Everybody shirts
So, the shirt is dead; long live the, er, shirt. Following many appeals from Commenters not to give up on the talismanic bear T-shirt which saw me through Celebrity Mastermind, a 24-hour show and a lot of less prestigious but equally frightening gigs, today I went to work on it. The results are not bad. The shirt is now serviceable. It might still appear on stage again. If not, I was also sent (by the kind and unflinching Katy, a Where’s Watson leader) a link to purchase an identical one. I’m probably going to do this tonight. I might get ten, actually, to be on the safe side. There are a lot of people with wine out there. There’s no knowing whether an identical substitute will have the same powers as the original, of course, but it’s reassuring to have a stunt double all the same.
In a touching coda to the incident now already known as ‘Shirtgate’, Charlotte – the unlucky individual who spilled the wine over me – bought me a new (different) T-shirt from Topshop and sent it via my sister with a note of apology. There was really no need for her to do this, but it certainly put me in a good mood.
While browsing Google images to find a picture of the bear shirt, I discovered the one I’ve posted above, which shows off the Super Furry Animals top I insisted on wearing every show when I began my career, in 2002. I thought I’d put it up here basically to give everyone a laugh, as they say. Among other revelations from those clean-shaven, floppy-haired is the fact that I used to wear a sort of necklace around all the time. I can barely remember this (probably festival-purchased) ornament, let alone guess what might have happened to it. The past truly is another country.
Anyway, since everyone here is so good at problem-solving, and I’ve already got a lead on a new bear T-shirt, I’m going to throw down a trickier gauntlet: if anyone can find me a V-necked SFA tour shirt (from the 2000 tour, during which I saw the Welsh geniuses at Cambridge, Cardiff and Middlesbrough) like the one pictured, I’d probably pay handsomely for it. (I’ve looked on ebay and so on, nothing immediately came up, but perhaps people here know more cunning approaches.) Clothes-hunting is a new and unexpected direction for this blog, but that’s how we roll. After all, you didn’t expect to see a photo attached to it today, after six pictureless months. I’m a loose cannon, what can I say. If THIS comes off, I might turn it into a monthly challenge. After all, it’s not like we already have more challenges to be getting on with than we can manage.
In other feedback-to-blogs news, my defence of modern-day students against the ‘exams are getting easier’ thing was replied to by someone called Tiberius, in a Comment you can find under yesterday’s blog. (S)he claimed to be an examiner and stated in no uncertain terms that exams ARE getting easier and easier, and indeed, that they’re being stitched up in favour of students. However, the spelling and grammar were so poor that if Tiberius IS an examiner, perhaps it’s not the students we should be worrying about, but the teachers. ZING!
And as the echo of that zing slowly dies away, it’s a case of ‘I’m Mark Watson: see you tomorrow’.
Posted by Lewis on November 6, 2011
YOU LOOK LIKE COADY!
GUTTED!
Posted by Jon on August 27, 2010
Bad times
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/walesmusic/2010/08/super-furry-animals-future-in-doubt.shtml
Posted by Ivan (@ivanbrett) on August 22, 2010
In response to my lamenting a lost cardigan in the comments of the last shirt-themed blog, I FOUND IT!
It was just BEHIND all the t-shirts in its own little cardiganny cave that nobody would ever find. Sneaky thing.
Hurrah!
Posted by Megan on August 22, 2010
I had two shirts that I ruined through overwearing. One is irreplaceable (a red Chemical Brothers (oh, shush, I was young) one with a rainbow on it and the other is owned (now) by a lot of Canadian people (http://www.cbcshop.ca/CBC/shopping/product.aspx?Product_ID=CPGEN00201&Variant_ID=70SBLS&lang=en-CA), so I’m reluctant to replace it…but I had it before everyone else did (in early 2004), dammit!
Posted by Rachael on August 22, 2010
Picture certainly succeeded in giving me a laugh. Still don’t understand how anyone, examiner or otherwise, can really say whether exams are getting easier or not. So they must be lying!
Posted by James on August 22, 2010
I understad your t-shirt attachment, I have a scarf I still wear even in summer.
I can’t comment whether exams are getting any easier, but I know history has more and more to learn each year.
Posted by Val on August 22, 2010
Well… if you’d like a Tee with a pissed (as in inebriated) bear on it, I’ve one on my Redbubble that I did/created/drew/painted: Propping Up The Bear.
Posted by Adam on August 22, 2010
I’m split between this notion of whether exams are getting easier.
On the one hand, isn’t it possible that the education system has just been getting better? If less people had dided every year, wouldn’t it be hailed as a constant improvement of the health service? Not just those pesky diseases not being as tough as they were ‘back in the day’. On TV and radio shows you always hear the same ‘ this was the ACTUAL QUESTION from this years english/maths/whatever GCSE, isn’t it so easy and stupid’, but they don’t mention that that was probably the first question on a paper that only allowed the student to gain a low grade. If they asked the hardest question from the A-level maths paper, they’d probably struggle to answer it.
However…
It does some odd that exams results have improved for something like the 28th year in a row. Even if education was improving, it seems unlikely that in those 28 years there wouldn’t have been at least one anomaly whereby a year group didn’t get better results out of pure coincidence.
I really don’t have any sort of answer…
Posted by Lydia on August 22, 2010
The Tiberious comment is funny, especially considering the thing I heard most this year from my teachers was “We really have no idea what will come up”. I just don’t understand why everyone thinks that it is all so easy. All of the people saying that we don’t work as hard as them aren’t even in school anymore, so how do they know what it’s like? So many people have spent massive amounts of time stressing about exams and university and failing life this year it’s frankly insulting to have to constantly hear how it’s actually totally “easy”.
I just realised Laurs said everything that I tried to in a way more interesting and coherant way. I’m glad that most of the comments seem to agree that all the media stuff is stupid.
Posted by Phill on August 22, 2010
Glad to hear the good news on the shirt front.
Oh, and I think I can categorically say that your 2010 look is better than your 2002 look.
In terms of A-Level results… I did mine nearly ten years ago now, and I found them pretty bloody hard at the time. (Of course, the newspapers had been going on for years about them getting easier, so by now anyone above the level of a demented bee must be able to get good results. That was sarcasm, by the way).
Ben Goldacre wrote a good article about this which kind of summarises my thoughts.
Posted by ChrisP on August 22, 2010
What are the actual arguments for the exams getting easier other than more people getting higher grades? Has anybody done a comparison or is it just journalists looking to fill a few column inches? It’s all very subjective!
Can we not just accept that we are, as a country, getting smarter?
I’m nearing the end of my education now and I think that courses as a whole are probably being made not necessarily easier, but more convenient, with things like re-takes being made available (should this be allowed?), and long courses being assessed in modules (which I prefer) instead of having to remember a years worth of stuff till May when you have a big exam week of misery. The course content is about the same I’m assuming, but these things would not happen ‘in the old days’ that the cynics seem to look back on with nostalgia. Which is the most fair and accurate way of assessing students?
Having said that I think there must be a lot of bureaucracy and all that hidden away concerning grades and funding etc.., which I’m not a big fan of. This is based solely on observations in my hometown of Cambridge so may be a bit inaccurate. The education system does need to be looked at (but please, not by this government).
I personally think they are getting easier as my younger sister appears to be doing miles better than me. Clearly it’s the exams, right?
Posted by Maddy on August 22, 2010
Heya. Sorry about your T-Shirt, my rather awful suggestion to aid you is; Do you know where the T-Shirt originally came from, like the company? Perhaps you could e-mail them?
Sorry, thats probably not much help.
On the subject of “easy” exams, i think that it is a load of crap. Also, people seem eager to jump on the “the students have it so easy” band wagon, however if they were there at the schools watching all the kids getting chucked out for their AS results leaving them with no school to go to and the rest of their lives in question I’m sure they might reconsider their opinions. sorry, that sounds a bit drastic and harsh, i will lift the tone of this comment by saying dude at the end. yeh dude.
Posted by Madeleine on August 22, 2010
In the picture, it kind of looks like the necklace is keeping your head attached.
It must have been funny searching yourself on Google images. I wouldn’t know where to look for that particular shirt, Ebay then the Band’s website and I’m out of options.
I’m having a very stressful day, what with the farce of the Australian elections (although the Greens have probably got balance of power, which is amazing and I would like to respectfully replace Ally’s assesment of their leader as “crazy” with “fantastic”) and also having to do the world’s biggest research assignment. It’s on the rise of the Nazi party. I’m trying not to make comparisons. Although Tony Abbot is super organised…
Posted by Juliet on August 21, 2010
I must say, the picture came as surprise, a pleasant one!
Plus… I’ve a confession to make. I have this very annoying English teacher (I speak spanish but I study english), who doesn’t really like me (maybe because I spilled coffee over his desk three years ago, maybe–). The thing is, we were talking about famous people and quotations, and he said something about Gandhi, then he asked us what we knew about him. And I tried not to say it, I tried very hard to keep the joke to myself but it kinda didn’t work… and I said it out loud (that he managed to say a lot of short wise things that fit in a fortune cookie).
So… I committed plagiarism, and he ended up hating me a little bit more. I had to say it. Ah.. feel so much better already. Thanks.
Posted by Ally on August 21, 2010
I’m so glad to find out that you’ve managed to salvage the shirt. I think that clothing themed challenges are a good idea, I’m off to see what I can find.
On another note (on a topic that is pretty much the only thing I’m thinking of at the moment)… I don’t know how to phrase but… I think the Australian government system might have a problem… It’s possible that the balance of power is going to be held by a crazy man.
But yes. Good job on saving the shirt!!
Posted by Linsey on August 21, 2010
Laurs, you are amazing and said everything I would want to in a much better way. You go! I’m lucky in that I go to a school where, in the same way as Laurs mentioned, the teachers put everything into the preparation of the students for the exams, and I feel I worked as hard as I could. It’s shit to read all the twats in the media saying how easy the exams now are, and so I avoided tv and newspapers and spent the day getting drunk and celebrating my results instead. Yeaahhhh. xx
Posted by Maddie on August 21, 2010
… And by ‘cools’ I mean ‘cool’ of course. My typing is not fantastic. :/
Posted by Maddie on August 21, 2010
Had a good look, can’t find that exact shirt, also noticing a severe lack of v-necks, but there are some pretty cools ones about?
Posted by Laurs on August 21, 2010
I feel the need to defend teachers here (I’m sure I don’t NEED to, but nonetheless!)
As a teacher of year 11, 12 and 13 students, I work hard to ensure that they are as prepared as they can be for their exams. I do this by working against the specifications set by the exam boards. So if exams are getting easier, lets maybe start looking at changing those instead of criticising students and teachers who put blood, sweat and tears (lots of them!) into achieving.
I hate the yearly media claims that exams are getting easier, it devalues the hard work and effort that the students have put in to their education. I work with kids who aren’t the brightest, and nor do they have the kind of home life that equates to supportive parents and the associated opportunities that gives them. So, I get angered with someone who hasn’t stepped foot in to a classroom in goodness knows how long telling my pupils that their results are a product of an exam system that is easier.
Worse still, when I have to console said pupils who don’t get the grades they need and all they hear is stories of how they should all be getting As. I spent four hours with one of my students on Thursday trying to work out his options as he got 3 Ds. For him, this was a brilliant achievement, but to him, he is a failure as he hasn’t got his place at university. And yes, the argument that with 3 Ds, maybe he shouldn’t be going to university is a valid one, but why should the media take anything away from him when he has worked his socks off to get the best grades he possibily can.
Maybe, just for once, we should congratulate the successes of those who will inevitably be the future of this country in whatever capacity that may be, and not condemn them before the ink has dried on their certificates.
And here’s to doing it all again on Tuesday for GCSE results…
Many apologies for going off on a rant there, but it is something I feel strongly about. The education system gets screwed over and criticised from every direction, but without it who knows where we’d be…
Posted by Misha on August 21, 2010
A very shirt themed blog.
I can’t help you with the SFA teeshirt, but I have just had another shirt related idea.
Watch this space.
Posted by MusicalLottie on August 21, 2010
Ooh, very glad to hear you didn’t give up on the T-shirt and that it may still make other appearances
Exams are easier than many years ago, but the whole education system is different. Anyway, there’s no point moaning about it every results day – as you pointed out, it’s not the students’ fault! They do the exams they’re given, and do their best. I left school three years ago and it still makes me mad that every results day students are made to feel bad about getting good grades. Grrrrr.
Some teachers do give cause for concern. Even some textbook authors give cause for concern, when they make grammatical mistakes, or give the wrong answers in maths textbooks … *headdesk*