Ponderings following a conversation yesterday...

In randomly good news, I actually don't feel like a tearful pile of soggy tissue today. I am absolutely shattered after sitting up until 1.10 am to watch the end of 'SWAT' featuring Colin Farrell (I know) but I'm not tearful, and I'm actually feeling mildly positive about the world.

This is a radical improvement on how I've been for the last week, and makes me very happy.

In other news, a conversation I was having yesterday has gotten me thinking, and I'd like to throw a theoretical situation at you all.

Imagine you're a primary school teacher. You have a class of twenty children. In your class you've noticed that three or four of the more popular and confident kids seem to be picked on the least popular kid in class. They have been calling him 'Speccy' and 'Uggo' (look - they may be popular - that doesn't mean they are imaginative!) and occasionally 'Scumbo'. There is no violence - just the name calling. It is obviously upsetting the child in question - you've heard he's been crying in the toilets at break, and his school work is definitely beginning to suffer.

[Poll #1093100]

( The point of this story )

Ponderings following a conversation yesterday...

In randomly good news, I actually don't feel like a tearful pile of soggy tissue today. I am absolutely shattered after sitting up until 1.10 am to watch the end of 'SWAT' featuring Colin Farrell (I know) but I'm not tearful, and I'm actually feeling mildly positive about the world.

This is a radical improvement on how I've been for the last week, and makes me very happy.

In other news, a conversation I was having yesterday has gotten me thinking, and I'd like to throw a theoretical situation at you all.

Imagine you're a primary school teacher. You have a class of twenty children. In your class you've noticed that three or four of the more popular and confident kids seem to be picked on the least popular kid in class. They have been calling him 'Speccy' and 'Uggo' (look - they may be popular - that doesn't mean they are imaginative!) and occasionally 'Scumbo'. There is no violence - just the name calling. It is obviously upsetting the child in question - you've heard he's been crying in the toilets at break, and his school work is definitely beginning to suffer.

[Poll #1093100]

( The point of this story )

*sad thoughts*

My grandfather just died.

I called him Grandad when I was little, but as I grew older I, and my sisters, took to calling him 'OM', short for 'Old Man', which was what my aunt (his daughter) always called him. He was 92 when he died, having lived a really extraordinary life.

He was one of the first scientists to research the ozone layer. He delivered the first ever paper on the subject to the UN, back in the 1950s, and lived long enough to attend a conference held to mark the fiftieth anniversary of this at Oxford University. He was also one of the first scientists to address the UN on some of the issues thrown up by the development on the atomic bomb - specifically what effect these bombs had on the atmosphere and stratosphere.

He was a professor at Oxford University, MIT, and the University of Toronto.

He was a professor of meteorology, a highly skilled carpenter, and was a professional farmer for many years, keeping herds of sheep and cattle at his gorgeous farm in Devon until his late 70s.

He also kept several gallon drums of arsenic in his garden shed. He claimed it was to help his arthritis. No one knew why he needed quite so much, nor why he asked my sister if she could fetch him a small bottle of it when he was confined to a nursing home last year.

He feuded relentlessly with his neighbours over the boundary line between their houses, ultimately deciding to take matters into his own hands. He chopped down the boundary fence with a chainsaw. What was particularly alarming about this was that he was 90 years old at the time, and allegedly only able to walk with a zimmer frame.

He loathed the concept of taxation, and therefore always insisted on addressing all letters to the Inland Revenue with such phrases as 'To the Bloodsucking Leeches of the Government'. They always replied quite politely, which didn't deter him from continuing with his letter writing campaigns.

He only stopped doing handbrake turns in his car when he was in his seventies. He remained, however, a truly terrifying driver. I still remember with terror the one time he drove me from my home in Lambourn to the train station, twenty minutes away.

He was, in many ways, incredibly eccentric. I always thought that was because he was a genius, and that was what they did. I admired him, I loved him, and I will miss him terribly.

Rest in peace, OM.

*sad thoughts*

My grandfather just died.

I called him Grandad when I was little, but as I grew older I, and my sisters, took to calling him 'OM', short for 'Old Man', which was what my aunt (his daughter) always called him. He was 92 when he died, having lived a really extraordinary life.

He was one of the first scientists to research the ozone layer. He delivered the first ever paper on the subject to the UN, back in the 1950s, and lived long enough to attend a conference held to mark the fiftieth anniversary of this at Oxford University. He was also one of the first scientists to address the UN on some of the issues thrown up by the development on the atomic bomb - specifically what effect these bombs had on the atmosphere and stratosphere.

He was a professor at Oxford University, MIT, and the University of Toronto.

He was a professor of meteorology, a highly skilled carpenter, and was a professional farmer for many years, keeping herds of sheep and cattle at his gorgeous farm in Devon until his late 70s.

He also kept several gallon drums of arsenic in his garden shed. He claimed it was to help his arthritis. No one knew why he needed quite so much, nor why he asked my sister if she could fetch him a small bottle of it when he was confined to a nursing home last year.

He feuded relentlessly with his neighbours over the boundary line between their houses, ultimately deciding to take matters into his own hands. He chopped down the boundary fence with a chainsaw. What was particularly alarming about this was that he was 90 years old at the time, and allegedly only able to walk with a zimmer frame.

He loathed the concept of taxation, and therefore always insisted on addressing all letters to the Inland Revenue with such phrases as 'To the Bloodsucking Leeches of the Government'. They always replied quite politely, which didn't deter him from continuing with his letter writing campaigns.

He only stopped doing handbrake turns in his car when he was in his seventies. He remained, however, a truly terrifying driver. I still remember with terror the one time he drove me from my home in Lambourn to the train station, twenty minutes away.

He was, in many ways, incredibly eccentric. I always thought that was because he was a genius, and that was what they did. I admired him, I loved him, and I will miss him terribly.

Rest in peace, OM.