Category: Humour

Those were the days Part 22

Those were the days Part 22

“Bosnia”

The West London comprehensive school where I first taught had a few Science labs that were situated on the ground floor of the “sixth form block”. Above these labs were the sixth form common room, offices and three classrooms where languages were taught. “Languages” was commonly known amongst some staff as ‘Bosnia’, as it was truly a war zone up there. On regular occasions I would be invited over to help sort out kids from my form who were messing around in class. Consequently the joke was that anyone taking a trip over there could be regarded as a UN peacekeeper.

I was lucky not to be timetabled in that block. The main reason being if you taught below a language lesson it was quite disturbing at times due the chaos occurring above you. Regularly school bags would be hung on the blinds cords and left to dangle out of windows so that they were seen swinging outside from the labs below. The kids would eat up there all the time and chuck their leftovers and other bits of rubbish outside too. The occasionally rejected sandwich would land outside the lab downstairs whilst the odd crisp packet and sweet papers would drift past on the breeze. You always had to go up and sort things out if you were teaching below.

Luckily I did not teach in these labs that often, normally it was for a room swap. On one occasion I had to cover a test in one of the labs. The kids in my class were quietly doing the task in hand, whilst it was clearly kicking off upstairs. All of a sudden a large, dark shape wizzed down past our windows and landed on the playground outside with a huge thump. “Oh my God!” shouts a kid, “someone has fallen out the window!” It did look like it, and certainly sounded like it. Pandemonium broke out in my room; one kid started screaming. I dashed out the fire exit to check, only to find that the premises manager was replacing some carpet in an upstairs office. He had lugged out an old roll of underlay from an upstairs window onto the playground to save carrying it downstairs!

Panic over.

Two major Discoveries

Two major discoveries occurred this week.

I was stunned by the revelation that Stella Artois was in fact not what it seemed and it had fallen from its lofty position of 5.2% abv to a much lower alcohol content. The once “reassuringly expensive” premier lager had quietly drifted into being a weaker concoction that was no longer top of the line in my humble opinion. To me this was a real eye opener.(See my previous post)

The second Earth shattering discovery of a particle that supported Higgs Boson theory was announced at CERN on 4th July 2012. As with a lot of “breakthroughs” that happen at the high end of Science, the Press get hold of the new concept and either dumb it down, or get a so-called expert in the field in question to explain in “lay man’s” terms how it affects day to day life of the average person in the street. These “experts” are normally socially inept academics who may be able to talk a lot about, in this case, Particle Physics but do not say much.

People want to hear that Higgs Boson can make their plasma telly work better, or their iPhone will need less battery charging time. They do not want to be tied down by quantum mechanics. Well I think that the common man is in for a disappointment, but at least we have come a few steps from the point where the tabloid red tops were scaring the living daylights out of some of the kids I taught at the time that the CERN project started. This was due to the fact that the kids were reliably informed by the tabloids that the World would end when the linear particle accelerator was switched on.

It is so much more reassuring that the Daily Star reports this week that the discovery…

means one day we could travel faster than the speed of light – like in Star Trek. Beam me up Scotty!

If you are happy with that explanation then do not watch the video below. I am quietly thinking to my self if the same tabloid had announced that Stella Artois could no longer be considered to be “wifebeater” it would create more of a stir!

The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

Mad Men – Bootsy Collins on Rock school

Bootsy Collins is a crazy cat. The sort of bloke you would not sit next to on the tube unless you had to. Well he does dress terribly loud.

He appears here on a classic BBC2 series from the 1980’s called Rock School – the programmes sought to give musicians an insight on the technicalities of playing certain instruments with certain styles, be it Rock guitar, Reggae drums or in Bootsy’s case – Funk bass guitar.

He makes it look so simple!

It is just all about being on the “ONE”!

Now where am I heading on this post then? Well there are two things that stand out about Bootsy.

Firstly he has lived a life and seen the World, for instance you see him happily playing bass lines for the Great James Brown in a televised show in Italy. Notice the crowd clearly do not know what to make of the Godfather of Soul here as he struts on stage. Nevertheless Bootsy seems to be enjoying himself in the background.

Now that was years ago – but Bootsy keeps busy giving talks on his musical past and also helps to encourage  and support young musicians with his own University of Funk. The next clip has  Bootsy telling a story in one of his seminars about the relationship he had with James Brown.

So I say “Good on you Bootsy!” for giving it back.

And listening to Bootsy speak reminds me of, the second thing…….

PETER CROUCH – Mr “You know….” immediately to mind when you hear Bootsy speak. You know you end up counting them, you know, during any interview that Crouch gives on TV.

Classic One liners……….3

I can sometimes come out with these one liners in public that can be toe curlingly embarrassing for those that are with me. For example on Christmas Eve at the Coop I was checking out my shopping and packing it in carrier bags when the girl on the till asks “What is this?” as she holds up a butternut squash.

“Vegetarian chicken” I reply giving my best attempt at totally dead pan face. I winked at the ATC cadet who was helping with the packing for charity as the girl swallowed the bait.

After 30 seconds of searching on her screen for the product code the teenage girl twigged and just gave me one of those looks over the rims of her glasses – pure distain. Good times!

Classic one liners….2

Classic One liners

I used to play a lot of golf with a mate called Alex who could play a bit. We were neighbours at the time when we used to get up literally at the crack of dawn every Sunday and be out teeing off at our local municipal pay and play – Wycombe Heights Golf Club. We would play all winter long like this.

The start of the morning’s round consisted of dumping our bags on the 1st tee and sneaking back to the range to pick up a few practice balls. After cracking open a can of Stella Artois “the choice of champions”, we would take it in turns to hit a range ball off the 1st tee and see if you could still see it land down on the fairway. If we could not see where our tee-shot had ended up it was too dark, so we would sup some more beer.

It would slowly get lighter and once our practice balls stood out on the fairway ahead of us we were off. We used to scoot round in just over 2 and a half hours some mornings.

On occasions we were joined by another mate or two, but they never had the stamina to come out on a regular basis. One such lad called Martin the Mouth joined us one February morning for a game that we had put a few quid on to keep the ‘interest’ going.

We were stood on the 16th tee and as you can see from the video it is elevated above the target green.

In fact if you play as we did (illegally) from the members’ tee the green is well below you as you start the hole, as the tee is set up on a large shelf. The hole itself is a par 3 and not too far, especially as it is downhill all the way to the pin.

All the trouble is at the front where two big bunkers deter you from dropping short with your tee shot. Added to this if you miss the green on the right it can run away for miles down a steep bank.

In wintertime one of the best ways in is to smack the ball left into the beech trees and let the ball feed off a steep, chalky slope from there directly onto the green.

Martin was stood at the tee with the ‘honour’ having one the previous hole. He was ahead on points for the money we had wagered and there were only a few holes left. Basically Martin was in the box seat.

Alex saw this shot as a chance to claw back the advantage by means of a bit of sports psychology. As Martin prepared for his shot at the green Alex casually said

“Right, you win this hole and the money is good as yours Martin. So there is a bit of pressure on you here Boy!”

Martin set himself for the shot and as he did he replied in quiet, calm voice with a great comeback.

“Nah, this ain’t pressure. Pressure is when you are sat on the roof of your flooded house being forced to watch your wife give birth in a nearby tree!” he said as he began to tee off.

He had drawn back his club by now, so he paused for a instant whilst he brought the club through the ball and cracked a super tee-shot.

“Now that is pressure Alex” he said calmly as he gazed at his ball sailing on towards the green.

The “miracle” Baby –  CLICK HERE to read more

BBC World Service on Floods in Mozmbique – CLICK HERE

Those were the days Part 19

The shutting of Slough Ice Rink

Once I took over the form tutoring role of a tutor group that had had four form tutors in three years. As a consequence of the constant changes they were a bit feral when I took them over in year 10. The group turned out good in the end, in fact they won the overall form Sports Day Trophy in that same year.

At this stage I had worked out what method motivated them – bribery. A girl in form won the 800 m, literally by beating the only two other girls that turned up, due to the fact that I promised her a bottle of vodka if she ran.

I was good to my word, but I do not let her have the bottle until she was 18!

One promise to them that I later regretted slightly was a trip to Slough ice rink – a reward for good behaviour. On the big night we piled the kids into two minibuses and drove down the A4. We left the kids to it and then swiftly retired to the bar.

Not long after we had settled down an announcement came on the PA system:

“Could the teachers from QM School make themselves known to a member of staff as we have to close the rink?”

What had happened was mass pileup that made a hole in the ice which had to be repaired by the ice machine that was duly rolled out.

Fortunately no was injured, but the cause of the crash was Celine Dion. Titanic was the blockbuster that year and when “My heart will go on” came on for the public to skate to one lad decided he was Leonardo DiCaprio and tried to hold his girlfriend up as if he was on the bows of the doomed ship.

His girlfriend was not going to have any of this, and when the boy did not put her down when she asked she decked him with a neat right hook.

Both of them came down in a heap causing complete carnage.

Classic one liners

I met a bloke in the pub the other night; he is a friend of my builder mate Vince. I had gone down to have a quick drink with Vince,  who has done a lot of work on our house. This buddy of Vince’s that I was introduced to is called John the Tree and as his name suggests he is a Tree surgeon and a good one too by all accounts.

We supped a few pints of ale that night and just chewed the fat. Random as they say. John’s dog was with us all evening. She is a 4 year old German Shepherd that has a lovely temperament. She sat at John’s feet all evening and got up once to greet him when he came back from the toilet by placing her paws on his shoulders and giving his face a good lick. It was only then that I realised how huge she was as John is a tall bloke and it is some reach for a dog to reach up that far to his face.

I saw the dog again last night in the door way of the Thai restaurant waiting patiently for John to pick up his take away.  She really is huge. Seeing them again brought back a memory of a classic one liner that John said in the pub that first time we met.

Us three lads were at the bar and as we chatted over a beer a couple of girls came past on their way out.  One of the ladies was immediately attracted to John’s dog. She bent down to give the dog a bit of fuss and asked

“He is a lovely dog. What breed is he?”

“She is a Fox Terrier cross” replied John, totally dead pan

“She is so well behaved” said the girl

“That is the Dalmatian in her” came the immediate reply.

It cracked me up and was so well timed, but was totally lost on the victim!