Faces from the past.
One of the pleasures of teaching is meeting students that you have taught when they’ve stopped being irritating, needy little blighters and become their own, individual human beings. That’s not to say that they weren’t all along, it’s just that the wheels of education tend to grind down any individualism (at least before sixth form) and the only students that really stand out more often than not are the absolute pains in the arse. Recently schools have embraced the idea of alumni as they are seen as potentially excellent sources of future income or patronage and last weekend we hosted a reunion for those who left 5 years ago as well as the two year groups before that who missed out due to Covid and a brilliant thing it was. So brilliant I ended up decamping with a group of them to the nearest pub as afternoon turned to evening and had an absolute blast.
I ended up sitting with a record company exec, a political journalist, a shoe designer and a wind turbine supplier. Just wonderful company as they reminisced and reminded me of all the ridiculous things I had said as throwaway remarks in the classroom but for whatever reason had stuck with them in their adolescent brains. Needless to say I bailed as the evening got messy!
This weeks sounds are culled from performers seen at End of the Road this year as a couple of them have excellent new albums and one just hit the spot at the right time. Hurray for the Riff Raff were as powerful as always, Kevin Morby actually upbeat and The Fruit Bats really brought the house down. As ever take what you want or need.
