Headlines.

It has been a while since my last blog: Let's update with some mini-blogs...

BERLUSCONI: Count our lucky stars we don't have him running our country. The best soundbite from him whilst Italy was coming to terms with earthquake (while I was 60 miles from the epicentre I might add) was that the people who had lost their homes should treat the experience "like a holiday camp." Note to Butlins, when you are building your next resort, make sure there is room for a mass grave in the grounds.

4 WEEKS UNTIL YEAR 11 LEAVE: Even though I have 3 classes and will therefore gain 11 more free periods when they are gone, I will genuinely be very sad to see them go. Over Easter I definitely came to terms with the thought that some classes make teaching worth the aggro.

THE BRITISH ELLROY: Over Easter I read a book by David Peace, who is by far the best new author I have read in a long time. He is likened to the US writer James Ellroy because of this graphic over-use of violence, sex and swearing in his crime fiction. Worth the read.

NARNIA: Towards the end of the holidays I caught the second half (or maybe more) of a program on TV called The Narnia Code. It was probably the most interesting thing I have seen a long time. It was about a British academic who discovered a deep meaning to the Narnia books by CS Lewis. Beyond the Christian allegory he noted a link between the 7 volumes and the 7 planets of the middle age cosmic thinking (the planets being The Sun, The Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus and Saturn.) The whole program was fascinating, for example: I have always thought that Lewis was deeply religious but I did not know he arrived at Oxford a militant atheist and was converted to looking at the world in the Christian way by JRR Tolkien. I was also delighted to find out that at least two of my Y11s had also watched it and I was able to discuss it with them (things like this back up by previous point on Y11s leaving, Over and Jones are legends.)

COOKIES: Cleverly nice.

Trust.