Patron Saint for 2008

In 2007, my blogging Patron Saint was St. Ambrose. This year, as Matthew went off to a non-blogging seminary, Angela Messenger picked up the mantle of Saint-picker...

Scrolling through the list of requests for patron saints made me realise what a horrendous task it must have been, and she probably won't thank me, but you can probably get your saint HERE though I don't know how long the draw will go on... you post your request as a comment, and a while later check to see if your saint has been added on at the bottom.

Anyway, my Patron Saint for the coming year is St. Peter Chrysologus. Not a saint I know much about, so some research will be needed... excellent!

Non-Blogging Priests...

A while back, a certain non-blogging priest found himself appearing on several blogs. We bloggers found it hilariously funny, but Fr. Richard was a little spooked, especially when, visiting Rome, he was stopped in the street by the great Fr. Z with the cry, "You're that Fr. Whinder!"

Another priest I know has no such qualms: his ambition is to get on as many blogs as possible... given that one of his brothers is Fr. John Boyle (the South Ashford Priest) and he's a friend of the British Blogging Supremo Fr. Tim Finigan, you'd think he'd have no problems getting on the blogosphere...

Anyway, I managed to catch up with him the other evening for a chat over a cup of tea, and he obligingly posed for a photo...

Fr. Stephen Boyle is Parish Priest of Good Shepherd Church, New Addington. New Addington is one of those strange places which exist on the outskirts of London: it's residential, but no real amenities, lots of houses, but no shops, not even a local newsagent. The most noticeable thing in the area is the tram station which goes into Croydon...

...the church is tucked away in the backstreets, and despite its having a huge tower (I keep forgetting to ask if it has a working bell), you wouldn't find it unless you knew where to go.

I was delighted to see that Fr. Stephen believes in letting his light shine free of bushel: the beautiful stained glass window is backlit at night, so the image of the Good Shepherd shines out for all to see. I don't want any snippy comments about wasting electricity or carbon footprints: the locality is ghastly, and seeing the church window lit up in such an architectural desert is a heart-warming sight...

Here We Go Again...

Reported in the Daily Telegraph, among other places, is "news" that the British Government is going to crack down on weak teachers... Ho, hum... colour me unimpressed. The British Government is far too quick to tinker around with the educational system and then blames the teachers for the ills of society... Quite frankly, I'm getting mightily cheesed off with it.

I have been teaching for about nine years. The National Curriculum in Science has been changed several times over that period, as have the Key Stage 3 SATs - KS3 is the period from 11 to 14 years, the first three years at Secondary School. The curriculum has changed so much that, in my current school, we have four different sets of textbooks in the department published in the last decade (don't even get me started on books published before that date!) Schools have learned not to throw stuff like textbooks away in case some bright spark in the Department for Education decides to start all over again...

GCSE's had just started a new specification when I started teaching: now they have an even newer one: Twenty-First Century Science. My views on this specification have been posted here before. There is very little Science: put it this way, when I showed the GCSE exam paper from last year to parents at the recent Parents' Evening, I could see their eyes widen with shock as they realised that, without having studied any of the syllabus, they could confidently answer the questions off the top of their heads. To think that, when I started teacher training, I was concerned that the Science specifications would have changed drastically since the time I took the exams myself...

I also found an old GCE 'O' level textbook in a cupboard at work. The information was at a higher level than is now required for the 'A' level...

The 'A' level specifications have changed, with two major changes in the decade, and a new specification for all subjects coming in next September. The Universities claim that they have so many Grade A candidates that it is difficult to identify the really academically talented students - and so they need to introduce an A* grade.

Despite all these changes (don't bother, I know what you're about to say!) teachers are becoming much better at delivering the curriculum (according to Government ministers at exam time) and students are working much harder, so the pass rate is increasing year on year, and the percentage of Grade As is doing likewise.

However, it would appear that many of these students are totally unable to string a coherent sentence together, literacy levels are falling and basic numeracy leaves much to be desired. That is the view of many employers, who lament the appalling lack of skills among school leavers and university graduates.

So it must be the fault of the teachers. Ed Balls, the Schools' Secretary, suggests that the remedy must be in increasing the qualifications of teachers: all new teachers will now be expected to gain Masters-level qualifications. Oh, I'm sorry... I thought that most teachers already did that... it's called a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education) with QTS (Qualified Teacher Status.) As the name suggests, you have to be a graduate in order to study for a PGCE, and your competance in the classroom is assessed before you can gain QTS accreditation. And the reason for PGCEs? Well, you see, otherwise the qualifications were just academic, and knowledge of a subject doesn't mean you can teach it... and so the Government insisted that the Teacher Training courses had more hands-on experience... and less college-based study...

Meanwhile, it has been suggested that there are about 17,000 bad teachers in England. They are to be weeded out. Their inability to control classes is damaging the education of thousands of children.

Ed Balls declared that, "Our aim is to make this country the best place in the world for our children and young people to grow up." Well, sorry. But piddling around with the curriculum and demoralising teachers isn't the way to do it. Tackling poor housing, unemployment, poor health-care, societal breakdown, crime, drug abuse, broken homes and educational standards might achieve it. But of course, that would mean admitting that all the other policies had failed...

Happy Feast Day!

Last year I got a little confused when I found that the feast of St. Jane Frances de Chantal had been moved to August 12. There was no explanation in the diocesan directory, and so I read through the calendar until I found the explanation... It was because December 12 was needed for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

In case you missed it, I did a post on the apparitions at Guadalupe after reading an excellent book. I thought today might be an opportune moment to draw attention to it. There was also the strange phenomenon noticed when Mexico City's legislators voted to allow abortion...

Sorry...

...there won't be any blogging today... I'm just off to my Science Department Christmas Bash. But while I'm gone, I thought that the following little snippet might make a few people chuckle...

Pass The Sick Bucket...

Carolina Cannonball has provided the perfect way to purge all those excesses from your system this Christmas. One look at the Ugly Vestment Competition entries, and you'll be heaving... It's a close contest... mostly because it is difficult to look at them long enough to judge which is the worst. Voting starts now and will continue through to December 20th at noon EST (I have no idea what that is in real money!) All winners will be announced on the 21st. There are three categories:

Men's Vestments
Ladies Category
Stoles & Mitres

Excuse me a minute... I'm feeling queasy. Where's the indigestion remedy...?

Ahhhh... That's much better!

Basil In The Ratatouille...

Hilary sent me a Facebook post saying she loved the fact I'd called my model skeleton Basil. That reminded me why I'd chosen the name... and a quick trawl through You Tube yielded exactly the clip I wanted...


I love Manuel's anguished cry of "He put Basil in the ratatouille??!" ...and Sybil's later explanatory "He's from Barcelona!" has become one of my favourite quips...

The Bells, Esmeralda...

This post from Ma Beck reminded me of one of the first You Tube videos I managed to put on my blog...


I was fascinated to find out the history behind the carol. But I'm sorry, Ma... I think my video is funnier!

Ooooh, I've Been Tagged...!

Karen, that gem, has tagged me with this rather long meme... ordinarily, I'd have wimped out, but I haven't done a meme for ages, and I'm still suffering from blog withdrawal symptoms, so...

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper for most things. I used to be a famous wrapper-upper in my family. Gift bags are superb for bottles though.

2. Real tree or artificial? Always real in my childhood... mind you, artificial trees were really gross when I was a kid. Then I went through a phase of having my own artificial tree - no point having a real one since I went to my mother's for Christmas. Now that Sylvester is on the scene I don't actually put a tree up, because of what he might do in my absence...

3. When do you put up the tree? Family tradition dictated that the tree went up on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Which is sensible, given that it was always a real tree... and this was before the slow-dropping-needles varieties were available. Now I've come back to the church and I follow the liturgical calendar, no Christmas decorations go up until December 17th.

4. When do you take the tree down? Doesn't apply now... but my mother used to whip the tree down pretty much the day after Boxing Day. I now leave my decorations and cards up until the start of Ordinary Time.

5. Do you like eggnog? Urghhhh! No thanks... I'm more of a Bailey's girl myself. However, I must confess to only having encountered the vile Advocat eggnog, which is virulently yellow, and as revolting to taste as it looks. Scanning Google images for eggnog, however, has revealed some interesting concoctions, so maybe I should reserve judgement...

6. Favourite gift received as a child? I think my all-time favourite was "Basil," received when I was 16. Basil was a Design Centre skeleton. I had asked for a skeleton (I wanted to be a doctor) but my mother was scared of skeletons, so I was resigned to going without. Basil was a complete surprise... a sort of origami version, joined together by brass paper tacks and clever folds, and all the bones had their names printed on them. It took me a couple of days to put him together (he was life-size) and he hung from a hook behind my bedroom door. My mother regretted buying Basil: he was far more lifelike than she'd been expecting. I adored him. I've never seen another one exactly the same.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes. Goes up on December 17th (second part of Advent) but baby Jesus doesn't make an appearance until after Midnight Mass! Comes down when Ordinary Time starts.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My stepfather. My stepfather is terribly fussy. My mother has problems deciding what to buy him, and any good ideas she tends to keep to herself...

9. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I think I can honestly say I've never had a bad present for Christmas... but then I don't really go in for exchanging presents with anyone outside my immediate family members.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Snail mail... if I remember to write them in time, and actually get round to posting them. I have been known to find pile of cards in January, written and addressed, but not stamped... I am spitting feathers at the moment, as I have just discovered that my version of Microsoft Outlook (on which I store all my contact details, as it is compatible with my phone) is somehow not compatible with my version of Microsoft Word (2007 version) so I'm unable to do a mail merge for the address labels...

11. Favourite Christmas Movie? I don't think I have one. I used to be very cynical about films, especially Christmas ones, as I loathed sentimentality and didn't believe in God. I am now busy rediscovering the true meaning of Christmas (a bit like Scrooge.) I have just bought "It's a Wonderful Life" about a man who is prevented from committing suicide on Christmas Eve by an angel called Clarence (who hopes, thereby to win his wings!) Very corny, but strangely uplifting. I'd seen it on TV a few times, but never all the way through. I also like "While You Were Sleeping" about a woman who saves a man's life on Christmas day (hmmmm, I sense a theme here!) and somehow gets mistaken for his fiancée, as he's in a coma. In true corny fashion, she falls in love with his (much nicer) brother, who doesn't want to make a move on his brother's supposed intended. Very funny. Very uplifting.

12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually the December pay-day. This year it's the 21st December, which means that it's going to be a bit of a rush!

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? No. With my memory, it'd be too risky... I'd probably return it to the giver. But I've never been given a present which I didn't like.

14. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? The little sausages wrapped in bacon. I love those!

15. Clear lights or colored on the tree? My mother is German. She believed in real trees... and real candles. The candle-holders were tiny, and from Germany. You couldn't buy the candles in this country, and so we would be sent supplies for Christmas in a parcel from my grandmother. The rule was only silver tinsel, and baubles were silver, gold or red. When I had a tree, I didn't have the real tree or the real candles, but the lights were imitation candles, so they had to be clear ones. Strangely enough, now my mother now goes in for more gaudy decorations...

16. Favourite Christmas song? Ooh... "Hark, the herald angels sing" because I love to belt out the descant... though I don't do that often, especially if there is a choir singing (assuming I'm not part of it) as it might clash with whatever they're singing, and that would be rude. I also love "Silent Night" (sorry Karen!) but in German. The English words don't sound right.

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel, usually... one year to my sister and brother-in-law's house, but usually to my parents' place. It's not too far - Eastbourne is about an hour and three-quarters' drive away. Last year we celebrated Christmas early as my sister was expecting, and didn't want any nasty (or nice) surprises for Christmas itself, so I was on my tod at home.

18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? I used to be able to as a kid, as we had to learn it for a song at my last Primary School production... now I can remember Dasher and Dancer, and Prancer, and Donner and Blitzen (I might have been the only child to know what those two meant! Oh, and before you say, "No, it's Donder" I'll just point out that it depends on the version you know... Donder is the Dutch for thunder, but Donner is the German... and the Dutch version of the name of Donder's partner is Bliksem!) Rudolph was a late addition... but no, I can't remember them all.

19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star. The angels these days look too much like fairies... and I wouldn't want to upset St. Michael and his crew... anyone who can scare the heck out of a bunch of burly shepherds is not to be trifled with...

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Family tradition was midnight. But then we weren't a church-going family. I rather upset the applecart these days by insisting that I go to Midnight Mass, which has been the source of a few family rows. Now I have my own transport and am not reliant on trains (which don't run on Christmas Day), I go down to my parents on Christmas Day itself, thus circumventing the rows... being a night owl rather than a lark, I'd happily open presents after Midnight Mass... but as "Auntie" I won't be the one setting the traditions...

21. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Crowded shops... I mean, how dare people leave all their shopping until I'm doing mine! Oh, and the fact that Easter eggs hit the shops on Boxing Day or thereabouts!

22. Best thing about this time of year? Midnight Mass. I love it. Christmas carols sung in church are good too. And the excitement of very little children.

Ok, I am going to tag Leutgeb, Hilary White, the original Catholic Caveman, the Curt Jester, Fr. Justin, Fr. Paul and Fr. Ray. Don't forget to post a link in the combox when you're done!

UPDATE: Hilary has cried off on the basis of not having experienced "Christmas" as such since she was 15. That's pretty gruesome. Leutgeb has protested that it's like sitting an exam on Christmas, but I think she'll complete the meme eventually. The Curt Jester has completed his meme (with much more succinct answers than mine) which you can find HERE. Four down, four to go...