Caught up

I've just spent the past hour and a half catching up with blogs, something I had not gotten round to this month. In fact, since Palm Sunday (March 27th). Quite a few people have been saying on Facebook and their journals that they miss J-land. The good ole days of AOL, alerts (working or not), the wee chatroom we had for about 10 months and all that sort of jazz. I've never really taken to Blogger, but it's what we have, so that's it.

Tuesday 27 April

A very wet day here, with no immediate sign of improvement on the horizon. The rainfall radar shows a mass of rain moving in from the southwest, which will take its time to make its way east. Tomorrow should see a slight improvement, but more rain is forecast.

The coverage of the general election is beginning to tire me out, it seems to be a game for politicians and journalists, with Johnny Average left gasping on the sidelines. My take on elections is that the politicians are like tomcats in March, caterwauling their promises of everlasting fielty to the credulous recipients of their goodies. And when the evil deed is done, all the fair promises are so much fried air.

I was horrified to hear of the teacher who battered a pupil during class. It appears that the teacher had lost control of his class, and when he was sworn at also lost control of himself. He dragged the 14-year old culprit out of the classroom and hit him repeatedly with a heavy object.

When I was in school, I have witnessed a couple of occasions where the teacher lost the plot, after being goaded. Anyone can be provoked, given the wrong circumstances, and the battered youngster was by all accounts a pivotal player in classroom disruption. I do not condone violence in any form, and trust that measures will be taken to prevent a repeat. Not just towards the teacher, but also the class involved.

Monday 26 April

Forgot to put in the entry for Monday, so a few lines about that here. It was a nice and bright day, albeit without much open sunshine. But there was sufficient clearance between the clouds to give it a decent feel. Temperatures about 12C. I went to see an exhibition of local art in the An Lanntair gallery. Grinneas nan Eilean is an annual event, where everybody can submit their artwork for exhibition and, potentially, sale. The quality was variable, from the extremely good to the "I don't know what this is supposed to be" very bad. An Lanntair hangs works right down to the skirting boards, putting the sticker with artist's name and price on the skirting board.

I spent the past few weeks on a revision of data on the Faces from the Lewis War Memorial website, and continue to put them onto the site from a workingfile. Bit of a job, if you bear in mind there are 1300 names on it.