The Mighty Uke

My name is Ted and I play ukulele.

There I said it.

It seems these days the Uke is everywhere you look but viewed with a mixture of humorous tolerance, pity and contempt. “Real” musicians scoff at it, claiming that its not a proper instrument and asking you “why don’t you play the guitar rather than that thing?”. Non musicians are no better, likening the diminutive instrument to a toy and therefore not a worthy of serious consideration.

The point is they are missing the point.

The point is its fun to play. It makes you and those around you smile.

You can get a tune out of your first uke in your first session, try that with a guitar, violin, piano or just about anything else you can mention. There are only four strings which is limiting and liberating in equal measures. It means the neck is narrower than even a half size guitar so small hands can feel comfortable and reach the strings to make the chords. having said that i have hands like shovels and I love it.

But its not limiting, you can take it as far as you like, up to amazing standards that match any musicians skill on any instrument.This guy is incredible in his technical prowess, and this one is unparalleled in his ability to add feeling.

They come in different sizes too. I have a soprano uke (the tiny one) which looks very small in my great paw’s, a concert which is a little larger a tenor which is bigger again as well as a couple of electric ones and one I made myself. If you really want to mix it up you can get baritone ukes (these are tuned differently but are still part of the family) and, more recently, companies have been putting out Uke Bass instruments that use soft rubber like stings with an electric pickup and amplifier to create an authentic bass sound.

There are groups you can join (list here) if you want to play with other people as well as bands and orchestras. Some of these groups play traditional stuff, some are stuck in the 50’s  in their choice of music and some are a broader in their choice of repertoire.

The wonderful Idler run courses for beginners and advocate the ukulele as a stress busting way of relaxing and putting your woes in their place, though there are loads of other courses available for less money on line. And talking of online resources there is so much out there, from the amazing Uke Hunt which has fantastic resources , songs to learn , technical help and links to You Tube with an uncountable number of ukulele based videos.

So my advice, for what its worth; Buy one, not the cheapest but a decent one, put some good strings on it (most cheaper instruments put rubbish strings on that wont hold tune) and get strumming. You wont look back.

.

Why The Education System Breaks Good Teachers

I Quit. I walked out on a job that I held very dear to me. I left a profession that I had worked hard to become part of. I cried. I still wish there had been an alternative. I loved being a teacher but it was making me very ill.

I am a teacher, I say that because in my heart I will always be a teacher, I loved teaching. I like spending time in the company of my students. Young people inspire and energise me. They have more hope and vision than anyone else, anything is possible when your a teenager. OK, not every encounter was fun, some kids just hate everything to do with school and that especially means teachers and they will do what ever they can to kick hard against the system, but on the whole kids want to be good.

And ,also on the whole, teachers are good folks who teach for the right reasons and do a great job. I never got my head round those teachers who hated kids, who treated all with contempt and maintained an air of menace to maintain their authority. It always seemed to me that they liked to intimidate kids because they are bully’s but fortunately they are few and far between. Their classrooms were always well behaved but devoid of creativity or inspiration.

Education is the worst profession for “The Emporers New Clothes Syndrome”. The process of throwing out established practice for the next big thing is constant. Government is largely to blame for this as the eternal game throwing out what the last administration put in place and replacing it with your own ideology seems to never change. It takes years to establish working courses, new qualifications and to get exams in place. then along come the other lot and throw it out. Add to that the new and sometimes bizarre theories and ideas put forward by consultants, experts and school leaders and you find that you have to chuck out two years of work as soon as you have got it finished because the rules have changed. AGAIN.

School leadership puzzled me at times. It was clear they could see staff crumpling under pressure but their only response was to add more things to do, new initiatives, more stress. Instead of targeted responses to areas of concern broad brush approaches were used and that made sure everyone was burdened with an even greater workload.

OFSTED is the big problem though, or rather the threat of OFSTED. They are the bogey man, the wicked, cruel, spiteful bully that could swoop in at any moment and take us all to hell in a handcart, or at least give our school a negative inspection result.

I went through 3 inspections during my 10 year career as a teacher and each time the “post match” staff meeting was a pantomime, leadership telling us the unofficial result  and behaving as if we had got away with it. Somehow we had managed to hide our failings and pulled the wool over their eyes. It was as if the inspectors had only seen the bits we wanted them to see. Tee Hee!

There seemed to be a game played by leadership to see if they could find out what the inspectors wanted in advance. of course all the criteria are published for all to see so it should be straightforward but there were always rumors and half truths circulating.

“They need a fully annotated lesson plan”,,”in triplicate”,”and colour”

“They must have proof that you know the name of every pupil premium child in every class and the reason they are PP”.

“You must have a seating plan for every class with all students who are performing above or below target identified”

And sure enough these half truths became requirements set out by the leadership team to be checked on to make sure you have a pack with all this stuff in at hand just in case they walk in tomorrow.

When you train its important to plan all lessons in micro detail, timings, content outcome all need identifying. Its how you learn. When you are observed a plan is expected so the observer, your line manager or a mamber of SLT, can see what you are trying to achieve. But, whisper it, the rest of the time, while you create resources and work towards objectives, plans are usually a few notes in a diary or notepad.

Foe an OFSTED inspection all lessons are planned. In minute detail. resources are coming out the woodwork. The kids know its a farce, SLT know its a farce and, most important of all, OFTED know its a farce. Everyone accepts that no one has the time to create detailed plans for every lesson. So what they see is every schools best attempt at being perfect for one, two or three days, depending on the type of inspection.

The things that make a difference in school are long term and well managed.All inspections do is satisfy the government that someone is keeping an eye on things.

I left due to stress which was causing depression. I had been on medication for five years for my low mood. I stopped the day I left school and , whilst not everything is completely rosy, I am much better and my wife tells me the husband she met 30 years ago is back and the dull, monochrome one on anti depressants has gone.

The school where I worked has a new headteacher now and I hear that he is doing his best to protect his staff from the external pressures and to let them work at being the great teachers that most of them are. I hope he can make their lives happier than mine was.

I would love to go back full time into the classroom, to work  with those inspiring kids but I wont because I know the bullshit that surrounds the job would put me back where I was a year ago and nothing is worth that.

 

 

Pondering’s On Beekeeping

Beekeeping is a funny way to spend your leisure time;

It can be expensive, just to buy the woodwork for one hive is quite a lot of money and you simply cant have just one as you need to be able to conduct manipulations for
management purposes and that needs more than one box. You need to get a stock or two of bees and, these post Varoa days, they aint cheap and there are all the sundries, one of those smoker jobbies, a bee suit (not many people rely on just a veil these day) and a hive tool, the list is endless.

Then there is the stock itself. Bees are not like a dog, cat or even sheep, they can not be domesticated, they may tolerate you or they may not but they are never affectionate and only do your bidding because of your art not through their free will. And if they don’t want you around they will let you know in no uncertain terms. We all know that a honey bee dies after stinging you and they only do it as a last resort but sometimes they seem hell bent on giving you the good news by pumping a few milligrams of venom into your hide and if they really mean it they will find a way of getting the message home however you try to keep them off.

One of the team hard at work

As a beekeeper (or Beek as some Americans call themselves) of many years experience I can still be unnerved when I open a hive and its instantly clear you are not wanted and wont be tolerated. You can give em enough smoke to cause a aircraft to be diverted but they will still keep coming and the only option is to shut up shop and move away and try again another day when you hope their mood will be better.

People spend large sums of money to buy colonies that have been specifically bred for their good temper and lack of hostility but as soon as the old queen is superseeded (replaced) or a swarm event takes place you have no control over who the new girl mates with and if she isn’t fussy she might add genes from the colony from the dark side to the colony and you are back to square one. It doesn’t matter how well bred she is if she does the business with that rough looking bee with the bad habits and nasty demeanor then their offspring are quite likely to be a stroppy bunch.

Some beekeepers insist that the aggressive colonies are the most productive and there may be something to this. I recently saw an advert for several hives that described them unsuitable for a beginner as they were fairly defensive. For defensive read aggressive. I did wonder if the reason the seller was getting out of beekeeping was that he was fed up with dealing with the awkward squad.  I have concluded that i would rather have a smaller yield and a happier experience if its all the same to you,thanks.

Beekeeping is a con, the whole basis of it is to fool these wonderful little insects into believing that they are behaving naturally whilst all the while they are doing your bidding. Swarming is a case in point, its the natural way in which one colony becomes two; its reproduction in its natural form. Whilst this is not the place to go into the details of the whys and wherefores suffice to say that the colony breeds a new queen and the old one

A typical swarm

leaves taking enough bees with her to start a new colony elsewhere. Where there was one colony there are now two. This is not good for the beekeeper as it reduces the capacity of the hive to produce honey so our job is to prevent this and most of the methods for this involve persuading the old queen she has moved into a new home and has simply forgotten how it happened. A con. The experts point out the complex theory involved and how they have harnessed science to modify the bees behavior to the advantage of the beekeeper but in the end it comes down to subterfuge.

Then we steal the honey they have made. The effort involved in making honey is massive, a colony of bees has to fly 55,000 miles to make a pound of the good stuff. Thousands of bees flying vast distances to produce this wonderful, sticky, sweet, golden martial that is designed to feed them through the winter so they can start again next year and we take it from them and make them start all over again. No wonder they get arsey with us.

The trick is to leave them enough honey to survive the cold months because unlike most similar insects they don’t hibernate but instead indulge in a massive group hug to keep warm whilst munching on their stores to keep up the temperature. There is nothing worse than opening a hive in the spring only to find lots of dead bees, their heads plunged into the comb where they died trying to find the last of the honey. As the person who took their stores for your own purposes it is your moral duty to make sure that they have enough to make it through the lean times even if it involves feeding them syrup made from ordinary sugar to tide them over.

Oh yeah, they die too. No matter how hard you try to look after them they are still susceptible to parasites, disease and attack. Bacteria, Virus’, Varoa, Woodpeckers, and now Hornets all want to do them in. Turn your back and you can come back to an empty hive.

So who takes part in this strange, complex craft for a hobby? A friend of mine went to his first beekeeping association meeting a few years ago and came away chuckling; “They all looked like me, middle ages, portly and bearded”. Of course there is another archetype, the spinster beekeeper, grey hair in a bun, living alone and spending hours chatting to her bees. I definitely fall into the former group but have met a few of the latter but these days, largely due to the hard work of the BBKA and other beekeeping groups, the profile is beginning to change and there are more young people taking to the craft.

Why do it I hear you cry; well its fascinating, after nearly 15 years of keeping bees

Sunshine in a jar

every season is different, I am always learning and I get to spend time with like-minded friends outdoors in the sun. I met one of my dearest friends through beekeeping and whist we may not meet as frequently in the colder months we will be out again in the spring trying hard to get one over on our charges. Oh and at the end of the year I get several kilos of honey, sunshine in a jar. On a drab winters day a piece of fresh bread and butter dressed with your own honey can transport you to a warm day in June, working on your hives with the sun on your back and the birds in the trees.

Try and do that with Nutella.

Cider House Lures

When I was young cider was for teenagers taking their first steps into the wonderful world of alcohol and all it encompasses. Many the youngster has guzzled a Strongbow too many and ended up feeling worse for wear or spent the rest of the evening “talking to God on the big white telephone”. Legion, too, are the girls who’s dad let them have a Bulmer’s at the family barbecue only to end up giggly and slightly pissed before the burger arrived to soak up the apply goodness. And I am sure more than a few boys and girls have found an evening on the “mad apple” has played a part in the loss of their innocence.

Then cider more or less disappeared from view for me until some bloody marketing executive decided to re-brand the stuff. The supposedly Irish cider Magners became a thing (who knew they made it) and you had to drink it with ice for gods sake. I presume the ice was to dull the taste buds to the dreadful flavour of the sweet, chemically produced bilge water. Bulmers decided to join in and now produce flavoured ciders which further disguises the dreadful nature of the base drink.

But there has been an upside, people soon found there are good ciders available and started to find out about them. They even looked into the prospect of making it them selves. And so my tale begins……

We are well and truly at the end of the cider season here but my pall Wedge is still hard at it. He has invested heavily in equipment this year and has been trying to get me over to his place to show me his new toys and to get me involved as cheap labour and today I gave in and took a trip to his house to see what was occurring.

Now Wedge is a bit like me, he gets an idea and becomes so focused on it that all logic goes out the window, I wouldn’t use the word obsessed but others might. Cost is not an obstacle as in the long run it will be worth it and payback will come, eventually.

The Press

So picture the scene; two middle aged men who are only partially employed (and some would say only partially employable) surrounded by bins of apples, a super quality press, an amazing scratter (the machine that takes a bucket of pristine, spherical apples and turns them to mush) and an array of fermentation vessels ready for the yeast to work its magic on the pure apple juice and convert it into the nectar that is craft cider.

I was carefully schooled in the proportion of acidic cooking apples to the less astringent eaters to end up with a good balanced drink and how to use the scratter and the press while the master cider maker clucked and scuttled about checking PH and grinding Campden tablets (used to kill off the unreliable wild yeasts on the apples so that a more refined, champagne yeast can be added later).

A couple of hours later we proudly looked at our work. Some 50 litres of apple juice and a barrow full of dry pulp. This precious liquid was added to the stock Wedge had already accrued making a total of over 250 litres bubbling and chugging away ready for blending and bottling later in the year and drinking too of course.

There was something very satisfying about the process though, a natural end to the autumn and a feeling of putting apples that would have otherwise been wasted to good use. It seems that anyone interested in gardening plants an apple tree then cant be arsed to pick the apples or even pick them up. Wedge, in his industrious manner has been scouring the area near his home to collect this wonderful gift of nature (and nurture) and turning it into something that will bring joy and happiness to the beneficiary of the fermentation.

I keep bees and I have a surplus of honey at the moment so that set a train of thought in progress and I think our next venture into our alcohol  fueled ventures might be some mead making.

Bright Colours In November

Hello and welcome to my blog on matters that wander in to my consciousness and provoke a reaction. There are many things which may cause me to post, some may be interesting but I suspect there will be many that are less so,  for which I apologise in advance.

As I sit and put pixel to paper I look from my window and see a grey, November morning, not particularly cold, not raining, not windy, just not much really. Its the sort of day that if you felt down to start with could push you into the pit of despair, the slough of despondency or even the pub. But I have a weapon against this. On my window is one of those little bird feeders that attach with suction cups and I get to see the most wonderful birds really close up.

The window is just over an arms length away from my seat but the birds are pretty cool about my presence, almost as if they cant see beyond the glass. Regular visitors are Robins (who are surprisingly nervous), Nuthatches, with their cool looking Cleopatra eye make up, various tits and even a Greater Spotted Woodpecker who lands with a huge thump which threatens to dislodge the feeder.

My favorites this year have been the Bull Finches. I feed throughout the year and towards the end of the summer, well into August, I was aware the Bull Finch pair were increasingly visiting the feeder. The male, resplendent in his hunting pink breast and cheek plumage,
grey and black wings with their pale bar and topped of with a perfect black cap was quite stunning but I have rather fallen for the female (always the way!). Her more subtle colouring, described rather unsatisfactorily as a pinkish grey in some books, coupled with the same black cap and wings and makes her easily the equal of the male and to my eye even more beautiful.

 

It was clear in September that the pair were having a late brood and soon male a female were worked to a standstill coming to the feeder in a constant stream, taking huge quantities of seed away. Then suddenly the female disappeared (I think she had had enough and buggered off for a break). Then the male was joined by three chirping fledglings, each competing for his attention. At the time we were having some building work done which involved scaffolding on the front of the  house and the young birds sat rather comically on the steel branches of the scaffold tubes and the thinner twigs of the ladder rungs to sing for their supper.

Once they were able to feed themselves the male too faded into the background (if a bright pink bird can ever fade) and stopped visiting leaving the kids to get fat for winter. Now there are only two of them, I assume the Sparrow Hawk probably took the other, but the survivors have now got their adult colour and still visit several times a day.

As I finish this blog they have just landed, female first then the male, they fill up on the sunflower hearts I stock the feeder with.

We watch the fantastic Wildlife documentaries on TV in wonderment at the variety and spectacle of the animals across the world but if wee look closer to home we have birds that are second to none and can raise a smile whenever we see them.

Maybe its not such a grey day after all.