I probably hold more than my fair share of unpopular opinions, but perhaps my most egregiously unpopular opinion is about PE, and specifically how PE teachers should divide a class into two teams. The basic options, obviously are either the teacher selects each side themselves, or else they appoint team captains who then take in turns to pick. As someone who was profoundly rubbish at PE – and therefore one of the kids destined to be picked either last or at least fairly close to the bottom – I know that I’m “supposed” to prefer the former. But, hand on heart, I always preferred having team captains decide.
My reasoning was simple: I was never particularly trying to be “good” at PE, but like most people I did want to avoid social ostracism, and it always seemed to me that a really, really good way of annoying those who were bigger and stronger than me was to be the reason they lost a football match. With the best will in the world, one PE teacher is probably not going to divide a class as evenly as two highly motivated team captains. And even if they could, the stronger players on the team have still been “burdened” with the weakest player, whereas making your own decisions should hopefully induce some pleasantly low expectations of your final picks. After all, you chose them last for a reason!
Unlike other school subjects, there should also be less risk of turning into a pure popularity contest. Most of the time, if you invite students to form their own working groups, there’s basically no reason not to just pick your friends. But in sport, as long as the captains have some genuine motivation to win, there’s at least a decent incentive to choose based on specific sporting merit.
Anyway, this line of reasoning was genuinely persuasive to me as a teenager, and I always felt like it worked out fine. But I also wasn’t close friends with either football team captains or PE teachers, so it did rest on some speculation about how they might be thinking. Imagine my excitement, then, when our lovely new neighbours come round for dinner one night, and one of them is a PE teacher! So I finally got to ask an insider: am I the only one who feels this way? How does he pick teams?
Long story short: yes, it turns out I am the only one who feels this way. “You’re the first person to ever say that”, he says, looking kind but also a bit puzzled. “In fact, I go to lots of conferences where we’re specifically told that being picked last for a team is the most common ‘worst memory’ from school, and that we should never do it.” Which is fair enough. The greatest happiness for the greatest number, etc. But I’m glad I snuck through just in time before this more enlightened policy took hold.
Talking of neighbours: Randi became by far the most popular person on our street during the eclipse, because she was the only one who’d snagged one of those hard-to-come-by glasses. I can confirm that the eclipse did look amazing when looking through them, and a significant upgrade on my 1999 Thorpe Park eclipse experience. Everyone relying solely on the cereal-box-and-foil approach seemed much more underwhelmed.
In the past few weeks I’ve hung out with Angela in Mayow Park and met up with Oliver and Abi for a great picnic in Regent’s Park. In the latter I was treated to some beautiful children’s books, while also appreciating the slightly defensive signs around the park saying something like “it might look like we’re breaking the hose pipe ban, but actually this water is from boreholes, honest!”. (The grass was not exactly thriving, so perhaps they need a few more?) After parting ways I also made an unscheduled ramble across the rough route of North London’s Mildmay line with the buggy, because its occupant had definitely earned a nap.
Randi and I also enjoyed a fun afternoon in a brilliantly-soundtracked bar in Wapping with Erin and Diva. This wasn’t the original plan, but after a heroic trek into London and multiple hours of trains in the summer heat, it turned out that Erin had confidently rung the bell of a house in a relatively distant part of London rather than our house, so we quickly improvised a new location. It was so good to see Erin again, and hopefully we won’t leave it so long next time.
And on the subject of infrequent meetups, we were also very happy to host Ermila for an evening last week during one of her London visits, collectively guzzling a healthy order of Nepalese food from the ever-reliable Gurkha’s in Sydenham. I feel like she’s now cycled through an entire generation of my family through these trips, like a 30-year flipbook.
The big family event in August, however, was Tess and Hugo’s wedding in Battersea Park. (Battersea Park! Somewhere we actually have a direct train route to, unlike most of my North London relatives. Such a turn-up for the books!) Anyway, route planning aside, the wedding was also a lot of fun, from the thoughtful and loving ceremony to the energetic lawn games and delicious buffet.
In terms of child development, we did discover that we’ve suddenly entered the “oh actually, maybe I should cry when I’m handed over to a relative, because perhaps I’m being kidnapped?” phase of life, which I’ve tried to explain is irrational if you consider the nursery bills they’d be bringing on themselves. Still, it was so lovely to see everyone (including some of Tess’s family who I haven’t seen since my visit to LA in 2011!) and to share our appreciation for such a wonderful couple.
And finally, I thought I’d leave you with this slightly-batty “General School Examination” English exam paper from 1949. It came to me as the resident family archivist (/person who owns a scanner) who volunteered to scan some documents found when my grandparents’ old flat was cleared out. The most magical of these papers are certainly my grandmother’s letters to her father from the early 1940s (“Mammy told me that you got me a bicycle, but try and send it over but hurry up”). They’re very cute, and also just sorta amazing to be physically holding over a kitchen counter over 80 years later. (Yes, this is why I get the archivist gigs.)
The exams, on the other hand, are a real Rorschach test. If you’re the sort of person who thinks we’ve been on a slow downward slope of civilisational collapse for years, you might read these and marvel at some of the knowledge which students (at least, some students!) were expected to have. I could not suggest the reasons for the importance of coal and steel making in the Donetz Basin. On the other hand, I feel like I could make a reasonable stab at writing “an autobiographical account of the day in the life of a cow”. And so, here it is, lifted straight from my family WhatsApp chat where I think it made people regret asking me to scan anything in the first place. I call it The Remains of the Hay:
The other day an incident occurred outside the barn. I did not witness it myself. I was stationed on the down slope of East Field, which does overlook the barn, but it is customary for Farmer to park one of the larger vehicles outside the barn, which blocks the view from the slope, and so I must rely only on what I heard. Farmer was shouting. This is not like Farmer, who is a gentle man. I did not see who he was shouting at, but Marie tells me that it had something to do with the sun. I do not think Marie heard this herself. I think Marie heard it from a magpie, although I have told her to be careful, as the magpies gossip.
Farmer always puts on a brave face, but I can tell when he is troubled. After the incident outside the barn, he was talking to another man during my inspection. I like to look my best for Farmer, but today all of Farmer’s attention was taken by the other man, and I think he did not notice the effort I had put into cleaning my tail. Marie says I worry too much about my tail, and about Farmer, but I notice Marie is always sure to keep her own tail in order.
The other man was not there with me and Farmer in the stall. He was on the telephone. Farmer can rely on me to remain discreet, which is why I did not tell Marie about the other man. I turned my best side for Farmer to brush, and as I did so, he told the man on the telephone that he did not want any god-damn-solar-panels on his farm. I mooed, because I wanted Farmer to know I was there for him, just as he has always been there for me. Farmer sighed. It must be very difficult to be Farmer, especially these days.
Marie thinks that there is nothing we can do for Farmer, and we must look to ourselves. This is the unravelling of things. I can feel it. But I keep quiet. I did not say anything to Marie about the god-damn-solar-panels. I have never seen a god-damn-solar-panel myself, but the man on the telephone told Farmer they were everywhere. Farmer said it was against nature. I wonder, if my calves had lived, if they could have helped Farmer. But now it is just me and Farmer and Marie. Tomorrow I will stand on the down slope of East Field again, and chew, and think.
