The Rain In Spain

Tuesday. 6.40 p.m. I'm not sure whether they have actually had 'Rain In Spain' recently, which I very much doubt, but the title, if of course, you didn't know, comes from one of the best musicals of the past 60-70 years, 'My Fair Lady', which in turn is based on George Bernard Shaw's play, 'Pygmalion.' Well, you can see I'm desperately trying to find titles for my blog posts with some sort of weather connection, and songs seemed an obvious area for this.

I have a feeling there was some rain overnight. It seemed that the ground was slightly wet as Alfie and I walked along the path beside Strudwick Drive. But it was only slightly damp. I ran into a frond of leaves which released some moisture as I walked past, so that would suggest damping at least. But we desperately need more.

10.45 a.m. I have had another attempt to get the HP printer to work, but still, nothing is happening. I went online and found the HP helpline and rang through. I spent around an hour with a technician who went through several procedures to try and get the thing connected to my Wi-Fi system, but even then, nothing worked. I decided to abandon the call, but he will phone back at 2 p.m. 

3.15 p.m. I have actually managed to get the smart app, which is supposed to link the HP printer to my iPad, and, I presume, my MacBook. But I haven't, as yet, got the printer to print. I haven't managed to speak to the man at the helpline, as I think I will be able to get the thing to work, given time.

Around 1.15 p.m. there was the merry sound of the fire alarm in Dexter House. What's new? Some people are not safe with matches. I have no idea what set the thing off.  I thought at first it was one of the regular tests which are done, but it continued for a full twenty minutes. Whilst all this was going on, lo and behold, there was the sound of thunder, and we had RAIN! it was very heavy, but, as a result, the air has been freshened. My digital thermometer now reads 79ºF, which is quite a fall in temperature since yesterday evening.

Wednesday. 7.45 a.m. The temperature has dropped considerably. My digital thermometer currently reads 74ºF. I just hope it continues to fall. This is the sort of temperature I can deal with. I don't have either of the electric fans on at the moment.

Living At Home- Part 5

I've mentioned in an earlier post how I went to Rushmoor School in Bedford, and how I absolutely hated it. I'll repeat myself by saying I can't understand why my parents wasted good money sending me to such a hopeless school. I dread to think how much money it cost per term or year. I came away from there with nothing in particular and had to go to a state school, Abbey Sec Mod in Elstow to complete my final few school years. I've said before somewhere on this blog that I had problems with maths at school. I think my basic skills were sound, but when it came to complex fractions and the more advanced stuff I really struggled. Anyway, I have survived all my life without the need for such things as algebra so I'm not worried. It was the fact that I wasn't able to get into Bedford School as my other brothers was the problem. Or, perhaps, that's what my mother thought. So I was dragged around a variety of tutors, actually taken out of Rushmoor School in, presumably, an attempt to get me through whatever exam it was so I could join my brothers. But it wasn't to be. It was great to be taken away from school for a couple of hours, as anything was better than being at Rushmoor School. I recall a couple of the places where the tutors ran their sessions, one being above a shop in St Peter's Street, about where the Probation Service had, or used to have, their office, and the other was around Goldington Road, about where the offices of an agency I used to work for and opposite my former doctor's surgery. All I remember of that one was that there was a pipe rack on the fireplace, odd that I should remember that, but absolutely nothing about doing maths exercises. All I remember of the other place was that there was a sandpit and I played with toy soldiers in this sandpit. Again, nothing remains of any maths I might have done.

I had another dose of tutoring (or whatever you want to call if) of a different kind as I had a slight speech impediment, a stammer. Not surprising if I was always being picked up over my maths. I went to a speech therapist (I imagine that was what this person was, but probably not called that in those days) and the house I went to was off Kimbolton Road, in Pemberley Avenue, Bedford. There again, I can't remember a great deal about the sessions I had to endure. But I remember having to shove my tongue to the front of my mouth to get me to speak properly and being given chocolate mint sweets as a sort of incentive. Even today I really like them, but I don't suppose today you've be able to use them as an inducement to stop lisping or to push your tongue forward because they'd be considered unhealthy or something like that, with too much sugar in them. Even today, although I don't recall much else about these sessions, I think I'd know which house in that road they were and I have a sort of thing about 'speaking properly.' I have a certain affinity with the George Bernard Shaw 'Pygmalion' which is about 'proper speech.' My mother was constantly picking me up if I dropped an 'H' when I could easily drop one off the end of certain words. I don't know why me, in particular, as I don't think she did it to my other brothers.

I've mentioned my lack of skills in anything sporty, somewhere in an earlier blog post. I think it's got a lot to do with being forced to use my right hand when I should probably have been left-handed. I think that is how you were taught at school in the late 1950's- early 1960's. Probably just to make it easier for the teaching staff. If you were left-handed you would be considered a problem child, thus creating more work for teachers, so it would have been easier to make a child write with their right hand. I think this made me very clumsy when using a cricket bat, making it really difficult to hit a flying cricket ball in any sense of a straight line or merely hit the thing. The same with kicking a football or merely catching a ball when thrown at me. So, I didn't like being made the butt of jokes or have unpleasant remarks made by teachers or other pupils. So, inevitably, it put me off sport of any kind. This lead on to maths skills. Totally hopeless. I think this 'disability' if such it can be called, wasn't (or isn't) dyslexia as such but dyscalculia, a term which I've since discovered. So, as a result, I can't stand either cricket or football. I just have memories spent at the very edge of cricket grounds on long hot summer afternoons. Or football, played on the school playing fields, a long walk from the school in Shakespeare Road and along Manton Lane and then trudging up a muddy path to the top of the hill and having to endure cold, wind, ice, snow and whatever awful weather conditions to 'play' a game which I detested, as I suffered terribly from the cold at that age. The hill seemed to be open to every thing the elements could throw at me and then having to trudge back to school, coated in mud and our boots encased in thick, claggy mud. Shivering like crazy and taking an eternity to get some warmth back before leaving to walk to the bus station in order to get home. Not nice. I think the sports teachers were just sado masochists to make us go through that ordeal. Sometimes you could get to the top of that benighted hill and look down to where the rest of Bedford should have been, to find it had disappeared in a haze of fog.

Trumpery, Brexit and A Bitterly Cold Morning

A really bitterly cold morning. The ice on the car really took some shifting. I almost used up an entire bottle of spray anti-freeze. I have to be really careful with cold that intense. I get a real pain in my chest. Not sure I want to induce another heart attack as a result. I think it's because your arteries close up or something. Stops blood pumping through. I'm not going to see what happens so I'd rather be in the warm. The central heating is on. I turned it up a notch yesterday.

So, today is Donald Trump's inauguration. I'm not so sure how I feel about the man. He's made some really nasty comments, he's divisive, what will his Presidency be like? How will we, in Great Britain, get on with the man? More or less the complete opposite ideologically, to Barak Obama. Sorry to see him go. Let's wait and see what happens. I think Trump's style of campaigning during the run-up to the U.S. Election was based on his experience of being on the reality television show "The Apprentice." These shows rely on 'sound bites.' They need them so that people make comments on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. He has used these 'sound bites' to get a reaction, to get people talking, whether for good or bad. He just needs to temper his comments. He says something, and then sometimes regrets it. Something like "The Apprentice" has catch phrases such as 'Your Fired!" which everyone knows. The same with "Strictly Come Dancing" which is manipulated by the media to give it the best stories which can be reproduced in the Tabloid press. Whenever one of the judges says something nice or nasty, it gets a headline in 'The Sun' or 'The Mail.' (Other tabloid newspapers are available.) Do Americans realise that 'Trump' has a different meaning in this country? As George Bernard Shaw so succinctly said about American and British 'English' and the difference, 'two countries divided by one language.' 

As for Brexit (I'm sorry, but I hate the term.), why didn't our politicians make more effort to actually EXPLAIN what the E.U. was about, well in advance of the Referendum in June? How many voters in that vote actually know what they were voting for? So many people, particularly those in the youngest age-group, say from 18-30, don't appear to have any interest in politics. I know the scandal of M.P's expenses a few years ago tarnished the reputation of Parliament and it's members, which is understandable, but how many people really understand what we got out of the E.U.? If you don't understand the process of Parliament or the E.U. (which also has itself to blame.) how can anyone make an unbiased decision, to leave or remain, if they aren't given the facts? most young people seem more interested in celebrity culture, reality television, the latest football results, than politics and in particular, the E.U. How many people do you see walking about the streets with their mobile phones in their hands, and not actually interacting with the world around them?  When the result of the Referendum is going to have such far-reaching consequences, wouldn't it have been more important to vote in this important Referendum than keeping your face glued to a stupid mobile telephone? It was the tabloid press in Britain who were very much responsible for giving the E.U. a negative presentation, which would have swung there readers towards voting to leave. I also blame the government who drafted the legislation which allowed the Referendum. Why did they not have a clause in that which said that the vote either for or against, had to be of a certain percentage one way or another, to allow for a leave or remain decision? The fact that the 'Leave' vote was so low, I don't know the exact figure, but it was as low as 1-2% in favour of leaving the E.U.

Having done some research on the subject of the Referendum on the internet, I find that around 25,000 votes were invalid or blank. What are we to make of this? Why were they 'invalid'? Are some people so stupid that they spoilt their ballot papers so they became invalid? Didn't they think the vote was important enough to use this Referendum properly and actually vote one way or the other? If they had voted, perhaps the difference in the outcome would have been very different. It just shows the ignorance of some people knows no bounds.

Reading Bill Bryson's 'The Road To Little Dribbling' and other thoughts . . .

Around 20 years ago I read Bill Bryson's book 'Notes From A Small Island.' It was interesting to read a book written by an American who had a sort of affection for our Green and Pleasant land. I am again reading a book written by Bryson, which is called 'The Road To Little Dribbling: More Notes From A Small Island.' He travels around Great Britain and comments on things that he sees, some of them the idiosyncrasies of life living in Britain. Much of his thoughts are similar to mine and reflects a great deal of  what I write on this blog. It's no wonder the book is so high in the charts, as published in the Sunday Times. As of the past Sunday Times (21st August 2016), the book is number 2 in the General Paperbacks section and has been in the top 10 for nineteen weeks, having sold somewhere in the region of 194,230 copies. I can see why he's so popular. An American, or even an outsider, who gives his own views on some of the quirks of Britain. He often compares America with Britain, particularly in the chapter when he discusses mobile phones (why do Americans refer to them as 'cellphones'?) As George Bernard Shaw put it so succinctly, 'two countries divided by one language.' Why are some words such as 'colour,' 'harbour' spelt without the 'u' in America, for example? Or 'cookie' in America and 'biscuit' in Britain? This isn't in the book, by the way. Just me making the observation. He discusses the obsession people in Britain have with their mobiles, and why they insist, particularly in public places, such as on trains, to have to talk so loudly when having a conversation. Why do we have to have voices in machines such as self-service checkouts at supermarkets, in lifts (elevators in America. Why?) or on moving walk-ways? These are issues I have discussed in earlier blog posts on here, and give me endless pleasure. I enjoy observing the peculiarities of people I come across in my daily activities, such as in the supermarket or when out and about generally.  A real fount of endless amusement. I think you will see this if you read any of my blog posts.  Bill Bryson made some rather uncomplimentary remarks in his earlier book about Milton Keynes, which I find rather annoying, having lived here for the past ten years. He has visited many of the same places that we visit, including Bournemouth, Dorset and the south coast, as well as Avebury, which we visited last week, Stonehenge and many other British places. Anyway, Mr Bryson and I have so much in common, including the fact that we're about the same age, although I'm probably about a year older. This particular book is on offer at the moment in Waterstone's and was one of the books you can select from a range of other books in their which they have in their 'Buy One, get one Half-Price' offers. I can't resist bookshops, and Waterstones in particular. I love books as you will have realised if you've read any of these blog posts. I have many books waiting to be read and if there's an offer on in Watersones, such as their 'buy two and get one free' or 'buy one and get one half price' I just can't resist. Well, who couldn't? But Amazon is where I tend to buy most of my books because they are generally so much cheaper than elsewhere. I know that Amazon has been vilified lately because of not paying their fair share on tax and so on, but when you can have virtually any book and then get it delivered within 24 hours (we have Amazon Prime, incidentally.) and not pay any postage or packing, it is so easy and simple to order as well as finding books that I wouldn't otherwise have found anywhere else. This is worked out because they can recommend books based on what you've ordered or have in your 'saved for later' list on their website.

Me, Maths and More

I have mentioned in an earlier post my problems at school with maths. It seems I had a somewhat second-rate school option in ending up at Rushmoor over Bedford School (where three of my brothers went. Andrew went to Rushmoor for some unaccountable reason, but I can't think why my parents wasted good money on paying to have me sent to that place. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I really hated it.) As a result of all this, I was sent to various tutors around Bedford who were supposed to help me with my maths. I don't think I actually benefitted in any way, shape or form. I just think it made things worse as I was made to appear different from my classmates. I don't think I actually remember anything that I was supposed to have been taught. I can remember playing in some sort of sandpit which had toy soldiers in it, and something made of strips of plastic or rubber which you could knot or weave into all manner of objects such as key fobs and book markers, but nothing that had anything to do with mathematics. One place I went, when my mother came to collect me from school and was taken there and obviously took me out of any school lessons at Rushmoor, was in a building up some stairs in St Peter's Street in Bedford, which I believe is now something to do with the Probation Service, probably their administration offices, and just along the street from what was the Granada cinema but which has since been demolished and replaced by a Lidl supermarket. Another place I was taken was in Goldington Road, about where there are accountant and solicitor's offices. The gentleman who was the tutor smoked a pipe, and to this day I can still get a hint of the smell of the tobacco he must have smoked and there was a pipe-rack on the mantlepiece over the fireplace where the tutoring was held, and it contained a lot of pipes. Funny how some things stick in your memory, but certainly nothing to do with maths.

I think in the end it would have been better if I'd just been left alone and not dragged around these tutors. I am fine with what you call 'functional maths,' that is, basic maths skills to allow me to tot up a column of figures, division, multiplication, work out change, and so on. It was the more complex operations that were a complete mystery to me. Things like electric calculators have since come along and made my life easier, as they have for a lot of people. I think my mother just wanted what she thought was best for me I suppose and was attempting to make me like my other brothers and get me into Bedford School. I have certainly survived up until this point in time without having to worry about my lack of maths skills.

I did also have a mild form of dyslexia. I was told by my mother that they found this out because I used to use my wrong eye to look through such things as telescopes and cameras. If you are right-handed, apparently you use your right eye when using such things as cameras, but I didn't. I used my left eye. My maternal grandfather was supposed to have done done this when he was cleaning his shooting rifle, which was when it was suggested that I might be dyslexic. I did have some problems with reading but not as profoundly problematical as some people I have discovered. I have since found out that the problems with maths does have a name, dyscalculia. It has been defined by the DfE as follows: 'a condition which affects the ability to acquire arithmetical skills. Dyscalculic learners may have difficulty understanding simple number concepts, lack an intuitive grasp of numbers, and have problems learning number facts and procedures. Even if they produce a correct answer or use a correct method, they may do so mechanically and without confidence.' It just annoys me now, some 50-plus years later, that I had to be treated as if I was some sort of 'naughty schoolboy' because of my maths problems, and was generally stuck at the back of the class and left alone or treated with something like contempt. But, I can at least sympathise with those people who have similar problems.

I also had something of a speech impediment to add to my woes as a child. I had something of a lisp. Fortunately I was taken to several what I suppose would be called 'speech therapists' today. I am therefore grateful that they DID have some sort of affect as I speak correctly today. I recall going to someone in Pemberley Avenue just off Kimbolton Road (and not far from Walmsley House School which is mentioned in an earlier post on here.) I think I could even find the house if I went and looked. Some of the methods used to get me to put my tongue forward in my mouth used a peppermint chocolate sweet, which I actually love and I probably ate quite a few and helped me to 'speak corruptly' as a result.

As a result of all this I am really sympathetic to anyone with any form of disability and might account for my being able to deal with people why have any form of learning disability. My mother, for example, had a friend of the family who we used to visit when we went to the Cotswolds, called Aunty Milly, but I don't think was actually a relative. You just called such friends as 'aunt' or 'uncle' out of respect I suppose. She had, poor lady, a cleft palate, which meant that when she spoke her speech was quite difficult to understand. But I had no problems, and I could converse with her clearly. My mother said I was the only person she knew who had the patience to sit and listen to her and talk to her properly. I put it down to having had problems with my own speech as a child and having to go through that therapy. One of my all-time favourite plays is 'Pygmalion' by George Bernard Shaw, which, if you don't already now, is about a man who is a speech therapist. I don't think Shaw calls him that. But I can identify with the central character of Eliza Doolittle who goes to Higgins so that he can teach her to speech 'better English.' I have never had a problem with the 'better English' part, but she goes through some of the same sort of training that I had as a child.