Time on your hands or slow the goddamn threads down thread!!!

[mercalia]

I was sent this by my sister


I don’t know if this is of interest to anyone but as of next Thursday the national theatre are putting up a production to watch online for free. This is what is normally streamed live to cinemas. See link

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/nt-at-home

[Tangled Metal]

I'm waiting for the Papier mache app so I can use the stack of online news papers I've read. Otherwise I'd have to raid the recycling station.

Not manually bereft just not got the space or rather not worth a marital using the space available for craft. So I'm stuck with little bouts of whittling.

Of course with current situation I'm more likely running school of mum and dad for a 7 year old who's lasted one week before realising his power has grown. Trust me a fed up 7 yo takes up a fair amount of wrangling time.

[Cugel]

I'm waiting for the Papier mache app so I can use the stack of online news papers I've read. Otherwise I'd have to raid the recycling station.

Not manually bereft just not got the space or rather not worth a marital using the space available for craft. So I'm stuck with little bouts of whittling.

Of course with current situation I'm more likely running school of mum and dad for a 7 year old who's lasted one week before realising his power has grown. Trust me a fed up 7 yo takes up a fair amount of wrangling time.

Well in my day we were wrangled by ex-WWII forces fellows (and they were all fellows) brandishing various weapons of punishment which they employed with gay abandon upon our sensitive carcasses! Never did me any harm (twitch-twitch). ....

Well, perhaps it did. Even today, when I am a wise old man (oh yes I am!) there is within me an auto-reaction agin' many forms of authority, real ones or the self-appointed charlatans. (Or just the charlatans appointed by other charlatans, such as Tory voters). I blame them teachers, many of whom were no such thing but rather more like Wackford Squeer's younger brother given a sinecure to prevent them doing more damage in wider society.

But I digress.

The teachers whom we young hooligans of the 50s and 60s got on best with were those who could fascinate us as they educated. This is no easy trick. However, the rigours of making a convincing paper-mache item could help. Such manual skills of design and dexterity are probably going to be of far more use than accountancy or selling gew-gaws in the future (if we have one).

Perhaps you could begin by making a working paper-mache Boris which captures an alternative character of honesty & care? Even if it comes out a bit lumpen and with one leg longer than the other it'll do a better job than the current puppet.

Cugel, offering highly practical advice, yes.

[Tangled Metal]

Well I'm still going to check Google play for that papier mache app. Failing that it's a midnight raid to the recycling centre to get the necessary v stock of newspapers. Obviously, sifting out the guardian, well I have standards! Just need to dodge the polis dishing out punishments via cudgels or chip and pin payment systems.

Funny but I was remembering my secondary school years. 4 or 5 years after corporal punishments were outlawed we had a stand in teacher for a few lessons. An old school teacher who punished by making the miscreants hold a chalk against the blackboard with their nose while holding their arms straight out the sides of the body. If the chalk dropped he'd throw the blackboard wiper at them hitting the board inches from their head. If the arms dropped even an inch they got whacked with a long, wooden pointer. Totally illegal but he got away with it.

Of course the best teachers are and have always been the ones who got you interested in learning. The motivators, the educators and the teachers who genuinely cared. They put the time into it and every kid in their class. Get one of those for exam year you'll probably do well in their subject. Learning has always been easier if you enjoy it.

[fullupandslowingdown]

4 or 5 years after corporal punishments were outlawed

damn, when did that happen, that edict must have past my school by a country mile and half

Unfair share of rotters in robes we had. my very first day at big school and I got whacked so hard in the head by one teacher, I had ringing in the ears (still have...) And I hadn't even done owt wrong, he was a classic bully disciplinarian seeking to impose his authority on we new shower before we misbehaved.

Had a scottish master for maths. I'm sure he was past retirement age even back then, lovely chap unless provoked. Sweets for first to finish the friday afternoon test with full marks (propably why I got bad teeth )

Physics teacher was best though, you could ask him anything. Still strict with bizarre understanding of the human rights act i.e arbitrary detention without court sentence. But some of the crazy stuff we did in the physics lab, wouldn't be allowed nowadays for elf'n'safety reasons (I still glow purple in the dark)

[661-Pete]

4 or 5 years after corporal punishments were outlawed

damn, when did that happen, that edict must have past my school by a country mile and half

Apparently, it was 1986 in state schools, and 1998 in private schools (England and Wales), 2000 (Scotland), 2003 (NI). I thought it was earlier than that. Certainly movies of the 1960s like Kes and If... have graphic scenes of caning, if you care to watch them.

Caning was rife in my school, 1960s. At least until we had a change of headmaster: the new one made efforts to scale it down. But I still remember an occasion when the school received a complaint about their Junior 1st XV, playing away at another school, having misbehaved in the changing rooms. The Games Master took it upon himself to cane every one of them, four strokes each. The affair was talked about for weeks after. Lucky for me, I was hopeless at rugby, so I never made it into any team!