The Miseducation of The Stig......
I hated school days. When I was a wee Stiggy, I was always told by Mummy Stig and Daddy Stig that "School is the best days of your life. You'll realise that when you're older".

Well, now I'm a grown up Stiggy and as far as I can see, I still spend the same time in work as I do in school (roughly 08:15 to 16:15), but the difference is this:

I get paid for my time at work.
I get paid holidays.
I only have one sadist telling me what to do, as opposed 5 or 6.
I can drink tea at my desk.
I don't spend my free time doing homework.
I don't wear a uniform and can wear clothes that I WANT to wear.
I get benefits and perks with my job.
and if I don't like my job I can quit.

Mind you, I wound up the teachers at school a treat. See, despite hating school, I appreciated that I need to have a good education behind me (not easy when you go to a comprehensive). So, I knuckled down and did my work. With a few exceptions (i.e stuff I wasn't good at, like art and history, which was a shame, because I liked those two subjects), I never got below a "C". I even won an award for getting the highest science grade at GCSE for the year of 1995 at my school (trust me, the bar wasn't set very high!).

However, as I learnt in Physics, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Where I was good in work, I was an absolute terror in the rest of the school!

Past exploits include:

Taking a 6 pack of "John Smith's" to school and drinking with my mates.

Getting drunk from said 6-pack (I couldn't hold my alcohol very well in those days), going to a science class and nearly blowing up the lab. (That incident set me on the path to getting a degree, with honours, in chemistry)

Telling a teacher, who I still hate to this day, "F*** off, you ginger c***!". (In the days, when I used to swear).

Playing swordfighting with a couple of soldering irons and burning each other.

and stealing stuff from school.

I do have a few good memories from school, though......and here they are:

1. Our headmistress had a bit of a fetish of the sound of her own voice. Regularly, she'd wander around the school and shout randomly (i.e "Slow down!", "Stop chewing gum!", etc). This fetish spiralled out of control when she used school funds to buy a mega phone for her to shout from (our textbooks were falling apart and she's buying a £200 megaphone?!). So for the next few weeks, we had to put up with her voice amplified at a volume that people could have heard in Japan. Then, one day, she started using a whistle and shouting again, the megaphone had gone. Why was this? Anyway, one day in science class, the teacher was helping our table out with a problem and the topic of the headmistresses' megaphone came up.

"Why has that old cow stopped using the megaphone?"

The science grinned and nearly laughed.

"Come on, Mr (name removed to protect the innocent). You know something! What's the reason?"

"Apparently, someone broke into her office stole the megaphone and left a note on her desk saying "If you can't use this responsibly, then you can't be trusted to have it!".

2. (My favourite) Every school has one of these. The good looking girl, who's a right cow to anyone "beneath her". That means, geeks got it, I got it, less good looking girls got it, everyone got stick from her.

This went on for years, until one day a couple of new girls arrived and they were STUNNING! I mean, they made Anne Hathaway looked rough as a bear's behind! My initial thought was "Oh Jeez! Now we've got it in surround sound!".

But over the next few months, I noticed a change in school stunner's demeanour. She's was becoming unsure of herself, less confident and less talkative. What was going on? Turned out the new girls, didn't like the school stunner and started picking on her! While this made me laugh, I thought "Oh dear, there'll be a point when I'm going to cop it!".

Then one day in computer class, I was feeling absolutely rough due to the 'flu. I was waiting for the bell to go, so I could go home and recover over the weekend. Sitting next to me was one of the new school stunners.

"Oh god, I feel sick!"

"What's wrong?"

"I feel like death warmed up! When will class finish? I want to go home!"

"Why don't you put your head on my lap and rest for the rest of the lesson?"

At this point I'm looking around to see where Jeremy Beadle was hiding.

"What?! Put my head on your lap?!"

"Yeah! Come on!" She patted her lap.

I turned to my mate, to see if he was hearing was I was hearing. He smiled, nodded and gave a look as if to say "You jammy git!" I gingerly, leant down, onto her lap and got comfortable.

"You all right down there?" she asked.

"Oh yes!" (Years before the "Churchill" adverts). "I'm feeling better already!"

I faced the ceiling and copped a close view of her chest. Did I mention she had huge knockers?

"You just enjoy the view!" She said.

So I spent the rest of the lesson, doing exactly that!

3. This story starts in a French class. I was busy listening to the teacher, when this fairly, good looking girl, comes in, and sits next to me. I'd never seen her before, but she was good looking and I know my level in the pecking order of school, so I didn't speak to to her and carried on with the class. About 10 minutes into the class, she started chatting to me.

"Hello! I'm Susan (not her name, obviously)."

"I'm Stiggy." I turned back to my work.

"What's going on?"

"French, I think."

"I'm stuck on these questions."

"No problem." and I helped her out. They were easy enough.

She started getting very chatty and I talked back, but always recognised where I was in the pecking order of the school. About 40 minutes into the class, I sighed.

"What's up?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Come on, what?"

"Oh, this kid is giving me hassle."

"Who?"

Without thinking, I replied, "Oh (name removed)".

"Why is he giving you hassle?"

"No idea. I think he's now pally with other kids, he think's he can score 'cool' points hassling me."

"Oh...."

No more was said.

French class finished, I packed up, said goodbye to Susan and hoped I saw her around.

I, then, went to Maths class. When that finished, I had lunch and went to English class. I came into the classroom, sat down and noticed that a few children were laughing at someone. I wandered over to find out what was going on. It was the kid who was giving me hassle!

"What's going on here?" I said, with a little smile on my face that HE was getting hassle now.

"Hoi! What have you said?" he asked.

"Nothing. Why? What's going on?"

Someone else piped up.

"Have you been speaking to Susan?"

"Yeah. A little. Why?"

"Because, during maths class, she walked up to him (the kid giving me hassle) and shouted at him in front of the whole class! She said 'You better leave Stiggy alone! Or I'll f***ing break your nose! Got me?!'".

I was stunned, then, I wet myself laughing! I didn't bother explaining the story, but he left me alone after that.

So, to the person who stole the megaphone, the school stunner and Susan the pyscho, thank you for giving me a few good memories of that concentration camp they called a school! :O)

Length? 5 years. Muggers get less than that.....
(The Stig, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 20:07, 2 replies)

not strictly to do with school
ihatekaty.com/?id=1248975#6dzz5z54fsdq7ez78z8d
(Maxx. SAY NO TO PUBIC HARIS, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 19:59, 7 replies)

Physics
My A-Level physics teacher was ace. Particularly memorable was the *experiment* he once set up: a large tin can, with holes in the bottom and top of it. Fill it with gas, and light.

It burns very gently for a few minutes. Then, the concentrations of gas and oxygen get to the right level... And *BOOM*. Large, very loud explosion, and projectile tin can.

Terrifying at the best of times, but even more so when set up at the start of the lesson before you arrive, and teaching commences as normal... For a few minutes; before said explosion, and several members of the class falling from their chairs in absolute terror.
(Merrep, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 19:52, 1 reply)

Work experience
Work experience in the local primary school when I was fifteen. The same primary school I had gone to for a year after moving house.

Back when I was ten, it was not a good school, I was a year or two ahead because I had come from a better school and ended up running errands for the teachers, cataloguing the library, stamping new textbooks with the school logo. That sort of thing.

There was one girl, Charlie who wanted me to hide her pack of ten embassy regal. I refused and she said she would hate me forever and get me back.

Five years later and we have worked side by side for two weeks. I had gone out of my way to be nice, took my three colleagues back to my house at lunchtime, I made tea and tried to talk and joke with them. Most of them fell flat, but nevermind thinks I. I had managed the two weeks without anyone being particularly unpleasant to me, barring the four-year-old who went mental in assembly and bit my leg, so it had been pretty sucsessful as far as I was concerned.

On the last day of the placement the four of us were in the room the teachers set aside for us as our mini staff room, I was sitting blowing on my tea, the religious fanatic sitting beside me, Charlie behind me and her minion at her shoulder by the door.

Charlie hit me in the back of the head without warning or provocation, I spilled tea all over myself and it was hot and I sat there in shock while she and her minon left.

I gathered myself together, tried to dry off and went to see the teacher, who refused to speak to me alone. There I was covered in tea, face white, hands shaking infront of a class of four and five year olds. When she turned to me and saw I was not pissing about she told me to go to the headmaster. I did.

He didn't do anything about it or make any kind of report, just had words with her about it, and she lied her chunky bum off. She told them I was a danger to the children and I had made the whole thing up, that I was an attention seeker and not normal. The religious fanatic refused to say anything as he hadn't actually seen anything, just me sputtering into my tea and jerking forward out of my chair, and the minion had been under the thumb for about ten years as far as I could tell and was scared of Charlie.

The primary school sent a report back to my school saying that I didn't work well in a group and that I should be watched carefully. Naturally I found this upsetting.

All was well a few weeks later, Charlie pissed herself in a maths lesson. I felt completely at peace with her finally. I hadn't done anything to her, it must just be natural justice.
(herefromthere, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 19:43, Reply)

penis
We had foreign exchange students visiting for a couple months. There was an asian girl among them. The exchange students had to give oral reports about themselves, something they enjoy, etc. An american student was assigned to each exchange student to help them with their english. So the day of the oral reports, the asian girl gets up and says, " I love the penis. The penis make me laugh. I wake up to the penis every morning." Everyone looked around to see who had worked with her. We all thought someone had given her the wrong word purposely. Just as people began to chuckle and the teacher was about to lose her temper, the girl placed a picture on the overhead for everyone to see. It is a picture of the cartoon - the Peanuts!!
(saragedeon, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 19:27, Reply)

the only time anyone ever asked me out at school
When I was in high school I was a complete outsider. Couldn't tell you why, just was.

Anyway, the only lad who asked me out the whole time I was in school was a bit rough. Nice looking, in my year, tall, dark and good looking. Call him Mark, (for the usual reasons) Complete scally, boasted about whatever he had twokked and constantly made suggestions to me during art classes as to what he would like to do to me if he could get me bent over a stool.

I was an innocent little girlie and though this would usually frighten me off, that didn't bother me at all, he was quite friendly and flirty with it rather than intimidating (Some of the other lads used to whisper that they would rape me if they got the chance, and go into detail but that is another story).
No, what bothered me about this lad was his friends, they were awful and they frightened me something terrible. They hung around in big gangs and used to grope at me in crowded corridors, I got quite violent and kicky. No shins were safe near me.

Mark held me back after class one day and asked me out. I turned him down partly out of fear of his friends and partly because I wouldn't have known what to do with a boyfriend if I had one, but I made up an excuse about barely being allowed out of the house. True enough, but that was only because I didn't have any friends and there wasn't much point in going anywhere.

A few days later one rainy, muddy lunchtime, I was making the usual solitary rounds of the school grounds when he caught my attention,

"Herefromthere! Will you go out with Andy?!"
*raised eyebrow, paused, looked*
"No, Thank you!"
*contined walking around the corner of the building*
I could hear quite clearly the pointing and laughing going on behind me

"'Ere Andy, you got turned down by a geek!"

That was too much for me

I walked backwards until I could see them both and said quite quietly, "So did you."

I have never seen anyone's face fall quite like it and what happened next all seemed to be in slow motion.

Mark went very pale, I continued walking. After perhaps about ten seconds he appeared on the path behind me, looking crestfallen, holding a can of lilt, which he threw in my direction. He missed. I couldn't tell you if it was deliberate or not, that he missed, but I was quite touched. Either he was affected enough to miss accidentally or he didn't want to hit me. Never saw him miss like that before or since. And the Lilt bounced like you wouldn't believe, six feet in the air, a whole can near enough, giving a nice fine coating of fizzy pop to some eleven-year-olds who were pointing and laughing at the scene, having heard everything. I believe the nearest of them got sent home because it looked like he had wet himself and they couldn't dry the lilt without it looking even worse.

Apologies for length and lack of funny. Strange the things that stick in the mind.
(herefromthere, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 19:10, Reply)

Ah, the joy of B3ta timing...

I got home from work today as usual...and was greeted by my Eldest flakelet...as usual. The following conversation ensued:

Flakelet: "Hello daddy, *mutters 'if you are my daddy' under breath*. How was work today?"

Me: "Fucking hedgehog bollocks, thanks for asking...how was school?"

Flakelet: "Oh...so-so...there was a fire alarm today. It was an experiment...erm...a test"

Me: "Ahh, actually son, it's called a 'Drill'..."

Flakelet: "I don't think so Dad, some twat blew up the fucking chemistry lab!"

He's 7.

This story is absolutely true - except for the swearing...and the doubts regarding parentage.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 30 Jan 2009, 19:06, 1 reply)

Peanuts
Someone at school, knowing I was allergic to peanuts thought it would be a hillarious prank to put a Marathon (as Snickers bars were known back in those days) into a Mars Bar wrapper and to offer me a bite of his "Mars Bar" (NB: this is not a sexual euphamism).

As I quite like Mars Bars, I of course said "Ooh, thanks" and proceeded to take a large bite from said "Mars Bar" only for the inevitable to happen.

Fortunately, I'm not as allergic to peanuts as some poor people are, so for me, the ineviable consequence of eating peanuts is not to die of anaphalytic shock, but rather to be copiously and extravagantly sick.

Now, generally, being sick isn't exactly a barrel of laughs, except that in this case, I managed to cover the perpretrator of this evil prank from head to toe in peanut-sick.

You should have seen the look on his face (mind you, it wasn't easy to see under all that vomit!)
( JugglerJAF It's curtains for you.Lacy gently wafting curtains, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 18:49, 3 replies)

Mystery poo class
I was at a very posh school between the ages of 13-18. Because of the contracts offered to teachers at said school, once a teacher had got in and passed his probationary period, it was practically impossible to uproot him. For this reason, the place was stuffed to bursting with ageing bachelors who were, quite frankly, bats.

One of the best of the bunch was a particular history master, who shall be called here Mr. K. Now whereas other teachers had amusing eccentricities, speech impediments, nervous ticks and the like, Mr. K was an absolute cracker. I mean properly round the twist – superhumanly so. He was famous for once fixing his eve on a boy who had been talking in class and bellowing at him: “My God, boy, if I hear one more word out of you, then you shall feel my cold hand in your warm intestines.” That shut him up.

Mr. K also had a dog, a Labrador, which followed him pretty much wherever he went, even during teaching time. By coincidence, it happened that the teacher who occupied the classroom opposite Mr. K’s also had a dog.

And so it was that one day Mr K’s class was interrupted by a shriek from the corridor. He flung open the door to see the teacher from the school room opposite pointing in horror at a dog poo on the carpet. An argument quickly sprung up. As far as he was concerned, the culprit was Mr. K’s Labrador and no two ways about it. Nonsense, said Mr K., his dog would never do such a thing. “And furthermore, don’t you own a dog? I bet it was that disgusting mongrel of yours.” The initial exchange led to shouting, accusations of softening of the brain and worse.

But it soon became clear that both were unwilling to give so much as an inch, and so, at Mr. K’s suggestion, a boy was eventually picked from each class to enter the corridor with a ruler in order to measure the distance between the offending poo and each of the classroom doors; the closest classroom would then take responsibility.

But it of course turned out that the poo was precisely in the centre of the corridor but slanting at an oblique angle, which sparked all sorts of animated discussion about what constituted the start point of the poo and how any measurements should be taken from it. Should both boys start measuring from the same point of the poo, or should they start from the point nearest their home classroom? This technicality assumed extreme importance – the former technique gave advantage to Mr. K, but the latter to the enemy. This very quickly re-ignited the row to full blast.

Much much later, when it became clear that nobody was going to back down, the other teacher suggested that the poo be divided equally and that each side should bear responsibility for clearing away one half. Mr. K grudgingly agreed. A boy stepped out, cut the poo in half with a ruler, and with that, it was over.

Best history lesson I ever had.
(quefelli, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 18:31, 1 reply)

Surely not the only one...
Mistaking "Home clothes day" for fancy dress. Cue me turning up to a playground teeming with kappa tracksuit clad five year olds: I was dressed as Robin Hood.

Tights and all.
(wordsworthless is outnumbered but never outpunned, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 18:31, 6 replies)

KSB and Mr. D
School: A nice Somerset school in the countryside

Teacher: Mr D. Chemistry teacher, Fives coach and all round total god.

Imagine a man with the mannerisms of Doc from Back to the Future and a truly staggering ability to create some seriously powerful explosions.

Story 1: The Tin bomb.

Class enters and sits down quietly, (yeah right), Mr D enters and asks the class if they think Phil the noisy kid would be quieter if he lodged the fire axe in his skull. This is the sort of intro The D would come out with.
He duly asks us to copy the apparatus at the front of the class. We copy what looks like a large tin of nescafe and a gas tap with a hose leading up into the base of the tin.

Mr D explains that he will now demonstrate the optimum mixture for exothermic reactions using butane gas. I think it was butane. I think it was that but please correct me if I'm wrong. He then turns on the ghas tap and fills the tin with gas. About thirty seconds later he lights the gas coming from a hole in the lid of the tin. He then turns off the gas and removes the hose from the base. He then gets us all to stand back while grinning.

The flame burns lower...

and lower...

until you can hardly see...

BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!

The whole tin goes up and out and fires the lid so that it rips off about three ceiling tiles and one of the girls pisses herself.

Class applauds and lesson procedes in similar fashion.


Story 2:

Health and safety rules change and it turns out that storing large lumps of Sodium, Pottasium and other even more reactive metals is now frowned on. (either that or Mr D. was in a very good mood). These, as we soon found out, are metals that react virgourously when placed in water, variously burning on the surface or exploding.

Mr D explains how these metals react and we each take a tiny amount of metal out their oil bath and place them into our large water baths and note the reactions like the diligent students we were.

Mr D then asks us to all step out of the class and make our way to the outdoor swimming pool, see where this is heading?

We all line up on one side and The D goes round the farside with several large glass jars full of very large chunks of metal and oil.

He then proceded to throw bigger and bigger chucks of steadily more reactive metals into the pool. Small amounts of these can cause a nice pop. A chunk the size of a mans fist will make a bang that drew half the other class rooms out to cheer him on.

Mr D. We salute you.

I heard he has recently retired and the teaching world is poorer for it. Cheers to the only man I've ever seen clean a fives court using hydrochloric acid and a mop.
(71 hour Ahmed wasn't working at, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 18:29, Reply)

Rugby and other lethal sports
Teachers were cruel.

They made ME play rugby. I was small and skinny in those days and often got used 'as' the rugby ball, and try to remember that our teachers didn't give it a shit if the soil was frozen and harder than granite, with the skin peeling texture of sand paper. Great days.

Running.
I was good at runnning.

Cricket.
Shit game, but something i was accidently seriously good at. Put most to shame.

Basketball.
Bust nose.

Football.
Get studded with a dog-shit ridden shoe. Spend next four days in a life-threatening fever.

I often had to get the ball when it went over the six foot heigh spikey metal railings.



--

Playground sports.

'Tic'
Several variations, including beating up the person you want to be 'it'. "Tic, you're 'it' five beats you little shit"

'Bung off'
Hide in someones shed smoking cigs.

'Skillio'
Like 'tic' but gay.

'Bulldog'
Arguably the finest game ever invented.

One kid starts off as the bulldog, whilst 30 or 40 other youngster charge at him to an opposing line.
If he manages to grab or knock down another kid, they become another bulldog.
Repeat until everybody has a fat lip, broken finger, ripped hood, skinned knees, missing teetch.
Best played on tarmac (with loose shoe laces).

'Byew Byew Byew Byew Byew Byew peeow'
A game where me and my mate simon would walk along the painted lines of the playground (staring down the sleeve of our coat) pretending to be a robot.
Anybody crossing a line will get Peeowed by either me or simon.

Great days.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 18:24, 3 replies)

During an incredibly boring lesson, I started doodling on the back pages of my exercise book
and quickly filled up a double-page spread with spiders of all sizes rendered in black ink.
When my book was marked, it turned out the teacher concerned suffered from acute arachnophobia.

Whoops.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 18:15, Reply)

My Rock n' Roll Past
I was a good kid at school - a sort of hybrid between a hardworking geek and a complete and utter doormat. Hardly the type of pupil to smash up a practice room.

Life picked up a bit when I took up the bass guitar, motivated largely by a dream to appear attractive to womensound like John Entwistle, and also because everyone else was playing the guitar, and I found my friend's guitar too small and fiddly with too many strings.

My school's music department was quite proud of its practice rooms. Basically they had one room of a decent size, and then three or four alcoves with thick doors.

So, with three or four of us sat in one of these tiny rooms, I went to plug my bass in.

My bass has a socket on the bottom of the body, so habitually I would raise it up, neck in the air, to find the appropriate hole and drive home my metallic probe.

This room had a low ceiling, and a strip light covered by one of those flimsy, rectangular plastic shades.

So inadvertently, the head of my bass went straight through the light cover and bought it crashing down on the space in between us. It's amazing nobody was injured by a shard of plastic.

Everyone else in the room was very good, and covered up for me, saying that the cover had just fallen off when we slammed the door.

But for a few days after that, it was kind of nice to have a few people pat me on the back and say "Hey, I saw the way you trashed the practice room..."

For a few days, I was Rock n' fuckin' Roll. Sort of.
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 17:31, Reply)

Things I regret doing at school:
Going into the music practice room that had no windows just so we could turn off the lights and beat up my mate in the dark.
Attempting to frisbee a circular protractor across the science lab only to completely mis-aim and hit some guy in the eye.
Egging on the borderline-autistic and ridiculously tall and gangly bloke to try to kick the ceiling of the 6th form room.
Rubbing my thighs repeatedly, Vic Reeves style, at the ugliest girl in class until she slapped me in the face.
Never getting in a fight I had a chance of winning.
Not paying attention in Art, Music and History.
Generally being a bit of a twat.

Things I don't regret doing:

Breaking large quantities of expensive glass chemistry equipment.
Getting a piece of dissected pig's heart stuck to the biology lab ceiling, and it staying there for over 2 years.
Inciting an agar jelly war.
(jlkgjsfhoj, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 17:17, Reply)

How I was put in prison by my PE teacher...

Picture the scene...

A softball game.

A beautiful summer's day.

The grass has just been cut and the bumblebees are flitting about determindly.

Some people are playing tennis in the courts nearby, the sound of the balls being swatted adds a certain restful cadance to the glorious, lazy sun drenched day.

And on the softball field a team from the east side of town plays a team from the west...

A small crowd of parents and general passers-by mull about the edges of the field, watching the boys do battle in the sunshine.

Its such a beautiful day.

(I think its best if I tell this one from the perspective of two of the parents watching from the sideline).


Parent 1: "What's that boy doing way over there?"

Parent 2: "Where?... Oh, WAAAYYYY over there..."

Parent 1: "He doesn't seem to bothered about the game." - With a slight chuckle, I imagine.

Parent 2: "He's up to something... Look..."

Parent 1: "I can just about make... something... out..." - Squinting against the sun.

Parent 1: "Yes, yes, you're right... He looks as if he's in pain... I wonder if he's alright.."

A long pause...

Parent 2: "Oh, sweet Jesus!!! He's MASTURBATING!!!"

...Mr Butcher, my PE teacher, actually locked me in the minibus for an hour until the game finished.

The fat bearded bastard...

Still, at least I had some privacy to finish myself off properly... and someone had left a copy of Smash Hits on one of the seats, so I knocked one out looking at photos of Kyle Minougues arse in a ra ra skirt...
( SpankyHanky, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 17:11, 2 replies)

This is possibly the geekiest story ever.
Probably my happiest time at school was just pre GCSEs. I'd left behind a mediocre circle of largely very nice, but football obsessed, friends (doesn't do it for me) and managed to fall in with the clever kids. Our school was pretty weird as somehow, through unerring decency, friendliness and wit, the cleverest chappy in our year also happened to be one of the most popular. Cue not an awful lot to worry about and plenty of time to get on with enjoyment of learning and creativity without fear of reprisal.

So anyway two of my best friends, remaining so to this day, in that group were gregarious popular erudite Matt (above), and introverted, ludicrously clever Dave. We're talking like rocket science clever. We got heavily into writing games together, me taking more of a lead on the art, design and music side of things but doing the odd bit of coding and Dave dealing with the meat.

This is back in the early days of Pentuim processors and latter days of good old MS-DOS. So we were mostly coding in Qbasic because it was all we had, but one day Dave turned up with a little assembly language program that swapped two numbers around and added them together. Next day he turned up with a fully fledged sound driver. Now we had power.

The next day's program was effectively a virus. A little program you ran that stayed memory resident in DOS and every time a key was pressed there was a 1 in 10 chance it would print something abusive at you on the screen. So I leant Dave my extensive collection of .TXT pr0n about comic book charactes (told it was geeky). This was promply incorporated into the program and it was installed on every PC in the department. Reams of filth everywhere when anyone tried to type something. Brilliant.

Over a few weeks we developed our masterpiece. A DOS program that counted up in Dave's voice (slightly sped up):

"Its the ONE! head dwarf. Its the TWOO head dwarf. Its the THREE head dwarf" etc. up to around the point where something went wrong with the numbers which I think was in the region of 360,000

It was deployed one lunchtime across every PC in the room and they were left to chorus to perplexed pupils and teachers.

Mmm large scale geeky bafflement goodness.

No punch line. Am I meant to have one?
( Throat And Ice Pie I see dem tatties dere., Fri 30 Jan 2009, 17:03, Reply)

Walking up and down the corridor for half an hour...
just to make sure it was drugs we could smell.

Sometimes being a teacher can be fun.
(WholeGrain Using the same sig since, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:56, 1 reply)

Alwyn Gillen the thick bastard games teacher and fascist bully and utter CUNT
fucking hated me, mainly for not being a mud-swallowing jockstrap games obsessed twunt.... which I wasn't for a fairly good reason.

Despite my fully diagnosed and relatively rare chidlhood heart condition, which meant that I was not supposed to do ANY games (which when you are a kid in a school full of hearty Rugby types is NOT a good start) Gillen used to make me run round the field "instead" of doing sport.

He persisted in this thuggish activity until my Cardiologist made a 100 mile round trip to help him understand that when (not if) I suffered a heart attack he would personally make sure that Gillen was done for manslaughter. NAturally he redoubled his efforts to humilliate me in every posssible way, and on every possible occasion.

I realise now that Gillen must have been completely out-of-control because how/why could he have been allowed to make a kid do that shit, when there was a clear medical imperative.... well known to all, including the Head Teacher.... but, hey this was the 70s.

Anyhooo.

The funniest thing that happened was after I left... and I mean properly left... twenty years later I met the fucker.

By this time I was not a scrawny close-to-death pale, heart-diseased and flaccid BastardBoy.... but an over-compensating-for-childhood-weaklingness, ripped to within an inch of improbability fit fella, three and a half-feet taller, and happy to take revenge Mo'Fo.

I saw him on the street.

In London.

Six in the twilit winter evening.

Deffo him. There couldn't be two.

"Gillen", I called, to be sure. His turn-round "who said my name" look fixed it.

I had never before - and have never since - set out physically to hurt a fellow human being, it just ain't my thang.

But, I hit him. Just once: full square in the face, and as hard as I possibly could, just as hard as I could manage. His nose had obviously been broken several times before, but as is bletched blood I laughed with pure joy... proper laughed, released decades of pent-up inadequacy and hatred... real catharsis.

Enjoyment of revenge, it is the best thing to come out of school.
(bastardboy loves his mummeh, but hoo is daddeh?, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:51, 2 replies)

The wrong kid.
Let me set the scene. It was a sunny lunch time, we had taken the football pitch from the immature year 10s (us being year 11 and all) we were happily playing when the tougher kids from our year decided they wanted to play. After a few protests ("they'll just kick us if we don't give them the ball") we finally decided to let them play, us vs them. There were more of us but they played dirty so it was about fair.

I was in defense. I'm shit at football but enjoy playing, so I'm either defense or keeper so I don't mess it up for the good kids who can score. the opposition came on the counter attack and there was only me and the keeper to beat. I start to move towards the player with the ball, when another kid comes in and tackles me to the ground and sits on me. I was mad at this, he continued to sit on me for few minutes while the game played on without me. Finally he lets me up. I knew I had to take revenge but couldn't just come out and hit him, I would be killed by the rest of the gorilla gang. So I waited until he was between me and the ball and shoulder barged him on the way to hoofing the ball down field with the biggest kick I could muster.

That was the plan. I saw my opportunity and took it. I shoulder barged him on the way to the ball quite hard, I even disorientated myself, then I saw the ball and went for the kick. The one thing I didn't think about were other players. It didn't cross my mind that someone else might get to the ball before me. I never even considered that one of the toughest kids in our school might also go for the same ball. As I went to kick the ball with all my might all I saw was his foot. It all happened in slow motion. He screamed in pain and fell to the ground. I knew I had signed my own death wish. Fortunately for me the bell rang and I ran as fast as I could to get to my next class, it was the first time in history I was early to class.

Then came the waiting. I knew there would be revenge, but I didn't know when, where or how bad it was going to be. Right after school let out he was waiting for me. Somehow I managed to cut him a deal, a kick for a kick. He kicked me as hard as he could on my thigh. My god it hurt, but at least it was over. I had to walk the whole way home with a dead leg.

Not particularly funny I know. Not many of my school stories are, like the time I was told off for someone picking me up and holding me upside down in class. Or the time someone pulled my tie so tight it was strangling me and it took 3 people to get it off before it killed me.

School was fun.
( bobzarkoff, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:46, Reply)

another from me
At our school there was a girl (i think...) from the council estate, her name was Harriot, she was incredibly tall, with short hair and flat chested, with her bag all the way up to ther shoulders nearly over her head, socks tucked into her trousers and her oversized glasses.

She spent her lunchtimes in the spaz room, reading dictionaries, and she also had a psychotic hatred for nintendo,and if you was to say 'nintendo'(or anything involving the 'N' word) to her, commonly she'd scream 'SEGA!!!' at you, however sometimes she'd go on a rampage

I'll give a couple of examples...

If you was to say 'Mario's in the bin' she'd turn into the incredible hulk and start kicking the bin and trying to rag it out the ground, etc..

If you said 'King Koopa's behind you', she'd run off screaming

If you was to say 'Donkey Kong's in your bag' she throw her bag off into the mud and give it a good kicking

The best was when she was on the toilet and some girl in the toilet opposite her shouted 'Marios in the toilet!!' or something, she jumped up off the toilet and ran out into the corridor screaming with her pants round her ankles...which put her in detention

everyone stopped bullying her after our headteacher read out the list of definitions for a 'bully' during an assembly

saw her a while after walking down the path, humming to herself, curiously I asked..

'what you humming?'

'Tetris theme tune' she says
(Lord Chode, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:34, Reply)

I was hung out of a second floor window by my ankles
by a bearded class room assistant, who was aptly nicknamed 'Jesus' (but not to his face).
He was a bit of a biker, bit of a geezer and i think i pushed my luck too far when he grabbed me and hung me out the window, facing down into the sixth form quadrant, all my pens and money fell from my pockets never to be seen again.

but i got the last laugh as he chopped off his thumb on the bandsaw a few weeks later.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:07, 2 replies)

1st year high school
We used to believe one of the female teahcers had wooden tits.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 16:04, 2 replies)

Piss Bag
We once robbed my mates school bag from the "goal posts" and pissed in it...then returned it...he thought the ground had got wet and seeped into his bag, so didn't clean it or anything...

It was when he sat there in the next lesson sucking on his ruler that I felt a bit guilty...
(Big Andy, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:54, 2 replies)

My chemistry teacher
whom we'll call Mr C to preserve at least some of his anonymity, had a penchant for 'dangerous' science, and in particular, explosions.

He used to demonstrate the combustion of hydrogen thus:

He would fill up two balloons, one with pure hydrogen, and one with a stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, tie strings to them and affix them to his bench. He would then instruct us pupils to open all the windows and doors, and sit on the benches round the outside of the classroom (this was on the third floor, by the way, with proper fully opening windows - none of your restricted opening health and safety pish in those days).

Then he'd get a taper, sellotaped to the end of a metre stick, light it and hold it at arm's length under the first balloon.

WHUMP!

A big flash of yellow flame, and a fair old bang would emanate from the balloon. He would explain to the slightly shellshocked class that the hydrogen was burning as it met the oxygen in the air, and so burned very quickly. So what would it be like, he asked, if the oxygen was mixed in already, in just the right ratio for perfect combustion?

Enter the second balloon.

The taper was duly relit and held below the swelling rubber bladder of explosive gas.

A few seconds passed until the rubber melted and the flame touched the escaping gas mixture.

BOOOOMM!!!

An explosion which caused our hearing to go a bit funny rocked the room. We were lucky not to have fallen out the windows with the shockwave. Even the floors vibrated. Doors down the corridors opened, with concerned teachers of less violent and hazardous subjects looking worriedly towards the lab.

We learned a lot that day though, and it helped illustrate his point.

Mind you, we learned a bit more come sixth year, when he admitted to us that he had never used hydrogen for the experiments, he'd just attached the balloon to the gas tap in the lab and filled it with natural gas. He just didn't want us all to go home and fill balloons from the gas cooker! Thinking back on it, they didn't seem particularly buoyant, but we didn't notice this at the time.

Happy days.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:50, 2 replies)

The Berne Necessites
When I was in my second year at senior school we went on a ten day trip to Switzerland with Mr. C___ a jovial little R.E. teacher. On the last day we visited Berne, the capital, including the famous bear pit. One of the things us kids noticed was these bears of various species and colours seemed to be crapping all the bloody time (of course very amusing to us 12 year olds ) which caused my best friend to remark "It is a good job human beings don't behave like in public that isn't it?".Then right on cue we all heard a very loud "PARP!" ... we all looked at each other shaking our heads in a " no, it wasn't me !" fashion, then we noticed that Mr. C___ 's face had gone a lovely shade of Crimson....We all somehow managed to stifle our laughter, but it wasn't easy!
Unfortunately, I heard the poor guy had died recently. Apparently he died of a heart attack, not a fart attack.
(Mackeson_drinker, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:44, Reply)

fireworks
The build up to bonfire night at school usually happened a month or so before.Little bottle rockets would be screaming off left right and centre at dinner time.Being a large school and having the biggest fields known to man it was quite easily hidden and you could get upto all sorts.

There i was one day playing footie with the usual school bag and coats goal post,that everyone always argue the size of, que me running over to my bag.There it was smoking having a 10 shot candle firework stuffed into it with the 5 years legging it off.I never did get there in time to see my school bag get ripped to shreads by these yobo's.This was a usual occurance not just at me.Them were the days !!!
(Uncle Ed is lurking around, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:41, Reply)

Half Brit Half Innuit
resisting the temptation to just add a pearoast from last week... www.b3ta.com/questions/fittingin/post349568

I offer this..


Back in the early 1980s we had proper winters. Oh yes we did! there was (unusually for the UK midlands) about half a yard/metre of lying snow on the ground for three weeks, it was added to by fresh stuff every day, it seemed. So on the last Friday of term, I was sitting in English class, being taught by the God of Sarcasm, Ian Roberts* along with the usual daft mates, all of us gazing out of the window at yet more of the lovely cold white stuff falling out of the sky.
"Sparkie! Have you and your coven finished that?" Asked Mr R

"Errm ... yeah it looks like it!" I replied, because we had... oddly for us..

"Well, as I was saying, would you like to go out there and build a snowman?" he asked..

"Really?" I wondered aloud..
"Yes really!"
I still didn't trust him, he was also known for some dastardly japes himself.

We all hesitated...

"Look for heaven's sake, go on will you whilst I'm still in a good mood!" Ian grinned, this was too good to be true.. so we grabbed bags, coats, scarves etc and ran out of the room, down the stairs, across the foyer and out into the falling snow... giggling like, well, like schoolgirls to be honest..

Oooh it was cold though... soo cold that there was none of the usual wet stuff you get on snowy days in the Midlands, it looked like the dry and cold days that people in Scandinavian countries, and Canada are blessed with, so we paused and donned our coats etc, and ran onto the back field to make a snowy start.

Alas, we made another discovery. After all the cold weather we were experiencing, the snow wouldn't stick together as we started to make the required big body snowball, it just wouldn't stick together. When we tried to throw them at each other they just crumbled in flight. So we sat an thought for a second. Then i looked and Angie, and she looked at me...and we said simultaneously "Igloo! Why don't we build an igloo?"

More of our classmates had joined us by this point and they all agreed, so Angie and I walked up to her house, which adjoined the school not ten metres away from where we were standing. her mum was in! this just got better! her Mum happily lent us three spades and shovels, so giggling further we carried them back and started to cut square blocks from the packed and frozen snow. These were lifted into place, and we soon had the makings of a fine wall indeed (Not unlike the Pink Floyd one) Then we noticed another problem. Igloos have a curve, ours didn't due to our not thinking ahead, so we had a choice. We could either stop and reconsider starting again with a curve from the ground up, or shout "Soddit" and carry on to see how tall we could get it. So, galvanised with tea from Angie's Mum, we pressed on. Then came lunchtime, and a crowd gathered, not to demolish the wall, strangely, but to assist! some had cameras, it being end of term. Mr Chapman came out and took pictures as well.. The wall was taller than me by now, and it kept growing as kids added to it..

years later, people from the school ask me about that igloo attempt.. the last one was the other week, 28 years later..God I live in a quiet town...

*I went to an experimental school where we called most of the teachers by their first names,some you just didn't though..

I apologise for the length, about 25ft ish, and the height, a shade over six feet..(2metres)
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:29, Reply)

To be cool at school, you have to play sports. Right?
School days, eh? Hmm.

I was pretty quiet. Close circle of friends, more likely to blend into the background than be the one stood at the front doing impressions of the head. I was fairly studious, but not a complete girly swot. A couple of specialist subjects, the rest, reasonably OK. Maths was always a bit of a twat, until 2nd year in high school when I was taught by probably the best maths teacher I had ever had (and therefore by default one of the best teachers full stop). I could have left high school with much better grades, but at the age of 14, when choosing options, went with the ones that most of my mates seemed to be doing rather than the subjects that I stood any real chance of doing bloody well in, such as Latin and German. Oh no, I went with physics and geography, ffs. I HATED physics and geography. Listen to your parents, kids - they really do mostly know what's best for you.

So, yeah, back on track. This all round general averageness with occasional bright spots also translated into sports. I did excel at certain athletics (middle distance track events, and the long jump, for some reason). But everyone knows that to be really cool you had to be good at football.

I wasn't. I sucked big time. I enjoyed it, but was never really much good, although I threw myself into it with enthusiasm, usually ending up on the right wing because I at least had a bit of pace about me. So one PE lesson, we were down to play 5-a-side in the gym. The usual process was for the teacher to select 4 boys to pick teams, and as might be expected they'd try to get all of the really good players before having to take pity on the dross that was left. The selection process meant that I was left on a team of probably the least athletic kids in the year. There was big Paul - a 14 stone collossus; Pug, a small, bespectacled lad with an explosion of freckles; Dave, a painfully shy kid who every time he opened his mouth to speak made a noise exactly like a creaking door; and another whose name has long since been consigned to distant memory. Oh, and me. Collectively, we had the footballing ability of a group of heavily drugged monkeys wearing boots that were 4 sizes too big. This wasn't going to be pretty.

We were up first. Against a team that contained Woody and Scotty, probably two of the best players in the school. They were on the school team, and I could see the smug looks on both their faces as they set themselves up for dishing out a complete pasting to us. It would be like Liverpool vs Berwick Rangers; a competition so one sided that we might as well stay in the dressing room and do trigonometry or swap top trumps.

We elected to kick off, just so we could say we had some possession during the game. Team simian shuffled onto the wooden pitch and looked at each other nervously. The whistle blew. Without thinking much about what I was doing, I turned and hoofed the ball as hard as I could towards the opposition's goal at the far end of the gym… which promptly flew through the keeper's legs and thudded satisfyingly between the painted goalposts.

1-0. Fucking hell. Had to be a fluke. Our opposition looked at us in mild disbelief, obviously steeling themselves to teach us a lesson.

It was a complete and utter massacre. 20 minutes of relentless pressure, running in circles, chasing the ball up the pitch, picking out teammates with a deftness that would make some current professionals cry and hang up their boots in shame, goals flying in a-plenty.

We won. 5-0 in the end. Another fluke goal from me; one in off the arse of Paul; a complete miss-kick from Dave that somehow tricked the keeper into going the wrong way; and a sublime strike from the edge of the penalty area from Pug. Who, frankly, couldn't believe it either.

We were Gods that day. Gods!
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 30 Jan 2009, 15:25, 2 replies)