In which a young Colonel Boris finds himself demoted to nothing but a wimpering mass.
As a thirteen-year-old Colonel, I was sent on a week-long school science trip, staying in a somewhat militaristic youth hostel on the south coast of Blighty. Being fairly young, the height of hilarity was the joke "what do you call skinheads on a raft?" with the oh-so-rib-tickling rejoinder "beans on toast."
Come lunchtime one day, we're chatting away, queuing up for slop/food and a major component of this was a primordial mass, complete with tomato-based stromatolites in the form of baked beans. I'm known for some frankly obscene eating habits when the mood takes me (which is thankfully rare these days), but I draw the slightly boking line at baked beans.
"The works, but none of the skinheads, please." Ha-fucking-hilarity-ha.
The chap behind the counter, all six-foot-five of him, framed by the grease-filmed beige kitchen backdrop, fixed me with a look compounded of pity, wonder and hatred and slowly lifted his paper cap to reveal the extent of his non-hirsuteness.
Desperately, pointlessly, I tried to explain before the laser-like glare broke contact and locked on to the next in line which was now as silent as the grave.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Sun 15 May 2011, 10:38, Reply)