Do you remember the pecking order?
I do, although I am now well advanced in years I remember the pick-a-team-member heirarchy that for five years without fail went something like this:

The P.E teacher would always chose the same two or three favourites girls from the register to pick teams for nockey, retball or hounders. Those girls chosen would then have all the power in the world conferred on them to let you know in no uncertain terms where you stood in the pecking order of life. It went:

* popular, sporty girls
* popular, fashionable girls
* that scary bitch who no one wants to mess with
* mid-range popular girls - the ones who get "quiet & helpful" on reports and are just nice (known to dot "i"s with hearts)
* minions of the scary bitch
* (optional extra here: best friend of girl chosing, if they had argued)
* assorted hangers on
* that fat girl everyone feels sorry for

and finally, yours truly, last with that awkward pause before I was 'chosen.' Crucially, the one who both hated P.E. and was known to be crap at it. They would have been better with a hoard of three-eyed, one legged Siberian donkies being ridden by resurrected Christmas pixies on their team than trusting me anywhere near a ball. So you can't really blame them for picking me last. I have no idea if it was the same in boys lessons. However, as the years past I decided enough was enough and by the end missing P.E was more of a sport than any of the games we were supposed to be doing.

My methods included:

I was born with a mild form of eczema on my hands, arms and feets. Whilst it was often perfect bully fodder, it was endlessly useful to get me out of anything from badminton and gym to cross country, even if the latter involved no contact with any sporting equipment.

In rounders I made the crucial discovery that, when fielding, if you stand to the right of first post, then because most people are right handed, the ball will go out to the left side of the field. My friend and I would go out deep field well to the right of first post and daydream away, but had there been any left handed supreme hitters, we would have been there for the team.

I also had forging my mother's signature down early on, and was even on occasion happy to write said notes for friends. Eventually though, in the happy case of having a supply teacher for most of our GCSEs, I managed to train her so well that when she saw me approaching ten minutes into the lesson she would just sigh and hand over the pen for me to keep the score. In a small corner of Gloucester there may very well have been children cheated of a rightful victory as I had little clue what I was writing. I was for a time much more successful at nanopet and tamogotchi sitting as lots of girls would give them to me to care for. Looking after 3 dinosaurs, a cat, an egg and some blobby squib thing whilst all around me were hefting away at the gym horses is a fond memory.

It wasn't all good though, I remember that our class had to take a breath as one to walk past the boys changing rooms to get through to ours, such was the fumes from their apparently eternal deodrant fight. There has been lots of talk of the horror of showers, but surely that is better than deodrant on sweat. French after PE in the summer term, period 6, was nothing short of Ordeal by Lynx Africa as you tried to survive in an atmosphere of 60/40 deodrant B.O thanks to Mademoiselle who refused to open the windows. It wasn't my least favourite subject, but there were absolutely no pangs of regret on striding out of there forever on my last P.E lesson, looking at the year sevens coming in, and knowing their fate was no longer mine.

Length: never an issue, could never throw it that far
(treaclebriggs, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 20:28, 4 replies)

These popularity contests piss(ed) me off
Can you imagine the fuss there would be if a school organised its maths or english teaching that way? "OK, young Euler and Gauss, take turns to choose who you want in you maths sets".
(ubergeekian, Sat 21 Nov 2009, 20:52, closed)

Fucking hell
My son uses Lynx Africa....I keep wanting him to learn to cook for girls but he's obviously still in the flicking each other's bollocks stage. Probably during French as you say.
(Klangtarnflatchslapper looks just like a Telefunken U-47, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 0:28, closed)

Lynx Africa
It seems to be a recurring theme, I use it as it is the best of the Lynx range.

Also for those younger men out there the adverts are a load of old pish, no women on earth will Smell Lynx and instantly want to sleep with you.
(BiggestNizzy your company name here pm for rates., Sun 22 Nov 2009, 9:23, closed)

I was once walking home when suddenly I caught a whiff of the most foul smelling aftershave Ive ever smelled, before or since. There was no one else about - but the stench of this stuff was enough to make me wheeze and choke. The only place I can think that it came from was the young lad (couldnt have been more than 17) driving his Nova past me with the window open. Given that he was on the other side of the road at the time, I can only assume that he'd used a whole can. Perhaps he was on his way to meet a girl and had run out of Rohypnol - this stuff was enough to knock out an elephant.

Not sure why your story reminded me of that incident.
(Freakmandu, Sun 22 Nov 2009, 11:35, closed)