In the course of clearing and sorting out in preparation for moving house, I re-discovered some doodles from my first year in Manchester, during which time I for some reason took to drawing cartoons of Panda and Mouse. I hope you relish their mediocrity. In the light of having nothing to say at the moment, I will keep posting them until I run out. I seem to have lost some, so here is a double bill: numbers 2 and 3.

Tags: panda, mouse, cartoon

Labels: cartoons

My car still being broken, I'm waiting at Stockport station and going off to Blackburn for the evening thusly. It's amazing how public transport numbs the mind and makes it physically impossible to think. Wish me well reading Jewish existential philosophy on the way through Salford.

Labels: blackburn, stockport, trains

For about three months now I've been volunteering at the church's local primary school, running a singing club, and it is without a shadow of a doubt the hardest thing I've ever done, and I feel completely inadequate for the task. I keep going though, and try to console myself with the vague notion that perhaps what I'm doing is going to help or inspire at least one of them in a way that might not have happened otherwise. There are several aspects to these difficulties. First, there is the musical side: I'm finding it incredibly hard to choose music which is exciting, fun, educational, good, challenging, and appropriate all at the same time. I think the reason so much music in schools is still religious, even when the school isn't necessarily, is that all the other options are so violently anodyne and uninteresting. The vocabulary and narratives of religious music seem to be more immediately accessible to children's imaginations.

Second, there is the discipline side: I am not completely hopeless at disciplining kids, but I'm not that great at it either. Part of the problem is that I'm not trained in how to do it effectively; another part of the problem is that I'm running a club for fun, not teaching a class, and people can leave whenever they want. Nevertheless, this will be easily solved by simply having a teacher sit in on the whole thing. Third, there is the fear side: children terrify me, both conceptually, and in how nakedly they portray the violent dynamics of human society, and in the myriad calamities that may befall on grounds of child protection.

Music in schools is difficult, but in primary schools particularly it should be taught and run properly. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen. As with any of the arts, the method of education seems to be, more often than not, to stick a keyboard or a triangle in front of someone and let them piss around. Consequently kids learn very little about musical notation, musical history, or musical instruments, which limits the possibilities of their developing an interest and building instrumental skills. This is not the fault of schools in the state sector; it has been squeezed out by other curricular demands and a lack of money. I know of no primary school that specifically employs a musical specialist, but primary school age is exactly when music is most appealing and accessible to children. And, taught properly (something I am not capable of), reading music is not difficult and can open up a world of exciting possibilities.

The answer? We can't go on relying on volunteers. If we value the arts, and music in particular, we need to fund and employ specialists to do a paid job in primary schools, and make room in the curriculum for it to be taught in a disciplined way. Volunteers are great for supplementing a school's teaching, and the more that people are involved in schools in this way will be great for the communities in which they live; but relying on volunteers to keep the arts alive is unrealistic and will be ineffective.

Tags: music, children, schools

Labels: music

For an altogether different and more sympathetic judgement on Perfume: The Story of a Murderer than mine, you can check out Manchester colleague Timothy Stanley.

Tags: film, perfume, theology, murderer

Labels: film

Seventy sides of A4, 20,000 words, and forty-five books later, I have finished my coursework and still seem to be breathing. But I'll see you after rehab. Peace out.

Labels: essays

I saw this and thought it hilarious: the van of a paper shredding company parked outside Harpurhey Police Station. I wonder what needs destroying?

car being broken down, i opt for bike, bike having puncture, i opt for train, train breaks down with brakes stuck on, locked in train for an hour, get off train, get on bus, get to uni, fix puncture which takes an hour, puncture repair turns out to be shoddy, cycle 20 miles nevertheless. and now i need to start work!

Tags: winter, photograph, sun, bench, park, tree.

Labels: photography

Proverbially leafing through the last couple of months on this poor excuse for a blog, it occurred to me that I have not written anything meaningful for a long time. What with prospective house moving, shockingly large amounts of essay writing, putting together someone else's book manuscript, trying to develop a part-time music career, cycling long distances due to my car being broken, and the imminent pressure of the AHRC funding round and attendant reams of application forms, it's probably best to consider this website on hiatus for a while. The time will surely soon be ripe to abandon this self-imposed sociopathy and try to reconnect with some kind of reality. As and when this occurs, I might be back with something to say. Until then,

God is the possibility of possibility.
Yhwh: I will be who I will be.

OH MY GOOD JESUS GOD. I got home, but only after two and a half hours sat opposite some complete lunatic who talked at me for the duration of London Euston to Stoke-on-Trent (delayed 20 minutes) about how glad she is that her husband is dead and drinking Stella. At the top of her voice. In the quiet coach. And while everyone else in the fucking coach was talking on mobile phones with ringtones on full. I threw my ticket at the ticket collector and suggested he change the name of the carriage, but I don't think he understood, so I took the "Quiet Zone" label off the window instead and put it in the bin.

Labels: trains

I saw two films last night: at the cinema, Perfume: The story of a murderer and, at home, East is East. The former is possibly the most disappointing film I've ever seen, talked-up as it has been by normally respectable arthouse reviewers. But it turned out to be slow, so slow in fact that at times it seemed to have stopped, almost completely lacking in plot and character depth, implausible, containing no central messages and no food for thought. It was, essentially, a rather weak bedtime story drawn out from a two-minute fairytale into a two-and-a-half hour purgatory whose agony was only slightly alleviated by my rare indulgence in a plate of nachos. In the words of Peter Canavese, "by the time the mad finale rolls around, the viewer will feel had, for Perfume grasps for significance where there is none to be found."

The latter, East is East, which I must have seen three or four times now, struck me anew as being a singularly skilful and tasteful piece of filmmaking which resists reaching conclusions where none are to be found. It remains for me one of the most dignified accounts of human nature.

Tags: eastiseast, perfume, film

Labels: film

The essay I'm working on at the moment is about to hit the 5,000 word mark, so that's good news. Just 1,000 words a day for the next 14 days and everything will be complete! I'm hopping on a train Monday lunchtime and will hopefully get lots of reading done while away; I'm currently trying to read a book a day, which is getting a bit intense. When I finally get around to re-reading Rosenzweig, I think I'll be reducing to a page a day...

Notes to self and things I might even actually get around to writing about:

• Respond to Minifig regarding Richard Dawkins
• Respond to Paddington regarding Lacanian psychoanalysis
• Finally get round to the next instalment of Proust
• Take more photos
• Recognise the fact that my grandma is in a bathing machine and not atop agricultural machinery.
• Much more etc.

Good day to you.

Labels: essays, readingproust

So it is: the final Green Wing was shown tonight in all its post-apocalyptic glory, in its unique post-orgasmic glow; Statham and Joanna have thrust their last, Sue White rides off into the sunset clutching her lion cub and hunky new man, while newlywed Mac and Caroline disappear smiling into the clutches of star-crossed grief, fresh from the loss of porn slavery Angela to a mystery moose. Absurdity is not the word. But it's over all the same, 18 glorious episodes, and "the most significant comedy since Monty Python" (so said a prominent theologian (not me)) comes to the end of its life unsullied by being taken beyond absurdity into the familiar territory of mediocrity.

Tags: greenwing, final, episode, special, absurd.

Labels: greenwing

A fairly eventful holiday: my brother and I went to London last Saturday and spent a whole day walking as we're too tight to pay for the Tube! In the eleven miles we covered going from and back to St Pancras, we went to the National Gallery for the Velazquez exhibition and then did some shopping on Regent Street and Oxford Street, which involved witnessing the Wurlitzer organ being played in Habitat — a pleasant surprise! The Velazquez was enjoyable; the free guide book did a good job of explaining concisely the background and meaning of each painting. However, the lighting in most of the rooms was appalling; I'm not sure if this has to do with deterioration of the images, but it made things a little hard going.

Things are going to remain quiet around here for the next month, I'm afraid. I have 18,000 words to write over the next two-and-a-half weeks, so I'm not going to have much time or inclination for blogging! Furthermore, I have to fit in a trip to Salisbury and back in that time. I might take the train.

Day of mist: day of tarnish

with hands

unserviceable, I wait

for the milk van

the one-eared cat

laps its gray paw

and the coal fire burns

outside, the little hedge leaves are

become quite yellow

a milk-film blurs

the empty bottles on the windowsill

no glory descends

two water drops poise

on the arched green

stem of my neighbor's rose bush

o bent bow of thorns

the cat unsheathes its claws

the world turns

today

today I will not

disenchant my twelve black-gowned examiners

or bunch my fist

in the wind's sneer.

—Sylvia Plath, 'Resolve'

Labels: christmas, poetry