Reflections on the Berkhamsted School Talent Show March 2009

I am about to put together a review of last term's 'Talent Show', but need to summon my muse from Helicon or Parnassus (but, as you can see (left), she is a little busy at the moment) to do justice to an occasion which Principal, Mark Steed, rightly described as 'humbling'. It really is not a task that should be embarked upon lightly. These were some of my favourite moments. I've included Mark's closing comments because, as a newcomer to the school himself, his awestruck comments on what he had just witnessed were clearly sincere and struck exactly the right note on which to end the proceedings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS8EkD5NuQI (Espen's Marxist Tea Party)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2KrtVg1y44 (Jason 'Spanish Guitar Kid' Elvin)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c7yWSS3GUM&feature=related (Xava Dancers)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xq780sEzNA&feature=related (The Black Lights)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm8saJ7oRsc (Velocitie: 'Take a Bow')
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMO5N5AmExs (Two and a Half + 1: 'Broken Strings')

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJGT_SmrRRg&feature=related (Sid & Zac: 'Umbrella')

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsfBwuU91dc&feature=related (Ruhith & Felix: Two Drummers)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4W4IEV41XA&feature=related (Cameron Jones: 'Blood On Your Hands')

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNOtUMiBLUI (Serendipity)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxnnuaOawY8 (Undecided (dance troupe): unfortunately the music has been disabled for copywrite reasons)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ZXyVho4FI&feature=related (Snob Dylan (Peter Swaffield)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDJXR_J-AGQ (Talent Show 'Thank You': Principal)

Watch this space!

Freudian Slip!

A few years ago I was marking a Common Entrance Latin paper. It was a piece of English into Latin: 'He pierced the shield with his spear.' Fairly routine: 'transfixit (he pierced) hasta (with his spear) scutum (the shield)'. I was well into a pile of scripts by this stage and was racing along. Three ticks, six marks, next question, next script...and then some Socratic warning sign - my very own apotreptic daimonion - was telling me to go back. Lo and behold! On closer inspection, the boy had written 'transfixit hasta......scrotum'! Ouch!

I would love to believe it was deliberate, but, I suppose, it was just the sort of thing that constantly occupies the subconscious mind of a thirteen year old boy.

School Mottos

I was recently reflecting on two school mottos we have at Berkhamsted: 'virtus laudata crescit' ('virtue when it is praised grows' or 'a pat on the back works wonders') and the beautifully oxymoronic 'festina lente' ('hurry slowly' - interjection: 'Sir, that's stupid!' - or 'more haste less speed'). The latter, incidentally, was the Emperor Augustus' favourite motto, originally in Greek, 'speude bradeos'. I remember delivering an after-dinner speech on school mottos many years ago. In the course of my research I was struck by how enlightened our two mottos are from an educational point of view. Many are about Christian virtues or God himself, very few about educational methodology, but both these mottos have a modern resonance and are therefore unusual.

I remember one which made an impression on me at the time and would appreciate some help on its provenance as a school motto. The original is a line from Vergil's Aeneid (i. 203) 'forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit' ('A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even these things'). Aeneas and his men have been shipwrecked on the coast of Carthage (Tunisia) and he is doing his best to raise morale. In effect he is saying that things can only get better: one day they will dandle their grandchildren on their knee and recall fondly experiences such as this. The particular school motto, I seem to remember, was adapted to omit 'et' (even). It now translated: 'A joy it will be one day to remember these things', presumably now meaning that the things one learns in school one can recall to one's benefit in later life, a sound educational objective and a clever adaptation, without doubt. However, I cannot help thinking of the original version and its context. Consequently for me it holds a delicious irony and an alternative, unwitting, meaning that however grim things are at school, one will look back on them with some sort of affection, perhaps in the way that we of a certain generation perversely treasure the memory of a sound schoolboy thrashing! - hardly the message intended, I'm sure. Clearly, too much knowledge is a dangerous thing!

When I mentioned the subject of school mottos to a wonderfully sardonic former Classics colleague at Sedbergh, he reminded me of a favourite quip of, unsurprisingly, the Emperor Caligula, 'oderint dum metuant' ('Let them hate, provided that they fear!'), and thought that would be a lovely motto to have over the fireplace in Common Room! Sedbergh's actual motto -'dura virum nutrix' ('a harsh nurse of men') - is evidently well-chosen!

The Die is Cast

I have been reading over the Easter holidays - belatedly, I confess - Tom Holland's 'Rubicon'. I am very impressed. As an introduction to the last 100 years of the Roman Republic, it strikes an excellent balance between scholarship and entertainment and offers strong encouragement subsequently to get to grips with the sources. I suppose my major reservation is that too many ancient historians devote too much time to the individual's role in shaping history, whereas the best of recent scholarship has focused on the socio-economic background so neglected by the ancients. Holland does little to reflect their efforts, despite his bibliography which suggests otherwise. Nonetheless, I very much recommend this to my students. He certainly has made some of the drearier topics of the period come alive, not least Caesar's campaigns in Gaul (Holland's treatment of the Battle of Alesia is particularly graphic) and the subsequent Civil War (by focusing more on Caesar's duel with Pompey than the more far-flung mopping-up operations). It is a far cry from 'Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres...'! I even have some inclination to read more about the wars with Mithridates: to think I thought I might die happy in almost total ignorance thereof!

Susan Boyle and the feminist lobby.

I am amused by the feminist lobby's outrage at the popular reaction to the Susan Boyle phenomenon. Is her voice really that exceptional? Surely the whole point is not that her voice is genuinely so extraordinary - I don't think it is (I have listened to her independent of any video footage) - but that it is so unexpected, irrespective of what prejudices that implies. I am sure that even Susan manipulated our expectations to some degree. I am also sure that, as we speak, there is a media dilemma as to whether to give Susan a 'makeover'. However, if we make her look like every other media personality, will her voice really stand up to close examination? Perhaps we should think of giving her a 'makeunder'? Discuss.