robinlawrence’s Space

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This week, back at school, I have been enjoying making Drama out of a recent crisis.  My injured right hand has been blessedly free of stitches for a while now but there are some pretty fine scars there where replacement bits of finger have fortunately filled in the gaps caused by that very naughty window.  I always like to start my lessons with a warm-up exercise or game or rapid-fire play-making session and so when one student asked me about my Christmas holidays an idea sprang to mind.  I took a quick glance at my right hand and off we went with the first ten minute activity.  The challenge that I set the year seven and then year eight class was to create a play that showed how I might have injured my hand.  I promised to reward the students with merits for those who were either the most imaginative or the most accurate.  The resulting plays were hilarious.

If my students are to be believed I suffered injuries thanks to dragons, demonic mice lurking near to me during a cheese based lunch, a battle with an elderly Chinese water bottle seller, a shop worker who was trying to over charge me for a packet of Oreos to name but a few.

Rupert was an adventurous soul last weekend as he went off to a friend’s birthday roller skating session.  I had high hopes that he would take to it like a duck to water, but actually looked more like a duck on roller skates.  He did eventually manage to propel himself forwards on his skates from a standing start and as well as mastering the slowing down method of simply grinding to a halt.  I did feel quite sorry for him as he does not have a particularly padded bottom so his many falls were ones that he certainly remembered the next day.

Lexi’s Mum, aka Grandma Sausages, arrives tomorrow and in preparation for her touch down in Asia we decided that we should only really have a low key celebration for Lexi’s birthday.  All Lawrence’s dined at Amelio’s on Friday and then we had a few people round last night to munch Chinese food, from the nearby Duck Street and drink wine.  After a few drinks things probably started to get out of hand when the blokes attending decided that it would be a really good idea to scuttle off to the pub to watch Norwich get thumped by Liverpool leaving ladies and some non-sleeping children in charge of the remaining wine.  When the last guests left at 2.30am, all of us having had a marvellous time, it all seemed just about ok.  However today has been a bit of a washout.  Note to self: it is not big and clever to booze until the early hours in preparation for the arrival of guests.  Also when some one says “Shall we have a shot or two of Sambuca…”

Fortunately I have some new deodorant to help me through this week.  I am coming to the end of my last bottle of “Optimus – Follow Me” and so had to brave the alarming sounding “male grooming” aisle at the supermarket.  After much sniffing I selected two, not too foul, smelling products and made my way to the till.  When I studied the labels this morning I discovered that I had bought one bottle of “48 hour ice cool,” (Hey – always cool.  That’s me!) but more worrying I had also become the owner of “48 hour Men Adventure.”  The creative mind boggles and worries slightly.  That’s one piece of news I won’t be passing on to my students to process dramatically.

After a two second growl, as normal, Trixie sprang out of bed this morning.  Why?  Well in her own words, “I’m really excited because I am going to Kidzania today.”  Kidzania, so I am told, is a children’s activity place where little ones get the chance to role-play all sorts of different jobs.  Trixie was buzzing with anticipation about going.  More of her day later. 

My day was somewhat dogged by technology again.  At 8.20am, yesterday, the fourth laptop that I was given to use died and so I took it, once again, to the marvelous IT people at my school.  The technician assured me that he would be able to fix it for me and that it would definitely be ready by 10.00am.  At 4.15pm I phoned and was told by a different technician that technician number one had been called away to do something else.  Could I come back again?

I went back again at 11.00am this morning and once again was told that it was not ready and was this time assured that it would be done by 2.00pm.  Expecting that it would actually be three weeks next Thursday before laptop and I were united I was amazed when the machine in question was delivered to me smack on 2.00pm.  It also worked, apart from the Outlook emails.  The whole experience was a reassuring one though.  Human beings are the same the world over.  We often set ourselves ridiculous time targets that we know we haven’t got a hope of achieving, and Malaysia is no different.

On way to Gloria Jeans today I almost had a brush with The Law.  As I exited GJs and walked the few yards to 7/11 a Police Car, with blue lights flashing, pulled up outside.  An officer ambled in to 7/11 behind me and I began to fear the worst.  I did my best to look inconspicuous and carried on buying my tube of mints while keeping a weather eye on the officer.  It appeared that the officer was making for the top shelf of the magazine stand.  His roving eyes looked along the shelf in question and finally stopped at a certain magazine that he fingered suspiciously.   What was happening, thought I.  Was this some sort of state sponsored crack down on subversive materials?   Could it be an anti-pornography drive?  Were there anti-Government pamphlets on the shelf that needed hunting out by the police?  I looked at the officer carefully.  He was studying a copy of Malaysian Motor Trader.  A blue-light police raid on 7/11 so that one police officer could look for a new car.

Edwin has had a good day today.  He spent most of the day making a stop motion film on an ipad at school and also managed to enjoy PE, gymnastics today, and a violin lesson.  Not bad really.  How school has moved on since I were a lad. 

Trixie’s Kidzania day was also a big hit.   The big news from the day of trying out different jobs was what happened at The Beauticians.  Trixie was used as model by another girl in her class.  She returned home looking like an Abba wannabe complete with shocking sky blue eye-shadow.  Agnetha: eat your heart out. 

Final bit of beauty news.  We took Lexi’s car to Elegance Car Beautician again this evening for its irregular wash and vacuum out.  As always an excellent job done for RM10.  If a Proton Saga can be made to look elegant and beautiful then the lads at Elegance Car Beauticians really know how to do it.

One of my many New Year’s Resolutions is to listen to more news.  The easiest way that I have found to access the news is via the BBC Radio Four website and as I write this I have the Today programme playing.  Having a few days away from news is probably quite a good thing though, almost like a detox diet.   Avoiding news for a while almost feels like the news has more effect when I listen to it, in a similar way that not drinking coffee for a week really makes the next brew hit the spot.   The effect that yesterday’s Today programme’s news has had on me?  It has left me thinking “Strange World.”  The Labour Party are demanding a 30% cut in sugar added to breakfast cereal, the Church of England’s Bishops cannot be gay, unless they are celibate or perhaps not and people are being told to get up earlier to read more.  Those with imaginations will worry that John Prescott might knock on your door at 0630 in the morning and insist that you shake sugar off your spoon before it goes anywhere near your bowl, C of E services might begin with Ministers welcoming their worshippers with details about their sex life while everyone looks bleary eyed because they have been getting up too early to complete the next chapter of 50 Shades of Whatever.  Perhaps I should listen to less news?

Yesterday all Lawrences went exploring.   Following a tip off from a colleague we boarded a train to Klang Port, via a lunch stop in Klang itself, and headed across the road to the port.  We then took a ferry to Pulau Ketam, known in English as Crab Island.  I had expected it to be a much shorter ride than the actual 30 minute crossing, but seeing as I had little idea about what would meet us when we arrived the minutes didn’t matter.  We clambered off the ferry, air-conned, and out into the muggy heat again and onto two metre-wide, raised concrete platform pavements.  Lucky they were raised too as Pulau Ketam is around 10m above sea level and looks more like a swamp than an island.  As the name would suggest crabs and fish are the main industry on the island along with bicycle hire.  In order to tour the island we hired three aged bikes, Edwin’s was named “Force 2007”, Lexi’s “Force Ladys (sic) Flier” and mine was far too aged to have a name, although due to a problematic front brake block did require an awful lot of force to make the thing move.  Both mine and Lexi’s did have padded seats and foot pegs on them though so that Rupert and Trixie could perch on the back and cling onto whatever they could.

Peddling around the place, on the ubiquitous concrete pathways, was quite a challenge.  Local cyclists were clearly experts and rode around at great speed.  Tourists like me did not find passing an on-coming vehicle easy especially on stretches of path where there were no railings.  My bike also lacked a bell.  To help our ride therefore Rupert and I had to shout “Ting! Ting!” every few metres to prevent us being mown down, knocked off or finding ourselves being splatted into the mud.  Overall it was good fun and worth the trip.

We also sampled a steamed crab with drinks after our ride.  I wonder if crabs, in their steamed state, are packed with negative calories.  The brace of beasts were served to us along with a hammer and a pair of nut-crackers.  It took all sorts of bashing and heaving and cracking in order to release a tiny amount of meat.  Yes it was extremely tasty, but it felt more like a work out than a meal out.

Back to school tomorrow.

Here Is The News….Without a Spoonful of Sugar.

One of my many New Year’s Resolutions is to listen to more news.  The easiest way that I have found to access the news is via the BBC Radio Four website and as I write this I have the Today programme playing.  Having a few days away from news is probably quite a good thing though, almost like a detox diet.   Avoiding news for a while almost feels like the news has more effect when I listen to it, in a similar way that not drinking coffee for a week really makes the next brew hit the spot.   The effect that yesterday’s Today programme’s news has had on me?  It has left me thinking “Strange World.”  The Labour Party are demanding a 30% cut in sugar added to breakfast cereal, the Church of England’s Bishops cannot be gay, unless they are celibate or perhaps not and people are being told to get up earlier to read more.  Those with imaginations will worry that John Prescott might knock on your door at 0630 in the morning and insist that you shake sugar off your spoon before it goes anywhere near your bowl, C of E services might begin with Ministers welcoming their worshippers with details about their sex life while everyone looks bleary eyed because they have been getting up too early to complete the next chapter of 50 Shades of Whatever.  Perhaps I should listen to less news?

Yesterday all Lawrences went exploring.   Following a tip off from a colleague we boarded a train to Klang Port, via a lunch stop in Klang itself, and headed across the road to the port.  We then took a ferry to Pulau Ketam, known in English as Crab Island.  I had expected it to be a much shorter ride than the actual 30 minute crossing, but seeing as I had little idea about what would meet us when we arrived the minutes didn’t matter.  We clambered off the ferry, air-conned, and out into the muggy heat again and onto two metre-wide, raised concrete platform pavements.  Lucky they were raised too as Pulau Ketam is around 10m above sea level and looks more like a swamp than an island.  As the name would suggest crabs and fish are the main industry on the island along with bicycle hire.  In order to tour the island we hired three aged bikes, Edwin’s was named “Force 2007”, Lexi’s “Force Ladys (sic) Flier” and mine was far too aged to have a name, although due to a problematic front brake block did require an awful lot of force to make the thing move.  Both mine and Lexi’s did have padded seats and foot pegs on them though so that Rupert and Trixie could perch on the back and cling onto whatever they could.

Peddling around the place, on the ubiquitous concrete pathways, was quite a challenge.  Local cyclists were clearly experts and rode around at great speed.  Tourists like me did not find passing an on-coming vehicle easy especially on stretches of path where there were no railings.  My bike also lacked a bell.  To help our ride therefore Rupert and I had to shout “Ting! Ting!” every few metres to prevent us being mown down, knocked off or finding ourselves being splatted into the mud.  Overall it was good fun and worth the trip.

We also sampled a steamed crab with drinks after our ride.  I wonder if crabs, in their steamed state, are packed with negative calories.  The brace of beasts were served to us along with a hammer and a pair of nut-crackers.  It took all sorts of bashing and heaving and cracking in order to release a tiny amount of meat.  Yes it was extremely tasty, but it felt more like a work out than a meal out.

Back to school tomorrow.

I am retiring from making any more attempts to go up The Infamous Petronus Towers.  Two days ago on a family trip there, it was third time unlucky.  First visit there I had my wallet stolen, second time The Towers were closed and then the third?  All the tickets for the day had been sold.  No amount of polite pestering from me could persuade the ticket sellers to magic up a few more tickets.  Instead the extended Lawrence Clan went out of the main buildings and strolled out the front to take a few photos. 

On the way back in three blokes sidled up to me and asked me, in very hushed tones if I wanted to buy either a Samsung Tablet or i-phone 5.  Having been burgled and pick-pocketed I take a dim view of such dodginess.  The phones offered to me looked extremely real, so much so that they most likely were and I am sure that their source could only have been from pick-pocketing.  As in many places in Malaysia there were loads of security guards walking around desperately looking for something to do.  The one thing they chose not to do was challenge these dubious traders.  Far be it from me to even think that the security fellers might be deliberately ignoring what is going on right underneath their noses?

Yesterday evening I took my parents back to KLIA to get their night flight back to England.  Along with a good Malaysian friend we saw them safely off into the immigration area and on their way.  Departure hall are certainly much more glamorous than arrivals and sitting in the KLIA departures hall sipping a glass of lemonade I started to ponder …  and ponder… and started to wonder if you could arrive at an airport terminal, with only your passport and credit card and leave on a plane fully equipped for wherever you had chosen to head off to?

Lawrences spent most of today in the Cosmo Theme Park, Berjaya Times Square, with a colleague and his children.  It was my first experience of an indoor rollercoaster and it was also much enjoyed by all of us.  And here’s another thought.  Berjaya Times Square sounds much better when said with a Yorkshire accent.

Finally we had Edwin’s ipod fixed today.  Edwin had managed to lock it and forgotten the PIN number so I was pleased when we found a guy called Mr Boon who could repair it.  A real Boon for technology.

Merry Christmas! 

Lawrence children have always been really good at Christmas, following the no-noise-before-7.00am curfew and the we-all-gather-together-for-presents rules.  After all it is quite nice to see others open their parcels of socks, activity books and jars of olives.  It all went a bit wrong today.

Chateau Lawrence, Desa Park City Branch, is a three storey place, Lexi and I at the top floor, children on the middle and Christmas on the ground.  Before going to bed, and just after a very pleasant skype session with mates in a Wolverhampton pub, Lexi I ensured that Santa had delivered a pillow case of small goodies to each sprog and then we retired to bed.  At 0345 I woke up to the sounds of noise coming from the lowest levels and had to set out to investigate.  I found a sprog bedroom full of paper and chaos, sans children.  Further investigation found three children with yet more paper all over the lounge floor and presents all opened.  Not a good start to the day.  After stern words from me children were dispatched back to bed, tails between legs.

The punishment that Lexi and I have meted out for the children’s nocturnal adventures is to put all except three presents away and draw up a good behaviour chart.  Once each sprog completes good behaviour they can select one of their presents at a time.  Cruel and horrible?  Not as cruel and horrible as giving all their presents to charity as I was tempted to do at 0345.  For me the joy of Christmas is gathering as a group and giving presents to people.  All that was rather spoiled this year.

Something that wasn’t spoiled, despite everyone being shattered for some reason, was our Christmas Dinner.  The stitches in my right hand prevented me from doing too much cooking so the plan to roast a turkey at home got shelved in favour of buying a ready cooked best from Amelios of Desa Park City.  The deal was a 4 to 5kg beast plus veg, potatoes and sauces all for RM198.   Given that a frozen turkey was RM150 it was a bit of a no-brainer.   So I booked the bird for 1300 along with four portions of their excellent tomato soup.

At 1215 I took my Dad to the nearby coffee shop and guzzled large flagons of coffee, for social and staying awake reasons, and we presented ourselves ready for turkey collection prompt at 1300.  Harold Pinter knew the power of the pause and the importance of the unsaid, his plays are full of both and after presenting my receipt for the bird just such a pause happened.  The cashier checked the order book, ours was one of two orders, paused again, asked us to wait for a moment and then collected the manager.  Things were not looking good.  The manager then checked the order book again, nothing appeared to have changed in the order book in the thirty seconds that had passed and then the manager sighed.  “We have made a mistake,” he said.  He went on “We thought you wanted the turkey for three o’clock.”  So dad and I stood there for a moment feeling like a couple of prize turkeys indeed.  The manager was very apologetic, presented us with complimentary ice-creams and then offered to deliver a turkey to us at 1500. 

So Christmas Dinner became a staged affair.  Tomato soup at 1330, turkey at 1545 (the delivery arrived promptly at 1530) and then pudding at 1900 during “It’s A Wonderful Life.”  Dieticians will probably be pleased with our staggered dining, although I would much rather have planned such a stagger.

Merry Christmas!

First day of the school holidays and the children and I had to be at school by 6.45am.  Why?  They have not yet got their dependents passes and so it was off the Immigration Office, 25 miles from school to see about getting it done.  The early start was all due to trying to be first in the queue and thereby avoid hours of waiting. 

Arriving with my colleague from HR and Lexi at around 8.00am we took our ticket, number 3003, and started waiting.  My HR colleague assured me that applying for the passes was routine, but could take time.  It did.  We left at 9.45am.  Although curiously without the dependency passes.  Apparently this first session was to apply for the passes and then we have to wait for the approval and then passports can be stamped.  All rather confusing really.  At the Immigration Office there were two different waiting number sets.  Us 3000ers seemed to be few and far between and were dealt with, geologically speaking, swiftly.   It was the 4000ers that I felt more concerned for.  On our arrival number 4002 was being dealt with by “Kaunter Number 4, please.”  By the time we left officials has raced on to 4018 while other waiters were well into the 4030s.  That may not seem to be that remarkable but the security desk that was responsible for handing out the numbers seemed to have stopped giving out tickets and those sitting in the seats facing the austere counters did appear to be settled for the day.

After this fun-packed start to the day it was home via the EPF Office, the Malaysian Government (sort of) Pension Office.  As part of my contract I have agreed to invest 11% of my salary in EPF and my school will put in 12%.  The whole lot is then invested and I get my hands on the loot at the end of my contract, after tax.  As with everything here there is a form for it and my HR colleague had already completed the necessary paperwork for me.  I had to sign it, present my two thumb prints in ink form and scanned in form and then it was all legitimate, so I think….

After lunch things did get a little bit more exciting.  The weather was hot so I decided that it was a good opportunity to take the children for a dip while Lexi was having a siesta.  Their kits, along with mine, were drying outside so went out to get them.  The only tiny flaw in this plan was that the patio door was closed.  Having, as it does, a darkening covering on it to help keep the house cool, it is often tricky to tell whether the doors are open or closed, well that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it.  My head hit the glass first, with accompanying thud, flowed closely by my swinging right hand which made different sound, not unlike that of breaking glass.  I had, accidently, broken the patio door.  It soon also became clear that although the door was not for this house much longer my right hand was not in the best of conditions too.  I can cope quite well with blood but always prefer to have it inside my body.  The number of cuts to my hand meant that the sleeping Lexi had to be woken and drive me to the doctors.  Lexi is less good with blood and so kept her eyes firmly fixed on the road.  The doctors of “Global Doctors” were very good and their cleaning up of wounds, x-raying, stitching and bandaging is to be admired. 

Len Goodman, of Strictly Come Dancing fame would be proud of my number of stiches, SE-VERN!  As long as all goes to plan my Christmas Day present this year should be: a trip to Global Doctors to have my stitches taken out.

You are never too old to learn, They say and the much quoted They is probably right because today I did indeed learn an important cultural lesson.  It was not a lesson to do with how to be a better guest here in Malaysia it was much more to do with how I react when people annoy me.  

Over the past few months of driving in KL I believe that  I have mastered some of the Malaysian road etiquette.  I confidently over take on the inside lane and can blend the Lawrence Mobile into most traffic gaps.  I have even, once, turned left when the lights have been on red.  I still carry out that very old-fashioned and much under-used activity of using my indictors though, so I have not completely assimilated. 

Today however I learned something about horn usage.  Parked at the tyre air pump in a quiet KL petrol station I consulted the in-car Hyundai Trajet Owner’s Manual for tyre inflation pressures and was about to get out of the car and begin airing-up when the car behind me sounded its horn.  Let me slow the immediately following half-second so that I can describe the range of thoughts that went through my head in the order they happened…

1.       Punch the horn user on the hooter.

2.       Calmly and politely tell the honker that I would not be long and would they mind waiting.

3.       Bang on their driver’s door and shout naughty words at them.

4.       Slash their tyres…..

… and then I reached an inner calm, took a deep breath and, as the aircon in the Trajet was still running, something better came to mind: Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, a phrase that the mighty and all knowing They approve of.  Consequently I double- and treble-checked the inflation pressures and set to work inflating the tyres at the slowest pace possible.  The air pump itself was measured in a curious pressure measurement from 200 to 350 somethings which meant that I had to engage in highly complex and time-consuming mental arithmetic to convert to PSI.  Clearly I could have used the handy conversions chart displayed but that would have been far too quick.  I then applied the nozzle to the valve and soon discovered that the first tyre was perfectly inflated and did not require my attention in anyway.  That did not prevent me from giving it a thorough examination, in fact I gave it as thorough an examination as all four tyres.  The only thing that prevented me from opening the boot and unloading the spare was when a friend passed by and, well, it would have been rude not to stop and speak for a moment or six. 

Tyres inflated I made sure that each dust cap was fastened securely and then set about clambering back into the car, in a controlled and leisurely manner.   I slowly reversed out of the parking space, gave a long, hard stare at the hooter and carefully drove out of the petrol station.

I left feeling amazing and learned that a hooted Lawrence is an angry Lawrence and a vengeful Lawrence.

Nothing could be done before the completion of Peter Pan The Musical, not quite one of those deadlines beyond which there cannot be any deadlines, eg Christmas, New Year, change of century, those sort of events, but certainly due to the show’s way of consuming all time it was an appropriate deadline AFTER which other things could be done. 

All in all the show went well.  The music was arranged and played magnificently, that coming from a Drama teacher’s ear, one that is not clearly as skilled as a Music teacher and all the set-piece scenes came off: Peter and Wendy went their separate ways at the end, the lost boys found a new home and Captain Hook got eaten by his nemesis The Chinese Lion.  Yes, The Chinese Lion.  The Art department had several on display and, well it seemed like a better idea than a crocodile.  The Chinese Lion still had the same predilection  for ticking alarm clocks though.  I arranged the play in the round being of that strange Drama teacher breed that doesn’t really like raised stages and as a result of that it was significantly different to previous school shows, got loads more cast involved (13 Tinkerbelles) and enabled the creation of two mini-pirate ships.   When I arrived at the school, during the two weeks of induction, a crèche was laid on for the children.  One of the most popular activities for them were the scooters and tricycles borrowed from the Early Years Centre.  The tricycles were extremely sturdy affairs that could be pedalled at great speed around the sports hall.  Once I had seen one child pedalling while another stood on the back shouting furiously it was a very short mental leap to envisage mini-pirate ships being pedalled around the performing area by blood-thirsty pirates.  Some splendid work from the D&T teachers and fantastic painting by Art colleagues and we had a piratey equivalent of Wacky Races.  They did get quite a laugh from the audience, especially those who obeyed the orders of Captain Hook to turn off their mobile phones.  Now the pondering for next year’s show begins again in earnest.

And so Christmas holidays have begun, well officially it is the end of term one holiday.  Kuala Lumpur has embraced the opportunity to sell loads of stuff to people that you would never normally consider buying just like the UK.  Shopping malls are festooned with posters advertising Christmas bargains, pictures of Santa and snow.   All quite bizarre in 30 degrees of heat.  Because it is now officially the holiday season we have allowed the children to put up our Christmas tree, bought for RM99 from Cold Storage supermarket.  It is the first Lawrence artificial tree.  Real ones are apparently available from IKEA but because I can’t stand IKEA they can carry on being available from there.   The mock tree almost came out of its box within in minutes of purchase due to an ‘accident.’  Trixie claimed to have accidently opened the box.  Many things can happen by accident as we all know, just like those items that never get sent get lost in the post.  However opening the Christmas tree box by accident?  Right.   As I write Trixie is colouring moustaches and beards on people in yesterday’s paper, deliberately.  Nothing accidental about that. 

Trixie had butterflies drawn on her yesterday afternoon as part of the entertainment at a fellow year one’s birthday party.  The part was an elaborate affair involving, as well as face-painting, nail painting, various craft activities, an announcer using a PA system and refreshments for adults provided by The English Tea Company, including fine bone china and fine styro-foam water cups.  As I watched various well-heeled mothers and slightly confused looking fathers drinking tea and nibbling on sweetmeats I did yearn for pass the parcel, the hat/scarf/gloves chocolate bar game musical bumps.   Party luddite?  Surely kids parties should be about charging around at high speed getting tired out and then eating egg-sandwiches, chocolate cake and drinking lashings of cold squash.  I am no Enid Blyton but I do like a good party.

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As I sit at KLIA waiting to pick up my parents, very early in the morning I thought I ought to spare a thought for the Mufti Day organisers at school tomorrow.  Yes things are continuing to be nutty and busy in the run up to Peter Pan on Monday to Wednesday but the school’s prefects are working tirelessly to set up and organize the annual Mufti Day on Friday. My only experience of Mufti Days in the past have been wear non-uniform to school.  Apparently my place does Mufti on a much larger scale.  Prefects have been practicing shows and parades, organizing promises auctions, arranging stalls and bringing all sorts of foods from far and wide.  One prefect told me yesterday that e would be working until 10.30pm tonight at school and would then arrive in at 4.00am on the big day to finish the setting up.  I am hoping for quite an event.

Peter Pan has sold out for its first night and it looks like the other two nights will be a sell out too.  Clearly I am pleased, but there is still plenty to get right and finish off.  Read and sing through on Saturday, followed by rehearsal on Sunday and Monday before kick off that evening.

Final quick thought.  Where has Mr Bean not got to?  The TV screens here in the arrivals lounge are playing repeats f Mr Bean as I write.  Will Mr Bean manage to get out of the car park in one piece and avoid the 16.00 pounds parking fee?  Watch on people.

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 I am sick of “regards,” in all their various forms. 

I send a lot of emails in my school and I receive a lot of emails too. Some of the emails are welcome, some I am able to ignore, others I choose to ignore and a few irritate me. 

Overall I am mostly happy with the content of the many emails that I receive but am frequently troubled by the signing off, pre-name exit line.  I refer of course to “regards.”  Email has put an end to the “yours sincerely” versus “yours faithfully” debate and their use or misuse as both sound far too out-dated and not really of the now.  Instead there has been a steady, and in my view, unwelcome growth and now overuse of “regards,” in a variety of annoying forms.

“Regards,” by themselves are an acceptable way to finish an email to a colleague when the email is business like and requires a simple response or is for sharing information.  All fine a dandy so far.  However when emailers start to specify the sort of regards difficulties and misunderstandings occur.

“Kindest regards” should really only be used in sympathy when communicating with a casual acquaintance.  The reader’s cat has died, their grandmother has had a fall, their prize winning pumpkin was dropped by their smallest child and left a stain on a new carpet.   “Kindest regards” along with the less specific but more coverall “Best regards” are all too often attached to emails sent by superiors that contain bad news, tricky tasks that have to be completed in an unreasonably short amount of time or include some form of admonishment.  To finish such emails in this way is a clear contradiction in terms.  If the sender genuinely had the kindest or best regards for the reader then they would not send them the email in the first place.

The regards that annoy me most are temperature specific regards.  “Warmest regards” tries to imply hard-working camaraderie, tackling the high-pressure work-place together and working up a healthy sweat in completing yet another arduous and yet satisfying set of objectives.  The picture that it conjures up for me is that cup of coffee you have re-microwaved several times, mainly because you were dragged away from it to complete something highly unimportant, and then in a fit of work induced shatteredness you finally gulp headlong into your brew only to scald the roof of your mouth, tongue and tonsils leaving you sore and cross for several days. 

Worse still are “Warm regards.”  Warm can be pleasant but contrary.  Yes it is nice after a cold winter but it is still fraught with unanswerable problems.  Do I need a coat?  Is it going to rain?  Is it too cold for sandals?   “Warm regards” also bring to mind food issues.  Warm regards are those pieces of two-week-old brie that you have heated up, but are they warm enough to make them tasty and not poison your guests?  They are also that room temperature lager at the end of a hot day.  The lager, the regards part, is welcome but the warmness? “Warm regards” are heated up to a dubious temperature, left out too long, re-heated and then handed over with little or no care: the steak and ale pie of the themed pub world.  Woe betide anyone who sends warm regards back to the kitchens of ending lines.

I really hope that as a society we can find something other than “regards” to wish people at the end of emails.  I am not asking for highly specific regards (“Freshly chilled regards served on a warm bed of crisp salad, doused liberally with honey and mustard dressing, garlic bread extra”).  Heavens no!  I am just making a plea for originality and appropriateness. 

My favourite ending was Spike Milligan’s: “Love, light and peace, Spike.”  I will certainly be shunning various specified regards from now on and will consider signing off with what I wish for my children and the world at large at the end of my emails:

Be healthy, happy and legal – Robin.