Digigran

Picture of Bloom , drawn by JJ.

Thinking of how to begin, and as usual, a bit guillty about not blogging for a while, I idly scanned a few random BLOGs and became really irritated by the quantities of lists on offer Here are a few examples of the genre:

Places I'd rather be,

Dogs I've owned,

X ways of enjoying the weekend,

Famouspeople I have met,

Unusual jobs I've done,

Top ten wardrobe items etc, etc.

Is this the death of prose as we know it? Perhaps I am just a crusty old gran stuck in a time-warp with my vinyl mentality, paper-back novels and l Letts diary style of writing.

Lists seem to me to be at the very Blagging end of Blogging. They cry out, ' Look at me ! Oh look at all the things I've got, done, seen, know etc, etc. 'Well, the irritation with the list thing was compounded by this report in the Guardian, which reported on well-known writers' list of the books kids should read before leaving school. The headline-grabbers were those of the two Laureates- the Poet Laureate and the Children's Laureate. Such rubbish. Of course English teachers would want to claim to have read Ulysses but not taught it in school. I have added a link to a quick summary just in case any of you want to check it out for Monday morning or remind yourself of its sections. This is an even shorter, jollier version. Go on have a look; it's animated.

My own favourite of Joyce's writing for school however, is Dubliners andI might risk sharing a story or two with an older class; perhaps The Dead, especially as John Hustom made it in to a wonderful film, with Angelica Huston portraying magnificently, the wife haunted by memories of a lost love and with falling snow a poignant image of the state of the West of Ireland . Anyway, see how easy it is to get into competing choices\ personal lists . (Hear me cry, "Look, look how well-read I am.") and think of the utter foolishness of thinking that adults, however famous, should try to prescribe and reify what children and young people should read and enjoy. And how resistant the establishment is to change to its literary canon. Ignoring children's interests is a sure way to turn readers off for life. What is needed is a bigger emphasis on personal reading in school, matching child to book, with occasional shared whole works in class , but more often little tasters to hook the reader and consideration of the multimodal ways of presenting of favourite stories .
Primary schools often get this right because there is such a wealth of fiction available to them. Secondary English teachers often feel constrained to teach to the numerous assessments and impositions on the curriculum at Key Stages 3&4.
Oh enough of schools and schooling!
But just imagine my horror, when I blogged on to my two favourite Bloggers DRJoolz and Dr Kate to find some damned tag had tempted them both into a list fetish, under the guise of a meme. (Can any word have been so much abused as it moved from science to communication, from Dawkins to BLOG? ) Ok, so I know what memes are in this context, but do they have to be so trivial.
As you can see, I have taken a leaf out of the narrative methodology of both TristramShandy and The Cock and Bull, film version (Steve Coogan was just brilliantly cast, loved him crooning to his baby) and am about to relate this last reflection to my expressed reason for Blogging: Alexander (see December BLOGS for personal details and family connections).
The sweet babe is about to accompany his mother to work next week and start his routine in nursery, so I won't be able to visit in the afternoon, or push him in his pram to see the ducks, which are now gradually returning to our lakes and ponds- This reminds me, I still haven't told you about that pram saga yet- next time perhaps. I do hope Alexander will settle in
And therefore, much against my own Blogging instinct, here is a list compiled for my grandson on his going to nursery, concluding with my favourite poem on infancy, offered as a sweet blessing on his tiny head:

Alexander may you find

1. soft hands and gentle voices wherever you go
2. carers who love children; babies in
   particular
3. a calm and loving environment; no shoutingor alarming noises
4. a warm welcome each feeding time from your
   mum
5. safe and speedy journeys home
6. happy, splashy bathtimes at the end of each day with mum and
   dad and perhaps a song
7. gentle slumbers and deep sleep
8. Times occasionally for me to visit or babysit
9. Much, much virtual love
   
   and here's just a small section from the poem, Coleridge's Frost at Midnight, one day, Alexander, I will read this to you.

# posted by Digigran @ 5:46 PM