Personally a very busy week with Planning Committee meetings, school visits, prospective parents, Local Residents’ Meeting and Open Day this morning so preparation for tonight’s Quiz has been a more than a little lastminute.com. It’s not a problem though as I can always rely on these Beacon boys to help me out of a spot. Rory, one of my ever dependable quiz contributors, seemed perfectly happy, and offered, to do all of the singing rounds; I pulled Arthur and Hugo out of Science to do the filmed tour and told them I only had time for this to be a one take shot…and they of course delivered. And then right at the end of yesterday, needing one more album cover, I gate-crashed Swim Squad, gave the briefest of explanations to Thomas, showed him the cover I wanted to depict, he replied with, “Sure, I can do that”, and then jumped in the pool and we took the shot. It’s so easy working with professionals such as these…
As with everything Beacon, not content with ‘World Book Day’ we push this into a week long ‘Festival of Words’ with all manner of talks, workshops and initiatives, culminating in the ‘Golden Ticket’ chocolate bars that created such a buzz across the site yesterday. With my birthday next week, my task this weekend is to buy my ‘Birthday Books’ for the Library. Having exhausted all my personal favourites these past three years, I will have a browse around the bookshops in Berkhamsted to find some suitable titles to add to our extensive Library. If though you are of my vintage, I heartily recommend Ben Elton’s autobiography, “What Have I Done” which I have been listening to as audiobook on the way to and from work since Christmas. I’m not familiar with all of his work but the stories and background to a lot of his creative output from the1980s and 1990s is very nostalgic and fascinating to listen to. What impressed (and surprised) me most though is that despite much of his work being mauled by critics and commentators, he bounces back every time, trusts in his ability, never gets ahead of himself and has an innate pragmatism that allows him to contextualise and not be consumed by negativity; a great lesson for anybody. Certainly a ‘ Five Star’ book review from the Baker Bookshop!
Nick Baker