You sit down in your bedroom
And all you can do is cry
You do not feel like studying
But you really must score high
So you open up your maths book
Just big numbers do you see
Big numbers fill the pages
They just make you want to flee
So you set your sights on Bio
And you open on page five
But you see "Atherosclerosis"
And you know you won't survive.
So then it's on to Physics,
Where you can have such fun
You'll learn about such cool stuff,
Like Newton's Laws, for one.
But then you see those numbers,
Those numbers that you hate.
They're ready to instantly take you down,
Like an enemy at the gate.
By now you're getting desperate,
You really must study
So why not try accounting,
It's easy as one, two, three.
But after but a minute
You tire of balancing debt
Frustration is a sword, and
All accounting does is whet.
Or maybe you do Music,
In which case you poor bastard
You'll be bored to death by Beethoven
"How could his stuff have lasted?"
Or if you're a geographer
You'll get killed by boredom too
Only this time caused by contours
of mountains, old and new.
But if you've chosen History,
Don't regret it for a day:
You must put the past behind you... (Pause for laughter)
But Boredom's here to stay.
So you've been through all you're options
You've been driven up the wall
You're tired, frustrated, angry
And you've not studied at all.
But there's one last consideration
Before you throw in the towel.
You could study now for English
Things like consonants and vowels.
So often do we bypass
All of that 'easy' stuff
"There was only one distinction"
Do you think I've said enough?
So why not try to study
Just open up a book
For you to pass exams
We all know that's the hook
If you think I'm giving you a bit of hope
My friend, you're very wrong
In fact, for you there's no hope
To see my point, read on.
I'm sorry to bring the bad news,
But you'll never study
And that's 'cuz you procrastinate,
You're almost as bad as me.
If you want proof of my statement,
Consider this small thing:
You've spent you're time
Reading a stupid rhyme
While you were meant to be studying.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Autobiographies and biographies
Your bio/autobios are in the post and on the way...! In the meantime, check out
http://www.webenglishteacher.com/biography.html
for ideas of generic lessons you could present on biographies/autobiographies. Each island is going to be presenting a 5-10 minute class lesson on biographies/autobiographies (i.e. the value of this genre, creating your own, differences in style and intention, etc.)
http://www.webenglishteacher.com/biography.html
for ideas of generic lessons you could present on biographies/autobiographies. Each island is going to be presenting a 5-10 minute class lesson on biographies/autobiographies (i.e. the value of this genre, creating your own, differences in style and intention, etc.)
Island Landlocked theme comments...
Theme: Freedom in surrender
Tsotsi gives up the baby at the parents’ house. He did not only free the baby but frees his conscience and emotional baggage as well.
Characterisation
• Tsotsi
We focus on Tsotsi’s character the most as we see the most change. Tsotsi becomes more vulnerable than the baby in this scene as he loses control. This is contradictory to his character in the beginning of the film.
Camera Movement
• Close up shot when Tsotsi puts the baby down.
• The camera zooms out from a close up shot when Tsotsi picks the baby up and hands the baby over.
• When the father approaches Tsotsi to get his baby there is a medium eye level shot.
Costuming
• Tsotsi wears white showing him surrendering and his growth as in the character. White indicates purity and cleansing and this shows Tsotsi becoming as better person.
Sound track
• Tsotsi’s leit motif in that scene shows or indicates the change in his character and him turning over a new leaf.
• The leit motif plays when his character is changing so the motif is particularly evident in this scene.
Tsotsi gives up the baby at the parents’ house. He did not only free the baby but frees his conscience and emotional baggage as well.
Characterisation
• Tsotsi
We focus on Tsotsi’s character the most as we see the most change. Tsotsi becomes more vulnerable than the baby in this scene as he loses control. This is contradictory to his character in the beginning of the film.
Camera Movement
• Close up shot when Tsotsi puts the baby down.
• The camera zooms out from a close up shot when Tsotsi picks the baby up and hands the baby over.
• When the father approaches Tsotsi to get his baby there is a medium eye level shot.
Costuming
• Tsotsi wears white showing him surrendering and his growth as in the character. White indicates purity and cleansing and this shows Tsotsi becoming as better person.
Sound track
• Tsotsi’s leit motif in that scene shows or indicates the change in his character and him turning over a new leaf.
• The leit motif plays when his character is changing so the motif is particularly evident in this scene.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Island with the LONG NAME-Loyalty
After Tsotsi encounters the baby his priorities change and he informs Butcher and Aap that he does not want to be part of the gang anymore. Later Aap returns by himself displaying his loyalty to Tsotsi.
The camera angles support the theme of loyalty by using level point of view shots to show equality between Tsotsi and Aap in the scene. For the first time int he film Aap is not Tsotsi's inferior. He comes to Tsotsi as a friend and not as just a member of the gang.
Their costumes in the scene emphasises Aap's loyalty to Tsotsi even though Tsotsi's clothing is constantly changing. Tsotsi is wearing a vest opposed to his usual leather jacket, where as loyal Aap remains in his blue over-alls.
The camera angles support the theme of loyalty by using level point of view shots to show equality between Tsotsi and Aap in the scene. For the first time int he film Aap is not Tsotsi's inferior. He comes to Tsotsi as a friend and not as just a member of the gang.
Their costumes in the scene emphasises Aap's loyalty to Tsotsi even though Tsotsi's clothing is constantly changing. Tsotsi is wearing a vest opposed to his usual leather jacket, where as loyal Aap remains in his blue over-alls.
Jarred van Rooyen, Phillip Demetriou, George Bourdos, Herman Hoogenboezem, Keagan Leamy, James Hosken
Zoltan Island's theme discussion
The scene starts with a camera angle that looks down on Pumla and the father. There baby was stolen by Tsotsi and she was shot so this camera angle makes us feel how venerable they are, it also makes us feel sympathetic towards them. Later on in the scene when the father is talking to the inspectors a similar angle is used, as we are looking from the inspectors down on Pumla this shows how powerless she is in the situation. When she does wake up there is immediately a camera shot that is below eye level and is focused on her, this helps express her anger and hatred towards Tsotsi.
It was apparent that the detectives where intimidated by Pumla and where ashamed that they could do little to help the couple as the chances of finding the baby was slim. The detectives are not very excited and do not appear as if they are able to cope with the responsibility of the case as they know what the chances are of success are.
The lighting in the room is quite bright as it normally is in a hospital. This light does not bring about a warm feeling, which is used to emphases the low chances of the return of her baby.
Pumla is wearing a theatre gown this is also used to show how helpless she is.
It was apparent that the detectives where intimidated by Pumla and where ashamed that they could do little to help the couple as the chances of finding the baby was slim. The detectives are not very excited and do not appear as if they are able to cope with the responsibility of the case as they know what the chances are of success are.
The lighting in the room is quite bright as it normally is in a hospital. This light does not bring about a warm feeling, which is used to emphases the low chances of the return of her baby.
Pumla is wearing a theatre gown this is also used to show how helpless she is.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Ninja Pandaz
Theme of Love:
Final Scene – time to put things right
Setting:
Theme of Love:
Final Scene – time to put things right
Setting:
- He is back at the baby's actual home; this shows he cares and knows the baby will do better there than in the townships.
- He holds the baby as if it belongs to him. He does not want to return it as he has found love for him.
Costuming:
- Tsotsi is no longer wearing the black, sad, colours from all the previous scenes. It shows us that he has developed in to a light hearted more loving character.
- The black costume worn in the other scenes is a sign of crime and/or violence. The white shows a sign of surrender to the old life.
Type of shot and shot composition:
- The close up his face when the baby cries shows us a sign of worrying for the crying child; he turns back to help the baby.
- When handing the baby the camera shows us he is nervous. It shows his tears. He does not want to let the little one go. His love for him is too strong.
Lighting and colour:
- The bulk of the light is cast upon Tsotsi and the baby. They are the centre stage of the scene. It shows the first place where they came together (not met) and also the last (of what we know) of their short relationship.
- The dark background shows us where he has come from. He is no longer in hiding and has come into reconciliation for the first time since the death of his beloved dog. His love for the baby changed his personality.
- Hwan
- Reghardt
- Sam
- David-Hein
- Devin
Manhattan - Theme
Group: Manhattan
Theme: Life is a gamble.
Opening scene
Camera movements and angles
The scene opens with a fade-in, fade-out technique on the dice. The effect is quite chaotic. The viewer struggles to make out the characters and who is saying what. This emphasises the idea of life being a gamble - you never know what is going to happen. A view expansion shot is taken where the camera zooms out. There is a close-up shot of the dice followed by view of the room and then followed by a bird’s-eye view shot of the township. The camera tracks Tsotsi around the township – he is the leader.
Costuming and lighting
Tsotsi’s friends are wearing jackets and their outfit is layered. Tsotsi, however, is wearing a red shirt with pants. The combination is very simple. The general colour in the scene is a darkish brown. This makes Tsotsi, with his red shirt, stand out. One questions how they afford these clothes. A gamble, maybe? The only light in the room (natural lighting) comes from a window – the morning sun.
Characterization
In the opening scene Tsotsi is standing slightly apart from the others. He is refusing to join the gambling. Maybe he is already questioning his life – is his life really a gamble? What can he do to prevent himself from dying or living based on the roll of dice – based on luck? He is already trying to come to terms with his past and accept it as something he can do nothing about. His destiny sets him apart from the others – he will chose to live a life without the risks involved in a gamble.
Theme: Life is a gamble.
Opening scene
Camera movements and angles
The scene opens with a fade-in, fade-out technique on the dice. The effect is quite chaotic. The viewer struggles to make out the characters and who is saying what. This emphasises the idea of life being a gamble - you never know what is going to happen. A view expansion shot is taken where the camera zooms out. There is a close-up shot of the dice followed by view of the room and then followed by a bird’s-eye view shot of the township. The camera tracks Tsotsi around the township – he is the leader.
Costuming and lighting
Tsotsi’s friends are wearing jackets and their outfit is layered. Tsotsi, however, is wearing a red shirt with pants. The combination is very simple. The general colour in the scene is a darkish brown. This makes Tsotsi, with his red shirt, stand out. One questions how they afford these clothes. A gamble, maybe? The only light in the room (natural lighting) comes from a window – the morning sun.
Characterization
In the opening scene Tsotsi is standing slightly apart from the others. He is refusing to join the gambling. Maybe he is already questioning his life – is his life really a gamble? What can he do to prevent himself from dying or living based on the roll of dice – based on luck? He is already trying to come to terms with his past and accept it as something he can do nothing about. His destiny sets him apart from the others – he will chose to live a life without the risks involved in a gamble.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
THE GLAVES. task3 'Tsotsi'
The theme that we have chosen to evaluate is reconciliation; this theme is most evident in the scene when Tsotsi is making amends with Boston, the ‘friend’ that he beat up at the bar after a controversial confrontation.
Characterization
· In this scene we have Tsotsi and Boston, the two are having a dialogue, and here Tsotsi apologizes to Boston.
Camera movements and angles
· The opening of this scene shows Tsotsi putting down his gun- this could be viewed that he is surrendering. He is opening himself up to Boston.
· The close-ups on both their faces show the viewer the emotions that are actually being portrayed by both Tsotsi and Boston.
· The horizontal angle that is shown between the two men is to indicate that both of them are set on the same level, there is no longer that dominance that Tsotsi usually has over him(Boston)
Setting
· The scene is set inside Tsotsi’s home, where he has invited Boston to stay- this could be said that this act insinuated that Tsotsi would like to make amends.
· Another intrigue is that Boston is sleeping on Tsotsi’s bed! This shows that Tsotsi is truly apologetic; he even went as far as to place Boston in his own personal space.
Index
· The indexical object in the scene is the candle. This is an index of Tsotsi’s ‘good’ side; a candle is a typical way of showing the positive side of people. In this scene it was so. The fact that he was apologizing hence the inclusion of the candle.
Lighting
· This scene had no artificial colour; it was all natural- the candle and the sun rays peeking through the room. The dark mood makes the scene more somber, the effect of an apology is intensified.
· The darkness also makes the scene more personal and intimate. The reconciliation feels more genuine- the mood created by the light (lack of) makes it that way.
Composition
· The horizontal angle that is shown between the two men is to indicate that both of them are set on the same level; there is no longer that dominance that Tsotsi usually has over him (Boston). Horizontal lines are also restful and peaceful.
Mandisi Mzenze
Mark Tollet
Bame Nkate
Nipho Matsane
Nkanyiso Tshwete
Shaun daFonseca
Characterization
· In this scene we have Tsotsi and Boston, the two are having a dialogue, and here Tsotsi apologizes to Boston.
Camera movements and angles
· The opening of this scene shows Tsotsi putting down his gun- this could be viewed that he is surrendering. He is opening himself up to Boston.
· The close-ups on both their faces show the viewer the emotions that are actually being portrayed by both Tsotsi and Boston.
· The horizontal angle that is shown between the two men is to indicate that both of them are set on the same level, there is no longer that dominance that Tsotsi usually has over him(Boston)
Setting
· The scene is set inside Tsotsi’s home, where he has invited Boston to stay- this could be said that this act insinuated that Tsotsi would like to make amends.
· Another intrigue is that Boston is sleeping on Tsotsi’s bed! This shows that Tsotsi is truly apologetic; he even went as far as to place Boston in his own personal space.
Index
· The indexical object in the scene is the candle. This is an index of Tsotsi’s ‘good’ side; a candle is a typical way of showing the positive side of people. In this scene it was so. The fact that he was apologizing hence the inclusion of the candle.
Lighting
· This scene had no artificial colour; it was all natural- the candle and the sun rays peeking through the room. The dark mood makes the scene more somber, the effect of an apology is intensified.
· The darkness also makes the scene more personal and intimate. The reconciliation feels more genuine- the mood created by the light (lack of) makes it that way.
Composition
· The horizontal angle that is shown between the two men is to indicate that both of them are set on the same level; there is no longer that dominance that Tsotsi usually has over him (Boston). Horizontal lines are also restful and peaceful.
Mandisi Mzenze
Mark Tollet
Bame Nkate
Nipho Matsane
Nkanyiso Tshwete
Shaun daFonseca
Task 3: The theme of decency shown by Tsotsi in the film
In the movie "Tsotsi" one of the main scenes that stuck in our minds when trying to figure out where Tsotsi best showed the theme of decency was when Tsotsi had offered to care for boston and invited Boston back to his house.
Our group found many ways in which the director had used filming techniques in this scene in order to maximise the theme of decency. First we discussed the camera angles in the scene and the main camera angle was a lown angle shot on Tsotsi and a high angle shot on Boston lying in the bed. This shows that Tsotsi is in control seeming bigger and more powerful than Boston but he shows decency by caring for Boston in his weakened state.
The second filming technique we discussed was the lighting of the scene. Tsotsi lights one candle in the room making the lighting very soft simbolising peace between the two in the scene.
Thirdly we discussed the costuming in the scene and both characters are dressed in very simple clothing making them equals in the scene. Neither of the two are better dressed making one or the other seem more important in the scene.
Finally we discussed the soundtrack in the scene which is all natural sounds in the scene. This helps make the scene more tranquil again emphasising the peace between the two characters.
The decency showed by Tsotsi in this scene is that of equality and how he transforms from this brutal gang leader to a person who is able to care for another and offer shelter to his friends. The message of decency strongly shines through when he places the gun down on the stool and wakes Boston up to apologise for what he did. This final act in the scene shows how much Tsotsi has developed into something resembling a decent person.
Done by: Beta House
Our group found many ways in which the director had used filming techniques in this scene in order to maximise the theme of decency. First we discussed the camera angles in the scene and the main camera angle was a lown angle shot on Tsotsi and a high angle shot on Boston lying in the bed. This shows that Tsotsi is in control seeming bigger and more powerful than Boston but he shows decency by caring for Boston in his weakened state.
The second filming technique we discussed was the lighting of the scene. Tsotsi lights one candle in the room making the lighting very soft simbolising peace between the two in the scene.
Thirdly we discussed the costuming in the scene and both characters are dressed in very simple clothing making them equals in the scene. Neither of the two are better dressed making one or the other seem more important in the scene.
Finally we discussed the soundtrack in the scene which is all natural sounds in the scene. This helps make the scene more tranquil again emphasising the peace between the two characters.
The decency showed by Tsotsi in this scene is that of equality and how he transforms from this brutal gang leader to a person who is able to care for another and offer shelter to his friends. The message of decency strongly shines through when he places the gun down on the stool and wakes Boston up to apologise for what he did. This final act in the scene shows how much Tsotsi has developed into something resembling a decent person.
Done by: Beta House
theme: violence
The only really violent scene in the movie takes place quite early on. The mugging-cum-murder scene on the metro is one of the only scenes that displays real violence and almost establishes the heirarchy of the gang members and shows their characters to audience.
Tsotsi is clearly the leader, scouting for and singling out their target. Aap is more for muscle than anything else and Butcher does all the dirty work. Boston's role is unclear and he seems slightly nervous throughout.
A tracking, point of view shot creates tension as they follow their target to the train. The man seems, by his dress, to be of middle class while Tsotsi's gang are deceivingly well dressed in dark, menacing clothes, besides Aap who is dressed, as usual, in his overalls.
Short, stationary, intense close-ups increase tension as surround the man. A lingering overhead shot of the metro interior exaggerates the perceived normalcy of the situation and accentuates the contrast between victim and oblivious crowd. The absence of non-synchronous sound adds to this.
There is a distinct lack of dialogue with only the rattling and rumbling of the train in the background. The sharpened bicycle spoke, the murder weapon, becomes an index of Butcher's crude, violent nature.
The scene ends almost akwardly as they calmly leave the train last with the body lying in the middle of the carriage. It almost seems like an everyday occurance.
Baldrick:
Jo Balmer
Grant Hutchison
Garth Engelbrecht
Maverick van der Walt
Johan van der Westhuisen
Alex Schorr
Tsotsi is clearly the leader, scouting for and singling out their target. Aap is more for muscle than anything else and Butcher does all the dirty work. Boston's role is unclear and he seems slightly nervous throughout.
A tracking, point of view shot creates tension as they follow their target to the train. The man seems, by his dress, to be of middle class while Tsotsi's gang are deceivingly well dressed in dark, menacing clothes, besides Aap who is dressed, as usual, in his overalls.
Short, stationary, intense close-ups increase tension as surround the man. A lingering overhead shot of the metro interior exaggerates the perceived normalcy of the situation and accentuates the contrast between victim and oblivious crowd. The absence of non-synchronous sound adds to this.
There is a distinct lack of dialogue with only the rattling and rumbling of the train in the background. The sharpened bicycle spoke, the murder weapon, becomes an index of Butcher's crude, violent nature.
The scene ends almost akwardly as they calmly leave the train last with the body lying in the middle of the carriage. It almost seems like an everyday occurance.
Baldrick:
Jo Balmer
Grant Hutchison
Garth Engelbrecht
Maverick van der Walt
Johan van der Westhuisen
Alex Schorr
Task 3---> Themes: Poverty
*We chose to use the scene in which Tsotsi follows the old man in the wheelchair to the open space under the bridge.
Characterization:
The old man presents himself as being overtly confident and unafraid, while he is in fact completely at the mercy of Tsotsi's better judgement. The man uses this mask of false confidence to compensate for the fear he is experiencing at the prospect of being robbed or killed. The theme of poverty is evident in the fact that the man has no home to keep him safe, and is therefore at the mercy of not only the elements, but also the night-life of his chosen area of temporary residence. The fact that he is poor has thus forced him to adopt a different, fiercer, character than he might have had if he was not poor and disabled. Tsotsi also has an apparent motive to rob the old man, because he himself is perceived to be poor by the way he dresses and where he lives.
Setting:
The setting of the scene is under a bridge in an area that looks largely uninhabited and, more importantly, uninhabitable. This shows us that the man has reached such a level of poverty that he now has to either find a new, temporary, residence every night of his life, or that he returns to this same place because he has found it to be safe enough. The desolate setting also indicates that no one that did not have extreme need would be at this location at that time of night.
Costuming:
The old man is dressed in what looks like ragged clothing, generally worn by people who do not have much else to wear. His clothes are black, and this creates a sense that they may be dirty and unwashed. Tsotsi's costume is also dark, and unremarkable. The combination of these colours brings forth the theme of poverty quite well.
A pearl of wisdom from the incredible islet that is...Sparzibar
*We chose to use the scene in which Tsotsi follows the old man in the wheelchair to the open space under the bridge.
Characterization:
The old man presents himself as being overtly confident and unafraid, while he is in fact completely at the mercy of Tsotsi's better judgement. The man uses this mask of false confidence to compensate for the fear he is experiencing at the prospect of being robbed or killed. The theme of poverty is evident in the fact that the man has no home to keep him safe, and is therefore at the mercy of not only the elements, but also the night-life of his chosen area of temporary residence. The fact that he is poor has thus forced him to adopt a different, fiercer, character than he might have had if he was not poor and disabled. Tsotsi also has an apparent motive to rob the old man, because he himself is perceived to be poor by the way he dresses and where he lives.
Setting:
The setting of the scene is under a bridge in an area that looks largely uninhabited and, more importantly, uninhabitable. This shows us that the man has reached such a level of poverty that he now has to either find a new, temporary, residence every night of his life, or that he returns to this same place because he has found it to be safe enough. The desolate setting also indicates that no one that did not have extreme need would be at this location at that time of night.
Costuming:
The old man is dressed in what looks like ragged clothing, generally worn by people who do not have much else to wear. His clothes are black, and this creates a sense that they may be dirty and unwashed. Tsotsi's costume is also dark, and unremarkable. The combination of these colours brings forth the theme of poverty quite well.
A pearl of wisdom from the incredible islet that is...Sparzibar
Reconciliation
Reconciliation
Tsotsi apologises to Boston and offers Boston to stay at his house as a condolence to what happened at the bar when Tsotsi beat him up.
Tsotsis character is beginning to change as he apologises to Boston and shows some decency. And that night when Tsotsi speaks to him privately, Tsotsi puts his gun down facing way from Boston. The room is lit by a single candle with a small flame which represents that there is some hope/light shining through Tsotsi.
The type of camera shot used is a close up on Tsotsi and Bostons faces, clearly showing their feelings and expressions.
Soundtrack: the music wasn’t the usual ‘kwaito’ tracks played through the rest of the movie but rather calm and slow.
Mhakunana island
Tsotsi apologises to Boston and offers Boston to stay at his house as a condolence to what happened at the bar when Tsotsi beat him up.
Tsotsis character is beginning to change as he apologises to Boston and shows some decency. And that night when Tsotsi speaks to him privately, Tsotsi puts his gun down facing way from Boston. The room is lit by a single candle with a small flame which represents that there is some hope/light shining through Tsotsi.
The type of camera shot used is a close up on Tsotsi and Bostons faces, clearly showing their feelings and expressions.
Soundtrack: the music wasn’t the usual ‘kwaito’ tracks played through the rest of the movie but rather calm and slow.
Mhakunana island
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
International Studies Tour to China
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, if this is the case then not even a thousand pictures could begin to describe the experiences, emotions and ecstasies that we all had and felt on the International Studies Tour to China 2009. And yet, here I am, tasked with portraying to you all these things and more in less than a thousand words. Incredible, amazing, flabbergasting, astounding, impressive and magbloodynificent are some of the words that spring to mind. But so are scary, polluted, dangerous and horrifying. If I had to rate the tour on a scale of 1 to 10 I would say both 23 and -17, because it was just utterly awesome and terrifying at the same time. It would take me all week to explain in detail everything that happened, so instead I will give a brief report on some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the tour.
Beijing
On the first day in Beijing we learned quite a lot about the city and China, for example the colloquial word for toilet is 'happy house' (which poses a few questions), the Bird's Nest Stadium is having financial difficulties and although there is little visible litter on the streets, the air is so polluted that it brought tears to many an eye. We also went to see the Bird's Nest Stadium (which is very big) and the Watercube (ditto), and finally we had a lunch in a traditional Chinese restaurant. The thing about Chinese restaurants is that while you have to pay out of your nose for water, the pot of green tea is endlessly replenished. And while there is no menu that you can choose from, you don't need one as they bring you everything that would have been on it anyway. The Lazy Susan in the middle of the table was eventually crammed with meat (named and unnamed), veggies, rice, fruit, tofu, sauces, a selection of soups, noodles, eggs (?), something that looked suspiciously like bread, dumplings (which were like heaven on a plate), some sort of squishy things (which were pointedly not like heaven on a plate), empty water glasses and a teapot that was full of tea. We were then led back to our hotel which was a very fancy but friendly place that (to the absolute delight of many) was delivered to by McDonalds. On the second day we learnt many more new and wonderful things about the place, such as in China, if one is approached by a young woman in a rather inadequate amount of clothing (that is quite... revealing), who claims to be a preschool teacher in need of English lessons, one should definitely recede from the situation as rapidly as possible. We visited lots of places including Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (where, in true College fashion we struck up a war cry - 16 bullets), after which we went to the Hutongs on traditional rickshaws and had dinner with the local people there. Throughout the rest of out stay we saw many more amazing things, including an extraordinary acrobatic performance, the Capital museum and a Chinese flight museum, as well as visiting two very highly regarded schools in Beijing and the Tshinghua University (which was unfortunately disappointing due to the fact that we couldn't actually see anything that went on there). But to many, one of the best experiences in Beijing was visiting the Great Wall of China itself. At the section that we went to we had one of two options; the easy was up or the hard way up. We opted for the easy way, until we saw that the entire population of southern Asia had done the same and thus (no jokes here) completely blocked the whole wall for as far as we could see. So we took the hard way up. It’s strange that it was called ‘the hard way up’, because I would have called it the ‘nigh on impossible way up’. Eventually, hot and sweaty, we arrived at a section quiet enough to get the lectures over and done with. After hiking up the Great Wall I now realise that the Mongols attacked the Wall so many times not to invade China, but just to laugh at the Chinese while they panted their way to their posts. After a quick look around a Jade workshop it was onto the bullet train and off to Shanghai.
Zhangziagang
Don't try to pronounce it - you will get it wrong. We went to a steel mill, and we were given a banquet by some very important people. We visited a school and played a bit of sport against them. These are the facts. There is not much else I can say about this part of the tour except that for many it was definitely the best. This was the part of the tour where we would spend three nights in a host family's house, and although many were at first sceptical about spending three nights in a complete stranger's house with parents who we had been assured would not be able to speak a word of English, everything turned out very well in the end and the strangers had all turned into our friends. I cannot begin to explain the bond of friendship that so many people made over the three days, suffice to say that I thought it impossible for people to get to know each other so well in such a short period of time. As we left the group of schoolchildren who had made such an impact on our lives behind, there was definitely an air of sadness and sorrow. Sechaba Lengane summed it all up pretty well on the silent bus with these words "Sho guys, that was the hardest goodbye I've ever said."
Shanghai
Our schedule for Shanghai was less packed than the Beijing one, but just as enjoyable. With trips to the Oriental Pearl, markets, museums and places of worship the stay in Shanghai looked to be like a joll. And it certainly was, as during their free time people visited places ranging from the Shanghai World Financial centre to the track where the Shanghai Grand Prix was held. After learning that a massage parlour in China is, no matter how upper class in appearance, still dodgy on the inside, and that staying up until two in the morning is both silly and punishable, we left Shanghai and departed to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong/Macao
We could all feel it. Although we were happy to get to a place that had some Western resemblance, we all knew that Hong Kong signified the closing stages of the tour. I had mixed feeling at this stage, with part of me willing to go home and get some rest, and another part of me wanting to stay on for a lot longer. Anyway, it was with both anticipation and dread that we faced the closing stages of the tour, and even though the end seemed so close, it was actually quite a long way off. The schedule for Hong Kong included visiting yet more markets, the Tian Tan Buddha and Po Lin Monastery, a day in Macao and a full free day in Hong Kong. In Macao we were hosted by an old boy of the College who lives there, and we saw such places as a Portuguese fortress, the Lotus Flower casino, the Venetian (in which Stefan got terribly lost) and, wait for it, a market. At the end of the day we were given the opportunity to stay behind to see the Cirque Du Soleil (which was really excellent), but only five of us did. During the free day in Hong Kong, most went to Ocean Park, but they said that it was a bit disappointing as many of the rides were closed. Myself? I had no money left so I wandered around with Lefika until we found a public library to cheer us up. We were subsequently kicked out for not having our ID documents on us.
Epilogue
I think that it’s safe to say that on the last day in Hong Kong nobody was loathe to go back home, as we had all had quite enough of China, and it was definitely time to get back to biltong en braais. However...
During the 13 hour flight back to Johannesburg I was given time to reflect on what had just happened. Two weeks had flown by, even though it seemed like an eternity since I had gotten on to the flight from Jo'burg to Hong Kong. And in those two weeks I had (amongst other things) shouted warcries in the Forbidden City, learned about glow in the dark paint on the Great Wall, made many friends, stood on the top floor of the tallest building in the world, been into the 3rd tallest tower in the world, drunk about 2000 litres of green tea, purchased a crash helmet (long story), been vomited on (another long story - better if you don't ask), seen arguably the best circus in the world, run out of money and finally been kicked out of a library for being illegal. And do you know what? I began to miss it right there and then.
James Hosken
Beijing
On the first day in Beijing we learned quite a lot about the city and China, for example the colloquial word for toilet is 'happy house' (which poses a few questions), the Bird's Nest Stadium is having financial difficulties and although there is little visible litter on the streets, the air is so polluted that it brought tears to many an eye. We also went to see the Bird's Nest Stadium (which is very big) and the Watercube (ditto), and finally we had a lunch in a traditional Chinese restaurant. The thing about Chinese restaurants is that while you have to pay out of your nose for water, the pot of green tea is endlessly replenished. And while there is no menu that you can choose from, you don't need one as they bring you everything that would have been on it anyway. The Lazy Susan in the middle of the table was eventually crammed with meat (named and unnamed), veggies, rice, fruit, tofu, sauces, a selection of soups, noodles, eggs (?), something that looked suspiciously like bread, dumplings (which were like heaven on a plate), some sort of squishy things (which were pointedly not like heaven on a plate), empty water glasses and a teapot that was full of tea. We were then led back to our hotel which was a very fancy but friendly place that (to the absolute delight of many) was delivered to by McDonalds. On the second day we learnt many more new and wonderful things about the place, such as in China, if one is approached by a young woman in a rather inadequate amount of clothing (that is quite... revealing), who claims to be a preschool teacher in need of English lessons, one should definitely recede from the situation as rapidly as possible. We visited lots of places including Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (where, in true College fashion we struck up a war cry - 16 bullets), after which we went to the Hutongs on traditional rickshaws and had dinner with the local people there. Throughout the rest of out stay we saw many more amazing things, including an extraordinary acrobatic performance, the Capital museum and a Chinese flight museum, as well as visiting two very highly regarded schools in Beijing and the Tshinghua University (which was unfortunately disappointing due to the fact that we couldn't actually see anything that went on there). But to many, one of the best experiences in Beijing was visiting the Great Wall of China itself. At the section that we went to we had one of two options; the easy was up or the hard way up. We opted for the easy way, until we saw that the entire population of southern Asia had done the same and thus (no jokes here) completely blocked the whole wall for as far as we could see. So we took the hard way up. It’s strange that it was called ‘the hard way up’, because I would have called it the ‘nigh on impossible way up’. Eventually, hot and sweaty, we arrived at a section quiet enough to get the lectures over and done with. After hiking up the Great Wall I now realise that the Mongols attacked the Wall so many times not to invade China, but just to laugh at the Chinese while they panted their way to their posts. After a quick look around a Jade workshop it was onto the bullet train and off to Shanghai.
Zhangziagang
Don't try to pronounce it - you will get it wrong. We went to a steel mill, and we were given a banquet by some very important people. We visited a school and played a bit of sport against them. These are the facts. There is not much else I can say about this part of the tour except that for many it was definitely the best. This was the part of the tour where we would spend three nights in a host family's house, and although many were at first sceptical about spending three nights in a complete stranger's house with parents who we had been assured would not be able to speak a word of English, everything turned out very well in the end and the strangers had all turned into our friends. I cannot begin to explain the bond of friendship that so many people made over the three days, suffice to say that I thought it impossible for people to get to know each other so well in such a short period of time. As we left the group of schoolchildren who had made such an impact on our lives behind, there was definitely an air of sadness and sorrow. Sechaba Lengane summed it all up pretty well on the silent bus with these words "Sho guys, that was the hardest goodbye I've ever said."
Shanghai
Our schedule for Shanghai was less packed than the Beijing one, but just as enjoyable. With trips to the Oriental Pearl, markets, museums and places of worship the stay in Shanghai looked to be like a joll. And it certainly was, as during their free time people visited places ranging from the Shanghai World Financial centre to the track where the Shanghai Grand Prix was held. After learning that a massage parlour in China is, no matter how upper class in appearance, still dodgy on the inside, and that staying up until two in the morning is both silly and punishable, we left Shanghai and departed to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong/Macao
We could all feel it. Although we were happy to get to a place that had some Western resemblance, we all knew that Hong Kong signified the closing stages of the tour. I had mixed feeling at this stage, with part of me willing to go home and get some rest, and another part of me wanting to stay on for a lot longer. Anyway, it was with both anticipation and dread that we faced the closing stages of the tour, and even though the end seemed so close, it was actually quite a long way off. The schedule for Hong Kong included visiting yet more markets, the Tian Tan Buddha and Po Lin Monastery, a day in Macao and a full free day in Hong Kong. In Macao we were hosted by an old boy of the College who lives there, and we saw such places as a Portuguese fortress, the Lotus Flower casino, the Venetian (in which Stefan got terribly lost) and, wait for it, a market. At the end of the day we were given the opportunity to stay behind to see the Cirque Du Soleil (which was really excellent), but only five of us did. During the free day in Hong Kong, most went to Ocean Park, but they said that it was a bit disappointing as many of the rides were closed. Myself? I had no money left so I wandered around with Lefika until we found a public library to cheer us up. We were subsequently kicked out for not having our ID documents on us.
Epilogue
I think that it’s safe to say that on the last day in Hong Kong nobody was loathe to go back home, as we had all had quite enough of China, and it was definitely time to get back to biltong en braais. However...
During the 13 hour flight back to Johannesburg I was given time to reflect on what had just happened. Two weeks had flown by, even though it seemed like an eternity since I had gotten on to the flight from Jo'burg to Hong Kong. And in those two weeks I had (amongst other things) shouted warcries in the Forbidden City, learned about glow in the dark paint on the Great Wall, made many friends, stood on the top floor of the tallest building in the world, been into the 3rd tallest tower in the world, drunk about 2000 litres of green tea, purchased a crash helmet (long story), been vomited on (another long story - better if you don't ask), seen arguably the best circus in the world, run out of money and finally been kicked out of a library for being illegal. And do you know what? I began to miss it right there and then.
James Hosken
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Irony at its best
Ninety people get the Swine Flu and everybody wants to wear a mask. Millions of people have AIDS and no one wants to wear a condom.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Tsotsi director
Check out this link
http://www.superherohype.com/news/x-mennews.php?id=8286
for an interview with Gavin Hood, who directed Tsotsi and has just directed that new Wolverine movie...
http://www.superherohype.com/news/x-mennews.php?id=8286
for an interview with Gavin Hood, who directed Tsotsi and has just directed that new Wolverine movie...
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Yay, Alex for president!
In honour of Alex Schorr, the only boy in the cooperative learning class to get a distinction for the English April Exam, here is a poem by his most favourite poet, regarding the apostrophe:
twould be nice to be
an apostrophe
floating above an s
hovering like a paper kite
in between the its
eavesdropping, tiptoeing
high above the thats
an inky comet
spiralling
the highest tossed
of hats
by Roger McGough, 1976
twould be nice to be
an apostrophe
floating above an s
hovering like a paper kite
in between the its
eavesdropping, tiptoeing
high above the thats
an inky comet
spiralling
the highest tossed
of hats
by Roger McGough, 1976
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Plagiarism
Hi guys - I sent this to y'all as an email, but here it is again, for your perusal...
Dear boys
Preparing young men for life – not for prison
This past term, PLAGIARISM has reared its ugly head at St Alban’s College. We love that each of you has a zebra tie and a student number, and we would hate to see you in another kind of striped suit with another kind of number printed on your back… Therefore, we are adopting a zero tolerance approach to plagiarism, with immediate effect.
Please check out the following link for a full definition and explanation of plagiarism, and its implications, in South Africa:
http://www.researchnavigator.com/phguide/content/OneSearch-Append-A2006.pdf
Staff will use Google, as well as the following anti-plagiarism websites, to detect plagiarism in your work, should we suspect that you have conveniently borrowed another’s intellectual property and passed it off as your own:
www.essayrater.com
www.mydropbox.com
http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed98/mhricko.html
http://www.fno.org/may98/cov98may.html http://www.asee.org/prism/december/html/student_plagiarism_in_an_onlin.htm
http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu
http://turnitin.com
You are encouraged always to submit to your teacher both a hard and soft (email) copy of any essay or assignment that you complete.
Our College is built on trust relationships, and I know we can rely on your cooperation, and your commitment to academic excellence and transparency!
Kind regards
Ma’am Reyburn
Dear boys
Preparing young men for life – not for prison
This past term, PLAGIARISM has reared its ugly head at St Alban’s College. We love that each of you has a zebra tie and a student number, and we would hate to see you in another kind of striped suit with another kind of number printed on your back… Therefore, we are adopting a zero tolerance approach to plagiarism, with immediate effect.
Please check out the following link for a full definition and explanation of plagiarism, and its implications, in South Africa:
http://www.researchnavigator.com/phguide/content/OneSearch-Append-A2006.pdf
Staff will use Google, as well as the following anti-plagiarism websites, to detect plagiarism in your work, should we suspect that you have conveniently borrowed another’s intellectual property and passed it off as your own:
www.essayrater.com
www.mydropbox.com
http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed98/mhricko.html
http://www.fno.org/may98/cov98may.html http://www.asee.org/prism/december/html/student_plagiarism_in_an_onlin.htm
http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu
http://turnitin.com
You are encouraged always to submit to your teacher both a hard and soft (email) copy of any essay or assignment that you complete.
Our College is built on trust relationships, and I know we can rely on your cooperation, and your commitment to academic excellence and transparency!
Kind regards
Ma’am Reyburn
Monday, March 30, 2009
A solution to exams: how we will get a 100% pass rate every year.
As the senior exams are now in full swing, I think it's appropriate that this week I write about fishing, or more specifically, the time I spent attempting to fish down at the Coast. Our story starts about a year ago when my family went down to a beach house on the South Coast for our holiday. Why they wanted to spend two weeks on a lump of sand with fluctuating weather conditions where everything (including bedding) rusts I don't know, but I tagged along in any case. We got to the little cottage (which had the structural stability of quicksand) and I decided to try some of the seaside activities that people so often talk about...
First off I tried surfing. I hadn't the foggiest where to start so I got myself a board and asked some of the locals what to do. "Wax the board." they all said. So with a slight bit of scepticism I did just that. I then ran into the ocean which, despite it being Africa and despite global warming was freezing, and attempted to catch the first wave I saw. Obviously, because I had waxed the board (which was a stupid idea really) it was very slippery, and thus as soon as I tried standing up it slipped out from under me and hit me in the head. Of course, having the perseverance of a bee flying into a window, I tried again, with the same result. And again. And again. It was when I began to bleed severely that I started thinking surfing wasn't for me. So, cold and broken, I receded from the water and gave up on the whole surfing venture. I then tried to build a sandcastle and, well let's just say that if you ever want a list of places that you don't really want sand...
I skulked back to the cottage where I found my brother and father setting up their fishing equipment. Personally I think it's a cruel and demeaning activity that you'll spend hours preparing for, just so you can spend more hours sitting on a cold, wet rock in the hope of luring some poor innocent creature into biting the very painful and sharp looking hook that you're dangling from a piece of string. Then, to add insult to injury, you'll probably say that the creature is too small and throw it back, where it will be eaten by a bigger fish. However, I'm sure fishing has a few good points, even though I can't exactly think of any right now... Nevertheless, I had nothing better to do so I got out a spare fishing stick and went with my bro and dad and sat on a rock to dangle a piece of string into the sea, just as it began to rain.
By the end of the day my dad had caught three biggish fish, my brother had caught a number of small ones and I had caught (no fisherman's tales here) a sum total of, well, zero. The thing is that their hours of preparation and toil had paid off, whereas for me who hadn't prepared at all, things didn't go too well. Now what you don't realise is that I've just led you through a 544 word analogy, because this moral also applies with exams: If you drift along and don't prepare, chances are you will see flaming wolves, but if you prepare and study and put in time and effort, although you cannot guarantee things will work out, in all probability you have ensured yourself a good mark.
But there's a problem with exams. If you study hard for, let's say two weeks in advance, and make sure you can recite the textbook off-by-heart, there is still no guarantee of a good mark. You could have a really bad day when you write it, or the teacher might ask things that you didn't go over in too much detail, or you might not understand the question, there's a whole bunch of things that influence how you write an exam. Studying just increases the chance of those things having less of an effect. And another thing is this: let's be honest here, once you've written an exam all the knowledge seems to leak out, which is then compounded by a holiday straight afterwards. I can hardly remember anything that I learned last year in Bio, for example. So, in essence, there is a whole list of things wrong with exams, and that's not to mention all the paper they waste, the work hours for the teachers, the cost of running the school for the duration, and all of the trivial things like that. This means that, in actual fact, exams are very useless and silly. This, of course, brings in a new problem. How then, are we going to test how much people know and have learned?
Fear not, because I have a solution! After much thought and consideration, I have come up with a plan that will replace exams forever: at the end of each year, the school should put students from each subject into real world situations. For example, you could ship off all the science students to NASA, where they would have to design their own rocket engines using their school based knowledge on the theory of expanding gasses. They should then take a ride in their rocket and if it works, pass with distinction. If it doesn't work, well then the rocket would crash and burn and you wouldn't have to worry about that student any more. This way the pressures are on for students to properly learn their stuff, and theoretically you should get a 100% pass rate every year.
It's a brilliant idea really. Think about it, all the Biology students could perform their own kidney transplant, all the Business Studies students could open their own shops, all the Accounting students could do the bookkeeping for JSE for a week, all the French students could be dropped off in France for a while to see how well they get on, all the Geography students could be made to do Journey without maps and all the IT students’ laptops could get thrown out of the window so that they would have to fix them on their own. This system will revolutionize education everywhere, now all I need to do is get backing from the IEB.
But what about English, you ask? Well, all the marks are drawn out of a hat anyway, so...
James Hosken
First off I tried surfing. I hadn't the foggiest where to start so I got myself a board and asked some of the locals what to do. "Wax the board." they all said. So with a slight bit of scepticism I did just that. I then ran into the ocean which, despite it being Africa and despite global warming was freezing, and attempted to catch the first wave I saw. Obviously, because I had waxed the board (which was a stupid idea really) it was very slippery, and thus as soon as I tried standing up it slipped out from under me and hit me in the head. Of course, having the perseverance of a bee flying into a window, I tried again, with the same result. And again. And again. It was when I began to bleed severely that I started thinking surfing wasn't for me. So, cold and broken, I receded from the water and gave up on the whole surfing venture. I then tried to build a sandcastle and, well let's just say that if you ever want a list of places that you don't really want sand...
I skulked back to the cottage where I found my brother and father setting up their fishing equipment. Personally I think it's a cruel and demeaning activity that you'll spend hours preparing for, just so you can spend more hours sitting on a cold, wet rock in the hope of luring some poor innocent creature into biting the very painful and sharp looking hook that you're dangling from a piece of string. Then, to add insult to injury, you'll probably say that the creature is too small and throw it back, where it will be eaten by a bigger fish. However, I'm sure fishing has a few good points, even though I can't exactly think of any right now... Nevertheless, I had nothing better to do so I got out a spare fishing stick and went with my bro and dad and sat on a rock to dangle a piece of string into the sea, just as it began to rain.
By the end of the day my dad had caught three biggish fish, my brother had caught a number of small ones and I had caught (no fisherman's tales here) a sum total of, well, zero. The thing is that their hours of preparation and toil had paid off, whereas for me who hadn't prepared at all, things didn't go too well. Now what you don't realise is that I've just led you through a 544 word analogy, because this moral also applies with exams: If you drift along and don't prepare, chances are you will see flaming wolves, but if you prepare and study and put in time and effort, although you cannot guarantee things will work out, in all probability you have ensured yourself a good mark.
But there's a problem with exams. If you study hard for, let's say two weeks in advance, and make sure you can recite the textbook off-by-heart, there is still no guarantee of a good mark. You could have a really bad day when you write it, or the teacher might ask things that you didn't go over in too much detail, or you might not understand the question, there's a whole bunch of things that influence how you write an exam. Studying just increases the chance of those things having less of an effect. And another thing is this: let's be honest here, once you've written an exam all the knowledge seems to leak out, which is then compounded by a holiday straight afterwards. I can hardly remember anything that I learned last year in Bio, for example. So, in essence, there is a whole list of things wrong with exams, and that's not to mention all the paper they waste, the work hours for the teachers, the cost of running the school for the duration, and all of the trivial things like that. This means that, in actual fact, exams are very useless and silly. This, of course, brings in a new problem. How then, are we going to test how much people know and have learned?
Fear not, because I have a solution! After much thought and consideration, I have come up with a plan that will replace exams forever: at the end of each year, the school should put students from each subject into real world situations. For example, you could ship off all the science students to NASA, where they would have to design their own rocket engines using their school based knowledge on the theory of expanding gasses. They should then take a ride in their rocket and if it works, pass with distinction. If it doesn't work, well then the rocket would crash and burn and you wouldn't have to worry about that student any more. This way the pressures are on for students to properly learn their stuff, and theoretically you should get a 100% pass rate every year.
It's a brilliant idea really. Think about it, all the Biology students could perform their own kidney transplant, all the Business Studies students could open their own shops, all the Accounting students could do the bookkeeping for JSE for a week, all the French students could be dropped off in France for a while to see how well they get on, all the Geography students could be made to do Journey without maps and all the IT students’ laptops could get thrown out of the window so that they would have to fix them on their own. This system will revolutionize education everywhere, now all I need to do is get backing from the IEB.
But what about English, you ask? Well, all the marks are drawn out of a hat anyway, so...
James Hosken
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Sporting Dilemma
Cricket is not a spectator sport. Yet people watch it. You'll always find some wanderers at the Wanderer's wondering why they have paid for a ticket that allows them to waste seventeen hours of their life getting sunburnt on TV while watching some guy throw a piece of cork at some other guy who hits it back at him in an attempt to get it past some more guys who are actually on the first guy's team. The hitter, or 'batsman' will then attempt to run at the person who threw the cork at him, but instead of angrily beating the thrower, or 'bowler', with the bat that he currently holds, he promptly turns round and runs back to where he started. Then, the people who are out in the field ('fielders') will try throw the cork back at the batsman who's in in an attempt to get him out. Once they've got him out, he'll go inside and another person who was inside will go out to be in until the people who are out in the field get him out too. Once all of the people who are meant to be in are out, the sides switch and the whole bloody thing starts again.
Other non spectator sports include snooker, croquet, bowls, showjumping, swimming, athletics meetings, night time motor racing, day time motor racing, rowing, and the Norwegian ladies championship for knitting. But probably the least spectator friendly sport on the planet is golf. You stand on a patch of desecrated rainforest and watch some guy (who probably isn't Tiger Woods) hit a ball into a hole. Action-packed and exhilerating are words that don't exactly come to mind. However there are some sports that can be more interesting to watch than dried deer droppings. Basketball is one of them, however I'm way too white to be interested, so that can get crossed off my list. There's also soccer, but unfortunately that has turned into too much of a money making scam for my liking, so that can go too. Which leaves me with three choices...
Waterpolo, rugby and that Aztec game where you have to use any means possible to get the ball (which is usually a human head) through a hoop, where at the end the losers get sacrificed. Unfortunately one of those is illegal and one of them is gay; the thing about waterpolo is this: it's a nice concept, but I just can't grasp a game that involves two sides of near naked men in a pool trying to throw an inflated sheep's pancreas at some netting, just to have the other side throw it back. So this leaves just one. Rugby. With sufficient amounts of violence, skill and intellect (well, the commentator must at least know how to speak), rugby is the perfect spectator sport. And it was upon this realisation a few weeks ago that I began to get excited for the Menlo Park game...
As all of you should know, we had our first rugby match on Friday against a school that I used to know as Menlo Park, but which I now refer to as the Arrogant Mucus-filled Vile Scum of the Earth. We were all pretty excited as a short, gay guy in a green shirt switched on his mic and told all of us that he was the presenter. We all sat patiently while the commentator made some indistinguishable noises on his own mic. We even waited quietly while the Scum's team ran onto the field. Then all hell broke loose. I won't remind anyone of the details of the game, suffice to say that we got our arses handed to us. On a silver platter. With gold leaf. And titanium cutlery. And then they stepped on our faces as well. However, I am proud to say that for the two and a half minutes or so that we were in possesion of the ball the entire College shouted their lungs out.
So, the lesson I've learned from this is to stay away from sport. With cricket you would waste your life away, with soccer you would lose all your money, with golf you would be bored to death, with Aztec sports you would get arrested if you're not killed to death for losing, I'm too white for basketball and too straight for waterpolo, and when it comes to rugby you will just be downright disappointed (and have no lungs). Maybe I'll take up chess...
James Hosken
Other non spectator sports include snooker, croquet, bowls, showjumping, swimming, athletics meetings, night time motor racing, day time motor racing, rowing, and the Norwegian ladies championship for knitting. But probably the least spectator friendly sport on the planet is golf. You stand on a patch of desecrated rainforest and watch some guy (who probably isn't Tiger Woods) hit a ball into a hole. Action-packed and exhilerating are words that don't exactly come to mind. However there are some sports that can be more interesting to watch than dried deer droppings. Basketball is one of them, however I'm way too white to be interested, so that can get crossed off my list. There's also soccer, but unfortunately that has turned into too much of a money making scam for my liking, so that can go too. Which leaves me with three choices...
Waterpolo, rugby and that Aztec game where you have to use any means possible to get the ball (which is usually a human head) through a hoop, where at the end the losers get sacrificed. Unfortunately one of those is illegal and one of them is gay; the thing about waterpolo is this: it's a nice concept, but I just can't grasp a game that involves two sides of near naked men in a pool trying to throw an inflated sheep's pancreas at some netting, just to have the other side throw it back. So this leaves just one. Rugby. With sufficient amounts of violence, skill and intellect (well, the commentator must at least know how to speak), rugby is the perfect spectator sport. And it was upon this realisation a few weeks ago that I began to get excited for the Menlo Park game...
As all of you should know, we had our first rugby match on Friday against a school that I used to know as Menlo Park, but which I now refer to as the Arrogant Mucus-filled Vile Scum of the Earth. We were all pretty excited as a short, gay guy in a green shirt switched on his mic and told all of us that he was the presenter. We all sat patiently while the commentator made some indistinguishable noises on his own mic. We even waited quietly while the Scum's team ran onto the field. Then all hell broke loose. I won't remind anyone of the details of the game, suffice to say that we got our arses handed to us. On a silver platter. With gold leaf. And titanium cutlery. And then they stepped on our faces as well. However, I am proud to say that for the two and a half minutes or so that we were in possesion of the ball the entire College shouted their lungs out.
So, the lesson I've learned from this is to stay away from sport. With cricket you would waste your life away, with soccer you would lose all your money, with golf you would be bored to death, with Aztec sports you would get arrested if you're not killed to death for losing, I'm too white for basketball and too straight for waterpolo, and when it comes to rugby you will just be downright disappointed (and have no lungs). Maybe I'll take up chess...
James Hosken
Monday, March 23, 2009
Words that describe tone
critical
arrogant
whimsical
detached
angry
pretentious
fanciful
apathetic
threatening
condescending
wistful
indifferent
irate
patronizing
flippant
straightforward
outraged
humorous
nostalgic
candid
indignant
bantering
sentimental
didactic
ambiguous
silly
reflective
learned
confused
mock-heroic
regretful
scholarly
perplexed
amused
remorseful
pedantic
ironic
happy
apologetic
moralistic
tongue-in-cheek
ecstatic
challenging
inspirational
sarcastic
effusive
contentious
respectful
sardonic
contented
inflammatory
reverent
mocking
disappointed
shocking
sympathetic
irreverent
sad
dramatic
compassionate
disdainful
elegiac
passionate
interested
contemptuous
melancholic
restrained
urgent
caustic
depressing
impartial
serious
biting
mournful
objective
ominous
cynical
poignant
clinical
apprehensive
skeptical
somber
factual
foreboding
wry
arrogant
whimsical
detached
angry
pretentious
fanciful
apathetic
threatening
condescending
wistful
indifferent
irate
patronizing
flippant
straightforward
outraged
humorous
nostalgic
candid
indignant
bantering
sentimental
didactic
ambiguous
silly
reflective
learned
confused
mock-heroic
regretful
scholarly
perplexed
amused
remorseful
pedantic
ironic
happy
apologetic
moralistic
tongue-in-cheek
ecstatic
challenging
inspirational
sarcastic
effusive
contentious
respectful
sardonic
contented
inflammatory
reverent
mocking
disappointed
shocking
sympathetic
irreverent
sad
dramatic
compassionate
disdainful
elegiac
passionate
interested
contemptuous
melancholic
restrained
urgent
caustic
depressing
impartial
serious
biting
mournful
objective
ominous
cynical
poignant
clinical
apprehensive
skeptical
somber
factual
foreboding
wry
Friday, March 13, 2009
Reminders...
Hi Form 4s
Please remember to email me your Henry V presentations. Mr Fairweather is keen to have them.
Also, don’t forget the 7 BOOKS that you need to be reading… You have 18 months…!
Thanks!
Please remember to email me your Henry V presentations. Mr Fairweather is keen to have them.
Also, don’t forget the 7 BOOKS that you need to be reading… You have 18 months…!
Thanks!
(The pic is of Cameron eating your Henry V essays... Apologies to Matthew in particular!)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Journey...
I took one of those internet tests a couple of days ago and apparently I have an IQ of 196, my future partner’s name is Gertrude Percival-Green, I would make a good paediatric cardiologist, and I’m going to die in a huge fireball at the age of 112 in a spaceship that’s plummeting out of control to earth. The first one I don’t believe; it’s flattering, but really implausible. The second point was distressing, because if I ever met anyone called Gertrude Percival-Green... well, I’d run away. Fast. Another indication of the test’s absurdity is the fact that I can’t stand the sight of blood, and I honestly would not be proud to say that my profession is ‘cutting small children open and messing about with their vital organs,’ so I would not ever be a paediatric cardiologist. But I like the way that they’ve said I’ll kick the bucket. I must say that dying in a plummeting spacecraft does have some kind of ring to it. It must be better than dying in the hospital as a vegetable, connected to very invasive tubes and sensors. I’d like to go out with a bang, and I’m sure you would too. You may wonder why, and the answer is simple. Adventure. You don’t want to be remembered as a shrivelled up potato with a plug in you arse, you want to be remembered as ‘that guy who died fighting off thousands of terrorists on top of Mount Everest.’ Adventure is what led the cavemen out of the caves. Adventure is what led Chris Columbus to go the extra mile and make America known to the rest of the world. Adventure is what led the Wright Brothers to want to fly. And adventure is what Mr Broom wants us all to experience on The Journey...
At first I’m sure anyone would be slightly sceptical about being sent out to spend 23 days in the bush with no technology, no running water, no sanitation, sufficient food for a hummingbird and a spade as a toilet (we called it Doug). But in truth, after a while everyone was... well -although I loath using this word- Gee’d. Most of us, in fact, were looking forward to spending 23 days in the bush with no parents, no running water, no sanitation, no food and no sturdy roof over our heads. Anyway, on the day of out departure, after a boring bag check to make sure no one had brought any “hallucinogenic pharmaceuticals” (as Ma’am Reyburn puts it so nicely) or pornographic magazines (19 were uncovered), we all got lined up next to the bell. There were sobbing mothers and a couple of emotional speeches about “...boys growing into men... a significant time of life... sincerely hope... safe passage...etc” and before we knew it we were past the bell, up the N1 and gathered (again) in the parking lot. There were some more speeches given, the last goodbyes were said and the group flag was handed over to us. This was a rather special moment, even I will admit, because that flag was the flag that defined us as a group, it was our banner, our sign, and it would go with us wherever we went. And so, finally, we left the school.
We had been told that it was easy to get lost on Journey, but not even the most pessimistic cynic could have predicted what happened next. We proudly walked out of the gate, marched to the top of Chapel Hill and got lost. Not 100 meters into the Journey and already there had been a fight about which way to go! And, basically, that set the scene for the entire Journey. “Mr Broom’s Spur Drawn Maps” as we so cunningly referred to them, were utterly useless as any sort of route indicator and as a result, getting lost daily was an absolute guarantee. What varied was how long it took to realise we were lost. There was one day that we actually asked a passing local if we were on the right track and he looked at the map, thought for a while, and then said that we were meant to be “on that mountain, just over there.” Well, “Just over there” turned out to be a very long way away. If you think that’s bad, apparently one of the groups after us didn’t chance upon a helpful local and subsequently reached the border. I asked which border and the reply was “just the border.” I suppose I could go on and talk about the roughest days on Journey, the easiest days on Journey, the most emotionally challenging days on Journey and all that rot, but just in case any unlucky form three happens upon this, I don’t want to ruin any surprises so think I’ll leave that for some other day.
Anyway, breaking off the topic for a while, did you know that Charlie Brown’s father was a barber? And that the Chinese have extended their release dates for the Long March Changzheng rocket designs to April 2014
Oh, yes, just before I leave you, remember that flag that I told you about... well here’s an amusing story: On day 2 someone had left the flag sticking too far out of the truck that was carrying our stuff while we were cycling, and there was a particularly insensitive tree that stuck out over the road and bent our flag. On day 13 our flag got bent a bit more, and then it got torn a bit. By day 18 some of us had forgotten its original shape or colour, because at the time it was a sort of brown-black murky twist of wood and cloth. But it was still our flag, and we cherished it. On day 23, after the 3 hour bus ride back (that’s depressing – 23 days there on foot, 3 hours back... in a bus), we were waiting for Mr Hamilton to call us up the N1. Our group leader for the day (no names mentioned - I promised Janneman I wouldn’t use his name) very astutely pointed out that we couldn’t walk up with a bent flag, so he tried to bend it back. Anyone who’s ever tried to bend hard wood will know that it doesn’t bend so well, but rather snaps. And that’s what happened. After 23 days of rivers, sun, bush, dirt, rain, heat, and cold, we broke our flag in the last 5 minutes of the Journey, waiting in a car park. I almost cried.
James Hosken
At first I’m sure anyone would be slightly sceptical about being sent out to spend 23 days in the bush with no technology, no running water, no sanitation, sufficient food for a hummingbird and a spade as a toilet (we called it Doug). But in truth, after a while everyone was... well -although I loath using this word- Gee’d. Most of us, in fact, were looking forward to spending 23 days in the bush with no parents, no running water, no sanitation, no food and no sturdy roof over our heads. Anyway, on the day of out departure, after a boring bag check to make sure no one had brought any “hallucinogenic pharmaceuticals” (as Ma’am Reyburn puts it so nicely) or pornographic magazines (19 were uncovered), we all got lined up next to the bell. There were sobbing mothers and a couple of emotional speeches about “...boys growing into men... a significant time of life... sincerely hope... safe passage...etc” and before we knew it we were past the bell, up the N1 and gathered (again) in the parking lot. There were some more speeches given, the last goodbyes were said and the group flag was handed over to us. This was a rather special moment, even I will admit, because that flag was the flag that defined us as a group, it was our banner, our sign, and it would go with us wherever we went. And so, finally, we left the school.
We had been told that it was easy to get lost on Journey, but not even the most pessimistic cynic could have predicted what happened next. We proudly walked out of the gate, marched to the top of Chapel Hill and got lost. Not 100 meters into the Journey and already there had been a fight about which way to go! And, basically, that set the scene for the entire Journey. “Mr Broom’s Spur Drawn Maps” as we so cunningly referred to them, were utterly useless as any sort of route indicator and as a result, getting lost daily was an absolute guarantee. What varied was how long it took to realise we were lost. There was one day that we actually asked a passing local if we were on the right track and he looked at the map, thought for a while, and then said that we were meant to be “on that mountain, just over there.” Well, “Just over there” turned out to be a very long way away. If you think that’s bad, apparently one of the groups after us didn’t chance upon a helpful local and subsequently reached the border. I asked which border and the reply was “just the border.” I suppose I could go on and talk about the roughest days on Journey, the easiest days on Journey, the most emotionally challenging days on Journey and all that rot, but just in case any unlucky form three happens upon this, I don’t want to ruin any surprises so think I’ll leave that for some other day.
Anyway, breaking off the topic for a while, did you know that Charlie Brown’s father was a barber? And that the Chinese have extended their release dates for the Long March Changzheng rocket designs to April 2014
Oh, yes, just before I leave you, remember that flag that I told you about... well here’s an amusing story: On day 2 someone had left the flag sticking too far out of the truck that was carrying our stuff while we were cycling, and there was a particularly insensitive tree that stuck out over the road and bent our flag. On day 13 our flag got bent a bit more, and then it got torn a bit. By day 18 some of us had forgotten its original shape or colour, because at the time it was a sort of brown-black murky twist of wood and cloth. But it was still our flag, and we cherished it. On day 23, after the 3 hour bus ride back (that’s depressing – 23 days there on foot, 3 hours back... in a bus), we were waiting for Mr Hamilton to call us up the N1. Our group leader for the day (no names mentioned - I promised Janneman I wouldn’t use his name) very astutely pointed out that we couldn’t walk up with a bent flag, so he tried to bend it back. Anyone who’s ever tried to bend hard wood will know that it doesn’t bend so well, but rather snaps. And that’s what happened. After 23 days of rivers, sun, bush, dirt, rain, heat, and cold, we broke our flag in the last 5 minutes of the Journey, waiting in a car park. I almost cried.
James Hosken
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
This poem was posted on a Facebook group I joined over the weekend. The group was entitled "RIP Susan Tsvangirai", and was one of about 30 such groups set up following the death of Susan Tsvangirai, wife of Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, in a head on collision with a US Food Aid truck.
There is much speculation from the people of Zimbabwe that the "accident" was not an accident at all, but rather a planned attack by President Bob to try and rid himself of the Prime Minister. Unfortunately the ever passive Morgan denies this, and believes that it was all just an "accident". Personally, I think Bob is to blame.
"The Drums Are Calling, Old Man"
The drums are calling old man, and they are louder by the day.
They are calling you to judgement and now's the time to pay
for the wrongs you've done your country and the trust that you betrayed.
So hear those drums now swelling, hear well and be afraid.
You came to power on waves of hope that you would make your mark,
in a land that shone in Africa like diamonds in the dark.
In simple faith the people put their trust into your care,
and were repaid by the Fifth Brigade and the CIO and fear.
Twenty eight years of motorcades and lavish trips abroad,
a nation's heritage is lost through patronage and fraud.
The Chiefs grow fat while people starve and famine stalks our homes.
On idle farms the weeds grow rank and cover cattle bones.
The youth are taught your slogans, but even as they sing
the drums of change are beating, for the truth is seeping in.
The demagogue has feet of clay and lies will not sustain
the shattered land that once seemed free and will be so again.
Too late to blame the drought, the Brits, the whites, the MDC.
For all know where the finger points with cold finality.
So hear the drums, old man, and listen to them well,
They foretell of your end days and they have much to tell.
For he who sows the seeds of hate will reap the grapes of wrath,
so tremble in your bed at night, at the end of your sorry path.
Unknown
I am posting this because I believe it is very relevant to the current situation in Zimbabwe, a country where my family grew up and lived in happiness, a feeling which most families still there cannot have on a day to day basis.
Jo Balmer
There is much speculation from the people of Zimbabwe that the "accident" was not an accident at all, but rather a planned attack by President Bob to try and rid himself of the Prime Minister. Unfortunately the ever passive Morgan denies this, and believes that it was all just an "accident". Personally, I think Bob is to blame.
"The Drums Are Calling, Old Man"
The drums are calling old man, and they are louder by the day.
They are calling you to judgement and now's the time to pay
for the wrongs you've done your country and the trust that you betrayed.
So hear those drums now swelling, hear well and be afraid.
You came to power on waves of hope that you would make your mark,
in a land that shone in Africa like diamonds in the dark.
In simple faith the people put their trust into your care,
and were repaid by the Fifth Brigade and the CIO and fear.
Twenty eight years of motorcades and lavish trips abroad,
a nation's heritage is lost through patronage and fraud.
The Chiefs grow fat while people starve and famine stalks our homes.
On idle farms the weeds grow rank and cover cattle bones.
The youth are taught your slogans, but even as they sing
the drums of change are beating, for the truth is seeping in.
The demagogue has feet of clay and lies will not sustain
the shattered land that once seemed free and will be so again.
Too late to blame the drought, the Brits, the whites, the MDC.
For all know where the finger points with cold finality.
So hear the drums, old man, and listen to them well,
They foretell of your end days and they have much to tell.
For he who sows the seeds of hate will reap the grapes of wrath,
so tremble in your bed at night, at the end of your sorry path.
Unknown
I am posting this because I believe it is very relevant to the current situation in Zimbabwe, a country where my family grew up and lived in happiness, a feeling which most families still there cannot have on a day to day basis.
Jo Balmer
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
How a dirty old cereal bowl is related to Dumbo the Elephant.
Welcome back everyone, and I hope your half term gave you sufficient time to rest, even though it probably didn’t. Last week I asked for some feedback on the length of my writing. I have currently received feedback from two people, one of whom was my mother, and the other was a bloke called Jo. This tells me one of two things: either no one can be bothered to get up and respond to my request, or no one actually reads any of this and I am wasting my time; only entertaining my mum and a guy called Jo. I suppose another way of looking at this situation is that nobody has actually complained and therefore I am doing something right. Yes, yes I like that one…
Ma’am Reyburn started this site so that people would learn. So far I haven’t really learned anything, and I don’t think any of you have either. But that’s about to change! Every week from now on I shall give you one FREE!!! piece of occasionally relevant news and one FREE!!! very seldom relevant fact. How kind am I?
For anyone who’s interested (and I’m sure everyone is), the irrelevant news piece for the week is that yesterday (the 3rd of March) was the international day of square roots. Apparently they did this because of the date (I.e. today is 3.3.09, and 3 is the square root of 9). How quaint. The irrelevant fact for this week is this: in 1976, a Los Angeles secretary formally married her 50-pound pet rock. Two questions spring to my mind: why? and how?
Well now that the strenuous intellectual task of learning is over, and Ma’am Reyburn’s wishes have been fulfilled, I can get on with other things. I was sorting through a pile of old stuff that my sister had grown out of so it could now be gotten rid of and, wow, I had a couple of laughs. For example there was one children’s movie called Dumbo, which is basically about a big eared young elephant who learns to fly. This amused me, I mean, what type of paint thinners must you be sniffing to come up with a story about a 2 and a half tonne mammal using its ears as a flight tool? And they feed this drivel to small children! It’s rather upsetting to think that all of us were enthralled by such convulent and thrilling plots such as this one when we were younger. Whatever, I moved further into the pile of old memorabilia and found one of my very old music books. This brought back lots of memories, as at one time I had taken a combination of piano, violin, marimba and recorder (which, for those who don’t know, is basically just a glorified whistle). I had stopped recorder because it had a terrible screechy sound, I had stopped marimba because my old school had stopped offering the lessons and I had stopped violin because, frankly, I was utterly useless at it. And yes, I do currently take piano, even though I’m also pretty useless at that, compared to people with names like Malkovicjh Bragolevovikch, or Henry Thackeray, for example. So, with a tear of low self esteem in my eye, I moved on through the box.
My eye was caught by a dirty old cereal bowl, and suddenly the floodgates of memory were opened. This was the bowl that I had used to eat cereal with for the first 8 years of my life, and it was ‘my bowl’; some people have blankies, some people have teddy bears, some people have action figures that they treasure and don’t go anywhere without, and I had my bowl. I remember when I was really young I would fight at breakfast with my brother over the cutlery we got (I ALWAYS had to have the coco-pops spoon). I have obviously grown out of this behaviour, although to be honest at breakfast I occasionally notice that some people of the College apparently have not; the following is an example of something you might hear at breakfast: (Please circle appropriate...)
“No sir/ma’am, it wasn’t my fault, because he stole/ravaged/spat-on my bacon/spoon/plate, so I stabbed him in the eye/kidney/head with my fork/knife/pen. He then punched/kicked/head-butted me in my throat/stomach/leg so I obviously reacted by throwing a tray/table/printer at him. You see, that’s why there is blood/limbs/a mess on the floor and you can’t blame me.”
Really, some of the manners are despicable. Anyway, furthering my quest for old memories I found a tattered old book. I pulled it out and dusted it off and what do you know! It was my first reading book. I can’t remember exactly when I had read it but all I know is that it was an amazing story with an exhilarating plot and well thought out characters with a moral at the end that is very relevant in today’s society. So I picked it up and had a bit of a read. I opened on the first page and there was a picture of a dog. The text said “LOOK.” I turned the page to find a picture of a cat. The text said “LOOK.” The third page contained a picture of a man. And lo and behold, the text said “LOOK.” I turned the page once more, and (this is my favourite part) found the twist in the plot. There was a picture of a dog, a cat, and a man, all together, and the text said “LOOK!” Suck on that, J.K.Rowling.
I was about to pack away the box when I noticed one last thing. A crumpled up, dilapidated old piece of paper with some ink markings on it. Upon further study, the ink markings turned out to be badly written words. In fact, it was the first story I ever wrote. I vaguely remember writing something like this, but I must have been on drugs, because I could not tell what was going on. There was something about a pirate ship, some treasure buried on the moon, clowns and a guy called Steve. How they interlink we will never know, because it will require highly trained problem-solving decipherers to actually read and interpret what I wrote. Although, in all fairness no one can really tell the difference between my handwriting when I was 5 and my handwriting now, much to the frustration of any poor soul marking my work.
So my advice to you is this: If you’re ever really bored on a six and a half day holiday, take out a box of your old stuff and reminisce in good times gone by. But don’t write about it, because then you, like me, will have wasted 5 minutes of a bloke called Jo’s life as he reads about something that is completely irrelevant to society. I thank you very much.
James Hosken
Ma’am Reyburn started this site so that people would learn. So far I haven’t really learned anything, and I don’t think any of you have either. But that’s about to change! Every week from now on I shall give you one FREE!!! piece of occasionally relevant news and one FREE!!! very seldom relevant fact. How kind am I?
For anyone who’s interested (and I’m sure everyone is), the irrelevant news piece for the week is that yesterday (the 3rd of March) was the international day of square roots. Apparently they did this because of the date (I.e. today is 3.3.09, and 3 is the square root of 9). How quaint. The irrelevant fact for this week is this: in 1976, a Los Angeles secretary formally married her 50-pound pet rock. Two questions spring to my mind: why? and how?
Well now that the strenuous intellectual task of learning is over, and Ma’am Reyburn’s wishes have been fulfilled, I can get on with other things. I was sorting through a pile of old stuff that my sister had grown out of so it could now be gotten rid of and, wow, I had a couple of laughs. For example there was one children’s movie called Dumbo, which is basically about a big eared young elephant who learns to fly. This amused me, I mean, what type of paint thinners must you be sniffing to come up with a story about a 2 and a half tonne mammal using its ears as a flight tool? And they feed this drivel to small children! It’s rather upsetting to think that all of us were enthralled by such convulent and thrilling plots such as this one when we were younger. Whatever, I moved further into the pile of old memorabilia and found one of my very old music books. This brought back lots of memories, as at one time I had taken a combination of piano, violin, marimba and recorder (which, for those who don’t know, is basically just a glorified whistle). I had stopped recorder because it had a terrible screechy sound, I had stopped marimba because my old school had stopped offering the lessons and I had stopped violin because, frankly, I was utterly useless at it. And yes, I do currently take piano, even though I’m also pretty useless at that, compared to people with names like Malkovicjh Bragolevovikch, or Henry Thackeray, for example. So, with a tear of low self esteem in my eye, I moved on through the box.
My eye was caught by a dirty old cereal bowl, and suddenly the floodgates of memory were opened. This was the bowl that I had used to eat cereal with for the first 8 years of my life, and it was ‘my bowl’; some people have blankies, some people have teddy bears, some people have action figures that they treasure and don’t go anywhere without, and I had my bowl. I remember when I was really young I would fight at breakfast with my brother over the cutlery we got (I ALWAYS had to have the coco-pops spoon). I have obviously grown out of this behaviour, although to be honest at breakfast I occasionally notice that some people of the College apparently have not; the following is an example of something you might hear at breakfast: (Please circle appropriate...)
“No sir/ma’am, it wasn’t my fault, because he stole/ravaged/spat-on my bacon/spoon/plate, so I stabbed him in the eye/kidney/head with my fork/knife/pen. He then punched/kicked/head-butted me in my throat/stomach/leg so I obviously reacted by throwing a tray/table/printer at him. You see, that’s why there is blood/limbs/a mess on the floor and you can’t blame me.”
Really, some of the manners are despicable. Anyway, furthering my quest for old memories I found a tattered old book. I pulled it out and dusted it off and what do you know! It was my first reading book. I can’t remember exactly when I had read it but all I know is that it was an amazing story with an exhilarating plot and well thought out characters with a moral at the end that is very relevant in today’s society. So I picked it up and had a bit of a read. I opened on the first page and there was a picture of a dog. The text said “LOOK.” I turned the page to find a picture of a cat. The text said “LOOK.” The third page contained a picture of a man. And lo and behold, the text said “LOOK.” I turned the page once more, and (this is my favourite part) found the twist in the plot. There was a picture of a dog, a cat, and a man, all together, and the text said “LOOK!” Suck on that, J.K.Rowling.
I was about to pack away the box when I noticed one last thing. A crumpled up, dilapidated old piece of paper with some ink markings on it. Upon further study, the ink markings turned out to be badly written words. In fact, it was the first story I ever wrote. I vaguely remember writing something like this, but I must have been on drugs, because I could not tell what was going on. There was something about a pirate ship, some treasure buried on the moon, clowns and a guy called Steve. How they interlink we will never know, because it will require highly trained problem-solving decipherers to actually read and interpret what I wrote. Although, in all fairness no one can really tell the difference between my handwriting when I was 5 and my handwriting now, much to the frustration of any poor soul marking my work.
So my advice to you is this: If you’re ever really bored on a six and a half day holiday, take out a box of your old stuff and reminisce in good times gone by. But don’t write about it, because then you, like me, will have wasted 5 minutes of a bloke called Jo’s life as he reads about something that is completely irrelevant to society. I thank you very much.
James Hosken
Monday, March 2, 2009
cool quotes
I have come across many quotes and some have made me stop and thin for a while about it and the deeper meaning behind it. So I feel that i should share this with the class and will post quotes on the blog whenever i come across one that has had such an effect on me.
This is the first one and second one as they occured on the same day:
"If you have it [Love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have."
"Love is not what makes the world go round. It's what makes the ride worthwhile."
Matthew Sawyer
This is the first one and second one as they occured on the same day:
"If you have it [Love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have."
"Love is not what makes the world go round. It's what makes the ride worthwhile."
Matthew Sawyer
Friday, February 20, 2009
Earl Spencer's eulogy for Princess Diana
Read the following - and think propaganda.
"I stand before you today the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning before a world in shock.
"We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana but rather in our need to do so. For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her, feel that they too lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today.
"Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.
"Today is our chance to say thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated always that you were taken from us so young and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult.
"We have all despaired at our loss over the past week and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving has afforded us the strength to move forward.
"There is a temptation to rush to canonise your memory, there is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humour with a laugh that bent you double.
"Your joy for life transmitted where ever you took your smile and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes. Your boundless energy which you could barely contain.
"But your greatest gift was your intuition and it was a gift you used wisely. This is what underpinned all your other wonderful attributes and if we look to analyse what it was about you that had such a wide appeal we find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives.
"Without your God-given sensitivity we would be immersed in greater ignorance at the anguish of Aids and HIV sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of landmines.
"Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected.
"And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom.
"The world sensed this part of her character and cherished her for her vulnerability whilst admiring her for her honesty.
"The last time I saw Diana was on July 1, her birthday in London, when typically she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends but was guest of honour at a special charity fundraising evening. She sparkled of course, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact apart from when she was on display meeting President Mandela we managed to contrive to stop the ever-present paparazzi from getting a single picture of her - that meant a lot to her.
"These were days I will always treasure. It was as if we had been transported back to our childhood when we spent such an enormous amount of time together - the two youngest in the family.
"Fundamentally she had not changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school and endured those long train journeys between our parents' homes with me at weekends.
"It is a tribute to her level-headedness and strength that despite the most bizarre-like life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself.
"There is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment that she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling.
"My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this - a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.
"She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys William and Harry from a similar fate and I do this here Diana on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair.
"And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned.
"We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role but we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us.
"William and Harry, we all cared desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with the sadness at the loss of a woman who was not even our mother. How great your suffering is, we cannot even imagine.
"I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time. For taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had joy in her private life. Above all we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.
Monday, February 16, 2009
There's no hiding from the Marketing Junkies.
I'm sitting here, at half past eleven on a Saturday night, thinking of what drivel I'll write this week, and realising how cliché I'm sounding at the moment. I really don't know what to write about, and it's worrying me. Don't get me wrong though, it's not that I'm out of topics, it's that there's too much decision. I could write about Americans or the French (they both went down well last time, except with Ma'am Reyburn: she said I should stop saying that America is a useless waste of landmass that would be better off as a nuclear and medical waste dump and that the French are all arrogant... so I will), or I could write about that thing that everyone's going on about... global warming I think it's called, or I could write about how last week was very cold and wet (strange, that, what with all the global warming going on), or I could complain about how much work we've all got these days. I could also rant on until the cows come home about the endless stream of increasingly angry men who take lots of drugs and call themselves musicians when all they... um... sing about is how many hos they've acquired or how many times they've been shot. But no, today's topic may actually have some relevance to current affairs. Yes, this week I am writing about Valentine's Day (well, more specifically starting at Valentine's Day and branching off with whatever thoughts come my way...).
Does anyone else find it distressing how Valentine's day (and any other holiday your can think of) has turned into a marketing ploy. I was walking around the shops this afternoon and everywhere I looked there were signs advertising sales, specials and general cut-down prices which indicate that the mark-up was too high in the first place. There was even one store that was advertising a two for one special on 'Happy Valentines Day, my love" cards. I mean, what were they thinking? Maybe you'd give one to your spouse and one to your secretary? Anyway, the point is that I don't think there is anything left on this earth that hasn't somehow been turned into a plan to make more money. Think about fashion fads, for one thing. Items that are essential and everyday for certain jobs have been manipulated into becoming essential for looking 'hip and cool'. Examples of modern materialistic manipulation are Rayban aviators, bikers' leather jackets, and dogtags. How the hell can something designed to identify the remnants of a mangled, gory bomb explosion have become a fashionable item? But this isn't the worst part, oh no. The absolute worst thing about this whole money making system is the way all these things are advertised. Anywhere you go these days, you will be pummelled with advertisements. When I say anywhere I'm talking about if you go to one of Pluto’s far moons you may just have a slight chance of evading the marketing section of some or other small business, that type of anywhere. I don't mind people putting up posters around their local newsagengy to tell all the old people that they're selling small koala bears, because that's taking initiative (which is good), but ad's become a bit ridiculous when once you've walked into a store to buy a pencil you are suddenly greeted by an unending array of signs advising you to invest in housing developments in eastern Thailand. On any road in South Africa there is sure to be (and I will bet money on this) some sort of sign or billboard on the side telling you how Johnston's window repair is the best and cheapest window repair around, or something like that. It may seem like I am being pedantic, but I am just building up to something that I know bothers you. Something that affects the lives of South Africans so badly that some are driven to suicide. Something that proves that Man will never be perfect. This something is the current television ads...
I once was really into Scrubs and CSI, but other than that I've never really been much of a series fan. However, recently I have been tuning into SABC 2 on Fridays to watch an episode a week of NCIS (which by the way is brilliant) and every episode that is on is punctuated by several ad-breaks. This in itself is not a cadenza, but it is what is on during those breaks that utterly defy logic. There is one short 30-second ad about some other drama about Sipho breaking up with Jane who secretly loves Francis...etc, and for the rest of the five minute break they run these short and really annoying ad's urging me to SMS 'Love' to 31425 to receive a 'sexy poem or love tip' or 'Hit' to 34121 to receive 'the latest top of the charts music' NOW! for only 1 rand per tip/song (or something along the lines of that). Four things bother me about these ads. The first is the unbearable repetitiveness and frequency of the ad's (they're on ALL THE TIME). The second is how the broadcasting stations allow such utter drivel to be screened. The third is that there is so much fine line writing and terms-and-conditions that nobody notices that if they do send the SMS 'NOW!' they will be subscribing to a 'service' that charges something like R50 per subscribtion per day, which you then have to pay to unsubscribe from (This newfound knowledge of mine was acquired after much study of the ad's and very agonising attempts to read small print very quickly). But the fourth thing is the worst: the fourth thing that not only bothers but worries me is that anyone would comply with the advert and actually send an SMS. Doesn't anyone have the common sense to know that most if not all of these "SMSing" companies are absolute rubbish in the sense that they're as reliable and trustworthy as Krakatau (which, for those of you who didn't know, blew up quite spontaneously quite a while ago...). The really disturbing thing is that the numbers show that people don't realise this. All these SMS adverts must be working because the companies must be generating a huge income to pay for all those TV ad's. And that means that there are tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of people out there who will believe anything that is put on the TV. Think about it, ten or more thousand people in a country that's stricken with poverty, crime and political unrest, all doing what some small box with wires in it tells them to do. Now that's a scary thought.
________________________________________________________
On another matter, I've been getting some complaints recently from no-one in particular (that no one being the English teachers, of course) that I write pieces that are too long. My argument is that if it's too long for you to read then sod off. Please get back to me on this, because if the majority of you actually appreciate art and enjoy my long stories then I shall continue writing a lot, and if the majority of you are Philistines and don't like my long passages then, well, I'll probably ignore you and continue writing a lot anyway. But feedback would be nice, to anyone who cares.
Does anyone else find it distressing how Valentine's day (and any other holiday your can think of) has turned into a marketing ploy. I was walking around the shops this afternoon and everywhere I looked there were signs advertising sales, specials and general cut-down prices which indicate that the mark-up was too high in the first place. There was even one store that was advertising a two for one special on 'Happy Valentines Day, my love" cards. I mean, what were they thinking? Maybe you'd give one to your spouse and one to your secretary? Anyway, the point is that I don't think there is anything left on this earth that hasn't somehow been turned into a plan to make more money. Think about fashion fads, for one thing. Items that are essential and everyday for certain jobs have been manipulated into becoming essential for looking 'hip and cool'. Examples of modern materialistic manipulation are Rayban aviators, bikers' leather jackets, and dogtags. How the hell can something designed to identify the remnants of a mangled, gory bomb explosion have become a fashionable item? But this isn't the worst part, oh no. The absolute worst thing about this whole money making system is the way all these things are advertised. Anywhere you go these days, you will be pummelled with advertisements. When I say anywhere I'm talking about if you go to one of Pluto’s far moons you may just have a slight chance of evading the marketing section of some or other small business, that type of anywhere. I don't mind people putting up posters around their local newsagengy to tell all the old people that they're selling small koala bears, because that's taking initiative (which is good), but ad's become a bit ridiculous when once you've walked into a store to buy a pencil you are suddenly greeted by an unending array of signs advising you to invest in housing developments in eastern Thailand. On any road in South Africa there is sure to be (and I will bet money on this) some sort of sign or billboard on the side telling you how Johnston's window repair is the best and cheapest window repair around, or something like that. It may seem like I am being pedantic, but I am just building up to something that I know bothers you. Something that affects the lives of South Africans so badly that some are driven to suicide. Something that proves that Man will never be perfect. This something is the current television ads...
I once was really into Scrubs and CSI, but other than that I've never really been much of a series fan. However, recently I have been tuning into SABC 2 on Fridays to watch an episode a week of NCIS (which by the way is brilliant) and every episode that is on is punctuated by several ad-breaks. This in itself is not a cadenza, but it is what is on during those breaks that utterly defy logic. There is one short 30-second ad about some other drama about Sipho breaking up with Jane who secretly loves Francis...etc, and for the rest of the five minute break they run these short and really annoying ad's urging me to SMS 'Love' to 31425 to receive a 'sexy poem or love tip' or 'Hit' to 34121 to receive 'the latest top of the charts music' NOW! for only 1 rand per tip/song (or something along the lines of that). Four things bother me about these ads. The first is the unbearable repetitiveness and frequency of the ad's (they're on ALL THE TIME). The second is how the broadcasting stations allow such utter drivel to be screened. The third is that there is so much fine line writing and terms-and-conditions that nobody notices that if they do send the SMS 'NOW!' they will be subscribing to a 'service' that charges something like R50 per subscribtion per day, which you then have to pay to unsubscribe from (This newfound knowledge of mine was acquired after much study of the ad's and very agonising attempts to read small print very quickly). But the fourth thing is the worst: the fourth thing that not only bothers but worries me is that anyone would comply with the advert and actually send an SMS. Doesn't anyone have the common sense to know that most if not all of these "SMSing" companies are absolute rubbish in the sense that they're as reliable and trustworthy as Krakatau (which, for those of you who didn't know, blew up quite spontaneously quite a while ago...). The really disturbing thing is that the numbers show that people don't realise this. All these SMS adverts must be working because the companies must be generating a huge income to pay for all those TV ad's. And that means that there are tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of people out there who will believe anything that is put on the TV. Think about it, ten or more thousand people in a country that's stricken with poverty, crime and political unrest, all doing what some small box with wires in it tells them to do. Now that's a scary thought.
________________________________________________________
On another matter, I've been getting some complaints recently from no-one in particular (that no one being the English teachers, of course) that I write pieces that are too long. My argument is that if it's too long for you to read then sod off. Please get back to me on this, because if the majority of you actually appreciate art and enjoy my long stories then I shall continue writing a lot, and if the majority of you are Philistines and don't like my long passages then, well, I'll probably ignore you and continue writing a lot anyway. But feedback would be nice, to anyone who cares.
Friday, February 13, 2009
English's 100 most beautiful words
It's official! The the 100 most beautiful words in English have been selected. Compiled by "Dr. Goodword" (a.k.a Dr. Robert Beard) the list aims to present the “most beautiful words in sounds and meaning".
Here they are (in alphabetical order, not in order of "beautifulness"):
1. adroit (Dexterous, agile.)
2. adumbrate (To very gently suggest.)
3. aestivate (To summer, to spend the summer.)
4. ailurophile (A cat-lover.)
5. beatific (Befitting an angel or saint.)
6. beleaguer (To exhaust with attacks.)
7. blandiloquent (Beautiful and flattering.)
8. caliginous (Dark and misty.)
9. champagne (An effervescent wine.)
10. chatoyant (Like a cat's eye.)
11. chiaroscuro (The arrangement of dark and light elements in a picture.)
12. cockle (A heart-shaped bivalve or a garden flower.)
13. colporteur (A book peddlar.)
14. conflate (To blend together, to combine different things.)
15. cynosure (A focal point of admiration.)
16. desuetude (Disuse.)
17. diaphanous (Filmy.)
18. diffuse (Spread out, not focused or concentrated.)
19. dulcet (Sweet, sugary.)
20. ebullient (Bubbling with enthusiasm.)
21. effervescent (Bubbly.)
22. efflorescence (Flowering, the opening of buds or a bloom.)
23. elixir (A good potion.)
24. emollient (A softener.)
25. encomium (A spoken or written work in praise of someone.)
26. ephemeral (Short-lived.)
27. epicure (A person who enjoys fine living, especially food and drink.)
28. epiphany (A sudden revelation.)
29. erstwhile (At one time, for a time.)
30. eschew (To reject or avoid.)
31. esculent (Edible.)
32. esoteric (Understood only by a small group of specialists.)
33. ethereal (Gaseous, invisible but detectable.)
34. etiolate (White from no contact with light.)
35. evanescent (Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.)
36. exuberant (Enthusiastic, excited.)
37. felicitous (Pleasing.)
38. fescue (A variety of grass favored for pastures.)
39. foudroyant (Dazzling.)
40. fragile (Very, very delicate.)
41. fugacioius (Running, escaping.)
42. gambol (To skip or leap about joyfully.)
43. glamour (Beauty.)
44. gossamer (The finest piece of thread, a spider's silk.)
45. halcyon (Happy, sunny, care-free.)
46. hymeneal (Having to do with a wedding.)
47. imbricate (To overlap to form a regular pattern.)
48. imbroglio (An altercation or complicated situation.)
49. imbue (To infuse, instill.)
50. incipient (Beginning, in an early stage.)
51. ingenue (A naïve young woman.)
52. inglenook (The place beside the fireplace.)
53. inspissate (To thicken.)
54. inure (To jade.)
55. jejune (Dull; childish.)
56. lagniappe (A gift given to a customer for their patronage.)
57. lagoon (A small gulf or inlet in the sea.)
58. languor (Listlessness, inactivity.)
59. lassitude (Weariness, listlessness.)
60. laughter (The response to something funny.)
61. lilt (To move musically or lively, to have a lively sound.)
62. lithe (Slender and flexible.)
63. loquacious (Talkative.)
64. luxuriant (Thick, lavish.)
65. mellifluous (Sweet-sounding.)
66. missive (A message or letter.)
67. moiety (One of two equal parts, a half.)
68. mondegreen (A misanalyzed phrase.)
69. nebulous (Foggy.)
70. niveous (Snowy, snow-like.)
71. obsequious (Fawning, subservience.)
72. odalisque (A concubine in a harem.)
73. oeuvre (A work.)
74. offing (That part of the sea between the horizon and the offshore.)
75. onomatopoeia (The creation of words by imitating sound.)
76. paean (A formal expression of praise.)
77. palimpsest (A manuscript written over one or more earlier ones.)
78. panacea (A complete solution for all problems.)
79. panoply (A complete set.)
80. pastiche (A mixture of art work (art or music) from various sources.)
81. peccadillo (A peculiarity.)
82. pelagic (Related to the sea or ocean.)
83. penumbra (A half-shadow, the edge of a shadow.)
84. peregrination (Wandering, travels.)
85. petrichor (The smell of earth after a rain.)
86. plethora (A great excess, overabundance.)
87. porcelain (A fine white clay pottery.)
88. potamophilous (Loving rivers.)
89. propinquity (A nearness, similarity, or kinship.)
90. Pyrrhic (Victorious despite heavy losses.)
91. quintessential (The ultimate, the essence of the essence.)
92. redolent (Sweet-smelling.)
93. rhapsody (A beautiful musical piece.)
94. riparian (Having to do with the bank of a river or other body of water.)
95. ripple (A small, circular wave emanating from a central point.)
96. scintillate (To sparkle with brilliant light.)
97. sempiternal (Forever and ever.)
98. seraglio (Housing for a harem.)
99. serendipity (Finding something while looking for something else.)
100. surreptitious (Sneaky.)
Now, who wants to try to write a story using all those words? It could be about an adroit, lithe ingenue in a beautific gossamer gown gambolling in the garden enjoying the petrichor. Or something.
Here they are (in alphabetical order, not in order of "beautifulness"):
1. adroit (Dexterous, agile.)
2. adumbrate (To very gently suggest.)
3. aestivate (To summer, to spend the summer.)
4. ailurophile (A cat-lover.)
5. beatific (Befitting an angel or saint.)
6. beleaguer (To exhaust with attacks.)
7. blandiloquent (Beautiful and flattering.)
8. caliginous (Dark and misty.)
9. champagne (An effervescent wine.)
10. chatoyant (Like a cat's eye.)
11. chiaroscuro (The arrangement of dark and light elements in a picture.)
12. cockle (A heart-shaped bivalve or a garden flower.)
13. colporteur (A book peddlar.)
14. conflate (To blend together, to combine different things.)
15. cynosure (A focal point of admiration.)
16. desuetude (Disuse.)
17. diaphanous (Filmy.)
18. diffuse (Spread out, not focused or concentrated.)
19. dulcet (Sweet, sugary.)
20. ebullient (Bubbling with enthusiasm.)
21. effervescent (Bubbly.)
22. efflorescence (Flowering, the opening of buds or a bloom.)
23. elixir (A good potion.)
24. emollient (A softener.)
25. encomium (A spoken or written work in praise of someone.)
26. ephemeral (Short-lived.)
27. epicure (A person who enjoys fine living, especially food and drink.)
28. epiphany (A sudden revelation.)
29. erstwhile (At one time, for a time.)
30. eschew (To reject or avoid.)
31. esculent (Edible.)
32. esoteric (Understood only by a small group of specialists.)
33. ethereal (Gaseous, invisible but detectable.)
34. etiolate (White from no contact with light.)
35. evanescent (Vanishing quickly, lasting a very short time.)
36. exuberant (Enthusiastic, excited.)
37. felicitous (Pleasing.)
38. fescue (A variety of grass favored for pastures.)
39. foudroyant (Dazzling.)
40. fragile (Very, very delicate.)
41. fugacioius (Running, escaping.)
42. gambol (To skip or leap about joyfully.)
43. glamour (Beauty.)
44. gossamer (The finest piece of thread, a spider's silk.)
45. halcyon (Happy, sunny, care-free.)
46. hymeneal (Having to do with a wedding.)
47. imbricate (To overlap to form a regular pattern.)
48. imbroglio (An altercation or complicated situation.)
49. imbue (To infuse, instill.)
50. incipient (Beginning, in an early stage.)
51. ingenue (A naïve young woman.)
52. inglenook (The place beside the fireplace.)
53. inspissate (To thicken.)
54. inure (To jade.)
55. jejune (Dull; childish.)
56. lagniappe (A gift given to a customer for their patronage.)
57. lagoon (A small gulf or inlet in the sea.)
58. languor (Listlessness, inactivity.)
59. lassitude (Weariness, listlessness.)
60. laughter (The response to something funny.)
61. lilt (To move musically or lively, to have a lively sound.)
62. lithe (Slender and flexible.)
63. loquacious (Talkative.)
64. luxuriant (Thick, lavish.)
65. mellifluous (Sweet-sounding.)
66. missive (A message or letter.)
67. moiety (One of two equal parts, a half.)
68. mondegreen (A misanalyzed phrase.)
69. nebulous (Foggy.)
70. niveous (Snowy, snow-like.)
71. obsequious (Fawning, subservience.)
72. odalisque (A concubine in a harem.)
73. oeuvre (A work.)
74. offing (That part of the sea between the horizon and the offshore.)
75. onomatopoeia (The creation of words by imitating sound.)
76. paean (A formal expression of praise.)
77. palimpsest (A manuscript written over one or more earlier ones.)
78. panacea (A complete solution for all problems.)
79. panoply (A complete set.)
80. pastiche (A mixture of art work (art or music) from various sources.)
81. peccadillo (A peculiarity.)
82. pelagic (Related to the sea or ocean.)
83. penumbra (A half-shadow, the edge of a shadow.)
84. peregrination (Wandering, travels.)
85. petrichor (The smell of earth after a rain.)
86. plethora (A great excess, overabundance.)
87. porcelain (A fine white clay pottery.)
88. potamophilous (Loving rivers.)
89. propinquity (A nearness, similarity, or kinship.)
90. Pyrrhic (Victorious despite heavy losses.)
91. quintessential (The ultimate, the essence of the essence.)
92. redolent (Sweet-smelling.)
93. rhapsody (A beautiful musical piece.)
94. riparian (Having to do with the bank of a river or other body of water.)
95. ripple (A small, circular wave emanating from a central point.)
96. scintillate (To sparkle with brilliant light.)
97. sempiternal (Forever and ever.)
98. seraglio (Housing for a harem.)
99. serendipity (Finding something while looking for something else.)
100. surreptitious (Sneaky.)
Now, who wants to try to write a story using all those words? It could be about an adroit, lithe ingenue in a beautific gossamer gown gambolling in the garden enjoying the petrichor. Or something.
Ma'am van Zyl
Thursday, February 12, 2009
That's why
He asked me to write a poem about racism and I thought that that was just so typical of a black person
I am black
He is white
Just for today
Because we wanted to be
It would be cool
Deep
Sometimes we wonder if
We can be them
We don't want to be
But we do
Sometimes
Like today
So I did what he asked
Not because he's black
Because I wanted to
Because he wanted to
That's why
______
Alex Schorr
I am black
He is white
Just for today
Because we wanted to be
It would be cool
Deep
Sometimes we wonder if
We can be them
We don't want to be
But we do
Sometimes
Like today
So I did what he asked
Not because he's black
Because I wanted to
Because he wanted to
That's why
______
Alex Schorr
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Today's debate
Greetings!
We really enjoyed your debate today.
A couple of things to bear in mind:
- The house that was arguing that 'facebook is the future' should perhaps have begun by defining what they meant by 'the future'. This might have salvaged some of your argument and kept you from being cornered by the opposition.
- Don't take things so personally...! :) Keep your cool.
And the winners are... The Opposition. Mostly because your floor was good. But it was close: James Langlands nearly swung things the other way right at the end.
We really enjoyed your debate today.
A couple of things to bear in mind:
- The house that was arguing that 'facebook is the future' should perhaps have begun by defining what they meant by 'the future'. This might have salvaged some of your argument and kept you from being cornered by the opposition.
- Don't take things so personally...! :) Keep your cool.
And the winners are... The Opposition. Mostly because your floor was good. But it was close: James Langlands nearly swung things the other way right at the end.
Friday, February 6, 2009
facebook tragedy
Read the following article from the Beeld newspaper, for DEBATE : Tuesday 10 February
Topic: This house believes that facebook is the future.
'The time has come' 05/02/2009 23:19 - (SA)
Marida Fitzpatrick, Beeld
Pretoria - The former Affie who shot himself posted a suicide note on Facebook minutes before pulling the trigger.
"May it go quickly and clean, the time has come. Life's a b**** and then you die, so f*** it," was the last Facebook status by Rick Horn, 19, former pupil of Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool in Pretoria.
He also posted a note on the social networking site entitled "Death": "I would never have thought this morning when I got up that the day would turn out like this, but here I am at last, to do what I should have done long ago. Thanks for everything. Mwa."
A friend who has access to his Facebook profile, said this note was posted on Monday morning at about 10:50.
The police found Horn just after 11:00 on an open piece of veld in Polokwane. He'd shot himself in the head with a pistol.
Facebook hate group
His friends suspect problems in his matric year and a Facebook hate group had played a role in the tragedy.
"It haunted him," said Xander Coetzee, 20, his former roommate at Stellenbosch University's Goldfields residence on Thursday.
"The rejection had a bigger impact on Rick than people realised."
Horn made the headlines in 2007 when he laid a charge of assault against the Affies headmaster, Dr Pierre Edwards.
The case was later struck from the roll.
"His mistakes haunted him and people couldn't forgive him," said Ilana Taljaard, 21, a friend.
In 2007, Horn's matric year, a group was formed on Facebook where fellow Affies, among others, cursed and reviled Horn. The group still exists and has 123 members.
"It's cruel and had an enormous impact on him," Taljaard said.
'Sorry dude'
A few of the group members apologised after Horn's suicide.
"Sorry, dude. Hope you have found peace," reads one of the postings.
"I just want to sincerely apologise that I had been part of a group like this. It was a sensitive issue for matrics, but ... no one deserves to leave the world like this," reads another posting.
In the meantime, another group has been started on Facebook to pay tribute to Horn.
Coetzee said Horn had set the bad experiences from his past aside and enjoyed student life, "but we know there was always the sad part of Rick that felt rejected about the Affies incident".
Taljaard talked to him on the evening before his suicide. "He was . . . happy and said he missed us and wanted to come and visit."
- Beeld
Topic: This house believes that facebook is the future.
'The time has come' 05/02/2009 23:19 - (SA)
Marida Fitzpatrick, Beeld
Pretoria - The former Affie who shot himself posted a suicide note on Facebook minutes before pulling the trigger.
"May it go quickly and clean, the time has come. Life's a b**** and then you die, so f*** it," was the last Facebook status by Rick Horn, 19, former pupil of Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool in Pretoria.
He also posted a note on the social networking site entitled "Death": "I would never have thought this morning when I got up that the day would turn out like this, but here I am at last, to do what I should have done long ago. Thanks for everything. Mwa."
A friend who has access to his Facebook profile, said this note was posted on Monday morning at about 10:50.
The police found Horn just after 11:00 on an open piece of veld in Polokwane. He'd shot himself in the head with a pistol.
Facebook hate group
His friends suspect problems in his matric year and a Facebook hate group had played a role in the tragedy.
"It haunted him," said Xander Coetzee, 20, his former roommate at Stellenbosch University's Goldfields residence on Thursday.
"The rejection had a bigger impact on Rick than people realised."
Horn made the headlines in 2007 when he laid a charge of assault against the Affies headmaster, Dr Pierre Edwards.
The case was later struck from the roll.
"His mistakes haunted him and people couldn't forgive him," said Ilana Taljaard, 21, a friend.
In 2007, Horn's matric year, a group was formed on Facebook where fellow Affies, among others, cursed and reviled Horn. The group still exists and has 123 members.
"It's cruel and had an enormous impact on him," Taljaard said.
'Sorry dude'
A few of the group members apologised after Horn's suicide.
"Sorry, dude. Hope you have found peace," reads one of the postings.
"I just want to sincerely apologise that I had been part of a group like this. It was a sensitive issue for matrics, but ... no one deserves to leave the world like this," reads another posting.
In the meantime, another group has been started on Facebook to pay tribute to Horn.
Coetzee said Horn had set the bad experiences from his past aside and enjoyed student life, "but we know there was always the sad part of Rick that felt rejected about the Affies incident".
Taljaard talked to him on the evening before his suicide. "He was . . . happy and said he missed us and wanted to come and visit."
- Beeld
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Big words?
I have always striven to have a large vocab, I cant spell half the words Im saying and I dont have a huge vocab. The thing is some people still think it nescasary to say big words to sound smart. Just the other day for instance the word "pedantic" came up. Being curious I enquired as to what the meaning is, the answer I was given was "you dont need to know what it means its just important that you use"(I wont use names...Herman). Its like as long as the person your talking to is as clueless as you its OK to use big words.
The big issue is that a huge portion of college, and the youth in general, dont use words that are bigger than four letters. The way I see it there are those who can speak english well, and those who no speak english good.
Then again I cant exactly kick a ball to the other side of the world, or hit a fly with a cricket ball blind folded. Yes I am refering to the jocks of the school. It doesnt realy matter that that they dont have a huge vocabulary, they've got their huge muscles. And I guess that both could be used to scare small children. Their most probably saying, there is two kinds of people jocks and not jocks.
Back to the point of a big vocab, use with caution. People who try to hard often end up looking like idiots. For example stay away from french sayings to try sound sophisticated (jen ay se qua...I spelt it how it soungds)
Just to end the passage the definition of pedantic from dictionary.referance.com is:
–adjective
1.
ostentatious in one's learning.
2.
overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, esp. in teaching.
Keagan Leamy
The big issue is that a huge portion of college, and the youth in general, dont use words that are bigger than four letters. The way I see it there are those who can speak english well, and those who no speak english good.
Then again I cant exactly kick a ball to the other side of the world, or hit a fly with a cricket ball blind folded. Yes I am refering to the jocks of the school. It doesnt realy matter that that they dont have a huge vocabulary, they've got their huge muscles. And I guess that both could be used to scare small children. Their most probably saying, there is two kinds of people jocks and not jocks.
Back to the point of a big vocab, use with caution. People who try to hard often end up looking like idiots. For example stay away from french sayings to try sound sophisticated (jen ay se qua...I spelt it how it soungds)
Just to end the passage the definition of pedantic from dictionary.referance.com is:
–adjective
1.
ostentatious in one's learning.
2.
overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, esp. in teaching.
Keagan Leamy
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
No Rain, No Pain?
I wasn’t going to post again until next week, as I’m sure that people will easily get sick and tired of hearing me rant on about the usual (i.e. school, teachers, discipline, Americans, etc) for too long, but I think that this morning’s rain storm has given me a rather good writing opportunity.
It wasn’t the biggest, longest or loudest storm I have ever experienced, but it definitely seemed like the wettest. It was really strange, because during the 11 minute Assembly there was absolutely no rain, and then five minutes later there was more water on the campus than in the Baltic Sea. I was in the library at the moment that the rain became really intense, and I decided to wait until it died down a bit before making a break to MacRobert. Now, you have to understand that the only people in the library at the time were Ross Friend and Pieter Strydom doing accounting homework, and a couple of Form 1s listening to a song by (and worth) 50 cents about how many times he had been shot (or somthing like that). As neither group offered much in the form of entertainment, I cut my wait short and decided to sod the rain and run for it. So, out of the library I ran like hell and high water (oh, the irony) back to MacRobert house. When I got there I assessed the damages. My blazer was soaked, my trousers were soaked, my shirt was soaked and for some very strange reason there was about three and a half litres of water in my shoes, so every time I took a step my feet made a funny squelching noise. So I got to my study, emptied my shoes and wrung out my blazer (an action which feels very strange and unnatural). I honestly thought the worst was over so I put on some dry things and walked out of my study...
I was slightly worried when I saw ‘Zeech’ (who lives in the same wing as me) staring at the floor and swearing. I thought he was going mad, until I saw just what he was staring at. There was a rapidly expanding puddle on the floor, the source of which was somewhere under Anthony’s door. The fact that Anthony was not present at the time caused somewhat of a dilemma. By the time we found him the puddle was not so much a puddle as a lake. He ran into the wing, looked at the puddle and said s***. Then he looked at his door and said s*** again. As he opened his door I saw the strangest thing I have seen in a long time. A pair of flip-flops floated (and I mean floated!) out of his door and down the corridor. He said s*** again. What had happened was that a large pool had formed outside and the water was flowing in through the bottom of the 'outer-leading' door. After about half an hour of swearing and bailing out (doesn’t that usually happen on ships?), things finally calmed down a bit. I was now able to see what else the rain had done. For a start, let’s just say that we won’t be watching the first team Cricket on the Oval on Saturday, so much as the first team Rowing. All the fields were flooded. I was told that the field next to the Spruit was especially flooded, so I went to check it out. As a result I saw the strangest thing I’ve ever seen since the floating sandals half an hour before: people were swimming on the field. Call me old fashioned, but isn’t swimming generally done in a pool or something?
And then, just as instantly as it had arrived, the rain stopped. Granted, there was still a light trickle, which could (I suppose) be called rain, but (next to the downpour) that would be like comparing a small, dripping tap to Niagara Falls. Although the rain has stopped, I don’t think this is over yet. For one thing, there is still a huge amount of water under the carpets in the Matric Wing in MacRobert, and although I’m no expert, I have a slight feeling that that will soon start to smell a bit.
On another matter, I think that something should be done about the amount of adults, especially teachers, who are influencing students into doing really rebellious things (oh, I don’t know... getting tattoos, for example?) Anybody who has any comments or queries (with specific reference to the passage named INK) please feel free to contact me.
Hosken
It wasn’t the biggest, longest or loudest storm I have ever experienced, but it definitely seemed like the wettest. It was really strange, because during the 11 minute Assembly there was absolutely no rain, and then five minutes later there was more water on the campus than in the Baltic Sea. I was in the library at the moment that the rain became really intense, and I decided to wait until it died down a bit before making a break to MacRobert. Now, you have to understand that the only people in the library at the time were Ross Friend and Pieter Strydom doing accounting homework, and a couple of Form 1s listening to a song by (and worth) 50 cents about how many times he had been shot (or somthing like that). As neither group offered much in the form of entertainment, I cut my wait short and decided to sod the rain and run for it. So, out of the library I ran like hell and high water (oh, the irony) back to MacRobert house. When I got there I assessed the damages. My blazer was soaked, my trousers were soaked, my shirt was soaked and for some very strange reason there was about three and a half litres of water in my shoes, so every time I took a step my feet made a funny squelching noise. So I got to my study, emptied my shoes and wrung out my blazer (an action which feels very strange and unnatural). I honestly thought the worst was over so I put on some dry things and walked out of my study...
I was slightly worried when I saw ‘Zeech’ (who lives in the same wing as me) staring at the floor and swearing. I thought he was going mad, until I saw just what he was staring at. There was a rapidly expanding puddle on the floor, the source of which was somewhere under Anthony’s door. The fact that Anthony was not present at the time caused somewhat of a dilemma. By the time we found him the puddle was not so much a puddle as a lake. He ran into the wing, looked at the puddle and said s***. Then he looked at his door and said s*** again. As he opened his door I saw the strangest thing I have seen in a long time. A pair of flip-flops floated (and I mean floated!) out of his door and down the corridor. He said s*** again. What had happened was that a large pool had formed outside and the water was flowing in through the bottom of the 'outer-leading' door. After about half an hour of swearing and bailing out (doesn’t that usually happen on ships?), things finally calmed down a bit. I was now able to see what else the rain had done. For a start, let’s just say that we won’t be watching the first team Cricket on the Oval on Saturday, so much as the first team Rowing. All the fields were flooded. I was told that the field next to the Spruit was especially flooded, so I went to check it out. As a result I saw the strangest thing I’ve ever seen since the floating sandals half an hour before: people were swimming on the field. Call me old fashioned, but isn’t swimming generally done in a pool or something?
And then, just as instantly as it had arrived, the rain stopped. Granted, there was still a light trickle, which could (I suppose) be called rain, but (next to the downpour) that would be like comparing a small, dripping tap to Niagara Falls. Although the rain has stopped, I don’t think this is over yet. For one thing, there is still a huge amount of water under the carpets in the Matric Wing in MacRobert, and although I’m no expert, I have a slight feeling that that will soon start to smell a bit.
On another matter, I think that something should be done about the amount of adults, especially teachers, who are influencing students into doing really rebellious things (oh, I don’t know... getting tattoos, for example?) Anybody who has any comments or queries (with specific reference to the passage named INK) please feel free to contact me.
Hosken
Breath
Click on this link for a review of Tim Winton’s novel, Breath, which is all the rage (http://australian-literature.suite101.com/article.cfm/breath_tim_wintons_latest_novel ).
We are thinking of prescribing it for the Form 3s in the second term. Have any of you read it? What do you think?
Some of you were asking about Cammy this morning (thanks!). The pic is of him doing his bit to make sure Ochse takes the Diligence Trophy… :)
Ma’am R
We are thinking of prescribing it for the Form 3s in the second term. Have any of you read it? What do you think?
Some of you were asking about Cammy this morning (thanks!). The pic is of him doing his bit to make sure Ochse takes the Diligence Trophy… :)
Ma’am R
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
INK
It happened about twenty seven times. A student would put up his hand and catch my eye. So I’d walk over trying to put on my most intelligent-looking face and recall everything I know about Shakespeare’s Henry V. But inevitably, the question would have nothing to do with Henry, and everything to do with my tattoo (and the state I was in when I got it).
So, here it is. The story of my tattoo:
I was on a “gap year” in the UK when my cousin decided he wanted an enormous (and relatively ugly) dragon tattooed on the outside of his left bicep. I decided to tag along and watch.
So we took a train from London to Brighton (the tattoo artists there were cheaper than in London, and, being on a gap year, we were finding it hard enough to eat even one square meal a day, so we obviously wanted to spare every pence possible).
The tattoo parlour was a dingy place which had an obese, head-to-toe tattooed, bald lady as a receptionist.
While my cousin was being “inked” I decided that I wanted a tattoo too. Not very deep or profound, I know. But I just wanted one too.
It is a sun (which was on the back of my Van’s sneaker) and it has two intertwining eternity signs (which I copied from a ring I was wearing) in the middle of it.
So that was it. It cost £30. It was very sore – I think I bit my tongue until it was quite raw. I don’t regret it. And I was 100% sober when I got it. And no, I am not suggesting that you go out and get a tattoo too. But if you absolutely have to get one (when you are old and wise and no longer at school), here’s my advice: get it on a part of your body that won’t sag! ‘Cause a saggy tattoo is just gross. Eeew (involuntary shudder).
Ma’am van Zyl
So, here it is. The story of my tattoo:
I was on a “gap year” in the UK when my cousin decided he wanted an enormous (and relatively ugly) dragon tattooed on the outside of his left bicep. I decided to tag along and watch.
So we took a train from London to Brighton (the tattoo artists there were cheaper than in London, and, being on a gap year, we were finding it hard enough to eat even one square meal a day, so we obviously wanted to spare every pence possible).
The tattoo parlour was a dingy place which had an obese, head-to-toe tattooed, bald lady as a receptionist.
While my cousin was being “inked” I decided that I wanted a tattoo too. Not very deep or profound, I know. But I just wanted one too.
It is a sun (which was on the back of my Van’s sneaker) and it has two intertwining eternity signs (which I copied from a ring I was wearing) in the middle of it.
So that was it. It cost £30. It was very sore – I think I bit my tongue until it was quite raw. I don’t regret it. And I was 100% sober when I got it. And no, I am not suggesting that you go out and get a tattoo too. But if you absolutely have to get one (when you are old and wise and no longer at school), here’s my advice: get it on a part of your body that won’t sag! ‘Cause a saggy tattoo is just gross. Eeew (involuntary shudder).
Ma’am van Zyl
Technicalities of technicians
If you are reading this then not only has the article passed under Ma’am Reyburn’s acceptability radar but the computer you are using has not yet fallen prey to the St Alban’s IT department.
Allow me to explain.
It all started on a lovely Sunday evening with a single thought: “Facebook”.
A simple desire by all accounts but one riddled with petty flaws.
As the Ochse House computers and their permanent residents have by this stage morphed into single beings I had no choice but to log on with my laptop, just as I had a week previously.
This required the simple act of connecting to the new and improved school network.
There was only one problem…I couldn’t.
For whatever reason I was now required to take my laptop to the “techies” up at STA-Tech for a few network adjustments. So, leaving my computer in the hands of the boffs, I left to fulfill my various sporting and extramural commitments.
Upon my return nearly three hours later I found my laptop exactly where I had left it. Amidst complaints of “…so many laptops to sort out these days…” (well DUH! Everyone with a laptop in the school has to bring it in to be connected) my computer was inspected.
After another half an hour of waiting I was told to return in the morning.
I was only too happy to oblige because, being in Form Four, I had practically no work and research to do that night.
The next morning during the third period I had IT where I needed my computer for fairly obvious reasons. So I began the journey from the maths classes where we do IT to TODD where people were doing maths.
After a few last minute adjustments and instructions on how to re-enter the wireless settings everytime the network disconnects for a second, I returned to IT for a period of Facebook.
So, with no standardised test the next day (it was business studies), I decided to get some information for future projects.
After a quick scavenger-hunt to try and relocate all my files and folders now randomly situated throughout the computer (except where I put them), I decided that it might be nice to listen to some music while working.
While waiting for I-Tunes to reinstall itself I noticed that my computer was not actually connected to the St Alban’s network.
I eventually found the one setting that the IT guy changed while I had watched him and did as he had done.
I clicked “ok” and waited for a second or two…
“at least one of the settings you changed did not change”
…
“ok”
…
Again
…
Again
…
Again
…
Ok…so maybe the new, improved system has some problems. I can just take it back again tomorrow.
Lets just do some accounting while listening to music.
Open I-Tunes.
…
?
…
What happened to all the music?
-----
Alex Schorr
Allow me to explain.
It all started on a lovely Sunday evening with a single thought: “Facebook”.
A simple desire by all accounts but one riddled with petty flaws.
As the Ochse House computers and their permanent residents have by this stage morphed into single beings I had no choice but to log on with my laptop, just as I had a week previously.
This required the simple act of connecting to the new and improved school network.
There was only one problem…I couldn’t.
For whatever reason I was now required to take my laptop to the “techies” up at STA-Tech for a few network adjustments. So, leaving my computer in the hands of the boffs, I left to fulfill my various sporting and extramural commitments.
Upon my return nearly three hours later I found my laptop exactly where I had left it. Amidst complaints of “…so many laptops to sort out these days…” (well DUH! Everyone with a laptop in the school has to bring it in to be connected) my computer was inspected.
After another half an hour of waiting I was told to return in the morning.
I was only too happy to oblige because, being in Form Four, I had practically no work and research to do that night.
The next morning during the third period I had IT where I needed my computer for fairly obvious reasons. So I began the journey from the maths classes where we do IT to TODD where people were doing maths.
After a few last minute adjustments and instructions on how to re-enter the wireless settings everytime the network disconnects for a second, I returned to IT for a period of Facebook.
So, with no standardised test the next day (it was business studies), I decided to get some information for future projects.
After a quick scavenger-hunt to try and relocate all my files and folders now randomly situated throughout the computer (except where I put them), I decided that it might be nice to listen to some music while working.
While waiting for I-Tunes to reinstall itself I noticed that my computer was not actually connected to the St Alban’s network.
I eventually found the one setting that the IT guy changed while I had watched him and did as he had done.
I clicked “ok” and waited for a second or two…
“at least one of the settings you changed did not change”
…
“ok”
…
Again
…
Again
…
Again
…
Ok…so maybe the new, improved system has some problems. I can just take it back again tomorrow.
Lets just do some accounting while listening to music.
Open I-Tunes.
…
?
…
What happened to all the music?
-----
Alex Schorr
Monday, February 2, 2009
Opinions on apostrophes...
Check out this article, forwarded from Mr Hamilton. (Then go on to read James's - note the apostrophe - seething, tumultous thoughts on Americans, and Pieter's tribute to Uncle Shane...)
When theyre gone, well all be struggling with English
Birmingham city councillors, trendy teachers and modern grammarians want to abolish the apostrophe but, says William Langley, proper punctuation should not be sentenced to death.
By William Langley Last Updated: 6:03PM GMT 31 Jan 2009
The problem child of English grammar is a tiny, tadpole-shaped bundle of trouble that makes no sound, but spells chaos. Three centuries after it invaded our language (almost certainly sneaked in by the French), the apostrophe continues to defeat, confuse and humiliate large numbers of people, and, in retaliation, they want to abolish it.
Then we wont have to worry about where its supposed to go.
Last week Birmingham city council announced that it would no longer use apostrophes on street signs . Councillor Martin Mullaney, the Liberal Democrat chairman of its transport scrutiny committee, claimed that dropping them would make the city's signage policy "more consistent", and easier for users of computer databases and satellite navigation systems. Apparently, if you have the misfortune to be a Mr O'Dowd, needing a minicab from the King's Arms in D'Arcy Avenue, drivers can't find you.
So, St Paul's Square, an elegant, late-Georgian landmark in Jewellery Quarter, will become St Pauls Square. We'll have the fashionably de-apostrophised Druids Heath and Acocks Green, but things are unlikely to stop there. Once they start to slide they slide quickly, and it surely won't be long before Great Charles Street, in the shopping district, becomes GR8 Chas St.
It is tempting to blame all this on the march of the knuckle-dragging illiterates who populate the lower ranks of officialdom, commerce and much else, but a substantial part of the responsibility lies elsewhere. Particularly with the fashionable clique of modern grammarians which has the apostrophe in its sights. Prominent among this bunch are the likes of John Wells, emeritus professor of phonetics at University College London, who argues that strict rules of spelling and grammar "hold children back", and the linguist Kate Burridge, author of Weeds in the Garden of Words, who wants the possessive apostrophe scrapped. Prof Wells wants to replace the apostrophe with a blank space, and when Ms Burridge argued at a public meeting that it should be dropped, she was loudly booed and told that she said "you know" too much to be taken seriously. She is now engaged on a campaign to have the "Yeah-but-no-but" catchphrase of Little Britain dimwit Vicky Pollard entered into the Oxford English Dictionary.
The apostrophe, then, is not entirely friendless. John Richards, a retired newspaper sub-editor and founder of the Apostrophe Preservation Society, based in Boston, Lincolnshire, believes that most of us are fond of it, and struggle with its complexities only because we are set a poor example. Think, he says, of Barclays Bank, Butlins holiday camps and all those ladies wear departments in the stores. And now Birmingham is abandoning the fight. "They are taking the dumbing-down route, setting a terrible example, and letting down everyone who tries to teach proper grammar and punctuation," he says. "How difficult is it, really, to use an apostrophe?"
Sadly, on the current evidence, too difficult. The misuse of the apostrophe has spread everywhere, including into our classrooms. A recent survey of teachers found that almost half were unable to place one accurately in the sentence: "The Smiths' house is a disused windmill." Two thirds wrongly inserted one into: "The 70s was a great decade for music."
Why so hard? The apostrophe only has two real functions. In contracted verbs and pronouns it indicates something left out. as in "aren't" or "he'll". It also forms singular and plural possessives – eg "king's" or "kings'". Compared with some of the orthographical horrors lurking within the English language it should be a piece of cake, yet even the best-read and brightest can fail, or, at least refuse, to grasp it. George Bernard Shaw denounced apostrophes as "uncouth bacilli", and conspicuously ignored them. The critic C C Barfoot called their use "the single most unstable
feature of written English". The antagonism continues to grow.
And so, towards its death bed, the apostrophe has slipped – hastened on its way by trendy teaching, the proliferation of punctuation-free emailing and the seemingly unstoppable spread of hand-scrawled signs in the High Street that say "Best Carrot's" or "Todays Special".
Yet the advantages of proper usage are all-too obvious. Consider two examples offered by Britain's leading apostle of the apostrophe, Lynne Truss: "Those smelly things are my brothers." Now drop in the apostrophe and you get a different meaning: "Those smelly things are my brother's." Or this: "The dog's like my dad." Without the apostrophe it becomes more agreeable: "The dogs like my dad."
Unlike the determinedly purist French, the British have no equivalent of the Académie Française to defend their language. No government body – certainly not the Estuary-spouting Tessa Jowell's absurd Ministry of Culture Media and Sport – stands up for the endangered glories of the English tongue. The best we have are the likes of Ms Truss, author of the hit grammar book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and the BBC's John Humphrys, who believes text messaging is "doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago… destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary."
To fight back, we have to understand how the apostrophe became a feature – albeit a late one – of written English, and why it still has a role to play. Its roots lie in ancient Greece where the oratorical tradition included a device known as apostrophein, which literally meant "to turn away" but which, in practice, described the moment at which a speaker would turn from the audience to address people or things unseen. The word came to express the idea of something missing.
By the late Middle Ages it was appearing as "a floating comma" in books of Italian verse, and arrived in Britain, most probably from France, in the 16th century. Authors found it useful for forming elisions, and so making clear how a word was pronounced. Thus kiss'd would show that the word kissed had one syllable rather than two.
Confusion started when the apostrophe became an indicator of possession. Even educated scholars, according to Lynne Truss, struggled with "geniuses" and "genius's", and, particularly, the treatment of historic plurals such as "women" and "children". Slowly, the apostrophe gained a reputation for being awkward.
"But it isn't really," insists Richards. "It just needs to be understood, and treated with respect. I first started this society in despair at the number of mistakes I saw. I thought what a shame it was that something so useful was treated so badly." He began writing polite letters to proprietors of places such as "The Modern Mans Barbers Shop", and while not everyone took the advice kindly, his campaign made news around the English-speaking world. He was deluged with messages of support. "I've heard of people carrying felt pens and rolls of sticky tape around to correct mistakes," he says. "They are very attached to their apostrophes."
So they should be. In an age of falling standards, apostrophes stand as a line of defence. And when theyre gone, theyre gone.
When theyre gone, well all be struggling with English
Birmingham city councillors, trendy teachers and modern grammarians want to abolish the apostrophe but, says William Langley, proper punctuation should not be sentenced to death.
By William Langley Last Updated: 6:03PM GMT 31 Jan 2009
The problem child of English grammar is a tiny, tadpole-shaped bundle of trouble that makes no sound, but spells chaos. Three centuries after it invaded our language (almost certainly sneaked in by the French), the apostrophe continues to defeat, confuse and humiliate large numbers of people, and, in retaliation, they want to abolish it.
Then we wont have to worry about where its supposed to go.
Last week Birmingham city council announced that it would no longer use apostrophes on street signs . Councillor Martin Mullaney, the Liberal Democrat chairman of its transport scrutiny committee, claimed that dropping them would make the city's signage policy "more consistent", and easier for users of computer databases and satellite navigation systems. Apparently, if you have the misfortune to be a Mr O'Dowd, needing a minicab from the King's Arms in D'Arcy Avenue, drivers can't find you.
So, St Paul's Square, an elegant, late-Georgian landmark in Jewellery Quarter, will become St Pauls Square. We'll have the fashionably de-apostrophised Druids Heath and Acocks Green, but things are unlikely to stop there. Once they start to slide they slide quickly, and it surely won't be long before Great Charles Street, in the shopping district, becomes GR8 Chas St.
It is tempting to blame all this on the march of the knuckle-dragging illiterates who populate the lower ranks of officialdom, commerce and much else, but a substantial part of the responsibility lies elsewhere. Particularly with the fashionable clique of modern grammarians which has the apostrophe in its sights. Prominent among this bunch are the likes of John Wells, emeritus professor of phonetics at University College London, who argues that strict rules of spelling and grammar "hold children back", and the linguist Kate Burridge, author of Weeds in the Garden of Words, who wants the possessive apostrophe scrapped. Prof Wells wants to replace the apostrophe with a blank space, and when Ms Burridge argued at a public meeting that it should be dropped, she was loudly booed and told that she said "you know" too much to be taken seriously. She is now engaged on a campaign to have the "Yeah-but-no-but" catchphrase of Little Britain dimwit Vicky Pollard entered into the Oxford English Dictionary.
The apostrophe, then, is not entirely friendless. John Richards, a retired newspaper sub-editor and founder of the Apostrophe Preservation Society, based in Boston, Lincolnshire, believes that most of us are fond of it, and struggle with its complexities only because we are set a poor example. Think, he says, of Barclays Bank, Butlins holiday camps and all those ladies wear departments in the stores. And now Birmingham is abandoning the fight. "They are taking the dumbing-down route, setting a terrible example, and letting down everyone who tries to teach proper grammar and punctuation," he says. "How difficult is it, really, to use an apostrophe?"
Sadly, on the current evidence, too difficult. The misuse of the apostrophe has spread everywhere, including into our classrooms. A recent survey of teachers found that almost half were unable to place one accurately in the sentence: "The Smiths' house is a disused windmill." Two thirds wrongly inserted one into: "The 70s was a great decade for music."
Why so hard? The apostrophe only has two real functions. In contracted verbs and pronouns it indicates something left out. as in "aren't" or "he'll". It also forms singular and plural possessives – eg "king's" or "kings'". Compared with some of the orthographical horrors lurking within the English language it should be a piece of cake, yet even the best-read and brightest can fail, or, at least refuse, to grasp it. George Bernard Shaw denounced apostrophes as "uncouth bacilli", and conspicuously ignored them. The critic C C Barfoot called their use "the single most unstable
feature of written English". The antagonism continues to grow.
And so, towards its death bed, the apostrophe has slipped – hastened on its way by trendy teaching, the proliferation of punctuation-free emailing and the seemingly unstoppable spread of hand-scrawled signs in the High Street that say "Best Carrot's" or "Todays Special".
Yet the advantages of proper usage are all-too obvious. Consider two examples offered by Britain's leading apostle of the apostrophe, Lynne Truss: "Those smelly things are my brothers." Now drop in the apostrophe and you get a different meaning: "Those smelly things are my brother's." Or this: "The dog's like my dad." Without the apostrophe it becomes more agreeable: "The dogs like my dad."
Unlike the determinedly purist French, the British have no equivalent of the Académie Française to defend their language. No government body – certainly not the Estuary-spouting Tessa Jowell's absurd Ministry of Culture Media and Sport – stands up for the endangered glories of the English tongue. The best we have are the likes of Ms Truss, author of the hit grammar book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and the BBC's John Humphrys, who believes text messaging is "doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago… destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary."
To fight back, we have to understand how the apostrophe became a feature – albeit a late one – of written English, and why it still has a role to play. Its roots lie in ancient Greece where the oratorical tradition included a device known as apostrophein, which literally meant "to turn away" but which, in practice, described the moment at which a speaker would turn from the audience to address people or things unseen. The word came to express the idea of something missing.
By the late Middle Ages it was appearing as "a floating comma" in books of Italian verse, and arrived in Britain, most probably from France, in the 16th century. Authors found it useful for forming elisions, and so making clear how a word was pronounced. Thus kiss'd would show that the word kissed had one syllable rather than two.
Confusion started when the apostrophe became an indicator of possession. Even educated scholars, according to Lynne Truss, struggled with "geniuses" and "genius's", and, particularly, the treatment of historic plurals such as "women" and "children". Slowly, the apostrophe gained a reputation for being awkward.
"But it isn't really," insists Richards. "It just needs to be understood, and treated with respect. I first started this society in despair at the number of mistakes I saw. I thought what a shame it was that something so useful was treated so badly." He began writing polite letters to proprietors of places such as "The Modern Mans Barbers Shop", and while not everyone took the advice kindly, his campaign made news around the English-speaking world. He was deluged with messages of support. "I've heard of people carrying felt pens and rolls of sticky tape around to correct mistakes," he says. "They are very attached to their apostrophes."
So they should be. In an age of falling standards, apostrophes stand as a line of defence. And when theyre gone, theyre gone.
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