Tuesday, November 12. 8.30 am: Strong winds and rain had prevailed since the early morning, at least. I battled against the onslaught and headed for the Old College. From the windows of the West Classroom, at the top of the building, the sea could be seen billowing and churning. I completed two tutorials, a third in another studio, and a fourth back at the West Classroom. As the final discussion came to a conclusion, there was a rumbling in the rafters before a freak wind blew-in one of the upper windows with the force and noise of an explosion. Glass was projected with force and speed across the width of the studio. Dust, fluff, and debris filled the air. Had not the alcove, in which the window was set, channelled the blast, my tutee and I would’ve been sprayed with shards. This was a close shave. An hour earlier, I’d stood beneath the window videoing the sea:
Not ten minutes before the calamity, I’d told my tutee about a similar scenario that had taken in place in that very room just two years earlier. Jonny Retallick had been recording our tutorial and so captured the event acoustically:
11.30 am: Back at the mothership I conducted several deferred consultations for the Abstraction module. The vast majority of students aren’t confident essay writers. This isn’t a reflection of their intelligence but, rather, an indictment of their pre-university education. (I’ve second hand experience of this failure via my children’s secondary school studies.) It’s not that students can’t write essays. Most of them are floored by just a few aspects of writing: grammar and structure, chiefly. The remedies aren’t difficult to administer, and the medicine isn’t hard to swallow.
1.05 pm: Due to track maintenance, which had begun today, I had to take a coach from the railway station to Machynlleth, where the train would take me forward to Shrewsbury. At this time of the year and day, Platform 4 recalls the weekly Wednesday evening journeys that I made to Newport (my destination today) back in the early 1990s. Then, I was employed as a part-time tutor at my old art school, where I taught art history one day a week. The rest of the time I studied for a PhD Art History, full time.
4.30 pm: Evening fell more profoundly. The train’s windows slowly transformed into mirrors. I saw ‘through a glass darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13.12):
At Hereford, the schoolies boarded the carriage. This generation uses the word ‘random’ when they ought to use ‘arbitrary’. The adjectival meaning of ‘random’ is: ‘made, done, or happening without method or conscious decision.’ Clearly this isn’t the sense that they intend. Language may be mutable, but it’s also precise. (Am I becoming a grumpy old man?)
5.20 pm: I arrived at Newport (pronounced ‘Neuputt’ in South Walian); a homecoming or sorts. It was a distinguished town when I was in my pre-teens. Today, there’s little to commend the, now, city. My evening’s watering hole was directly opposite the hotel. To be honest, I’d not venture any further into the streets at this time of day. Drugs and scratch cards are traded fairly conspicuously in the doorways of empty shops (of which there’re many). The victims of narcotic abuse wander down the main street like zombies. It was a short walk from the station to my hotel. Premier Inn it is not; but the artwork on the walls is moderately less appalling. I’d been assigned Room 101. (This was a fulfilment of a long-held desire.) I could be anywhere in the UK right now. Chain hotel rooms are so comfortingly alike. My younger son was also in a branch of the hotel this evening, in the course of his work. We exchanged views. ‘Snap!’:
6.00 pm: To the watering hole. Me: ‘Can I have sausage and mash, please?’ Bartender: ‘Sorry, we don’t have any sausages today.’ Actually, we don’t have any mash either.’ Me: ‘How about gluten-free beer?’ Bartender: ‘Dunno, really.’ (‘I’ve experienced this situation before’, I thought.)
Below my hotel window, I could hear what sounded like a car being broken into:
