tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17074441650033057982024-02-19T09:24:24.268+01:00Sounds in the Hickory WindA Search for Beauty and Truth Through the Love of HedgehogsThe Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.comBlogger700125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-20490348663276886612018-06-11T23:54:00.000+02:002018-06-11T23:54:31.875+02:003 Real Life<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Tom was not concerned then
with a purpose. The world consisted largely of himself, its purpose was to
contain him, and his purpose was to do the things he did. He didn’t think about
it at that stage of his life. There seemed to be no need. In the absence of
knowledge or understanding of death, or change of any kind, or differences from
his own direct experience there was no intellectual possibility of asking why
he had been brought into being. That would come later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">His idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’
was very incomplete, and had no moral content at all. It was a pair of lists,
one containing what he was allowed to do, the other what would cause
punishment. The items were arbitrary, determined by his parents and his
teachers from motives he did not attempt to evaluate. He was annoyed, even one
could say unhappy, when he was punished, but only by the assault on his
freedom, not from any sense of having voluntarily reduced his humanity. Usually
the penalty was being sent to his room, which he was careful to hide was where
he would have been anyway through choice, or being deprived of some activity he
had not wanted to do in the first place. Adults had a very limited idea of what
he liked to do. They decided what he should like and assumed they were right.
Their observations of him, of his expressions and reactions, were insufficient
to tell them when they were wrong. Nor would they listen if he told them. So
sometimes being ‘bad’ brought a prize, and sometimes a punishment. He had not
developed the ability to guess what the result of incorrect behaviour would be,
and he was not naturally rebellious, not outwardly, and he tried to do what was
expected of him. The opprobrium of either of his parents was unpleasant, in any
case, and to be avoided.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">These things bothered him
little. The time had not yet come to seek meaning in it all. At that age he
merely knew that there were aspects of the life they tried to force him to live
that he did not like. He accepted them, as he accepted everything. He had yet
to learn that things need not be as they are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He spent most of his time on
the lake, and in his room he could go there freely, without explanation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">His parents were Methodists;
both having been brought up in that faith they helped each other to keep it and
to transmit it to Tom. They had met at a church social occasion and felt they
owed it to their religion to keep it alive. They were not strict about it, they
attended service most Sundays and used its teachings as a reference for their
own behaviour and their son’s when they felt they needed guidance. The minister
was quite easy to understand, and Tom was not always bored in church. He did
not always have to visit the lake during service. He found the ideas he heard
clear and fairly sensible, and the moral authority of the minister was most
convincing. Tom could not see how any of it had to do with him, though, nor why
it was really better to behave that way than any other. The ultimate authority
of God was far beyond his experience and the words of the minister on that
subject held no meaning. He could neither love nor fear God. It made no sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What he most enjoyed, when he
wasn’t on the lake, was playing with Jeremy at break-times at school, and on
Saturdays when one often went to the other’s house. If the weather was good and
his mother had time to take him they would meet in the park, where the shiny
green grass and the bright blue sky contrasted with the faded reds and yellows
of the swings and the roundabout, and they imagined themselves to be explorers in
the long grass or pirates on ships that swung and rocked beneath them, or
policeman or soldiers, or they imagined nothing, but were just little boys
having fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Tom looked forward to all
this, because it made school and the company of his classmates, and the torture
of sitting still and listening to his teacher buzzing in the distance, a little
more bearable. It was something to look forward to, and the importance of this
was not yet fully clear to him, but he liked to think that soon they would be
playing their games. Unless it rained, of course, and they had to stay in
class. Jeremy wasn’t very good at the sort of games that didn’t involve running
about and making noise, and he was no good at all at any pastime that wasn’t a
game.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At times he thought he would
like an older brother- he had seen younger brothers and they were a
considerably nuisance- who would look after him and show him things, like
Jeremy’s brother did. But they weren’t all like that, and he would have to come
second in everything and would be made to do a lot of things he didn’t want to.
He certainly didn’t want a sister, as he had seen enough of those to know they
weren’t worth the trouble. Except perhaps a very small one, a baby one. That
might be fun. A brother he was unsure about. It didn’t seem likely he was ever
going to have one, his parents never spoke of it, but some people had them, and
his mind could have one if it decided to. It just hadn’t made itself up yet,
and probably never would.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ºThe Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-35241982202218194812018-06-07T07:00:00.000+02:002018-06-07T07:00:02.721+02:00The Wildlife about UsWe saw a fox this morning, golden-brown, a long tail bushy at the end, loping along through the low green wheat, bound who-knows-where.<br />
<br />
There are many wild boar. They aren’t easy to see, as they hide in the hills during the day and come out mostly at night, but they are there. You can see the fresh marks every morning where they have been digging up the fields looking for roots and worms. They add a certain rugged glamour to the place, but they also do a lot of damage in large numbers and so the season has just been opened on them. Hunting wild boar in the mountains involves sitting up for hours at night at specific spots where you know they come through, without moving, smoking or making noise, until, if you’re lucky, you might get one shot. Miss, and that’s that. It’s a solitary, apparently dreary business, like fishing, I suppose, suitable for misanthropes and poets.<br />
<br />
There are great bustards about. They are, I believe, the biggest of all flying birds, and we get a lot of them here in the summer. A couple flew languidly, with surprising elegance, across my path yesterday. When you come upon a group in a field, suddenly, close by, as when you come out of trees or over a rise, and they turn to look before deciding whether to take flight or just to walk away disdainfully as though they were going to anyway, they are startlingly big. For a moment you think you’ve scattered a herd of ostrich.<br />
<br />
A lot of lizards about, too. The green and blue ones, very bright, sparkling colours, about a foot long, sometimes more, regularly cross the paths in front of you. We have two living in a crevice under a broken stone jar adorning a parterre just outside our door. They take the sun near us as we read or write (or paint, in the case of Mrs Hickory) in the garden, and sometimes gaze at us quizzically, wondering of we’ll drop any more bits of cured meat.<br />
<br />
There are many crows at the end of the driveway, why just there I’m not sure, but they fly away as you approach and return when you go. There’s probably a reason for that which would spoil the tenor of the tale, so let’s just assume they like meeting there. Such a group is called a parliament, after all.<br />
<br />
And the eagles, lazily circling above, pinging out a regular cry. And the smaller hawks, always flying about, looking for food on the wing. And the little owls that nest up on the roof and sing from the chimney pots every evening.<br />
<div>
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The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-81181779703983985792018-06-05T07:00:00.000+02:002018-06-05T07:00:13.925+02:00The Beauty of WaterI mentioned in passing that the lakes are full and the animals fairly chipper. It occurs to me that I should now expand on those remarks, as they are things which mark very vividly the character of the area, and so greatly affect the ascetic enjoyment of those of us lucky enough to be idle in the midst of it.<br />
<br />
The lakes come and go over an irregular cycle lasting some years, as they are fed by an underground aquifer that collects water mainly from the mountains well to the east. When it doesn’t rain there for some time, and it doesn’t rain much in this part of the world, the lakes begin to dry up. Some of them disappear completely, others shrink to a pool or a channel near the middle, and huge expanses of dried mud, which people use as beaches, and the many feet of karstic formations are completely revealed. This is interesting but not attractive, and it means the usual bathing areas become unusable, and the people whose livelihood depends on selling beer to the tourists begin to contemplate the sacrifice of their first born.<br />
<br />
Then it rains, and it all begins to change. This spring it has rained a lot, on and on it went, week after week. We love rain here, because it’s an agricultural region (wheat, barley, olives, grapes mostly) and the ground can become barren very quickly without it, and even drinking water can get scarce at times, but there’s only so much rejoicing you can do when you’re beginning to wonder why you bothered leaving England.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, it rained a lot this spring (we don’t usually have spring as such, it just shifts from winter to summer over the course of a few days), and when we arrived here, expecting to see some improvement on last year, we found flowing waterfalls, brimming lakes teeming with fish, crystalline currents rushing, turning into crashing white-foamed arcs digging out holes in other great swirling pools. All bathed in bright sunlight (until the evening when storms arrive) and full of people, of course. I ask again the eternal tourist's question, ‘Do other people have to enjoy this, too?’<br />
<br />
The land is green. There is a short period of the year, that very short spring, when the land is green, not quite the bright green of northern Europe, or even northern Spain, the green of places that have a lot of rain, and vegetation that can make the most of that rain, but definitely green. Spotted, in places carpeted, with red poppies, blue rosemary, purple lavender, and yellow things of various kinds. It’s as varied and as colourful as it ever gets here, and you learn to enjoy it until it all goes dry and brown again in a few weeks.<br />
<div>
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The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-37632497528597847152018-06-04T07:00:00.000+02:002018-06-04T07:00:04.025+02:00On Attempting to Smuggle Hedgehogs<br />
<div>
<div>
Thursday was rather fraught, or rather, the morning was. It's a holiday here and we've taken a long weekend, so we're at the farm.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's warm and quiet and the lakes are nearby, and I looked forward to some cycling around them and possibly some swimming in them. Also some eating involving barbecues and cake, and the drinking of beer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you think all that sounds highly relaxing and generally free of fraughtness, you are, of course, quite right.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The problem was the hedgehog. We were going by train and were concerned that the x-ray machines at the station would either fry her or, at least, detect her. There's a certain greyness surrounding the laws on hedgehog transportation, so we didn't want to just say 'look, she's a hedgehog, and not even a sharp one'. And transporting animals in general tends to be a complicated business involving conditions and paperwork and other bureaucratic headaches. You have to put bags and coats through the machine, but there are no metal detectors for the person. All of which suggests that they don’t really care, and know there is no threat, but there is a kind of gleeful inertia about making people’ lives more difficult, and these pointless nuisances never seem to go away. In all, it seemed best just to slip her into Mrs. Hickory’s trouser pocket and look relaxed and nonchalant.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I don’t know if you’ve tried looking relaxed and nonchalant with a hedgehog in the pocket of your trousers, but it isn’t easy. Especially when you know that getting caught will mean, at the very least, having to find some other way to make the journey, and possibly having to give explanations to people in uniform who might decide that they needed to confiscate the spiny stowaway.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was with considerable relief that we discovered there is no security control for that kind of train, and so our possibly ill-conceived plan to distract the security men with the sheer strength of our nonchalance was never put into practice. The fraughtness of the morning thus ending, we were able to proceed to the country, where we are now enjoying all the things we usually do here.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The lakes are full, after all the rain in the mountains this spring, the waterfalls are gushing playfully, and wildlife seems fairly happy about it all, there are two large green lizards in the garden who have already learnt that we are a reliable source of cured meats, and now I am idly wondering whether I shall be able to avoid burning the barbecue this evening. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. It doesn’t seem to matter much. The hedgehog is safely transported, we’re not going to worry about the sausages.</div>
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The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-81219557632180360892018-06-03T13:01:00.000+02:002018-06-03T13:01:21.541+02:002 Other HouseTom lived, that is, his body lived, in a normal sort of house in a normal sort of street. A quiet residential street, and a house that his mother was quite proud of, though she would have liked something a little bigger. That might have been why Tom thought the house was small; his mother often said it was. And he father said there was no need to move, but he too seemed to accept the house was small. Tom had little experience of other people’s houses, but he knew there were bigger ones, much bigger sometimes, even nearby. He saw them when they drove past. That might have been where his mother got the idea, seeing almost every day those houses that were bigger than her own.<br />
<br />
He also knew his house was small because they were always in each other’s way, always bumping into each other, they never seemed to be alone. A house of the right size should have room for everyone to be by himself most of the time. What, after all, did they all want to be together for? The things he liked were not the things they liked. With his parents it was mostly boredom, dull chatter, being told what to do and what not to do and how not to do it. But he had to be with them much of the time because there didn’t seem to be enough rooms in the house.<br />
<br />
Another proof that the house was small was that he knew every corner of it perfectly. It was impossible for that house to surprise him, there was no space for secrets. Not only the house on the lake, but the houses of his family and his friends, when he visited them, had secrets that they revealed slowly, but surely. Every time he went to one of those houses he discovered something new. That could only happen if they were big enough.<br />
<br />
None of this really mattered to Tom. Things were as they were. He lived comfortably. He imagined no other way to live. He heard talk of poor people, starving people, people with diseases of a deadliness that did not exist in his world, sufferings that only existed in the speech of adults and seemed to refer to nothing real, but rather to images on the television, pictures coming from places so far away he could hardly be expected to believe they truly existed. These things, he assumed, were not actual lies, but a form of allegory, designed to show how lucky he was to have what he had, and as a form of warning of the divine punishment he could expect if he failed to be ‘good.’ Even as such they didn’t work well, or indeed at all, as he was unable to imagine anything of that sort happening to him, however bad he was. He was sometimes ‘bad’ and was punished, but not in a way that threatened his comfort, or that involved large numbers of people or that would make good television. So he could not understand why they created these images. It was one more thing that he did not understand, and he didn’t worry about it, either.<br />
<div>
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The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-27770331649582476822018-05-28T15:00:00.000+02:002018-05-28T15:00:14.921+02:00The Art of Street Communication<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There was a
group of people in the main square this morning, shouting and waving flags.
There often are. This was supposedly about an ongoing industrial dispute, workers
and their company not seeing eye-to-eye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I wonder,
as I often do, who they were expecting to listen to them. I have not followed
the details of the dispute, but there is one and they may well be right, or at
least, entitled to take action, negotiate, strike, make their case to other
people, ask for backing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But who was
listening? Certainly not the people they need to talk to, or anyone who can
help them. It is likely they were fooled by union leaders who said this would
be useful. It will be, but not to the workers. It might get the union chap in
the papers, and help justify his existence and his salary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So who are
they talking to? They were surrounded by anti-democratic symbols, communist
flags, anarchist flags, republican flags, waved by the usual hairy layabouts
who want to be given other people’s money because it’s easier than working
(this is a small place, and I know who many of them are). No normal person is
going to be drawn to sympathise, or even to learn more about the dispute,
which, as I say, may be legitimate, because of the company they keep. ‘They’
are not talking to anyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is a
failure of communication, because the message they want to get across is not
the one they are in fact delivering. They have not analysed the context
sufficiently and so have allowed other people to deliver a message which will
do nothing for the workers. The other big question in communication, after ‘What
do you have to say?’ is ‘Who do you want to say it to?’ The workers, the ones with
a problem that they are trying to solve, did not seem to have worked it out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This being La
Mancha, the shouting and waving finished at 1.30 and they all went off to drink
beer. We are civilised people, after all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-79435491942354102992018-05-27T07:00:00.000+02:002018-05-27T07:00:13.709+02:001 Lake<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The boy’s mind lived on a
lake. In a big house on a lake. He didn’t see the house as near or next to the
lake, but on it. Not floating, just on it. People lived on lakes, after all.
Not people like him, to be sure, but people in stories, or people you heard
talked about. Pliny had lived on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Lake</st1:placetype>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Como</st1:placename></st1:place>. He wanted to live
on a lake. And you had to live in a house, everybody did, so the house had to
be on the lake. So his mind lived in a big house on a lake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At the age of seven Tom was
almost entirely mind. He had a body, he was a normal boy, and lived a normal
boy’s life, but it was only his mind he was aware of. His mind could do what it
liked, and the life his mind lived was by far the most interesting thing about
him, even to Tom himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He knew the lake intimately.
He moved about with confidence. He knew where the waves were, where to find
shallow and deep water, where the fish always congregated. He knew the
greenness of its borders, the part with rushes, the long grass, the worn place
where a boat he never saw had been let down and drawn up over and over again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was not an especially large
lake. It was as big as it had to be. Oddly enough, despite his detailed
knowledge of it, he could not have said exactly how large it was. It didn’t
seem to matter. It was very roughly circular, but flattened a little one side,
indented on another, and the banks were full of imperfections which Tom thought
of as perfections. He was used to talk of imperfections, in paintings mostly,
but he always misheard the word and assumed it meant the little things which
made something even better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Usually his mind explored the
lake from above, soaring high, at times skimming the surface to dip his hair
into the crests of the waves. He rested on it too, and watched the birds in the
distance trying to drink without getting their feathers wet, or the reflections
of the clouds shimmering and breaking up and reforming in different patterns.
The sky was always blue, but there were clouds in the water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It wasn’t really a swimming
lake. He swam when it was hot or he was annoyed about something. His favourite
place for swimming was in the shallow water near the bank with the short, soft
grass, because then he could lie in it to dry. But sometimes he swam in the
deep water right in the middle, just to show it didn’t bother him. Swimming in
pools, or in the sea when they went on holiday, he didn’t like very much. His
body felt heavy and the water powerful. In the lake it didn’t matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He fished sometimes because
there were fish to catch. No one else ever came to the lake to fish, or for
anything else, so someone had to catch the fish. Tom didn’t use a rod and line,
he didn’t know how to. He fished with his mind, relieving the lake of its
piscine excess and passing the time happily, being part of it all. He couldn’t
have given a name to the fish, they were just fish. Silver things about eight
to ten inches long. Shiny, attractive creatures, with a bit of life about the
eyes, moving languorously together in a group that never took any form but
always seemed about to. The colours changed too, when they turned sideways and
the lighter belly was visible. At times they all did it together, and it was as
though a lamp had been shone on the water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He didn’t eat the fish. He
didn’t do anything with them exactly. He fished with his mind and they stayed
there until they were forgotten. They went wherever fish do go when the
fishermen have finished with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He knew the house well, too.
It wasn’t important, but since there had to be a house he was glad it was a
good house, a big one. His body had to live in a house that was much too small,
and he didn’t like it at all. There were only the three of them and they kept
falling over each other. And there were always visitors, as well. His mother
loved guests.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So he liked the house on the
lake because it was big and empty. Only his mind lived there, and no one ever
came to visit, but the house was always clean and warm, and there was always
roast beef and buttered buns whenever he wanted them. It was more or less a low
box of light grey stone, with a lot of rooms he didn’t use but liked going
into, especially the upper ones which were full of chests overflowing with
wonderful objects that you could play with, dress up in or just look at for the
sheer pleasure of having them. He found old dolls and cricket bats, lace bonnets
and leather trousers, yellowed railway tickets to towns he had never heard of,
notes and coins from faraway countries some of which he was sure no longer
existed, ornate lamps for hanging on brackets or standing on tables, woollen
blankets with initials sewn into them, pocket watches that still ticked if you
shook them, hourglasses, single earrings, little tin boxes with pictures on the
lid, cases made of calfskin and rubber for keeping things that had now been
lost, wooden games that children played with long ago and still had most of the
pieces, marbles and conkers, rock cakes so hard they were like real rocks, wigs
and false moustaches, dried-up paints and tiny mirrors, plastic binoculars and
metal knives with blades for doing a hundred different things, books with
stories, magazines with pictures, albums half-filled with stamps or cartoons or
newspaper clippings or scribblings in unreadable writing. There was always more
to be found, always another passageway, a hidden door, and more treasure beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All the rooms had large
windows and a view of the lake. Most had the same view, his favourite one; the
foreground speckled with water so close he could see the individual drops,
giving way to a more even surface, then just a suggestion of silver-grey and in
the background the lively green of the long grass that the birds loved to swoop
over and which was always in the sun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He had tried to explain this,
once. To tell them where his mind lived and what this place was like. He had
already learnt that it wasn’t a good idea. And it wasn’t just adults who
wouldn’t listen; his school friends thought he was strange, too. So now he told
no one. People didn’t like to hear things they weren’t expecting, things they
had to think hard about to understand. They preferred to believe that they
weren’t true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At that age Tom never
questioned the truth of things. Things were or were not. There was nothing to
consider, to question, to argue, puzzle or worry about. People did, of course,
but he knew that adults were rarely sure of things and were always worried
about whether they were right. He knew they doubted themselves from the way
they insisted so often that they had behaved correctly, as distinct from
whoever they were talking about, who had invariably behaved badly. And they
didn’t seem to convince anyone, even themselves. He wondered why this was, and
whether he would become like it himself. He hoped he would not, and that he
would never forget how to distinguish the truth. The truth is what is. The rest
is false.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He didn’t question things but
he knew others did not understand even the simplest things, and could not see
what was, when it was in front of them, or someone was telling it to them. It
was so much easier just to know, but adults liked to complicate things for
reasons of their own, and they didn’t listen properly. Other children, children
his age, real people, were usually afraid, and didn’t want to listen. So in the
end he told no one and his mind shared its house with no one. He found it was
better that way. He liked it more. He had wanted to share the house with his
mother; he thought she would like it; it was big and probably difficult to keep
clean but he would tell her he didn’t mind if it was untidy and a bit dusty. It
would have been very agreeable to swim with her in the shallower water where
she wouldn’t be afraid, and to fish with her for hours, resting above the
water, moving only the eyes until they caught a flash of colour or the streak
of motion, then the swift, effortless glide to collect the trophy by the pure
exercise of desire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But he had accepted that it
could not be. His mother did not understand, and would never be able to join
him. It was a disappointment but one that he had stopped thinking about. He had
wondered if his friend Jeremy would share it with him, if only sometimes, but
Jeremy had thought it was a game, and had tried to play it. Completely
hopeless. Tom had become exasperated and had given up. He still played with
Jeremy, in the places his body went, but they could not share the dwellings of
their minds. He wondered where Jeremy’s mind lived, and assumed he could never
know, any more that Jeremy could know the lake, where now his mind lived alone,
and was happy that way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He took little notice of his
body, which was just something he had to carry round with him. He had little
need to attend to it since others invariably did. He sometimes felt like
eating, but he was never hungry as he was always fed before the feeling became
uncomfortable. He was sometimes tired, but he was regularly sent to bed just as
his eyes began to close. He was occasionally ill but that didn’t matter because
everything stopped then, until he was better. He was used to those who
complained all the time about their aches and pains, their likes and dislikes, their
whims and appetites as though they expected other people to be interested in
these things. Perhaps they were; adults seemed to talk about little else, and
they were constantly absorbed in these conversations. Perhaps that was what
conversation was; Tom himself had never found any particular use for speech;
perhaps he would have to learn to talk about dull matters of no importance all
the time, in order to become a proper adult; perhaps he could be a different
sort, a better sort, of adult, a new kind. Perhaps he would never be one. He
had been a child for ever so long, for as long as he could remember, for ever.
He had never seen a child turn into an adult, such a change was outside his
experience. Sometimes people spoke of ‘when you grow up,’ usually in respect of
some fault they had seen in him which would have to be removed by some
mysterious means before he reached that state. Or at times it was to ask ‘what
he wanted to be when he grew up.’ He knew this referred to a job. He always
said he wanted to be a surveyor, like his father, though he had no idea what
his father did, except that when he talked about it it sounded very boring. In
any case he didn’t want to grow up and he didn’t want to have to do anything.
He had learnt, in this too, not to attempt to tell the truth. He had once said
he wanted to be a fisherman, as in the only thing he liked doing that adults
did for money. A thousand questions had followed, questions that showed
incomprehension, horror, misdirected curiosity, and the inevitable urge to
persuade him he was wrong. There was talk, which didn’t include him but didn’t
explicitly exclude him either, of finding out what was behind it, of how it was
just a phase, of how he would grow out of it, or would respond to reason. Tom
understood none of this; only that he had given the wrong answer, and to seek
to tell the truth was a serious mistake. So he said his magic word, almost
meaningless, in response to this question, and everyone seemed happy with it
and no one asked questions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He disliked being spoken to,
partly for this reason. You rarely knew what they expected you to say- to give
the wrong answer was to become the centre of all kinds of attention, the wrong
kinds. You couldn’t know the right answer, except to the questions that were
constantly repeated, and which you learnt to answer through experience. The
truth was no guide. They didn’t like the truth. He didn’t understand why this
was, because they always demanded the truth, reminded him that good boys told
the truth, but it was very clear that they did not want to hear the truth. You
had to learn the answer to every question, a complicated task he hoped he could
avoid for a long time. His mind was happy on the lake. No one tried to trick
him with questions, or with lies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-5178046247597285172018-05-26T07:00:00.000+02:002018-05-26T07:00:11.744+02:00On the Supposed Fatness of Spaniards<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I have just
remembered that blogging involves reading the Guardian.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/24/the-mediterranean-diet-is-gone-regions-children-are-fattest-in-europe" target="_blank">Thisarticle</a> says that Mediterraneans are the fattest people in Europe, naming Spain
specifically. I find this very odd, because I don’t know where all these fat
people are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Not only do
I live in the south of Spain, but I interact daily with large numbers of
teenagers and young people (I was very bad in a previous life, I suspect) and
very few of them are fat. Casting an eye over the groups I was teaching this
morning, sizing them up as it were, I don’t think one in ten, one in twenty,
could even be described as slightly fat, let alone obese. Chatting breezily
with colleagues, the number of children we might refer to as ‘that fat one’, is
very small indeed. In the street, also, by way of experiment, I tried applying
the first adjective that came to mind to those I passed, and ‘fat’ crossed my
mind very rarely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I also know
that, to my students, eating fruit is a natural and enjoyable thing, we have
conversations about which are their favourites, which is hard to imagine with
English children, and most of them play some kind of spot regularly, again, it
is a natural thing to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the
other hand, I visit England most summers and I am always struck by how big
people (and dogs) are. Bulging thighs and upper arms, flabby stomachs and wobbly
jowls seem to be everywhere you look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">South
Americans and gypsies tend to be big and flabby around the backside and the
midriff, but there have always been gypsies here, and I doubt if the recent
increase in South Americans is large enough to skew the figures that much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So I declare
myself non-plussed, but I offer these observations from the theatre of action
anyway. Perhaps someone can shed some light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-15965672372470334822018-05-25T19:41:00.001+02:002018-05-25T19:58:29.628+02:00In Which I Roll up my Sleeves<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Well, I’ve been
wiping the dust off this thing and generally sweeping up a bit, replacing old
tubes and so on, winding the cobwebs round a dried-out quill I found in the
corner and feeding the fresher parts of the dead rats to the hedgehogs, with
some vague idea of casting my thoughts into the ether once more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Why, you
may ask? And it’s a good question. One of the ways I keep body and soul
together is, essentially, by teaching people to communicate. I teach them how
to speak English, but at the higher levels it’s largely a question of training
them to speak in public, to write transactional letters of different kinds, to
use English in real life for important purposes. In other words, to
communicate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At these levels, the problems I encounter are more to do with poor
communication skills than poor English skills. One of the things I impress upon
them, and it’s surprising how hard this can be for young people to understand,
is that when you open your mouth it’s quite useful to have something to say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I have convinced
myself I have, once more, things to say to the world (at least, to that very
specific and select corner of it that drops by here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There will
be ranting, there will be sport, there will aperçu, there will be education and
politics, there will be pedestrian philosophy and abject self-promotion. Oh,
and there will be hedgehogs, naturally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-773435236649360682016-02-15T07:00:00.000+01:002016-02-15T07:00:19.108+01:00Learn a language in 2016, Britons are urged<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35198253" target="_blank">British Council has urged people</a> to learn a new language in 2016. Fair enough, it’s a
good idea in itself, and such promotion is part of what the BC does. But is it
really a good idea for most people? What do they gain from it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">As pointed
out in the article, it can make holidays more fun, enabling you to interact
with the world around you rather than simply observe it. The advantages of this
range from simply asking where the bathroom is or buying a ticket at the
railway station, to the less practical but far more interesting ability to read
the local newspapers and hear what people are talking about. Understanding what
is going on around you and learning what matters to people are a far better way
of getting to know a place than just reading the guide book and staring at
churches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A language
is a route into a culture, the literature is has produced, the way it is
currently moving, how it thinks and behaves, its moral values and personal
assumptions. All of this can be quite fascinating and instructive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A language
is an unusual addition to a CV in England, and so can be attractive to an
employer. Attractiveness to employers is a very good thing indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There has
long been a kind of understanding among English people that any foreigner worth
talking to already speaks English. This is true up to a point, but not much of
a point. English is the lingua franca of business, culture, politics,
communications, and most things that matter to people around the world, but
there are a lot of things going on in other languages that we miss, and might
not want to miss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Learning
languages is, then, in my opinion, an excellent thing. I make my living helping
people to do it, after all. But there is another side to the question.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Learning a
language talks a very long time. Several months of immersion, or years of
classroom study, to acquire basic competence, and basic competence is rarely
enough for anything more than a tourist. As I frequently have to point out,
half a language is no use to anyone, so unless you can achieve the right level
of competence you are unfortunately wasting your time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In Spain,
professionals and aspiring professionals know that they must have a high level
of communicative competence in English, and they work hard to achieve it, and
their parents spend a lot of money to help them achieve it. The Spanish
education system only aims at providing a B1 level, which is not an independent
user level, and is no use to an employer. It might just do for a traveller. In
any case, it usually fails to provide even that, which is great for my
business, but not so great for the average Spanish student, who can’t afford
private tuition over a period of years, or may not realize until it’s too late
that what he’s been promised by his high school is not enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For a
Spanish teenager with ambition, or for their parents, the effort and the
investment are certainly worth making. For a young English person, possibly not, unless you have a very specific professional goal in mind, such as
diplomacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So do
listen to the British Council and learn a language this year. You really will
be opening up all the possibilities that they offer, but be aware of the time
and effort, and money, it will involve. Also, once you learn one language, and
open up a culture you were barely aware of, you won’t want to stop.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But that, I
imagine, is where the real fun lies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-40100285923711142842016-02-14T13:23:00.001+01:002016-02-14T13:53:48.354+01:00Murray Dreamed a Dream<br />
<br />
O Henry was one of the greatest craftsmen of a particular type of short story. He almost invented the type, in fact, and did it so well that no one has quite been able to copy it. You know an O Henry story when you see it, and you read it because it's his. When he died he left this story incomplete. He had written the opening, and left a few notes about how it should continue and finish. I don't know that anyone has tried to finish it before, so I've had a go. The result, for what it's worth, is below. The first half, roughly, is O Henry's. The rest is mine. My apologies to the shade of the great man for taking the liberty:<br />
<i><br /></i> <i>Both psychology and science grope when they would explain to us the strange adventures of our immaterial selves when wandering in the realm of "Death's twin brother, Sleep." This story will not attempt to be illuminative; it is no more than a record of Murray's dream. One of the most puzzling phases of that strange waking sleep is that dreams which seem to cover months or even years may take place within a few seconds or minutes.</i><br />
<br />
Murray was waiting in his cell in the ward of the condemned. An electric arc light in the ceiling of the corridor shone brightly upon his table. On a sheet of white paper an ant crawled wildly here and there as Murray blocked its way with an envelope. The electrocution was set for eight o'clock in the evening. Murray smiled at the antics of the wisest of insects.<br />
<br />
There were seven other condemned men in the chamber. Since he had been there Murray had seen three taken out to their fate; one gone mad and fighting like a wolf caught in a trap; one, no less mad, offering up a sanctimonious lip-service to Heaven; the third, a weakling, collapsed and strapped to a board. He wondered with what credit to himself his own heart, foot, and face would meet his punishment; for this was his evening. He thought it must be nearly eight o'clock.<br />
<br />
Opposite his own in the two rows of cells was the cage of Bonifacio, the Sicilian slayer of his betrothed and of two officers who came to arrest him. With him Murray had played checkers many a long hour, each calling his move to his unseen opponent across the corridor. Bonifacio's great booming voice with its indestructible singing quality called out: "Eh, Meestro Murray; how you feel--all-a right--yes?" "All right, Bonifacio," said Murray steadily, as he allowed the ant to crawl upon the envelope and then dumped it gently on the stone floor.<br />
<br />
"Dat's good-a, Meestro Murray. Men like us, we must-a die like-a men. My time come nex'-a week. All-a right. Remember, Meestro Murray, I beat-a you dat las' game of de check. Maybe we play again some-a time. I don'-a know. Maybe we have to call-a de move damn-a loud to play de check where dey goin' send us."<br />
<br />
Bonifacio's hardened philosophy, followed closely by his deafening, musical peal of laughter, warmed rather than chilled Murray's numbed heart. Yet, Bonifacio had until next week to live. The cell-dwellers heard the familiar, loud click of the steel bolts as the door at the end of the corridor was opened. Three men came to Murray's cell and unlocked it. Two were prison guards; the other was "Len"--no; that was in the old days; now the Reverend Leonard Winston, a friend and neighbor from their barefoot days. "I got them to let me take the prison chaplain's place," he said, as he gave Murray's hand one short, strong grip.<br />
<br />
In his left hand he held a small Bible, with his forefinger marking a page. Murray smiled slightly and arranged two or three books and some penholders orderly on his small table. He would have spoken, but no appropriate words seemed to present themselves to his mind. The prisoners had christened this cellhouse, eighty feet long, twenty-eight feet wide, Limbo Lane. The regular guard of Limbo Lane, an immense, rough, kindly man, drew a pint bottle of whiskey from his pocket and offered it to Murray, saying: "It's the regular thing, you know. All has it who feel like they need a bracer. No danger of it becoming a habit with 'em, you see." Murray drank deep into the bottle. "That's the boy!" said the guard. "Just a little nerve tonic, and everything goes smooth as silk."<br />
<br />
They stepped into the corridor, and each one of the doomed seven knew. Limbo Lane is a world on the outside of the world; but it had learned, when deprived of one or more of the five senses, to make another sense supply the deficiency. Each one knew that it was nearly eight, and that Murray was to go to the chair at eight. There is also in the many Limbo Lanes an aristocracy of crime. The man who kills in the open, who beats his enemy or pursuer down, flushed by the primitive emotions and the ardor of combat, holds in contempt the human rat, the spider, and the snake. So, of the seven condemned only three called their farewells to Murray as he marched down the corridor between the two guards--Bonifacio, Marvin, who had killed a guard while trying to escape from the prison, and Bassett, the train-robber, who was driven to it because the express-messenger wouldn't raise his hands when ordered to do so. The remaining four smoldered, silent, in their cells, no doubt feeling their social ostracism in Limbo Lane society more keenly than they did the memory of their less picturesque offences against the law.<br />
<br />
Murray wondered at his own calmness and nearly indifference. In the execution room were about twenty men, a congregation made up of prison officers, newspaper reporters, and lookers-on who had succeeded in getting permission to make sure Murray got the end that had been ordered for him. They had their own reasons, some of them. Others had none beyond curiosity.<br />
<br />
Murray took in the prison warden, the doctor, an anonymous man who he knew would be the one to throw the switch. Some other time he would have found the face interesting, it surely had much to say, but now it meant nothing. The man had a job to do, no more. He thought he recognised some of Ginny’s folks. Not her mother. Poor woman, she had got old very suddenly, but she didn’t hate Murray enough to be there. He wondered if she wanted to hate, for the hate to give her courage so she could watch how it ended. For a moment it stopped him thinking about her father and that brother of hers who would likely be where Murray was some day. They were there, and Murray wondered if he should greet them. He smiled at himself.<br />
<br />
The chair was to his left. They turned him and guided him towards it. It was a long time since he’d done anything of his own free will. As he was gently led he accepted the chair as part of all this. His life, the good times, when it all went wrong, what he had done to the girl, Len, Bonifacio, the man who came this way yesterday and whose name he had forgotten, the things that seemed so distant, and the games he had played in the prison, the conversations with those he was allowed to be around, empty talk it was now, meaning nothing; it all led up to this. It all made sense. His life was meant to come here.<br />
<br />
Yet suddenly he was filled with horror. No, it should not be this way. He took in again the people and the events around him, he understood what they were doing, but it was not for him. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t the man they wanted. He dimly felt the straps being fastened. This was wrong, thought Murray. He understood that he had done nothing. He should not be there. The scene faded and he no longer saw the guards nor felt the straps nor smelt the old burnt wires within the machine that was meant to kill him. He saw what should have been, what was.<br />
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His life was suddenly before him. There had been no fight, no killing, no trial. There was no chair, no straps. He was in a brightly-lit room, where the sun shone on cheerful yellow walls, a warm carpet and wooden furniture he had made himself after his neighbour Pete had patiently taught him how to handle hickory. There are two paintings on the walls, small, framed landscapes, and a series of photos, portraits of men and women looking uncomfortable in clothes they weren’t used to wearing. His family and his wife’s, of course.<br />
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Through a curtained window is a garden with a lawn and a resplendent flowerbed, immaculately kept, and beyond it a wood filled with colour. The beauty of the scene was arresting, breathtaking even, and for a moment Murray couldn’t take his eyes from it. The room, the house, surrounded by that garden and that patch of nature, made a picture so idyllic he could hardly bear to believe it was real. And yet it surely was. It was his house. Murray felt a wonderful calm, a great peace. This was his house and his life, and it was as perfect as he could have imagined. Looking about him he could see his father-in-law’s photo, the tie badly tied because he had lost patience with the photographer. Murray smiled as he remembered that moment. There was a mark on the side of the kitchen table where the saw had kept sticking and even a plane and a lot of coarse sandpaper couldn’t smooth it away. They had left it that way and they laughed about how Murray had made his mark on his house. He would run his fingers across it as they sat down to eat.<br />
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There was a woman in a rocking-chair under the window, letting the sun play on the face of the baby she held. He greeted her and she addressed him as ‘darling’. She raised the baby’s hand as though to wave to him. She was Murray’s wife, the child was his child. He felt the joy that it caused him to see them and to know that they were his family. He knew that he had always felt and would always feel that same joy. She rose and came towards him. He took them both in his arms and kissed them.<br />
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At that moment the warden gave the sign and the current shocked through him. Murray had dreamed the wrong dream.The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-8148032875812366542016-02-13T20:00:00.000+01:002016-02-13T20:00:35.308+01:00Teaching Huckleberry Finn<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There is a specific problem with teaching this book. There is a word in it that some people don’t like. (Most people, in fact). It’s a fine book, a borderline classic. It would be a great shame if people stopped reading it for fear of a word. Is it better to change the word ‘nigger’, where it occurs, to stop publishing the book, remove it from libraries, stop worrying about it, or when encouraging children to read it, explain why it uses that word, and its significance in that context?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Banning books is not civilized, and is almost impossible in practice, anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Changing the word to something else is possible, and has been done before, but it’s a matter for the publisher. The book is out of copyright and freely available in electronic form, and I can’t see Gutenberg or Amazon or anyone else bothering to make that change. Many books have things in them that a lot of people don’t like.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I don’t believe the bad word should be forcibly removed, and the idea of Bowdlerization of any sort does not much appeal. The author wrote what he wrote and he did so for reasons which we cannot always understand, or even know. In the case of Huck Finn, the word is largely used by Huck himself, is not usually derogatory in any way, and it is certainly not an expression of hate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I have never used the book in class, but I was thinking about it, partly because of some discussion I saw about this very matter. If I did, the word could be used as one of many internal devices for interpreting the internal and external context of the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This is great in theory, but the theory would clash rather badly with reality if that reality were a black student in the classroom. There aren’t many here, hardly any in fact, and the word doesn’t have the same cultural implications, but in the English-speaking world, to try to explain that an expression that a black student has been told all his life means that someone hates you, and that he may well have experienced as such on a number of occasions, that he'll just have to lump it because that's what Twain wrote, is not quite so easy as it sounds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I imagine it could be handled by asking the students what they think, negotiating among several options. Treating students as responsible, mature people is a good way of helping them to act like it, and to become like it. It would depend on the nature of the class. It's easy for a teacher to conclude that it's not worth the trouble, there are plenty of good books to read. I understand that position, but it can very instructive to work out a way of introducing difficult stuff in the classroom. It invariably means communicating with individuals, which is why it's rewarding for everyone, and why making some blanket policy, or talking in vacuo, doesn't work.</span></div>
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As a result of these idle ponderings I am about to read the book again. My thoughts may appear here in a few days.</div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-74924844138052407182016-01-06T07:00:00.000+01:002016-01-06T07:00:11.919+01:00Assumptions and Motivations<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; vertical-align: middle;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">There is an assumption, a set of related assumptions in fact, behind all of these observations, comments, criticisms and proposed solutions, an assumption that may not be shared by all readers. The assumption is that the purpose, the only important purpose, of education, is to prepare young people to make the most of their future in the world. This view is certainly not shared by most of the people who create and maintain our systems of education. The main aim of this work is to encourage people to consider and come to share that assumption, but those who do not initially share it may well be rather mystified by much of what I have to say.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">That assumption, so easily and regularly forgotten, is something I can never forget, because of the other major motivation of this blog, which is not theoretical but personal and practical:</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">I benefitted enormously, to a degree that can scarcely be overstated, by having parents who understood that hard work brings a better life, and transmitted this idea by their daily example (which is the only way that actually works). This combined with the luck of having a decentish<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>brain,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and going to very good schools (in the case of my primary school because we were Catholics, and the Grammar school because it still existed and I found a way through the 11+).</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">A lot of luck, yes, but that combination of circumstances should be, and could be, much more readily available than it is. Even the example, which cannot always, or even often, come from parents, but there are other people who could give that example. I have seen now a generation of children come and go, and the majority have had to settle for far less than they might have had, for reasons that do not need to exist, and without ever really understanding that things could be different.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">John Steinbeck, who I quoted a few days ago, and who came to understand the art of teaching (which most teachers do not possess) said that good teachers do not tell, they catalyze a burning desire to know. An education system should not process and control children, it should inspire them, most of them, to desire and demand a future and an intellectual life which can turn them into something they never imagined they could be.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">I have spent many years observing a number of different forms and systems of education, in two different countries, and reading a great deal about others, that once existed, and that exist now in other countries. In the course of those years I have identified many failings, deficiencies so great, so damaging to the people whose lives they affect, that they must be solved, and yet I have seen little or no understanding of that imperative need, or will to seek solutions, in those who are involved and in a position to do something about them.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-37251367507838596852016-01-04T09:03:00.001+01:002016-01-04T09:03:46.439+01:00What should not be taught in schools<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The use of schools to solve other social problems that arise when children cannot easily or comfortably be supervised by their parents, causes many more problems in the schools themselves. The need to fill a complete timetable, and to follow to some degree the model of the public boarding schools, coupled, naturally enough, with the desire of government to control growing minds, led fairly quickly to the creation of subjects which should not be taught in schools at all. If they were removed from the timetable, the school day would be much more reasonable, could address its real aims more clearly, and some activities which children learn to hate could be understood as fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Much of what schools do is unnecessary. Many subjects should not be taught, some because they are simply a waste of time, like religion, ethics, ciudadanía and the other ways of telling people how they should behave according to some fashion or other, and some because they are far better provided in another way. Churches are always willing to instruct the young in their beliefs and codes, and sport and the plastic arts are far more enjoyable if done freely at a municipal or private facility rather than under the full disciplinary structure of a school as they now are. Within useful subjects, a great deal of time is wasted with unnecessary material and in attempting to measure knowledge, rather than provide it and teach how to use it. And of course, the biggest problem of all is that many of the people who are forced to be there are not in fact going to benefit from it, but their presence will prevent others from benefiting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 13.5pt;">There is no reason for schools to teach religion, unless that is one of the specific purposes of the school. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. Parents who want their children instructed in their own faith, or in some other, will find plenty of people willing and able to do it for them, freeing children two or three hours a week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Likewise sport and art, which should be enjoyable activities done for pleasure. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">If there were places children could go, and choose the activities that attracted them, they would enjoy them much more, and schools, and the taxpayer, would save a fortune on all the facilities that have to be replicated unnecessarily in every school in the country.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">I am not, of course, suggesting that children should not study their parents' religion, or that they should not do sport or learn art. The point is that schools are a bad place to do it.</span>The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-80225161756802799372016-01-02T14:00:00.000+01:002016-01-02T14:00:21.118+01:00Conversation with the Natives<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-US">In their constant struggle to improve the quality of education in this country, the relevant authorities forever miss the very point of it, create obstacles when they mean to smooth progress, ignore the people who actually know what needs to be done and how to do it, pay scrupulous attention to the interests of everyone but the children, for whose benefit the system is supposed to exist, and generally create more and more regulation and paperwork to less and less effect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So it’s quite unusual for someone in government to say something intelligent on the subject. The surprising news in this case is that President Rajoy has suggested that there should be conversation classes with native speakers in schools, to improve the level of English. This is a good idea. If anything comes of it, it will be done badly, ineffectively and at unnecessary expense, but the idea is sound.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">First, some background. The focus in Spanish schools is on grammar and vocabulary, because those who decide these things lack imagination and experience, it’s much easier to justify the marks you give if they come from written exams, and it’s difficult to do useful oral activities with groups of 30 or so pupils. Some would see these as problems to be solved. In fact, they tend to be seen as excuses not to try to do things better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The aim of the recent Education Law is that pupils who leave High School at 18 should have a B1 level of English. For those of you who understand these things, that is Cambridge Pet level, and you will recognize the problem. It is not an independent user level. It is half a language, which is no good. You can’t actually do anything with it that a company, a University, or you yourself, can use. A B1 level does not allow you to answer the interview question ‘Do you speak English?’ with a ‘Yes.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Also, needless to say, the aspirations of government when they wave their hands about and create these documents are not always fulfilled. Most children don’t even reach the low level that is set as the target. The result is that the great majority of Spanish youngsters leave school with a very limited knowledge of English, a bit of useless baggage that has cost them thousands of hours of wasted time, and doubtless many arguments and punishments along the way. This is not the way to do things.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The idea, though, that the purpose of language is communication, is not really recognized by the system in use. Anything that changes that perception is good. It really is like riding a bike. You are more likely to reach your destination if you actually have somewhere you want to go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-86658065352324755222016-01-02T07:00:00.000+01:002016-01-02T07:00:03.442+01:00Conversation with Natives<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Just to clarify:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">Conversation (communication) classes with a native
teacher are an important part of the process of learning a foreign language. In
the case of younger (preschool or primary) children, this is because the
naturalness of the accent* and the prosody (primarily intonation, and this is often underestimated or not understood) contributes
greatly to the way the foundation of learning is built. They will mostly be
hearing native speakers in the resources used to back up the class, and on the
television and in the songs they hear and sing, and the natural rhythms of a
native speaker reinforce the memory and the ease of use.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">For older students this is much less important, but
a native speaker, one who grew up in a cultures where the language was part of
life, can provide a much more interesting background to the conversation, which
adds a lot to motivation, and leads to real communication.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">When I say native teacher, of course, I do mean
teacher, not some random unemployed graduate found on the streets of London or
Dublin or San Francisco. Teaching is not nuclear physics, but it requires
competence and experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">*it doesn’t matter all that much where it’s from, or
what kind of education it denotes, as long as it’s something that most of the
English speaking world would understand and accept</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-76707985197745369782016-01-01T20:54:00.000+01:002016-01-01T20:54:08.682+01:00To Dub or not to Dub…<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-US">It was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/12035922/Spain-mulls-end-of-dubbed-actors-on-TV-to-boost-nations-English-language-skills.html" target="_blank">suggested recently by the President of Spain</a> that TV should stop dubbing films and series into Spanish, as this would help improve the level of English of young Spaniards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Even though this is almost certainly true, and the experience over many decades in countries like Sweden, Norway, Holland and Germany is that exposure to English in TV programmes from a very early age is one of the reasons for the extremely high depth and breadth of competence in English, the government is obviously not “mulling” a ban on dubbing, nor would it be right to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I doubt it has any authority to do it, for a start, but there are other reasons it’s a bad idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">There is a very good dubbing industry in Spain, and many of the voice actors are better than the Hollywood people they replace. (For some reason Hollywood doesn’t require its stars to be able to communicate like normal human beings, let alone like performers). I often prefer to watch in Spanish because they do it better, and they turn down the background noise, too. “Let’s annoy the luvvies by stopping them working” is not usually seen as good politics, especially when they are actually doing a good job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Also, although it might benefit, undoubtedly would benefit, suitably motivated youngsters, older people would probably be a little miffed at suddenly not being able to watch the TV because the government has said so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Another point is that the key is motivation. If you don’t find a way to motivate the young to want to learn, playing around with what’s on the telly is only going to annoy people, and achieve nothing. That motivation is one of the major failings of government in regard to Education.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">And another important point is that they are far too late. With digital television and polychannel platforms it has been possible for at least 13 years to watch hundreds of different series on dozens of different channels, in the original version- which almost invariably means English- if you so choose. Some choose to, some don’t. I encourage them to do so if they find they can still enjoy the programme that way, and explain why. Government meddling would cause a lot of harm and would, in practice, change nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The fact that they are thinking about such things, however, and understand something about how the desired results might be achieved, is a step in the right direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-19273929963512302792015-12-31T07:00:00.000+01:002015-12-31T07:00:22.123+01:00Why do Spaniards not Speak English<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is perfectly possible to teach young Spaniards to speak English to a good enough level to study or work abroad, or work in Spain in one of the many professional fields that require high competence in English (most jobs worth doing, these days). That means B2-C1 level, for those of you who understand these things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I know it is possible because I have been doing it successfully for years. I know why schools fail to do it, and I know why that isn’t going to change, probably for decades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The technical probably with teaching here is that it doesn’t focus on communication. Mixed groups of 30 children, the need to justify marks, which dictates the kind of exams to be used and the material to be examined, the interests of powerful Unions that take precedence over those of children, the monumental lack of imagination and the general ignorance of those who make the laws and design the system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">It is widely recognised that proficiency in English is a basic skill, but the state system is quite unable to provide the means to gain that skill. It is not even capable of transmitting the idea it is possible to learn English well, let alone of transmitting the motivation required to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">As I frequently point out, not always to universal understanding, in England even the village idiot speaks English. It really isn’t so hard, but in the absence of saturation, it takes a lot of work. But it can be done, and I’m not the only one who knows how to do it. The problem is that those who think they should have a monopoly on Education, don’t know how to do it, and are not trying to find out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-33999780213393424282015-12-30T13:07:00.000+01:002015-12-30T14:41:57.157+01:00Steinbeck on Teaching<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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<b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"<a href="http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/truth/on-teaching.html" target="_blank">On Teaching</a>" </span></i></b><b style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">by John Steinbeck</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span lang="EN-GB"> <b>It is customary for adults to forget how hard and dull school is. The learning by memory all the basic things one must know is the most incredible and unending effort. Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that watch an illiterate adult try to do it.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>School<span class="apple-converted-space"></span> </b></span><b>is not so easy and it is not for the most part very fun, but then, if you are very lucky, you may find a teacher. Three real teachers in a lifetime<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is<span class="apple-converted-space"></span> the very best of luck. I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.</b></i><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>My three had these things in common. They all loved what they were doing. They did not tell - the catalyzed a burning desire to know. Under their influence, the horizons sprung wide and fear went away and the unknown became knowable. But most important of all, the truth, that dangerous stuff, became beautiful and precious.</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Teaching, good teaching that is, is indeed an art, both a creative art and a performing art. It is one of the situations in life which turns human interaction into an art form. The teacher needs to attract and hold the attention of the student, provide, at all times, an answer to the question, 'Why<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>am </span>I<span class="apple-converted-space"></span> sitting here listening to this bloke?' You have to be worth listening to. And you have to find ways to communicate something<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>difficult<span class="apple-converted-space"></span> to understand to someone who has no particular reason to want to understand it. If you can't do that you shouldn't be teaching.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The reality of good teaching that Steinbeck remembers is a long way from 'sit down, shut up, study chapter 5, the exam's on Friday, don't look at me, teach yourself or there'll be trouble' which is the idea a lot of teachers have, and a lot of children, as they've never known anything else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">If the teacher doesn't know why the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>children<span class="apple-converted-space"></span> </span>should learn what he's teaching them, they won't learn it. Learning should be cooperation, not attrition, not conflict, not the ticking of boxes, not getting through the day. Give me children who want to learn, who are keen and sharp and have enthusiasm for life, the present and the future, who understand the importance of learning not in a dry, theoretical sense, nor a profound, mature, analytic way, but in an immediate, unreflecting, this-clearly-matters-now kind of way. Where to find such children? Give me good teachers, and I'll make them for you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-59988083761613276292014-09-28T21:04:00.002+02:002014-09-28T21:04:31.315+02:00A New AlcuinIt's been a bit quiet around here lately. The urge to write about the strange mishmash of things which occupy my mind at different times and to share the results with the world seems to have died. It could return, but I don't know when.<br />
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I have just started another blog, about <a href="http://anewalcuin.blogspot.com.es/">education</a>, the problems that exist, the causes of then and how they might be addressed, possibly solved. It cannot be what I would like it to be, as I don't have the time (and probably not the competence) to do the research and organization that would be necessary. So it will be a series of presentations of my ideas about large and small points related to education and teaching, comments on relevant news items, attempts to attract the interest of people who can change things, occasional ranting, both generalized and specific, and the odd piece about hedgehogs.<br />
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If you want to join in, please head over to <a href="http://anewalcuin.blogspot.com.es/">A New Alcuin</a> (there's a link on the blogroll, too) and agree, argue, correct, set straight, clarify, exemplify, add important detail, be it broadening or widening, or just give encouragement. Because education matters, and I can't change the world on my own.The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-7544175866493599362014-07-01T00:13:00.001+02:002014-07-01T00:13:53.901+02:00Above and Beyond LlanesWe left Llanes this morning by the beach and went up into the hills. The path follows a back road then goes into the hills by the sea. Llanes was one of the great centres of emigration in the 19thC, and those who were successful came back from the Indies and built great houses in the town. Many can still be seen, along the channelled river and the road that lead down to the port. Some are ruined, some distressed, some maintained, some modernised. The great days of the Indiano are gone, but a part of his history and decline is told in the mix of styles, of sizes, of states of repair.
Today's route was mostly about villages and beaches. The village of Niembru, reached ny a road that winds around its estuary, where boats lie in the mud. You walk almost completely around a large church and cemetery which abut the riverfront, for no obvious reason, as they are outside and below the town, and there should have been plenty of room. It looks as though they are placed there to more easily receive the bodies of dead sailors and fishermen, and it could well be true.
We passed close to several beaches that looked fun to lie or swim on for a while. It was warm and sunny and the sand and the sea are very attractive then. Each has its associated camping and caravan site and its modern holiday apartments. Low, house-like buildings here, not the high, often ugly blocks of the south coasts. I have often wondered why it is that the camping type, usually young and with little money, seems more attracted by the north of Spain, where he is quite likely to waste his holiday watching it rain.
From Niembru we climbed up above the beaches of Torimbia and San Antolín, which was our immediate goal. Torimbia is a famous nude beach, hard to reach, long, wide, fairly empty and very good for swimming and taking the sun on. We spent a day there about ten years ago. By nude, in this case I mean clothing optional. Mrs Hickory and I are tolerant of other people's nudity but are ourselves of the textile persuasion.
Today we were, as I say, heading for San Antolìn, a long beach just by the road where the hill path we were on drops down agaon to sea level. The river Bedón flows out there, cutting a channel across the beach itself. This is common on these coasts. The shoreline is mostly cliffs, and the beaches are at the rias, the small estuaries where the many streams take advantage of the points where the rocks fold into the ground to break their way through to the sea.
There are even inland beaches, like the Cobijeru that we saw the other day, and the Gulpiyuri, where we are now, where the sea comes through holes and channels in the rocks below the water level, creating pools and depositing sand, and creating a beach that has no waves, no horizon, and is completely enclosed by rock.
Again we were accompanied at random points by the FEVE, the narrow gauge railway that operates along much of the north coast. It is perhaps unneeded now, but I am very fond of it. It is a bright, colourful railway, small yellow trains run fairly gently between small yellow stations on lines that cross and are crossed by paths and village roads, and you can share the lines if you wish, walk along them and go where the trains are going, as long as keep your eyes and ears open. They are friendly, humble trains, quite unlike the AVE'S and Talgos, trains with airs of superiority, which race past on segregated, fenced off tracks, and refuse to even notice you are there.
The village we are staying in is called Naves. The hotel is aggressively modern and comfortable, the owner has an air of Norman Bates about him (if there is no blogpost tomorrow it might mean that we were right), and the village itself was 'Prettiest Village in Asturias in 1961'. It is still pretty, in a natural, upbeat, untwee kind of way. The right kind of stone and an interest in flowers add a great deal of prettiness to a place. So does the sun.The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-74648865284277923162014-06-30T00:20:00.000+02:002014-06-30T00:20:02.128+02:00What is Left When the Present is GoneThe road, like life, for which it is such a perfect metaphor, is as much about the past as the present. What remains when the rest of the journey has vanished are the good times, the many moments which made the road worth walking. Much of the labour, the drudgery, is lost to the mind, and only the beautiful, the striking, thecurious, the great, the baffling, the monumental, the surprisingly satisfying, the unexpectedly perfect, is left in the mind.
The 'lubina' I had for dinner in a cider house in Pendueles last night, caught that morning with a line by a man from the village who still makes his living thay way, and grilled to perfection over the charcoal. The bull that blocked our path on the hills near Andrín this morning. Andrín itself, beautifully kept, the newcomers building in the old style, clean and colourful, and with wonderful views of the mountains rising opposite.
The bufones near Llanes, sinkholes in the karstic formations of the area, some almost perfect circles, apparently bottomless cylinders going deep into the earth, throwing out sprays of seawater when the high tide forces its way in and under then.
The river Purón, ankle-deep and clear and cold, running to the sea just there between high cliffs, looking as though it were a thousand miles from the sea, a pure, green, gurgling stream that you cross on an old wooden bridge.
And although it is the road itself that matters, you remember the joy of getting somewhere, when you thought you never would. The path from Andrín to Llanes rose higher and highe and turned ever more away from the town it was supposed to take us too. A strong wind was blowing and I had the feeling we would never arrive, but be forever taunted by the unattainable town we could seen beneath us on the shore, and we would be forever rising and turning away until from fatigue or desperation or dramatic necessity we would reach an edge that we must fall from.
The water at the beach of El Sablón felt that much better this evening, because we had arrived.
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-77659860661452006192014-06-27T21:03:00.000+02:002014-06-30T00:16:17.808+02:00On The Road Again...Yesterday we arrived at San Vicente de La Barquera, a pretty fishing village on the coast of Cantabria, on the Bay of Biscay, and one of favourite places anywhere. The old castle is high on a rock between the two arms of the river,closing and dominating the oldest, walled part of the town. Below is the old port, now with as many small pleasure boats as fishing craft. They come in a great variety of colours, but bright blues, greens and reds are popular, and they are moored not just in the port, but along the seawall, off the bridge and into the estuary. This, and the habit of painting houses in similar colours, those that are'n t made of stone and wood, give a slightly chsotic brilliance to the scene. Behind the port the main street has stone collonades all along it and the buildings are mostly attractive and powerful, looking as though they have always been there and always will be.
Apart from the beauty of the village itself, iit has a long wide beach bounded by high green cliffs, good for swimming and surfing, across the estuary, a short walk over the bridge, and many paths along the river and through other villages or into the hills. By walking beyond the beach up and over the headland you can, in a couple of hours of pathswith beautiful views and details of evrything that makes the area woryh seeing, reach Comillas, where Gaudí has a number of curious structures and Alfonso XII had his holiday palace.
Not too far away are Santillana del Mar, a village that is as it was in the late middle ages, bright and lively in the sun, and still lived-in, the Caves of Altamira, some if the oldest and best preserved of all cave paintings, and the caves of El Soplao, also fascinating to anyone with imagination and an interest in what we once were.
We swam at the beach to refresh the limbs from the journey, then had dinner in the Boga Boga, which is the best place to eat if the reader ever finds himself there. The percebes were caught that morning, the nécora, a kind of crab, was grilled to perfection and the turbot, which had also been happily swimming that same morning before it was suddenly interrupted by a fisherman, was also perfectly done.
It seemed a shame to leave this morning, but we had come to walk, to continue where we stopped two years ago, and so we hoiked on our rucksacks and set off.
The route I had planned took us over the cliffs, through a handful of small villages, past fields of orange and purple cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and very small goats (you don't tend to think of goats as pretty, but these are, especially the kids). When I say fields, I mean any patch of hillside without too many trees that can be fenced off and where a sufficiently expert driver can handle a tractor without sliding backwards into the sea. This is not the broad, flat, dry landscape of Castille.
The village we are in now, in a small and comfortable rural hotel specially built to look as though it has been here forever, is called Pechón and is high on a headland between two of the estuaries which break upthe cliffs every few miles all along this coast. You reach it by walking a couple of miles up a steep road that climbs beside one estuary, and going halfway across the headland. You could also get there by doing something exactly symmetrical from the other side. It is one of the things I like about, pleasing to the mathematical mind.
From the balcony we can see the village below and the see, and the showers sweeping in one agter the other from the north. Green places are green for a reason.
Where the road crosses the ría, before the climb begins, you can look to the left and see, within a hundred yards, the old road bridge, still used for some reason, the bridge where the narrow-gauge railway crosses, and the little station beside it, and high above it, the new bridge where the motorway crosses and buries itself in a tunnel through the hills. And the coloured boats on the water, of course. A living vignette of human movement and ingenuity through the centuries. It should have been a photo, not just a memory, but it started raining at that moment and I got distracted.
Mrs Hickory is always determined to swim, especially on a new beach, whatever the weather and the attendant circumstances. I approve of thishabit in general. This afternoon that meant walking down- down being the significamt word- through a light drizzle to a rocky brach with a dangerous undertow to stroll bravely into the chilly water, do a few strokes back and forth to make it worthwhile, and then trying to get dry in the rain before climbing back up again to the village. This is fun, really it is. The beach is characterful and atmospheric, small and shut in by tough looking rocks, giving you the sense of being alone against the Atlantic and the whole of nature. That's why it's fun.
Blogging by phone, apologies for typos etc<span id="goog_1210662374"></span><span id="goog_1210662375"></span>The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-53629567926701523212014-01-01T13:22:00.001+01:002014-01-01T13:22:37.183+01:00New Year Hedgehog<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEFON3wzAXtAz1Ml63VABLVwnjKdq5E0zHX1c4iYwT9EKzI7x-WsQrlYa5meu-xCMtlG3O_MzoP2YgkpEJ04LsTdFj6PIaMxXrtMeDTk7BF1puPtt7rxpnqiC0rBrZa6BZIc58X6SLqU/s1600/DSC05782.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEFON3wzAXtAz1Ml63VABLVwnjKdq5E0zHX1c4iYwT9EKzI7x-WsQrlYa5meu-xCMtlG3O_MzoP2YgkpEJ04LsTdFj6PIaMxXrtMeDTk7BF1puPtt7rxpnqiC0rBrZa6BZIc58X6SLqU/s320/DSC05782.JPG" width="320" /></a>Galatea and Hickory wish readers a very Happy New Year, for your own value of happiness.<br />
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The Holy Family, for some reason, are not amused by baby hedgehogs, but they'll get used to her in time for next Christmas.The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1707444165003305798.post-76635074312173562162013-12-25T09:00:00.000+01:002013-12-25T09:00:07.528+01:00On the Purpose of Dictionaries<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Do
not pay attention, child, to the Academics (of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language). They are theologians of
language, restricting, confining, limiting, fearing change, without art or
imagination. Read the great writers, listen to the great orators, learn from
the great communicators, see as great artists have seen. They are the mystics
of language, and they will teach you what the inbred pseudo-knowledge of the
instructors cannot.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">There
is an article in El País </span><a href="http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2013/11/24/actualidad/1385324034_063421.html"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">about the new edition</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> of the DRAE,
which will be published next year. It starts off rather stupidly but in fact
it's quite good. It praises it for being 'less sexist', apparently thinking
that a dictionary which reflects what some people think language should be and
how it should be used is better than one that reflects how it really is and how
it is really used. 'Gozar' is still used to mean 'have sex with a woman' and a
dictionary that fails to recognize that is not a good dictionary. The editor,
Pedro Álvarez de Miranda, states that the point of the new dictionary is to be
better, not less sexist, which is a good start. Then the article goes on to
acknowledge that language is not what the RAE decrees it to be, and that no one
looks at what the Academy has said before speaking or writing. On the whole, as
I say, a good article.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The Dictionary has always tried to teach people how it thinks they should speak, and has been largely ignored other than by writers of style manuals and professors of language, who tend to use it as a reference (perhaps because they have to). It does not have anything like the scope of the Oxford English Dictionary, which is a magnificent work of scholarship and, like a swimming pool in Bali with pretty young waitresses serving chilled rum as you float by; once dipped into it's hard to get out of.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">There are better dictionaries of the Spanish language. María Moliner's is probably the best, and for etymology the six volumes of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diccionario_Cr%C3%ADtico_Etimol%C3%B3gico_Castellano_e_Hisp%C3%A1nico" target="_blank">Corominas </a>are unequalled. The DRAE, on the other hand, is for people who want their homework to get a good grade, or their article to be accepted by a newspaper. A fine and useful work, but with a specific purpose to define what is good and evil in language.</span></div>
The Hickory Windhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02099970252405596982noreply@blogger.com2