TV here isn't what it is in the UK. Although Canada has always had way more channels than Britain, we are at the mercy of bizarre programming schedules. Thus, right now, and for the past week, there has not been a single programme on that we watch that has had new episodes. That's the way it is here, stop, start, stop, start. But Nil Desperandum. There is always the Discovery HD Channel, which occasionally has some interesting Natural History shows. Last week we were watching something about the extremes of weather, fascinating, and you had to wonder how it was that the camera men and women just happen to be there in the right place at the right time. Yeah, well, at the end of the programme there was a disclaimer about how some of the scenes had been simulated.
Not so on the BBC's amazing 'Planet Earth' however. I brought the DVDs of the series back from England and we have been watching those. At the end of each episode is a diary about how one of the segments was made.
There was amazing footage of a snow leopard, apparently an animal that is rarely seen by humans and which has never been filmed before in the wild in this way. Then we saw the diary. A hardy Scotsman was sent up into the Himalayas with a tent and a camera, he had to set up his cover and just stay immobile for hours at a time, waiting for a sighting. The project itself took three years, but the snow leopard seemed to have taken something like seven weeks and several moves to capture on film, but it was worthwhile. Well, to us the viewers it was.
My son Austen is Head of English at Mayhem and he decreed that his department should take a term teaching poetry and a play about the first world war. So he also decided to take that particular year group to Belgium to tour the Battlefields. This is a trip that many schools take, but Mayhem hasn't done it before. Organising Mayhem kids into doing anything is like trying to keep water in a sieve, but finally he had all the money in, permission forms, the nightmare collective passport done and was all set to take off at 5 one Friday morning. Then gale force winds closed Dover and stranded any number of transcontinental lorries along the M20.
Austen got home from a parents' consultation evening late on the Thursday only to find that the travel company had been trying to phone him, they had various options for him, one of which was to cancel the trip. He did careful research and it seemed that the weather forecast for the day of the trip was more hopeful, so he decided to go ahead.
At 5 am, all kids on the coach, they took off, with dire warnings from the drivers that they wouldn't get to France. They took back roads because the M20 was all choked up with lorries that couldn't get back to the continent. Finally they arrived in Dover, which seemed fairly clear compared with what they were expecting.
Now there is a mythical thing that can happen when you take a coach load of kids across the channel. We always tell them about this because it could happen, yet never has. We could be sent into the customs shed and the coach thoroughly searched, bolt by bolt. Austen's coach was sent into the customs shed. He couldn't believe it.
'Will it matter that I have a knife with me?' asked one girl.
'Yes.'
The customs officers stood around, their poker faces like a bunch of funeral directors. Each child had to go through the metal detector. Austen noticed that the official with the most po-face of all hadn't taken his eyes off one boy. Finally Austen watched as he walked slowly over to the boy.
He pulled the boy's coat aside to reveal his shirt underneath.
'Do you support Pompey?' asked the customs official.
'We all do, we're a Pompey school,' said Austen. Suddenly the frigid atmosphere of the customs shed changed, the man said that he supported them too as he was from just outside Portsmouth and Harry Redknap (manager of Pompey football team) stories were shared. And the coach was allowed onto a ferry.
I don't understand the whole football thing, you all know that, but hey, in the customs shed, even I wouldn't argue that the Blue Army broke the ice.
And there will be more vicarious tales from Belgium to come.
6 comments:
Rob and I got sent into the customs shed in his van after a booze cruise.
They almost took the van apart. We were shitting ourselves because on the way over I clocked that his passport was a month out of date.
Spurs saved us that time.
Football is Tribal and you look after members of the tribe.
ATM's cousin is a sound recordist for Attenborough and worked on some of The Blue Planet series.
I think he is more of a sound mixer now.
Blue Planet was beyond awesome.
I reckon you must have something written across your forehead in some secret ink and code that only customs officers can read that tells them they have to stop and question you.
The first box they opened had six bottles of olive oil in it! The van stunk of Camembert.
They found my 3000 cigarettes, asked why I had so many and I replied 'I work in a school'. They were satisfied by that.
Told us not to come back in the next three months and let us go.
my good pal, Donna, a lovely Irishwoman living/working as a teacher in London (Croydon to be exact) is trying to get to Vancouver for Christmas. The fog may prevent that for awhile. sleepy, get in there and do something please.
- Karen
According to the early editions, BA will be flying today. I'm presuming this will count for the other airlines too.
Indeed, tis only domestic and flights to Europe that have been affected. Although Canada would seem to qualify to join Europe, it hasn't, thus no indication that flights here have been cancelled.
I'm glad we were able to arrange that for you Karen.
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