Bits of madness.

Another week comes to an end. As predicted by the weathermen, a cold wind has been blowing from the north, increasingly chilly as the day went on. So I went out wearing my sunhat and sunglasses this morning and by late afternoon felt as though maybe I needed gloves and a scarf. 

A friend of mine who has been in Hamburg, Germany, has been complaining of too much sun. This is most unusual for her, as she has impressed me in the past with her lizard impressions, sunbathing for far longer than I can stand it. Now she's planning her visit to see us in Vigo, booking a hotel in Porto for the last night of her visit in the hope that we can repeat the spectacular trip we made to that city a fair few years ago. 

Here some educational arguments have been raging: - 

Should parents be allowed to take their children out of school to go on a cheap holiday? When I say no, of course not, I am accused of sour grapes because, as teachers we were never able to take advantage of cheap deals when our children were small. But a judge has upheld a father's refusal to pay the fine for taking his child out of school. Where's the logic? 

Should children be tested to within an inch of their sanity? Parents have been criticised for keeping their children off school (again!), this time to go on a demonstration against SATs. Other parents have just been expressing their dismay at their children's fragile emotional state. 

Example questions have appeared in various bits of the mass media, challenging us to see if we are able to do any better than eleven-year-old. 

Our SATs-age grandson has seemingly taken the whole testing malarkey in his stride, thank goodness. No nervous crises there. Today his school organised for the year six class to climb a mountain, well, a hill behind the school, as light relief. They disguised it as a Geography trip as they would not want the Education Secretary getting cross with them for rewarding children for sitting exams, but two of the teachers took their dogs along! 

David Cameron has been flinging accusations of corruption around. And then his own party is being accused of corruption for spending too much on electioneering. 

The world is quietly going crazy. In fact it might not be doing it so very quietly. 

Over in the USA, George Zimmerman, the man who shot dead a young black man, Trayvon Martin, because he found his presence in his neighbourhood threatening, has been trying to put up for auction the gun with which he committed the crime. Except that he has not actually been found guilty of any crime. 

As I said, the world is a bit crazy. 

Anyway, despite bidding getting up to $65m at one point, two auction houses have refused to continue with the sale. Maybe there is some sanity after all. 

I am just amazed that anyone might want to buy such a thing. 

And it would seem that Mr Zimmerman is not selling the gun just to get rich. Apparently he has said "a portion of the proceeds would go toward fighting what he calls violence by the Black Lives Matter movement against law enforcement officers, combating anti-gun rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and ending the career of state attorney Angela Corey, who led Zimmerman’s prosecution." 

So that's all right then. Nothing crazy there!