Madrid Teacher

While in the USA people are now bowling alone and also in the UK according to cultural commentators, it can be seen that big brother provides evidence to repudiate any claim that this is happenning in Spain.

Today on GH 24 ( I have a bit of flu so I can justify sitting in front of the TV all day), the house guests sat talking in a group for hours. Pupillo was wearing , well lets say he wouldn´t be out of place a bird watching club AGM, what can only be described as clothes from C&A´s least fashionable section, he was sat discussing with several trendy 20 somethings and they fully accepted him. This cultrual reference hopefully is another point in favour of Big brother being screened live 24 hours on terestrial tele.

Pupillo still in gran hermano and Mavis out of corrie is going to be a Dr Who villian.

Obviously not much on in my life at moment

Today I laughed like I haven´t for a while. Whenever you are feeling annoyed or angry forget yoga and plonking candles around your bathtub, go to youtube.com and type in postman pat. The newer updated version of that traditional favourite is now post modern postman pat. I shall say no more just watch.

Enjoyed a lovely two hour traffic jam this week, When I finally reached the scene of the crash, it was just a bump between a couple of cars and one of the "drivers" seemed to be screaming and waving his arms around at the Guarda Civil, I thought at this point, after about working my way through 11 marlboros, maybe the government should increase the powers of arrest?

Another thing is Blair´s list of his successes!!! In my city nearly one sixth voted for the far right, hospital wards are closing and now pensioners have to catch a bus in order to get their pension, quite a distance away from cool britannia.

Sir Malcolm Arnold died today. I remember when learning the trumpet playing one of his Scottish Dances. Although I never saw him conduct he was someone I wish I had had the luck to see. In Spain they honour their composers by calling them Maestro. What a term, what a wonderful way in which to celebrate the music makers. When I lived in Valencia my bolthole was Sagunto. This was where Maestro Rodrigo was born. Everytime I went to the Roman theatre overlooking the town, I used to think about Rodrigo, blind at the age of three but craeted one of the most beautiful guitar works ever.

Nova is officially camp (for a girl dog). R was spraying Jean Paul Guaultier around earlier and some of it landed on Nova´s fur. She smells like Deseo 54 in Valencia.

I have just read a great article in the FT about congestion charging in Sweden. It has been a bottom up approach, test runs which people found popular so the Government brought in congestion charging. Now thats democracy. Here in Madrid there are proposals to bring in road charging my Friedmanite hormones say no but common sense prevails and I support the proposal.

Obviously there will be the semi revolution which occurred when parking meters were brought to all the streets inside the M30, where the populus painted streets pink and other extreme shades (hmm interior design, now I know where it comes from). But aside from this Rainbow Painting Revolution which is certain to happen when the charging arrives,it will be a good thing for Madrid. If you ever escape to the countryside you can see the dome of pollution which covers the city in a Logan´s Run futuristic city style , with charging this will vanish. The great thing is that public transport is so superior in Madrid that the money earned could be invested on other needy things. There you have it, in the words of Nipper Read who caught the Krays, "case solved"

There are two quite serious illnesses in my family at the moment one in the UK and one in Spain. I think that this causes one to reflect on quite a few things. One must say what is deep inside and be there for those suffering. Hopefully I have don ethis this week.

Today as I watched Gran Hermano (Big Brother), it was really satisfying to see so many people smoking. All around us the Government are trying to ban it, but as usual the trendy young things (sorry pulpillo you are not part of this group) are chimmneying it.

I know I am crawling to the age where Discos will be too loud but it is always good to know that the generation below are continuing the fight against sensibility and doing the right thing. The Irish guy in BB seems to be doing well and his Spanish certainly puts me to shame.

BB is on 24 hours a day here so my life will be complete for the next 12 weeks. I remember once S catching me watching the BB UK contestants sleeping and I was actually compus mentus that morning. I know many people are contemptuous of BB but my simple message is that Germaine Greer was on it once and she reads the Guardian.

As an aside it was good to see the Basque peace process going well, they set fire to a bus

Spanish culture enables a person to go to bed very late, 24 hour discos, being able to order food at 1 ÁM in the Chinese restaurant and late licensing hours in all villages and towns, but the big down side to this is that if your unfortunate enough to live in a flat there is always at least one set of the neighbours who are complete dickheads. Why do people think that it is appropriate to blast out music at 10:30 on a sunday morning? Psychologically I am sure that this means one of two things (I garnered this information BigBrother monday evening psycholoical briefing and Raj persued on This Morning so it must be true), firstly, they are crying out for attention, or secondly they have small private parts.

However in my new era of positivity, it gave me an extra hour with Nova, and could watch West Wing in english without R asking me to translate every third word.

Politics is sooo great in the UK

• We might have a new prime minister without actually voting for him or her
• Another minister has just slagged off all the people who are brought up in single parent household
• The liberals say Gordon Brown is authoritarian when they sack their boss for the dangerous and heinous crime of liking a drink
• The Tories believe that by changing their coporate ID to a tree of all things they will now be seen as greens and that they are cuddly.

My well thought out early morning response is

Clare Short for PM she is just great
Swap current gov´t ministers for a group of single mums from the inner city not only will they talk more sense but they could close Milburn´s Power Gap much more efficiently than another ten years of labour
Let MPs drink, it would be fun to see them pissed in parliament (Tracy Ermin style)
Change the Tory logo, no they should keep it I still can´t get over the fact that it is a tree.

Spanish big brother has started, they are a sane bunch this year. I am voting for Pulpillo he lives in Jaen, its great he looks 40 and still lives with his parents. Bless

Just watched another West Wing and read an article about Jimmy Carter.

I have only been on half days and I am absolutely knackered but quite an eventful week

A few thoughts after first week back at work:
1) Great place to work at not to work for, which I think sums it up. It was great seeing my work mates again, quite a few laughs this week but the dark specture of marking beckons. Still I can always fall back on my philosohpy of if it isn´t marked by end of term it goes in bin, so I won´t mark until end of term. That is a lie???

2) while catching train and walking from station (Madrid still a great big building site) I have nearly been run over twice, and was saved a third time only because I was chatting to a mate but this still didn´t stop me shouting abuse at the driver. Today I was nearly run over my someone with a French registration (bloody Europe hopefully we will never join the euro)

3) Am I getting too old, I am finding it increasingly difficult to get out of bed in a morning and its only first week.

Other thoughts.

1) made R come to D*A supermarket with me today and as usual people were fighting/arguing in the queue. A lady was even arguing in French. Even I look posh in this supermarket but as I snobbishly remarked to R it is good to see how the other half live.

2) Faced up to the fact that I am a West Wing addict. What can I do??? I just can´t say no. I watch at least three episode a day. I will be buying Clintons biography soon (well it is on offer at D*A)

For the first time in about 34 years I actually had a chat about football today. Whats even more scary is that I later looked for the result on the internet.

I have been back at work and me and R couldn´t pay the phone bill so this excuses my absence hopefully. Phone bill paid and now back on line.

I have started a new term refreshed, although within a week I have had at least one night of insommnia (the non sleeping type not a nightclub) so back behind on my sleep and had to grouch through today. usual thing this week - way too many meetings where our new key phrase of the week is global approach. Last year it was actually synergy!!! So now we must be global, global what I ask?do we have to sing a variety of national anthems, support political regimes of varying political persuasions, where national costumes and be able say hello in a plethora of languages.

No it is just another bollocksy phrase which means nothing except to people who write management guides. Back to basics would be much more useful, sack a few of the looneys who seem to inhabit the international schools universe ( I include me in that) (well not really I am wonderful), spend money on resources and in the words of another globaliser Blair get on with the job.

Before I finish it is good news from the UK, Blair seems to be on his way out. Ohhh the treachery!!! but this time we will all have a smile on our face. Ha Ha ha ha ha (fading out slowly)

Tomorrow after a very quick flying two months I have to go back to work. Do I want to go back, NO. After seeing a few of my colleagues this weekend who all wanted the new term to start I thought have I lost the work ethic? Again NO, I have enjoyed reading my books, not worrying about functioning badly with hangovers and watching Sex in the City, West Wing and the Simpsons to my hearts content . (Aide memoire - must watch more English tele). But tomorrow I must rise at 6:15 and battle against the traffic (can´t face the train on the first day back).

I now have to mentally prepare myself and muse Calvanistically.