How to make school assemblies bearable, by Maladicta, age 16½
I went to a public, allegedly non-denominational school which still forced its pupils to sing hymns every morning even if they were Sikh, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, or atheist. This was made slightly less palatable by the usual 20-minute ramble with a tenuous link to God by our deputy head, a man who bore a not insubstantial resemblance to Austin Powers (though I'm told before the movie was released he was referred to as Carlos the Jackal). He was a vicar in his spare time, and had an uncanny ability to relate things as far removed from Jebus as cat prints on his car, broadband and gerbils to God. He didn't have much of a sense of humour and never really got why no one could be arsed with the singing. The only way I could make his assemblies bearable was to imagine him leaping onto the stage and yelling "God is SHAGADELIC, baby, yeah!", before doing a full Austin Powers musical number.

As well as our daily dose of Jebus, we would have a 12" remix at the end of term in the local church (the same one Stalker Boy used to go to to get away from Tris and play the theme from Crossroads on the organ), where in between the announcements of what a spiffing term it had been, we would sing hymns. Here, a meme was born, which extended among me and my very few friends (most of my year being, as previously documented, cunts).

I had spent most of Year 11 arguing the toss with my RE teacher, a tall, thin Brummie (and, crucially, bearded) chap named Mr Jones, for repeatedly confusing me with Boring Sarah (the only person in the year less popular than me; she had serious religion - didn't believe in contraception, premarital sex or sex at all for that matter - fat, with hair like a triangle and who enjoyed poking people repeatedly in the upper arm to get their attention before announcing to the minute how old her kittens were), and for informing my mother at parents' evening that the reason I would not want to be a nun was the fact there were no boys (I sat with the boys since all my mates in that class were in possession of a Y chromosome, not because I was enjoying lunchbreak sexytiem with them). However, among these few friends we had somehow transmogrified his beard into a separate entity (known as Beardsly), who was drawn with stick arms and legs, as well as the eyes and glasses of Mr Jones himself. We would spend time outside of lessons stroking imaginary beards and affecting thick Brummie accents to ask one another of the "second purpose of marriage". (Sexytiem, since you ask.)

This isn't the game; the game was to sing the hymns with one crucial difference: replacing at least every second noun with the word "beard". This could be altered for artistic licence's sake.

Our favourite ran thus:

Oh worship the Beard, all glorious above.
Oh gratefully sing his power and his beard;
Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Beards,
Pavilioned in splendor and girded with beards.

Oh tell of his might; oh, sing of his beard,
Whose robe is the beard, whose canopy space;
His chariots of wrath the deep be-aa-rds form,
And dark is his path on the wings of the beard.

The earth with its store of beards untold,
Almighty, your power has founded of old,
Established it fast by a changeless beard,
And round it has cast, like a mantle, a beard.

Your bountiful care what beard can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the beard,
It streams from the hills, it descends to the beard
And sweetly distills in the dew and the beard.

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In you do we trust, nor find you to fail;
Your beards, how tender, how firm to the end,
Our maker, beard, redeemer, and beard!

Oh measureless Might, ineffable Beard,
While angels delight to hymn you above.
The humbler beards, though feeble their lays,
With true adoration shall sing to your beeeeeeeard.
( Maladicta, Sat 21 Mar 2009, 17:40, Reply)