Pig Sty Avenue

This morning I went into Saltcoats and got a packet of Borax for £2.40 - enough to last me several years at 2g per litre of what I'm going to call DIY-ID11/D76. A little while after arriving home a large box arrived from Silverprint with all of the other chemicals. My cup runneth over.

My mate was a DoS. One of the teachers was quite a nice bloke and a good teacher, with a DELTA and all that, but he had a bit of drink problem. One morning during the break and after a violent coughing fit he said "I'm sorry, you're going to have to let me go for the day - can you cover my class?" So my mate said, "Aren't you well?" He said, "Not too bad, but, er, see, I've just shat myself."

I like the way the blogroll is now live. I don't want dead or dying blogs clogging up the bottom end, so I'm going to remove any that haven't been updated for a fortnight. And I really like the way Twatter and Blip.fm interact there, too. Coolio. I've removed a whole load of never-used links from the sidebar whilst I was there.

I need to check out these sites, mentioned rather cleverly in this Grauniad Article about the Barclay's injunction . There's: wikileaks.org www.docstoc.com www.gabbr.com Tomorrow, I'm going to buy a stepladder and measure the shed roof. Tuesday, I'm going to felt the fucker.

I need to have a shufty at this . Thanks to Calanan .

I wrote a bit about this the other day, and it's been much in my thoughts. This argument is still going on in DIY B&W. I think this raises some really important ideas about the way we human beings live our lives. The idea of "[b]ut you can much more easily just buy a bottle of rapid fixer"; and "use what you will and trash the rest" represents surely the high water mark of subjection to consumer-capitalist mind control. Not just that one has such lazy wasteful thinking, but that one thinks it has the weight of orthodoxy. It reminds me of the story about the Soviet rangefinders like the FED2. There was no quality control at the factory, but that didn't matter because the people who bought them were adept enough to be able to sit at the kitchen table with a tool box and tweak them, fresh out of the box. There was colloboration there between the consumer and the worker who manufactured the camera: they were both working class, after all. Now in our...

This is an unexpected development . Ten days and still nothing? Herself is already beginning to make pointed remarks about all the rolls of exposed film in the fridge. And I really don't want to traipse up to Glasgow to buy a box of ID11 when I've got an absurd amount of it bought and paid for and sitting in some bastard's warehouse...

Arse spud-u-like. , originally uploaded by Ewanmac . I haven't blogged any pictures in days.

This paper by David Owen is interesting, (apologies to those dwelling outside the Ivory Snakepit, you'll need an Athens log in; there is an article about it in the Grauniad). You see some of this in the managers of ELT establishments. The difference is that it's tragic in a world leader, farcical in someone who employs a couple of dozen people.

Does this mean I'm one of "the hipsters who like to take pictures on cheap retro film cameras"? Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear.

The link I had to digital truth has gone bad, so I googled around and got this, ( from here ): D-76H: Water 750ml 125F Metol 2.5g Sodium sulfite 100g Borax (20 Mule Team is ok) 2g Water to make 1.0L Mind you, the first respondee to that thread , ffs, what's his problem? "It isn't really wise to do this from powder." And, "use what you will and trash the rest." There was a cheeky bastard in DIY B&W , too. What makes people come out with this drivel?

I'm not too sure about this version... No, it's starting to grow on me. Or something: Anyway, I like Blip. It's all part of the bigger process of stitching together a whole range of web resources, to make a thing-unto-itself.

Despite the shit managers, my time at BTM all turned out rather well in academic and career development terms. The course I wrote and led was a great success. More importantly, it helped to clarify a concept that’s been idling around in my wee head for nearly a year now. This week, back at the Cowboy Ranch, I’ve been teaching general English, using Language Leader. I deliberately didn’t do anything fancy with wikis or wtf, I just went straight from the book, to see how it felt after the task based learning of the Aeronautical University course. It felt easy-to-do, but it was shite teaching. For example, you have a topic such as employment, and the students have to speak about what makes a good employer, in pairs. Just imagine it, you have to talk to someone about a topic which is probably of no interest whatsoever. So, the Big Idea is TBL, but in a framework course, whereby the teacher is given guidance, but has to go away and find their own materials, tailored to the students...

That’s one of the worst working situations ever. I’m so pleased to be finished with it. I’m not sure how a certain kind of fruitcake is attracted to ELT management, but attract them it does. The Managing Director of the company was a malignant cunt, and so was the fucking project manager. Deeply flawed people who loved throwing their weight around. One might think that doing a good job would keep the bastards out of one’s hair, but no, self-reliance seemed to infuriate them: perhaps it was an unwelcome indication of their futility – the ineluctability of their parasite status. WTF. I’m extremely pleased to have finished with them.

You can get online on the Virgin Pendo-fucking-leno train now, through T mobile, but it’s a bit pricey, at £4.90 for 60 minutes or £9.80 for 24 hours – and it tell you it gets a bit dodgy between Lancaster and Motherwell. I’m on the train now, and still undecided as to bother with it… Might just hang on and upload this once I’m home, for free.

For reasons too circuitous to mention, I was looking at the Avenue's early days, and I found me old mate . There's an advert there now, mind, just wait a few seconds.

I've been on line to Silverprint and bought... Stock No. Description Quantity Value 34480 HYDROQUINONE 100g 1 £3.47 741 SODIUM SULPHITE 2.5kg (anhydrous) 1 £7.81 98593 METOL 100g 1 £8.25 711 SODIUM THIOSULPHATE 2.5kg Anhydrous [AKA Hypo] 1 £10.00 5641 SODIUM METABISULPHITE 500g 1 £3.32 91 Delivery 1 £5.96 Net Order Value £38.81 Total VAT £5.82 Total Order Value £44.63 It's a significant moment. I've bought enough developing and fixing chemicals to last me for... several years, probably. Ten litres, at least of developer, so that's, er, a hundred rolls of film? Or something. Sorted. A vast landscape of experimentation and foolish buggering about with old cameras and out of date film is opening up. NB: I need to get borax from B&Q or one of those places.

Database of Musicians.

I just found this via Twitter. I'm at work so can't really check it out now, but I'll have a shufty at the weekend.

Commercials are an unnatural use of my work, ... It's like having a cow's udder sewn to the side of my face. Painful and humiliating. Which is just about how I feel, working for these bloody cowboys. Yesterday, The Muppet phoned me to ask about reports for the Aeronautical University students. I said that I could do them, but would need a day and a half. "How will it take all that time?" "There were 56 of them." "But that's... 15 minutes each - to tick a few boxes!" "There's more to writing reports than ticking boxes." "Look, Garry, I don't want this to become an issue, but..." Bottom line is, kiss my fat, hairy, white Geordie arse. I'm not ticking boxes to produce faked reports.

The course I wrote, taught and led at Aeronautical University was described as "brilliant" yesterday in a staff meeting by DoS. Yet I've got a sense of foreboding, a vague feeling that I've done something wrong, that I'm in some kind of trouble... Maybe it's just me. I'm desperate to get this week done, get paid, and get the fuck out of here. DoS has timetabled me in for next week but the thought fills me with horror. This is one of those organizations rendered sick by incompetent management. ADoS was a pal of mine, but he seems to be in the huff. One of the teachers at Aeronautical University didn't like the other one, and diddn't want to come back here and work with him, so has decided to move on (and do an MA), and ADoS feels she's let the side down, and somehow I seem to have become complicit in that... It's weird, I know, and sounds paranoid when you write it like this, but that's the sort of place I'm working in.

Slides from the 1960s , originally uploaded by Stevie-B . A brilliant,brilliant set of photos from my mate Stevie B. I don't know yet what the story behind them is, but I think they're brilliant - like taking a sneaky look through someone's photo album, and wondering, who the fuck are these people? And inventing lives for them, and comparing it with your own family memories. This is also a note-to-self to think about tracking down some of our own family photos.

reflex-logo , originally uploaded by roy² . This was my first camera. It's really spooky seeing it on Flickr. I seem to remember I got it from my Uncle Jim, around 1970. This is the only surviving photo , another uncle (Eddy) and his son, Graham, who is, coincidentally, last I heard, a professional photographer.

Is a photo competition on Flickr . Because I'm away from home - and anyway temporarily out of chemicals - I am going to use a disposable camera and get it developed and onto CD at Snappy Snaps. Or somewhere: most of the photo dev places seem to be going out of business , or at any rate to be in serious trouble . (I couldn't find anything much about Klick in google news just now: even though Klicks all over, from Saltcoats to the Home Counties, are closed IRL).

I got seven photos out of that roll. Here's the set on Flickr . It was a bugger to get onto the spool, I had to coax it on, inch by inch, the film was of course very curled. Also, I think the film is much thicker than modern films: I'd put it with some exposed HP5+ in the fridge and it was a couple of mm fatter. I had a 1:1 mix of Perceptol which I'd already used once and wanted to use up. So I did them in that for 18 mins, then the usual 5+5+5 rinse+fix+rinse. I soaked it before starting and got a very livid green colour from it. It was exciting to get anything, and then disappointing that it was mountains, and then exciting again to see this ghostly figure - posed uncomfortably in front of what was no doubt a fine view. It turns out that one of the photos is definitely Angle Tarn in the Lake District. Now that the roll is developed and scanned, it's growing on me - lovely ghostly feeling to it, the ghost of a long ago holiday.

People on Radio 4 keep talking about it. So I thought I'd give it a go. Jeremy Paxman was quite funny. His final comment has something to recommend it.

Me, Grandma and Granda Ogden, Hebburn 1960 , originally uploaded by Pig Sty Avenue . I think that idea is to take photos that could have been taken at almost anytime since the 50s. I've made a set on Flickr . I'll mix up real old family snapshots with current ones taken on old cameras, (mostly medium format). For some reason, it's this photo that inspired it. Something about the poor light and off composition, with Grandad there almost as a spectator. And the bare bulb mortifies my mother when she sees this. "People will think we didn't have lampshades!" I'd love to know who took this and the camera/film they used.

I've bought an Ilford Sporti 6 on eBay. It's a nice enough camera of its type - much lighter and smaller and plasticier than the original Sporti. But I wanted it for flash and there seems to be some kind of glitch there. Which is a bugger, but I can't be vexed for two quid. And it takes filters, so it'll do as a-stormy-day-on-the-shore camera. Back to the drawing board on the flash ideas, though. Oh yeah, and the camera had a roll of film in it. Kodacolor X, C22. The crack on that is here .

Module 5: Options: Combined Assignment: Testing Theory and Critical Pedagogy/Critical Discourse Analysis A critical appraisal of the use of Received Pronunciation in the listening components of ESL examinations and related materials Introduction Deciding to make a new career as a TEFL teacher more than ten years ago, several of my close friends and relatives asked, “But how can you be an English teacher?” I knew of course that they were referring to the Tyneside accent which they and I shared. They asked this question after I had spent several years as a solicitor undertaking advocacy, ( not on Tyneside). The fact that a Geordie accent, in their eyes, would preclude a career as a TEFL teacher but not as a lawyer, might say a great deal about the way people can view the necessity for the transmitters of English to use Received Pronunciation, (RP). When I took my first tentative steps in my new career with a Trinity TESOL Certificate, my course tutors...

I'm nearly there, just need to do the testing-theory element, write a conclusion, proof it and tidy up the references. I should be done by tomorrow this time. Meanwhile, my head's cabbaged and I'm knocking off for the night, but I need to leave a reminder of this article , which I stumbled across this evening. I'll read it properly tomorrow, but the nugget I think I found there concerned vowel pronunciation: if you pronounce "politics" with a different first vowel, it would make no difference to intelligibility. So long or short vowel "bath", it makes no difference.

This looks like a good article for my next bit of research: but I can't get hold of it at that address without some ridiculous subscription, so here's the details and I'll try another way when I've more time: Challenges of Academic Listening in English: Reports by Chinese Students Journal article by Jinyan Huang; College Student Journal, Vol. 39, 2005

As usual, when I should be working, I can't stop thinking about photography. Richard Billingham's photos have something of genius about them. I need to get on.

There's a Leica M8.2 now . £4000 quid before you buy a lens, mind.

It's amazing the shite you turn up and reject when you're searching for a text to work with. This story found its way into the fabric of Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, if I recall it correctly.

Where they kept the bombs in a B52 I've got four items to write for the Famous Exam Board, and as usual when I should be writing, I'm finding every excuse to put it off. I watched the last part of the BBC series The Genius of Photography and was very impressed indeed by Richard Billingham , especially the fact that he didn't start out as a photographer, but just wanted to paint his father, who wouldn't sit still long enough. I was also impressed by something Nan Goldin said (essentially) in her contribution, that we must photograph and be photographed by our own tribe. With all of this in mind, I've been and gone and bought a Sporti 6 on eBay for £2. That's mostly because the Sporti I'm using now isn't flash-synching, and I want to do flash. The 6 also has more control over shutter speed (1/50 and 1/100), it goes open to f8, AND it takes filters (32mm, I didn't know there were such things) - which I need for outdoors to get the magnifico Atlanti...

Considering the use of RP in teaching materials, note its influence on dictionaries and the teaching of phonology. It's almost impossible to think outside this box, shaping the pronunciation of learners with reference to sounds which their teacher, for example, doesn't use.

Being away with the Sporti for a few weeks, I've got four rolls of HP5 five and one of Delta 3200, and only about 300ml of Perceptol. So the question is, do I try to do all five rolls at a smidgin less than stock, reusing it, or do I keep them in the fridge until I get my DIY chemicals? No? I'll just get me anorak...

Today I met the famous Smoothdude . He’s a really nice bloke. That’s the DMU paradox. We’re very unpleasant in cyberspace, very nice IRL. He took a couple of photos, but being a professional he’s very choosy about what he publishes on Flickr. He’s bloody good. And that’s my sojourn in Southern England finished for a while. I’m writing this offline on the Glasgow train. It’s so good to be heading for home. /trɔːleɪ/ is how the young woman on the buffet pronounced “trolley” when addressing a compatriot, but the English got /trɒl iː/, I noticed. I nearly came over a bit Scottish myself when a drunk in the buffet was complaining he’d been given his change in Scottish money. I don’t know if I’ll be back in the East Midlands after this week, which was agreed some time ago as a holiday. Following MC’s extraordinary outburst on the phone, and my follow up email, who can say what will happen? She was supposed to come through to Aeronautical University this afternoon, but her car brok...

Thanks to KhadijaTeri for pointing me in the direction of this oddcast thingubby , which is a lot of fun.

I've perhaps concentrated too much on the issue of UK regional accents. There's the much wider and perhaps more important issue of the role of non-native accents.

MC, This email is written to put on record my disquiet at the unprofessional and unacceptable manner in which you spoke to me on the telephone yesterday. I do not consider that aggression has any role to play in the workplace, especially in an educational environment. Your call was all the more troubling because it was received within earshot of students and teaching colleagues. I was given a very difficult brief with this course, delivering it to 56 learners at 40 contact hours a week with only three teachers, including myself. Nevertheless, I can confidently say that it's "mission accomplished". Furthermore, the job has been done using innovative methodology: task based learning and an ad hoc, (free) VLE. I was able to meet the people at Aeronautical University (Keith, Maureen and Ian), before the course began and they told me that they wanted the students to improve their confidence in speaking and listening. That became my objective, and it has been achieved. Fo...