Every now and again there is a coursework or exam task that asks you to explain something. It can be done via bullet points and article format, or it can be done via a descriptive piece. This is one I did years ago now, with a Year ten bottom set, to show them how to structure their words. 

A time when I felt very surprised 

There have been several times in my life when I have felt the emotions linked with being surprised but nothing compares to the day when I won something for the very first time.

I am one of those people who if they enter something has absolutely no chance of winning. Ever since the National Lottery began, I have kept the same numbers each week and won nothing. If I am entered for something that gives a prize, you can guarantee that the prize will be given to someone else, even though their entry is useless by comparison. I have as much luck as a three legged dog that has lost the ability to balance on the remaining three.

So when I won something and I had not even entered, it came as a total surprise, a bolt out of the blue to please me for the rest of my life. It was an Internet competition that Amazon.co.uk used to run. I knew nothing of it when I submitted my review of a book, but that was about to change.

I had read the third Harry Potter book called The Prisoner of Azkaban and had enjoyed the read but was a little concerned about the dark nature of the novel for a young audience. I have always been careful what I give children to read and so, it sprang from that ideology that I would criticise the book for being dark in content.

Two weeks after I had submitted the review, I received an email from Amazon saying, ‘Congratulations. You are our book reviewer of the month for December. Your prize is a night at the Whitbread Book Awards and a night at the Marriott Hotel on the Embankment, in London. Do you want to accept this prize?’

If ever a more stupid question has ever been posted on the Internet, then please let me know, but I had no idea it had been entered for any competition. I had no idea what the email referred to and so, had to work it out for myself, with ever increasing degrees of surprise growing on my already smiling face.

My wife was talking to me at the time of me reading the email and by this time, I had stopped listening, as is the case when I try to do more than one thing at one time and so she had to be stern with me to get a response.

I apologised, as you do, looked back at the computer to see if I was dreaming and then apologised to her and asked her to read what I was reading. I still could not believe it. When she realised what had happened, she told me to say yes to the thing and get on with it quickly. So I did.

A couple of weeks later, at the end of  January 2000, I found myself stood quaffing cocktails quicker than they could serve them to me, getting intoxicated on both the booze and the fact that so many famous people were coming through the doors.

Ann Widdecombe came and sat down next to me, a senior Tory MP at the time. Actors and actresses waltzed in; some like Jerry Hall, once married to Mick Jagger, seemed to glide in effortlessly as if they were on ice skates. Then, it was as if God had walked through the door.

I have always been a fan of the work of Seamus Heaney, being introduced to him in my own GCSE years and reading Beowulf, the translation that he made which was to win the award we were attending.

It was a moment of great excitement. I had not expected it, for my glass, already half drunk again, was placed firmly in my mouth when he walked through the door and scanned the room. His eyes met mine, which by now were increasing in size from the surprise of what I was seeing. His reply: well, his eyes lit up when he saw me as if we had been friends long ago and he was simply saying hello again old friend over a crowded room.

Sheer magic! The feeling that surged through my body cannot be humanly described in words, but the event stopped the drink from going down my throat. Instead, my teeth fixed onto the rim of the glass for what seemed an interminably long time. Then he was gone. The whole thing lasted for no more than three seconds, but it is a memory that I will never forget.

What a surprise. We never talked, but as a writer and poet it was as if I had met with God all over again. That has to be the time, when I was most surprised. Nothing before or since has come close, not even when my wife said ‘yes’ or when children came along. It is funny what life holds for us.

One of last year’s coursework pieces, in my usual sarcastic style. Enjoy!

Don’t Get Me Started … On Being Neighbourly

Why is it that wherever I live there are neighbours from hell? They seem to follow me wherever I go in life! I must have a big sign on my head that reads IDIOT or something.

When we owned a house and we moved in, we were happy. The neighbours were great; fine, friendly people who wanted to have good neighbours by the side of them in their life, people one could rely on, people one could trust. If only that was the case with other forms of housing. When we lost the ability to bring in the income at the rate we were used to, we lost the house and ended up renting privately. The first set of neighbours we had were fine, but when we had to move again into a Council property, that is when the horror began for the both of us.

On our first day in the flat, we were met by a man who told us from the start that he “will have quiet in these flats, no matter what.” He resembled a hideous version of Grant Mitchell from Eastenders and was just as intimidating. We did not realise at the time that he was issuing a set of standards with an “or else” warning but the attitude of the man, the blind ignorance, as well as arrogance personified, was just incomprehensible to behold.

As we settled into the flat, the noises started from below where he lived. The hypocrite was prepared to lay down rules and then do whatever he wanted. The problem with this is that when someone does that to me, it usually elicits a single and devastating response. I live my life in a simple fashion, just wanting to live my life peaceably but when someone endangers that standard of living, I do like to either join in or start moaning. I did the latter to the council, but got absolutely nowhere!

We suffered for eight long, laborious months. We tried to get the flat up to scratch and did a good job of it, laying carpets, hanging curtains and generally making it into a lovely little cave to dwell in, but before long, everything we did was wrong in this person’s eyes. No matter what we did, we were always in the wrong. He would intimidate my wife to the point where she became agoraphobic. Oh, it was alright for him to have his television on so we could hear every word clearly of the commentary below in the England v France game in the International Rugby Union match at Twickenham. The torrent of abuse was endless and eventually, we gave in and went back to renting privately.

We did this for two years and in each case, ended up with neighbours from hell. Living in Selby it seemed, was rapidly becoming a nightmare! And just after the moment I was told I was not required any more at work and was given my notice, the phone rang and the council said they had a flat for us, a permanent home, with a housing association in Selby. It was a new build, all mod cons and luxurious. Would we like to see it?

The timing was incredible. We knew we could not afford to live in privately rented accommodation any longer so we went and looked at it, taking it immediately. We moved in the January of 2009 and moved out in the November of 2012. Whilst there we were treated to abuse, both verbal and physical, being spat at, our car being vandalised, drugs being dealt on the estate that was so new it was labelled as ‘perfect’ for everyone and things stolen from communal areas. It was, in essence, two and a half years of hell and through all that time, the landlord did absolutely nothing even after numerous complaints.

Social housing it seems is as bad as council housing in the sense that the choice of tenants is not guided by anything but numbers and statistics. The council uses people off their list to fill the places for the housing association and in our case, the dregs of society ended up at the Chandlers in Selby, the estate where we lived. It just goes to prove that being neighbourly is an act of the will that is sadly lacking nowadays and that is such a sad indictment of the society in general that we live in. On this matter alone, do not get me started!

[750 words]

After seeing this morning’s Higher tier paper and section B tasks, I was reminded of this from last year’s coursework. It seems that AQA have added a coursework idea into the exam this year. Interesting idea and I wonder if they will do the same next year? If so, then there may be something on how music has shaped your life so far [soundtrack of my life?].

With that in mind, here is a resource I used last year, with the link where it comes from. Enjoy!

http://dontgetmestarted-lindasharp.typepad.com/dont_get_me_started_with_/2012/02/facehooked.html

Facehooked!

It wasn’t that long ago when I took to this space and wrote about the batshit woman who set someone’s house on fire over a Facebook argument relating to party planning.

About a year ago I wrote about the toddler who drowned while his distracted mother played around on Facebook.  And another baby was shaken to death for daring to disrupt his mother’s turnip harvesting time by crying.

Look, I get it – Facebook is a playground full of distractions from an otherwise boring, stressful, unfulfilling life.  Racking up coins, piles of tomatoes, or dead vampire bodies certainly makes the time fly and life worth living.

But now comes the story of a double murder over – are you ready?  Stop harvesting for a moment and focus – a Facebook defriending.

Yes, two people lay dead –  Billy Clay Payne, Jr. and Billie Jean Hayworth – bullets in their brains – because they dared to defriend the daughter of one of the killers. That daughter, poor Jenelle Potter, just couldn’t take the insult of being defriended and her pops came to her defence.

Let me stress that while Facebook is the new battleground in the bullying war, where middle schoolers with barely a pube on their crotches torment one another, and where high schoolers think every fart they fart is a diamond worth posting about – the people involved in this story ARE ADULTS. At least according to their birth certificates.

Jenelle – late 20s to early 30s – lives with her parents and is constantly on Facebook. Maybe that should read, Jenelle lives on Facebook while under the roof of her parents and her court record history is as long as my winning streak on Bejewelled.  All of it tied to complaints of her harassment of people who have defriended her.

Paging Mark Z – perhaps you could take a mome away from counting your billions to develop a way to permanently boot whack jobs like Jenelle from FB?  Surely, when access to your website causes a mental twig to snap and land someone in the legal arena, it’s time to block some ISPs?

The men who pulled the triggers – her father, Marvin Potter, 60, and a one-time suitor who pined for Jenelle’s affections, Jamie Curd, 38, have both been arrested and charged with the murders. According to folks in their Tennessee town, if you crossed the daughter, you paid for it with the father and mother.

“This Facebook thing was her whole life,” Johnson County Sheriff Mike Reece said. “If you deleted her, they [Potter and her parents] started harassing you. If you ran into them in the grocery store, you had an altercation with them. It was an on-going thing with these people.” Saddest in all this (as if the patheticness of Jenelle and her parents isn’t enough), is that the 9 month son of Billie Jean and Billy Clay is now an orphan – found crying in his dead mother’s arms.

OVER A FACEBOOK DEFRIENDING.

The level of attachment and importance of that website in people’s lives is on display every minute of every day.  It runs from innocent connections and fun between friends/acquaintances to the almost pathological pursuit of attention.

OK, ok, kill the word “almost.”

And I am not talking about the once-in-a-blue-moon posting of something like “Sigh.”  Although that is absolutely intended to bring the support out in droves as people assault your wall with “What’s wrong?”  “Are you ok?”  “Can I kill someone for you?”

No, I am referring to the constant posting of every imagined slight, doctor’s appointment (where apparently EVERY doctor is an idiot and EVERY nurse is a Ratchet wannabe who hates you), boyfriend/girlfriend tiff, and the constant airing of seriously soiled laundry for the masses.

Honestly –  does the world need to view the skid marks of your personal familial interactions?  There is a messaging function on Facebook whereby you can communicate about your intense hatred for a relative without involving the rest of the world, or the object of the fiery red hate.  Or keep it confined to one another’s walls.  When you take it to the News Feed, there is a term for that: PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE.

As for being friended or defriended?  If you hang your adult hat and ego on how many friends you have on your Wall then your life needs an evaluation and if your wittle feewings cannot handle a defriending with grace and forward motion, then stop soliciting gifts in Yoville and seek counselling.

A student today asked me to help him, just days before the exam. He was trying to do the 2013 Music response about language features and how used for effect. So, I did this for him.

Now read Source 3, ‘Music Studio’ an extract from a brochure advertising activity holidays for Teenagers. How does the writer use language features in the brochure?

Source 3 is presented as a leaflet for young, budding musicians of a teen audience who are aiming to make a way in the music industry, or who just want to improve their skills on their given instrument.

The writer uses a range of features from adjectives to imperatives in an attempt to get the reader to join the event taking place, trying to argue that if the reader wants the best, then they have to use this service.

For example, the writer begins with rhetorical questions to begin each section. The use of words like “what’s it all about” and “you are here” denote a young readership intent on success as musicians. Coupled with the promise of “trained and experienced music technicians” in the description of what is available makes this sound too good to miss for any budding musician.

The writer also uses lots of subject specific language in the assumption that the reader will understand fully what is being stated. Examples of this are “hip hop,” “house” and “garage” when referring to music as a genre. Only the very aware musically would be able to associate this use of language with something positive. An older reader for example would respond cynically to such words.

Other language features that are used are the use of the word “you” in both its contexts. The writer uses the word in the singular style, asking the reader a personal question, but the piece is aimed at every reader, not just one. This is a technique used by writers to employ persuasion over the reader. In this way, the young man or woman feels that they are a part of a readership and should respond positively.

The use of the imperative exclamation mark at the end of the second section illustrates the persuasion happening in the piece. It is saying that if you go on this holiday, then “you can pack in loads of other experiences too!” Such language only reinforces the use of the word “you” in the ways it is being used, along with the rhetoric applied, resulting in many a young reader feeling that this holiday is just the thing they are looking for.

Finally, there is one phrase that fully illustrates the persuasive power of this piece of writing and that is the use of the word “specialist” at the bottom. By the time the reader, as young as they are, get to the bottom, they will feel like they are indeed, specialists in the music field in need of some further training. Couple that with a holiday and you have the dream young musician’s holiday!

When you get to section B, there can be all sorts of things they ask you to do. One student decided to do a “describe” task as a story. Here it is….

My phone rang as I negotiated the tricky part of the run, hard left, just skirting the rocks, shit, that was close. Then right through the middle of two huge pines, sentries guarding the last of the shadowy woods and finally out into the brilliant sunshine, the snow all around reflecting the dazzling light back to the heavens.

“Pronto” I tried to answer in my best Italian, my chest still heaving, desperately searching for oxygen in the cold, rarefied mountain air.

“We ave a parcel for you ere, Meester Opes , I tink whatever was in it is dead. Come very quickly please!”

I collected my parcel from the impossibly beautiful alpine chalet that was the Post Office, and walked back along the snow covered road, towards my apartment, the temperature dropping like a stone now the life giving Sun had dropped behind a craggy peak.

I had decided to do one last season as a Ski Instructor, and here, high, in the Italian Alps, I sat, on Christmas Eve, at the kitchen table of a Snow Covered Farmhouse and opened my Parcel.

The beauty of it took my breath away again, but the air I now sought for my lungs was now warm, the crackling log fire and it’s heady intoxicating pine fragrance saw to that.

It sat, truly magnificent, on the table, a prime chunk of fine English Stilton, defiant and proud in it’s new Italian surroundings. There was something else too, a twelve pack of Quavers and a note from my Brother, which simply said, “Enjoy”.

Happy tears welled from nowhere. Someone, so far away, cared enough to do this, my dearest brother, my love for him as warm as the crackling fire.

The door flew open, cold air rushed in to fight with the warm, and in tumbled, my two, far from unattractive, chalet mates, full, quite literally, of Christmas spirit!

“What you got there Mattie?” Amy giggled, her tanned skin glowing with soft firelight.

I must add at this point that It is well known in skiing circles that a Chalet Girl will, after half a season “in Resort” will do almost anything (in reality you can drop the almost) for a jar of Marmite, what would these do for a share of two pounds of finest Stilton and some Quavers (whilst Italian cuisine is amongst the best in the world, their crisps are mind blowingly bad!), it was party time!

We sat, with the balcony doors open, the twinkling lights of the resort stretched out like a Christmas Tree on massive scale, eating such a humble meal of cheese, cut with a penknife, fresh bread ripped, whilst still warm from the loaf and rough local Red wine from plastic beakers. Such a simple fare you could not imagine, the complexity of feelings however was indescribable.

The beauty of that rustic meal, the laughter, the comradeship of friends and the love of family will live with me forever.

Did the Stilton and Quavers work their magic with the Chalet girls? Well, that’s another story…

The news was expected yet brutal and shocking when it came.

My girlfriend (now wife) had bought a couple of really nice pieces of Sirloin Steak on the way home, a treat for us both on a dreary, February evening.

I set about seasoning them in preparation for cooking when the phone rang.

The normally welcoming sound so often bringing cheer, news and reassurance from dear friends and family now had an ominous, sinister and threatening tone.

I glanced at Hayley, who tried, and failed to smile reassuringly.

“You get it,” she said.

“It’s Dad, I have some bad news I’m afraid”. My fathers voice sounded calm, his ability even now, to make those around him feel safe shone through.

The rest of the conversation passed in a blur, key words rose and fell, driftwood on the swell.

Six months, respite care, nothing more can be done, comfortable, be strong.

I replaced the receiver, no words to my wife were needed, my face did not just tell a story, it told of a lifetime, now passing.

Tears would not come, only an impossible emptiness, yet being on a dizzying precipice I dared not peer over the edge.

I returned to the Kitchen and began to cook the steaks, why I have no idea. The thought of eating seemed so alien, such an impossibility, so wrong.

The smoking pan almost grabbed at the meat, finally having something to transfer its malevolent heat to, one rare, four minutes, one medium six minutes. Dad liked his well done, but I did not need to remember the cooking time, nor would I.

We ate in silence, and when the silence became too noisy, we made pleasantries; we even talked of late trains and what should be done.

The steak was beautiful, and I feel guilty remembering that till this day.

I was hungry but could not face eating, my wife urging me to try and eat a little more but every mouthful felt wrong, rebuilding my body whilst my father’s wasted away would never again seem right.

Years and many, many meals  have passed since. Some people are missing from the table of life, but where they sat new, small mouths fill the void. Life on a plate.

As part of a lesson tonight, I asked my students to think about the best meal they had ever tasted and the worst. It was based on a previous paper and so, they had to sit down for 25 minutes and write an article for a foodie website, telling about their best and worst meal experience.

This is mine and it took me 15 minutes……..eat yer heart out Gordon Ramsey.

The Best and The Worst

It was the best of worlds. It was the worst of worlds. It was the best meal I have ever tasted and yet, it was the worst, for I have never suffered so much from one meal time than on that day way back in the last century.

I was a young lad, a trusting teenager, a lad who could eat his way through the front end of a donkey, let alone the back end and on this day, I met my match in the indomitable form of Mama Romero and her culinary delights in St Etienne du Rouvray, northern France. She was my brother’s mother in law and let me tell you this, Gordon Ramsey and Heston Bloominthing had nothing on this lady. She could blow them out of the kitchen with a single beat of her wooden spoon. For she was and remains to this day, the lady who managed to out face this young piglet of a man in one sitting.

Imagine for a moment sitting down to a meal and thinking how wonderful this rustic French cuisine will be; home cooking at its French/Algerian best. Imagine sitting there thinking you could eat anything they threw at you and you would get somewhere close to my mentality on that day.

But I was wrong, for she cooked what turned out to be a ten course family meal, using aperitifs and starters that blew your palate apart with that glossy garlicky flavour. I was hooked from the very first bite. I devoured every little morsel and when she saw how much I was enjoying it, sampling robust French red wines per course, she asked me if I wanted some more. I answered in the affirmative rapidly on each occasion and before long, my brother was trying to warn me to slow down.

Did I listen? You guessed it right…

The first course slid effortlessly into the second and third; a fish dish to simply astound you in a ragout like sauce that to this day, defies all logic and sensitivities. The smooth, glossy and wonderful texture of that sauce as it went down is a taste sensation that I remember to this day, nearly four decades later. Then came the garlic potatoes and the Coquille St Jacques, or was it the other way around? I am not sure now as one thing effortlessly glided into the next and my stomach began to groan under the volume of food.

Papa Romero made comments about how much my liking of the food was a compliment to the chef at the time and she beamed that lovely smile she always had, serving up one thing after another in oblivious delight. By the time the sorbets and the dessert courses had been devoured, I had gone way past the ‘full’ stage and was heading into dangerous territory, somewhere this lad’s belly had never been, before or since.

You see, the trouble was that I did not, and still do not, know when to say enough is enough. And when you consider the different textures going down with all that magnificent Munster cheese, the smelliest but most gorgeous thing I know to come from a cow, you begin to see why it can be considered the worst meal.

I loved every second of it but as I climbed the stairs of their house to my bed, I knew I was in trouble and you know, I do not think I ate another thing for three days. The struggle to keep the food down was immense, but I would not succumb. I must have had 10,000 calories in that one magnificent meal, but I also know that if I had the chance all over again, I would still not want to make her feel awful and would still eat it all in the same way.

Well, perhaps every course, but not double portions! That perhaps, was a mistake, but one I remember now, with fondness and affection. It was after all, the best of meals and the worst of meals, all because my eyes are bigger than my belly. If you ever want to know just how glorious it was, go out to a swanky French restaurant and order the Coquille St Jacques.

That alone will astound you!

Have a look at this and look at how it is written. Who knows, you may be asked to write something about the provision in society for the young in the exam this year. It is a topic that has not been in the exam in recent years, so I am expecting something aimed at the 15 year old market this year.

After all, the majority of people taking the exam will be 15 or 16.