always face forward

It was one of the greatest sporting finals ever. I was rooting for the eventual loser but that doesn’t cloud my judgement that it was one of the finest tennis matches of all time. The thing was, however, that I found it extremely difficult to enjoy – The stakes were so high for both players and I got so caught up in the remarkable come back that Roger Federer pulled off before finally succumbing to the power of Rafael Nadal that I stopped enjoying it someway through the fifth set. I think I may also have stopped breathing around that point.

Two days later I’m breathing again and the pain of disappointment has gone for me. I have no idea if it’s just me but that seems to be the way it often goes. I build my hopes up and the anticipation intoxicates me – then it all goes wrong and the pain is unbearable.

For a couple of days anyway – after that I get over it and look forward to the next time.

This is a fortunate thing indeed, for I feel disappointment often. Disappointment that my football team haven’t won anything in my lifetime; that my, once all conquering, rugby team have been mediocre for years; that my hockey team have forgotten how to spell ‘the play-offs’ never mind ‘the stanley cup.’ Yup, disappointment is a frequent guest at chez Mr C.

It works both ways. There is a soccer team I despise with a passion. I hate Manchester United more than I love Newcastle United – and that’s a lot. There is one major problem with hating Man Utd. They win everything. Therefore on an annual basis I have months of hoping that someone, anyone, will knock them off their perch only for them to win through again. It hurts. It hurts even more that, in Northern Ireland, I am surrounded by Man Utd fans who love nothing more than gloating and that I, in my little black and white soccer shirt, am an ideal target for gloatation. How they love to remind me that my team has a trophy shelf covered in dust while theirs has a trophy room filled with glittering bits of metal.

Luckily a few days after the season ends life has moved on and we are all looking forward to the next season when I will be hoping and praying that Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Stoke City – anybody – will win the lot and clear out that trophy room at Old Trafford.

The past is over rated – we all know it even if we don’t accept it consciously. I know there will be people snorting as they read this but deep down they know I’m right. Brush aside all the old adages about being destined to repeat our mistakes, how we can’t know where we’re going if we don’t know from whence we came, and you will see I speak the truth.

That is surely a comfort to Mr Obama. He may have just spent the last few months cat fighting with Ms Clinton but now he can forget all about it and wipe the slate clean for a whole new battle. He is nowhere near as damaged as the right-wing press love to suggest. If anything he can learn from the fight. Duck and dodge Barack, duck and dodge.

It may well be important to know about the past but in the league table of import nothing that has come before can compete with the immediateness of the present nor the anticipation of the future. Why waste time worrying about what happened yesterday when you could be putting all of that emotional energy into worry about what is going to happen tomorrow.

Take me for example. I could be concerned that I didn’t perform as well as I could have in last year’s production. Instead I’ve decided to worry that, for various reasons, I have missed all but two rehearsals for a play I will be performing in a couple of weeks.

What am I doing typing this!!!

um

Hmm. Yeah. I knew it was too good to be true. I've run out ideas. Maybe I'll leave it till I get back next week after all.

messages from the past

"It's incredible." I hear you cry, "He went away at 5am on Saturday morning to live in a tent with no electricity, let alone wifi signal, and yet he's posting more regularly than he ever did when he was sitting in a classroom with constant internet access. Comment c'est possible?"

I love the 'scheduled' thing in blogger. It's great. I can type up posts weeks in advance and it looks like I'm being regular. Ingenious. If only I planned my lessons this far in advance I might have a permanent job by now... There's a thought. Imagine if I could prepare my lessons in batches and deliver them the way blogger delivers these posts. I could spend a weekend throwing lessons together, set the timer, and go on a road trip for the rest of the week while my pupils are drip fed the learning that will get them through the rest of their life. Genius!

I must patent this idea now!

Camp 2008

Am somewhere near Leeds living in tents with the BB for a few days.

Normal service (whatever that may describe) will be resumed as soon as I return - or a few days after. I'll have a lot of work to catch up on, and I may need some sleep, and I'll have run out of things to talk about...

end of an era

Isn’t it sad when things from your childhood disappear? Behind this fence and these signs there is a nothing. A nothing where there once stood a bland looking warehouse of a building. Where there is now a white painted wooden fence there used to be a huge, yet unimpressive, rectangle of grey only brightened by a massive sign advertising bingo. And I loved it. It was Coleraine Cinema.

Long before the Jet Centre, with its polyscreen convenience, came and went and came back again Coleraine had a large single screen auditorium slap bang in the centre of town. It was dank, it smelled of stale smoke and your feet would stick to the carpet as you walked down the aisle; but the seats were plush, the screen was huge, and I loved it.

It was where I had my first movie experience. If I remember correctly the first film I ever saw was Herbie Goes Bananas back in 1980. A terrible film to break my movie virginhood but I went through the entire experience unblinkingly and with my mouth open – I was hooked.

The cinema in Coleraine closed down years and years ago. They put up a bigger complex on the edge of the town with more screens, and better sound, cleaner floors, and minimal personality. The old building became a bingo hall and then briefly an amusement arcade. But in recent years it has lain empty, dormant, awaiting the end. I didn’t mourn at the time – if we wanted the traditional picture house experience we could always go to the Portrush Playhouse. But yesterday, when I looked above that white fence and saw the nothing I felt sad, maybe even heartbroken.

I’ve been so wrapped up in other things that I didn’t notice the fence and the signs go up around the building. Nor did I see the machinery move in. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt such loss if I watched the building gradually go. Or maybe not – maybe it would have been worse to watch the once proud edifice brought slowly to its knees. I don’t know, but I do know that, however pretty the apartments they will inevitably put up in its place, they can never replace the memories and the love I have for the old cinema.

four more hours

A pupil has just looked out the window at the grey skies and remarked, “I can’t believe it’s almost summer.” I can – and I can’t wait. And I only have a couple more hours to survive.

This is my last day at CHS. I have mixed emotions really. I’m exhausted, so relieved to have some time off; I don’t have a job for next year, so apprehensive about what the future holds; I may never see a lot of the people here ever again, so there is a touch of sadness; oh, and a little bit of guilt. You see although I said it’s my last day at CHS it isn’t actually the last day of the school year. Ridiculously we are expected to come in for a single day next week. They are having a half day on Monday to finish everything off. I’m down to supervise the party – I won’t be.

I will be in Leeds on camp with a bunch of immature teenagers and two other, even less mature, leaders. While I am supposed to be standing imposingly in the corner of an assembly hall I will probably be living in a tent.

I will let them know that I won’t be able to be at school on Monday so they can arrange appropriate cover (maybe hire a couple of heavies to take my place) but every time I try they look so hurt at the suggestion that I would even consider missing my last ever day here. I hate the hurt look – I’m a pushover sometimes. Apparently the English department are planning an informal get together in my honour. I feel terrible that people are being so lovely while I am slinking off into the darkness.

But I think I’ll find the time to get over it while I’m relaxing with a couple of dozen good books over the summer. Au revoir CHS, et bon chance.

wimbledon 2008

I am so happy. Wimbledon starts today. I love Wimbledon. I love tennis. As a child I would spend literally hours batting a ball against the wall of our boiler house. I lost so many tennis balls on the flat roof that my brother invented a ball retrieval system to help me out – true brotherly love.

I wasn’t bad at tennis when I was a kid. In fact I like to believe that if I’d kept it up I could have been pretty good. But I didn’t – and I’m not. I’m not bad at putting the ball where I want it to go – it’s the running to the other side of the court to reach the return that I haven’t quite figured out.

At my last school I was working with my boss one day. I can’t remember what we were talking about as we worked but I do remember saying that I sometimes wished I was Roger Federer. “Sometimes I wish you were too.” She replied. Obviously she hadn’t thought it through – if I was the best tennis player in the world I would hardly have been spending my Tuesday afternoon computerising her pupil action plans. Then what would she have done? – huh? huh?

Wimbledon fortnight is one of my favourite times of the year. Along with the milk cup it is one of the very few things that my father and I bond over. During this fortnight we can often be seen slumped in armchairs in the small hours watching highlights of some obscure mixed doubles match. I remember the joint sense of lose we felt when Gabriella Sabatini announced her retirement. A tragic day in the Campbell household indeed.

It’s just a shame that the Brits are producing so few world class players. It seems we can only manage one a generation at the moment. Of course it’s nice that the whole country unites behind Andy Murray (well, except me – I still think he’s a whingeing teenager) but it would be even better if the country was split by a world class rivalry. What life would be like if we had our very own british version of Connors-McEnroe.

Dreams, only Dreams. In fact it doesn’t look like improving much any time soon. At the moment Tim Henman is ranked as the 6th best player in Britain. Our 6th best player is a retired player who claims to have picked up a racket only a handful of times this year! Hardly a glowing assessment of men’s tennis in the UK. There is some talk that things are better in the women’s game, that there are large numbers of talented players moving up through the ranks – I hope so, I really do. In the meantime my ex-boss and I will have to watch the extraordinary Mr Federer do his thing.