» School Assemblies

Unconscious Co-operation
There was a particular physics teacher at my school. When explaining something he had a habit of inhaling, then exhaling audibly at the end of a sentence. The effect was something like: ehhhhhh, ahhhhhh. One morning in assembly he heard someone, among us rowdy lower 6th, gibbering or laughing. He walked along the row from whence he thought the noise was coming. As he passed up the line his progress was marked by a growing inhalation which stopped when he reached the end. It was followed as he moved back to his place at the side of the hall by a decaying ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This was a totally spontaneous happening with no co-ordinator or preplanning. I don't think we even got the usual bollocking about respect for "The Lord". The incident was totally ignored by the powers that were.
(Fri 14th Jun 2013, 20:28, More)

» Your first cigarette

Council Estate Initiation
Aged 7, my best friend Brian (who was a year younger had nicked a Players Weight from his mum. She always kept a packet of 10 behind the taps in the kitchen. These were strong bastards, untipped and the tobacco looked black to my inexperienced eyes. We went behind the newly built garages & perched on the edge of the concrete so as to avoid the "stingers". Brian, who had done this before, eventually got the ciggy lit and drew on it, letting smoke drift out of his mouth, with just a small cough. It made him look really big and clever. He handed it to me and croaked that I should have a puff. I drew some smoke into my mouth and blew it out in a long stream [all the while we were doing this we were flapping our arms to try to hide the smoke, in case someone's Mum came by]. Brian said "You're bumsucking" I drew in more smoke, this time sending it out through my nostrils. "You're bumsucking, take it down" I breathed smoke in, thinking I'll get bronchitis and then my Dad will find out. At this point I started coughing and finding it difficult to stop, I tried to breath clean air but all round was smoke. Brian, who had taken the fag off me was trying to show me how to smoke properly. Eventually he began coughing too and there were clouds of smoke everywhere. At this point we struggled out from behind the garages coughing our lungs up, getting stung all over on the way. Luckily there were no grown ups around but it must have looked funny two "little men" coughing their lungs up, emerging from hiding followed by clouds of smoke. I never touched Players Weights again. When I started proper "full time" smoking aged 14, I began on menthol ones, which made me throw up. Then went onto No.10s which were cheap and nasty ("10s for Men"). So I never learnt really.
(Thu 20th Mar 2008, 16:18, More)