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PLIssue 03 - April 2011

Insidethis issue:

Exclusive interview with Josh Taylor Award-winning story

Photography competition -the winning entry!

£10voucher for The Filling Station!

Thanks to: The Filling Station, The Small World Shop, Josh Taylor, James Glossop, Kat Hayes, Ms Davidson, Mr Wilson, Ms Nanson, Ms Binks, Mr Clark, Mr Rose, Ms Mathieson, Ms Mercer, Ms Hunter, Jack Jardine, Christie Sinclair, Ellen Whillans, Kirsty McLeod, Lauren Anderson, Miss Henderson and with an extra special thanks to Bethany Eeles for all her time and effort.

The PL Magazine Team

Front cover by Rachel Cunningham S6

ContentsA Frog’s Life Short Story 3

Josh Taylor Interview 4

2010 Top 5 Games 5

Teacher Questionnaire 6

Japan: The Disaster Area 8

Music Review 9

“Have Your Say!” 10

Poetry 11

PUZZLES 12

Photo Competition 13

PL Gallery 14

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A Frog’s Life Short Story

Short Story Competition Winner!

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Josh Taylor, a former pupil at PL, recently won a silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Josh was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about his experience at the Games and boxing in general…

How do you remember your time at PL?

The good old days :)

What made you take up boxing?

I was always interested in it. To begin with I wanted to go to it for fitness and then it got addictive.

What age were you when you started?

15

What age were you when you won your first fight?

15

How many fights have you won?

50 out of 65

How did you feel when you found out you were going to The Commonwealth Games?

I was over the moon. I couldn’t stop smiling and I was so excited about it.

How did you prepare for your fights?

I would just lie down and chill out with the i-pod in and maybe even have a wee boogie haha! :D

What would you do differently at The Commonwealth Games if you could?

Get that gold medal ha haha! No, I’m kidding – I loved every minute of it!

After the final fight, how did you feel?

I was absolutely devastated at first, but after a couple of days I realised what I had achieved and was very proud of myself.

Who is your inspiration/idol?

Manny Pacuiao and my family.

How did you feel when you came home and saw how much support you had?

I could not believe it. I didn’t think that so many people were behind me, not only in Prestonpans but in the whole of East Lothian - it was overwhelming.

What’s next for you now?

Well, right now I am taking a couple of weeks’ rest with my family and chilling out, then it’ll be right back into training to get ready to become Scottish Senior Champion next year. I just need to get my head down, train hard and see where it takes me, but World Champ is where I want to be! :D

Josh Taylor Interview

Interviewed by Christie Sinclair, Ellen Whillans and Kirsty McLeod.

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2010 Top 5 Games

Call of Duty Black Ops is the new improved version of Call of Duty. This new game is made by ”Treyarch”. Call of Duty - also known as COD - is a high impact, thrilling game made to be fun for people all over the globe. I personally play this game and I find the online mode a great way to sharpen your skills by using a special secondary weapon called the ballistic knife. This is a dual knife combo that lets you shoot at other online enemies. There are a lot of new weapons in this game, but still Treyarch have brought some of the old guns of COD 4 into this new game.There is a new system on this

game that means after every online match you will earn money known as COD points. You still need to be a certain rank to unlock guns but you use your COD points to buy them. COD points enable you to buy titles and buy layers to make your own emblem. CAMPAIGN - the campaign is a major boost in amazing thrilling adventure compared to previous Call of Duties. There is an old character that many people will know from COD as “Sgt Reznov”. All together this Call of Duty is definitely an improvement on all previous CODs made in the past.

David Dryburgh and Connor Kelly S5, Andrew Horne and Rory Fairgrieve S1

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Teacher Questionnaire

1. What is your current state of mind? To be honest, I am stressed. I am feeling pressures from all around me and I don’t know if I will achieve everything I have to do before the holiday.

2. What was the last lie you told? I never tell lies! There - that was the last lie I told!

3. What is your most treasured possession? Given that people are not possessions, I would have to say a ring I wear all the time which was left to me by an aunt.

4. What was your worst fashion disaster? There have been many, but the one that I remember the most was many years ago, going to a party, which I had been told by a “friend” was fancy dress. I was the only person there in fancy dress. I won’t say what the outfit was.

 5. How would you spend your ideal Saturday afternoon? At the moment, what appeals most is to be home alone with a box set of Gavin & Stacey, a bottle of Claret and a big bag of Doritos.

6. Do you have any bad habits? See above! These are the bad habits I aspire to. Otherwise, I would say putting lipstick on at the traffic lights. It’s only a matter of time until a police officer knocks on the window.

7. Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with and why?I’m not a fan of lifts in case they get stuck, so I would say a lift engineer because hopefully they’d get it working again - quickly.

1. What is your current state of mind? Frazzled

2. What was the last lie you told? I lied about my age in the recent 2nd year tests when pupils asked how old I was – in French of course!

3. What is your most treasured possession? My music collection – LPs (or vinyls) , cassettes, Cds and now my ipod.

4. What was your worst fashion disaster? My green cord hotpants with bib and braces! Early 70s they were the height of fashion! I just cringe at the thought of them now.

5. How would you spend your ideal Saturday afternoon? Watching Queen of the South – First Division team from Dumfries (my home). A couple of years ago I was at the Scottish cup final between them and Rangers at Hampden. A great afternoon out but sadly we lost.

6. Do you have any bad habits? Not that I know of!!!

7. Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with and why?Tom Jones. He would hopefully serenade me or teach me some Welsh!!

Ms Mathieson

Madame Mercer

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1. What is your current state of mind? At the moment my mind is in a state of high tension. I am certainly needing a rest - holidays are how many days away?

2. What was the last lie you told? Tried to make Mr Cruickshank believe I was a natural blonde, after he called me a ‘non blonde’

3. What is your most treasured possession? My signet ring as my grandparents bought it for me on my 21st and my grandfather died not long after this.

4. What was your worst fashion disaster? Purple, shiny hotpants I made in S4. I thought I looked fantastic but I must have looked awful.

5. How would you spend your ideal Saturday afternoon? Watching Scotland win at rugby - thoroughly enjoyed watching the Irish game but I don’t know if my nerves are back to normal yet.

6. Do you have any bad habits? I sometimes cannot wait to finish a book and read the ending when I am halfway through the book. The last book I did this with was ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’ and to be honest it spoilt the suspense.

7. Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with and why?My hero James Martin as he could give me lots of tips to improve my culinary skills and I like his Yorkshire accent!

1. What is your current state of mind? Mince meat

2. What was the last lie you told? I told my ex-wife she looked fab but actually she has gained 4 stones

3. What is your most treasured possession? My flat - when I close the door I love the peace and solitude - heaven.

4. What was your worst fashion disaster? My white peroxide hair in the early eighties. I wanted to look like David Sylvan from the group Japan - major bad hair day. Maybe that’s why I’m so bald now.

5. How would you spend your ideal Saturday afternoon?

At the park on the climbing frame on a sunny, spring day with my son, Marcus.

6. Do you have any bad habits? Yes, too many to mention but my worst is drinking coffee - I drink gallons a day.

7. Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with and why?Jean-Paul Sartre and discuss Existentialism. Two problems are that I wouldn’t understand his arguments and he’d be speaking French. I also like the idea of being confined to a small place with a man who famously said “Hell is other people”he’d be speaking French. I also like the idea of being confined to a small place with a man who famously said “Hell is other people”.

Ms Hunter

Mr Rose

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11th of March 2011. An earthquake hit Japan, measuring 8.9 on the Richter Scale. A massive surge in the Earth that would cause more destruction than anyone could have anticipated.

I flicked through the channels, bewildered, my mouth dry and my eyes wet. I stopped what I was doing, staring at the television in disbelief. Pictures of devastation, dismay and death rolled across the screen like a bad horror movie. A tsunami was triggered by the ‘quake. A monstrous beast; an invincible wall of water, towered above the small seaside villages, then wiped them out like dolls’ houses. As I watched, I tried to take it all in. People’s homes demolished and crushed; their integrity and pride washed away like mere sandcastles. Japan, a once bustling country with an economy to be proud of was shaken.

Sitting there, I contemplated the situation: the brutality the Earth had shown Japan. I clicked the ‘off’ button on my remote and my TV became a dark abyss. I let the silence comfort

my thoughts. I pondered whether this world is as safe as we all think. We have lived on this planet for thousands of years and, over time, we have claimed it as our own. Yet, once in while, ‘our’ planet reacts in a way that reminds us that we are not as impervious as we sometimes fool ourselves into believing. When these natural disasters occur, we are powerless to prevent them or control them, and they are a stark reminder of our relative insignificance.

However, this thought in itself is a hard pill to swallow: the idea that, in the grand scheme of things, our lives are worthless and can be snuffed out just like that, with no reason or justification.

With this in mind, soon I was thinking about the religious side of the matter. Maybe some sort of ‘higher power’ could have planned this. Could it be the case that ‘God’ had made the executive decision that the wiping out of thousands of lives was a good idea? Perhaps it was His way of warning us about the dangers of too much technological

advancement, in the form of nuclear power, for example. Maybe, if this is about a ‘higher power’, He has a point, and nuclear energy isn’t the way forward. But then again, why kill thousands of people just to prove it?

I thought and I thought, but couldn’t decide what I was going to believe. Maybe there is a God up there, somewhere, looking over us, or maybe bad things just happen and the human race just needs to learn to accept that and do the best we can on a planet that, every so often, will present us with extreme challenges and human tragedies. Saying that, how I would suggest such an apathetic idea to someone who’d actually experienced a tragedy such as this, I don’t know.

I’m still not sure what I think, but I do know that it will be a long time before I forget the images I saw on TV that day, and an even longer time before the people of Japan will be able to repair their shattered lives.

Carley McCann 3gr3

Japan: The Disaster Area

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The Final Frontier is the fifteenth studio album by British metal masters Iron Maiden. While a good album, it is not up to the standard of their classics such as The Number of the Beast and Somewhere in Time, granted that is indeed a difficult thing to do. The first track, Satellite 15… The Final Frontier, is 8:41 long, and really it would’ve been fine at around 5 and a half to 6 minutes long. Satellite 15 is for the most part instrumental with some cool effects, and some vocals at the end of it, but it would’ve been just as good at half of its 4 minute length, as it just seems to drag on. The Final Frontier, however, is a very good song, with a catchy chorus (simply a repeated chant of The Final Frontier) - it is an excellent, memorable, start to the album. The Final Frontier leads straight on into El Dorado, which is another memorable song. It has a good, heavy riff throughout the song, and overall feels heavier than most of Iron Maiden’s songs, which isn’t a bad thing. The chorus however, is less heavy than the rest of the song, and is also quite catchy.

The third song, Mother of Mercy, isn’t quite up to the standard of the first two songs, and is a tad slower too. A good song, with a somewhat epic intro, and solid performances all round, but coming after the first two it feels a little bit lacklustre. Heavier than usual Iron Maiden songs, following in the footsteps of El Dorado. Mother of Mercy is a little bit easier to forget than the first two tracks.

Following this, we come to Coming Home, which is different to the first three in that it is a calm, slow song. Instrumentally it is held back, to help give that calmness that is not present in the first three tracks. The solo is one of the highlights of the song. And now we come to The Alchemist, which is a breath of fresh air following the two previous songs. The shortest song on the album, and it suits it. Most of the songs on the album are a bit too long, especially if compared to The Number of the Beast, whose longest song was just over 7 minutes long, where more than half of The Final Frontier is well over this mark. The Alchemist is a catchy, light-hearted song done in the vein of their earlier albums and the track The Final Frontier. With an excellent solo, some great harmony in there for good measure, and fantastic drumming from Nicko McBrain, this is one of the best songs on the album. Isle of Avalon

is up next, which is the second longest song on the album. It has a 2-and-a-half minute long introduction, which, put simply, drags. However, after this intro, the song gets very good, with some very catchy riffs and vocals. This doesn’t last though, and the solo, just as the intro did, gets boring. Starblind comes after this, which feels rather dull until about 4 minutes through, when it suddenly becomes more exciting, leading into the solo and bridge after it. This exciting part lasts for about 2 minutes, before it sinks back into monotony. Along with Isle of Avalon, one of the least memorable songs on the album.

And now for The Talisman, which is probably my favourite song on the album. After a slow and suitably epic intro, it goes straight into an excellent riff and louder vocals. It has a very catchy chorus all round, and some fantastic drumming throughout. This is one of the few songs where the very long track time is worth it. It has some good harmony after the chorus. There isn’t much of a solo, just a small amount of harmony, before it goes straight back into the verse. An excellent performance from Bruce Dickinson throughout as well. Definitely one of the best songs on the album.

And now we come to The Man Who Would Be King, which is an epic song, to put it plainly. An epic intro, followed by an epic harmony. A very good riff with some excellent drumming once again and a good solo, albeit the solo is a bit quiet behind the rest of the instruments. After the solo, which is probably the most boring part of the song, although still quite good, we come back to the epic verses. And with a suitably epic outro that slows down the pace of the song, bringing it to a halt. Again, one of the better songs on the album.

And now, the final song, Where the

Wild Wind Blows. The longest song in album, as is tradition in Maiden, like Hallowed Be Thy Name and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It’s not quite as ‘epic’ as the previous track, and certainly not as good as their greatest album-ender, which is Hallowed Be Thy Name. It feels a little lacklustre and slow, especially coming after the two excellent tracks before it. The song is still worth a listen, but lingers on a little bit. The guitar work is pretty good, but not up to the standard of some of the previous songs.

I personally feel that The Man Who Would Be King would have been a more epic outro to the album, although this does the job, but not quite as well. Overall, a fairly good album, with some boring parts balanced out by some exceptional parts (á la The Talisman). I’d rate it at 7.5/10, so it could’ve done with some improvement,but a solid effort nonetheless. If you want to get into Iron Maiden (as EVERYONE should), I’d start with The Number of the Beast or Somewhere in Time, which are both better albums. But if you’re a fan of Maiden, the album won’t disappoint you all that much.

Recommended tracks: The Final

Frontier (minus Satellite 15)El DoradoThe AlchemistThe TalismanThe Man Who Would Be King

Music Review

By Brian Dickson S6

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“Have Your Say!”The School Magazine Team thinks it is important that everyone in Preston Lodge has a say about school life. Therefore we asked you to let us know what you think. Here are some of your questions which Ms Binks has taken the time to answer:

YOU: .Can you explain why badly behaved pupils are given privileges in this school, such as the opportunity to learn new skills, go on day trips and spend time outdoors, when pupils who try hard and behave well are given no rewards for their efforts? This gives the wrong message to pupils - that bad behaviour is rewarded rather than punished. Maybe the school could think about a way of rewarding pupils who deserve it.

Ms Binks: This is a thorny question that arises in all schools. For many years across Scotland, schools have been tied into an academic structure that has not always prepared young people for the realities of life beyond school. As a result, the Curriculum for Excellence was brought in to address this. This is planned to support young people to prepare for the future. This is reflected in what young people learn, how and where they learn. There are many experiences in school that are perceived to be ‘jollies’ or rewards for some young people but are actually a core part of their curriculum. More and more, as the Curriculum for Excellence develops, there will be wider opportunities for all young people. In addition to this, we have a range of pupils who have a variety of needs - some learning, some social and some emotional. Our curriculum in schools is planned to support all our young people yet the activities involved have been seen as rewards not supports.

YOU: I think we have an anti-bullying policy in the school but every day pupils are still being bullied. Is there something we can do about this?

Ms Binks: The sad reality is that there is bullying in every school - in fact bullying can exist in work places too. There are a range of supports put in place in Preston Lodge High School. Bullying is discussed at length in Social Education (especially in the S1 programme). All young people are encouraged to seek support if bullying is an issue. They should contact their Guidance teacher in the first instance. Bullying is taken very seriously by all staff, and people should let their teacher know when this is happening.Every situation is dealt with individually to suit the needs of the people involved. Many young people fear that telling will just make things worse but we deal with things sensitively involving specialists like ABEL Anti Bullying East Lothian.

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Home is tea timeHome is for sleep, a lot of sleepHome is music beatsHome is calmHome is moulded with bricksHome is the creak on the stair that has always been thereHome is freedomHome is where I keep my treasureHome is a house built by the yearsHome is heaven and hellHome is the sunset every nightHome is the last stop on the busHome is the miscellaneous drawer which is never tidiedHome is secret solitudeHome is the heart and soul of meHome is where I keep my victims ;-)Home is where I belongHome is my own escapeHome is where good things happenHome is the bees’ kneesHome is a happy place for meHome is the space where the remote always goesHome is lightHome is home!

By 2c3, Ms Davidson’s English Class

Poetry

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PUZZLES

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Photo Competition

The deserving winner of our ‘Spring’ Photography Competition is: Ashton Ritchie 3gr3. Well Done, Ashton!!!

James Glossop, Photographer for ‘The Times’, who selected Ashton as the winner, commented:

“It is well-composed, taken at just the right time of day and very atmospheric. Care and patience have been taken to make the picture work.

Congratulations on such a beautiful image.”

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PL Gallery

Sara Campbell S5

Hannah Goodman S5

Anna Wright S4

Hannah Stirling S4

Louis Perallos S2

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