Personal Blogs

Fig. 1 Amongst the many official tributes a personal commemoration of three brothers killed in the First World War

Lewes memorial remembers some 360 names; they've been pinned to specific addresses within walking distance of the memorial. In Southover Ward for the 75th anniversary a book was published detailing the lives of each person - their school record, photo and home and other information, such as playing cricket for the local team or where they worked.

Fig.2. Lewes Town Hall War Memorial

Will anyone remember us a hundred years after we have died?

Just as it is important for us to forget as a learning process and challenge, should society forget, filter or edit? Does commemoration in glorify war with its nationalistic, militaristic and religious connotations?

From Profile Photos

Fig.1 Mork and Jonny

Promoted to being a 'school prefect' in my late teens and required to keep a line of 11 year olds in order during assembly I repeatedly heard mutterings of "Nanno Nanno" : 'Mork and Mindy' was on TV at the time and I supposedly looked like the main character. Only by doing that thing that Robin Williams did with his fingers when greeting Ork would this lot be satisfied. That was1979. 

35 years later I'm in the Senior Common Room at the University of Birmingham and a fellow graduate student asks "Do you know who you look like?" (we'd obviously got bored with talking about the First World War). I tell the above story. Whether or not hair or glasses or smirk are similar I am a) not as hairy b) not funny c) six inches taller d) manic, but never depressed e) English ... though I am inclined to play the fool from time to time. 

I'm polite when people say 'do I know you?'

From E-Learning IV

Fig. 1 M25 traffic - on a good day

This was for a 135 mile journey, mostly M23, M25 and M40. I've done worse : 27 mph the same journey. Sometimes you wonder whether to take the car out or not. Crawling around the M25 has become my recurring nightmare : you've got to plan for lengthy delays with a tank of fuel, water and grub. At least I had our teenage son with me so I got to hear and ask about a substantial part of his iTunes playlist. And an automatic - a few years of stop starting in jams made me a convert. I'll have a self-driving car please then climb in the back to sleep, read, watch a movie or go online.

This BBC Radio 4 drama serial has now run for three years. We are coming to the end I fear as Samuel Pepys gives up his diary. Hasving caught many, if not most of the episodes over the last few years I found this one the must stunning, memorable and relevant. It simply confirms what I have always felt about people, whether we shift in time or place: we are fundamentally the same and will pass through a series of mishaps and moments that become our lives. So tender this one, with Kris Marshal and Katherine Jakeways beautifully bringing to life a laugh out loud, cry to the core script from Hattie Naylor. I can't wait for the TV series and the movie. DON'T ever bother with the diaries themselves - in translation from his code they are what most diaries tend to be - routine and dull with occasional moments of naughtiness and disaster that are lost in the bulk of the text. Hattie Nayloy has revisioned it as a poignant and funny 17th century soap.

15 Minute DramaThe Diary of Samuel Pepys, Episode 5

Sam and Elizabeth are enjoying the sights of Paris, when Elizabeth is suddenly taken ill.

Fig. 1 Five Lasers, like butterflies

Helming the boat that set the buoys for this race (it's called 'Ark') I got this shot and likened it to butterflies in the back garden. I so wanted to be out there competing in the race and juggling my inabilities to control the dinghy, but got a thrill from this moment all the same with this imbalance of boats. One getting away, the others heading towards the buoy.

My turn next week.

I've done 12 hours on a 'pond' in various winds on a Laser so feel ready for the sea, and ready for bruises, muscle pain, a dunking: ready too for managed risk: I will have on a wet suit and lifejacket. I will have a pouch containing an inhaler (asthmatic) and water.

I like danger. I need the physical and mental thrills I so enjoyed in my 'youth'. I prefer a challenge. I want to be hit with a stick and offered a carrot. The OU equivalent of the written exam and recognition of success: TMAs are too infrequent for essay writing to become a way of life, whilst EMAs lack the danger and challenge of an examination.

'Ark' is a bit of a tug, a diesel engined quasi-fishing vessel on which the day's race buoys are kept - hunking great things on a long length of rope with a chain and anchor attached. It has a VHS radio so you call back and forth to your harbour of departure and the Race Officer in the clubhouse and RIBS in the bay.

Seven years since I was last on the thing I had with me a cushion I grabbed from the sofa at home not thinking why I did this ... until in the chop I recalled how I had broken my coccyx training to do this when I had bounced off the rubbery side of the RIB and landed on the anchor: twice. Broken coccyx. Imagine how they test for this in A&E? Basically someone prods you up the arse and if you scream there's a problem. This problem then turns into 'there's nothing we can do'. But here's a rubber-ring you may like to have to sit on for the next six weeks ... or don't sit down????

You live and learn, or rather learn through giving things a go until you can get it right enough.

Fig.1. Sam Pepys - the 17th century 'Alfie'

The devious and duplicity of Samuel Pepys has him with two different ladies this week, both times trying to dodge his wife and keep his man servant Will otherwise occupied while he ... I forget the phrase, but it sounds more like eating a second portion of cake. Having followed this since 2011 I have to wonder if there will ever be a CD or Podcast. Catch this final series in the next 7 days.

Wonderfully evocative, better than any TV miniseries from Netflix, Blinkbox or Amazon Prime. Just as visual. Not so violent. Far more rauncy.

Samuel Pepys

Fig. 1. Windguru

I'm always amazed at how much information can be put onto a screen; here, Windguru gives you in a glance the weather and especially the wind forecast in relation to windsurfing and kite boarding - strong winds are vital. It is just an aid to forecasting, though I have found it remarkably accurate, that wind strengths and directions do in reality shift pretty much according to the forecast. This greatly assists with planning a sailing trip - too strong or too weak and I keep away.

Fig.1. Tom Dailey winning Commonwealth Gold

Tom Dailey talks about his bid for a medal the the Rio Olympics, about distractions like school and TV work, and also his desire to do a course, such as Spanish. 

"Because I'm not doing any school any more and I haven't got any TV shows, possibly I want to start a course in Spanish, sociology, politics, something like that, just to keep my mind away from it.

"If your mind is constantly on diving, it will melt. It's always good to have a distraction from it."

It sounds like he should be introduced to the Open University; there were a few Olympic competitors on courses a few years ago. What could be more flexible?

Is it a distraction? Is studying complementary to the day job or daily life?

Any other competitive athletes out there?

I'm still with the OU for a couple of reasons:

• 1) I love learning and the OU method and platform
• 2) Anything to keep me away from the TV is a good thing
• 3) In the case of French I've always wanted to, and at one stage needed to crack written French.

Fig.1 So much for trying to grow broccoli

I thought picking them off would do. Now I've used a chemical spray So much for trying get nature to manage my veg patch. There is no cost saving whatsoever; the plot is too small. There are fresh veggies which so far appear in gluts. I can only assume that each year I'll learn and understand a bit more, and every year have to deal with quite different seasonal weather conditions. 

What is this? Cabbage white? What's the answer?

Fig. 1. Poster commemorating the bombing of Hiroshima for Japan, 1985. Ivan Chermayeff, de la warr pavilion, Bexhill.

Trip FIVE to this exhibition, this time with my brother-in-law, is imminent. What I adore about exhibitions here is that they are 'bitesize' and smart; they are a perfect 'mind burst'. They are the ideal repeat show too as with each visit you see more, and see differently ... and are influenced of course by the person you are with.

The right image says what each viewer sees in it.

This idea naturally translates into any and every conflict we see today: MH17, fractured and not yet stuck together, the Middle East utterly smashed into dust - I have this visual in my head of Hanukkah Lamp, the smoke from which forms a fractured map of Israel and Palestine. 

From E-Learning IV

From a learning point of view to start with a poster such as this is to follow Robert Gagne theory of learning design; also the natural skill of storytellers and good communications: get their attention.

 Fig. 1 My big sister and me

'Preach to the converted' is the mantra of advertising; increasingly it should the mantra of e-learning. Give potential students what they want in a way that they are already open to. Don't force feed platforms and tools that are foreign to them, nor pander to the book, pen and notebook when by its very nature if you are learning online you are in front of a computer screen. Blended learning is how it is. Increasingly there is no 'e' - it is simply learning in the 21st century.

'Preach to the converted' ties into the need to know who your students are - in all their diversity. There's a bunch of personas used by the Open University to help with this. We're a handful of shifting types across a spectrum of some 12 personas. This helps educators design for hidden, massive audiences.

Fig.2. The Santorini Museum

Big Sis and me both wanted a book from the Santorini Museum.  

We'd done the Akrotiri excavation and did the museum in our separate ways (family event on the island with people arriving at different times and staying in different place. When we met up we agreed immediately at the frustration at no having a shop at either location. You whet your appetite on a subject are ripe for a bit more. I even started looking for a two week course on Archaeology in Future Learn. No book. Not much of a website. Ample content with each artefact. 

Visitors to museums are converts; not just easy to sell postcards and tea-towels too, but ready to learn and suckers not just for 'the book', but just as prepared to come to the talk, even, these days, to sign up to a taster course.

Fig. 1. The British Empire - this from 1937, but as apt for the First World War as it is for the Commonwealth Games.

"A handful of belligerent political leaders, primarily in Berlin, but also in Vienna, exploited the murder of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand to pursue their long-held belief in Germany’s need for a world policy ‘Welpolitik’, even the right to world power ‘Weltmachtstellung’ . Their machinations, deviousness , obfuscations and at times ineptitude and delusions , led Britain’s leaders, reluctantly, in August 1914, once all efforts at mediation had failed, and enough of Britain’s divided cabinet could unite after Germany’s invasion of Belgium, to go to war when Germany failed to respond to Britain’s 4 August 1914 ultimatum".

This is the introduction to a 4000 word piece (see attached).

Tutor comments, further re-reading of Christopher Clarke's 'The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914' since and the cornucopia of BBC output, especially the 'First World War Day by Day' by the precise and authoritative Margaret Macmillan over the last three months would lead me to make a significant, though in word count, minor tweak: both Russia and France are culpable. The British Empire, with a world dominating navy on the one hand and a colonial police force of an army on the other, had no desire to enter a war in continental Europe except to honour Belgium neutrality and limit, prevent or curtail German hegemony.

Such adjustments would have tipped the final grade by at least the one point required for a distinction: I'm too belligerent for such things  

I had hoped or felt that behaviour of a few in Germany was so reprehensible that it cancelled out what leaders and politicians were up to in Russia and France, nor do I like the title 'Sleepwalkers' as the people who too Europe to war were far, far from sleepwalking - they were risk-taking, power-seeking, agitators. 

Enjoy. Do share you thoughts as we enter the very moments, day by day, that 100 years ago, took Britain and Europe and the World into a war that STILL has consequences today: Syria, Palestine, Middle East, Ukraine ... even little things like Newfoundland giving up independence to join Canada. 

My external look at this period is called 'That's Nothing Compared to Passchendaele' - the phrase my late grandfather used in 1991 when I was watching the TV news on the First Gulf War with him; well into his nineties and a First World War machine gunner and RFC pilot he had strong views on the matter: I took notes. I'm currently working on a comparative history of Passchendaele and the Gulf War.

Fig.1 Chair and shade

It was like being back at school: though the ratio of 15 women to 3 men felt like I'd gatecrashed the girl school's class down the road; I was educated in all male schools from 4 to 19. Of the 15 two were under 20, two were under 30 and the others above 60 and 70. No difference. Just like school. I recognised this swimming with Masters that given any opportunity to be the child that we were we are.

My relationship with art is an odd one: a mother who taught art, had an MA from Durham University in Fine Art, but who discounted at as a career for any of her children. I took it as far as A'levels (under her tutelage).

In 90 minutes we has some history, so thoughts on kit, then we got on with it. I found a secluded spot in the central courtyard (Jerwood Gallery, Hastings). And picked first on the climbing plants on a wall, and then the chair I'd taken out of the class. My challenge was to look at different ways of adding shade. Eventually I found that changing from pen to cotton balls and ink would differentiate between the object and the shadow. This'll take further work.

Other learning opportunities over the last few days have included:

Power Boat II (Refresher)

It is eight or more years since I did the course and seven years since I've been in a power boat. A bit of it came back. And new stuff was added. I need this so that I can operate a 'rib' during 'racing week' at the local sailing club: laying the course, keeping an eye on the fleet to rescue and assist. The sea can be choppy, the winds strong. Dinghies go over and their mast can pin them to the shallow sand and grit of Seaford Bay.

How to train a pigeon

In her wisdom my daughter has rescued a pigeon with a broken wing. The RSPB and animal sanctuaries aren't interest. 'Ralph' is now accommodated in a garden shed; shits everywhere but is eating from my daughter's hand. Muggins will be looking after it shortly of course. The volume of pebble-dash shit is impressive as every shit is onto a fresh patch of shed floor - it will be one shit deep, like a carpet by the weekend.

Graphic Design

The exhibition on the designer Ivan Chermeoff at the De La Warr is so good I've been back three times. There is no book on this exhibition, though many of his books are nailed to a table to admire (the page it has been opened at), with a few books you can browse. There is an insightful video too - an interview with the designer talking about how he got into fine art and graphic design from an inspiration father. One of the things he talks about is 'learning to see'. Had photography not been banned I would not have got out a pad of paper and looked more closely at his collages. Had I not taken such a close look I wouldn't have seen, with magical surprise, that one was made from ephemera collected at the inauguration of JFKennedy as US President on January 20 1961.