| (no subject) |
[Oct. 1st, 2008|04:20 pm] |
Just so you know ... not dead!
Just a teacher.
May post something worthwhile at a later date.
Or maybe not! |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 26th, 2008|08:43 am] |
Two recommendation questions folks:
1 Has anyone had a good experience getting central heating installed? If so can you pass me the name of the firm?
2 Does anyone know a fishmonger that I can buy sustainable species like pollock and coley in (more unlikely perhaps crayfish)? I've found both the supermarkets and the fishmongers in the Great Junction St sort of area totally useless for this sort of thing. Prepared to go anywhere in the Leith/Newhaven/Trinity sort of area?
Cheers,
Craig |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|12:33 pm] |
I am fairly bemused by Scottish Fencing's selection poilcy.
Let someone train all year towards a specific fixture so that he has spent a lot of time and money qualifying, so he gets into the shape of his life, have him outqualify his competitors, then change the rules after the fact to make sure you don't have to pick him for reasons of your own.
The subsequent year, when he has spent a the year coasting, hardly going training, attending fewer competitions and sitting in his flat eating cake and drinking wine on his own, put him in the squad! Oh but make sure the notice is so tight he will struggle to get the day off work.
You would think we were all amateurs or something... |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 20th, 2008|02:21 pm] |
I can't believe I've lived in Edinburgh so long without going to North Berwick.
Or that I chose such a crazily cold and windy day (Friday) for my maiden visit!
Took my friend Cat - the beach was too cold to eat our picnic, besides which a dog ran up and ate half of it (tt had the least apologetic owner in the world - "Yes he always does that to [sneer] tourists") and we climbed Berwick Law in incredible winds. Got a sense of achievement, and an earache, but I think I'll go back in the summer when the view would be worth it!
Craig out. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 21st, 2008|02:36 pm] |
On a saner note. I am off for a couple weeks so would be up for school night (except not, ha ha!) drinkin' over next fortnight.
Also at a loose end tonight... |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 21st, 2008|02:28 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  jubilant | ] |
YES!!!!!
Take that Drainpipe!
Coffee granules! Are you watching?
Unidintified matter, pressure clogging, probably Maggie Thatcher - are you watching?
You boys took one hell of a beating!
And now I can both wash the dishes and do some laundry!
The stone has been rolled away, what was there has disappeared this is my easter miracle!!!
Praise be! |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 16th, 2008|03:36 pm] |
Greetings all;
I am Edinburgh's newest pub quiz master!
In the short to medium term future I am taking over the Blind Poet pub quiz. What we humble teachers need to do to keep us in pencils (and, er, electricity).
So if anyone would like a go (or just to see me as I seem to find my weekends are getting booked up about six weeks ahead these days) Feel free to pop along to said pub Sunday nights at nine for Craig and trivia. |
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| Pitt St eco-revolution |
[Feb. 13th, 2008|01:12 pm] |
Hi there folks.
Advice? I am trying to 'green' my flat and am looking into home energy at the moment.
I am currently with British Gas (Scottish Gas north of the Tweed...), which claims, for what it's worth, to be Britain's greenest major supplier. Hmmm...
Anyway the easy thing would to be to go onto their sustainable tariff; I know however that some major suppliers simply write off the customers who do that against the 6 odd% of sustainable the government forces them to buy already. While I don't expect the juice in my flat to start coming from a windfarm by switching tariff, I do expect it to mean a percentage difference to the amount of sustainable the company is buying.
Despite trawling through the websites provided by the rough guide to ethical living I can't find any way to find out if British Gas do this or use it as a fudge.
So, question the first:
Does anyone either know what BG sustainable tariff policy entails exactly or know a website I can go to which would tell me? Friends of the Earth not as useful as I thought they'd be.
Question the second, My alternative would be to switch to a company genuinely committed to sustainables. This has obvious advantages, but I'm a little worried about a small company's tariffs and how well they can service you. Times are tight till I go up on the payscale. Also worried that they may also be a bit less gree than they pretend...
Does anyone have experience with any of the following companies and what can you tell me about them - positive or negative?
Ecotricity
Good Energy
Green Energy UK?
As a third alternative if anyone knows of a different major supplier from BG that have a substantially better environmentally friendly tariff, I'd like to hear about that as well.
Thanks all!
Craig |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 8th, 2008|04:00 pm] |
Off for a week.
Taking home a ton of marking. Lots of little excursions in the near future, none very exciting.
See you all later. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 13th, 2008|03:41 pm] |
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Bloody six week month. I'm not doing much of interest to anyone really. Eeking is the verb, I believe. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 20th, 2007|09:00 am] |
Ok I can finally with some justification slack off. I have a pile of marking beside me, the kids are watching 'Mirrormask' on the smartboard, and I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a merry christmas a little early as I'll only forget later.
Cheers all.
Craig |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 10th, 2007|11:49 am] |
Golden Compass - It's quite enjoyable - the story structure was kept in place, the characters were not fundamentally altered. The design looked pretty much right - the fictional Oxford was how I imagine it, the airships and armoured bears looked pretty much right.
But some how... it all seemed inconsequential. Powder-puff, forgettable.
I can't really pinpoint it (it had even got the anti-church stance pretty much spot on, being very against religious authority and said some things about free will which would be comprehensible for kids, instead of Pullman's sour faced bigotry) , just less than the sum of it's parts somehow.
Oh well.
If you do go and see it, stick around for the most entertainingly, stupidly awful end-credits tie in song!!
Sample lyric:
"Lyra, Lyyyyyyra
and her soul walks beeeeeside her!"
or even better
"Lyra with her face,
Lyra, full of grace"
Now there's someone who either misunderstood the anti-catholic stance (who full-of-grace?) or the concept of irony.
Not to mention song writing! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 8th, 2007|04:02 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  grumpy | ] |
Nothing like a saturday in December to bring out my inner misanthrope and repressed anti-capitalism. |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 29th, 2007|06:32 pm] |
Ah, it seems one of the uses of Facebook is to find 50 odd emails in your inbox.
I guess it will calm down after the initial flurry of befriending... |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 25th, 2007|01:44 pm] |
So I got a facebook.
Looks rubbish to me... |
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| Greetings from the netherworld |
[Nov. 15th, 2007|12:53 pm] |
"One November spawned a Monster" as a depressed Mancunian once sang.
Apologies to all those I haven't seen or been in contact with for a while. I am buried under a pile of work. This has been my most challenging term in the time since I took up the profession. Not the kids either just work, work, endless work.
I might possibly be getting over the crest of the work mountain the weekend after this - I would like to see 'Beowulf' at the pictures sometime then. Anyone up for it? |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 3rd, 2007|04:45 pm] |
I have decided I enjoy working in a school with a political agenda.
While I subscribe to all the main tennants pushed by our senior management, when I first arrived at Gillespie's I felt a bit uncomfortable with how strident we were, I guess I was caught up in the idea of being 'neutral' as a teacher.
In the last couple of weeks though the kids have made me feel really proud - the Amnesty Group all wore orange boiler suits for a couple of days as a protest against Guantanamo Bay and the loads of the kids are wearing orange ribbons they have made to show solidarity with the monks in Bhurma.
I guess the idea that you shouldn't affect the kids world outlook and morality is in some ways incompatible with the idea of 'teacher' anyway. I'm reconciled to the idea that we are churning out so many actively (yes actively - useful liberalism is something of a rarity) Liberal young minds.
I have been researching Arthur Miller for my higher lessons recently and it struck me that if our school was transposed to fifties America then Alex, our head, would certainly be up before a McCarthy panel and arguably half of the teaching staff would as well.
I sort of like that. |
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| Good Idea Bad Idea |
[Oct. 25th, 2007|03:50 pm] |
Good idea: Leading a school theatre trip to a production of 'A midsummer Night's Dream'.
Bad idea: Not anticipating that among the attractions would be Bottom's transformation including a donkey sized phallus. The twelve year olds went wild.
I guess my resignation had better be on the desk first thing in the morning... |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 21st, 2007|01:16 pm] |
Discuss:
The removal or toning down of the anti-religious message in the forthcoming adaptation of Phillip Pullman's books
Option 1
A shameful piece of hollywood whitewashing, the betrayal of what makes these books special. A sop to biblebelt America.
Option 2
An adroit recognition of what was rubbish about the books by the film makers. A welcome release from Pullman's tiresome urge to make what could have been a superb fantasy trilogy into patronising tracts. Also provides hope that the final film (Amber Spyglass equivalent) will not, unlike the book, be an absolutely rubbish conclusion.
I lean very heavily towards option 2. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 10th, 2007|09:54 am] |
Two totally unrelated questions:
What's the least unpleasant Fair-trade instant coffee?
Does anyone know where you can learn to canoe in Edinburgh (I think canoe can be used as a verb?) |
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beau_sabreur's journal