Typing test

I wonder if I've been as successful in adding a typing test - fingers crossed -(but not you if you're taking the typing test - duh).

Is the moon back?

I have hopefully just put the phases of the moon back on my blog.

Experiment

Something is not right with this blog - it is not publishing what I write!

Perhaps it has its own blue pencil?

The Da Vinci Code

I have not read this book.

Passing through the eye of a needle......

As you will not know, I work as a "learning support assistant" - or using the current nomenclature, "teaching assistant" - at a primary school. This of course qualifies me to take part in endless discussions about children's learning, ability, behaviour, treatment etc etc etc.

The children were sewing. They had enormous needles with giant eyes I could have threaded their skipping ropes through. They had to sew about 30cm of running stitch using embroidery cotton in a colour of their choice. The plan was to make a purse.

Despite clear instructions, this seemingly simple task for a group of nine year olds proved to be a serious challenge for most of them. The main hurdle seemed to be needle threading - with more than half the class professing themselves to be unable/unwilling to succeed. Other howlers included - tying the needle on to the thread with a knot to stop it falling off and then wondering why it would not go through the material; leaving only a quarter of a centimetre of thread to secure the end of a line of stitches; making such mammoth stitches that any coins unlucky enough to find themselves in the purse would fall straight out; I shan't go on but I could.

Remembering visits to National Trust properties - there is always a sampler hanging in the nursery worked by some earnest Victorian child. The stitching is perfect, the extensive quotes from the Old Testament copied without error, and the careful needleperson is rarely more than four years old.

Sewing on buttons next week - I'll bring in my old Kaytel? Buttoneer.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Artist

For a while now I have been trying unsuccessfully to discover the name of an artist who lived in Reading, probably Caversham, possibly in the 1920s. I have failed to discover this on google and am too bone idle to go to Reading Museum and Art Gallery to ask them there. The museum's website seems useless to me.

I believe that RM&AG have some of this chap's work - namely, portrait of Isobel Loam (Reading character - do ask for details), a what was regarded as blasphemous half finished picture entitled "The Last Supper" and a what has been called a regional art treasure painting of a child in her high chair. I cannot remember the name of this last but I think it features a girl's name and a meal - eg. "Hannah's Teatime".

This artist has a relatively common name that is spelt (!) unconventionally. I had thought it was Symonds but I have had no luck with that. This artist apparently had some unpleasantness connected with him (but don't they all?) and was supposedly something of an eccentric - taken to riding about Caversham in a cart pulled by a donkey - was what I heard.

Anyway, what all this amounts to is A BLOG IN MARCH. Trying harder to arrest slippage of standards.