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Setting the standard

‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’ - a classic rule that was told to a class of 28 starry-eyed innocents 4 years ago in one of my year’s initial RE lessons. It’s tacky, it’s cheesy, but it’s also a tactful way of saying ’stop being so conceited you egotistical little fuck’.

But is it always relevant? Two loosely related events today made me consider this.

I have that cold bug that’s going around, on top of some other underlying headache-inducing nastyness, so I have felt pretty under the weather for the past few days. Whilst txting my mother in ‘tutor-time’ (a sort of doss session where you can catch up on work, which is officially described as either ‘a time to socialize with your peers’ or ‘a time for silent work’ depending on the teacher’s mood), my personal tutor decided it would be a good idea to steal my phone. Read more…

Pointing the finger

As I was walking home earlier this evening, two cars collided almost head on about 20 meters in front of me.

From the angle of the cars, it appeared that an elderly lady had tried to pull out of her drive without taking the time to check for incoming vehicles. Another car had collided with it, taking out the right side of the bonnet and also dealing some impressive damage to the woman’s car.

Before I had managed to get close enough to see what was really going on, another elderly, though impressively energetic woman had emerged from a nearby house and was threatening the male driver through the window. A huge scene was made as the woman loudly commanded the man to stay in his car, stay right there, not to dare get out, not to move, and what was probably translatable as a threat of violence should the man refuse to turn off his engine. Before long, the street was alive with activity - perhaps half due to the commotion caused by Mackworth’s new self-appointed absolutist.

I later learned that the male driver had apparently tried to ‘make a break for it’, and this woman was trying to keep him in his car in case he was uninsured and trying to avoid a fine, or perhaps even acquittal for dangerous driving. Equally, as far as I saw, he could have being trying to escape a potential explosion hazard.

Read more…

Connexions troubles

The vBP’s next gig is at a pub in Chaddesden, as part of a Connexions event.  We have known about this gig since around February, but things are starting to crop up now.  Our set is 20-30 minutes and we’re probabaly able to do:

• Every time (own song) (emotive song)
• Dead Man (own song) (flagship song)
• This Pain (own song) (only about two minutes, including dodgey bridge)
• Uncivilized (only about two and a half minutes)
• Maus (lacks words)
• Hand of Blood (cover)
• House of the Rising Sun (cover)
• Chapter Four (cover) (not ready yet)

That lot might just fill a 20 minute slot.  Two of the songs are quick, This Pain has the most awkward (and currently, frankly rather painful sounding) bridge, and Chapter Four is virtually un-doable because of Elliot’s downright stubborness towards buying some locking tuners and actually keeping his guitar in tune for a few minutes.  Without two perfectly-tuned guitars, harmonies sound ridiculous.

Another huge problem is tightness… we need several practices to get up to performing level from the lax standard we adopt whilst writing and refining songs.  OK, fair enough, we have been re-writing the songs and teaching our new bassist his parts, but we can’t exactly turn around on the night and say ‘oh, sorry for the shitness, but we’ve been busy’.

The one cure for a lack of tightness is practice time, and that’s exactly what we don’t have.  Our drummer and bassist are on holiday for a fortnight, and arrive back on the 11^th or 12^th.  This was fine, as it gave us a whole week within which we could practice at our leisure.  However, in a very stupid and highly irritating move, Elliot thought it would be a clever idea to book a holiday with his girlfriend from the 12^th to the 17^th or 18^th.  And that’s commitment for you.

Our gig is on the 19^th.  This gives us - at most - two full-day practices, plus the odd short one.  Realistically, I predict we will have perhaps 7 hours.  In terms of actual practice time, thats nothing, especially looking at what we need to get through.

What we’re having to do is rehearse in segments, where the whole band is never together as a unit.  This isn’t really practical, as a metronome is no substitute for a drummer, two guitars will not fill the gap of a bassist, and a 16 bar gap where a solo used to be somewhat kills the momentum of a song.

But, its the best we have and we’ll have to make the most out of it.

Summer romances

I woke up this morning with a pounding headache and a sensation in my throat akin to having a barbed wire fence dragged through my thorax, and so decided to take the day off school.  My headache is subsiding somewhat now, and as I have a SPB to work on and a geography coursework extension to plead for, as soon as this post is finished I’m going for a shower and dragging myself to school for half a day.

As I lay in bed this morning debating whether or not it would be worth downing a large amount of Ibuprofen and hoping for the best, it struck me how crap summers are.

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The true meaning of planning

For the DiDA course, I am required to do a large amount of structured planning.  Everything, almost every detail, must be planned and any deviation from your plans must be documented.  Some of it you are allowed - occasionally even encouraged - to do your own way.  But the rest of it is dictated to you - candidates are ‘told’ how to plan by the board… and if you dont like it, then tough.

 We are given certain guidelines to follow.  Some ‘guidelines’ are stricter than others - for instance, we have to do a storyboard for movies and information points.  I don’t want to work like that, thats not how I work!  I want to do flowcharts and diagrams and map things as they come out of my head so I can refine them later.

Obviously, DiDA students are forced to conform to these ‘guidelines’, as failure to do so would result in failing the course.   However, I question the usefulness of plans that are forced upon us and dictated to us.