I've always enjoyed reading Ian Whitwham's column in SecEd, which I often read online. A collection of his columns has been published by Hopscotch. I've got the book on order, but here is the publisher's description. Get it for Christmas!
At the Chalkface: Great Moments in Education is a witty collection of columns published in the weekly broadsheet SecEd since 2003. They explore the experience of the inner city classroom with humour, honesty and compassion.
These columns reflect the writer over 30 years’ experience of the classroom, showing what really goes on – they combine lightness of touch with some depth and darkness.
They reflect the vibrant, complex and sometimes heartbreaking nature of a classroom – and celebrate the rich variety of pupils within it.
Anybody who teaches or has taught in a secondary school, and anyone who has an interest in the issues facing secondary school teachers, will love this book, written by Ian Whitwham, who has taught for over 30 years in inner city comprehensives.
I did my teaching practice in a London Comprehensive, when I was studying at London University Institute of Education, so I can sympathise with Ian's columns. It's like reading about an alternative lifestyle and career, one which I didn't follow, but which I can experience through Ian's eyes.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Book of the Year
It is the time of the year when most of the newspapers publish lists of their columnists' "Books of the Year".
My old friend, Mark, publisher and editor of "Wiltshire Life" recommended John Carey's William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies. I will certainly be getting that well-reviewed biography in due course. Mark even phoned me to tell me that I get a mention in the book, concerning the time that Golding visited Thessaloniki.
My own nomination for book of the year is Glyn Hughes' Life Class (Shoestring Press, 2009).
It's a strange coincidence, but I also first met Glyn Hughes in Thessaloniki.
Life Class is a truly inspiring autobiographical poem about his roots, about nature, about his three marriages (including marriage to a Greek woman)and it also covers the period he spent living in Greece.
It belongs up there with Wordsworth's The Prelude and John Betjeman's Summoned by Bells.
Life Class is a modern classic. It's a long poem, but immensely moving and readable.
My old friend, Mark, publisher and editor of "Wiltshire Life" recommended John Carey's William Golding: The Man Who Wrote Lord of the Flies. I will certainly be getting that well-reviewed biography in due course. Mark even phoned me to tell me that I get a mention in the book, concerning the time that Golding visited Thessaloniki.
My own nomination for book of the year is Glyn Hughes' Life Class (Shoestring Press, 2009).
It's a strange coincidence, but I also first met Glyn Hughes in Thessaloniki.
Life Class is a truly inspiring autobiographical poem about his roots, about nature, about his three marriages (including marriage to a Greek woman)and it also covers the period he spent living in Greece.
It belongs up there with Wordsworth's The Prelude and John Betjeman's Summoned by Bells.
Life Class is a modern classic. It's a long poem, but immensely moving and readable.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Demetrius Toteras, Corfiot Californian Writer
Demetrius Toteras, the Greek-American playwright and philosopher, died in California on Thursday 12 November, 2009.
I first got to know him in Corfu in 1967-1968. He came to live in Wallingford, near Oxford, at the time that I was studying film direction as a postgraduate at the University of Bristol Drama Department, and he helped to produce a film based on his life and excerpts from his play "Sunday They'll Make Me a Saint".
Apart from being an extraordinarily original writer and challenging thinker, he was an outstanding flamenco guitarist and guitar teacher.
I managed to visit him twice in the USA, once in San Francisco, the other time at his home in Sebastopol.
Toteras was his nom-de-plume. His real name was a well-known Corfiot surname. His family had emigrated to the States from Mandouki.
In the late sixties people in Corfu knew him simply as "Jimmy Christ". Everyone who met him was impressed by his intelligence and the "life-force" he seemed to embody.
He was my "koumbaros". I hope his partner, Bronwen. will be able to bring out more of his works over the next few years.
I first got to know him in Corfu in 1967-1968. He came to live in Wallingford, near Oxford, at the time that I was studying film direction as a postgraduate at the University of Bristol Drama Department, and he helped to produce a film based on his life and excerpts from his play "Sunday They'll Make Me a Saint".
Apart from being an extraordinarily original writer and challenging thinker, he was an outstanding flamenco guitarist and guitar teacher.
I managed to visit him twice in the USA, once in San Francisco, the other time at his home in Sebastopol.
Toteras was his nom-de-plume. His real name was a well-known Corfiot surname. His family had emigrated to the States from Mandouki.
In the late sixties people in Corfu knew him simply as "Jimmy Christ". Everyone who met him was impressed by his intelligence and the "life-force" he seemed to embody.
He was my "koumbaros". I hope his partner, Bronwen. will be able to bring out more of his works over the next few years.
Billy Lee Riley
I was sad to see that one of my favourite rockabilly and blues singers died on 2nd August 2009. Billy Lee Riley was one of the great Sun rockabilly artists, and he played extraordinary blues harmonica.
I didn't know that he had died, although I knew that he had a number of serious medical problems, because we'd been exchanging occasional emails since we met some years ago. He also sought some legal advice concerning broken bookings in Europe.
He was one of the wildest rock 'n' roll singers around, and deserved to be as famous as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. Take a listen to "Red Hot".
He was enthusiastic about a CD I recorded at Sun, Memphis. That meant a lot.
He was born on October 5, 1933. There was a good obituary in The Guardian. I missed it at the time.
I didn't know that he had died, although I knew that he had a number of serious medical problems, because we'd been exchanging occasional emails since we met some years ago. He also sought some legal advice concerning broken bookings in Europe.
He was one of the wildest rock 'n' roll singers around, and deserved to be as famous as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. Take a listen to "Red Hot".
He was enthusiastic about a CD I recorded at Sun, Memphis. That meant a lot.
He was born on October 5, 1933. There was a good obituary in The Guardian. I missed it at the time.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
In Bermuda
I'm back in Bermuda, trying hard not to make comparisons with Corfu, because I love both islands. If I were a passenger on a cruise ship, I'd much prefer to dock at Bermuda, because the facilities and arrangements for visitors are far superior. Having said that, many visitors preferred it when the cruise ships docked at St. George's rather than at Dockyard.
In Bermuda there is no rubbish to be seen,all the buildings are beautiful, there are no eye-sores, there is a proper shuttle service into town, the signs are helpful and clear. Visitors are really made to feel important and welcome.
Bermuda is celebrating 400 years of its history, which began in 1609. It's quite a helpful yardstick, 400 years, from the time it was an uninhabited island. It's about the same amount of time that the Ottoman Turks occupied Greek territory, and that the Venetians held Corfu.
When you look at Bermuda, and consider how long a period 400 years really is, and what has been achieved in that time, then you begin to understand how long parts of Modern Greece were under the Ottomans or the Venetians.
I'm staying in an amazing converted boathouse at Spanish Point, with the waves lapping at the bedroom window.
I can't complain, except for the fact that I have a tight deadline to correct the final proofs of my book "The Ionian Islands and Epirus, A Cultural History" and to prepare the very complicated index. I'm only on page 3. It won't be published until early in 2010. It should have been out this month. That's why I've got a little touch of the Bermuda blues.
Bermuda has a greater claim to being the inspiration for Shakespeare's "The Tempest" than Corfu does. That particular argument is going to run for a long time.
In Bermuda there is no rubbish to be seen,all the buildings are beautiful, there are no eye-sores, there is a proper shuttle service into town, the signs are helpful and clear. Visitors are really made to feel important and welcome.
Bermuda is celebrating 400 years of its history, which began in 1609. It's quite a helpful yardstick, 400 years, from the time it was an uninhabited island. It's about the same amount of time that the Ottoman Turks occupied Greek territory, and that the Venetians held Corfu.
When you look at Bermuda, and consider how long a period 400 years really is, and what has been achieved in that time, then you begin to understand how long parts of Modern Greece were under the Ottomans or the Venetians.
I'm staying in an amazing converted boathouse at Spanish Point, with the waves lapping at the bedroom window.
I can't complain, except for the fact that I have a tight deadline to correct the final proofs of my book "The Ionian Islands and Epirus, A Cultural History" and to prepare the very complicated index. I'm only on page 3. It won't be published until early in 2010. It should have been out this month. That's why I've got a little touch of the Bermuda blues.
Bermuda has a greater claim to being the inspiration for Shakespeare's "The Tempest" than Corfu does. That particular argument is going to run for a long time.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Mexico City Blues, Jack Kerouac.
Jack Kerouac published his “Mexico City Blues” fifty years ago, in 1959.
The poems never really worked for me, on the page. Out loud, or with a jazz accompaniment, some of the 242 choruses hit the mark.
I much preferred his prose works, like “On the Road” and “Lonesome Traveller”.
In his introductory note to “Mexico City Blues”, Jack wrote, “I want to be considered a jazz poet, blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday.”
In truth, I preferred Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind” (Hutchinson, London, 1959) and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”, but I still dig the last line of the 231st Chorus. It’s stuck with me for fifty years:
“When rock becomes air
I will be there.”
Jack’s still there. Everywhere.
My colleagues presented me with Jack's 3 CD boxed set when I left Sweden. I often play them here in Greece.
Check out Tom Waits's two interpretations of a Kerouac lyric in the songs "Home I'll never be" and "On the Road".
The poems never really worked for me, on the page. Out loud, or with a jazz accompaniment, some of the 242 choruses hit the mark.
I much preferred his prose works, like “On the Road” and “Lonesome Traveller”.
In his introductory note to “Mexico City Blues”, Jack wrote, “I want to be considered a jazz poet, blowing a long blues in an afternoon jam session on Sunday.”
In truth, I preferred Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind” (Hutchinson, London, 1959) and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”, but I still dig the last line of the 231st Chorus. It’s stuck with me for fifty years:
“When rock becomes air
I will be there.”
Jack’s still there. Everywhere.
My colleagues presented me with Jack's 3 CD boxed set when I left Sweden. I often play them here in Greece.
Check out Tom Waits's two interpretations of a Kerouac lyric in the songs "Home I'll never be" and "On the Road".
Bellou, Vamvakaris, Tsitsanis... and Tsipouro
A most enjoyable evening was spent last week up in the Zagori, in the company of new friends from Thessaloniki, Kostas and Brigitte, who are restoring an amazing old house in the Upper Village.
We drank local tsipouro, cracked open some walnuts from the tree in the garden, and listened to old 78rpm and 45rpm records on the gramophone. Luckily we all shared the same taste in Greek music: Sotiria Bellou, Markos Vamvakaris, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Grigoris Bithikotsis.
There’s nothing like the sound and the feel of old 78s, of classic rebetika and laika songs like “Trexe, manga, na rotiseis (“I Derbederissa”), “Apopse kaneis bam!” or even 45s like “San pethano sto karavi”or “Stou Belami to ouzeri”. Gail Holst wrote, in “Road to Rebetika”, of Bellou’s version of “If I die on the boat” that “it makes my hair stand on end, although I must have listened to it a thousand times.”
You can keep your CDs and I-Pods! Give me a scratchy old 78, any time. It’s the same with the blues. Unless you’re heard Blind Willie Johnson or Howlin’ Wolf on the original 78s, you’ve never really heard them as they were heard by their original listeners.
It’s convenient to have them on I-Pod too, I admit, although they’re not the ideal lullabies!
We drank local tsipouro, cracked open some walnuts from the tree in the garden, and listened to old 78rpm and 45rpm records on the gramophone. Luckily we all shared the same taste in Greek music: Sotiria Bellou, Markos Vamvakaris, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Grigoris Bithikotsis.
There’s nothing like the sound and the feel of old 78s, of classic rebetika and laika songs like “Trexe, manga, na rotiseis (“I Derbederissa”), “Apopse kaneis bam!” or even 45s like “San pethano sto karavi”or “Stou Belami to ouzeri”. Gail Holst wrote, in “Road to Rebetika”, of Bellou’s version of “If I die on the boat” that “it makes my hair stand on end, although I must have listened to it a thousand times.”
You can keep your CDs and I-Pods! Give me a scratchy old 78, any time. It’s the same with the blues. Unless you’re heard Blind Willie Johnson or Howlin’ Wolf on the original 78s, you’ve never really heard them as they were heard by their original listeners.
It’s convenient to have them on I-Pod too, I admit, although they’re not the ideal lullabies!
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