Nice people thread 2 - now even nicer

PasturesNew

Just a quickie... holiday let next door. Nightmare holidaymakers have been in it this week.... cleaner turned up to clean and it's a right pigsty. Had to call in further troops to get it cleared... and new bookers just arrived and have had to be sent off for some hours while the house is righted. Damaged furniture, pigsty of a garden, 5 full bags of beer bottles, smashed glass. Bet their regular neighbours were glad they got a week off!

Aspiring_Writer

PasturesNew wrote: »

I went right off English teachers when I was had to do a mock O level. I had to write a story. I thought it was a good story (I STILL DO!!). But I got a fail.... teacher's remarks were that the whole story was pants because I only revealed in the last sentence that the person was dead/had died in the house fire the story was describing ... and the teacher said that dead people can't write stories.

By the sound of it your English Teacher lacked a certain something in both teaching and imagination, from your previous post I agree, analysing a story does sometimes ruin it. But it is done in classrooms to encourage the pupil to learn how stories are written and teach them to discover their understanding, it leads to healthy debate and, hopefully, a love of reading in general.

Before I go, my form tutor made me write an essay once, for atonement of some misdemeanour or other.The title? ...

"Life Inside A Ping-Pong Ball"

500 words, I would love to read that now.

Davesnave

Aspiring_Writer wrote: »

Before I go, my form tutor made me write an essay once, for atonement of some misdemeanour or other.The title? ...

"Life Inside A Ping-Pong Ball"

500 words, I would love to read that now.

Surely there'd be no life inside a ping pong ball once the air was used up, or was that the point?

Sounds like my grammar school where the prefects could set written punishments called impositions, or as we called them, 'impos.' They were always on the most boring subjects the prefects could dream up.

I remember one impo I was set, entitled, 'Dust.' Another, given verbally, was 'Tulips,' but I decided to mishear and wrote something fairly steamy about a girl I fancied under the title 'Two Lips.'

I got a detention for that one.

PasturesNew

Holiday let is officially worst one the cleaner's seen.... 4 hours of hard/deep cleaning. Peasants. And some minor damage, in addition to the usual damage they expect such as glasses etc.

They will be billed.... I wonder if there'll be a rant on here in the next 2 weeks about a non-returned holiday deposit ....

treliac

PasturesNew wrote: »

Just a quickie... holiday let next door. Nightmare holidaymakers have been in it this week.... cleaner turned up to clean and it's a right pigsty. Had to call in further troops to get it cleared... and new bookers just arrived and have had to be sent off for some hours while the house is righted. Damaged furniture, pigsty of a garden, 5 full bags of beer bottles, smashed glass. Bet their regular neighbours were glad they got a week off!

Disgusting!! Hope they're blacklisted amongst holiday companies far and wide.

treliac

vivatifosi wrote: »

Thanks tre, I will have to check that out at the library. It sounds really good.

The Amazon link to that book led me straight to this one, which also sounds compelling:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Age-Absurdity-Modern-Makes-Happy/dp/1847375243/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Yours looks good too. Quote from one of the reviewers:-

The worship of potential is what causes dowdy frumps to face humiliation on TV for the sake of a swift makeover, hi-tech firms to lay off anyone who looks over 40, middle-aged dads to dress as their toddlers (all bright artificial fibres with toggles on), everyone to love travel even if they have no idea where they want to go, and society in general to become dumbed-down and infantalised (don't want to grow up? Don't bother! Why should you?). It also leaves people with a constant sense that they're missing something, that a better time is to be had elsewhere, so we're constantly on the look out for the next big thing - job, relationship, possession. And it discourages us from making the firm decisions which, in a way, define and develop our characters.

It's probably no coincidence that modern capitalism needs both these things - the worship of potential keeps us wanting the newest thing; the culture of entitlement (`because you're worth it!') makes us believe we deserve it, whether or not we have the money.

It's going on my list of 'to reads'.

carolt

It's the danger of Amazon, isn't it?

One book leads to another, which leads to another.


Very clever way to make you keep on spending. :eek:

treliac

carolt wrote: »

It's the danger of Amazon, isn't it?

One book leads to another, which leads to another.


Very clever way to make you keep on spending. :eek:

Unless you borrow them from the library.

vivatifosi

treliac wrote: »

Unless you borrow them from the library.

Great minds and all that... i have a staff card which means I'm allowed more items out than most. I've got 23 at the moment! Must finish a few before I get onto the next couple. I try to read different things that I wouldn't have touched before (I hadn't read fiction since leaving school until starting at the library). One of the things I'm reading is the graphic novel Maus, which is about the holocaust. The fact it is illustrated so starkly in black and white makes it all the more sombre. Should be a school text alongside Anne Frank's Diary.

carolt

Yes, I read about that. Sounds amazing. But I'm not sure I could cope with reading it, though...

Agree about using the library, too, though sometimes what we end up paying in fines due to lost books makes it sometimes more sensible to just buy them off ebay!