Irritation

At the moment life seems to be irritating in many different ways.

1. The teacher and the teddy bear incident is irritating me as nobody comes out of the affair very well. The teacher should have known better, the Sudanese government over-reacted (do they seriously expect the fall of Islam to be caused by 50 year old teachers from Liverpool, religious fanatics are portrayed badly as people who over react, Sudanese democracy comes out looking bad as only government supported demonstrations are allowed, British government look bad for trying to mess with another countries justice system and my school's RE teaching looks shaky as few of the children understand why calling a bear Mohammed might be offensive to some (imagine if I called my classroom teddy bear Hitler or Jesus). The only person that comes out of it well is the Sudanese prison service.

2. Labours funding crisis is irritating as although they have done wrong they are taking heavy criticism from the Conservatives. The problem is that at least Labour are trying to be transparent whereas the Conservatives take a lot of money from patrons clubs. So I could set up a club, take money from lots of people, donate it to the Conservatives in the name of my club and no-one is the wiser. Labour did wrong but the Tories have no moral ground from which to cast their stones.

3. The last two weeks of term are always the most difficult so why do management schedule two parents evenings in the last two weeks. There is no rush to report back to parents especially in Yr 8 as we are only about half way through the year.

4. In the last two weeks there have been draws for the Euro 2008 football competition and qualifying for World Cup 2010. The whole system is hugely complicated, over elaborate and seems geared to support the big teams and I would love it just to be random. Put all the names in the hat and draw it at random. Lets see what happens.

5 About this time two years ago all the talk amongst my friends was of Lisa and Scott's wedding preparations. When they got married last October it all stopped. Now it is back with Kat and Andy. I can cope with the location/ dress/ flowers/ cake stand talk and it helps when the men in the group tend to head for sport as topics of conversation. The irritation comes from a sense of feeling a bit left out as my friends marry and try for families. Is this a sign of getting old!!

6. Weather. Stop being warm and damp and start being cold, clear and snowy.