One A Day, Day 45: The Golden Snitch

Read this, including listening to the audio clip of the complete twat.

I heard this on the news the other day and I was actually a little bit shocked that it was even being discussed. One sound bite from someone with a similarly obnoxious accent as “Adam” came out with the golden line “well, like, you just don’t do it, innit?”

Sorry, rewind a little there. Since when has it been not okay to talk to the police about… what’s that thing they deal with again? Oh, right. Crime. Since when has it been something you “just don’t do, innit” to inform the police about knife or gun violence?

The growing gang culture in the UK is something I find rather troubling. While in some ways it is amusing and pathetic that these groups of tracksuit-clad white English teenagers put on that ridiculous accent to try and sound like a tracksuit-clad black English teenager putting on an accent (do keep up) and acting like they’re “in the hood”, in other senses the culture of “casual crime” is an unpleasant blight on our society.

I realise I sound rather Daily Mail about all this – but I’ve seen it happening. Fortunately I’ve never been the victim of a crime myself, though some friends and I were chased down the street and into a shop by the “Bassett Boys” once for no reason other than we were walking on what was evidently their “turf”. And, remember, I’ve worked in schools, where I’ve seen a number of kids slowly descending into that kind of culture because they’re “bored, innit”. And in my last job we were regularly confronted with hoodie-wearing, attitude-giving morons who think that 50 Cent is God.

But this recent news about the stigma attached to actually informing the police about extremely serious crimes – violence and murder in some cases – is possibly the most troubling. Supposedly, the police are there to protect us, so why should people feel threatened? I certainly wouldn’t have any qualms about phoning the police if I happened to witness something going on – and, in fact, have on a number of occasions. Fortunately, none of them have been that serious (although the guy trying to kick down our neighbours’ door was a bit scary) but I just find it bizarre to think that so many young people find the idea of talking to the police to be a complete no-go area.

The report is probably skewed somewhat in its perspective (it is on the 1Xtra page, after all), but the fact remains – the police (and indeed, other authority figures) are supposed to be there to provide a sense of security to everyone, and help make things safer. What sort of culture are we living in if you can’t report a bloody crime?

One A Day, Day 38: False Start

I got it the right way around.

Normally, teachers surviving until half-term will immediately collapse upon finishing a big block of time at school, then be struck down with some mystery unpleasant illness, rendering them incapable of enjoying their holiday due to any combination of snot, sneezing, coughing, puking, diarrhoeaing, headaching or good old-fashioned exhaustion. I managed to get through most of the holiday without feeling too bad, with only what I thought to be a “stress cough” showing itself in the last few days, before developing into full-blown unpleasantness on the Monday I returned to work. Found myself burning up, sore-throated, coughing, clumsy and generally a complete mess. So I’ve had the last couple of days off sick.

Being off sick is always a strange experience. When you’re off sick from a teaching post, the feeling of guilt is enormous, even if you know you genuinely are sick. Of course, there are people everywhere who take the piss with sick days, but that’s no reason that the rest of us should feel guilty at taking some time off to recover. Fortunately, the one good thing I can say about the school I currently work at is that they’re pleasantly understanding about illness and don’t even demand a day’s worth of cover work to be sent through, unlike a previous place I worked. Yes, that’s right – one previous school I worked at actually expected you, however sick you were, to send in some cover work for the day. That didn’t help with the guilt.

Still. I will be back in tomorrow, worse luck. Not looking forward to it. The first day back wasn’t fun, though that was probably mostly the “not feeling well” talking. Going back again after the class having had a couple of days of supply teachers isn’t going to be any more pleasant. And the knowledge that the inspectors are coming back soon, along with a whole host of “monitoring” activities, is not making me feel any more positive about the whole thing – but at least there’s not that long to go. In fact, there are only three and a half weeks to go. By now, I don’t give a shit about the outcome of the aforementioned “monitoring” or the inspection, but that doesn’t mean I can just switch off from the whole unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, there’s no way of me “opting out”, despite the fact that my negligible contribution to the school will soon be a distant memory.

Oh well. I guess all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that the inspectors decide to show up after I’ve left. It could happen. But, with my track record of “luck”, it probably won’t…

One A Day, Day 36: An Open Letter

Dear Universe,

I write with regard to the recent delivery you made to my person – specifically, the bumper package of coughing fits, temperatures and shaky hands.

I do not remember ordering these items, nor do I wish to keep them. As such, I must humbly request that you dispatch a courier posthaste to come and pick them up. Technically the items have been “opened” and “used” since they are coursing through my body as we speak, but since I did not order them and they appear to have been delivered in the dead of night directly to my person rather than appropriately packaged at a more sociable hour, I do not feel that the premature opening and usage of said items is my responsibility.

I am of the mind that this delivery was perhaps intended for someone else. If this is the case, would you kindly furnish me with the details of the intended recipient and I will do my best to forward on the items as soon as possible. I would not wish the items’ rightful owner to miss out on the experience of coughing so forcefully it creates a side-effect of unintentional flatulence.

If, on the other hand, the items are an unnanounced “gift” from someone (which is possible, seeing as there did not appear to be a receipt with the items) then I request, with respect, that you provide me with their name and address so I may return the favour, perhaps through the medium of Uzbekistani sledgehammer dancing – a dangerous yet beautiful artform which frequently places bystanders’ testicles in mortal peril.

I thank you in advance for your co-operation in this matter, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Davison

One A Day, Day 30: On Chavs

The “chav” is a curious phenomenon. Those of you reading from across the pond will have heard me use it as a term of derision frequently. Perhaps you’re already familiar with the sort of person I’m talking about.

It’s difficult to pin down exactly when they appeared as a distinct subculture. There were pain in the arse kids who always got into trouble while I was at school, but I don’t think any of them were actually involved in “gangs”. I have a vivid memory of hearing the word for the first time, however, seated on the top deck of a bus with my friend Cat. There were some kids sitting a few seats ahead of us who were using language that would make a trucker blush (including the memorable out-of-context phrase “fuckin’ pancakes” that we overheard, much to our amusement) and Cat referred to them as “chavs”. I’d not heard the word prior to that point, but it quickly became apparent that this was an established word to refer to this distinct group of people – tracksuit-clad, baseball cap-wearing, mobile phone-toting (nowadays, with shit R&B music by their idols N-Dubz blasting out of their tiny speakers) zit-faced teens with greasy hair and a predilection towards underage drinking and smoking along with abuse of strangers.

The reason I feel like talking about them right now is the fact I caught a bunch of them outside my living room window tonight. I say “caught” – “heard” is more accurate. Outside our window was a group of three guys in hoodies making a hell of a racket. At first I thought they were arguing about something, but looking out of the window revealed the ugly truth: they were “rapping”. I could tell by the stupid arm movements the lead chav was making, and the fact that his two cronies were standing around with mobile phones – one playing music from its tinny speakers as a “backing track”, the other filming the whole debacle.

The result of this sort of thing generally looks something like this:

The weird thing is how seriously these idiots take it, despite looking like absolute morons. There are gangs all over Southampton who use the social networking site Bebo to promote themselves and hurl abuse at other gangs, with the sort of spelling, punctuation and grammar that would make Lynne Truss fall down dead immediately.

I’m in two minds about this sort of thing – neither of these opinions are particularly good things. In one sense, I find their efforts to be like “genuine” gangs from, say, New York to be extremely pathetic and childish. I’m no fan of the criminal lifestyle anyway, even in films and other media (though I have played me plenty of GTA in the past), so to try and emulate it just seems dumb.

Secondly, and ironically given what I’ve just said about them being laughable and pathetic, I find groups like that rather intimidating. Being a rather mild-mannered gentleman myself (at least when I don’t have a keyboard in front of me), I don’t like confrontation, and I certainly don’t like having abuse hurled at me by people I’ve never met. A lot of these kids seem to thrive on both of these things. Having worked in schools where these kids are starting to develop these traits, I can say that it’s not a pretty sight. I realise that by saying this I am allowing them to “win”, achieving exactly what they want to achieve – intimidation of those who are not “in” on the… whatever it is. A joke? But the fact remains – these are not people you’d choose to hang around.

Part of this is probably the media biasing us against them, of course, but I don’t think the depiction of them in the media is particularly unfair, having had one experience some years back of being chased into a shop by the “Bassett Boyz” accompanied by a couple of friends. Our offence? We were walking down the same street as them. We hadn’t said anything or done anything – we were simply on their “patch”, which made us targets. Luckily we managed to get away unscathed and with nothing stolen, but the staff in the shop were obviously well-used to intimidation from these children – and they are children, worryingly – and did nothing, not even calling the police. Thanks a lot.

In some senses, chavs are the antithesis to the British stereotype of being reserved, polite and speaking with perfect enunciation. Perhaps they are a sign of a rebellion against the “status quo”. But they’re certainly not a change for the better.

Still need some convincing? Go pay the St Mary’s Mandela Boys (who claim to “rule” Southampton) a visit, and check out the comments, posted by kids who are still at schools in the area. To sound like an old man for a moment (which I frequently do anyway) – is this really where we want youth culture going?

One A Day, Day 28: Customer of Size

“Many of you reached out to us via Twitter last night and today regarding a situation a Customer Twittered about that occurred on a Southwest flight. It is not our customary method of Customer Relations to be so public in how we work through these situations, but with so many people involved in the occurrence, you also should be involved in the solution. First and foremost, to Mr. Smith; we would like to echo our Tweets and again offer our heartfelt apologies to you.We are sincerely sorry for your travel experience on Southwest Airlines.

As soon as we saw the first Tweet from Mr. Smith, we contacted him personally to apologize for his experience and to address his concerns on both Twitter and with a personal phone call. Since the situation has received a lot of public attention, we’d like to take the opportunity to address a few of the specifics here as well.

Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank – as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest. He decided to change his plans and board an earlier flight to Burbank, which technically means flying standby. As you may know, airlines are not able to clear standby passengers until all Customers are boarded. When the time came to board Mr. Smith, we had only a single seat available for him to occupy. Our pilots are responsible for the Safety and comfort of all Customers on the aircraft and therefore, made the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight. Our Employees explained why the decision was made, accommodated Mr. Smith on a later flight, and issued him a $100 Southwest travel voucher for his inconvenience.

You’ve read about these situations before. Southwest instituted our Customer of Size policy more than 25 years ago. The policy requires passengers that can not fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling. This policy is not unique to Southwest Airlines and it is not a revenue generator. Most, if not all, carriers have similar policies, but unique to Southwest is the refunding of the second seat purchased (if the flight does not oversell) which is greater than any revenue made (full policy can be found here). The spirit of this policy is based solely on Customer comfort and Safety. As a Company committed to serving our Customers in Safety and comfort, we feel the definitive boundary between seats is the armrest. If a Customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a Customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.”

Thus ran SouthWest Airlines’ apology to film director Kevin Smith. I say “apology”, but it’s not really, is it? “Customer of Size policy”? What the fuck? Since when have we needed a “Customer of Size policy”? According to SouthWest, 25 years ago. I’m in awe. And not in a good way.

Mr Smith, of course, regularly refers to himself as a card-carrying member of the larger gentlemen’s club. But, as he pointed out a number of times on Twitter (in between fits of apoplectic rage), he didn’t even meet the criteria for the “Customer of Size policy” to require him to be removed from the aircraft, in that he was sitting in his seat and he had got the armrest down.

“[I was] not just ANY paying customer,” Smith wrote on Twitter. “[I was] a paying customer who fit between the arm rests & was able to buckle his seat belt w/o an extender. TRUTH!”

We’re constantly being told that obesity is a “problem” – and it probably is, from a health perspective. However, implementing such dumbass and discriminatory “policies” as these is a sad sign of the times, where paperwork and tickboxes rule all.

Here’s a thought, SouthWest Airlines: If you’re so worried about the fatties getting on your planes and the comfort of your other passengers, why not get some bigger fucking chairs and space them out a bit more?

Oh, right, because you wouldn’t be able to squeeze as many passengers on, would you? And that would be terrible for your poor little profit margins, wouldn’t it? Poor baby.

Smith, as he is wont to do with most things, has handled this situation rather publicly via Twitter and even through a special edition of his podcast (which is a hilarious listen generally, by the way) – all of which is probably giving SouthWest’s PR department a collective heart attack.

Well, good, I say. Smith has enough public following for this to be raised as a big deal, no pun intended. Imagine how mortifying it would be for a member of the public to be removed from a plane due to their weight. Yes, it could potentially be uncomfortable for someone to have to sit next to a chubster – but the problem wouldn’t be there in the first place if airlines didn’t pack everyone in like cattle.

I’m off to bed now. Fat power.

(I feel like Yahoo! News writing nonsense like this about celebrities. But I think blogs are a far better place for this sort of thing than a site that purports to be about actual “news”. That’s a rant for another day, though.)

One A Day, Day 27: Sportsmanship

There was a football match in my city today. Southampton vs Portsmouth. These two are traditionally great rivals, and everyone jokes that there’ll be “rioting” after a game between the two of them, as if that’s a perfectly normal thing to expect to happen after a sporting event.

I didn’t encounter any particular problems myself, but there sure were a lot of people wandering around to and from town, plus several local shops had either put up signs refusing to serve alcohol, or closed completely, citing the football match as the reason. As I walked through town in the middle of the day, there was a constant police presence, with officers on foot walking around the pedestrian area in the middle of town, while cars and vans raced around the major roads of the city, sirens blaring.

As I saw all this I had to think to myself “why?”

I know people get attached to their sports teams. This may be for personal reasons, it may be just something you’re interested in, or it may be a sense of loyalty to where you come from (although the last one is rather rarer than it used to be, with many people choosing to follow the clubs with the most money rather than the ones nearest them). It may even be a completely arbitrary decision.

The thing I don’t get is this: what is it about supporting a team that makes people get into such a state that a police presence approaching that required for a terrorist incident is necessary?

That was a terribly clumsy sentence. But do you see my point?

Surely if you enjoy watching football you enjoy watching football. Many people I know who do like football are perfectly normal people who have never been in a fight. So why all the police? Why do I hear shouting morons passing by my window on the way to the stadium? (Incidentally, the only noise I hate as much as people chewing is drunken football chanting.)

Perhaps one of my trans-Atlantic readers could shed some light on this issue. Does this sort of thing happen with American football games? I get the impression that the “local loyalty” thing is a much bigger deal in the States.

One A Day, Day 24: Any Other Day

There goes another day. There are now two days remaining until the half-term vacation and a well-earned week off for me. I can’t wait. I wish I didn’t have to go back after said holiday, but at least there isn’t that long to survive after it – and then the joy of PAX.

Naturally, since I’m nearing the end of one of the more unpleasant chapters of my life, now is the time for the shit to hit the fan. The school is expecting a “progress inspection” from the inspectors who judged it “shit” in the first place (I’m paraphrasing, of course) and that will inevitably involve yet more lesson observations. I’m half tempted to not even try, and let them get a real look at what the kids in that school are like. Why should I put myself out preparing a full-on fancy lesson plan when it only gets judged as “inadequate” by the local authority anyway?

I forgot to mention about the previous one – the super-ironic thing about that “inadequate” lesson (which my colleague also taught and got judged similarly, remember) is that we were following the guidelines on the National Strategy Framework Bollocks Primary Policy Full Of Shit site, or whatever it’s called, to the letter. The lesson we delivered was straight out of the National Framework. And it was “inadequate”.

Stupid.

On a side note, I have absolutely no idea why that site gives you the opportunity to 1) comment on 2) rate and 3) share its contents on Facebook. It’s a huge pile of shit all round, so I urge you all to go there forthwith and troll the comments sections for each page as only the Internet can.

So what else is going to happen? Well, there’s assessments to give in (which I’ve nearly finished, but not quite – late evening tomorrow… gah) and then there’s a parents’ evening to look forward to at the beginning of March, at which point I will be counting down the days until I escape so I really have little to no interest in talking to those who spawned the mini-chavs in my care. Actually, there’s the potential opportunity for some fun there. There are plenty of kids in that class who need a good bollocking and don’t listen when I give it to them, so hopefully the parents will sort them out.

Or perhaps not; since I’ve only had four reply slips back so far (and inevitably, all of them want to come in the latest possible time slot, meaning I have to sit twiddling my thumbs for about four hours) there might not be much opportunity to discuss it, particularly as all the parents who have signed up so far are the parents of the few actually nice children in the class.

Boo! Rubbish.

One day I’ll stop ranting about this. Hopefully it will be the day I leave (or shortly thereafter).

For now, it’s survival. Nearly there, though it was touch and go today for a while – though I did apply for another job that I actually want (as opposed to when I applied for the job I’m currently stuck in, which I applied for because I had to – at the time, I thought I wanted to do this, and there wasn’t much else available) so hopefully that will come to something. I currently have three applications pending for different jobs, all of which I very much want. Hopefully one or more of them will find me sufficiently intriguing to interview and/or hire me. Time will tell.

Now I’m off to play some video games. Ta-ta.

One A Day, Day 22: Haven’t Thought This Through

See title. It’s 11:26pm and I haven’t thought of something to write about. I did write a lengthy post extolling the virtues of Star Trek Online over at BitMob earlier, so at least I have written something. Still, not thinking things through sometimes leads to some entertaining ramblings of the nonsensical variety. Or sometimes not.

Let’s start by talking about today. That’s always a good opening.

Well, today was another day at work. Same old moans. Stupid children behaving in an annoying manner. Not wanting to be there. And, because it’s Monday, that means Meeting Day! Hooray!

Today’s meeting was about special needs provision. Specifically, and hold tight here, it was about IEPs, IBMPs, SA children, SA+ children and all manner of other nonsense that would cause your brain to melt if I explained it. The one thing that struck me, though, as I was sitting bored stiff in this meeting was this: why is one person expected to do all this shit?

I mean seriously. Think about it for a minute. A teacher is in charge of thirty kids. Their primary role is to teach them. That should be their role. But instead, they also find themselves keeping extensive and boring records of every single little mark, every single little bit of behaviour, every single time the kid looks at them funny – all to use for “evidence”. Exactly what it is to be used as “evidence” for is never made explicit. Perhaps there’s a global conspiracy involving children, and the UK’s teachers are actually secret agents attempting to get to the bottom of it. But somehow I doubt it.

To get back on the point – yes, a teacher is in charge of thirty kids. But compare this to someone who’s in charge of a team of people at work – it tends not to be just one person who is in charge of everything. Say what you like about overmanagement, at least delegating responsibility between several people means that there isn’t one person constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown because they discover they forgot to fill out a form PQX-65-A which was due in yesterday.

It’s bollocks, is what it is. I’m glad I’m leaving.

What else? Hmm. I took a bunch of photos from my little trip to the forest the other day and finally stuck them on my computer. I’m currently booted into Windows, though, and they’re stored on the Mac side. I’ll upload them tomorrow if I remember. There are lots of pictures of wild ponies, which look like a cross between a pony and a yak.

Anything else? Err… I downloaded an iPhone app that purports to analyse your sleep patterns and wake you up when you’re in “light sleep”. I tried it out this morning and I certainly did wake up gently, though actually getting out of bed was somewhat difficult. I don’t think that was anything to do with how I woke up though – more to do with the fact that I knew as soon as I got out of bed, I would be on the way to another horrible day at work. Boo.

Still, tomorrow is my quiet day at work. Oh! That reminds me. More observations coming up. YAY. Not until the start of March (i.e. just before I finish, making them utterly useless to me) but they’re there, waiting on the peripheries of my awareness like a fetid old tramp. That and parent’s evening coming up soon, which I really can’t be bothered with. “Your child acts like a dick on a daily basis. Next!”

I think that’ll do for now. I’ll try and write something more interesting tomorrow. For now, I bid you good night.

One A Day, Day 21: Fantasy Feedback

So, that was the weekend. It went by far too quickly for my liking, but at least it was calm, relaxing and completely stress-free. If only things could be like that all the time, it would be lovely.

Of course, I haven’t “achieved” very much this weekend (unless you count my promotion to Lieutenant Commander in Star Trek Online) but sometimes it’s nice to not think about whether or not you should be doing something more important. There is plenty of time for stress in the week, because believe me, it always finds you.

I have one more week until the week-long half-term vacation from school. After that, it really is counting down the weeks and days until my escape. Once I get to that point, I will be past caring. If the school inspectors turn up to judge me inadequate during those last few weeks, they will get a piece of my mind.

They probably won’t, of course, because I’m far too much of a pussy to stand up to people in most cases, but it’s the thought that counts.

Or maybe I should say something. As I’ve said in a number of previous entries, teachers suffer in silence all the time. They nod and smile when another item is put on their personal “To-Do” lists without their permission, they grin and bear it when new “initiatives” are launched (and inevitably prove to be completely useless), they fill out their stupid pointless paperwork and then they go and moan in the staffroom. It’s the way of things. But I find myself wondering exactly what would happen if someone were to break that barrier and answer back to an OfSTED inspector.

Maybe it might go something like this:

INSPECTOR: Would you like some feedback from that lesson?

TEACHER: No. No I wouldn’t. Goodbye.

INSPECTOR: I really think you should have some feedback from that lesson.

TEACHER: I, on the other hand, do not. Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

INSPECTOR: Your starter was satisfactory and had the children enga-

TEACHER: Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said no.

INSPECTOR: …the children were engaged. However, during your input-

TEACHER: Oh, we’re going to do this, are we? All right then. Input? It’s called “teaching”. Or even “talking”. Have you forgotten?

INSPECTOR: During your input, I would have liked to see more being taught.

TEACHER: Oh. Sorry. There I was thinking I was singing a song. Not… what’s that word for that thing I do when I’m standing at the front… Oh right, teaching.

INSPECTOR: However, there was a lot of you talking. It would have been nice to-

TEACHER: So I didn’t teach enough, but I talked too much. Right. Do carry on. This is fascinating.

INSPECTOR: It would have been nice to see the children say a little more on the subject.

TEACHER: They don’t know anything about the subject. That’s why I said it was a “new topic”. They seemed to understand that. Didn’t you?

INSPECTOR: As a result, the children didn’t make enough progress in that lesson.

TEACHER: Not enough progress? All right. How are you measuring that? Where is your magic “progress-o-meter” that measures how far the children progressed in the twenty minutes out of the hour you came and observed? I bet you have one. I bet it produces charts and graphs and syncs with Microsoft Excel, doesn’t it? Mmmm, Excel. You love Excel, don’t you? With its charts and its numbers and its ABJECT FUCKING TEDIUM. Just like you really.

INSPECTOR: So therefore, I am going to have to rate that lesson as inadequate.

TEACHER: Will it still be inadequate if I punch you in the neck?

INSPECTOR: What? Yes!

TEACHER: Well, it doesn’t matter, then. (punches Inspector in the neck) This is my most inadequate punch, bitch! You wouldn’t want to see my Outstanding one, or even my Good one!

Oh, what a wonderful experience that would be.

The sad thing about that fantasy exchange is that the things I quoted the Inspector as saying are the exact things they do say. Utter nonsense, non?

One A Day, Day 19: The Worst Week

After midnight again… But I haven’t gone to sleep yet. Although I will be very shortly.

This week has been utterly terrible. Not just for me, but for, it seems, most people. Both my wife and I noticed an alarmingly high number of despairing status updates from our respective Facebook and Twitter friends this week, yesterday in particular.

February’s always bad. I don’t know what it is about it. But it’s always shit. And no-one ever does anything about it.

Of course, that’s a stupid statement. What CAN anyone do about it? Nothing. Except maybe declare the whole month a national holiday.

They should declare the whole month a national holiday!

All this aside, the week is now effectively over, so I am looking forward to a quiet and pointless weekend.

What about today? After my inadequacy was made official yesterday, the headteacher came to see me after school. To – get this – “check I’m still on board”. Well, no, I resigned, remember? I had to bite my tongue a bit, otherwise I would have exploded at her. I’m in two minds as to whether or not I should have given her a piece of my mind about the utter meaninglessness of those stupid judgements. I’m coming down on the “don’t rock the boat” side of things at the moment. Maybe I can tear shit up a bit a little closer to the end.

One thing I do want to do, though, is write up all the things that I’ve said are dumb about education as an article and send it somewhere like <a href="TES or even a full-on newspaper. People need to hear about the plight of teachers as so many of them – including myself – suffer in silence and don’t stand up to what is effectively bullying from people who have as much value to education as a lump of steaming turd. Actually, the turd is more valuable, as at least it could be discussed in a rather unpleasant Science lesson.

Anyway. Enough of that for now. It’s the weekend. I’m off for some well-earned sleep. Next week is the last week before the week-long half term vacation, then it’s the home straight from there.

G’night.