{"id":6778,"date":"2016-09-21T07:57:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T07:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6778"},"modified":"2016-09-21T07:57:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T07:57:43","slug":"my-week-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2016\/09\/21\/my-week-6\/","title":{"rendered":"My week"},"content":{"rendered":"

A time to remember\u00a0\u2013<\/strong><\/em> A visit from an old friend and colleague from the Netherlands prompted thoughts about the 1980s when I believed\u00a0the EU was a force for good, and teacher education the \"priority of priorities\". \u00a0No longer, of course. \u00a0We remembered visits to \u20aceurocrats in Brussels, and a never-to-be-forgotten trip to Limerick to the Nth ATEE conference. \u00a0There, there was a limerick competition which we both duly entered only to find our entries censored. \u00a0It's still hard to see why; mine was a modest satire on the poor organisation of the event; his a delicate Lutheran skit\u00a0on St Mary in whose immaculate college we were staying. \u00a0Humourless *******.<\/p>\n

To Stourhead<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 for modest\u00a0exercise and good conversation with more old friends, and a visual stimulus that's second to none if you like your landscapes to be of the managed 18th century sort. \u00a0I read that such Capability Brown-type gardens (this one's by Henry Hoare) are under attack by certain groups across the UK for their cultural uniformity and tendency to nostalgia. \u00a0I noted that the long-neglected overshot water wheel was now fixed. \u00a0And so it turned, but as it was not connected to anything, no useful work was done.<\/p>\n

Meeting up with Johnny Voun \u2013\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>To have lived so long \u2013 55 next birthday; but\u00a0don't ask what number base that is expressed\u00a0in \u2013 and not to have comes across Johnny Voun seems most remiss. \u00a0Johnny V is an English apple\u00a0with\u00a0deep crimson skin whose colour bleeds into the white flesh which is\u00a0sweet with a slightly anise flavour and lovely\u00a0aroma. \u00a0Somewhat like a Discovery, but denser and more subtle. \u00a0Say what you like about the National Trust \u2013 and who doesn't these days \u2013 they do know their apples.<\/p>\n

Chinese visitors<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 It was good to meet Li Shan and Hu Sifan, from Mengla and Shenzhen, respectively, who are in the UK enquiring about environmental and sustainability education\u00a0from the botanic garden perspective. \u00a0It was an engaging hour at the university with two articulate and perceptive people.<\/p>\n

Life and Death in the afternoon \u2013\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Perhaps a never to be repeated or forgotten incident was the dispute between three magpies and a sparrow hawk on the\u00a0grass in front of my house. \u00a0We watched from 15 metres or so. \u00a0The hawk had taken a wood pigeon out of the sky and was trying to eat it, but the magpies were intend on having it instead. \u00a0But they were no match for the hawk and were too disorganised to get the better of it. \u00a0They had the last word, however, as when the hawk had had its fill, they disposed of what was left leaving only a few feathers. \u00a0There was only one metaphor on display here.<\/p>\n

All plastic and no apples \u2013\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> Where are English apples? \u00a0I've long given up on the Co-op having English apples as it's not part of their understanding of sustainable development, and sure enough the university's shop only had imports and fruit that had been stored for months. \u00a0I was surprised, however, to fine none in the lage Bath Sainsbury's store. \u00a0When the country is awash with\u00a0the best apples in the world, where are they all? \u00a0Well, the chance is that, when they do turn up, they'll be wrapped in plastic as most apples\u00a0seems to be these days. \u00a0Just when we'd been weaned off take away plastic bags, the supermarkets are still using tonnes of the stuff, mostly needlessly, I suspect to make life easier for themselves.<\/p>\n

A carbon-neutral white van \u2013\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Finally, to round off the week, we got a parcel via a cheery bloke in a big white van which (the parcel, that is) proclaimed itself to be carbon-neutral. \u00a0Anything is now possible, it seems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A time to remember\u00a0\u2013 A visit from an old friend and colleague from the Netherlands prompted thoughts about the 1980s when I believed\u00a0the EU was a force for good, and teacher education the \"priority of priorities\". \u00a0No longer, of course....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}