Awake, for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts
the stars to flight.
And, lo, has caught the sultan’s turret in a noose of light!

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable – Christopher Howse: ‘A Pilgrim in Spain’

Cosas de España/Galicia

Mark Stücklin gives us a brief history of rental controls and their efficacy in Spain.

A sweet spot for the economy: Spain’s politics are increasingly dysfunctional but its economy is performing strongly.

An interesting article on the Bank of Spain. Honest.

Definitely not good news . . . Pv city features on this list of the best cities in Spain. But the inclusion of Vigo at a higher level will infuriate the denizens of my adopted city, who look down on that upstart.

The EU

The fulcrum of Europe is starting to look less stable. Germany and France, the founders and former powerhouses of the European Union, are starting to be eclipsed by their southern neighbours. The diverging performance of Europe’s sovereign bonds reflects a new truth about the single currency area. Its largest and formerly mightiest economies, France and Germany, have become its weakest links, often at the expense of a resurgent south.

The USA

The Way of the World

Out of work and unwell: the worrying rise of young people on benefits. Data shows increasing numbers in rich countries turning to welfare

Net Zero

Europeans cool on heat pumps. Sales of alternatives to gas boilers drop across EU amid dwindling subsidies

English/Spanish

My 5 year-old grandson was telling us about the failed attempts of a friend to climb onto some logs in a playground. He reported that she’d said ‘It doesn’t come out’. This is the English version of the Spanish phrase ‘No me sale’, meaning here ‘It’s not possible/I can’t do it’. As ‘No sale’ alone means, inter alia, ‘It doesn’t work’.

Did you know?

The German Kaiser signed the declaration of war against Russia on a table forged from oak from Nelson’s ship, the Victory.

Just for clarification, it was the piece of paper on the table, of course, not the Kaiser.

You Have to Laugh

One for the classicists . . .

Finally . .

MY YEAR IN THE SEYCHELLES

• Episode 1: 12 September 2024: Why VSO?
• Episode 2: 13 September 2024: The Leaving of Liverpool
• Episode 3: 14 September 2024: An interlude: The Seychelles back then
• Episode 4: 14 September 2024: Departure, Nairobi and Arrival
• Episode 5: 15 September 2024: Arriving in MombasE
• Episode 6: 16 September 2024: The YCWA in Mombasa
• Episode 7: 17 September 2024: The flight to Mahé
• Episode 8: 18 September 2024: Our Arrival
• Episode 9: 19 September 2024: Early Days
• Episode 10: 20 September 2024: My Colleagues and Some Early Adventures
• Episode 11: 21 September 2024: Mr Warren and Me
• Episode 12: 22 September 2024: Chris Green
• Episode 13: 23 September 2024 The Hotel des Seychelles
• Episode 14: 24 September 2024: A Night to Remember
• Episode 15: 25 September 2024: Visitors
• Episode 16: 26 September 2024: Dr McGregor and Me
• Episode 17: 26 September 2024: Dr McGregor and Me 2

Episode 18: Teaching Duties

My year in the Seychelles was to be as a teacher in Seychelles College, a Catholic all-boys school run by monks dressed in white – probably of the Religious Teaching Order of Frères Mariste. These had come to the islands in 1884 but, when I arrived, there were only 2 or 3 of them on the teaching staff.

The headmaster was Canadian and a handsome, affable chap who seemed to enjoy the company of women. Years later I was told that he’d been something of an impostor and might even have been a model for a film starring Leonardo di Caprio, unlikely as this might seem now. Anyway, he was sacked not long after I’d left the islands.

I greatly enjoyed teaching and most days were very fulfilling. But I did have one particularly bad day at the office, which I’ll come to later.

The college, by the way, had a nice little library and it was here that I somehow learned of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam and the wonderful – but very free – translation of Edward Fitzgerald. Little did I know then that, within a few years, I’d be learning Persian(Farsi) on an intensive course in London, prior to living 3 great years in Tehran.

I was down to teach French, Science, and English. I was happy about teaching English but not about Science. Back in my secondary school, I’d hated both Chemistry and Physics, each of which had been taught by a poor teacher, with the inevitable impact on the exam results of the pupils.

The Chemistry teacher was more than a tad nasty and liked to strap unruly pupils like me. He was nicknamed Cheyenne, after a character in a TV cowboy series of that name. I was never sure why he’d got this soubriquet. Perhaps because he was thin and blond, like the lead actor Clint Walker. Or perhaps it was sarcasm born of his skinniness. Now I think of it, this was more likely.

The Physics teacher was a fat Scotsman, who ’taught’ us by reading line by line from our textbook, so that we could laboriously copy it down into our ‘jotters’. From time to time, he’d tell us we were all useless and would all soon be ‘sucking sorrow from the spoon of grief’, in a Scottish accent of course, which turned ‘sorrow’ into ‘sorrah’. Oddly, he seemed to relish this prospect. We disliked him a lot.

I loved teaching English, even though there were no text books. The kids responded well to the games we played and to my little lectures. The outstanding pupil was a little Indian boy whose father once complained to me that he didn’t think his son was doing well enough and then invited me to dinner so that we could discuss this. At this, I failed to convince him that his son was doing very well indeed. Relatively to the others at least. He just never draw the line under his essay titles with a ruler, no matter how many times I asked him to do this.

This dinner was the first time I’d had a real Indian meal and also the first time I’d had a purely vegetarian meal, which I enjoyed greatly. Which is more than I can say for the glass of liquid natural yoghurt. As I’d never even drunk milk, it’s not surprising that, after forcing it down, I threw it up in the toilet. Which they surely heard.

As for French, I’d studied this for 6 years, so what could possibly go wrong?

Well, the first problem was that – as with English – there were no textbooks available. They’d been ordered for the start of the school year but, like our mopeds, were yet to arrive.

So, for my first French lesson, I decided to give dictation. A huge mistake. Firstly, my aural French was so poor that the A Level examiner of our oral skills had been forced – after 3 attempts in French – to resort to English in telling me to send in the next pupil.

The second problem was that the kids were all Creoles, speaking a patois that had developed in the 18th century by mixing French and the languages of African slaves. But they thought they spoke real French. And they found my accent laughable. Very laughable. As they didn’t hide this, you can imagine how I felt after my first lesson. Naturally, the were never given dicté again. At least, not by me.

For teaching science, there was a classroom – the ‘lab’- which had a wide dais for the teacher, so that all the kids below it could see the experiments being shown in front of the rows of desks. It was here that I had a very bad day at the office.

For this lesson, I’d assembled all the equipment necessary to show, in one fell swoop, all the qualities of hydrogen, viz. that it’s a colourless, odourless and flammable gas.

The theory went that I would generate hydrogen by dropping hydrochloric acid on zinc. The gas emerging would then pass through a mixture of soapy water and rise through the neck of the bell jar, emerging as a soapy bubble which would float off into the air. I would apply a lighted match to this and it would pop.

Everything went well at first. The gas was generated and, in due course, passed through the soapy water and upwards, creating the desired bubbles at the top of the jar. But, instead of rising, one by one they all slid down the neck of the jar, preventing me from showing that hydrogen was both lighter than air and flammable.

After a while, and with the kids getting restless, I decided not to wait any longer for a bubble to float upwards but to apply the match to the next one which emerged, before it could slide downwards.

When I did this, the combustible quality of hydrogen was amply demonstrated, as the entire glass set-up immediately exploded.

There was, of course, shock and utter silence. Astonishingly, neither I nor any of the kids were injured. But, bewilderingly, all the equipment had disappeared. As it hadn’t hit me or any of the pupils, I was dumbfounded. Relieved and immensely grateful, of course, but completely dumbfounded.

I looked around the dais but could see no glass fragments. But then I gazed upwards and saw that all the ex-equipment was embedded in the ceiling. Rather fortunately, this was clad with tiles of polystyrene foam.

Of course, I had to confess to the headmaster and I was never allowed into the lab ever again.

At the end of the year, there was a demonstration of the impact of poor teachers on their charges.

I had taught Science to both the A and B streams of the first year of 11 year-olds. All of my B class kids had passed their exams in this but only 3 or 4 of my A class pupils had done so. From the stage in the Assembly Hall, the head master berated the latter, stressing they were supposed to be the brighter pupils and that they clearly needed to work harder. I stood at the back of the hall, saying to myself ‘It ain’t their fault: it’s mine’. This was because, after the humiliating debacle of the first lesson, I’d never really gained their respect. Even though I’d taught them English too.

Years later, in the USA, I heard a saying which reminded me of this valuable lesson – A fish begins to stink from the head . . .

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My thanks to those readers who take the trouble to Like my posts, either after reading on line or in my FB group Thoughts from Galicia.

The Usual Links . . .

• You can get my posts by email as soon as they’re published. With the added bonus that they’ll contain the typos I’ll discover later. I believe there’s a box for this at the bottom of each post. If you do this but don’t read the posts, I will delete your subscription. So perhaps don’t bother if you have other reasons for subscribing . . .
• For new readers: If you’ve landed here looking for info on Galicia or Pontevedra, try here. If you’re passing through Pontevedra on the Camino, you’ll find a guide to the city there.
• For those thinking of moving to Spain:– This is an extremely comprehensive and accurate guide to the challenge, written by a Brit who lives in both the North and the South and who’s very involved in helping Camino walkers. And this is something on the so-called Beckham Rule, which is beneficial – tax-wise – for folk who want to work here. Finally, some advice on getting a mortgage. And this article ‘debunks claims re wealth and residency taxes’. Probably only relevant if you’re a HNWI. In which case, you’ll surely know what that stands for.