staff and walked away. Haven’t yet heard what happened to him, but I at least followed it up and wrote out the necessary incident reports. If I know the procedures of the school, he should be kicked out, but he won’t be. He’ll have a couple of days exclusion and then come back in as if nothing has happened. That’s probably the most annoying thing about it: knowing that nothing will be done, and that he won’t have learned his lesson.

But I stood my ground and stuck to my principles at least, and if nothing has happened to follow up on that, I will think very carefully before going back there again.

I have other stuff to talk about, but I’ll put that in a separate blog.

~J

Impossible or Implausible?

The phrase “Nothing is impossible” is one bandied around a lot. In theory, it makes everyone feel better, more secure in the knowledge that no matter how crazy, how strange their desires or needs, there’s surely *some* way to get them sorted.

But it isn’t really true, is it. Alchemists tried for centuries to turn lead into gold, for example. As far as I’m aware, even understanding the chemical differences of these two metals as we do now, we can’t change one into the other. Either that or I’m really showing my lack of chemistry knowledge here.

So some things are still impossible to do.

On the other hand, many things that *seem* impossible are actually simply implausible. They are quite unlikely, but if you get lucky it just might be possible.

I discussed last week’s blog with a couple of people this week, with interesting results, thus sparking this debate today. Both myself and one of these people decided that we wanted something “impossible”. That was the word we both used.

Yet having had a few days to think over this, I’m unsure if “impossible” was the right word. “Unlikely”, “implausible”, “not much of a chance” yes. But actually “impossible”…? I actually don’t know.

I’m a person of many contrasts and contradictions. I have to be. It is the nature of who I am. As a teacher especially, I have to wear a different face that the one I present to people outside school. I wear a different face again when talking to my friends back home. Another face for when I talk to people online. Another for my parents and family, and so on. Probably, we all do. Maybe we even *have* to. Maybe our lives are so complicated, there’re so many different influences pulling us in so many directions, that to present a unified face to the world is imp---hmmm. Impossible/implausible? You decide!

As a person who wears so many different masks, I sometimes get lost within all these different identities. It’s easy enough to do. You tell one group of people that you’re fine, while you’ve already told another, closer set of people that you’ve been feeling suicidal. Extreme example, but that’s what happens when you wear masks. And sometimes you forget which one you’re wearing with which group and then it all goes to hell.

So how does this relate to last week? Well, I find more and more that I like people with complications, people whose heads are just a little bit messed up. That’s not to say I like every crazy person I come across — as a teacher that’s a *lot* of people — but I do have a special fondness for people who are a little bit different: probably because I felt a little bit different myself growing up.

The thing is, I’m divided in terms of what I want, and sometimes I wonder if I can have both.

Do I want someone who is the Damsel in Distress type? Who needs saving.
Or do I want someone who is headstrong and independent?
I think both.

Do I want someone who is passionate and wants to spend all their spare time with me?
Or do I want someone who is a bit of a loner and who needs their own time and space?
Again I think both.

Do I want someone who is so crazy about me that she’d do anything for me?
Or do I want someone who is a bit too good for me, that I don’t deserve, that I have to work to keep? A challenge?

I suppose really I just want someone that clicks with me, who is on my wavelength. Is that an impossible task, given my inherent contradictions, or is it simply implausible?

Was I accurate when I said I think I wanted an impossible girl?

I suppose reading through this that it doesn’t really seem all that difficult to find someone that can do all of these things. Just looking at the words on the screen makes them seem easier to understand than they do floating around in my head. I guess it just comes back to my “type” of girl, as I blogged last week. I’m after someone who defies normal conventions, who I can’t quite figure out, who is appealing in ways that she shouldn’t be.

If Rowan from my novel was a real girl — and I’m not saying that she isn’t, somewhere — she’d probably be my kind of woman. But she’s got issues. She’s attractive in an unconventional way. She’s moody and temperamental. She can be quite condescending towards people, men especially. She likes her own space, to do things in her own time, and her own way. But she’s also very bright. She’s passionate and, if you click with her, she’s very affectionate and quite needy in some ways underneath it all. She, like me, wears masks. Not the physical kind like Romany, the voice of my subconscious does, but the metaphysical kind.

I don’t think I really understand Rowan. I’m not sure where the idea for someone that complicated came from. While the novels may in some way be an allegory for my life, Rowan wasn’t based on any particular person. In fact, when I started writing about her, I was dating a very, very different type of person. Maybe I should have seen something in that back then?

So, have I come to any conclusions?

No, not really. I am no clearer now than I was when I started writing this blog really. Do I know anyone who could maybe be my Rowan? Yes. Do I think a relationship with this person could ever work? Yes. Do I think it’s actually possible?

Well, maybe it’s not plausible… but *nothing* is impossible, right?