Goodbye to 2016 ...... and all that !

Well, it wasn’t such a ‘sweet sixteen’ year after all.

 I am going to focus on personal matters - quite enough has been said in the media of the larger issues!

 Reasons for Regret

I regret our using the particular company we did for our SEO, to help promote our application. The words ‘inept’ and ‘botched job’ come to mind- and those terms are mild only since time has helped to heal the emotional weals! Both time and money were wasted, especially at a time when we really needed to get some momentum going and get out there in the market place.

But there was a silver lining: we have learned to be very circumspect about professed practitioners of these ‘smoke and mirror’ arts. In fact, Angeliki is currently following a course on digital marketing, the social media, etc. and getting amazingly high marks consistently – well done, that lass! We also have a wonderful consultant who is generous of her time and patient about our basic questions - we hope to make progress in the near future. Our freshly designed web-page will be going live shortly.

 I was really upset to hear of the passing of the journalist, AA Gill. It seemed no sooner had he announced his cancer diagnosis, than he had passed on; in a matter of weeks we had lost his unique prose forever. One of my indulgencies is to have a Sunday paper sent out to Greece, and his regular column was certainly a reason for my extended subscription. I loved the fact that, born in Edinburgh, he revelled in being a Scot, and his appraisal of the national characteristics was at one incisive and moving. I will miss his irreverent, sharp humour and his wonderful way with words so much. There is a bitter-sweet sense now in still discovering his work in the backlog of newspapers I’m catching up on over the holidays.

Reasons to Rejoice 

Good health – at the stage in life when ‘symptoms’ becomes a more frequent topic of conversation, when one realizes the imperishable faith and resilience of youth has waned, one cannot take good health for granted. It’s rather like the phenomenon of what is known in the business world as the hygiene factor – something that makes little difference to our lives if we have it; it’s when it’s missing that we really are aware of it!

 As we age, the lovely thing is that we do not care a fig about how others see us - we truly become old farts, ready to comment volubly on whatever is not to our liking, no longer constrained by professional roles or obligations, we can let rip whenever we choose to. There is a beautiful sense of balance here as, on aging, it seems we see more and more things that are deserving of our declamation!

But we should think positive about the new year ahead of us; let’s have sweet thoughts about its arrival ……

                                                 

Alternative Christmas Carols and Stories!

    You know how the Christmas carol  melodies 'stick', like advert jingles going round and round in your head? On a recent, local bus trip, just to while the time away, I constructed new lyrics to old favourites you may just recognise.

 I'm sharing them with you to see if .... perhaps this might expunge them from my memory!   

 

                   

  We three fans of Leyton Orient are

After work we went for a jar,

 Now wending, weaving, knuckles bleeding

 Probably best not go home by car!!

             

She was right, holy s&#$!

I’ve gone and left the dog out all night

His paws are frozen, his eyes are wild,

From the way he’s looking he feels really riled,

 I’m in the doghouse tonight,

 I’m in the doghouse tonight!                      

                                       

Hang the balls and chill the bolly

 What’s the reason for this folly?

Cleaning cupboards, dusting corners,

 Hoovering, ironing like a char,

Forget to cook and you’ll be sorry,

Every single year we go too far!

                                                        

    

Good rest to all you teachers,

 Let nothing you dismay

For now at last has come the time to go on holiday

No bells will ring, no correcting, for many days on end

Just great nosh, good company and mulled wine, lots of mulled wine,

 Turkey, trimmings and even more mulled wine!!

                            

Saint Andrew's Day and ...... The Tartan Epsilon Head for Glasgow

Today’s post is going to be short and to the point: our subject is Saint Andrew, whose day we celebrate today. Andrew, whose name comes from the Greek andreia, meaning manhood or valour, was born early in the 1st century AD in Galilee and was the older brother of Peter. They were both fishermen and became disciples of Christ. 

Andrew is called the Protokletos, the first called, that is, he was the first one invited to follow Jesus as an apostle - from apostolos, one who has a mission - to spread the word.  The reference to fish crops us several times in the Bible. Jesus called Andrew and Peter to him, saying he would make them ‘fishers of men’. It was Andrew who apparently told Jesus about the boy with the 5 loaves and 2 fishes which were miraculously to feed the multitude of 5,000. After the fishermen complaining there were no fish one evening, Jesus was able to cast the net and bring in a huge haul.

 Perhaps the most linguistically interesting is the fish symbol which represented Christianity. Christians are said to have taken the Greek word for the fish – Ichthys – and turned it into the acrostic: Iesous Christos Theou  Yios Soter – which means Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. By using the fish symbol, Christians could secretly identify one with the other and indicate where meetings were going to be held.

There are references to Andrew preaching along the Black Sea shores, going on to Kiev and Novgorod. Consequently he is the Patron Saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. He is said to have founded, in AD 38, the See of Byzantium, which was later to become Constantinople, then Istanbul. Accounts have him preaching in Thrace, and in Achaea where, in the city of Patras, he was martyred by crucifixion.

Tradition has it he asked to be bound to the X-shaped cross, or saltire, as he felt unworthy of being put on the same type of cross as Jesus was. Most of his relics are kept in the Church of St Andrew at Patras where there is a special celebration every year on this day, the 30^th of November, his name-day.

 Below you can see a screen-shot of today’s post on our app Facebook page to mark the day.

           

 And Stop Press news: Angeliki Apostolidou and I – and doesn’t she have an appropriate surname for a day like today? – have been invited to present at the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language Conference in Glasgow in April 2017 - yesssss!  Looking forward to that already!

Outreach Program: Kosice, Slovakia and IST College, Athens

Having completed our stay in Kosice, we drive back to Bratislava, once more marveling at those impressive castles etched out against the blue sky. As we drive through areas with industrial plant, we see less salubrious living quarters for the employees there.

         

 

At least here the bright colours make these houses less dismal.  Next, this impressive building in the centre of Bratislava is newsworthy for currently housing the Council of the European Union, for the duration of the Slovak Presidency, July to December 2016.

              

                    

 

Before our flight out, we plan a memorable lunch on the banks of the Danube, but the miasma the river exuded has us staggering into the old city instead. There we relax, eating and drinking in the central square where everyone is enjoying the sunshine.                                                                    

                       

               

                                      

Within the week, The Tartan Epsilon are on the move again, this time closer to home - in Athens, well much closer for Angeliki! Our venue was the Independent Studies of Science and Technology College in Moschato, our host was Dr Paschalis Chliaras.  We had offered a choice of two topics as a proposal and our charming host requested both! ‘Constructing a CV ‘ may sound rather dry, but our participants seemed to have fun ordering possible section headings, then matching content to section on our specially designed magnetic boards - always popular, those!

               

                      

 

Similarly, the thought of being interviewed is not an appealing one and our participants confessed to feeling anxious when asked to take part in our mini-role-play. Their feedback as interviewees and interviewers was really interesting.

Sometimes an interviewer can toss a curve-ball question to test the mettle of the candidate. My curve-ball experience was in a job interview at Forrester High School, then the largest comprehensive school in the country, located near the local prison. The Deputy Headmaster asked me to go and lock his office door. My ‘Why?’ question met the answer that he had a bottle of whisky in the drawer. When he asked me why I simply laughed in response, I decided to counter in similar tenor: that I always had that effect on older men. Slapping his thigh, he informed me I was the first person not to get up and lock the door. When I asked him what he understood from that he told me the job was mine.  Despite the challenging professional circumstances there, I accepted the job there and then. I can truly say that it was there I really learned the tools of my trade, and enjoyed unswerving support from management.Back to our presentation: for our participants to wind down after their exertions, we played them the You-Tube video, The Candidate, a wonderful compilation of authentic interview scenarios by Heineken.   It’s a must-see, tremendously entertaining example of how to implement curve-ball strategies!

                                     

                                           

 

We round off the week-end - and my trip to Athens- with Angeliki and her delightful family, having a delicious meal at a Cretan tavern – memorable!