Octopus's Garden

They did it! All the depressive mood swings, paranoia and conspiracy theories have been replaced for jumping and cheering with painted faces. Living the dream. They deserved it over a horribly disappointing and cynical Dutch side. I'm genuinely pleased for them.

I've always liked the Dutch team. Every tournament I want them to win but they never do. Usually they play beautifully only to lose to the first decent, organsied side. This year they played ugly and got all the way to the final and usually I would be supporting them without question (obviously the prospect of playing England in a final is exactly zero) but they were playing an adopted country. Despite this my support for Spain was slightly underwhelming until kick off and then realising that actually I really really wanted them to win. Lots of foreign guys at CLEN support whoever is playing against Spain but I wanted them to win and for once the team I wanted to win, did!

Spain were much better. They are a fantastic side. Anyone who thinks they are boring are footballing philistines. They are victims of their own success. If Usain Bolt 'only' wins a race without smashing a world record then it goes down as a disappointing performance. Spain win a World Cup without being at their incredible best. That probably tells you just how good they are. People who think Spain are rubbish will have a difficult job in explaining away how they are currently European and World Champions. People scoff at their passing but that says more about England's outdated ideas on how to play football than it does Spain. It wasn't a classic match, but I didn't think it was terrible, but I'm sure Spain don't give a single, solitary shit. They are an era defining team

I hope you noticed Javi Martinez wearing his San Fermin neck wear. I also wonder about players like him. He has a World Cup winners medal but didn't play a game. Hows does he feel? Is he happy?

I was disappointed in Holland who were poor and very very cynical. There was a real lack of dignity in the face of defeat. Howard Webb will come into criticism for the amount of cards but most of them were completely indisputible. If anything De Jong, at least, should have been sent off for a karate kick to Xabi Alonso's chest.

It wasn't the best World Cup but I think it was better than a lot of people are giving it credit for. What I'm most pleased about is all those obituaries of European football that were written after the group stages need to be withdrawn after a European 1,2,3.

The octopus was right.

Four years to the next one, come on England! Four weeks to the domestic season, come on Charlton!

Non-football fans despair.

love love love x

Get Home, Get Down

Greetings everyone from what will probably be the very last post from Pamplona, it's been emotional. The city is very strange at the moment. A big stage has been put up in the main square (it plays Dire Straits Money for Nothing fairly regularly and loudly which is infuriating), food stalls and portacabins have appeared everywhere and the saftey barriers are up in the streets. San Fermin starts on Tuesday and its already inescapable. Everything has a red and white colour theme and with the exception of the Spanish football team its the talk of the town. I'm only here for a day and a bit but it will be good for the damn thing to actually start rather than just listen to everyone speaking about it and doing that strange facial expression they do. It's half shrug, half wink. Pamplona is a small and inherintly conservative city but it goes crazy for a few days every summer, its going to be bizarre.

The kids camp ended in the week. My word, kids are tiring. But it has led me to revaulate my opinion of children from they are all bad, bad at a spiritual core level like Bon Jovi, to that some of them are cool. It was a lot of fun. I didn't really have any ideas on how to entertain children but I have a much better idea now and have learnt a few simple rules. The words 'maybe later' can only hold them off for so long, they are always more interested in the contents of your bag and they are persistent, oh dear God they are persistent. The big difference between the UK and Spain is that here you are encouraged to make physical contact with the kids. They expect hugs and if they don't get one they will hug you. It was nice that I could give one of them a hug when she was crying (and crying and crying) without being scared of being called a sick pervert. The down side is that they have no qualms grabbing and pulling you and even at one point a full slap to the arse and a goosing from an eight year old boy. They keep you on your toes, like asking you to hold a prosthetic arm, one girl liked to take her t-shirt off at random intervals, something the Spanish state is less tolerant about, and had to be convinced to put it back on. Dan described her as "that awkward age between 10 and 15 years in prison". The sports day bordered on farce but my team did very well and may have even won depending on which set of scores you looked at. So all in all it was an eventful week.

It was also the last act of my CLEN contract. All the classes are done, the paper work is signed and the good byes said. Over the last few days our numbers are dwlinding and dwindling. It's sad but they all have their next set of plans which is exciting to. I've been very relaxed about getting ready to leave so tomorrow I have a big day ahead to get organised, when will I learn? Its been a good few days since finishing work. The football is working out well (as long as Uruguay don't win I'm happy!), I've undergone a sandal revolution and the weather has finally picked up. I feel a lot more positive now about the future and about the we've spent here in Pamplona. I think I'm just a sucker for good weather. Saying all that I'm looking forward to moving on.

See you in Summer

love love love x

Oh Me Oh My

I'm going to have a little rant based upon England's latest debacle.

It was embarrassing just how bad we are and how we are still ten years behind the top teams in the world. We got torn apart with pace and precision, something we are incapable of. Though I'm not sure what we expect when you have average players you get average results. We don't produce many world class players. Argentina can leave Aguerro and Militio on the bench, if we need to chase the a game we bring on Emile Heskey and Shaun Wright-Phillips. Victor Valdes has won 2 champions leagues and can't get on the pitch, Spanish goalkeepers have four Champions Leagues between them, we have one FA cup medal between ours. Its nothing to do with how many foreigners play in England. As Aresene Wenger said if you are good enough it doesn't matter where you come from, if there were more quality English players there would be less foriegners in the premiership. Managers choose the players they believe will win them games, the problem is those players aren't English. If you don't believe me where are the next generation from? The next generation of younger English players is even smaller than the current group. Not enough technique, can't pass the ball well enough, we still confuse running around and clapping a lot as being good at football. Its nothing to do with passion or pride, it's to do with not being very good at modern football. Sky and the tabloids just hype and hype. The England players wanted to win but aren't capable. The Germans had a dreadful Euro 2000 and they dedicated themselves to training better youth players and ten years later those youngsters ran all around our 'Golden Generation'. I doubt we will do the same. By the way Germany have gone further than us in every world cup since 1966 including winning two to bring their total to three, we haven't even got to a final. With the exception of Argentina in 2002 we have never beaten a former world cup winner in the World Cup. They are vastly superior so shut up about 1966 and don't even start me on the cunts in ww2 RAF uniforms.

Don't let Lampards goal cloud just how poor we are compared to what was called an "average" German side, if thats average then we are dreadful. Already people are talking about, we need to play the English way, yeah because thats worked for the last 44 years. We need an English manager, yeah that worked for Euro 2008 qualification. Spain have over 14,000 UEFA trained A-licence coaches, Germany have 8,000 we have just over 1,000. We need to go back to the drawing board and start again. It will take ten years and a lost generation to get young English players to be truly competitive.

As for being in Spain now, its the sympathy that kills you

love love love x

Ambling Alp

Hmm. This may look like a two bits of coloured tissue paper with a stick stuck through and a further piece of green wrapped around it in an attempt to make a flower. That is however, where you are wrong. You have to look through the flower. How does it challenge your preceptions of what a flower is? What does it say to you about where flowers have come from? Why the stick? Why this combination of colours? Oh boy is it deep. The little artist behind it is a lovely girl who was very insistent that I should receive this work of art. We expect big things.

The camp is ok. There's no teaching involved, its just babysitting when the kids don't know what their babysitter is saying to them. The kids, or at least the kids I have to spend any real time with are really great and are a lot of fun. It's fair to say that the organisation leaves a lot to be desired, but the kids have been very understanding. The biggest problem is that with 105 children in a sports hall you really need more than 10 pictures of road signs to keep them busy for four hours. the real eye opener is going into the nursery, the horror, the horror. Its sports day tomorrow which I'm very excited about. Being on the other side of the humilation will be a nice change. I hope to have a chance to drill the kids into ruthless winning machines.

All my adult classes bar one are finished. Finishing classes is weird. I've seen these people twice a week for the best part of nine months. I like all of them and I feel I know them pretty well and then you just stroll out with a thank you and see you around. It's sad that I'm unlikely to see them again mixed with happiness of not going to a smelly dishwasher factory in the middle of nowhere at half seven in the morning. My time at CLEN ends on Tuesday and thats when the minefield of contracts, landlords and the leak coming through our ceiling has to be tackled. Again, hmm.

My life has been made so much easier by the brave, brave England overcoming Slovenia. They were much better weren't they? It sets us up against the Germans and assuming the big teams win, our route to glory is Germany followed by Argentina then Spain then Brazil. Once again, hmm. But we are English and after one win we can resume assuming that Johnny Foriegner will quiver at the approach of our brave boys. Rest assured I would love it, love it, if we beat Germany. I just hope we realise soon that the Germans really don't see us as rivals.

Flashy new blog eh? Let's do something this summer

love, love, love x

Primary Colours

Oh, Spain. What have you done? You can literally touch the deflation. Since Saturday there have been a lot of smug students full of Rob Green jokes but how the tables have turned. The bar I was in had flag drapped people who were screaming for a penalty pretty much constantly but by the whistle it was silent. Isn't football brilliant?

It has been a busy weekend. I went down to Madrid and it was a great weekend. We went down to see Rage Against the Machine, and they really were worth the wait. I literally poured out every ounce of angst I had and left wanting to find and destroy the nearest Mc Donalds. I never realised how obscenly talented Tom Morello is and there is not a man on this planet angrier than Zac De La Rocha. They were ably supported by Cyprus Hill, who were a lot of fun, unlike the other support Jane's Addiction.

On Saturday we watched the England game surronded by Americans who had little idea of the rules and were full of expressions, like "good hussle!" and "get back on d!". I love them. There was some proper culture as well with a trip to a gallery and a the bull fighting museum. It was a strange museum, every bull that has killed someone in Madrid has had its head mounted on the wall. They still have the blood in their hair, its pretty horrible. We did watch some bull fighting on tv and its a strange experience. It's a long process with three parts. The first a man on a horse stabs the bull with a spear, the second is the worst when men run at the bull in all directions and stick small spears into it and only the last stage is the bull fighter. It is difficult to see the blood and the death of the bull is just it falling over so it wasn't as gory as I expected. In the end I didn't feel like I was watching art but also I didn't feel angry, just sad. The inenvitiabilty and pointlessness of the whole thing, the pomp and ceremony for killing a proud animal that never stood a chance.

We went on a tour of the Bernabeau. It's alright, no Valley of course. The trophy room was I suppose a little impressive, when looking at their nine European Championships I couldn't help think, didn't win the FA cup in 1947 though, did you? Madrid is wonderful. I had no image of it in my head but it was great and its nice to see it for yourself, it not as full of fascists as some people would like you to believe!

I'm surronded by paper at the moment, I fear drowning in it all. There are exams everywhere! They are lurking in all corners, waiting to pounce. They have found willing allies with a large pile of reports and rewriting some projects. The biggest thing however is arts and fucking crafts. For a week I have to spend mornings helping kids to make loveable but poor nic nacs that parents will pretend to love, be forced to display through the embarrassment before throwing it in a drawer somewhere only to be seen when the child has grown into a proper person. The problem is I can't make arts and crafts, never have, never will be able to. The only thing I ever finished when I was at school was a clay candle snuffer that was meant to look like a choirboy, it was christmas. It was woeful. I was given a lump of clay rolled a small bit as a head stuck it on and painted the whole damn thing red. Then used a pencil to poke in a face that looked like the poor choir boy was being buggered by a priest. Dad gave up the pretence of liking it within ten minutes of bringing it home, Mum still has it and claims to like it. As I won't be able to help them make the crafts I'll just be there to try and stop them sticking their hands together.

I hope you are all well. What is going on with you? I get home on the 8th and hopefully I'll be able to catch up with you all soon.

love love love x

When I Come Around

Hello there and how are we today?

Despite the year nearing its conclusion I have had a pretty constant headache for the last week. Forced to think seriously about what to do next is driving me slowly (but ever faster) mad. I said a few days ago, well outed actually, that I wasn't going to stay here. This decision caused much bafflement among the people who offered me the chance to stay. I thought nothing of it until I remembered how much I hate applying for jobs, especially tefl jobs. For a start I'm pretty sure around at least half of the schools I've emailed, don't actually exist. Most on the list are not schools but loose organsations which mean your freelance and they get to take a chunk of your money for no real reason. The two cities I'd really like to go to Barcelona or Madrid are proving the most difficult. Most sites are identical and appear to be run by amateurs.



If I see this laid back, young go getter one more time I'm going to lose all faith. Isn't his mother proud? Looks like he's from a leaflet about STDs. He is on most of them and is also the first result of google image search for male student. One even tried to put a testimony from him down! It doesn't breed confidence. It makes me want to curl into a ball and come home.

When not weeping things have been nice. On Friday Kathryn and myself decided to make the most of our classes not being on to go down to Logrono. Logrono is very small and very sleepy. It is where Spanish wine is grown and brags it is the capital of the La Rioja region. That is true but in terms of size its like being the capital of half of Cornwall. My camera broke so no pictures of it but it was very pretty and we did reach the River Ebro, which is more than the Spanish republic can say. Zing! Little civil war joke for you there.

On Saturday I was force fed Martini by a German which was neither nice, fun or sexy. I had never drunk it before and it tastes a little like my mothers gravy which might be why she's so happy at Sunday lunch time. It was at a party with about 10 different nationalities and I was the only one without a very very good grasp of Spanish. So when talking to me they had lower their conversation level which makes me you feel truly special.

The Martini was all in a vain attempt to make me go out. No avail Marcel! I was preparing for an epic journey of discovery and trial of the human spirit. Yes I went walking. I'm not sure if it counts as hiking but there was some minor scaling up a surface at one point so it wasn't just a stroll. We ended up pretty damn high as I think this proves.

Yeah thats right, the motorway. It took hours and was a really good way to spend an afternoon, not even being circled by some sort of bird of prey and an undignified climb over a barbed wire fence, leading barbs to be somewhere they had no right to be, could dampen the spirits. Salt was rubbed into the wounds after climbing the damn fence when there was a sty just a minute slightly further down. It almost got a bit like The Descent at that point.

The biggest joy was finding in a bar a homage to the Charlton Athletic 1947 FA cup winning side which proves you just what a massive club we are. No Man Utd memorabillia in Pamplona, oh no.

Hope you are all well.

love love love x

Death at a Funeral

Ahoy hoy,

How are you all? Everything is winding down here. My kids classes are finished meaning I got to finish at four today. In your face people with real jobs. I have to confess to mentally having checked out a bit. No difference there then. My students are the same, they could at least try to hide their distaste of the fact there are three weeks left. My class of teenagers did save their best for last by bringing a turtle they had found to class. Of all the places on the planet these kids grubby little hands would be amoung the last you would want to a living creature to be in. Getting the poor bastard back to the lake was a difficult procedure based on one of the boys repeated attempts to try and get as much torture as he could into the walk. Fortunately the turtle is fine. Saying bye to the eight year olds was actually sadder than I thought. I'd thought I'd be delighted to see the back of them but I was sad to see them go.

Having more free time would allow me more time to be productive and expand my horizions but instead of that I used it to play hours of x-box. Namely a game called of Gears of War 2 which is even more violent than it sounds. It has a game mode entitled horde where there are 50 levels of enemies who get progressively stronger. What started as a casual look turned into interest which turned into single minded focus. There was a lot of shouting, cursing and at one point a chasm of despair. However on Sunday it was all over, all 50 levels done and hundreds of aliens scum dead. Lukash and myself finally having to look at the shells of men we are. Though at least now when students ask a question I'll focus on the grammar rather than level 37, images of which may forever haunt me.

It was my turn to compile the months pub quiz. Asking the questions is actually very stressful. I was really nervous. Would they like the questions? Is it to easy? Is it too hard? I did have a partner Toby who I wrote the damn thing with only for everyone to forget to tell her the venue had changed, opps. With the exception of a few simple points additions it went well. Here are some of the questions?

13 year old Jordan Romero has just become the youngest person to do what?

Who played the Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

Name the 3 UN member states that begin with the letter H?

Why is Spencer Percivel unique among British Prime Ministers?

The Henry Delauney trophy is awarded for winning which sporting competition?

Answers on a postcard. The top three teams were seperated by a point each, it was neck and neck stuff. By the end my voice was shot and I was drunk.

Before departing I'll post this, an article from the Guardian about Pamplona's Opus Dei university. It's only short.
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/opus-dei

According to my students are more of them than you may think. They speak in the same consprital terms as talking about, whisper it, there may be Real Madrid fans in the city. I'm not sure which they would find more upsetting.

love love love x