» My Arch-nemesis

My train-nemesis(es), or how I became a public-transport vigilante.
I used to have a fairly hellish hour-and-a-half commute to work. This, in and of itself, would not have been too bad, however I had to undertake this daily 3-hour round trip on public transport; the worst kind of transport.

After a while, many things begin to annoy, chief among them being the symphony of white noise, squirted forth from the mobile phone of various little oiks. This monstrous racket, the kind that sounds like music being performed by angry wasps, was the bane of my life. If I had remembered my headphones, and to charge my iPod, it was fine, but there were many days when my life was near ruined for a good half-hour stretch. It became clear to me that I was going to have to strike back at the heart of the problem.

One day, there sat before me one happy chappie, whose music was so painful and grating that I decided that this was my moment. I simply had to punish him for his insolence. Not by getting angry, oh no, but by a much stealthier method. I pretended to enjoy his music. I started to look over, giving little appreciative nods if he caught my eye. He looked away quickly, but the fear was clearly setting in, I was beginning to turn the tide, and claim back my train. However, his music was still not switched off, relying on his mild homophobia was not working, and the nuclear option was called for.

I stood up, crossed the carriage, and began what can only be described as a 'dance', to his music. Now, I am on the wobbly side of portly, and my dancing skill is (to put it politely) not too high, but where I was lacking in these areas, I made up for in brute enthusiasm and pelvic thrusting. I launched my ample frame around that carriage like I was trying to dislodge a troublesome ferret from inside my trousers.

These 'moves' were accompanied by that 'special' facial gesture. Eyes scrunched closed, head back, a delicate bite of the lower lip. In this instance, this pose was conveying that the sheer act of my dancing to his music was giving me nothing but sheer, orgasmic, animal pleasure.

Oddly, he seemed to decide, fairly soon after that, that he didn't really want to listen to music any more, (either that, or he was afraid of catching a stray moob to the face from my lunging) and he turned his noise-box off.

Check. Mate.
(Thu 29th Apr 2010, 22:34, More)

» Helicopter Parents

Until this weekend, I had nothing to add...
So, I was in town, picking up a few bits and bobs shopping. The town is Cambridge, so there are a fair number of delightful little Ruperts and Tarquins fopping about elegantly with their doting middle-class parents yapping at their heels to rush them to ballet etc...

Anyway, walking through the shopping centre, I happened to be following a Mother and her rather bored looking son. The mother seemed to be going through a long list of the things they had to do that day, ".. and we've got to get you some new school-shoes, and then you need some new pens, and then we're going to tea at...". She also seemed to be doing the 'lick-a-tissue-and-thrust-it-in-the-face-of-your-offspring' thing. Because clearly saliva and mouth bacteria is much better than an ink-smudge or two.

In the midst of this whirlwind of fussiness, the little trooper of a kid turns to her, raises his hand to her face resignedly, and sighs "Expelliarmus, Mummy."

Solid gold.
(Mon 14th Sep 2009, 19:37, More)

» Vandalism

As a teacher...
I deal with only the most petty of vandalism. Our school clings to the fringes of a frightfully middle class town, and so our clientele are fairly well behaved as a rule. However, the lure of producing a crudely drawn member on any available surface is a universal one, and even the most straight-laced of children can only hold out for so long.

It was last term when I spotted it, right near the end of the school year. It was proudly displayed on a year 9's book: slap bang on the front cover of his book. A magnificent specimen of genital anatomy, a vision in black marker pen, engorging and enriching the whole page. Truly, this thing was superb. However, it did pose somewhat of a dilemma for me.

As a teacher, the urge to chastise was strong: the wretched child had vandalised his book, and should be punished. As a human being (and b3tan), the urge to encourage this behaviour was almost as strong. How to reconcile these two opposing forces in the universe?

Simple: I am a science teacher.
"You will label that half-finished... *cough*... "diagram", and label it properly, using scientific vocabulary. You will not make any mistakes on it, and you will complete it for homework. If you do make any mistakes, I will send the whole diagram home in an envelope for your Mum to correct for you."

It was the best piece of work he produced all year. I hope he treasures it.
(Sun 10th Oct 2010, 23:07, More)

» The Naughty Step

The diagram
So, as a teacher, giving punishments is part and parcel of my daily grind. I don't particularly enjoy telling-off as a rule, but when it needs to be done, I do try to find some way to add amusement value, particularly when the crime deserves some special attention.

My favourite, and one of my own devising, is the punishment for a naughty boy who decided to draw a giant man-sausage on his exercise book. He wasn't a bad lad, but could step out of line rather far on occasion, and so I couldn't let it slide. I kept him behind at the end of the lesson, and his lecture went as follows.

"This is an absolutely pathetic diagram, one of the worst I have seen you produce. (*pause for blank look). You are going to finish it, at home, tonight. (Pause for more confusion.) It is going to be correctly, accurately labelled. No mistakes. No mis-spellings. No crossings-out. This diagram is going to be perfect. Do you understand? Now get out of my classroom."

He leaves, rather puzzled, and the next day, returns with a magnificently labelled version. It is accurate, detailed, and he has done more work on it than any other homework that year so far. In front of him, I tore it out of his book, placed it in an envelope and put it in my desk drawer.

"Now, the next time you muck around in my lesson, what do you think I will bring to the meeting I have with your Mum?... Clear?"

This brought, in fairly quick succession, 1) more puzzlement. 2) a moment of brief panic, and 3) a polite nod and a mumbled "sir".

He was pretty well behaved after that...
(Wed 13th Feb 2013, 17:32, More)

» Gambling

Consolation prize
Long time listener, first time caller. *pop*

I believe the appropriate thing now is to add some wavy lines, to denote time moving quickly backwards.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scene iss the delightful seaside town of Margate. The cast, a gaggle of gangly Boy-Scouts, on a day-trip during a week-long camp. We had our allowance of pocket-money, a clingy-bag full of mysterious-looking sandwiches, and we were ready for some fun.

And what could be more fun, in a seaside town, than the bank after bank of ‘push’ machines? That’s right, nothing. For many of our merry little band, the height of excitement was to be found in watching 2p after 2p cascade into the bowels of the machine. Each time, with the vague possibility of building up a little shelf of coins, which might… just might … drop off the front, earning you another half an hour of blissful copper-based excitement, and possibly one of the ghastly plastic toys that sit above the wave of coins. We had never felt so alive.

But for a peculiar hardcore of the group, the thrill of the 2p machines wasn’t good enough. The 10p machines were a far bigger draw: high-stakes gaming, for a bunch of 10-year-olds. The real skill with the 10p machines, of course, was to wait for the correct machine, and late in the afternoon, the motherload was found.

On the end of a row of machines, there sat a forlorn figure, hunched over a machine, pounding it with 10p after 10p. We watched in hushed awe, as she must have fed this machine about £30. It was an awesome spectacle. Sensing she had an audience, the lady explained she didn’t have a gambling problem, she was merely collecting the toys. She had almost the entire line-up of the England football team, all in exquisite plastic with over-sized novelty heads. She was only missing one, and that one was sitting on top of the biggest wave of 10p’s that the world has possibly ever seen.

Slowly but surely, she reaches the end of her bucket, and vacates the machine. “That’s it, no more” she sighed, and began to walk off.
Meanwhile, being the caring and compassionate young gentlemen we were, her still-warm seat was already occupied. A 10p is inserted…
*tinkle*… *tinkle tinkle tinkle*… *tinkle CRASH!!!!!*…

The whole of 10p-mountain had collapsed, bringing with it the delightful plastic figurine. The lady, hearing the crash and our whoops of excited joy, turns around to see a crowd of boys descending on the small change she had spent the best part of an hour feeding the machine with, and looked every inch a broken woman. It was at this moment that the smuggest 10-year-old in the world decided to present her with a tiny plastic Teddy Sheringham, rescued from the bottom of the coin-trough. I don’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

Length… about 2 inches, head-to-toe.
(Thu 7th May 2009, 17:29, More)