“I hope you don’t mind if I end with a Celtic prayer….”

Last day of term. We have crisps, wine and a cake that is designed to look like a Cornish pasty in the hall at breaktime. People who are leaving make speeches. One Afrikaaner, having come over here to do her sponsored-by-the-school PGCE is now going back to SA…. these freeloading immigrants. Everyone is taken over by sentiment, pinot grigo and holiday hilarity. Apart from me who is in next week, finishing off family background forms and pupil progress datasheets.

Spoke to Other Dave on the phone last night, he was on about interviewing the widow of an Imam at **** Mosque who needed rehousing as, like a vicar’s widow booted out of the vicarage, she can’t stay in the Mosque sans husband. He spoke to her from behind a curtain a female Urdu interpreter. Afterwards, the interpreter invited him along to her (Sunni) Mosque, saying: "We’re not like these Shi’a bastards you know. I don’t have to ask my husband permission to do anything and I don’t walk behind him or wear a burkha. I do what I want". Intriguing. Although I don’t like this notion of Good Muslims and Bad Muslims that we have at present. It’s a bit like the Good and Bad AIDS that Chris Morris derided on his (un)popular TV show.

One of the teachers told me that the Christian/white kids get along fine with the Muslim kids at school: "They all hate the Jews". Plus ça change and all that.

“I hope you don’t mind if I end with a Celtic prayer….”

Last day of term. We have crisps, wine and a cake that is designed to look like a Cornish pasty in the hall at breaktime. People who are leaving make speeches. One Afrikaaner, having come over here to do her sponsored-by-the-school PGCE is now going back to SA…. these freeloading immigrants. Everyone is taken over by sentiment, pinot grigo and holiday hilarity. Apart from me who is in next week, finishing off family background forms and pupil progress datasheets.

Spoke to Other Dave on the phone last night, he was on about interviewing the widow of an Imam at **** Mosque who needed rehousing as, like a vicar’s widow booted out of the vicarage, she can’t stay in the Mosque sans husband. He spoke to her from behind a curtain a female Urdu interpreter. Afterwards, the interpreter invited him along to her (Sunni) Mosque, saying: "We’re not like these Shi’a bastards you know. I don’t have to ask my husband permission to do anything and I don’t walk behind him or wear a burkha. I do what I want". Intriguing. Although I don’t like this notion of Good Muslims and Bad Muslims that we have at present. It’s a bit like the Good and Bad AIDS that Chris Morris derided on his (un)popular TV show.

One of the teachers told me that the Christian/white kids get along fine with the Muslim kids at school: "They all hate the Jews". Plus ça change and all that.