Sun and school work seem to be conspiring against me recently. The sun because, well, when the sun shines I just want to ride my bike, and the keyboard gets short shrift as a result. And school because, well, school just because. We’ve been marking the exam work today and Thursday and Friday of last week. It’s hard work, in some ways harder than teaching, because you need to be totally focused all the time. At least with a class you can usually detach for a while whilst they all (hopefully) busy themselves with their tasks; with marking it’s constant concentration. It’s really knackering. Back to proper teaching tomorrow, and I don’t like Tuesday’s, it’s all year 7 lessons. Year 7 get really annoying this time of year because they reach the stage where they start to get cocky because they know that soon they won’t be the youngest in the school. Plus they get excited because the current year 6 come up for sample days, and they like to show off. It happens every year, and it’s a natural thing I guess but I get so bored of it.

Anyway, enough school things. In a recent blog entry I was writing about the new Meets Guitar single on Becalmed records. I mentioned that the closing track sounded like the theme to some forgotten ’70 children’s TV show. Well, it turns out that ‘Don't You Remember The Time’ is actually an old timey tune originally recorded in the early 1930's by a group called Freeny's Barn Dance Band somewhere in Georgia, USA. Meets Guitar’s Gavin Baker’s dad thinks that it is based on a Victorian era parlour ballad. I bet Robert Crumb knows it, and probably has the Freeny's Barn Dance Band 78.

Okay, I’m tired. Made myself go out for a quick hilly 30 k ride after school even though I felt too knackered after the days marking, standing up and bending over desks peering at work all day. I’m glad I did though: I managed to knock another minute off my best time round the circuit. Got it down to a fraction over an hour and four minutes. My target for the summer is to crack the hour mark. I’ll let you know how I get on, even though you don’t care. Current reading is Tim Krabbe’s classic ‘the rider’, translated from Dutch, don’t you know. Also recommended is Matt Seaton’s ‘The Escape Artist; life from the saddle’ which I read in the weekend sun between rides. If you want to star to understand the cyclist’s mentality, read that book.

Less than three weeks ‘til Le Tour starts…

posted by duke harringay at 8:01 PM