Numerology

I know. I know. I know. Yes, from September 2013 to now is eleven, not ten years. Which doesn't make it any the sadder.

I blame my first maths teacher at big school, Miss Cowie, (cowie by name, cowie by nature), who was absolutely ruthless and terrifying and the most unbelievable snob to boot. 'Well we all know about Leslie and her North London ways', I remember her declaring, leaving Leslie withered and me, a South London child, mystified. To this day, (while never doubting for one moment that, in Miss Cowie's view, they were beyond the pale), I wonder what exactly North London ways were/are and whether perhaps, unwittingly, I too now exhibit some of them, perish the thort.

Really though, I should blame the Chelsea Froebel School, a realm where mathematics consisted of rote learning of times tables, many happy hours with the beautiful but ultimately unenlightening Cuisenaire rods, interpolated with the very rare days when the inspector came round. On those occasions, glass vessels of all sizes would be produced, newspaper would be spread out on all the tables and we would spend a wildly fun time splashing each other while pretending to penetrate the mysteries of the gill measurement, (now there was a useful way to spend one's time; how often I've had recourse to my familiarity with one-third of a gill glass jars; indeed, one might even ask where I would be today without such a solid foundation in the science of liquid volume; on the other hand, one might not.