Who is Dr B?

Could it be? Is it really? Is he here or is that just another eclipse of the sun?

Yes it is!

Its Dr B! Accept no substitutes.

But there is a question that many people are asking right now: pupils, readers of this blog, teachers, my doctors.

Who is Dr Derk Burgmesiter IV? Why did he found BAGSE?

Or quis, as the Latin Romans might have said. and then cur.

There are literally millions of people who want, maybe need to know who I am.
So here I am!

I am part of a 2,000 year journey of human civilization to deepen mortal understanding, knowledge, and diversity of thinking in every meaningful area. You might think that I’m just a third rate academic who teaches second rate Latin. Buts it’s more than that. I want to explore the mechanics and intricies, the history and present, the future and past of Latin , English and all human language. But its about more than grammar, it’s about Life. I am both a student of the angst of the human mind and its resolution. One of my students from Chicago, who recently gained some prominence, said to me last year: “Dr B, I’m thinking I need a new job.” “Well, thanks to the BAGSE Latin program, you have a range we can believe in. What job are you interested in, Senator?”

It’s not just Latin. BAGSE is the pre-destined physical manifestation of the Ends of Days. Like Global Warming, except you can leave your teevo on pre-record.

And so we set up BAGSE in the UK. You might think that a bit strange since we are an American company. You might think it is because anyone who has heard of me in America thinks I am guppy short of a tank but my Director of Latin Programmatics, Lucinda Stappons, went several times to London, capital city of England and found out that literacy was an important aspect of primary school work. But no-one knew how to get kids to learn. NO-ONE, I said.

BAGSE did. We filled the gap. England may be heading into the biggest recession since the South Sea Bubble, but the 14 kids who have been on BAGSE’s Latin programme can save the country.
Disaster averted. Country save. Thanks to me.

They are no more England. England is dead. They are BAGSE's England.

And if we can do it in a handful of schools in London we can do it anywhere.

I have taught and coached students of every age and level from foetuses still in the womb through to people like Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. Hell, my own splooge can conjugate before i ejaculate. And my students, I know where they started, where they are, where they're going. I know their motivations, their hopes, their fears, their dreams, their sense of loss, their bank details. I have seen the lows, the highs, and - thanks to prozac - everything in between. I am a philosopher king in an age of angst and trouble. For them I am a bridge over troubled waters. Students sense my brilliance intuitively. If they don’t, I tell them about it. They are in awe of me. Every student is different. Even the emos. One needs love, another compulsion, a third needs anto wasah more regularly. And there's always the student who is desperately seeking the answer to the ultimate question of human existence "Did my Latin teacher just part the heavens and clouds while I wasn’t looking?"

I encourage students, and teachers, to undertake more and greater challenges, to choose the path more difficult, and then to strive on to find more mind-numbing cliches. Yet whether in the classroom, in my office, or in my padded cell, I'm about bring a new age of learning and light. There will come a time when students walk out of my classroom, out of college, and on to the next phase of their lives. They know its all downhill from there but I prepare students by pro-analysing learning, accesifying the programmatical and also by example for the misery of human existence. No other teacher is like that. NO OTHER TEACHER.

I'm open, frank and, when people aren’t looking, I wear my Y-fronts on my head; I speak my mind; I am silent a lot of the time. I don't get angry if you speak yours or if you don’t fall in with my plans. That’s why I have lawyers. I work extremely hard, am driven, but not self-absorbed, as this blog shows.

I don’t need to blow my own trumpet. My work speaks for itself. I want to accessify BAGSE’s latin and unleash the dymanics of the human mind.

Subject.
Object.
Verb.

That's a good start. But, like Bill Clinton handing out the havanas, some Latin programmes don't go all the way.

BAGSE does. If BAGSE were a hooker, we'd go down on you, bang your brains out, and tell you how to get a good sexual health check up.

Then we charge you. We might be punks and hookers, but we're not cheap.

I have a PhD. I have self-published several Latin text books which my teachers beg me that they might be allowed to use when they teach the BAGSE program. And I attend important conferences such as those held by the Classical Association of Atlantic States, by the American Classical League, and by JACT. Usually when they don’t invite me.

I have all the answers to the questions of Latin and language, of teaching and learning, of life and the resurrection of Latin. Last week I explained the jussive subjunctive to 5,000 by a mountain, fed them all and told them that the Sikhs would inherit the earth. But that might have been a typo.

Its Dr B!

I will come again.

ddb

O Literacy! Who's art thou?

There have been a lot of articles in the UK press recently about a particular organization that also teaches Latin, and its getting Latin to people who want to learn it.
Er hello?!
News flash.
BAGSE personnel - me to be precise - came up with that idea.
One person specifically. Me. Me. Me.
"That's three people."
"You're right. Sometimes I am. We are. They are, I mean."

This when the organization (let’s just say it rhymes with Foxford) which runs that other Project was working for BAGSE, receiving BAGSE money, meeting me and be allowed to email me.
Interestingly, this organisation, well known now, thought Latin could not be taught. They had been around for hundred of years but had never thought of the idea that Latin could be taught to people.

Then they met me.

But this organization was having problems. They employed some of the cleverest brains in the world and had a turnover of several billion pounds. But they hadn’t me or me or me.
So BAGSE came along. They met me.
"All of you?"
"No. I couldn't be there as I had a doctor's appointment."
"OK."

Because of our involvement, they started to teach Latin which they had NEVER done before. All on BAGSE's silver.
Until they decided to back out - for no reason that anyone of us, us or us could tell.
Some time in July, to be precise. Or maybe June.
Oh, and guess what. They continued to teach Latin.
Even though the idea was mine.
"You mean that they stole your idea?"
"Yeah."
"But you helped them come up with the idea of teaching Latin."
"That’s what I have been saying."
"But they bailed on you?"
"Yep."
"That's really naughty. You must have been cross"
"No. But yes"
"Yes? But no?"
“No. No. But yes?”
“No. No. But yes.”
“I’m struggling here”
"Well, we ended up developing the BAGSE program which I had already written."
"Oh, you mean the one where you focus on all that Latin"
"Yes."
"And it's better than this other organisation?"
"Yeah hell. Its better than a Cuban whore on heat."
“Yeah hell? Do you mean hell yeah?”
“See that’s English grammar. Already you are learning the BAGSE programme”
“Wow. You are amazing”
“Know I”
“I see how you do it now. Clever.”

And that's the point. We fundamentally focus on "all that Latin".
Everything we do in Latin, we make sure we make it as complicated as possible so nobody can understand it. That way I look clever and you don't.
But it is not simply about Latin.
That's quirky and cool, but it isn't enough.
Why?Because when you say Latin it could mean so many thing. Latin Latin or Roman Latin.
“Please don’t go there again.”
“KO”
“Now you’re just being silly.”

Absolutely. I may have a brain the size of a babboon's arse but I like to joke as well.
So unlike other programmes the BAGSE programme isn’t about gimmicks or personalities. Its about getting to the nub of every issue.
Focus.
Plan.
Deliver.
Wax on.
Wax off.
Wax on.
Wax off.

Vivat BAGSE.

ddb

O Tempora! O Mores!

Oh the morals of these times.

That is of course my own translation of some Latin by Cicero.
"Latin you say?"
"Yes Latin."
"but that's a dead language, isn't it?"
"Just a minute - "
"Why would you want to speak Latin?"
"But this isn't just any old Latin, I am speaking."
"No?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Yes, really"
"That's interesting."

Yes, it is interesting. And I'll tell you what's interesting about it is generally we don't realise how important Latin is to English.
"I do."
"No. You don't."
"But I do."
"Shut up, OK?"

Because what we are doing is about going further than some of the cleverest men known to the civilization, like Cicero, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. They only spoke Roman Latin and Latin Latin. Some even spoke Roman Latin Latin or Latin Roman Latin, but what we can offer is much more than that.

"Is it?"
"Yes, it is actually."
"How?"
"Well, I'll tell you how if you listen"
"Sorry."

Some people said it couldn't be done, other people just wanted to make money out of it. Some people said it couldn't be done but wanted to make money and then did it anyway while pretending that they never wanted to make money out of it or even said that it couldn't be done and they could therefore make money outof it. Some people said they knew it could be done when they at first thought it couldn't be done while not wanting to make money out of that which they had previously said couldn't be done.

"I'm getting confused."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"Well the point was that some people thought it could be done."
"I thought it was that people thought it couldn't be done."
"That too."
"So the point was the some people thought it could be done and some people thought it couldn't be done?"
"Yes."
"But was was going to be done?"

Some people thought we were mad. Some people even tried to get us certified but we somehow escaped, but we created something new with our Latin programme and it became its own beast. Not a timid beast like a pussy cat or a platypus, it wasn't even, say, a gazelle or a zebra, it was a animal like no-one had even seen before. Maybe a tiger crossed with a giraffe though with really sharp teeth and quite scarey around the eyeballs.

That is why we are completely different from everyone before us and everyone who will come after us.

You've got to cut through and reach their nubile minds so that they understand concepts that we're teaching. That's what we're good at.

We're not active. We're pro-active. We know that our young people have to learn. So we're helping them pro-learn. Proactive-learning. To proactively master language. So it becomes a pro-language.

We're bringing a new light to shine on Latin and leading the way for a new dawn. Teaching them not to fear fear or even fear the fear that fear fears. And if we don't fear the fear that fear could fear if it feared fearing anything, then we can pro-actively master the new analytical skills of our pro-language.

Its not just any Latin. It's BAGSE's Latin.

ddb

Linguam Latinam Bagsiensem Cognoscant.