Nursery rhyme time

St Clement Danes church, Strand, London

The church in the above photograph is St Clement Danes, Strand, London. There is a nursery rhyme from the 16th/17th century which is sung to the melodies played by the bells in various London churches. The rhyme is ‘Oranges and lemons’ and the church above plays the first lines, ‘Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements’. I used to sing it a lot as a child (you can probably find a version on YouTube).

As I passed the church yesterday, the clock struck the hour and the bells played the melody from the rhyme. It did send a tingle down my spine being quite surreal at the same time.

Remembrance of cakes past.

Blueberry muffin and cappuccino

Over twenty years ago when I was studying for my new career as an English language teacher at evening classes, I used to come to the bookstore Waterstones near Trafalgar Square to revise, study or plan my lessons. As I was there a couple of times a week, some of the baristas realised I was a language teacher and I often got a second cappuccino ’on the house’. As I was passing by yesterday, I popped in out of curiosity to see how it had changed. The whole top floor which was once half-cafe/half-bookstore in now a coffee bar. The staff are very friendly and the muffin and cappuccino (as pictured above) were delicious.

Little Things

As I was walking out today, I passed a secondary school advertising Mandarin lessons. I noticed the Chinese characters on the sign first and because I’m studying the Japanese language, I could read some of the sign. Admittedly it was only the words ‘Chinese’ and ‘September’, but I was quite pleased to encounter and understand a language outside of a study period.

My November Podcast

Hello there, my November podcast should be available later today. In it, I talk about my recollection of using songs and music in EFL classes. I refer to a cassette tape in the podcast, but now we’re in the 21st century, I’ve compiled a playlist on Spotify to accompany the podcast. If you have access to Spotify, the playlist is called, ‘Steve’s Songs for Lessons’. Hope you enjoy it. This is the link https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5MYSMgDa6iJLDTLr8MSpBz?si=p8jrKYBsR8eVyqgINDdt7A