Wednesday, 16 October 2019
The observationist: halloween
The observationist: halloween: But we see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!-it wr...
halloween
But we see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!-it writhes!-with mortal pangs
The mimes become it's food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued
Ligeia Edgar Allan Poe September 1838
Well if that doesn't put the willys up you i don't know what will. A poem about a fella whose wife dies a slow painful death remarries not long after and the same fate befalls his new wife only this time, while he sits with her body, she comes back to life in the guise of his first dead wife. Gothic romantic or just smacked off his tits on opium? Either way a perfect start to my blog on Halloween.
We love Halloween in our house and have a vast collection of spiders, costumes, cobwebs, fake blood, masks...you name it we've got it. My dad even made some headstones for the garden which we still have and use.
Each year as my kids get older i have to up my game to terrify them in the true Halloween spirit (pun intended). Last year i hosted a zombie apocalypse Halloween party for around 20 difficult to please teenagers. We lived in the middle of no where and our house was only accessible by a long, straight dead end dirt track. A perfect plan hatched. This time if at least one kid didn't have an asthma attack or actually shit themselves i was hanging up my scythe for good. I put police tape all over the house and across the drive way with a large 'zombie outbreak' sign hanging ominously from the big oak tree at the drive entrance. I made a coffin, filled it with bones and placed a lamp inside just under the skew lid. I then set to work on Halloween themed party games. We had blow the balloon up until it pops (top tip use extra large balloons but don't tell the kids) It takes ages but the determination to win in front of their peers takes over. The cringe factor of the balloon popping in your face while everyone eggs you on is brilliant fun. We played zombie tig. One 'zombie' is it and everyone they tig/tag becomes a 'zombie'. Eventually you end up with 19 'zombies' chasing one human. The best game by far is 'what's in the box'. All you need for this is a largeish box with a hole at either end, various bowls of seemingly horrific items (such as spaghetti-worms, grapes-eyeballs, jelly-gore) and a blindfold. Blindfold the kid and get them to put their hand into the box to guess the item. A bit of bluff works a treat here if you can get any one else in the vicinity to shout things like 'oh my god! that's disgusting! I can't believe you've put that in the box or just make disgusted noises. You can also move the box about a bit to suggest there's a live creature in there. Simple but effective, especially if you put a real lamb's heart in the box like i did last year. One of my daughter's friends actually took it out of the box and gave it a sniff. When the other kids started screaming she took her blindfold off, squealed and lobbed it across the kitchen where my dog promptly ran off with it and ate it. The horror etched on those kids faces will stay with me forever. The girl who threw it has been receiving counselling ever since and will probably go on to be a serial killer. I lied about the last bit.
Turning the house into a zombie zone and the party games would pale into insignificance compared to my piece de resistance. They were merely an amuse bouche for what preceded. An actual zombie invasion. As previously mentioned we lived in the middle of no where with a dead end dirt track. The track was the only way in and the only way out. Now i may have permanently damaged their teenage minds or given them nightmares forever but the fact that they willingly attended one of my Halloween parties is my disclaimer. Myself and some other 'grown ups' dressed as full on zombies-makeup, rotten limbs, ripped clothing etc. We then positioned ourselves on both sides of the track in the dead of the night and waited for the car headlights delivering our victims to approach. Once they were close enough we went full zombie scratching at the car windows with our bloodied stumps and surrounding each car. Some of the 'cool as fuck' teens tried to style it out by getting out of their mum's cars and casually walking up the drive (one with a zombie hanging off her leg) right up until the point we gave chase. I had no idea a 15 year old boy could scream that high! the other teens clung onto their parents and refused to leave the safety of the car until we backed off . Which we did...until they got half way up the drive....then it was every human for themselves. One of the girls' dads' actually pushed his daughter out of the car and sped off shouting 'good luck' as he went. Too much 'Walking Dead' i reckon.
When the killer clown phase was all the rage a few years ago that became my costume of choice, naturally. My kids were old enough to go off trick or treating on their own so i was left to man the fort and sweet distribution. What happened next is clearly my kids fault for leaving me home alone on Halloween for a few hours. At that time we lived in a cul-de-sac and had a large front garden with a path from the gate to the front door. I placed the artificial head stones either side of the path, liberally adorned the trees, windows and front door with cobwebs and spiders. I put lit pumpkins on the front door step and played a spooky sounds CD. I then put on my killer clown costume complete with plastic chainsaw. I sat in a dark corner of the garden, unseen, a few feet from the front door and awaited my first victims. When the local mandem descended on my house ( i say mandem but they were probably 10/11 years old with a dad as a chaperone) i waited stock still in my dark corner until they got to around a foot from my front door. It was at this moment i jumped out and revealed my killer clown alter ego. The screams that came from those boys will haunt my neighbours for a long time to come. They all ran off and i swear one of them actually cleared the hedge. The dad who was chaperoning the yoofs found it hilarious and said 'thanks mate. That's the best scare they've had all night'. They did not come back for sweets.
Those who know me will testify that i love to dress up for Halloween and my costumes always have a lot of thought gone into them. I've been to parties dressed a dead knife throwers assistant, a shark attack victim, a corpse complete with coffin, a zombie Freddie Mercury, a nun, bad santa and the grim reaper and dead Amy Winehouse to name but a few. The grim reaper costume was interesting as the party was in the day time (weird) and i had to do a full grocery shop on the way. Walking around Asda dressed as death complete with scythe did not phase me in the slightest but my teenage daughters who were with me at the time were mortified. I wouldn't have minded but one of them was dressed as Wednesday addams and the other as what looked like a hernia.
Some folk don't like Halloween but those people are weird. Avoid.
Halloween is one of the world's oldest festivals and is celebrated globally by people of different faiths. Mexico celebrate with Dia de los muertos (day of the dead) which starts on October 31st and finishes on November 2nd. Halloween originated in Ireland from the celtic festival Samhain and is a massive deal over there. Halloween is older than christmas. It's a time to remember the dead including martyrs, saints and all faithfully departed christians (not sure about the unfaithful ones-they're probably in hell or something having a horrifying time with the devil ironically) It's also a time to scare the crap out of our kids and elderly neighbours.
This year will be no different for us. We will dress up, enjoy the scariest night of the year, eat too many sweets (weirdly encouraging our kids to take sweets from strangers is ok at Halloween) and pay our respects to our dead.
On that note i'll leave you with my favourite petrifyingly pant shitting poet.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered,
Weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore-
While i nodded, nearly napping,
Suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping,
Rapping at my chamber door.
'tis some visitor' i muttered 'tapping at my chamber door'
only this and nothing more.....
The Raven Edgar Allan Poe January 1845
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!-it writhes!-with mortal pangs
The mimes become it's food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued
Ligeia Edgar Allan Poe September 1838
Well if that doesn't put the willys up you i don't know what will. A poem about a fella whose wife dies a slow painful death remarries not long after and the same fate befalls his new wife only this time, while he sits with her body, she comes back to life in the guise of his first dead wife. Gothic romantic or just smacked off his tits on opium? Either way a perfect start to my blog on Halloween.
We love Halloween in our house and have a vast collection of spiders, costumes, cobwebs, fake blood, masks...you name it we've got it. My dad even made some headstones for the garden which we still have and use.
Each year as my kids get older i have to up my game to terrify them in the true Halloween spirit (pun intended). Last year i hosted a zombie apocalypse Halloween party for around 20 difficult to please teenagers. We lived in the middle of no where and our house was only accessible by a long, straight dead end dirt track. A perfect plan hatched. This time if at least one kid didn't have an asthma attack or actually shit themselves i was hanging up my scythe for good. I put police tape all over the house and across the drive way with a large 'zombie outbreak' sign hanging ominously from the big oak tree at the drive entrance. I made a coffin, filled it with bones and placed a lamp inside just under the skew lid. I then set to work on Halloween themed party games. We had blow the balloon up until it pops (top tip use extra large balloons but don't tell the kids) It takes ages but the determination to win in front of their peers takes over. The cringe factor of the balloon popping in your face while everyone eggs you on is brilliant fun. We played zombie tig. One 'zombie' is it and everyone they tig/tag becomes a 'zombie'. Eventually you end up with 19 'zombies' chasing one human. The best game by far is 'what's in the box'. All you need for this is a largeish box with a hole at either end, various bowls of seemingly horrific items (such as spaghetti-worms, grapes-eyeballs, jelly-gore) and a blindfold. Blindfold the kid and get them to put their hand into the box to guess the item. A bit of bluff works a treat here if you can get any one else in the vicinity to shout things like 'oh my god! that's disgusting! I can't believe you've put that in the box or just make disgusted noises. You can also move the box about a bit to suggest there's a live creature in there. Simple but effective, especially if you put a real lamb's heart in the box like i did last year. One of my daughter's friends actually took it out of the box and gave it a sniff. When the other kids started screaming she took her blindfold off, squealed and lobbed it across the kitchen where my dog promptly ran off with it and ate it. The horror etched on those kids faces will stay with me forever. The girl who threw it has been receiving counselling ever since and will probably go on to be a serial killer. I lied about the last bit.
Turning the house into a zombie zone and the party games would pale into insignificance compared to my piece de resistance. They were merely an amuse bouche for what preceded. An actual zombie invasion. As previously mentioned we lived in the middle of no where with a dead end dirt track. The track was the only way in and the only way out. Now i may have permanently damaged their teenage minds or given them nightmares forever but the fact that they willingly attended one of my Halloween parties is my disclaimer. Myself and some other 'grown ups' dressed as full on zombies-makeup, rotten limbs, ripped clothing etc. We then positioned ourselves on both sides of the track in the dead of the night and waited for the car headlights delivering our victims to approach. Once they were close enough we went full zombie scratching at the car windows with our bloodied stumps and surrounding each car. Some of the 'cool as fuck' teens tried to style it out by getting out of their mum's cars and casually walking up the drive (one with a zombie hanging off her leg) right up until the point we gave chase. I had no idea a 15 year old boy could scream that high! the other teens clung onto their parents and refused to leave the safety of the car until we backed off . Which we did...until they got half way up the drive....then it was every human for themselves. One of the girls' dads' actually pushed his daughter out of the car and sped off shouting 'good luck' as he went. Too much 'Walking Dead' i reckon.
When the killer clown phase was all the rage a few years ago that became my costume of choice, naturally. My kids were old enough to go off trick or treating on their own so i was left to man the fort and sweet distribution. What happened next is clearly my kids fault for leaving me home alone on Halloween for a few hours. At that time we lived in a cul-de-sac and had a large front garden with a path from the gate to the front door. I placed the artificial head stones either side of the path, liberally adorned the trees, windows and front door with cobwebs and spiders. I put lit pumpkins on the front door step and played a spooky sounds CD. I then put on my killer clown costume complete with plastic chainsaw. I sat in a dark corner of the garden, unseen, a few feet from the front door and awaited my first victims. When the local mandem descended on my house ( i say mandem but they were probably 10/11 years old with a dad as a chaperone) i waited stock still in my dark corner until they got to around a foot from my front door. It was at this moment i jumped out and revealed my killer clown alter ego. The screams that came from those boys will haunt my neighbours for a long time to come. They all ran off and i swear one of them actually cleared the hedge. The dad who was chaperoning the yoofs found it hilarious and said 'thanks mate. That's the best scare they've had all night'. They did not come back for sweets.
Those who know me will testify that i love to dress up for Halloween and my costumes always have a lot of thought gone into them. I've been to parties dressed a dead knife throwers assistant, a shark attack victim, a corpse complete with coffin, a zombie Freddie Mercury, a nun, bad santa and the grim reaper and dead Amy Winehouse to name but a few. The grim reaper costume was interesting as the party was in the day time (weird) and i had to do a full grocery shop on the way. Walking around Asda dressed as death complete with scythe did not phase me in the slightest but my teenage daughters who were with me at the time were mortified. I wouldn't have minded but one of them was dressed as Wednesday addams and the other as what looked like a hernia.
Some folk don't like Halloween but those people are weird. Avoid.
Halloween is one of the world's oldest festivals and is celebrated globally by people of different faiths. Mexico celebrate with Dia de los muertos (day of the dead) which starts on October 31st and finishes on November 2nd. Halloween originated in Ireland from the celtic festival Samhain and is a massive deal over there. Halloween is older than christmas. It's a time to remember the dead including martyrs, saints and all faithfully departed christians (not sure about the unfaithful ones-they're probably in hell or something having a horrifying time with the devil ironically) It's also a time to scare the crap out of our kids and elderly neighbours.
This year will be no different for us. We will dress up, enjoy the scariest night of the year, eat too many sweets (weirdly encouraging our kids to take sweets from strangers is ok at Halloween) and pay our respects to our dead.
On that note i'll leave you with my favourite petrifyingly pant shitting poet.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while i pondered,
Weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore-
While i nodded, nearly napping,
Suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone gently rapping,
Rapping at my chamber door.
'tis some visitor' i muttered 'tapping at my chamber door'
only this and nothing more.....
The Raven Edgar Allan Poe January 1845
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
Tuesday, 24 September 2019
The observationist: Friends and friendship
The observationist: Friends and friendship: I like to think i'm a good friend to have because i'm loyal, trustworthy and obviously hilarious. My friendship circle is big becaus...
Friends and friendship
I like to think i'm a good friend to have because i'm loyal, trustworthy and obviously hilarious. My friendship circle is big because i'm a people person unless those people are mung beans then not so much. I have friends from all walks of life, sexes and nationalities. Some are ridiculously rich and some are on the breadline. I've got posh friends, celebrity friends, hermit friends, dog lovers, cat lovers, the frivolous, the tight as a gnats arseholes, swearers, vicars (fyi the vicar is the worst swearer i know), doctors, sportsmen/women and professors. All of my friends have two things in common. They are all good people and we make each other laugh. Different jokes for different folks but we are all on the same level. These people are my tribe. People that do not belong in my tribe are tossbags that have nothing better to do than make other people feel shit about themselves. The bonobo monkey effect-throwing shit for shit's sake. Also in this category are fun sponges, moral hoovers, cock wombles, audi drivers and boil in the bag pork mannequins. I unashamedly love my friends and i'd do anything for them apart from perhaps hide a body although after 3 gins i'm open to negotiation. They've seen me at my best and the absolute depths of despair. The highs and lows are the fabric of life and they've never judged me on either.
The word 'friend' can be open to interpretation though. Facebook being the main offender. For those of you that have a facebook account how many of you can say that you personally know everybody on your friends list? I'm not saying that you can't be friends with someone you don't really know because friendships can be forged in the most unlikely circumstances. Look at winnie the pooh and piglet for example. A bear and a pig? All i am saying is sometimes you will accept a friendship request on line just to be nosey or think 'well we've got friends in common so they must alright'. This isn't always the case. Some of my very close friends have friends who are vacuous twats and if i had a cup of water and they were on fire i'd drink it.
Friendship is a personal thing. It's a connection you have with another human being that makes you think 'i like this dude. I want to spend more time with him/her'. One of my best friends has been my mate since we were 10 years old, so around 30 years give or take. We will always be bezzers, mainly because we make each other laugh at stupid shit. There isn't anything she doesn't know about me and i like that. It's comfortable and safe. She has been known to come to my house for a catch up then we have both just had a nap.
A term i hear a lot is 'frenemy'. This is where, as far as i can make out, a friend who is really your enemy. I'm not a fan of blended words like 'frenemy' or 'chillax'. These are generally bandied about by what i like to refer to as 'funts'. Two can play at that game. Why would you want a friend who is a complete dick to you? I don't get it. Cut those people out of your life. I've got two teenage daughters and unfortunately this seems to be a common theme at school, particularly for my youngest. One minute i'll be having her 'best pal' over for a sleepover and the next this 'best pal' is ghosting her and calling her names on social media. I know it's a learning curve and it teaches my child important life lessons but i never liked that precocious little bell end of a pal anyway so i find it hard to be sympathetic.
The sign of a good friendship is someone who will laugh with you, cry with you, hold your hair out of your sick when required, ask for and give sound advice, be non-judgemental and listen to you. A good friend should only ever be in three places; behind you because they've got your back, by your side to encourage you and in front of you to catch you when you fall.
During my research for this particular blog i have discovered there are a few different categories of friends. Whoda thunk it?
1/work friends-Most adults meet and make friends at work. More often than not once we leave that job we never see or associate with these people again. These are 'work friends'. We don't want to remove them completely from a friends list because we want to know if Kevin from accounts ever got round to fingering Karen the receptionist or if it was just a pipe dream of his. We want to know if that funt fiona looked as hideous in her wedding dress as she did in that boob tube and hot pants combo she wore to the works christmas party. Work friends should probably come under the sub heading 'people i have nothing in common with but am forced to spend a large amount of my day with for money' but that sounds alarmingly close to a call girl or gigolo. Don't get me wrong, i do have very good friends i've met through work as i'm sure you do too, dear reader, but ask yourself this-
a/can i be myself in front of him/her?
b/do i want to spend time with this person out of work?
c/do they understand my sense of humour?
d/would i answer the door if they came to my house or hide behind the sofa?
If the answer to any or all of the above is NO then these are 'work friends'.
2/frenemys-People that pretend to be your friend then do a number on you for their own selfish gain like grassing you up to the boss or bitching about you behind your back. These people are everywhere and will try to infiltrate your friendship circle because you have something they don't and want...a personality. These people are also known as twats. Avoid.
3/friends of friends-this is a tricky one because if people are friends of your friends then it'd be safe to assume you'd also like them and all get along like the brady bunch. It doesn't always work out that way. Some of my friend's friends are complete bean bags and i'll leave it at that but you know who you are.
To conclude, a wise man or woman once said 'you can choose your friends but not your family'. Never a truer word has been spoken-unless your'e Charles Manson.
Choose your friends wisely and treasure them because they love you for you, they'll never let you down and they also know all of your secrets so when you did that thing with that thing that you probably shouldn't have done it's forever sealed in friendship.
The word 'friend' can be open to interpretation though. Facebook being the main offender. For those of you that have a facebook account how many of you can say that you personally know everybody on your friends list? I'm not saying that you can't be friends with someone you don't really know because friendships can be forged in the most unlikely circumstances. Look at winnie the pooh and piglet for example. A bear and a pig? All i am saying is sometimes you will accept a friendship request on line just to be nosey or think 'well we've got friends in common so they must alright'. This isn't always the case. Some of my very close friends have friends who are vacuous twats and if i had a cup of water and they were on fire i'd drink it.
Friendship is a personal thing. It's a connection you have with another human being that makes you think 'i like this dude. I want to spend more time with him/her'. One of my best friends has been my mate since we were 10 years old, so around 30 years give or take. We will always be bezzers, mainly because we make each other laugh at stupid shit. There isn't anything she doesn't know about me and i like that. It's comfortable and safe. She has been known to come to my house for a catch up then we have both just had a nap.
A term i hear a lot is 'frenemy'. This is where, as far as i can make out, a friend who is really your enemy. I'm not a fan of blended words like 'frenemy' or 'chillax'. These are generally bandied about by what i like to refer to as 'funts'. Two can play at that game. Why would you want a friend who is a complete dick to you? I don't get it. Cut those people out of your life. I've got two teenage daughters and unfortunately this seems to be a common theme at school, particularly for my youngest. One minute i'll be having her 'best pal' over for a sleepover and the next this 'best pal' is ghosting her and calling her names on social media. I know it's a learning curve and it teaches my child important life lessons but i never liked that precocious little bell end of a pal anyway so i find it hard to be sympathetic.
The sign of a good friendship is someone who will laugh with you, cry with you, hold your hair out of your sick when required, ask for and give sound advice, be non-judgemental and listen to you. A good friend should only ever be in three places; behind you because they've got your back, by your side to encourage you and in front of you to catch you when you fall.
During my research for this particular blog i have discovered there are a few different categories of friends. Whoda thunk it?
1/work friends-Most adults meet and make friends at work. More often than not once we leave that job we never see or associate with these people again. These are 'work friends'. We don't want to remove them completely from a friends list because we want to know if Kevin from accounts ever got round to fingering Karen the receptionist or if it was just a pipe dream of his. We want to know if that funt fiona looked as hideous in her wedding dress as she did in that boob tube and hot pants combo she wore to the works christmas party. Work friends should probably come under the sub heading 'people i have nothing in common with but am forced to spend a large amount of my day with for money' but that sounds alarmingly close to a call girl or gigolo. Don't get me wrong, i do have very good friends i've met through work as i'm sure you do too, dear reader, but ask yourself this-
a/can i be myself in front of him/her?
b/do i want to spend time with this person out of work?
c/do they understand my sense of humour?
d/would i answer the door if they came to my house or hide behind the sofa?
If the answer to any or all of the above is NO then these are 'work friends'.
2/frenemys-People that pretend to be your friend then do a number on you for their own selfish gain like grassing you up to the boss or bitching about you behind your back. These people are everywhere and will try to infiltrate your friendship circle because you have something they don't and want...a personality. These people are also known as twats. Avoid.
3/friends of friends-this is a tricky one because if people are friends of your friends then it'd be safe to assume you'd also like them and all get along like the brady bunch. It doesn't always work out that way. Some of my friend's friends are complete bean bags and i'll leave it at that but you know who you are.
To conclude, a wise man or woman once said 'you can choose your friends but not your family'. Never a truer word has been spoken-unless your'e Charles Manson.
Choose your friends wisely and treasure them because they love you for you, they'll never let you down and they also know all of your secrets so when you did that thing with that thing that you probably shouldn't have done it's forever sealed in friendship.
Tuesday, 3 September 2019
The observationist: school
The observationist: school: Ah yes, those halcyon days at school where you went some place to spend the day with your mates and maybe learn some shit that you would nev...
school
Ah yes, those halcyon days at school where you went some place to spend the day with your mates and maybe learn some shit that you would never use in adult life (i'm talking algebra) then come home and demand tea with menaces because all you'd had to eat that day was a can of irn bru and 19 mars bars from the tuck shop.
School hasn't changed that much from when i attended to now when my girls go. I suppose the only real difference is that teachers are no longer allowed to dish out corporal punishment such as lobbing a black board rubber at your head or giving you a crack with a ruler/slipper/cane or furry part of their hand. I bet the more seasoned veteran teachers long for those days especially when some lippy tweenage chavalanche tells them to 'fuck off slap head' or declares 'they is offended' because the uniform they have to wear is a bourjois concept based on a militant regime where everybody is seen as equal so as to deter prejudice and favouritism...i blame the internet. I don't recall uniform being such a big deal when i was at school. As long as i had the correct school tie on and top and bottoms vaguely matching everyone else's, i was good to go. Nowadays uniform is so unique to the school you can't get away with 'similar'. Everything is addled with logos and the school crest, even down to the bloody PE socks. Schools put so much pressure on the pupils to look as though they are representing their school in the world uniform olympics that parents have to fork out an arm and a leg and re-mortgage the family home just so their child fits in and looks the part. Hitler might have got away with this kind of rigorous uniform policy but do me a favour...where the fuck is the school's inclusion policy that they love to bleat on about? If a school wants to be a sandal wearing, yoghurt eating, aluminium collecting, tree hugging "we include every child because every child is different" inclusion policy flag bearer then let my child wear leggings and flip flops and stop being hypocritical twats. Fascist bastards.
It's that time of year when the school holidays are over. A crack team of wildlife trackers are despatched to herd the kids back to reality. Most kids have gone fully nocturnal by the end of the 6 weeks British school holidays, or 8 weeks if your kids go to private school. One well off friend of mine whose 3 kids go to private school once said 'i pay more and their off for longer. Where's the justice in that?' The shock of having to get up at 7am instead of going to bed then is probably some sort of infringement on their basic human rights but who cares? Not the parents that's for sure. Parents across the UK rejoice at their kids going back to school because they don't have to entertain and constantly feed their often ungrateful offspring. Not to mention break up fights between siblings, host christ knows how many sleep overs and hear the words 'i'm bored' a million times a day. Once the kids go back to school we are set to suffer the barrage of social media photos of other people's kids in their uniform with such pithy quotes as #soproud or #bigschool or #missyoualready . If parents put these photos up they should be made to use their actual feelings to accompany them like #thankfuck or #thoughthisholidaywouldneverend or #cantaffordchristmasthisyearbecausetheuniformissofuckingexpensive . My kids are also going back to school but i won't bore you with the details #triedtotakethembackadayearly .
So they'll be back around a week and the homework onslaught begins. Oh joy. My 6 year old asked me to help her with some maths homework that a NASA scientist couldn't decipher. The countless projects i have helped with over the past 10 years should have got me at least another 5 GCSE's and a mention in dispatches. I've done my time. I didn't sign up for more homework when i had kids.
Around 2-3 weeks into the new term and the detentions start. The buzz of starting a new year at school and seeing your mates has worn off and the feral kids break free. The uniform becomes a little less rigid, behaviour deteriorates and teachers start drinking gin out of a hip flask at break time. When i was at school in the 1980's a detention was the worst thing ever. If your parents found out, you were in the shit. Nowadays kids wear it like a badge of honour. It means nothing and certainly is not a deterrent. In my day detention generally meant detention centre in later life. You were a wrong 'un.
Not long after the new term comes the parents evening. As a kid we dread this because the teacher might actually tell our parents what bell ends we are. This doesn't usually happen because the teacher wants to make out that all of their pupils are 'quite brilliant if a little talkative'. It's a complete waste of an evening better spent going to the pub or binge watching Peaky Blinders.
After parents evening come the school reports. Another waste of precious time. My school report from the age of 6 to 16 were reasonably good apart from maths. Even though i attended around 6 schools during this period, because my dad was in the army, each teacher said the same thing-' Nichola shows no particular interest in this subject'. How right they were.
School, for most , really is the best years of your life. You might not think it at the time but hanging out with your pals, making friends and learning important social skills is much better than going to work, paying bills and adulting. Give me school any day.
School hasn't changed that much from when i attended to now when my girls go. I suppose the only real difference is that teachers are no longer allowed to dish out corporal punishment such as lobbing a black board rubber at your head or giving you a crack with a ruler/slipper/cane or furry part of their hand. I bet the more seasoned veteran teachers long for those days especially when some lippy tweenage chavalanche tells them to 'fuck off slap head' or declares 'they is offended' because the uniform they have to wear is a bourjois concept based on a militant regime where everybody is seen as equal so as to deter prejudice and favouritism...i blame the internet. I don't recall uniform being such a big deal when i was at school. As long as i had the correct school tie on and top and bottoms vaguely matching everyone else's, i was good to go. Nowadays uniform is so unique to the school you can't get away with 'similar'. Everything is addled with logos and the school crest, even down to the bloody PE socks. Schools put so much pressure on the pupils to look as though they are representing their school in the world uniform olympics that parents have to fork out an arm and a leg and re-mortgage the family home just so their child fits in and looks the part. Hitler might have got away with this kind of rigorous uniform policy but do me a favour...where the fuck is the school's inclusion policy that they love to bleat on about? If a school wants to be a sandal wearing, yoghurt eating, aluminium collecting, tree hugging "we include every child because every child is different" inclusion policy flag bearer then let my child wear leggings and flip flops and stop being hypocritical twats. Fascist bastards.
It's that time of year when the school holidays are over. A crack team of wildlife trackers are despatched to herd the kids back to reality. Most kids have gone fully nocturnal by the end of the 6 weeks British school holidays, or 8 weeks if your kids go to private school. One well off friend of mine whose 3 kids go to private school once said 'i pay more and their off for longer. Where's the justice in that?' The shock of having to get up at 7am instead of going to bed then is probably some sort of infringement on their basic human rights but who cares? Not the parents that's for sure. Parents across the UK rejoice at their kids going back to school because they don't have to entertain and constantly feed their often ungrateful offspring. Not to mention break up fights between siblings, host christ knows how many sleep overs and hear the words 'i'm bored' a million times a day. Once the kids go back to school we are set to suffer the barrage of social media photos of other people's kids in their uniform with such pithy quotes as #soproud or #bigschool or #missyoualready . If parents put these photos up they should be made to use their actual feelings to accompany them like #thankfuck or #thoughthisholidaywouldneverend or #cantaffordchristmasthisyearbecausetheuniformissofuckingexpensive . My kids are also going back to school but i won't bore you with the details #triedtotakethembackadayearly .
So they'll be back around a week and the homework onslaught begins. Oh joy. My 6 year old asked me to help her with some maths homework that a NASA scientist couldn't decipher. The countless projects i have helped with over the past 10 years should have got me at least another 5 GCSE's and a mention in dispatches. I've done my time. I didn't sign up for more homework when i had kids.
Around 2-3 weeks into the new term and the detentions start. The buzz of starting a new year at school and seeing your mates has worn off and the feral kids break free. The uniform becomes a little less rigid, behaviour deteriorates and teachers start drinking gin out of a hip flask at break time. When i was at school in the 1980's a detention was the worst thing ever. If your parents found out, you were in the shit. Nowadays kids wear it like a badge of honour. It means nothing and certainly is not a deterrent. In my day detention generally meant detention centre in later life. You were a wrong 'un.
Not long after the new term comes the parents evening. As a kid we dread this because the teacher might actually tell our parents what bell ends we are. This doesn't usually happen because the teacher wants to make out that all of their pupils are 'quite brilliant if a little talkative'. It's a complete waste of an evening better spent going to the pub or binge watching Peaky Blinders.
After parents evening come the school reports. Another waste of precious time. My school report from the age of 6 to 16 were reasonably good apart from maths. Even though i attended around 6 schools during this period, because my dad was in the army, each teacher said the same thing-' Nichola shows no particular interest in this subject'. How right they were.
School, for most , really is the best years of your life. You might not think it at the time but hanging out with your pals, making friends and learning important social skills is much better than going to work, paying bills and adulting. Give me school any day.
Thursday, 27 June 2019
The observationist: Public Transport
The observationist: Public Transport: I drive so i don't use public transport very much. I ain't no bus wanker! I was a bus driver for nearly four years and the calibre o...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)