By all accounts, Edward I was not a monarch to cross.

So when Llwelyn ap Gruffydd and his brother did just that in the late 13th Century, the result was a chain of stonking great fortifications around North Wales that would leave the locals, in case somehow they weren't sure, in no doubt what-so-ever just exactly who was in charge here.

Harlech sits lonely and windswept on its promontory, forsaken by the sea that used to crash against its mighty foundations. Its towers are no longer home to the thirty men charged with local security, only the gulls and crows that nestle amongst the broken stones in the teeth of the winds rolling in from the great arc of the bay below.

And then there is Conwy, crouched at the entrance of another bay, its sturdy walls encircling a tiny town, its lofty towers full of chattering students and exhausted tourists bemoaning "Not another one!". The almost delicate foot suspension bridge echoes the military might of its watchful master, as does that of the twin tunnel rail bridge next door, its faux facade a Victorian sop to the impressive surroundings.

Finally there is Beaumaris, unfinished and forgotten, brooding in its beautiful marsh, but somehow managing to show the beginnings of the structural ideal brought to fruition at Deal Castle, Henry VIII's anti-artillery marvel on the South East coast of England, some 250 years later.

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, father of Portmeirion, talked of the architectural good manners he hoped to instill in his secluded valley. Although these three statements of stone intent are not the only castles rebuilt, remodeled or required by Edward in the area, they are a most profound declaration of his enduring architectural bad manners, softened only by time and the trample of weary feet.

Portmeirion is a magical place. Clinging desperately to the side of a steep Welsh valley, the sugary colours of the stucco stand in counterpoint to the dark, lustrous greens of the surrounding woodland. The sweeping vista of the bay carries your eye to the brooding hills  above Harlech and out beyond the lighthouse you can see infinity on a clear day.

Born of the imagination of Sir Clough Willaims-Ellis (and I say born because it has an organic feel to it that discounts words like built and designed), it shows that architecture can be approachable, entertaining and gentle on the eye despite a riot of colour. A true eccentric, Williams-Ellis became something of a masonry magpie, accepting donations of bits of building that no-one wanted anymore leaving Portmeirion, in his own words, as a bit of a "home for fallen buildings".

We had the good fortune, after an off the cuff remark by a good friend, to spend a few days there this last week. Of course, you can't visit the Village without some reference to the Prisoner, the show which made it nationally and internationally famous. I'd never actually seen the Prisoner before we booked to go, so I had dutifully sat and watched the entire series on video (yes, video) once we had. The authorities at Portmeirion do kindly show an episode of the Prisoner on their private guest channel at 6 every day, which made us smile in the way that these gentle, knowing touches always do.

There are places where you instantly feel that you belong and I certainly believe in genius loci, the spirit of place. Like certain other locations we have visited over the years, you can feel that this one has been, and still is, greatly loved. The chance to stay in one of the Village houses and have the run of the place after closing time was very special. To sit on top of the Colonnade and watch the sun go down over the Piazza in perfect stillness was only one highlight of an amazing few days; to see sights that normal visitors can't because they cannot pass the "residents only" signs was even more so. The entire Village became our playground and we small children again, climbing, exploring, discovering, laughing at each new find, each glorious new perspective.

So while Portmeirion is most definitely worth visiting, it is even more worth while discovering by becoming your own miniature version of the Prisoner. But as someone else once said, once you've seen the place, you really have to wonder why he ever wanted to leave.

Well, there we go, the last episode of "Ashes to Ashes". Nice ending (which I will not be spoiling).

Only probelm being, BBC, it would have been sooooooo much better if you hadn't announced the next series before you showed tonight's episode. So whilst it was still a nicely done piece of work, it lacks some of the "OMG" factor that it should have had.

Someone really needs to sit down and teach the BBC's publicity department something about um, well, publicity...

Its not been an easy year, either at work or personally.

One issue at work is in the process of being resolved, there being no evidence of me ever having bullied a student. Well, I knew that and so did all the people I work closely with; if anyone was being bullied, it wasn't the student. I have wrestled professionally with one group of difficult students and been pushed to the limits of tolerance for lazy, ignorant and manipulative people across most classes.

And yet I have also taught two of the best groups I have ever had the pleasure to bring into a lab. They are effectively polar opposites: a group of 17/18 year olds fresh out of sixth-form and a group of mid- to late-20s who have (on the whole) a very poor prior experience of education (some were proper bad lads by their own admission when they were at school). Both groups have an enormous sense of humour, to such an extent that we frequently have visits from the lecturer in the room next door to find out what all the laughter is about. To be honest, those two groups are the only reason I went back to teaching this year. I am immensely proud of both groups, where (apart from one or two exceptions) they have worked hard and done all that has been asked of them.

At the end of the day, give me a determined, honest, hard-working student over a bright but lazy one any day. As I tell them all when they start, work with me and I'll go to the ends of the earth for you, mess me about and you're on your own. That's probably desperately old-fashioned, but do you know what? I don't care.

So whilst part of me can't wait to see that back of this academic year, there are some people I will miss very much indeed.

I have scenarios to write. I have laundry to do. These are important things that need my attention. They are things that require some thought .(Yes, laundry requires thought or you end up with pink knickers. Or worse).

But most of all, what I want to do is go for a long soak in a nice hot bath, with lots of bubbles. I don't have to think in the bath, I can just be...

Sometimes its nice not to have to think.

Having watched Australia, Wolverine and Coraline over the last few days, I started to muse about Hugh Jackman and physical attributes. Yes, its a quiet evening (Ashes to Ashes isn't starting for another half an hour) and yes, Coraline doesn't exactly fit into that pattern but I thought I'd mention it for it was a damn fine movie and the 3D on it was glorious in its lack of gratuity.

But back to Hugh Jackman: Having caught bits of X2 on the telly on Saturday night, it was obvious how much more buff he was in Wolverine; a quick rewatch of the original X-Men movie confirmed it (and how young he looked; but heck, that was nine years ago and we all looked a lot younger then). Whatever it is that makes grown, intelligent women go all giggly and wobbly-kneed, that man has it in spades.

There's a lot to be said for a lovely set of shoulders, sturdy arms and a mighty fine looking back (ladies, watch the utterly gratuitous bucket of water scene in Australia if you need further proof). Patrick Swayze never did much for me, except for the bit in Dirty Dancing where he's got his shirt off and they're practising the dance and you can see his shoulder and back muscles rippling. Mr Jackman's rather engaging physique stirs similar sentiments (you know, the hot under the collar, ever so slightly flushed feeling), albeit with a much prettier face on top. Still, all that aside, in the grand tradition of my family, its the sparkly eyes and cheeky grin that nails it. It also helps if they have a nice pert bottom. He's doing well on all counts so far...

Of course, we're merely talking window shopping here. Nothing could persuade me to swap my lovely hubbie for Mr Jackman, even if he was available. For a start, I'd have to be constantly beating pretty much every other female on the planet off with a big stick. But the whole point is that a little bit of fantasy is quite a nice thing. Especially if its shaped like Hugh Jackman.

Several years ago (4 or five, I think) a tutor suggested I should join a local exhibiting embroidery group. I was a bit surprised, as I'd never really thought about it, but was thrilled (seeing as she was the person who created the group in the first place).

As it does, life got in the way; the thought was there, but the opportunity didn't seem to arise. I was invited twice to their yearly residential workshop; I struggled with the tasks in the first one but was made to feel very welcome and thought "Hey, yeah, maybe this is something I can contribute to". I am partly ashamed to admit that having been to a few of their exhibitions I thought some of my work a lot better than some of the members, but kicked myself mentally for being uncharitable.

( Slightly self-indulgent chest beating... )
Plus, I've gone back to writing, something I still enjoy and have missed, seeing as its been a while. For now, I don't have the time or the passion required to be part of a group that has one large and several small (selling) exhibitions a year. Let someone who can devote the time have it; maybe another year I will care and there will be a place for me. If not, well, that's life.

I've been back at work for a fortnight now and things are slowly moving on. Many of my students were genuinely pleased to see me, which was a much needed boost and the students who knew what had happened made things so much easier, despite a few tears. I have two really wonderful groups this year, for which I am constantly grateful (I started with five and am now down to four in total).

My youngest remaining group are willing participants in film, TV and gaming nerdery; I sat there invigilating an exam for them wearing bright pink pixie wings this week (don't ask) and they've asked if they can have their last lesson in full costume. If anyone ever needs their faith in young people renewing, I'll let you borrow them for a bit, as long as you promise faithfully to let me have them back again.

Fallen is very nearly complete, at least in terms of a recognisable game with bells and whistles. Friends and students have been roped in to play-testing it (so we have the experienced hands and the complete newcomers making sure I haven't written utter tosh). I'm very interested to see what the gaming noobs (as they labeled themselves) are going to make of it. They were really excited to do some table-top gaming, as they've only ever done the computer variety before. Let's hope I don't scare them off...

And "Fields of Silver", my travel guide come murder mystery for the Dying Earth RPG game has been hanging around the top ten on RPG Now's pdf sales (as high as 6 at one point, apparently), so I was interviewed for a podcast on RPG Countdown last night. Now all it has to do is stay there until Tuesday Wednesday and I'm in the programme ;)

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=61301

There you go, shameless plug for it; its only $4.98, that's half price, you know. No-one can resist a bargain ;)

This is just a short post to let those of you who read this know where I've been hiding, and to say thank you to our good friends on here for their love and support.

This has possibly been the longest four weeks of my life. Some of you already know that I had a miscarriage earlier this month; the pregnancy had not long been confirmed when we found out that the twins had died and that we had to wait for nature to take its course. Its been difficult to talk about it, but those we did tell have all been very supportive and helped us both greatly. Thank you.

For a very long time, a good friend has recommended Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody books to me as a rollicking good read. At Christmas I decided to treat myself to the first one and also picked up a book about an Edwardian railway detective (Necropolis Railway, I think).

I read the railway one first; it was a bit slow, with a fairly unsympathetic lead character, Conan Doyle's trick of not telling you all the information you need to sort it out yourself and, worst of all, it didn't actually end. You have to buy the next one to find out what happens, yet nowhere did it mention this was on ongoing story. Sadly, it wasn't really interesting enough to warrant buying the next one.

Then I moved on to "Crocodile on the Sandbank"; well, what a difference! I read virtually all of it yesterday as we watched the snow falling, then we forayed out and I treated myself to the next two. Val was right, it was a good old pulp Victorian romp, with lots of dashing gallantness and derring-do, which after the fortnight I've had was exactly the sort of escapism I needed.

Its rare these days that I find a book I truly enjoy; I've either pretty much read it before (i.e. virtual carbon copies of stories tackled by different authors), the story is dull and fails to engage me or I get so annoyed at the characters being complete idiots that I couldn't care less what happens to them (I've tried Memoirs of a Geisha twice because of this, and still can't finish it).
 
It was also a tremendous luxury to just sit and read for the pleasure of reading, something many of us no longer have the time to do. Most of my reading is work related. I have to admit to feeling a little guilty for indulging myself in this way, but it was worth it.

Back to the guarded comments.

All our school lives, we are told not to give in to bullies, to stand up to them. But children aren't the only bullies.

I was bullied out of a good job once. Despite the fact the person doing the bullying had a history of it and I was only the latest in a long line of people she had intimidated, the interview I had about the situation with the management ended with the line "sadly, she's indespensible and you're not". Funnily enough, I handed in my notice, cashed in my holidays and left, despite them begging me to stay.

I will not go through that again, but I fear (quite literally) that the price of resistance, acting like a professional,  following my conscience and doing what is right could be high.

Thank goodness that week's over.

I'm co-delivering a course for primary school teaching assistants at the moment. Its at almost the exact opposite end of the age scale to my normal work, but its great fun. Having been on a few training courses myself to get up to speed, there are some wonderfully creative people out there who are trying to make this age group see how much fun science can be.

In order to make our course fun, we've been coming up with all sorts of games. One uses dice to create "designer babies" (a term which usually makes my blood boil, but its very appropriate here). Because these games are to be used with littlies, we need big dice. As a gamer, I am as susceptible to the lure of dice as many others of my kind. We've ordered some (blind) that are supposed to bounce, but I won't know how good they are until Monday.

So we've been out today looking for big dice; soft, wooden, foam, big enough for little hands. On the internet, not such a problem, but you try finding shops that sell so much as normal dice these days. And we have the Metro Centre to go at! I did find quite a large wooden one (about 10cm across), so I've bought that. I also found some balsa wood blocks (about 6cm across), so I've bought one of them and I'm painting it up. I think it would be nice if the children could do that too; not only could they be really creative with the decoration, it'll help them to add up if they stick to the opposite faces adding up to 7 thing.

And that brings me on to creativity: Many of my students won't believe me when I tell them that to be good scientists they need to be creative. Creativity is not the same as artistic ability, something which is often forgotten. And if you're going to link creativity to science and have people believe it, then you need to start young.

For a variety of reasons, this one has to be cryptic; things are not good at one of the places I work. For my own protection I cannot comment much further, but wouldn't it be nice if people:

a) did their jobs properly
b) took personal responsibility for their own failings instead of trying to foist the blame on others and
c) were awesome to one another

Here endeth the lesson for today (and hopefully not permanently).

But if anyone needs a half-way decent free-lance writer...

Now, I can understand why (to some extent at least) that Richard Dawkins gets hate mail from fundamentalist Christians. No-one likes it being pointed out to them in a cultured English accent that they're idiots, especially when it happens to be true.

But when the same nutters start making threats against Sir David Attenborough, its time to get the big whacking stick out and delivering some natural selection...

I'll give 'em Darwin in action.

I have a lot of stuff to do today, so I didn't have my Sunday morning lie in and was being pretty organised so that i could get it all done. Only snag is, I can't get the monitor on the desk top pooter to turn on, and that's where all the files are I need to do the work. Knickers. Rich is out shopping and his mobile is dead, so I can't ask him. There's a whole load of cabling under the desk and unplugged plugs, but if I go under there I may never come out again.

So, the attempt to get ahead failed miserably, which means I'll be working into this evening to catch up. I could mark exam papers, but I need a couple of days off from that after dreaming about marking them (that's what you get for marking over a hundred in the space of a week).
 
I am most definitely with Garfield on this one, so where exactly did I leave that chainsaw...

So today it has been announced by some bright spark (yes, I am being immensely sarcastic) also known as the Centre for Policy Studies, that essay questions in Sats tests are "stressful to mark" and "essays written by students in England these days are often virtually unintelligible with even basic errors not being corrected".

Now, I would have to agree about essay questions being stressful to mark precisely because they are virtually unintelligible. I have 18 year olds who are writing at a standard I'd surpassed by the age of 8. I received an essay recently where one sentence was eight lines long (typed, in Times New Roman 12 point) with absolutely no punctuation at all. I only knew it hand ended because they started a new paragraph with a capital letter.

And what, I hear you ask, is the remedy to this situation? Teach them how to spell? How to use punctuation?(Any punctuation would be nice, to be honest, but proper punctuation would be lovely). How about getting really drastic and teaching the lazy little buggers to take some pride in their work?

No. The answer is, apparently, to remove essay questions altogether and give them more multiple guess questions.

Please insert your fingers in your ears now while I scream incoherently and put navvies to shame.

(Addendum: the Department for Children, Schools and Families have at least said that it is important to test writing skills. Shame they don't actually believe in teaching them as well)

Having marked 30 exam papers today (40 in total so far, with another 50 or so to go before another 25 roll in tomorrow), I'm treating myself by having old Columbos on in the background while I rejiggy my game (the new ones, like Highlander 2 and the Star Wars prequels, never actually happened). Still not sure about the altered mechanic, so I'm going to do all the edits that would be common to old and new, then create a new file for the new version. Sometimes I think I'm far too organised for my own good, then I look at the state of the sitting room and the piles of stuff everywhere.

Anyway, as threatened, the rest of the play test report is hiding under the cut below. If you want to know what the title of this post is about, you'll have to read it. Unless you knew a certain Isabelle from the Company of Crimson, of course, at which point you'll probably be able to guess.

 

( Oh, yes, she said dinosaurs... )

So we grabbed the bull by the horns today and Rich ran a session of Fallen for me. The report is also over on the Collective Endeavour site, but I'm posting it here too, under the cut and in two parts again so you don't get too crashingly bored by the whole thing (because as all gamers know, someone else's game stories are rarely as interesting as your own).

More tomorrow!

( Read on, if you dare... )

 

Went on a training course in self-evaluation and changing practice today. It wasn't quite as advertised, but it was still useful. However, my indignant, righteous streak came out from under the bed again at several points. So, please excuse me jumping on my soap box for a second.

From the courses I've been on lately (looking at science teaching to 5 - 10 year olds, roughly), everyone seems to be making a real effort to get the children thinking and solving their own problems. Now, these courses are most likely not representative of education as a whole, no matter how much I would like to think so. By the time I get them at 16, they have no independent learning skills and have to be spoon-fed like toothless crones. So what the hell is happening to them for 6 years?

League tables, that's part of it, the fact that every child is a number not a free child (oh, even now Mr Mcgoohan's opus is ringing the warning bells). Sod education, let's make a profit and turn out little, mindless drones. Let's not tell them what they can reasonably achieve, lets lie to them and give them a ludicrous idea that everything comes easy and perseverance is not required. I've ranted about this before and it isn't entirely the kids' fault, but they frequently won't make any effort either; they just give up at the first sign of challenge and go for the easy option. And don't get me started on people not taking responsibility for their own failings...

And then part of me gets really worried by what else I saw today - science co-ordinators who don't know any science. These are the people responsible for the cohesive delivery of science education at a point when if its done wrong, its ruined forever. Not knowing that a millilitre is the same thing as a cubic centimetre is really quite alarming to me. Someone telling me they know nothing about science but they're running training on it to other staff is another. Okay, they don't need to know it to degree level, but most primary school teachers won't even necessarily have studied science until they were 16 and its certainly not an entry requirement onto teacher training programmes for that age group.

So can someone please tell me how, as a nation, we're supposed to deliver a generation of scientifically literate people to drive Britain's resurgence as a great economic power?

No, didn't think so.

As threatened, and hidden behind the cut (which I really do know how to use now) is the rest of the playtest report for Fallen. Enjoy ;)

 

( Read more... )