The fantasy world of SATs

Are you ready? Try this:

“The comma element of the semicolon should be correct in relation to the point of origin, height, depth and orientation. Where the separation of the semicolon is excessive, neither element of the semicolon should start higher than the letter ‘I’. The dot of the semi colon must not be lower than the letter ‘w’ in the word ‘tomorrow’.”   ( Guardian 11.7.17)

Not a far-fetched satire, but actual advice offered to markers of SATs for ten-year olds. Gove, in his infinite wisdom, decides it's crucial to get ten-year olds to spot where the semi-colon should go in an artifically constructed sentence. But just pinning the tail on the donkey isn't enough; the tail has to fit in with tight requirements, and must definitely face the right way. So tons of students who actually know where the semi-colon should go will end up not getting the mark, because their semi-colon doesn't match the examiner's ideal. if we were talking about monks illuminating manuscripts it would almost make sense, but every ten-year old in the country? 

The Final Test

So that's it. All over. And nobody wins. But you can't complain, after three rugby matches of that intensity. I'm not a Sky subscriber, never have been, and probably never will be. But in a crisis I'm prepared to cadge, and my friendly neighbour Gary's been happy to oblige. that was for tests 1 and 2. For 3, as it happens, he's committed to a stall in Wenlock, and i'm collecting for amnesty in Newport, on the 11.00 am shift. So there's nothing for it - I'm driving to Newport at 7.30 am, so that I can be settled in the Pheasant before kick off at 8.30, can watch the whole game, and then go and rattle my tin on the streets.

What a game. Yes, the All Blacks had the chance, fluffed three tries and missed two very easy kicks. We didn't really get close to scoring - apart from an intercepted pass that nearly gave them a try - but we kicked our kicks, we made our tackles, and we held out the best team in the world. The two tries the all Blacks did score were truly clinical - they just see what needs to happen, and then do it, very fast - but the Lions didn't collapse, did hold together, and this was pure drama - all of us held together, daring to sustain the dream that we could - despite the odds, against all probability - survive. And thanks to canny Sam Warburton inviting the ref to look at the TMO, and eccentric Roman Poite reckoning that maybe it's accidental offside rather than the other kind, the Lions do scrape through. (See The Luck of the Draw in Poems from the News).   

Triolet Workshop

A triolet (variously pronounced triolette, or triolay, according to taste) is an eight-line form, where one line is repeated once, and another repeated twice. so that's five of the eight taken care of, as soon as you've written two lines. Not a lot of room for manoeuvre. At Ledbury on Sunday an American poet, A.E.Stallings was running a two-workshop on this eight-line verse form. Well, I thought, that’s got to be either rubbish or brilliant. It was brilliant. Totally riveting.  For 45 minutes she took us through a range of examples – Wendy Cope has a great one about poets being Byronic – offering little gems of insight, poems memorised off by heart, and occasional shafts of dry wit – “villanelles are generally much more fun to write than they are to read.”  And then we had 15 minutes in which to write our own. and then she worked around the group, us reading our poems, her commenting on rhythm, punctuation, rhymes – and possible other rhymes. I’ve never heard another poet so hooked on the beauty and variety of rhymes - sheer heaven. This is one of the few verse forms I've never attempted - just didn't think it was worth it. but on Sunday I managed three in a a day, and they won't be the last.  

Letters from Baghdad

I usually manage to get to Ludlow Assembly rooms cinema, because they have a good programme. In May and June I've been seven times, often for exotic stuff which has attrracted an audience of single figures, but while they keep doing it i'll keep going, because the reqwards are so great. Last night, for instance, was Letters from Baghdad. I heard someone in the foyer describe it as “a little gem” and that’s about right. Based on Gertrude Bell’s letters about her travels and work in Iraq, it mixes the letters, read by Tilda Swinton, real-life comments from friends and enemies (using actors in costume), her own still black and white photos, and film footage from the time (1910 – 20s), in a seamless mixture which feels like a contemporary documentary. Utterly wonderful.    

Keeping Families Together

The Brexit negotiations keep throwing up these tasty little ironies. Theresa May, in Brussels, reassuring worried Europeans: "I want all those EU citizens who have made their lives and homes in our country to know that no one will have to leave. We won't be seeing families split apart; people will be able to go on living their lives as before."

And she says all that with a straight face. For those of us who've been reading the papers over the last twelve months, there's never been a time when foreign residents in this country have been less secure. Lunatic deportations and threats, often involving people who've lived here for years and caused no kind of threat or trouble, and all because May thinks that the Leave vote was not only about immigration (rather than, say, money for the NHS), but was an endorsement of Nigel Farage rather than Michael Gove or Boris Johnson. One of the pleasures of watching her floundering about is the hope that her ludicrously punitive approach to immigration may get modified.    

Poetry Day

Well, it was for me. This afternoon we had the Great Get Together, on the church green in Much Wenlock, in memory of Jo Cox. a random assortment of Labour Party supporters, friends and progressive sympathisers had this bright idea of a picnic, sandwiching an hour of very assorted entertainment - belly dancing, a sixth-form girl singing, and me doing my poems - including the ballad of Jo Cox. it wasn't slick, but it was varied, positive and enjoyable, and brilliant weather showed Wenlock at its finest - a real pleasure just to be sitting around in the sun.

And in the evening, I was off into Shrewsbury to hear Luke Wright perform at the St. Nicholas Bar, which fancies itself and charges £4.00 for a bottle of beer. but that didn't really matter, since he was the reason, the main act and a totally sufficient excuse for putting up with almost anything. He's always entertaining, witty in his chat as well as in his poems, but there's areal technical interest in there - I loved his affection for the broadside ballads, his recognition of the value of what they were doing alongside an honesty that concedes their poetic failings. I don't like everything he does equally - the liopgrams seem to me artificial, clever but a bit pointless, and my fogeydom doesn't settle for some of his looser rhymes - but he has enormous energy and a real feel for words, and has the whole programme totally memorised - unbelievable.

So that was it. A beautiful, enjoyable day, with wall-to-wall poetry. More, please.   

Reservoir 13

i nearly always have at least one library book on the go, a request drawn from systematic trawling of reviews at the weekend. But my current choice is utterly stunning - Reservoir 13, by Jon McGregor. I've read most of his other stuff, and it's always interesting - original without being tricksy or flashy. This again is different, as it should be - hey, he's an intelligent writer -but I find it rivetting. It looks as though it's going to be routine thriller territory, as girl in rural community vanishes, police and volunteers comb the area, friends and family wonder where she's gone. But she doesn't show up, and we never know. What we do get is a close, careful tracing of this rural community as time goes by, responding to the seasons, changes, time passing - but including wild life, crops and weather along with the human stories with which they are intertwined. within a paragraph you can move from an estranged couple to birds migrating south. that may sound off putting rather than enticing, in which case I apologise. don't take my word for it; go out and get it.  

Election Shock

Well, I didn't see that coming. but nor did Theresa May, Linton Crosby, the mainstream media or the tabloids - all of whom have been made to look much more stupid and less streetwise than they would like. It's exciting and positive, because it removes Brexit as "the last time the country decided anything." That depressing majority in favour of going back to the past is looking shakier by the day - and for the good reason that the kids have had enough of fogies fixing their future. It's not going to be easy or simple, but it could well get better, somewhere down the line, and it's a long time since I felt like that. (If you want my poetic analysis of what's gone on, see  The Bonfire of the Certainties in poemsfromthenews, elsewhere on this website. )  

A Quiet Passion

We don't have a ton of British film directors whose style is immediately distinctive - in a good way. But there is Terence Davies, and his biopic of Emily Dickinson is just stunning. All the trademarks - slow, lingering camera, beautiful music, often playing for longer than you'd think. And thoughtful, feeling faces, telling us all we need to know. There is a script, sometimes a very witty and articulate script (also by Davies himself - I was amazed), but that's only a minor part of the overall effect. And at the heart of it is Cynthia Nixon, whom I'm not sure I've ever seen before, but certainly will want to see again. It's a cliche that actors carrying their previous big parts looped around their necks like an albatross, and I'd guess there are gains and losses from having been in Sex and the City, but that certainly shouldn't be held against her. I've never seen a film about a poet which convinced me so completely that yes, this person was actually involved in writing poems, and as a bonus we get a lot of them recited over the sumptuous pictures we're looking at. a total treat. 

Getting Over Brexit

Who's going to heal the wounds? Well, Grayson Perry, of course. He will chat up, collect photos from, a range of Leave and Remain voters. Then he'll put together two vases, which will contain the essence of the two sides, and bring them together in a finale of resolution. On a personal level it works well. He is possibly the most engaging interviewer on the whole of television, and his final coup - that if you ask Leave and Remain voters to send in photos of what they value, the results will be very similar - is clever and cheering.

But. But it isn't as simple as he implies. The deep bitterness among Remain voters is not just at the result. It's at the manner of the campaign - deceitful, calculating, demeaning. It's all very well to contrast Arron Banks and Gina Miller as emotion and reason, and say that Remain failed to find an emotional approach that resonated. True enough, but what was he looking for? "Follow LEAVE logic, and you end up killing Jo Cox?"  Arron Banks is personable and witty, but he also spent seven million pounds quite deliberately appealing to brute racism. Perry had one casualty of that, the single migrant in Boston brave enough to appear on camera, and he's still paying the cost. Is everything still OK, Grayson? I think not. 

Winning the Cup

Yes, children, of course winning is everything, but there's winning and winning. On Wednesday night Mourinho gives Manchester something to cheer about in a week when they definitely need it - but what a dire display. Not interested in possession, not interested in creating anything. Get a couple of goals from a lucky deflection and a goalmouth scramble, and then sit in the trenches, shooting them down. This hugely talented, expensive club is reduced to hoofing it up to Fellaini, in the hope that he can nod it on - if there's anybody that high up the field.

And now this. Oh my God. Arsenal, my favourite, totally exasperating team, have not only won the FA cup, they've done it by outplaying, outmuscling, even, the best team in the UK. Sure, they had a bit of luck with the first goal, but then Chelsea got one back and almost immediately Arsenal produced a winning goal of speed, clarity and class. If you put together a reel of the most exciting forward movements, there'd be more of Arsenal than of Chelsea. But there's also the spellbinding spectacle of wily old Per Mertesacker, who's played less than an hour of football this season, lasting the entire match at the heart of a defence constantly under pressure. It can't just be me that was moved by this. Mourinho and Wenger each have a cup to be proud of, but I know which achievement I admire most.

Graduation

I'm back on the Ludlow commute, driving 20 miles each way, roughly three times a month, because I can see films there that aren't on anywhere else. but for how long? Last night I drove on my own, sat in a huge cinema with seven other people, and saw a wonderful Romanian film. Somehow the Easter Europeans have a closer, tougher view of how hard life can be, especially for decent people who are trying to do the right thing. All the people in this world have a realistic sense that they are surrounded by corruption, and negotiating through that on behalf of their loved ones will be an uphill struggle, possibly doomed. It sounds as if it's simply depressing, but it's much more intelligent than that. Thoughtful, intricate, often surprising, this is a movie to make you think as you come out. I just hope that they can afford to keep showing them. 

Three Girls

I don't believe it. I raved at the start of this week about the great TV that was about to be screened, and left out one of the best bits. Three Girls, yet again, sounds appalling but wasn't. I wasn't even sure I'd fit in the time to see it, because there was so much else that I knew I wanted to watch. But then Saturday night arrived and there was nothing on, so I gave it a go - watch for ten minutes, see what it's like. I watched all three epidoes, back to back, over three hours. It's a  painful, patient account of the Rochdale Grooming case, focussing very closely on three girls, who were mates for a time but had very different experiences of and attitudes to what went on. The writing and the acting were stunning, with a heartbreaking analysis of exactly how and why various agencies failed to actually do anything useful to stop this abuse. Very closely based on meticulous research, this showed a police officer getting very close to victims of a crime, falling out with their superiors, and retaining strong links with the victims after they had left the service. Which is also exactly what happened in the final episode of Little Boy Blue, shown on Monday. If I were in the police, that's a coincidence that would worry me.  

Good TV

Oh wow. Just wow. Every week i make this list of what I want to watch on mainstream TV in the week ahead, and it's often very thin. But this week, for some reason, the schedules abound with riches. The last instalment of Little boy Blue, about the killing of a young Everton fan. Should have been deeply depressing, but was done with real sensitivity and conviction. Good documentaries on people facing death, and the historical roots of ISIS; again, don't sound cheerful, but both stimulating and well done. And then there's OJ Simpson:Made in America, five hours of quality documentary, shown an hour at a time over five successive nights. We haven't been spoiled like this for years, and it may never happen again, but I'll grab it while it lasts.

Born to Kill

Sad how TV won't even look at any drama unless it's got some sort of a crime involved. Born to Kill is somewhere in the middle of the heap, not brilliant, not terrible. it's got some pretty crude psychology underpinning it - son of murderer turns out to be psychopathic killer, just like his dad - but a rivetting performance by the lad himself, who's clearly one to watch. Out on the fringes, though, is Daniel Mays as an ex-policeman going through a tricky time. He's a really good actor but he's made a mistake. This is a crap part, lousily written, which makes him look like a pathetic wimp and doesn't give him the chance to build anything of any interest. A tough reminder, as if we didn't know, that it has to be there in the writing or it won't be there at all. 

First among equals

I'm reading John Bew's Citizen Clem, a biography of Attlee. I knew he was good, but hadn't realised just how good. and while people are underestimating him, patronising him, he just gets on with the job of running things, and running them really well. Here's what he says about being Prime Minister: "The essential quality in a prime minister was that he should be a good chairman, able to get others to work together." Oh, boy. When did we last have someone who had half a clue what that meant? Bevan was moody and egotistical, but given the right context, could work miracles. Attlee gave him the right context, putting up with the showboating because he was getting a health service and a lot of houses. Meanwhile Theresa is being encouraged to think of herself as the supremo who cannot be challenged, who must suppress any thought or initiative unless it comes from her own limited circle. And Corbyn, who should by rights be more collegiate and aware, seems to have no clue how to hold a group together. It's going to be a stormy ride.

EU negotiation

Like everyone else, I haven't a clue how the EU negotiations are going to end up, but the initial omens aren't good. May seems to think she has to present herself as some cut-price Thatcher - prepared to be "bloody" difficult - ohmigod, the vicar's daughter swore. This must be serious. It fits all too well into our grand tradition of effortless superiority; we know we're better than these foreigners, so we don't have to take them seriously. Quite apart from manners of morality, this can't be the smartest way to get a decent result. I'm not sure precisely what the guiding spirit for negotiation ought to be, but - to borrow an expletive - I'm bloody certain it shouldn't be the Daily Mail.

Election

Oh yes, that's just what we need. Like the rest of the country, I'm with Brenda, gobsmacked and incredulous that they could really be putting us through all this again. Tactically, it makes perfect sense, but I'd really rather not have Theresa May telling me that the country is united after Brexit - it's just a few moaney MPs who are getting in the way...And the most serious threats are hers (which of course is why she wants a bigger majority, so she can tell some of them to get lost). and for those of us who fear the Tory right who's the best bet to curb their power, if only a little? You've got it. A more secure Theresa May. 

And then there's the deeper depression, of our lunatic system which doesn't match seats to votes, but disqualifies huge numbers of voters across the country from having any effect at all. and there's the rules, like the rules on spending, which the Tory Party and the Leave campaign have both systematically broken, without this apparently making any difference to the result. How can we possibly treat this ramshackle system with any kind of respect? And then there's the media, who did such a great of covering the Brexit debate. There's a few sane voices, like Gina Miller, trying to inject some kind of rational sanity into this mess, but i have to admit I'm not hopeful. 

Line of Duty (again)

Yes, I know. I wrote about this only a couple of weeks ago, bemoaning the fact that it was trying to do action movie stuff when that isn't Mercurio's strong suit. But what is? This is. Tense interrogation stuff, dripping with political manoeuvres, and a devilish capacity for surprise. It all seems to be going according to plan, as the good guys move in on the seriously weird inspector, with an impressive chain of evidence closing around her - when suddenly she's turning it into a serious complaint about unfair treatment, superbly backed up with a ton of her own evidence, which they're forced to watch unfold before their unbelieving eyes. and yes, of course it helps that it's Thandie Newton doing her thing, but it's not just her. The whole thing is gripping, important and convincing. Quite magical.  

Hidden Figures

Now that's what I call a movie. It's not world shaking or - apparently - Oscar material. But it is very definitely an enjoyable evening, and I feel so much better for going. Partly, it's just a fascinating, almost unbelievable bit of social history - three black women working at NASA and fighting for recognition in sixties America, all hopeful and Kennedy optimistic, but also stone age in attitudes to gender and race. All that was convincingly done, but not heavily, and the whole thing had an energetic vitality that carried you along - with a lot of help from some marvellous music. This was a feelgood movie in an entirely positive way, and during the credits they showed each of the three main actresses, merging with their real-life equivalents in the sixties, and then shifting forward to their current sparkling old age, triumphant survivors with a stunning story to tell.