robinlawrence’s Space

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To arse around is a much used verb in the Lawrence household mainly due to having three children and a busy lifestyle.  As all linguistic scholars will know language and language uses change over time and so it is, as a kind of intellectual exercise I put finger to keyboard in the quest to understand what the verb and all its related derivations mean in the tricky year that is 2016.

It is clearly a regular verb, following as it does the conventional addition of the letters -es in the third person singular (s/he, it arses around) and as such also follows the regular tense pattern of other regular English verbs. 

The LED (Lawrence English Dictionary) defines the verb as to generally waste a specific moment or period of time not completing a task that needs doing, the general act of avoiding doing something that needs to be done, often by doing something entirely useless or with out need to be done.  All good so far.

But language experts are agreed that it is really the derivations that are of most interest to citizens of the world hence the following easy to use guide:

To Fart Arse Around: This is the cover-all verb that is generally used when there is some doubt about which of the more specific verbs should be used.  However caution should be exercised in that this version of the verb is not in anyway about bad smells.  The only waste implied is that of time.

To Moon Arse Around: Much more specific than the above verb this version includes the act of adopting a blank-faced, trance like status and ambling slowly from place to place looking for lost items, while struggling to remember what the mislaid article is.  The article is often something that is important but only life-threatening in terms of a perceived parental threat to "kill me if..." the moon arser doesn't find the lost letter, text book or small denomination note.  Often moon arsing around is carried  out early in the morning by the younger generation shortly after descending stairs.  It usually involves not wearing some or all of a school shirt, trousers, underwear or socks and seeking the lost item or items in unlikely places such as in the fridge (an appliance that requires a lot of looking in (is it possible to fridge arse around?)), microwave, the under stairs cupboard or in the piano stool.

To Fiddle Arse Around:  This verb is most often used in the negative command form "Stop fiddle arsing around." The reason for this common form is due to the fact that to fiddle arse around involves the dismantling or taking apart of an object and its rapid reassembly without looking at it or treating it with any care.  Such objects are often small, but high priced electronics, remote controls or complex tools that the fiddle arser knows that they should not be touching in the first place.  It has been known for the fiddle arser to make a rapid and faked transformation into a moon arser to deflect attention away from broken objects.

To Ping Arse Around: A recent addition to the verb, ping arsing around involves the repeated and semi random flicking, clicking or pinging of any randomly acquired item that, crucially, makes a regular, one note noise.  Prolonged ping arsing around often leads to breakages

and losses of parental rags.

To Toddle Arse Around: A newly discovered verb (Monday this week).  It specifically refers to the 12 year old boy who walks into his home, fails to take off his shoes, and moves around the lounge looking for his dance bag, almost moon arsing in fact.  It also involves a random swinging of one or both legs to make a repeated and irritating noise while not actually finding or even looking for the aforementioned bag.

I am sure other arse around verbs are available.

Being spontaneous isn’r the easiest thing in the world when you are part of a family of five.  So on Tuesday this week when I had an idea for a spontaneous weekend away I quickly dismissed the idea as simply impossible due to not having at least three weeks to prepare to be spontaneous in.

However as the hours drifted by the idea gained traction and the urge to be spontaneous took hold more and more, especially as my spontaneous research had discovered that the Lawrence Family’s favourite cheap and cheerful resort on Langkawi was offering us the opportunity to be flown there and back, plus two nights accommodation and breakfasts all for RM 320 each.  After a bit of consideration, that evening, after the children were asleep, Lexi and I decided that we should indeed be spontaneous and go for a weekend away (with the children too).

As we all know there is many a slip between cup and lip and the first slip was a RM20 person increase in the 13 hours between me first looking at the deal and considering pressing the booking button.  Next there was the RM30 per person extra in order to fly back at a time that wasn’t very early or very late and then there was the the extra cost, RM84.50 to pay for the privilege of paying that almost stopped us from being spontaneous.  However we overcame all those hurdles and booked. The planning, to be spontaneous, went in to overdrive.

I had booked through Air Asia, so knew there would be various problems that would challenge us, least of all printing off the tickets, which took several attempts.  But I managed it.  Then came the small matter of synchronizing our timetables to get us all in the right place at the right time to stand any chance of getting to the airport for a 1740 flight.  This synchronization started 24 hours before the flight with Rupert, Trixie and Lexi packing their stuff while I took Edwin to his latest dance lesson, this time with a new dance partner.  All appeared to go well as he and I returned to find two packed cases and Rupert’s rucksack with stuff in.  He and I packed, lunch money instead of sandwiches was put out (no lunch boxes due to not wanting to have them sitting in a car while we were away) and it was off to sleep.

Amazingly we all got out of the house on time the next morning, with the right number of bags in the right vehicles.  The day preceded well and was made even better when I received a text from Lexi telling me that she had remembered to bring the passports with her, something that I had overlooked.

End of school came and conveniently Edwin was not in the pre-arranged place at the vitally important time of 3.15pm, preferring instead to saunter along five minutes later seemingly without a care in the world.  He caught up with Trixie and I who then moments later rendezvoused with Lexi and Rupert in the neighboring car park.  All was going to plan.  

We arrived at the airport, parked, dashed through the vast shopping mall that is KLIA2 and then tried to get out documents approved by Air Asia, something we found out that we did not not now need to do.  We then increased speed and dashed to the departure gate, getting their, somehow, 45 minutes before departure time, allowing for the purchase of hot drinks along the way.  Feeling pleased with ourselves Edwin celebrated by managing to spill dollops of hot-chocolate down his while school top, but that seemed a small price to pay for the minor miracle of spontaneity that we had pulled off.

Being Air Asia the flight was its customary 10 minutes late and we reached Langkawi without a hitch.  We even managed to get a hire car without any hassles and with next to no petrol either.  

Feeling flushed with success we arrived at our resort before sunset, checked in and felt that our spontaneity had really paid off.  Marvellous.  Of course there were a few minor difficulties we started to notice.  All three children were there as were both Lexi and I, relief.  However Rupert had managed to leave all his t-shirts at home, as had Edwin with his swimming trunks and Trixie with her sandals.  Fortunately for RM10 per item we managed to purchase two Langkawi t-shirts, a pair of flip flops and a very flowery pair of shorts, thus solving the children wardrobe problems.  We made it to the beach for food and drinks.  (Food took well over an hour and three reminders to arrive, but then there are often challenges to be got over when being spontaneous).

Saturday involved eating a very late breakfast, lazing by the pool, admiring the copious amount of bird poo on the hire car, and more swimming / relaxing / eating and drinking on the beach. this time without such a long time to wait for food to arrive.  And then there was more of the same this morning before flying back to KL at 1125.  

However there were more spontaneity challenges to be had when we got back to KLIA2 in that we initially struggled to find where we had parked the car and then, when we found it, discovered that it wouldn’t start, due to someone switching on the internal light to look for a phone on the floor on arrival on Friday and then being in a spontaneous hurry to catch a flight.  Thank heavens for jump cables and Lexi’s ability to charm we managed to get a jump start.

All in all a good 48 hours away and it was nice to be spontaneous, although it takes a lot of work!

"Factorise: x2 - 13x + 40," said Edwin’s Maths homework sheet.

I detested my year of doing Maths AO level when at school, hundreds of moons ago.  I had a rubbish teacher who gave all his attention to growing a shabby beard and the greasy haired boys on the front row who were destined for Mathematical greatness and super-strength spot cream.  

In my first year at school, for some reason unknown to me, I was considered to be good at Maths and so I was rewarded with the joy of doing the O level one year early.  Great.  I was then given the exciting, apparently it was, opportunity of taking the AO (Additional Ordinary) level course.   Rewarded as I was with a grade C at O level Maths I thought that I could improve on it and soon afterwards got another grade C in the second sitting of the exam.  I had clearly peaked, twice, and so mentally gave Maths up.  I still had eight months of the AO lessons to endure and no amount of pleading would convince the tweed-jacketed, dandruff generating teacher to allow me to drop the subject.  So I did the sensible thing.  I sat at the back of the class and worked on my German instead.  Being a good lad at heart though I did leave my maths books open on the desk and even looked at the board and teacher at the front of the class occasionally, appearances are important after all.  And I am pleased to report that, after much struggling and hard work, I got a grade C, in German. I also obediently, sat the two AO Maths papers and, having little idea or interest in them, I came out with quite a creditable grade E.  In the nearly thirty years since that last exam I have not given my Maths studies a second thought....

….Until recently that is.  Edwin is currently doing Maths at school and has been introduced to the world of wonder and confusion that is Algebra.  This week he has been inducted into the topic of factorisation.  Teachers are consistently encouraged to explain to students why they are studying key topics and if I was told why I was tortured by Algebra 30 plus years in the past then I have buried that knowledge long ago.  I have no desire to return to the distant days of 1986 to relive those Maths lessons, despite it possibly helping to improve my German.  Being a supportive Dad and teacher I did ask Edwin why he was studying Algebra.  Doubtless he had been told why but he did not appear entirely sure beyond saying it was just something that he had to do.  Not satisfied by this answer I read a range of web pages suggested to me by google as the answers to my question: Why Study Algebra?  The suggested pages were little help and could be summarised (a skill I learned in O level English) as because it is both good for you and will help you.   Prunes, marathon running and supportive underpants are also good for you but one doesn’t have to study them three times a week at school.

But now I reckon I have found some, possible, use for one of the skill sets learned while battling the mysteries of Algebra and factorisation in particular.

Firstly though my understanding of factorisation, which I know might be wrong, but here goes anyway.

When the Maths student is confronted with such beauties as ab2 + 5ba - 36a and told to factorise it my sources tell me that they should not seek to find the answer, which to the Maths numpty like me, seems counter intuitive.  Surely every question needs an answer.  Apparently not.  Factorisers should seek to break the collection of letters and numbers into the constituent parts of the sum by expanding it.  My Drama teacher’s brain immediately wants to ask why, but that of course is an elementary mistake.  I should simply expand it and expand it until I can expand no longer.

But hold on though, my Drama teacher’s brain thought earlier today.  While I have absolutely no interest in the answer to 6x2 - 9xy - 81y2 (oops, remember factorising is not answering, Robin) I might just have some use for the skill that expanding this seeming gobbledigook could provide me with…

… When students are first confronted with IGCSE Drama monologues their initial reaction is “Have I got to learn all those lines?”  As any Drama teacher knows, that is the wrong question.  What they should be asking is “Why does the my character say what they say?”  And to find out the answer to that question they need to factorise.  What?  Expand the words that are in front of them and start thinking about who the character is, what are their given circumstances, what do we know about the character that the character does not know yet (oh, the beauty that is Dramatic Irony), who are they related to, how do they like their eggs cooked and all the other questions that help us know the whole Juliet, Romeo, Leah (the DNA Leah, not to be confused with her kingly ancestor Lear) or any other popular character.  Expand until the actor can see all the sums that make up all the parts of the whole character.  

Next the IGCSE actor simplifies and combines all the sums and parts of their character and so performs it right (having of course conquered minor factors such as knowing the lines, getting their costumes spot-on, conquering their nerves and turning up on the right day)

It is approaching the very busy season in Dramaland.  We have missed several days of rehearsals for this year’s school play, Treasure Island, due to smoke haze that had lingered over Kuala Lumpur for several weeks.  Much has been written about the causes of the haze from Indonesia and we wait for concerted inter-government effort to bring about an end to the fires and their economic need.

The loss of practice time has hit us hard and so one of the solutions that we have put in place is to get the cast to rehearse until 6.00pm instead of 4.30 on rehearsal days.  This is helping catch up on lost time, but has made for tricky domestic arrangements for the Lawrence Clan.  Rupert goes to cubs on a Wednesday but the extended time at school has meant that Trixie has had to spend a lot more time away from home than she had planned.  7.00am to 6.00pm days are not quite what her year four self had in mind at the start of the year, but it is what it is.  

Today’s after school arrangements were particularly tricky to sort given that we had the following concurrent events:

• Play rehearsal for Edwin
• Parents’ evening for Me
• Bollywood celebration for Trixie from 5.00pm (which Lexi wanted to go to as well)
• Dance lesson for Edwin from 7.30pm 
• And all with one car (as the other is being serviced).

So while I was doing the parents’ evening thing and Edwin rehearsed and Lexi and Rupert got themselves to my school and I dashed around trying to blag a second ticket for the Bollywood thing because it had sold out and I had forgotten to buy any tickets earlier in the week (and breathe), Trixie sat in the Drama office doing stuff, thinking about life in general and drawing pictures in the way that 8 year olds girls do.  

Dressed in her best Bollywood outfit (she appears to have two, I don’t know how either, and kindly lent one to her best friend) she decided that she would use her time profitably by helping out Daddy and his two Drama teaching colleagues.  As she sat on one of the wheelie chairs around the planning table her creative brain got to work.

A few weeks ago she commented on the number of wheelie chairs in the office.  Why had we got six, she needed to know.  Without thinking about it too carefully I told her that we had six so that we three could use them to have races around the Drama department and Drama office each day.  I was helpfully backed up by my colleagues and then collectively we gave it little more thought.  

When I got back from my parents evening I was greeted by a very proud and serious looking Trixie, complete with her “I have been a very helpful girl expression”.   As pleased as punch she showed me the exact thing that the department was missing in the eyes of an eight year old: A wall-chart.  Not just any old wall-chart.  No.  This wall chart, complete with dates, included columns for places, medals and names was everything that regular chair-racing Drama teachers could possibly want to help them keep a record of their departmental chair based endurance events.  There was even an accompanying medal tally chart labelled “gold, silver and brons.”  

Trixie was right.  It was exactly what we needed and has taken up pride of place on the Happy Wall.

Kidzania is an awful place and should be avoided like the plague.  In fact a brief dose of plague or having a small hole holed drilled in the head might have been preferable to visiting this dark, stuffy and over-priced place.

People might ask why the hell the Lawrence Clan visited at all and I am asking myself that very question too.  Today has been a day off from school due to the official Deepavali holiday in Malaysia.  All Lawrence children had been before to Kidzania on a school trip, but separately of each other and were extremely keen to go all together.  After much specific persuasion we finally relented and agreed to go today.

We arrived at the ticket counter along with loads of others too and were ushered in to the non-pre paid ticket area where we queued up just like an airport check in only to be told that when we arrived at the counter to pay we were at the wrong counter.  There were plenty of advertising signs by the counter but none telling us that we had done the wrong thing.  It was at that point that we should have regained control over our senses and left before paying RM301 for us all to go in.  Sadly we did not.

We were each given wrist bands with electronic chips in them, it felt a bit like a police tag, and confusing tickets called Boarding Cards from one of the many sponsors of the place, Air Asia.  However in true Air Asia style the cards were confusing and overly bureaucratic.  They stated that out flight time was from 0930 to 1230, which bore little resemblance to the stated opening time of the place, 1000 to 2100.  Next, before we could go in, we had to go past a security check, where three people stood around not enforcing the rule of no outside food or drinks.  Then we were free to enter the main building.

Within a quarter of a second I was ready to cut our losses and go straight out again.  It felt like walking into a shrunken shopping mall where the owners were economizing on the electricity bills by cutting back on their use of lights.  The place was on two levels and had around 50 “attractions.”  These attractions were allegedly there to challenge and stimulate young minds by providing kids with the opportunity to have a go at real life jobs.  Every attraction was heavily sponsored by one company or another which left me unsure as to exactly what was going on.  Was it an activity centre that wanted to challenge kids or was it a way to show the smiley friendly side of each business to accompanying parents?  

Overall the experience was insidious.  The only redeeming feature about Air Asia are its cheap prices.  Its customer service is awful and that was reinforced by kids having to wait up to an hour to access the Air Asia airline simulator.  CIMB Bank is a place that Lexi has had to spend hours in in the past to accomplish the very basic banking task of getting a bank cheque.  So when kids had a chance to engage in banking activities at the CIMB stall, after queuing, I was reminded of the amount of time wasted in the past.  And then when we walked past the Sprint Highway experience and saw kids trying getting to grips with roads tolls I considered what an inefficient way of collecting in money for road building and maintenance handing over a few coins to another human being is.  The vaguely interesting make your own Cadbury’s chocolate bar or learn how Oreo cookies are constructed were both closed and so I was only afforded the chance to consider whether either company used palm oil in their products.

In short avoid the place.  I also fear future flashbacks when confronted by Stabilo art materials, Nippon paints and Ayam brand tuna fish.  I wonder whether the terrors of Kidzania will make me think twice about buying these companies’ products.

As a kind of PS to really rub salt into my wounds I was asked for my name, ID number and contact details on the way out.  I detest ID cards and ID numbers with a passion and it was all I could do not to unleash a tirade at the four uniformed people gathered round the A4 notebook where guests were willingly writing down their personal details.  I asked why the business collected such data and of course no one could give me an answer apart from saying that they would then like to contact me.  Gosh I could tell them a thing or two.

Lexi and I finally got round to watching episodes five and six of the first series of Peaky Blinders last night.  Despite a few terrible cases of accent wander, especially from Polly, the series has been great and ended in a real cliffhanger.  I am looking forward to watching the second series and so am desperate to avoid any plot spoilers.  I have particularly enjoyed the atmosphere of 1919 Birmingham as well as watching interpretations of what returning WW1 fighters may have been like.  Plenty of writers have described the horrors of trench and tunnel warfare and the traumas that the survivors brought back with them may well have been as bad as the actual conditions that they experienced first hand.  The excellent use of No Man’s Land and mourning clothes in episode six was particularly poignant and was going round my head as I took Rupert off to ….

the service of remembrance this morning at Tugu Negara (the national memorial) close to the centre of KL.  He was assisting with handing out the programmes for the service in his capacity as a cub, despite him not being too impressed at a getting up before 6.00am so that he and I could be there by 7.30am.  It was a very well attended service with addresses by the British High Commissioner and a representative from the Sikh veterans association.  There were also pipe tunes played by Sikh bagpipe players and the hymns were accompanied and led by students from Lexi’s previous school.  All of this was set against the large memorial inscribed with the dates of WW1, WW2 and Independence struggles a well as a large inscription reading “Glorious Dead.”  

I am pleased that year on year the victims and the dead of wars are remembered but I really do wish that equal attention was given to reflecting on the reasons for the many conflicts that have been enacted during the past 100 years.  By reflecting on the mistakes and successes made by previous leaders we should stand a better chance of not letting history, and wars in particular, repeat themselves.  I fear greatly as to the eventual outcome of current battles in Iraq and Syria and hope, sooner rather than later, world leaders will talk with regional leaders and those engaged in war-like activities.  Killing people who choose to follow a different peace loving religion to your peace loving religion cannot be justified, just like dropping bombs on battle ravaged lands.  Leaders need to talk to appreciate their ideological differences before more people end up either dead, destitute or being forced out of the homes.  The policy of bombing first and talking later has been the traditional way of conflict resolution and hasn’t always worked.  Could our politicians and leaders be persuaded to try a different approach?

As a way of dealing with senseless violence this afternoon the Lawrence Clan went out to watch some senseless violence, in the form of the latest Bond film, Spectre.  Despite being a bit all over the place in terms of story (I came out trying to remember what the story had been) it was a great visual treat and full of cool happenings and cheese one liners.  A notable contributor to the film was the Malaysian censor.  There were at least two removals from the film as shown by really bad editing.  The terrible attempt to tidy up Ralph Fienes’ “shit” into “man” was laughable while a whole James and Madeleine scene was cut out despite leaving in a James and some bloke’s wife scene in.  Censoring annoys me in that viewers should be in full control of choosing what they watch and thus conducting their own censoring as they see appropriate. What is worse than  censoring is inconsistent censoring.  I remember watching “Spy” which was full of effing and jeffing all the way through and it was considered perfectly fine by the censors, although the only f-word used in Philomena was dropped on to the Malaysian film cutter’s floor.  Ralph Fienes was correct in his summing up of C as a shit, because he was a shit and so the line should have stood so that audience’s could have had their views on the character upheld and validated by the dialogue.  Come on censors, give up.

Prior to coming to Hong Kong I had images of skyscrapers, thousands of people, fast pace of life and then all that topped off with loads of noise.  Well, after six days here, most of that appears to be accurate but there are also other wilder sides to the whole place too.