The Creen Laboratory

What sort of genius is your baby?

2008-03-30T20:48:00.005Z

Any self-respecting parent (well, university-educated, anyway) imagines that their child has a right to be hothoused and turned into a genius from an early age. We've seen many homes with the 'Baby Einstein' series of DVDs, but now we've come across a British version. And what greater aspiration can a parent have than for their baby to be destined for Oxford (or Cambridge, if they're not quite as bright). So here you can view the Learn to Talk and Classical Music videos.
If that's not high-powered enough for you, we'd also recommend this fantastic pair of nonsense books:

Things my mother says 1

2008-03-23T19:58:00.002Z

Describing a 'lovely singer' she saw at Proms in the Park:
Tony Radley from Spandor Bally

Describing the touchpad on her new laptop:
the mouse inside my computer

Talking to a waiter in a Chinese restaurant on the Strand:
You look just like a lovely little boy I used to teach - are you him?

Only posh kids need apply

2008-03-23T19:08:00.003Z

I showed this to my Sixth Formers and asked if they would consider going to a revision class like this (assuming they could afford it, which given the quality of their mobile phones, they probably could). Unanimously they said no, because everyone looked like a snob, and dressed funny. I was taken with the fact that
(a) the tutor appears to be Peter Sellars, and
(b) the revision seems to consist of Peter holding up bits of a chemistry set and talking.
Where's the interactive activities? Where, pray tell, are the pads of lined paper out of which students take such an age trying rip the pages neatly?
Anyway, no disrespect to the Hampstead Easter School, but I don't think we're in your target market. Sorry.

Louis Tussauds

2008-03-23T18:46:00.007Z

I've never been to Madame Tussauds, as I can't afford it. Or at least I don't have the patience to queue up with Japanese children with identical backpacks. Or maybe it's lost all credibility since the Planetarium no longer has Patrick Moore narrating it and instead has Dick and Dom (or whoever).

Anyway, I haven't been and at the age of 38 seem increasingly unlikely to. I have however been to Great Yarmouth, erstwhile seaside resort and home of customised car racing along the prom. Seriously, it's like 'The Fast and The Furious' with inbreeding. And fab Yarmouth attraction Louis Tussauds was in the news recently due to the unrealistic nature of the waxworks' faces.

Have a look at the pictures above and see if you can guess who they are. When you have, highlight the blank space below and the answers should magically appear. You could print it out or email it to all your colleagues and keep the Bank Holiday spirit going for 5 more minutes on Tuesday morning by laughing hysterically at the almost-but-not-quite-recognisable heads.

1. Starsky and Hutch
2. Adam Ant and Larry Grayson
3. Richard Burton and Diana Dors
4. Kevin Keegan and George Best
5. John Travolta and Bob Hope
6. Princess Diana and Prince Charles
7. Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey

Kingston's backing Boris

2008-03-23T18:19:00.003Z

We were out and about in Kingston yesterday, when we bumped into Boris Johnson on a walkabout on the High Street. Sarah was too shy to be in a photo with him, so I had to make do with local Tories in the frame instead. I was interested to see the range of Boris silhouettes (above), especially the 'confused scratching head' one. They were actually cool enough to make me visit his website, though of course not being a Tory or a Londoner, I wouldn't be voting for him.

View our photos of Boris on Flickr

Unrealistic unions 2

2008-03-22T18:15:00.004Z

Three excerpts from the National Union of Teachers conference happening this weekend:

Seek a commitment from the Government to implement a phased
legally binding maximum class size of 20 by 2020 in both primary and
secondary schools, and a moratorium on school closures.

Forcing teachers to undergo more than three lesson
observations per annum and the grading of lessons under
OFSTED headings is the cause of considerable stress and
pressure on teachers.

Conference deplores the role of the Spin doctors of death who
embellished civil service reports to justify military invasions which have
resulted in the deaths of many children and the loss of education for
many more.

American Princess

2008-03-16T21:40:00.004Z

The names of the contestants for this year's American Princess, presented by the execrable Paul Burrell, are like poetry! I'd love for you to try and guess the made-up one, but unfortunately, they're all real!

Clarissa Santiago, an outgoing former beauty pageant contestant from Bronx, NY;
Tara Zynel, an opera singer and introverted arts student from Pittsburgh, PA;
Liz Rizza, a rapping college basketball player from Umpqua Valley, OR;
Cassie Shea Watson, a theater major from Longview, TX; ;
Letosha Joshua, a former military sergeant from Chief City, FL;
Danielle Sutterfield, a tree-hugging figure model from Arlington, TX;
Crystal Rowe, a nanny and former foster child from Folsom, CA;
Jasmine Espinal, a punk rocker from Orlando, FL;
Kirsten Stiff (pictured), an energetic teacher who makes dog tutus in her spare time, from Sarasota, FL;
Felicia Flick, a bikini-wearing boxer from Homer City, PA;
Yvonka DeRidder, a bi-sexual Psychology student from Tampa, FL;
Nakia Vestal, a former exotic dancer from Baytown, TX;
Pari Faramarzi, a student from Oxford University

Emo Culture

2008-03-09T21:29:00.003Z

Inoffensive and harmless

2008-03-02T17:03:00.003Z

The new Hannah Montana/Mikey Cyrus film is out now. If you're blissfully unaware of this, then imagine a cross between Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Lindsay Lohan (in their pre-rehab phases) in a concert film so saccharine that your teeth will hurt within minutes [btw, try doing a Google search for "so saccharine that" if you want mild amusement and bad metaphors].

The film has a U rating, with the warning "This film contains no material likely to offend or harm". That is no doubt the scariest thing about it.

Unrealistic unions 1

2008-02-10T21:41:00.001Z

A list of motions for the NASUWT teachers' conference dropped into my lap at school.
Each local association has the chance to propose some completely unrealistic goals for the National Executive to debate.
Here's some of this year's:

Luton: Conference believes education should be an enjoyable activity.
Sandwell: Conference calls for a radical overhaul of the QCA [the Government's curriculum authority].
Cardiff: Conference condemns the Teaching Awards as patronising, divisive and trivial.
Birmingham: Conference believes the state sector is the sector of choice for all.
Surrey: Conference believes all teachers should register with the General Teaching Council.
Leeds: Conference believes the NASUWT should sever all links with the General Teaching Council.
Oxfordshire: Conference believes that local authorities have become Government puppets.
Cardiff: Conference calls for the abolition of school governing bodies. [that's it! there is no reasoning why, or suggestion of what should replace them - just get rid of them!]
Bristol: Conference demands research into the dangers of interactive whiteboards.
Southampton: Conference instructs the NASUWT to arrange for appropriate media response to calumny whenever possible.
Hampshire: Conference demands recognition of retired activists and deplores their expertise being derided and scorned.
Greenwich: Conference demands all teachers have a classroom assistant to carry out photocopying and display duties.

Chronic Emo Syndrome

2008-01-30T06:51:00.000Z

Following a link from Bad Science, about an osteopath who can cure ME by 'draining the lymphs from the spinal column', I found this article:

Manchester Evening News

FOR years ME, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome, has baffled medical professionals. In the Eighties it was known as 'yuppie flu', its symptoms often dismissed as being all in the mind.
Nicole Roberts-Morris is one of hundreds of thousands who know differently. The mum-of-three from Bollington watched the condition transform her daughter, Imogen from a happy go-lucky 11-year-old into a pale shadow of her former self and, sometime later, the same thing happen to her younger daughter, Lena.

Yes. They'd both become Goths.

Louis Pasteur

2008-01-03T22:10:00.000Z

GEORGE: It'll be different this time.

SUSAN: I need someone a little more stable.

GEORGE: I'm not stable? I'm like a rock. I take these glasses off, you can't tell the difference between me and a rock. I put these glasses on a rock. You know what jumps into most people's minds? Costanza!

SUSAN: People don't change.

GEORGE: I change I change. Two weeks ago I tried a soft boiled egg. Never liked it before. Now I'm dunkin a piece of toast in there and I'm loving it.

SUSAN: I'm not a soft boiled egg.

GEORGE: And I am not a piece of toast.

SUSAN: I just don't think we have anything in common.

GEORGE: That's okay. That's good. You think Louie Pasteur and his wife had anything in common? He was in the fields all day with the cows, you know with the milk, examining the milk, delving into milk, consummed with milk. Pasteurization, Homogenization, She was in the kitchen killing cockroaches with a boot on each hand.

SUSAN: Why were there so many cockroaches?

GEORGE: Because. There was a lot of cake lying around the house. Just sitting there going with all the excess milk from all the experiments [grins]

SUSAN: And they got along?

GEORGE: Yes! Yes. You know. She didn't know about Pasteurization. He didn't know anout Fumigation. But they made it work!

Maths cartoons

2007-10-23T06:38:00.000Z

Ideas to be more energy-efficient, take longer to reach full brightness

2007-09-28T03:18:00.000Z

By 2010, all bright ideas will need to be energy-efficient, under proposals announced today by Hilary Benn, minister at DEFRA. The traditional image of inspiration (above) will lose its meaning as halogen spirals begin to appear instead. Standard shaped lightbulbs will no longer be on sale after manufacturers and retailers agreed to stock only low-energy bulbs instead.

Now given that in our house, we have to keep a stock of 6 different types and sizes of bulbs anyway, I was concerned that wouldn't be able to find equivalents, particularly for the kitchen golfball bulbs and the conservatory candle bulbs. So checking out the DEFRA site I found a bit more detail:

The Government has proposed, as an illustrative schedule for the phase out of inefficient lamps, that retailers might want to follow:
By January 2008, cease replacing stock of all inefficient (General Lighting Service, GLS) A-shaped incandescent lamps of energy rating higher than 100W (predominantly 150W lamps).
By January 2009, cease selling all inefficient GLS A-shaped lamps of energy rating higher than 60W (predominantly 150W lamps, 100W lamps, plus some 75W lamps)
By January 2010, cease selling all GLS A-shaped lamps of efficacy of energy rating higher than 40W (predominantly 60W lamps)
By 31 December 2011, cease selling all remaining inefficient GLS A-shaped lamps and 60W "candle" and "golfball" lamps. (predominantly 40W and 25W A-shaped GLS bulbs, and 60W candles and golfballs).
At the moment, we expect candles and golfballs, tungsten halogen lamps and lamps supplied with non-lighting electrical appliances to remain on sale, because suitable energy-efficient alternatives do not currently exist.

So while I'm still a bit in the dark (sorry) it looks like my stock of golfballs and candles will be renewable after all.

irony 1: school disco for school students

2007-09-25T17:50:00.001Z

There are two completely different things called 'School Disco'. One involves middle-aged teachers wearily chasing smoking kids out of the loos back into a dimly lit school hall where Mr "DJ Tony" Clark plays a selection of modern choons and the boys sit down one side of the room and the girls the other.
The other is where mindless Lambrini girls (for girls read women in their 20s) off their heads and out of their clothes pretend their school uniform used to be a bra and netball skirt (and symmetrical freckles) and sexually harass men to the strains of Britney Spears.
Now a few years ago someone had the bright idea of letting under 18s have a proper club night of their own, with no booze and no drugs, but a decent atmosphere and a lot of fun. In Woking it's DJ Keith who did them at Quake, where I'd be innocently walking out of the car park and a line of 200 teenyboppers would scream 'Hello Mr Creen' at me.
Now Keith (or his sidekick DJ Leroy) has had the bright idea of running a School Disco ... but for teenagers. Why? Is he going to play hits of the 90s at them? Or is he going to get some of their form tutors to be bouncers?
I don't understand why people who are at school all day want to go to a club night where they pretend they are at school again?

C30 C60 C90 Go! part 3

2007-09-24T17:27:00.001Z

This 'rid of old cassettes' thing is proving to be quite expensive. Another compilation I'd made from albums borrowed from the library (to be precise: libraries in Whitley Bay, North Shields, Newcastle, and to a lesser extent, Monkseaton and Tynemouth) was the best bits of T'Pau's two albums.

Be honest, all you really know about them is their single 'China In Your Hand', Carol Decker having the biggest and reddest hair of 1987, and the fact they are named after a Vulcan from Star Trek.

I certainly remembered them as being soft-rock a la Heart (These Dreams, Alone etc.) but when I started listening, every song not only seemed familiar, they had fantastic production, fantastic keyboards, and a fantastic variety of styles. And Carol's voice is so distinctive and powerful.

So on eBay I bought both of their albums and my recorded media collection has actually increased! But if you hanker after a nostalgic wallow, you can't do better than their first album, 'Heart and Soul'.

C30 C60 C90 Go! part 2

2007-09-22T16:13:00.000Z

One of the drawbacks of being a classically-trained musician is that even the naffest rock music can hook you, just because it has slightly more of a harmony or a melody or whatever than the latest non-musical rap/dance/drivel that's going on in the charts. For example, my sister-in-law loves Yanni, and my brother thinks Jean-Michel Jarre is great.

I personally was impressed, sad to say, by the cod-opera stylings of Jim Steinman. He wrote all of Meatloaf's biggest hits, and two of Bonnie Tyler's - 'Holding Out for a Hero' and 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'. So I stuck them all together on a cassette that I then never played again.

I think I've grown out of 9-minute epics with wailing rock guitar and repetitive piano chords, but one of them struck me with its lyrics, that actually seem quite clever. The singer is recalling events from the past, the death of his best friend, parental abuse, and losing his virginity:

It was long ago and so far away, oh God, it seems so very far.
And if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car.
And objects in the rear-view mirror may appear closer than they are.

It's a good metaphor, no?

C30 C60 C90 Go! part 1

2007-09-21T16:13:00.000Z

I'm tidying up the house, and working out what music I'll never listen to again. There's cassettes I've had since the late 80s that have moved with me 7 times in 20 years and I've never played them. What's sadder is that these are tapes I made, carefully selecting all of my favourite songs by an artist, and then sticking them in a box. So I'm working my way through them, one by one, and posting my farewells here.

The first one is 'Hue and Cry'. I had them roundly labelled as a Scottish band, so much so that the end of the tape has a couple of Proclaimers songs stuck on for good measure. The combination of a distinctive Scottish burr and jazzy arrangements redolent of Swing Out Sister make it a good listen, but it doesn't bring back specific memories, and it's only generically uplifting.

What should I do with these old TDK D90s (or for premium recordings, Sony SA90s)? I can't give my old mix tapes to a charity shop, burning wouldn't be environmental, and it seems a shame to just put them in the bin. Any ideas?

Head Boy and Girl photoset

2007-09-20T16:39:00.000Z

As archivist at school, I found a complete set of photos of the Head Boy and Girl from every year from 1971 to 1988. They look absolutely fantastic and show the changing fashions of the day.

See the whole collection on Flickr.

Woking Lightbox Reception

2007-09-13T20:20:00.000Z

Tonight we went to the Supporters' Evening for the new gallery in Woking, the Lightbox. It was fantastic, with live music, lots of canapes, and we saw the first exhibition, a celebration of Wallace and Gromit and other Aardman Animations films.

You can see more on our Flickr set.

Comments by author emenon

2007-09-09T15:20:00.000Z

This crazy guy has a style of reviewing movies all of his own. Half synopsis, half moral majority rant. Look out for his Sex and the City critique!

emenon's IMDb film reviews

good housekeeping colour cookery

2007-06-23T07:10:00.000Z

Seventies Cookery Book

see more on Flickr.

singing debut

2007-06-12T16:33:00.000Z

Here I am singing 'Don't You Want Me' by the Human League, with Sarah Goddard at the ChristChurch Summer Ball.