What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Past Tense

    Sometimes museums are terribly annoying. I found myself getting all worked up about this thurible.

    image

    Well, It wasn’t exactly the thurible that got me worked up but the card next to it.

    image

    The caption uses the past tense. “Censors were used…”

    Censors are used. It somehow felt so frustrating to look at an object that I could pick up and use in my daily work and which seemed to me to be in as good a state as when it was first made and yet see the caption speaking about the use as being something in the past.

    As I looked around the same gallery, all the references to anything liturgical were expressed in the same way:

    “Music was important in the Christian liturgy…”

    There’s no was about it.

5 responses to “Back to School”

  1. william Avatar
    william

    I note your reference to “in straight lines ” when you were at Bearsden PS.
    Were you not taught about tautologies in these former days, when education would have been more content based than you would have found on your recent visit?

    Reply
  2. Kelvin Holdsworth Avatar
    Kelvin Holdsworth

    Er, yes I was and no, it isn’t.

    Reply
  3. PamB Avatar
    PamB

    Ah yes, the staffroom etiquette. I’ve done the cup thing, the chair thing, and, possibly worst faux-pas of all, the crossword thing in my time. Nowadays there are no staff rooms, just bases, a whole new minefield of unwelcoming stares.

    Reply
  4. Jaye Richards-Hill Avatar
    Jaye Richards-Hill

    Sorry to hear about the torrid time in P7 you had with the belting teacher…as a teacher myself, I’m not in favour of such tactics. I find a cold silent stare always used to work better than any cane or belt…such activities should be reserved for consenting adults only ;-/

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Thanks Jaye.

      The same teacher spent a quarter of each day on religious instruction and was, as I said, quite mad.

      One one occasion I was belted for humming. On another, simply, I suspect for being me.

      There are probably those reading this who have some sympathy with her.

      Reply

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