None of us Ever Graduates

"None of us ever graduates"

This, I’ll admit, feels slightly ominous as I make my way from the train station up to campus, but am un-deterred reasoning that the ‘us’ the graffiti is referring to, is the ‘us’ that was down in this piss-smelling subway with a spray can rather that studying for that degree, so really, its not much of a surprise that none of this ‘us’ has ever graduated.

"Id like to thank google, wikipedia and copy and paste"

This one is sprayed on the opposite wall next to a fake Banksy of someone juggling bananas but still, I am refusing to judge my place of post graduate study on the local graffiti. The artists are quite simply, misinformed; they've obviously never heard of ‘TURNITIN’- the computer program the large majority of universities now use as part of their essay submission process that goes through your essay with a fine electronic tooth-comb  highlighting your percentage of possible plagiarism. I would have thought generally, professors and teachers would be up for this sort of thing, but one evening later that week down the pub with staff and Phd students from my department, I discover that perhaps this is not the case.

“I don’t mind if my students plagerise.”

          “You don’t?”

          “No, if they get that piece of paper saying they’ve got a degree, how much does it matter how they got it?”

Err, ALOT, I want to answer categorically, but interestingly it was a professor I was having this exchange with, and since everyone was drinking ale in large quantities I paused momentarily, wondering if it was a trick question. I like this professor, in fact it just so happens that this is the exact same fellow who pronounced at the beginning of class that day;

                “Due to circumstances that are utterly out of my control, last night I had to get completely, resolutely and decisively drunk. So, if I get a little shaky, sweating, or even pass out- don’t worry.”

                I did worry. Specifically since I had made the error of sitting in the front row of the lecture theater  if such an instance of shaking or passing out occurred, it was going to be down to me to do something about it, and though there is a card in my purse saying I am a qualified first aider, I’m not all that confident when it comes to hungover philosophy professors.  Also, it’s worth noting that this particular lecture was an undergraduate module I was sitting in on, therefore I was the oldest in the room (apart from the hungover professor), a fact I imagined would count for something in an emergency situation.

Thankfully it was an ironic comment that evening in the pub so I did well to pause, but it led to the question of how you do interpret a piece of paper that says you have a degree? In an economically driven culture, where things are measured in terms of the monetary gain you can squeeze out of things, education, at whatever level, is consequently measured by the pay check you earn post-school/college/university. The lower the paycheck and the bigger the debt, the less value that education had for you. And this is a prevailing path of questioning as university fees rise; What is that degree worth- we ask with our calculators in our hands. What desk does a liberal arts degree belong at? Does a law degree have any value if you don’t actually become a lawyer?

If we are teaching each generation that passes through our current schooling system that learning is only as useful as the wage you earn out of it, it paints a pretty grim picture of the culture being shaped with each passing year group. Is this the aim- young minds trained to pass exam papers, to only be good at things that can pay their monthly gym membership, car finance and the mother of all achievements; a house deposit?

Is it conceivable that it’s the term ‘education’ that is being misunderstood? Education I want to argue, is not a piece of paper with numbers and letters on, government monitored, job center approved- because no one can monitor your true education; the act of opening your mind past what’s going on in front of your nose and letting other substances in. Learning should have no agenda, no feeling of being owed something back for the time spent with a book or an interesting documentary, a trip to an amazing new place. Education is waking yourself up for no other reason but that you want to be awake. Why would you not want to fulfill your capacity? Your capacity to be a well rounded and fulfilled individual, a compassionate person capable of understanding the world from more than just one solitary point of view? But with the tools our culture gives us to measure success and happiness, we often have no idea how to take on such a task.

Is it not odd to ask a 15 year old choosing GCSEs “What do you want to be?”  Most adults have no answer to such a question, in fact I would go as far as to argue it’s the dumbest question you can ever ask a person. Don’t we mind that we are teaching young people that they are only as worthy as the credit rating they have- that Experian are the ones that can tell you how well your doing in life? In trying to think back to GCSE’s, A levels or even university applications, is the standard line of questioning “What do you love doing? What would you love to do more of?” Or is it “what job will this help you get?” “What job do you want to do?” Since the latter is a question that the majority of us struggle to have a clear cut, box-fit answer to, we set ourselves up for anxiety in 6^th form classrooms, in university lecture theaters  at the desks of that first job we’ve taken ‘while we work out what we really want to do.”

There was a girl at my secondary school- fantastic at sports and simply astounding when it came to drama and acting. Everybody knew, teachers and pupils alike that this kid was something special but she felt that as her talents were not counted as traditionally academic, they were not as valuable because everybody knows that few actually ‘make it’ as an actor/ sportsman, it’s not an acceptable answer when the careers officer comes round the classroom. 

            Because this girl was dedicated and hardworking by nature, she pushed herself very hard and achieved fantastic grades in other subjects, went on to do an incredibly academic subject at university, is a very successful individual and as far as I know, perfectly happy. But it wasn’t without sacrifice, and I have never forgotten that girl from those school days because I always felt that somewhere along the way, our culture’s way of measuring achievement, talents and happiness robbed her of something, told her that what she loved doing was not good enough to go out into the world with.

Connor, my house mate, is interesting example of our flawed education system. He is young and very bright, but didn't fit into suitable government targets or desks for long hours as many young boys don’t. With a system that doesn't cater for learning unless it can be regurgitated in an exam paper, he very easily slipped through the net at school and now works at a local supermarket in between having philosophical debates with me and smoking weed.

                “If you could do anything,” I ask him, “anything, what would you do?”

                “Have sex.”

                “Right, well I’m not sure that’s an option here.”

                “Well you didn’t specify. That’s a dumb question because obviously if I could do anything I’d have sex and eat food.”

                I try a different angle. “What did you like back at school?”

                “Maths, I was good at maths- was a bit of an accident though.”

                “You were accidentally good at maths?”

                “Yeah. I heard there was free food at the maths revision classes on Saturday, three hours long they were those sessions, but all the chicken wings you could eat. Never turn down free food.” He says to me seriously before turning back to the play station. “Got an A for maths I did. Liked DT too; once I tried to pierce my mate Warren’s ear with a nail we were supposed to be using to build bird boxes. Wouldn’t go through, got a well thick ear Warren has, had to jam it til it went POP.

                I picture the school workshop splattered with blood and a student with a large hole in his ear lobe.

                “Why didn’t he get it done properly in a shop??”

                “Because Warren’s a tramp and eight pounds was a lot of money back then.”

                “What about English?”

                “Well Shakespeare is shit, obviously.”

                I say nothing, remembering my friend’s interesting take on why he liked the English language the week before-

                “I like saying the word country.”

                “Any particular reason, or you just feeling patriotic today?”

                “No, it’s because you can say the word CUNT really loudly and then add the word tree on the end and you won’t get into trouble. CUNT-tree. Country. See?

               

Ironically he and his buddy Shakespeare have more in common that he thinks when it comes to puns, but I don’t push my luck pointing it out;

                Hamlet: Lady, shall I lye in your lap?

                Ophelia: No my Lord.

                Hamlet: I meane my head upon your lap?

                Ophelia: Ay, my lord.

                Hamlet: Do you thinke I meant country matters?

                Ophelia: I think nothing my Lord.

                Hamlet: That’s a faire thought to lie between maid’s legs.

These examples aren’t to suggest that all our current schooling system is lacking is copious amounts of free fried food and dirty word puns, but if education, fails to inspire, chokes individuality and growth- is more red tape what such a system needs? Does learning have to be linear? Who said it even has to take place in a classroom??

A Day in the Life of a Philosopher

A Day in the Life of a Philosopher.

                “Sorry I’m late!” I drop my bag and bum into a seat, my cup of tea sploshing everywhere.

                “Uh, you’re not late Melody.” the lecturer says helpfully.

                “Oh, I’m not?”

                “No.”

                “Did we start early?”

                “No.”

                There is a pause.             

                “Melody, look around.”

                I do look around, and see, quite suddenly, I don’t recognise any of the faces staring back at me. I’m in the wrong class.

So here I am, philosophy MA student- where I am required to read a lot, have a lot of interesting conversations with some of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the good fortune to come across, whilst living in a house 40 seconds from the beach with very interesting housemates (Interesting in a different way…) I am a very happy philosopher and writer indeed.

I arrived in this new town the way I seemed to arrive in most places- haphazardly. Not a lot of dollar or organisation or any official pieces of paper, but a lot of optimism to make up for it. I had one email from a professor admitting me onto the course and telling me sort out everything when I got here. “Just ask Jaqui” his email had signed off with.

                The night before I am due to leave the vajazzled land of Essex, sleeping next to two suitcases with all my worldly possessions, a thought crosses my mind. Who the fuck is Jaqui?

This is the picture that my friend Sophia and I stared one evening in a Pizza Express of off Regent Street, drinking Pinot Grigio and swapping war stories. Something about this poster did it. This is the picture that gave us our first real-life, smack-you-in-the-face, kick-you-up-the-backside, full blown ephiphany and no, I don’t mean three wise men showed up. I mean we had to quit our city jobs.

We both had good jobs. Job that paid good, looked good on our C.V, jobs that made our Alumni year figures look good, with good tax-paying people in very good London post codes. But in that epiphany, staring at that piece of card on a rainy cold Thursday night, staring at that card in a room full of other harassed-looking people laughing too loud and drinking wine too fast, we learnt something very important. That your life belongs to no one but you. You don’t owe your CV, or your parents, or your boss- you owe yourself. You owe yourself to try and find out what it is that truly makes you tick, what you’re passionate about, what makes your life worth getting up for, what your talents and interests are and then to exercise them, to stretch them out like a rubber band and realise the potential you are more than capable of fulfilling. Nobody else can do this for you.

                It is not selfish to be happy, it is your right. I don’t mean happy as in buy a load of chocolate, gorge on shoes, credit cards or a trip to Vegas to see a scantily clad lady called Candy- that is a brand of happiness that will never quench your thirst. I mean happy, being completely true, where there is no room for pretending or moaning in any aspect of your day. Such a life exists and I refute all those who try to convince me otherwise. If you are not happy, it is no one’s fault, but it is your responsibility to do something about it. 

                 Do the unthinkable; if you skip down a nettled-infested forest path rather than that smooth pavement ready-laid and waiting for you, a few cuts and bruises won’t hurt. In fact, the forest of the unknown is much more fun….

This, as you can imagine, is a short version of the decisions that led my friend Sophia to trek around South-east Asia and me to a philosophy department in Kent, (mine also involved a monk in orange robes in Oxford circus if you would believe it,) but I was tired of being well-acquainted with other people’s arm pitts on the central line, I was uninspired by a city that seem to regurgitate me rather than let me in. Who says you have to live your life in a straight line anyway?

So in looking for happiness (and for Jaqui) and in living the philosophy of doing things that make you happy, this particular forest path has currently led me to a town where Charles Dickens once lived, a place crawling with famous writers (which bodes well methinks) has ice cream parlours that don’t bat an eyelid if you want to eat banana splits everyday of the godamn week, and new housemates in Victorian seaside houses that keep me entertained and kept my pen very busy...

             Connor is full of what could be called straight-up accidental wisdom. Everything is said in a deadpan voice accompanied by a shrug, and his face is so poker straight it’s extremely difficult to read whether or not he’s actually joking when he says things like-

“If I had 24 hours left to live I’d just kill everybody that annoyed me.”

                He tells me that I annoy him, frequently, (something about me talking too much) so I guess I should be grateful that so far, he's free of incurable deadly viruses. It’s thanks to Connor I must mention, that our house is kept running on a constant supply of tea bags and sausage rolls, courtesy of the supermarket giant he work for. All I need to do is lend him my flask he tells me, and milk will be forever free-flowing too. (“It’s not stealing, it’s all from the staff room. I’m staff, ergo- not stealing.”)

Things Connor likes; Call of Duty, Malibu(??!) and spaghetti meatballs. Things Connor doesn’t like; the seaside, crap TV, (“I’m a Celeb is a pile of wank; they barely get out of anywhere. It’s just a shit two week holiday.”) and Simba the elderly albino cat which came with the house and the furniture and is about as old as the house and the furniture. Simba molts white fur, is completely deaf and dribbles; a combination which makes this particular cat Connor’s least favourite bedroom companion, a fact Simba ignores every single night when he sleeps on Connors chest.

The other residents Connor can’t seem to shift from his room are myself and Antony. Anthony lives in a room with a double bed he shares with pizza boxes and cans of ‘Monster’; a more repugnant version of Rebull. A creative music student at university he tells me, though I have to say, I’m not sure I’m convinced considering I haven’t seen him leave the house apart from to go to the conveniently situated off-licence at the top of our road. Since Connor’s room has a sofa and flat screen T.V this is where we are to be found, regardless of whether Connor is actually even in the house. I think Connor likes us warming up his sofa- myself, Simba and Anthony, and I reckon really, Connor enjoys being the host of such gatherings, though he pretends to be annoyed that we’re always in his room, the way he pretended to be annoyed the day I automatically wandered into his room to watch ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and didn’t notice immediately that the poor boy was in his boxers trying to get changed.

Things Ant likes; take away food, lie-ins, making weird music on his Mac. The take away food thing is very handy when looking to save money on your weekly food shop. Ant orders in pizza roughly on average about once a day, but never finishes a whole one, so between Connor and myself, we have fed ourselves on second-hand pepperoni pizza for about two weeks. I like cold pizza, a lot. Therefore I like this unspoken arrangement. There was of course the incident where I came home and automatically ate the remaining two slices of pizza only to discover two new facts; 1. The pizza wasn’t Ants; it was Connor’s. 2. Connor doesn’t share food. But you’ll be pleased to hear I have since learnt from this error of etiquette and am slightly more carefully when it comes to un identified food.

Things Ant doesn’t like: Getting up early, getting up at all, getting out of bed. I, on the other hand don’t mind an early start, and enjoy the odd breakfast on the beach in the old hotel staring at the sea and the curved bay holding little fishing boats. It never get old; no matter how many times I look at it, I’ll never get enough of the ocean. Connor however, is inclined to disagree.

                “I’m sick of the sea to be honest,” he tells me. “Everyone’s always like ‘aahh the sea, the sea is so great.’ The sea is shit mate.”

                This is declared whilst sprawled across my freshly made bed. I had just moved into the best bedroom of the house, my new room having a four poster double bed and an en-suite bathroom that the boys had come to check out.

                “Shotgun having a bath.” Ant says eyeing up my Jacuzzi-shaped tub.

                “You can’t shotgun a bath.”

                “Yes you can.”

                “Ok, let me re-phrase, you can’t shotgun my bath. It’s an en-suite bathroom attached to my bedroom.” I give them my best serious face. “There are going to be no smelly boys in my bedroom.”

In all fairness, they don’t smell. Well, apart from the smell of marijuana that seems to emanate from one of the kitchen cupboards though which cupboard exactly I’m not quite sure. First I thought it was the dishwasher, but having stuck my head in it as well as the surrounding draws, I've concluded it’s definitely the cupboard with all the drinking glasses, and though no source is to be found, I've given the whole thing a scrub with bleach in case the land-lady visits and mistakes me for a pot head.

The other interesting fact about this house is the mystery housemate. Every shared residence always has a mystery housemate; back in halls as an undergraduate it was a bloke called ‘Dave’ who lived in the bedroom nearest the kitchen, and though I often saw the door swing open and shut, I never quite caught a glimpse of this so called ‘Dave’ character. Rumour had it he was a photographer, a good-looking photographer, but no one was ever able to confirm such hearsay. In this house, my invisible housemate is called Oaty. It might be O. T actually, possibly Ottie- but I had been living here a good few weeks with no sign of the man apparently living in our basement and was starting to think that the boys had made him up, an enigma on their Fifa Score board, but low and behold last Friday I heard someone scuttling about looking for the reset button on the wireless router (it crashes about 35 times a day) and so I jumped at the chance to introduce myself.

                “Hi! Are you O.T (Oatie??) I’m Melody, I haven’t met you yet.”

                He shakes my hand whilst at the same time backing away.

                “So, what do you do?” I ask him undeterred by his body language.

                “Business management.” (He speaks!)

                “Great, so how long have you lived here?

                “Uh, a couple of months.” He’s still backing away despite the fact I haven’t let go of his hand. I have a firm and convincing handshake. (You will be friends with me godamnit…)

                “Cool. I've heard you’re a bit of a night owl, that’s probably why I haven’t seen you or bumped into you, that’s funny isn’t it.”

                Oatie it seems, does not think this is funny. There is a pause which I decide is not at all awkward before he adds in a slightly strained tone; “So, do you come round here often?”

                I presume this isn’t a pick up line considering the guy looks pretty desperate to get back to his basement dwelling but all the same, I feel the need to correct him.

                “What? no, I live here. I’m you’re new housemate!” I beam, letting go of his hand, which signals his opportunity to escape and he scuttles back down the stairs into the darkness.

I’m definitely adding him to the list of my new friends.

Having settled in to my home as well as my classes I call my old buddy; the infamous Bulgarian Luka Boy to update him on my new status as an official big thinker and day dreamer. Luka has a CV even more colourful than mine aswell as a background that’s far more lucrative so I’m not immediately alarmed when he calls me back twenty seconds later in whispered and hushed tones.

                “Why are you whispering?

                “I’m in the toilet.”

                “Ok.” I ask the inevitable. “Why are you calling me from a toilet?”

                “I’m on an internship for a management consultancy firm in London, if I get the job I’ll be on big bucks yah!”

                Luka, it has to be said, seems to always be on an internship. He turns thirty this month.

                “What do you know about management consultancy?”

                “Nothing. Listen, when are you coming to London?”

                “I don’t know yet, where are you living?”

                “In the Bulgarian Embassy.”

                “What do you mean?”

                “I mean I am living in the Bulgarian Embassy Mel.”

                “You’re living in it?”

                “Yah! Listen, I have to go, I been in this toilet cubicle too long but Mel-“

                “Yes Luka?”

                “Please send my regards to your Mother.”

I never quite know what to say when he says that.

Perhaps THIS is what we should be teaching the youth...

New YouTube Channel- Good Sized Good News...

The News- whether you get yours from The Sun, the Mail Online, The Telegraph or O.K magazine, everybody’s getting some- but what is it exactly that you’re getting?

We’re good at questioning where our food comes from; is it organically farmed? Were people nice to the pigs in my hamburger, did my tomatoes have a happy life? Should the same line of questioning be applied to your daily news source?

‘Truth’ is a flexible concept in the hands of those with a motive and a profit margin, so learning to challenge what you read rather than take it in 20p portions is a skill worthy of learning.

Ask questions every day. Then ask some more.

Lastest 'Newsbites'

'God Bless America' 12/09/12

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esuU-T549io&feature=context-gau

Prince Harry and Vegas 28/09/12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1GCUmiHkX4&feature=context-gau

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Stick It Where The Sun Don't Shine..

Bitesize Philosophy Lesson Five:

 Everybody has a motive.

Stick it where The Sun don’t shine…

So today’s ever-insightful edition of The Sun has the nation’s favourite bad-boy prince butt-naked, clutching his bollocks under the enticing caption of ‘Pics of naked Harry you’ve already seen on the internet.’

Uh, great exclusive there then guys, plus the story is a few days old. So what is the deal with print VS the internet? And why is everyone getting their knickers in a twist?

The Sun say it’s a matter of public interest to have those images printed, because it highlights issues to do with Harry's security and his royal and military image. That, and of course the bigger debate of freedom of press, a term that’s getting thrown around a lot with the Leveson enquiry, which is looking into media ethics. (Or rather whether anybody has any.)

The Sun’s argument is that though a picture can be freely floating around the internet quite happily, regulations and laws means the same image can’t be printed and this, as they put it, is “ludicrous.” (Big word, well done.)

That to me sounds like our Harry is a bit of a scapegoat here, not the type of goat anyone wants to be especially when you’ve got no clothes on in a Las Vegas hotel.

On The Sun’s website there a nice little video speech where the managing editor opens by stating “The Sun is a responsible paper.” An interesting choice of words for a tabloid whose primary concerns are generally whose on page three, and which footballer’s had a piece of it.

“We’re not against him letting his hair down once in a while.” He says of Harry. Wow, that’s kind of you Mr managing editor, and good to know, because I’m sure Harry would think twice about a vacation if The Sun in its wealth and wisdom were unhappy about him getting a tan.

“This is about our readers getting involved in the discussion about the man who is third in line to throne.” Is it? Is it really? I think there’s alot of things wrong about that sentence, but it does pose the interesting line of discussion about what is public interest. Yes he’s a member of the royal family, but does knowing or not knowing what he did this summer really affect my life as a member of the public? Did we not know he had butt cheeks or something? What is public interest and what is the public enjoying gossip and scandal has become a rather blurry line in this celebrity-obsessed culture, and it’s probably a good idea to remember that this is a boy whose mother died while being chased by a hungry herd of paparazzi looking for their next juicy story. 

The Huffington Post reported how “UK readers were treated to the odd sight of Sun employees posing naked on the front page in place of the real pictures on Thursday. (Editors were criticized for using a 21-year-old female intern in the picture.)”

Bloody hell, and this bald-headed editor is trying to convince us that this responsible paper is fighting a battle that’s to do with press integrity and matters of public interest?? (It also made me realise that actually, maybe I had it easy in my time as a newspaper intern, my clothes as a rule, stayed on...)

Newspapers love throwing around the term ‘it’s in the public interest’ -a loose and lucrative expression that acts as a ‘get out of jail free’ card, or Charlie Sheens ninth life. Wake up- it’s not about your interest, or what best for you, a good and upstanding member of the public. It’s not in the public’s interest- it’s in their interest. They’re a business and they’re in the industry of selling newspapers.

Maybe that’s the difference between print and internet; I can look at Harry’s lovely buttocks for free online, but I’d have to pay 20p to take them home with me from the newsagents. A nice bit of controversy means The Sun gets #hashtagged a few more times, blogs are written, comments are made, hell, here I am talking about the company right now; so the country becomes a walking talking advert for the nations shoddiest tabloid. (A part of, lets not forget, the disgraced Murdoch media empire.)

 Always, always be aware of motive, because in business, everybody has one, and in journalism there’s a fine line.

The internet has changed the world of newspapers and journalism not only because of its immediacy but because of its lack of editing. (And I’m not just talking about the Daily Mail Online’s atrocious typing errors.) Twitter is an un-edited mouthpiece for politicians, celebrities and world leaders, (even Ghandi’s got a twitter account.) There are millions of blogs, social networking sites and online news sites; the internet just doesn’t have a filter in the way a printing office does. The more interesting question to ask is does this make it more or less valuable as a medium for news and truth? Uncensored, un-edited, a wealth of opinions and angles, maybe there’s more opportunity to form your own opinion here rather than in a newspaper; reading a story worded for a certain market.

There are different stigmas and stereotypes attached to different newspapers- a tabloid reader compared to a reader of The Guardian for example, but the notable argument is not who but why: because it’s a market. It’s an industry making money, so different papers are produced in different styles; certain stories are highlighted compared to others, different political angles taken, all to reach these different demographics and produce a profit.

I’m not quite sure what it says about us as a nation if The Sun really is, as they claim, ‘the nation’s favourite newspaper. Yes its easy to read, lots of pictures, not too many words, it’s cheap and has the valuable opinions of topless young ladies in there, but why do we need news to be dumbed down for us? Put it this way, if someone labelled me as a Sun reader, I’d be offended.

 With the internet, more and more people can have it straight from the horse’s mouth, not a day later with a cheesy headline in a bold font. So are we going to grow out of The Sun? Maybe they’re just grasping at straws printing Royal rear-ends?

Of course the best line on the subject came from Good old Boris, who never fails to deliver:

"The real scandal would be if you went all the way to Las Vegas and you didn't misbehave in some trivial way," he told the BBC.

Yes Boris. Yes indeed.

Recess- France: Nurses, Nights and Nibbles intermittent

Recess-
France: Nurses, Nights and Nibbles intermittent.

So I was in rural France, a land large and green where people still take wicker baskets to market and you get your eggs from chickens in the garden not from a shelf in Tesco. Where my family have created a small corner of happiness in a beautiful French farm house with sheep and chickens and the odd cat (although Keith the donkey has sadly moved on.)

I quickly decide this suits me well, where the most pressing concern is what book to read next and where no one has heard of graduate options or an overdraft. Such foreign concepts are substituted with good food, conversation and a hammock under the pear trees that I intent to retire to.

I do however, manage to sustain an injury which leads to two interesting discoveries; firstly, French health care makes the NHS look like a half-arsed attempt at first aid, and secondly, iodine bloody hurts when poured into an open wound.
The second of these discoveries is played out suspiciously like that scene from ‘Fight Club’ where Brad Pitt pours some corrosive ingredient onto Edward Norton’s arm, teaching him some valuable lesson about the nature of his true self as he writhes about in agony. I have no such epiphany, or Brad Pitt. Instead I have the notorious Nurse Rachett, a burly and solid-looking French women with a large mole on her face, who doesn’t so much as flinch as my whole body trembles as iodine is poured into the hole in my side and I nearly bite my tongue off.

Now the NHS aren’t exactly famous for being forthcoming with their medical care, but the word I would perhaps use for the French system would be overzealous. They’re at me with a scalpel and local anaesthetic before I can say petit poi, performing a minor surgery in the middle of the doctor’s office; I’m used to my GP using his computer to treat me rather than any of the tools in his office. So I don’t quite have time to decide whether I’m impressed or alarmed.

Nurse Rachett is then sent forth, trotting on down to the farm house armed with bandages and disinfectant happily holding me me down muttering at me in French.
          “Every day? You have to change the dressing every day??”  
Dressing as a verb implies material on top of the skin, layered careful for an aesthetic finish. No such luck. I experience the ‘packing of a wound’ which involves ‘mesh’ being stuffed into the whole in my side soaked in iodine, after it has been irrigated with the stuff (not the word you want to hear considering iodine feels like vinegar on open flesh.) I fob her off a bit and manage to get her to come every other day, which she thinks is quite amusing, but I don’t know how to say ‘don’t laugh at me’ in French, so I then convince my aunt to take over packing duties, ushering the she-devil back down the lane into her Renault Clio.

                                                         *** 
The thing about the noise here is that there is none. I step out in to my Grandma’s garden that first afternoon looking down at her mini sheep grazing in the grass at the bottom and there is this odd moment when I think I might have gone deaf. I can’t hear anything. Nothing. There’s no soft roar of cars on tarmac somewhere, the familiar constant hum of an aeroplane above, sirens screeching or neighbours yakking. The silence is so absolute it’s as if the mute button has been hit and its almost unsettling until the wind glides through the trees and the sheep spot me and ‘baah’ indignantly.
If its noise you need then a little car trip in order. In the gorgeous French port of La Rochelle we rent bikes and beach walk about, stopping intermittently for coffee and croissants, discovering that Fort Boyard (who doesn’t remember Melinda Messenger on that British Sunday TV pastime) is just off the coast here. The other thing I learn is that the French eat all the time.
           “I just want a sandwich,” I sigh exasperatedly, and the woman in the restaurant looks at me with an equal sigh, asking why can’t we just have a full three-course meal like everybody else in the city.
          You could always opt for ice-cream, which is a meal in itself around here; insane portions of brightly coloured and vividly rich flavours, none of this one-scoop nonsense, but layer upon layer of creamy icecream that melts as soon as the cone is in your hand, so the whole experience is a kind of insane desperate happiness where you don’t even care anymore that you have dessert all around your face, slowly dripping from your hands up to almost your elbows.
One scoop would be enough for even the most optimistic child but my grandmother has a secret talent whereby despite her tiny frame, there is no amount of ice-cream in the world that can leave her full.


She has rather a sweet tooth, in the supermarket a few days previously I saw her with her hands full coming out of the cake isle and I mistakenly said “Well let’s not go mad shall we?”
          “No lets do go mad, because these are important.” she corrects me, putting five packets of biscuits into the trolly.

The other thing my grandmother believes in passionately is the piano. Back at her house we play for a solid afternoon together, her ever patient mind excusing my inability to read music (despite all the lessons she paid for me) and it seems so funny to me that this extraordinary women who will swear blind she is useless at everyday tasks, can sit at the piano and play Chopin, Bach and Mozart with the ease and grace of the men themselves.
It’s not always merely modestly that blinds us to our own greatness, maybe it’s the human condition that sees us naturally focus on the things we can’t do, the things we don’t have. Either way it never fails to amazes me how she’s almost surprised to remember she speaks French, plays piano, got herself through medical school, loved, lost and travelled round India at the age of sixty-five. Perhaps that’s what grandchildren are for. I am in awe of her.

The neighbours, although not on par with my grandmother, are definitely also an interesting bunch. There’s the abandoned ranch next door where you can learn to ride like a cowboy whatever that means, and stories of Jon Jon and the local woman that everyone seems to happily share. (I still haven’t quite worked out whos wife she is.) Some of these people have never left the French borders, and when I come across Jon Batiste’s fishing lake with one solitary mouldy chair on the end of a jetty, I just wander on through, forgetting the French attitude to trespassing. I wonder if I will be shot, but return the next day to see a large chain obstructing the gate instead.

It’s not until you leave the clutches of the city that you can look up and see lights of a different kind; the stars. My god the stars. There aren’t even street lights here so when the night takes hold the sky is impossibly full of streams of lights, the mist of the milky way as clear as if you painted it on yourself.

Watching the end of something never looks quite as beautiful as when you’re looking at a shooting star. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever stood still enough to see one, and out on the terrace sitting in a flimsy plastic chair I see my first one, and marvel at something so beautiful and so dead.

Stars tend to have one of two effects.
Either its along the lines of “Dude they’re so beautiful, anything is possible because the universe is infinite man.”
Or, “Bloody hell, im rather insignificant.”

You can either feel very big, or very small staring up in the dark and as I tilt my head back I remember a quote:

Everything you really need to know, you learnt when you were four.

Bite-size Philosophy Lesson four:

Everything you really need to know, you learnt when you were four.

Though children are seldom fair, they have a passion for fairness. In their need of certainty in an uncertain world, they demand all promises be kept. 
                                                                                        John Mcgahern.






All you really need to know about life, the good the bad and ugly, you learnt aged four: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Say sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Milk and biscuits are good for you. Take naps. The Ugly duckling grows into a beautiful swan. Glitter doesn’t taste as good as it looks. Goldfish and hamsters and the little seeds we grow in the plastic cups- they all die. And so do we.

As life bundles you along to more important levels of learning and earning, sometimes you forget. So lucky me to have the opportunity to be re-learning the things I actually need to know to get me by, in between being covered in paint and glue and flour, and quite a lot of small children, (who cover you with not only the above, but with hugs and kisses. And snot.)

Time is not measured by a clock.

One of the big questions in life when you are four years old and in your first year of school is ‘When is home-time?’ When you’re two foot tall and can’t read a clock, home-time is a point of the day that isn’t necessarily fixed. Some days home-time arrives earlier than others; this depending on whether you’re having fun, if you’ve been told off, or if you just can’t write that damn number five and have decided to eat the pencil instead.

It takes a lot of reassuring this gang that no matter what, we always go home at 3pm, that 3pm really is the same time every day, and no, Miss Miller does not sleep at the school. Since the staff always seem to be here they find it hard to picture us living anywhere else, to the point when I bump into my tiny classmates outside the school gates, they tend to look at me almost blankly, perhaps a vague flutter of recognition at most, but appear shy and modest at this random stranger that definitely doesn’t spend 36 hours a week with them..

The other important thing to note about home-time, is it’s not a time for jokes, a lesson I learnt after Rosie’s mum was running late and I made the mistake of teasing my little friend saying; “hope you’ve got your panama’s Rosie.” This did not go down well.

Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.

“You awright Miss Miller?”               

“Hmph”

“Miss Miller?”

“Go and play over there for me Bertie for a minute will you?” I clutch my nose. It’s bleeding. The lesson learnt three seconds previously being don’t lean over small bouncy children if you are not part of the ‘frog’ game they’re playing.

Religion involves a big guy and lot of chocolate.

“So children, what is Easter all about?

“EASTER BUNNY”

“EGGS”

“CHOCOLATE!”

“Well, yes, but actually, Easter is about Jesus.” The kids are given a slightly less gory version of the crucifixion and resurrection, throwing in a few lines at the end about the child-friendly all-loving god that brought him back to life, and after having given them piles of chocolate on a particularly fun Easter egg hunt around the playground, (I enjoy these things a little too much) we then want them to sit still. For an hour. In church. The ever faithful wet wipes are whipped out to make them all look presentable and tucking in shirts we lead them in telling them they ‘need to be good.’

            “I’ve been this good today.” Nelson tells me, flinging his arms wide. “And I’ve been this bad.” He adds putting his hands slightly closer together. Honesty is a rather fluid concept when you’re under five. He looks over at the priest in his robes as we enter then up at me, eyes wide.

            “Is, is that God?” He whispers cautiously.

            “No Nelson, don’t worry, it’s not God. Not unless Father Andrew has been promoted.”

Do as Dad does.

One morning we are drawing along the theme of ‘what we did at the weekend with dad.’ You get a few T.Vs and a fair few footballs out of this exercise, but Bertie draws a surprisingly detailed picture of a lawn mover with an orange line sprawling off into the corner. “That the extenshun’ lead.” He informs me. “It goes in the sokit.” He points to the brown scribble where the orange lead ends. He then points to a purple scribble which explains are flowers. “We got them in the garden, dad didn’t fink they’d come up.” When I try to get him to expand on this, on what he means by them ‘coming up’ he shrugs and I smile at how he copies things his dad says until I overhear him calling one of the other kids a ‘silly old mare….’

Magic exists. Everywhere.

I dip one on of Raj’s little hands in yellow paint and the other in blue paint.

            “Now,” I say, “rub your hands together and see what happens.”

Any kind of painting that involves a lack of paint brushes goes down a treat round here- but learning about colours renders some of them speechless. His face is a sight I will never ever forget as the paint squishes between his little fingers, the colour miraculously changing before his eyes. He has made green.

My favourite topic has to be butterflies, frogs and seeds. The world looks like a place where anything is possible when you’re explaining to small people for the first time that caterpillars turn into butterflies, tadpoles turn into frogs, and tiny seeds turn into a 6 foot sunflowers. This without a doubt, is the best type of world to live in.

            It also does me a favour that it’s perfectly acceptable to get a bit over-excited about the story of the Hungry Caterpillar because when I’m in a room full of four year olds, I actually blend in.

            “And who can tell me what this is?” Mrs R says pointing to a photograph of some frogspawn.

            “Frog-is-born.” Says a little voice.

            “Frogspawn do you mean Helen?”

            “Yes she says. Frog-is-born. Frog-is-born.” When you say it fast enough, yep, the kid’s right. Genius.

Bears eat porridge

Mr Sand is everything a school keeper should be; hardworking, kind, often seen up ladders and down stairs, fixing things and generally making the world go round. An early riser, Mr Sand had made himself a bowl of porridge one morning and had put it in the microwave (the wonders of Oats So Simple) only to return to find the microwave empty and the porridge, gone.

“Sorry to interrupt Miss Miller,” He said, his head peeping round the door, “But has anyone seen my porridge? ”

I shake my head.

“Hmmm,” he sighs, scratching his head. “Well kids, somebody’s eaten my porridge.”

The children look first at Mr Sand and then at each other.

“GOLDILOCKS!” They squeak excitedly and little Joe, ever the democratic little leader, proceeds to interview everyone in the school over the course of the morning in light of the mystery of the missing porridge, determined to finds some evidence of a golden-haired porridge-eating thief. As it turns out, the culprit is one of the other teachers, which Joe finds to be a slightly disappointing ending to the tale.

Always ask why

Little Joe is our ‘why man.’ Every class has a ‘why man;’ the kid that add the words ‘but whyyyyy’ to every sentence you say, to every instruction you give, and if you happen to come across such a child, see it not as a hindrance, but an opportunity. I mean, how often do you really ask yourself questions such as ‘why does bread rise?’ ‘Why is glue sticky?’ ‘Why do carrots make you see in the dark?

The smaller the person, the sharper the sight.

The one thing you must learn with kids is that they may be small, but they sure as hell aren’t dumb. You can’t get away with stuff even if they do only come up to your knees. One morning I was running rather late and as I tried to scoot in the side gate I heard a small voice.

“See mum, I told you we weren’t late! Look, even the teachers aren’t here yet!”

 “I fink it needs new batteries.”

This is Bertie’s favourite sentence. Bertie is your boy when it comes to anything possibly electronic and has his own screw driver under the teacher’s desk ready for any toy-related battery emergency. He seems to sense which toys at the very bottom of boxes need new batteries and rescues them from the depths, bringing them proudly to us to proclaim it so. “Yep, I fink I’ll get the screwdriver Miss Miller.”

To cook is more fun than to eat.

You can bake anything with enough mixing bowls, an oven on wheels and lots of little hands..

Pancake day is a great day to be in a school with 24 little people and a frying pan. They had great fun making the batter but when it came to whipping out endless pancakes on plastic plates, they all licked the maple syrup and the sugar, but were apparently uninterested in the pancake itself. Or the washing up.

Change is a big deal.

We begin to introduce them to the idea of next year- moving up the school where a lot more will be expected of them, and try to make this sound as fun as possible-

So next year you’re going to be upstairs children.” Upstairs in the school is a mythical place that few have seen, older children disappearing up the banisters and since Zander still has trouble climbing stairs I’m not sure how this is going to go down.

“You’re going to have a new classroom and new school books and new teacher. Mrs Shane will be your teacher, won’t that be nice.”

Amy bursts in to tears and puts her hand up. “Will we still have the same mummy though??”

The golden rule.

“ Miss miller?”

“Yes Mandy?” I looked over at the face that had popped up round the door.

“I love you.”

The face disappears before I can reply, and instead I smile at the coat pegs reading all the names.

“I love you too.” I say looking at the tiny blazers.