What a night!

Great night out at the O2. We went to see Roger Water perform "The Wall" (out of total nostalgia) and guess what...

David Gilmour joined old band mate Roger Waters on stage tonight at London’s O2 Arena to perform in Roger Waters’ epic tour of The Wall! David played lead guitar on Comfortably Numb using his black Fender Stratocaster guitar and also brought his mandolin out at the end of the show... also attended by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.

[From David Gilmour Joins Roger Waters On Stage at London O2]

Amazing. I'm sure I wasn't the only person in the London audience who had been to see "The Wall" when it was originally performed 30 years ago.

The concept album was originally toured by Pink Floyd in 1980 and 1981 in only 4 cities due to the colossal size of the production! The show made the band a financial loss due to the expense of staging it.

[From David Gilmour Joins Roger Waters On Stage at London O2]

And I saw it then too - in both years, in London. It's something to do with the cycle of life, but I've been reflecting on how I enjoyed the concerts in different ways. When I saw it in 1980 and 1981, I was just there to enjoy some great music (I always loved "The Wall" -- I can remember listening to it over and over in the living room of the house I shared with mates at Uni) with some great mates. Listening to it as a "grown up" (and not off your face) was a very different experience, because you were following the story, and understanding more about emotional content. The evening went by in a flash - wonderful.

It was, naturally, made even better by the tidal wave of envy I unleashed after twittering all about Dave Gilmour's appearance!

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

We don't need no... um... ahh..

Oh no, I was forced to start thinking about education again, and this during the school holidays, because I sat next to two women talking on a train back from London yesterday. One of them was a teacher, and although I didn't hear all of the conversation, I did hear her say that she had taught in both state schools and in private schools and that when she had children (she looked around 30 I guess) she hoped that she would be able to afford to send them to private school. All this while her union, presumably, campaigns to force the children of the masses into state edukashun camps under their control.

I sat in a lesson in a top public school the other day in which the children were learning about the Treaty of Versailles. I swear I'm not exaggerating: in that one lesson they learnt more than they would learn in an entire term in some of our state schools.

[From Katharine Birbalsingh: 'The middle class is disguising the failings of state schools in the inner cities' | Education | The Observer]

The only way out of this is to make all schools private.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]