Friday afternoon, totally knackered. What a difference a day makes, and all that. Well what a difference a week makes. Huh. No nice days out this week, just the daily grind of school, and the added delight of a late night in school yesterday; not getting home until half nine or thereabouts. All in the duty of our by now traditional yearly celebration of our GCSE students’ work – the ‘Ab Fab’ (tired name, I know…) event wherein we stick up displays of artwork, and some of the current year 10 do some music and drama items. It’s kind of cool actually. Pretty low-key, but all the better for that I think. Anyway, that would have been okay, only yesterday afternoon a member of SMT said ‘can we make a video of it for a conference in Birmingham next week?’ So I had to scrabble about getting stuff together and trying to figure out where to put the camera, and yeah, well, just something else I could have done without really. So today, whilst teaching, I’ve been downloading the film, taking stills shots of the artwork, and trying to weave it all together into a rich tapestry. Ha! I tried in iMovie, but it’s too complex a task, so I started using Final Cut Express for the first time. It seems pretty easy to learn, thank goodness. And stable. I remember trying to work with premiere on a PC for the first time some four years ago and it just kept crashing. Maybe it would be more stable now, but still and all…

Uh, yeah, so I cobbled together something. It’s not finished and I expect I’ll be working on it over the weekend. See, people really do not understand just how long it takes, and how intensive that time is, editing a film… particularly when you care about doing it well. Maybe next year I’ll have a gang of kids who know the ropes and who can do it all as part of their coursework. Something to aim for.

The Ab Fab event was good though. Some of the music was excellent. Abiel did some cool improv on his electric geetar, and I was thinking, ah, someone should give this kid a Godspeed! CD or two, or hook him up with a singer and then they could do some magic things, like maybe if they listened to The Young People or somesuch, but heh, I guess they’ll stick with their Hendrix and AC/DC or whatever the hell they listen to. Uh… And Fiona was glorious with her version of ‘somewhere over the rainbow’, even if there was way too much of that faux ‘r’n’b’ style warbling all over the place. Underneath it all there was the sound of an indie queen struggling to get out, I swear. It reminded me a bit of Amelia singing at ET’s wedding, she had a similar kind of phrasing and poise. But I expect Fiona’s going more for Atomic Kitten than Talulah Gosh, which is fair enough, but I cant help wishing… which has always been my problem. Wishing for things that ain’t gonna happen. Like, I remember thinking that when ‘Atmosphere’ was released as a single back in the early 90s (or was it the late ‘80s?) I seriously thought it was going to be a number 1. I thought it was a given. It just seemed obvious to me… and it reached number 40 or something. I was gutted. So yeah, what the fuck do I know about anything?

I’ve barely thought about anything but school this week. It’s been all pervasive. Shouts out to everyone, however, who have helped answer my Cave question (it was ‘Johnny Suede’ of course), and who have offered copies of the Primal Scream Peel session. I love you all dearly.

Last weekend was a mad scramble making tapes and CDs of various things for a variety of people. Nicola was after a ‘best of’ Sarah singles CD, so I dug out some old singles and indulged myself. I ended up making three volumes, although the majority was from the first twenty or thirty releases. It was good to hear a lot of those records again. They sounded pretty good. I knew just about every nuance by heart too. I spent so many hours playing those records… they were so important. I hope Nicola likes the CDs and manages to play some on his radio show. Imagine, a radio show doing a Sarah special. Who’d have thought?

Sethe finally updated her blog yesterday with a line about not being close to the internet of late. I miss reading her missives. They always made / make me smile. But she sent hugs, which is good because they seem to be in short supply elsewhere. Maybe fall is when we all feel lonely. I dunno. The Boston is filled with Young People (but not The Young People, sadly) chatting, laughing and making out, and it makes me feel old and a bit lost. Or maybe I’m just too tired. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought decaf today.

It’s only one more week until half term. God knows I need the break.


posted by duke harringay at 5:43 PM