Russell Wolf is talking on the radio at the moment about caning of school students. He spoke of his own experience of being caned not that many years ago and how he ran in panic from the headmaster’s office on the second occasion. Good on you Rusty, I am in full support.

What struck me (ha ha) is that he had the Director of the Independent Schools Association of WA on-air and she said it is still legal to use the cane in schools in WA even now, that there are still two independent schools that use it, but she refused to name them! She also didn’t know whether any school child has been caned recently.

What a cop out. Not my responsibility. I vass only following orders, mein Fuhrer.

Then Russell read out listener SMS comments. Most were sympathetic but several, obviously from blokes, were “Get over it” — you must be a wuss, what’s wrong with you, a bit of cane never hurt anyone, a leather belt hurts more, you got off lightly.

I got the cane at high school too, didn’t I, Dr Norm Hoffman? I can’t remember specifically why, something about poor homework. Heinous crime!  I don’t say it affected me, but the fact that I remember every detail of the day, time, place, class, and you, Dr Norm Hoffman, doing it, must mean something. You rose very high in Education and academic life, but you lashed me with a cane for poor homework. I hope you’re enjoying your retirement. I have a photo of you in 2007. Watch this space.

_____________________________________________

I have spent all afternoon working on a slide show of the Venice images I mentioned. Selecting a theme, arranging the image order, selecting music, extracting CD tracks as mp3s, editing the music to ensure it fits and has no gaps …

Wow. WOW! The result knocks my socks off. I sat there spell bound, even though I’ve seen all the individual images. I can’t claim all the credit: Antonio Vivaldi plays a part, as do the software writers who make the slide show software. But this has turned out to be something special, one of my best ever efforts. It’s burning a BluRay at the moment. There will not be a Standard Def DVD – it requires hi-def.

This is the first pass. I’ve done a simple opening title but more can be done yet, and closing captions, so another day’s work yet. Also, this is just the still images. I’ve also got high def video I can put into the same show. More to come.