4 days a week

noel edmonds

Hola. Hope you are well.

On last week’s blog post, I mentioned how I wanted to work 4 days a week. On this week’s blog post I can exclusively announce that I will be working in a specialist school, until the summer for 4 days a week, Mon-Thurs. The school wanted me to do 5 days a week, but for once I stuck to my guns and they agreed on 4. It’s almost as if I put the idea of working 4 days a week into the ether and now it has come true. It’s a little like Cosmic Ordering, something Noel Edmonds believes in. I think that’s where my similarity with Noel ends. Feel free to try this cosmic ordering and let me know your results, cheers.

Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate that saying I only want to work 4 days a week, does make me appear precious (and not the precious from the film Precious). For example, when I rang the agency and said “Ideally I’d like to work 4 days a week”, I’m sure I heard the woman on the other end laugh.

To be honest I wasn’t completely honest with the woman at the agency because ideally I wouldn’t have to work at all. If I could, I would whittle down the days I work one day at a time. This did make me think, if I only had to work one day a week, which day would I choose. I decided on Tuesday, cos it’s early in the week but it’s not Monday (everyone hates Mondays) but it would leave me the rest of the week free to do what ever else I wanted. Feel free to let me know what day you would choose if you only had to work one day a week.

Also on last week’s blog, I mentioned I would be going swimming with the children. As it turned out I didn’t do lots of swimming, I did plenty of hanging around the sides, I threw a few balls and attempted to look like I belonged in the pool. In some ways it was nice to realise that my opinions on swimming haven’t changed during the years of my inactivity. I still think it’s wrong, from when you get in the pool and the water is too cool for your body to the fact that you can drown. I will go as far as to say if humans were supposed to swim, we would have gills and get served up on Good Friday. I’m back in the pool this Wednesday.

The only other notable thing to happen at swimming was when I appeared from the cubicle in my trunks, the teacher (female) said, “aargh”. I think after laughter, pity is the next worse sound you want to hear when you are in a state of undress.

In other news, I am writing this blog in a internet cafe ( I did the first half in a library). I’m doing this as our laptop is not functioning as it should. ‘Her With One Permanent Job’ who is not technical, but generally more technical than I am, says it’s something to do with the Firewall. This is backed up by the fact that when the Firewall is off, we can access the internet but when it’s on we can’t. If anyone reading this has any solutions they can pass on, they would be gratefully received. Cheers

And finally… On last week’s blog post I forgot to mention how many fish fingers we had in the flat. So annoyed were the British public that they came to London in their droves this weekend to voice their annoyance. So bowing to the pressure, I can tell you that from the original 77 we had, we now have 28 . Hopefully that will pacify the protestors.

Til next week, stay safe!

Advertisement

From Wii to wee

duncan goodhew

Hola. Hope you are well.

I’ve had an interesting week in the 2 schools I was in. It started with me wiping noses and attempting to feed a child and ended with me trying to demonstrate how to stand and wee, using both actions and sounds, but with no actual bits on show. To be honest I wasn’t that succesful with any of the above tasks.

I should have known I was going to have a tough week, because the previous week had gone well, as you may recall from last week’s blog post, I was playing games on the Wii and running around a playground. And the one thing life has taught me over time, is that if something is going well or even just ok, something will conspire to kick me squarely between the legs.

I should have seen the signs, because on my first day at the first school, I got a call from my agency asking if I had left my flat, because they wanted me to take in some swimming trunks as the class I would be with were going swimming. This concerned me a little as due to my cultural heritage (being black) swimming isn’t one of my strengths. Thankfully I was already on the train to the school, so didn’t have to do any swimming.

I didn’t think too much about the swimming, until the Wednesday, my first day at the second school, when I walked in the class with my bag and the teacher said, “Oh good you’ve brought your swimming kit”. I hadn’t, as I’d not been told to but I am now worried that a memo has gone out to the schools of London saying I am some kind of black Duncan Goodhew. I should be in the pool on Wednesday so I will let you know if anything of significance happens. In many ways I hope not.

I don’t want you to think I am a work light weight, but last week I was only scheduled to work 4 days Mon-Thurs. I could have tried to get work for the Friday, but by Wednesday, I knew I’d want the Friday off, so I told the agency I would be unavailable for that day. I reckon that was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It was just nice not to have the pressure of being a responsible adult put in a position where people expect you to know what you are doing. It was nice to go back to being me, a non responsible adult, where no expects me to know what I’m doing.

This did however make me think about how my ambitions have changed over time. When I first entered this world of showbiz (that’s what I’m in, honest) I had ambitions to present a national radio show, maybe make it big in M’cr, London and New York, and now all I want to do is work 4 days a week, preferably Mon-Thurs. I think that is what’s called reality biting.

And Finally…. Since working in these schools, I’ve met 3 Jackies and they’ve all been up beat, cheery, positive and helpful people. In no way is this scientific but I’m now going to say all Jackies are like this. The only staff member I’ve found to be off with me was a Louise, so I’m going to put Louises at the bottom of my imaginary chart. Feel free to confirm my findings about Jackies and Louises, or not, or let me know if you’ve got any new names you’d like to throw into the mix. You can contact me via the comments button). Cheers.

Til next week, stay safe!

Coke

Hola. Hope you are well.

On last week’s blog post I mentioned I would be working in a primary school until Tuesday, well I ended up working one extra day which proved slightly problematic. This was because on Tuesday at lunchtime when I was in the staff room surrounded by women bad mouthing their fellas for putting football before them, I piped up knowing it was my last day and said,”To be fair these guys probably loved football way before they met you”. This didn’t go down overly well, as you might expect. I didn’t think too much about it until at the end of the day, when I was asked if I could stay on one more day. Let’s just say I wasn’t as vocal in the staff room on the Wednesday.

I also worked two days in a specialist secondary school. On the Friday my tasks included playing on the Wii in the morning and playing running and chasing games in the afternoon including Bulldog ( I don’t think you can call it British Bulldog these days). It did cross my mind as I was catching my breath that maybe a man in his mid-thirties shouldn’t be earning his living from running around a playground. Having said that I was pretty good at the running games (not so good on the Wii).

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how ‘Her With One Permanent Job’ and I sat down to watch a hard hitting film called ‘Precious’, well this week we watched a film that was on the complete opposite end of the seriousness scale. A film called ‘Click’. The premise of this film is that a man, (Adam Sandler) gets hold of a TV remote and discovers it can control his life. So for example, he can mute his wife and her friends, pause situations to his advantage and fast forward through bad and boring stuff. If this film doesn’t sound ridiculous enough, let me mention it also featured none other than David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff. To be fair it was watchable and only cost me £1 from the library, although due to work commitments (playing on the Wii and Bulldog) meant I couldn’t take it back til a day after it was due,meaning I incurred a £1 fine. Having forked out a princely some of £2 I might have to change my views on the film.

In addition to Click, I also went to the theatre to watch ‘Vernon God Little’. Normally I have trouble staying awake at cinemas, theatres and planetariums (see last week’s blog post) and because I was up early that day I thought I would definitely fall asleep. But at £15 a ticket (it’s the theatre darling) I was determined to stay awake. So before the play I had some coke and you know what it worked, I didn’t miss one bit of the play. Now before anyone rings the education authorities I am of course referring to the fizzy black drink made popular by the likes of Coca Cola and Pepsi.

And Finally… I’m currently reading a book, ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’. It’s a book about running by a running obsessed author. I’m only halfway through it and although I’m enjoying it, it has left me feeling that I don’t do enough exercise and I don’t write enough. Cheers for that Haruki Murakami. (feel free to let me know what you are reading and how it’s making you feel)

Til next time, stay safe! (Ps we have  44 fish fingers in the freezer)

Excuse me ladies

Greenwich planetarium

Hola. Hope you are all well.

On last week’s blog post I mentioned I would be working in a local school for 3 days. Well that 3 days turned into a full week, and I was still in the school today and will be there tomorrow, but that should be my last day there. It’s been an interesting experience. ‘Her with One Permanent Job’ said to me, “it must be good shaping future minds”, the truth is I’m not so much shaping the next generation but more tying their shoe laces, sticking things in their books, telling them to sit down and icing biscuits with them. All the things you would expect from an unknown comedian.

I think my favourite part of the week was when I got to use the wall stapler and put up a display on healthy eating. If that wasn’t good enough, the teacher left a note for me to pick up the next day, saying she liked the display, woohoo! The note also contained the things I had to do that day, boo!

After a hard week at work, I had a quiet Friday night in. And with ‘HWOPJ’ out, I thought I would get out the lap top and settle down to…. Question Time on Iplayer. Rock and indeed Roll!

On  Saturday I was on BBC Radio Manchester Sport, talking about funny stadium names. This is the kind of things that happens to you when you are prepared to chat about everything and anything on air. I was going to put a link to the show but it’s not on the Iplayer but let’s just assume I was charming, witty and insightful.

Also on Saturday, I went to a planetarium in Greenwich, to be honest I wasn’t sure what one was until Saturday (it’s like a cinema, where the only film showing is one of the stars and the planets) but we got free tickets, thanks to ‘HWOPJ’s friend, which was just aswell as I fell a sleep through most of it. But in my defence it was dark in there. But this isn’t why I mention the planetarium, it’s because as I was sat next  to ‘HWOPJ’ a man tried to pass by and before doing so said, “Excuse me ladies”. Ladies?? The last time I checked I was a man,( not that I have to check to know this). Never in my time on this earth have I been mistaken for a woman. I don’t even think I’m very feminine looking. After giving the whole thing some consideration the only reasonable explanation I could come up with, is that the karma police were seeking revenge for me mistaking a boy for a girl at the school earlier in the week. But in my defence he had way too much hair and looked like a girl. Feel free to let me know if you’ve ever been mistaken for the wrong gender.

And Finally… onto what the world has been talking about for the last seven days, forget Colonel Gaddafi, forget Charlie Sheen, forget Ashley Cole shooting a student (what a twonk), the big thing everyone is talking about is how many fish fingers we have in our freezer (see last weeks post). The answer ladies and gentlemen is 52. Now you can all sleep easier knowing this fact.

Til next week, stay safe!