Assault, indecent assault and beating someone up

We’ve been working through old boxes stashed away in the workshop, trying to reduce the amount of *stuff* that’s cluttering up what was meant to be a working space.
Today I came across a piece of paper I thought long gone ๐Ÿ™‚ Between my year abroad and the final year of my degree (which in fact turned out not to be my final year, but that’s another story…) I had a summer job working for an exam board. Most of what I did was checking that marks tallied and entering data from printouts, but occasionally we were able to have contact with actual exam papers. My favourites were Sociology GCSE ๐Ÿ™‚ and the piece of paper I found today was one where I jotted down quotes I particularly liked.

The title of this post comes from a response to a question about the three stages for a Bill to become law: assault, indecent assault and beating someone up.
The same question was also answered:
– It must pass the House of Commons and the White House…
– Two stages are the bill being made up by people who have to pay the bill eg using the telephone. Also the company adding the bill up and sending it to the payers.

Two functions of the speaker in the House of Commons:
– The Chancler of the Checker and the prime minister Jon Major.

Two state benefits paid for by National Insurance contributions:
– war arms and importing goods
– doll money, health mobility, accidents insurance, car insurance

On the role of Trades Unions:
– Fright for their Rights
– It’s when everyone get together and set out here prombles
– Two function of a trade union are 1) to agree or disagree about the trade and 2) to do something about it.

Reasons why the Government might subsidise an industry:
– Too much violence, rap and trouble.

Social differences between adults and children:
– an adult has been fully bread into society whereas a child hasn’t, an adult has already been taught i.e. to say please and thankyou.
– Two social differences between a child and an adult are adults behave more matually than children and adults are not so venerable as children.
– The addate actes more senserbul and knows what is best for the kids and child is probberly miss behaveing and arguing with the addalte.

Two members of the extended and not nuclear family:
– the groundmother and the groundfather.

On dealing with the elderly:
– The elderly could go to pubs, play bingo or do gardening. Arguments against these are that if they go to pubs they might get drunk, they might not be fit enough to do gardening and if they play Bingo they might win and get excited and not believe it and have a heart attack.
– The problem with elderly relatives they become an nuisance moaning all the time. Get under your feet while living in a family home. Become ill but know one can do nothing about it have to face facts that they are getting old.

Reasons for relationships breaking up:
– The male mite of bine haveing an iever with some other femal or they mite of had a argument about the child what is coming along.

Kentwell – belongs back in July!

Our plans for Kentwell this year were somewhat complicated by Jรขโ‚ฌโ„ขs school exchange, which meant that we expected to be hosting a French teenager for the first week and a bit, while J would still be at school until week three. When 6 was also added into the mix, with no idea of whether or not she would enjoy the experience and want to carry on or prefer to be at home, things got just a little more complicated. Then a good friend found out that the court hearing in her rather nasty divorce case was to be the Monday/Tuesday of week one รขโ‚ฌโ€œ and I had promised to be there for her to give moral support. Fortunately, Dawn at the office was very accommodating of my uncertainty. Things were made easier rather unexpectedly when J arrived in France to find that his exchange partner was not expecting to stay with us at all, but had been told to go to an entirely different family รขโ‚ฌโ€œ confusion reigned for a few hours, until we managed to clarify with Jรขโ‚ฌโ„ขs school that this was indeed the case; they had just forgotten to inform us of the fact. This meant that 6, A and I were free to stay for Wed รขโ‚ฌโ€œ Fri of week one if we wished. When we heard that my friend had settled out of court we were then free to stay for Mon and Tues as well. All that remained was to see whether that was what 6 wanted to do รขโ‚ฌโ€œ I already knew it was what A wanted!
In the end, we stayed for pretty much all of the three weeks รขโ‚ฌโ€œ with a brief foray home to collect clean underwear and emergency clothing for those of us who had expected to be home on Monday or Tuesday!
Our assigned stations were: L to the gentry pavilion, where she was Mistress Jane de Vere, in navy wool, blue velvet and green brocade, K to the stewards, as Hugh de Vere, page, J, once he joined us, as Richard Clopton, minor gentry and musician, Bob on the butts, A, 6 and I in the cotte. 6 soon discovered the joys of basket making, however, and went off with C quite happily for a few days to spend her time making baskets (one for herself and one for L). After a while, though, the basketmakers became too crowded and 6 came back to the cotte, returning just to finish the basket she was on. By now Em and her children were there, including E, who was rapidly making a name for herself in the woolshed as being a spinner of particularly fine thread. She took 6 with her to have a go at using a drop spindle and that was the last we saw of her for the rest of the week, apart from dinnertime when both girls would appear with their bowl and spoon to see whether our offerings were better than the general pottage, then, tummies full, quietly disappear again. Her first skein may have been a little loose and lumpy, but 6 was still very proud to dunk it in the dyers’ vat and turn it blue. The second was better and became yellow, then overdyed with blue to make green, while the third was better still – practice may not have made perfect yet, but definitely makes improvement ๐Ÿ™‚
Meanwhile L was doing her best to support Bess on a station distinctly lacking in numbers in week one but rather healthier in week two. She exchanged her fancy gown for a rather less fancy petticote/kirtle on a couple of occasions, so that she could help out in the kitchens (still at the visiting gentry pavilion) and have a little more freedom – no need for a companion on every journey, for a start – but on the whole still enjoys being gentry, especially when she gets the chance to dance, sing or play the rebeck. The final Wednesday of the Event was a Home Ed day, when the players found themselves in need of a drummer and the pavilion was closed in any case, so the scummy kirtle came out again and off she went to play with the players ๐Ÿ˜€
K had a whale of a time being a page, including lots of chess playing, a fair bit of tour guiding, a number of trips out on the moat with the punt and enough singing to earn himself the sobriquet “The singing page” ๐Ÿ˜€
J spent more time playing the recorder than the sackbutt, but enjoyed both as well as the odd game of chess – and definitely found it easier to be in the house for such a hot week than it would have been had he been outside in the sun; he doesn’t do well with heat, sun or suncream and his hayfever is starting to rival mine for intensity, poor lad ๐Ÿ™
Bob had fun on the butts, although I’m not sure how much actual shooting he got to do in between all the talking and letting other people have a go, and the cotte was, as ever, a cool(ish) and dark(ish) place to be on even the hottest day – although having to build up the fire for cooking was at times a bit of a penance! We missed M very much ๐Ÿ™ but were happy to have guests for dinner each day, including Nat (although I think the multitude of small children scared him at times!), Mistress Joan of the pinmakers, Long Meg the storyteller and on a couple of very memorable occasions Mad Jack, who decided to tell Long Meg a story and ended up talking “Spanish” with such high-pitched goobledegook that it sent A and Joan off into peals of laughter and giggles which needed just a little reminder to set them off again and again all afternoon ๐Ÿ˜† We couldn’t persuade my father to leave his clock and come to dinner, but he did send his apprentice and we managed a few times to send food back for him which we thought he might actually eat…
I’m sure there’s far more I could say. I may return, or start another post, but for now this will do – Kentwell 1559: a good year ๐Ÿ™‚

Matilda!

A couple of years ago J, K and L did a workshop in the holidays where they prepared a shortened version of Oliver! and they really enjoyed it. This year the opportunity came up to do a similar workshop just down the road from here, this time based on Matilda the Musical, so we booked places straightaway, as it promised to be very popular. This was before we knew that 6 would be coming; we had four places booked and knew that the workshop had been full for some time so it was with some trepidation that I approached the organiser to ask if there was any chance of squeezing another person in. Fortunately she said yes, even though it meant 21 children instead of the planned 20, so our plan b of finding something else for J to do was not needed.
Our daily routine for the past week has accordingly been that I would walk the children down the road to drama school and leave them there with packed lunch, indoor shoes and lots of drinks while I walked back and had a useful day catching up on emails, sorting through boxes which have been sitting in the workshop for a shamefully long time waiting to be sorted, restarting the 40 bags in 40 days challenge which I didn’t manage to finish in the Spring (hate ME relapses) and resting lots to recover from all that activity. Meanwhile, the children were kept busy learning lines, songs and choreography as well as playing lots of drama games. It’s been a poor week for music practice as they were so tired by the time they got home that reading through their lines for the next day and eating tea was about all they could manage before collapsing in front of a film or heading straight to bed ๐Ÿ˜€
On Saturday Bob and I went along to see the result of all that hard work in the form of a short show (about 45 minutes) which told an abridged version of the story and included a few of the best-known songs. They were very good ๐Ÿ™‚ 6 and J were both narrators (the role was split between 4 children in total) and both word-perfect with their lines, K was Bruce Bogtrotter, with a pillow down his shirt and a solo starting off “When I grow up”, L, overcoming a serious case of nerves, was the young Matilda (sharing the role with an older girl who took over once Matilda started school) so also had a solo for the start of “Naughty” and A had lines including “Pick up your hockey stick and use it as a sword!” and “My Daddy says I’m a princess” which she performed with great aplomb.
They’re now all keen to do more musical theatre…. we just need a few more days in the week and a few more pennies in the purse ๐Ÿ˜‰