autumn approaches - wedding celebration

{I'm still adding retrospective nuggets, mac meze, if you like, and some day soon I will get up to speed with the now!  I do want to record comments on recent events - both home and abroad - like Lady Gaga - they're incubating!}

Last week of the month we have friends round to celebrate the full moon and the autumn equinox – we sit outside and enjoy what will probably be our last meal out on the upper deck. With the nights being light, we have dogs reverting to their lupine nature, baying and barking. So after several sleepless nights we set off to Thrace for our godson’s wedding and ready for a welcome break.  On the way up between Kavalla and Alexandroupolis we pass a large convoy of over 20 vehicles, ambulances, vans, cars. I am excited to see their GB registration plates, wishing we had a Scottish emblem on our car. Intrigued to see Viva Palestina posters and Palestinian flags, I wave and give a thumbs-up sign; they respond with flashing headlights. Clearly they are on a mission – to be continued. 

We’ve been booked in at a local hotel and, lovely though the room is, we find it looks on to the graveyard, next to which is a smallholding with goats, dogs and chickens. What we didn’t expect was in the dead of night- sorry, irresistible !- a cat-in-heat chose to announce her state …and set off the lot – cats, dogs and hens – great !

Still we’ve enjoyed a lovely reception with an impressive standard of catering despite large numbers. We have a grand time catching up on all the family news and getting some serious traditional dancing in. The couple - handsome groom, totally delectable bride -  made their dramatic entrance …. through the floor in a glass-sided lift and were then lost to sight due to the over-exuberant use of a bubble machine. At least it offered some visual relief from the groom in his de rigeur shiny suit, resembling a celebrity night- club singer or up-market pimp. With this, only slight, touch of Kitsch and Bling we can refer to him as the Kling of the event …or am I being a Blitsch?

We get back to our room and manage to take a wonderful shot of a glorious spider’s web constructed in the corner of our balcony, back-lit by the almost-full moon – absolute magic!!       

Interview / education

( Just a quick Insert here  : Apologies for a wee hiatus : things like life, translating and dealing with overgrown rosebeds
seemed to take over - more on those later. Let me just say congratulations to our friends in Egypt on their success in overthrowing a regime they could no longer tolerate. Let's wish them good luck in constructing the kind of system they want and let their voice continue to be heard,  especially in decision-making for their own future. )

And so to the interview – another form of gate-keeping.  A close friend and excellent EFL teacher is called for interview for a teaching post for young children to a large organization which prides itself on being a market leader on the language services front.  She’s a classic case of young mother with children now at school-age, trying to resuscitate   previous career jettisoned for child-raising and not brimming over with self-confidence. The interview did not quite go to the extremes of those in the John Cleese interview training materials, but not far off it. One interviewer didn’t go so far as to read a newspaper, but did chew gum incessantly, looking bored and constantly watch-watched, on one occasion yawning and saying “Yeah, that’s what they all say !” .....nice or what?  So what’s the point in calling someone to interview if you don’t give them a fighting chance but instead make them undergo a demeaning experience? Educational management, a la Fawlty Towers, indeed. Need I say she didn’t get the job? She’s relieved – didn’t bode well for desirable working conditions/ atmosphere!!  Further confirmation for me that professionalism has gone out the window and we’ve really moved from language services to a language industry.          

They could have at least brought some humour into the event : flash-back to my job interview in the 70’s at a very large , comprehensive in Edinburgh, located in a really rough area. As I go in, the depute- head invites me to sit down and, slightly lecherously, compliments me on my still-fresh Greek holiday tan.  Almost immediately he asks me to go and lock his office door. Before doing anything I ask him why- he responds that he has a bottle of whisky in the drawer.  Utterly taken aback, I laugh. When he asks why, I decide to play right back at him and say it’s because I always seem to have that effect on older men.  His response? He slapped his thighs in delight and told me that, being the first person who had challenged him and hadn’t actually got up to carry out his request, I had the job! I did join his staff and always enjoyed his total support and respect during my time there.  It also proved to be one of the best and most educational – for me - experiences in my teaching career!                                                                
  I read about Zenna Atkins, chairwoman of the Office for Standards in Education, recommending that        ‘every school should have a useless teacher ‘ on the  grounds that schools, particularly at primary level ‘need to reflect society” . Nice one, Zenna! So primary kids should  have to learn to deal with ‘naff teachers’ presumably as a life skill, because people at Ofsted have not done their job in the first place, in maintaining decent standards of teaching. Thankfully she is leaving and taking her single O level (???) with her! How do these people get these jobs? Just imagine applying that ‘logic’ to other professions – have naff doctors so that your immune system is encouraged to deal with illness on its own, get naff bankers who……let’s just leave that one!!