Well, it's been months and months since I even thought about this blog let alone wrote anything on it. I was going to post a couple of stories that I wrote when doing my creative writing course but it wouldn't let me copy and paste for some reason. I will have to try and have another go. I'll also have to try and do some writing on here over the summer. It would be good to get back into that groove again ready for university in the autumn.
Yes, I'm going to university. I can't quite get my head round it. But I have a letter from UCAS and student finance in place so it must be true! I'm going to UWE - University of the West of England at Bristol - to study English Language and English Literature. Pretty exciting stuff eh? Well it is for me.
So what have I been doing in the months since I was last on this blog? Well I've been pretty busy with one thing and another.
In September I started volunteering with an adult literacy group at Swindon College. Alongside that I enrolled on a PTLLS course - Preparing to teach in the lifelong learning sector - which is a threshold licence to teach in the post 16 sector. I finished that just before Christmas achieving it at Level 4.
The new year saw me enrolled in the next stage of training; CTLLS - Certificate in teaching in the lifelong learning sector.
Alongside that I have continued with the adult literacy group and picked up other ventures too: I've been giving some private tuition in PC usage, I've done volunteering with the Borough IT courses run in the libraries and got a little job as a Learning Ambassador with Swindon Borough Council. All of which has been and continues to be very rewarding and extremely useful with essays and assignments for the CTLLS programme.
Saturday 25 June 2011
Monday 25 October 2010
Lousy Longleat; no monkey business
After months of getting it organized, myself, my daughter and son-in-law went to Longleat in Wiltlshire yesterday. Well what a disappoinment! The house and gardens were lovely and we enjoyed the miniture railway but as for the safari park..if you thinking of going...don't! You'd be better off with a David Attenborough DVD.
The safari park, was in our opinion, very badly managed. It was like being on the M25 but with trees. We were expecting to drive slowly and steadily through it. Indeed we expected to see signs to that effect; asking the cars to keep moving. No, no. There's nothing like that so what happens is that when a tiger is spotted ( and there were only three I think) cars stop - and stay stopped - for just as long as they want which creates this dreadful back-up of traffic. It took over two hours to get to these Tigers!! Absoutely ridiculous. Not to mention VERY BORING. We did mention it to one of the staff at one point but she just shrugged and said 'it's normal'. Clearly they don't do any customer service training!
And if it's this bad in October what on earth is it llike in July? Never mind being mauled by a lion or Tiger. You are much likely to die of boredom/starvation/thirst - or a combination of all three!
My son-in-law fell asleep as did plenty of other car passengers (that I noticed looking round) and frankly I'm not surprised. I felt very sorry for those people in cars with small children. 99% of the time spent in that safari trail there was nothing to see. They migh just as well have taken them to the motorway for all there was happening.
And to add insult to injury the mokey trail was closed which is generally the best bit!
The safari park, was in our opinion, very badly managed. It was like being on the M25 but with trees. We were expecting to drive slowly and steadily through it. Indeed we expected to see signs to that effect; asking the cars to keep moving. No, no. There's nothing like that so what happens is that when a tiger is spotted ( and there were only three I think) cars stop - and stay stopped - for just as long as they want which creates this dreadful back-up of traffic. It took over two hours to get to these Tigers!! Absoutely ridiculous. Not to mention VERY BORING. We did mention it to one of the staff at one point but she just shrugged and said 'it's normal'. Clearly they don't do any customer service training!
And if it's this bad in October what on earth is it llike in July? Never mind being mauled by a lion or Tiger. You are much likely to die of boredom/starvation/thirst - or a combination of all three!
My son-in-law fell asleep as did plenty of other car passengers (that I noticed looking round) and frankly I'm not surprised. I felt very sorry for those people in cars with small children. 99% of the time spent in that safari trail there was nothing to see. They migh just as well have taken them to the motorway for all there was happening.
And to add insult to injury the mokey trail was closed which is generally the best bit!
Friday 8 October 2010
Monday 16 August 2010
Advertising and its placement
Monday 16th August
Last night I watched Saving Private Ryan; for the first time since seeing it at the cinema actually.
The horrific, awful power of the prolonged opening sequence, and indeed the film as a whole, was diminished in its effect a liitle by being viewed on a TV - albeit 36" - instead of a large cinema screen. But what, to my mind, diminished it further, were the adverts for McCain potato wedges the Film Four sponsors; I found them to be distracting from the mood of the film.
These adverts were actually quite amusing, the premise of them being that the potato wedges were observing through the glass oven door/screen the 'action' in the kitchen and living room beyond. I confesss to rather liking the one where a guy comes up to the oven door and turns his head sideways to look into the oven at which the potato wedges all recoil and scream and jump out of their skins. Surely a nod to that scene in Jaws? We all know the one. And we all still jump don't we, no matter how many times we see the film and know it's coming.
So is there a case, just sometimes, with a film such as this, for the advertising to be more sombre in recognition of the movie and its message?
Or is it just me?
And how bloody lucky any of us born post 1945 are not to have endured a war like that Second World War; as combatant or civilian. Saving Private Ryan must be as close as we can get to the sheer pant-wetting terror and gut-wrenching, mind-numbing horror of what those brave men went through in that war. We can't get close to imagining it. It's a cliche I know but cliches become so because they are true; we can't begin to measure how much we owe them.
I've visited some of those Normandy beaches still with some of the landing craft there. And many of the cemeteries - for the fallen of both world wars - in that part of France and in Belgium too. They are eerily silent places. They are often by the side of a busy highway yet one doesn't hear the traffic at all. Nor even birds singing. Nothing but the wind in the trees whispering the magnitude of the loss.
They are profoundly peaceful, moving but tragic places. I defy the most cynical amongst us not to be moved by the sight of the massed rows of crosses and so many of them bearing only the words "Known only to God".
There aren't the words...
Last night I watched Saving Private Ryan; for the first time since seeing it at the cinema actually.
The horrific, awful power of the prolonged opening sequence, and indeed the film as a whole, was diminished in its effect a liitle by being viewed on a TV - albeit 36" - instead of a large cinema screen. But what, to my mind, diminished it further, were the adverts for McCain potato wedges the Film Four sponsors; I found them to be distracting from the mood of the film.
These adverts were actually quite amusing, the premise of them being that the potato wedges were observing through the glass oven door/screen the 'action' in the kitchen and living room beyond. I confesss to rather liking the one where a guy comes up to the oven door and turns his head sideways to look into the oven at which the potato wedges all recoil and scream and jump out of their skins. Surely a nod to that scene in Jaws? We all know the one. And we all still jump don't we, no matter how many times we see the film and know it's coming.
So is there a case, just sometimes, with a film such as this, for the advertising to be more sombre in recognition of the movie and its message?
Or is it just me?
And how bloody lucky any of us born post 1945 are not to have endured a war like that Second World War; as combatant or civilian. Saving Private Ryan must be as close as we can get to the sheer pant-wetting terror and gut-wrenching, mind-numbing horror of what those brave men went through in that war. We can't get close to imagining it. It's a cliche I know but cliches become so because they are true; we can't begin to measure how much we owe them.
I've visited some of those Normandy beaches still with some of the landing craft there. And many of the cemeteries - for the fallen of both world wars - in that part of France and in Belgium too. They are eerily silent places. They are often by the side of a busy highway yet one doesn't hear the traffic at all. Nor even birds singing. Nothing but the wind in the trees whispering the magnitude of the loss.
They are profoundly peaceful, moving but tragic places. I defy the most cynical amongst us not to be moved by the sight of the massed rows of crosses and so many of them bearing only the words "Known only to God".
There aren't the words...
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Solitaire - or Patience as it used to be called
I've been playing Patience on a new laptop with Vista on it. Apart from a lot of irritating gloopy noises it seems to be nigh on impossibe to win. 32 games before I got a win! Even allowing for me being a little bit crap 32 games seems a bit excessive. I reckon it's fixed. Yet another example of how I'm being persecuted! :-) I'm convinced I won more often on XP!
I'm off for a screwdriver now. A chocolate one. I've eaten the saw and the hammer already.
I'm off for a screwdriver now. A chocolate one. I've eaten the saw and the hammer already.
Sunday 8 August 2010
How Tickled I am!
I'm just listening to Pick of the Week on Radio 4; a clip of Ken Dodd telling a gag. Something along the lines of sticking a broom up Nigel Mansell's arse and saying to him "How about that for pole position?"
Great stuff! Bless Doddy and his tickling stick. Surely he should be a national treasure? Him and the Duke of Edinburgh. I'd vote for both of them to be National Treasures.
Great stuff! Bless Doddy and his tickling stick. Surely he should be a national treasure? Him and the Duke of Edinburgh. I'd vote for both of them to be National Treasures.
Just saw this on Twitter...
...made me laugh:
Not normally bothered by insects, but I don't like the sound of this Hepatitis Bee.
Love it!!
Not normally bothered by insects, but I don't like the sound of this Hepatitis Bee.
Love it!!
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