Sad, I Know, But..

If anyone else lives in a city that requires an underground, subway or metro, you’ll probably understand, if not even agree, but…

When a metro train slows down right before you and it chugs and chugs until the wheels can chug no more, the doors edge ever closer to you, slowing down and looking like they’re going to pass you, but then alas the train door stops right at your feet, perfect for getting on without the slightest bit of effort…

Doesn’t it just feel like Christmas has come early?

Rich Kemp

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Thank you Spanish, for Ruining My English

Aah! I can’t spell mayonese anymore! Whichever way I try to spell mayoneise, it always seems to come mayonase. It literally took me four tries before Word 2003 told me that I had finally spelt mayonnaise correctly. I like it when things like this happen, though. It makes think well, if I’m losing my English, I must be gaining Spanish in its place. Somehow, I don’t think it works like that…

Rich Kemp

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Pun Anyone? Thierry Henry is a Real Hands-On Captain?

Prime Minister Brian Cowen is quite angry about the football result last night. Rightly so. I’m a man and so can also assume the passionate football fan role from time to time. But, come on, taking it to Sarkozy at the next summit? Now, that’s just silly…

Rich Kemp

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football ireland france henry thierry politics silly funny

What WOULD'VE Happened If...?

Do you ever find that certain tracks make your knees buckle?

After many times being told by many different people, I finally got round to listening to a borrowed copy of The King Blues’ Save The World, Get The Girl. A fantastic album, Save The World… is a delightfully addictive mix of ska and reggae beats that make you want to dance so much that you end up bopping in your armchair.

The King Blues are getting ever-popular within the underground scene for their massively fun live shows and punk ethics to boot.

They probably came to Bristol at least three times while I was around the scene and each time I didn’t go because of something or other. I wasn’t too upset, as I didn’t know their stuff anyway, so I didn’t know what I was missing.

I whacked on Save The World… this morning and jigged at the dining table as I wrote an e-mail to my folks. As I was swaying happily to their delicious brand of reggae, the final track What If Punk Never Happened came on. Slowly burning, the lead singer’s lines flowed over me, relaxing me no end. I smiled to myself as he referenced pop culture icons Michael J. Fox and Doc Brown. I felt unbelieveably warm and cheery inside as he told the Punk Rock version of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. All this, until the air was knocked out of my lungs like a speeding bullet. The hairs on my body stood on end as he blasted out his poetic opus; his warning of what could have happened if Punk never had.

The more intently I listened, the more the room span around me. The more the room span, the dizzier I felt. The dizzier I felt, the more I realised “my god, I have to see this band when I get back to the UK”.

The King Blues can now make claim to having some of the most inspiring lyrics ever, with fantastic lines, such as

“Punk Rock has the power to change the world. It lies in every single Punk Rock boy and girl.

So don’t let anyone tell you you’re not worth the Earth. These streets are your streets. This Earth is your turf.

Don’t let anyone tell you you’ve got to give in, ‘cause you can make a difference. You can change everything.

Let your dreams be your pilot. You’re imagination your fuel. Tear up the book and make your own damn rules.”

This seems to be happening to me a lot lately; bands suddenly coming into my life and, apart from falling in love with them, me continually playing certain tracks of theirs.

It happened just the other day with Akron Family. I checked them out recently and stumbled across the track Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead. As soon as the band started chanting “Love is simple” in the most beautiful way I had ever heard in my entire life, I was hooked and thus played it to friends in the hope that they too would have their knees buckle on them. I’m now going to start grabbing friends’ ears and have them listen to What If Punk Never Happened. I should be careful though and pick friends accordingly. The King Blues’ power may be so great that they might make someone start crying in the street shouting “He’s right! He’s blooming right, you know!”. I only want to change the world. I don’t want to embarrass people…

Rich Kemp

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Exam Day

Aren’t adults so much more conscientious than kids? I’m sorry kids, but sometimes it’s true and here’s an example: I, an English teacher, get two main benefits in this life, one; the large amount of holidays thanks to term times and two; gloriously silent, written exams.

It’s not that I take pleasure out of watching students squirm – as a teacher, that’s the last thing I want. I only enjoy written exam day because it means I can put my feet up and read or write in silence for an hour and a half. It also means I don’t have to plan a lesson the night before. Believe it or not, not a lot of thought goes into the act of turning up at school a few minutes early to collect the exam papers and then hand them out to eager students.

With this in mind, the hour or so of free time also means that you can people-watch quite comfortably without getting caught and, if anyone does catch you, they’ll most likely think you’re just ensuring no cheating’s going on.

Sat in the classroom now, as one of my adult classes scribbles away, I’m thoroughly impressed. At the beginning of the exam, I offered to end the class bang on time, thus robbing them of their allotted hour’s final ten minutes but, securing them a prompt arrival at their respective offices. To me, this seemed like something to have jumped at – who wants to stay the full hour when instead you could skip off merrily to the local café for a quick espresso before work?

They very quickly declined to cries of “no way, Jose!” or something along those lines. In agreement, we finished ten minutes later than usual.

This was the first thing to surprise me as I thought, much like my teen class doing the same exam the week before, they would rather get out of the proverbial Dodge faster than a speeding bullet than stay the entirety. Oh well, I thought. They’re bound to finish early, at least. I’ll get the tea brewing before everyone else finishes teaching this morning. It can’t possibly take the whole hour when, the week before, one of my teens practically ran out the door when he could.

Back in the adults class however…by about the forty-third minute, it was clear that most of the students had finished. They did the old check-over to see if they had missed anything and then…what’s this? Writing more? What are you doing? You’re supposed to be spilling the contents of your pencil case in desperation to leave! Why are you still here? You what? You want more paper? You’ve got a shed-load more paragraphs to write? Well alright, but this is very odd, you know…

Each one of them ended up taking the full hour offered to them. Imagine that! Someone offers you an hour to do something and you take exactly an hour without any thought of giving your teacher a free tea break after he’s just had his feet up for the last fifty minutes. This would never have happened in the teens’ class. I even gave one adult student an extra minute out of pride for him having his head screwed on so tightly.

It’s interesting how, when you grow up, you take certain things more seriously. The adults and teens are doing the exact same exam and yet the fastest adult took fifty-nine minutes to finish, while the fastest teen needed only forty before he was happy to shoot off into the sunset. Some adults would have you believe that, after school, it’s all just regret about not having tried hard enough, but the super-conscientious adults I have under my wing would certainly do well in persuading you otherwise. I just hope that they see the fruits of their labour. Not that I want my quick-finishing teens to fail, but to borrow a friend’s phrase, the proof will be in the pie.

Actually, to throw all that conscientious bull out the window, I just spoke to a friend about this and she offered that the reason was far more likely to be that teenagers don’t pay for classes – their parents do. And who pays for the adults? Well, them of course. Umm…case closed, I feel.

Rich Kemp

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I Can Give Up Any Time I Want

Last night, after six weeks of shifting about from one house to the other, I finally moved into my flat. It’s on the south side of Avenida 11 de Septiembre, overlooking the city, with brochure-like views of the Andes and Cerro San Cristobal. Put quite eloquently this evening, a friend commented on how marvellous it must be to live in such a central spot – being able to look down on the whole world rushing around, as if we were living in a super-hip part of New York City (or even Bristol at a stretch).

She is not wrong. There’s no need to be British about this and pretend I’m not impressed as well. Only last week, when I was living temporarily with the landlady’s mate two floors above, I got to see Critical Mass unfold all over Santiago’s biggest streets. It really seems something worth salivating over when you see hundreds of cyclists taking up all three lanes and thoroughly aggravating lines of rush hour traffic.

Another reason as to why this young, Bristolian lad is so happy is not just because he gets a great view of maddening drivers as they follow the backsides of Santiago’s two-wheeled eco-warriors, but because he finally has a place to call his own. For a month and a half I had been living out of my suitcase, not wanting to take anything out as I knew I would only have to up and leave again sooner or later. Well, faff no more, I say! I’m here to stay. Let’s just hope the noisy road doesn’t get on my nerves when I’m trying to get some shut-eye.

The flat is smaller than the last one, therefore the bedroom is a little pokier, and the kitchen too. All these things however, I have already got used to. Even the unbelievably slow immersion heater, which takes over forty minutes to work its magic, I’ve accepted and learnt to love.

No. All these things are minor concerns in a brilliant flat in a great position with only a nine minute and thirty-three second walk to work. This, of course, means that I can roll out of bed at 7:40am, yawn, stretch and still arrive on time with ten minutes to spare. Almost everything is forgivable; except that the Internet isn’t working.

We do have Internet connection; the router is in the landlady’s room, flashing away as she chats away on Skype, but I just can’t seem to connect. The fact that I can’t figure out what’s wrong – being an ex-computer technician and all – is, as you can imagine, thoroughly irritating.

What stopped me in my tracks though was not how I couldn’t work out what was going on with the infernal contraption, but the reality that the only thing I was bothered about living without was the Internet. I fixed the lazy, slow immersion heater problem by having a cold shower. I solved the issue of not having a clothes horse by sprawling my undies all over the living room. I even near-convinced myself that the grating traffic noise below was in fact soothing whooshes of man’s great invention as it gracefully crosses from one side of the avenue to the other. However, what was I to do about me being connected to the whole world? Could I persuade myself that it wasn’t that important after all? That being disconnected from the Internet until you got into work might be a healthy thing?

It´s true that I´m from the generation that saw the Internet take off, but I was around before that too. It´s not like I grew up on it. Far from it, in fact. My parents´ house still hasn´t got the Internet, so I can live without it if I want to. No problem.

I think I’ll pop into my landlady’s room tomorrow and try the old turn-it-off-and-on-again technique tomorrow…

Rich Kemp

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