What did the Romans ever do for us?
Way back in the mists of time, probably around '93 when I had to study history as an apparent necessity, rather than by choice, our class had been given two weeks to put together presentations and work about the Romans. This was given out by our teacher Mr Storie, in the most fantastic fashion - he leaped up onto his desk in a single bound, the desk screeched as it shifted under this assault. Was made that so interesting was Mr Storie had arthritis in his back, so in retrospect, his hunched, gangly form had an air of "Gollum" leaping on some hapless prey, but I digress.

Everyone did their bit, myself included; all to the minimum requirements of course. At the end of those two weeks, work was collected and presentations made without much fuss or bother. No silly jokes, no "sorry sir, a passing sparrow hawk snatched my work out of my hand whilst I was distracted by the fact my grandma who died last time I forgot homework died again this week."

Our reward for getting everything in on time? Mr Storie had written a "computer game" - basically a text adventure with a few maps and pictures - where you play as the Romans and must trade with other civilisations. "Your score in the game will go towards your marks for this project!" was the "incentive"

Now, being an industrious fellow, I convinced a few classmates to join me on a jape - to head to the computer room one lunch during the week, 'hack' (guess the password and get into Storie's personal data folders), work out how to get a maximum score (rather than edit it and add crude cock-based jokes - I was being industrious, not a troublemaker) and then make up for any shortcomings with our respective written work.

It was all going swimmingly. We accessed the game files (we didn't find anything else in there, aside from a few other similar games), and worked out the winning path.

Later that day, post afternoon registration, myself and my mates were heading down the corridor to leave school when, in true Smeagol-esque fashion, Mr Storie leapt out, blocking our path.

"I am VERY disappointed with you boys! You are SO VERY LUCKY I didn't find you at the end of lunch, as I would have beaten you senseless* on the spot, I was THAT angry!" - he was quite upset; he had turned an alarming shade of purple, and was hopping from one foot to the other.

It would appear that the IT Technician (he was also the Science Tech. and looked EXACTLY like Brains from Thunderbirds - right down to the walk) had watched us break into Stories files and dissect the game, only to race of in his stupid puppet run/bouncy hop to eagerly tell our semi-crippled history teacher the good/bad news.

We were then banned from taking part in the planned "computer game fun" lesson and the privilege of a week of lunchtime detentions. As it happens, we ended up with one lunchtime detentions (which only lasted half of lunch) and by the following lesson, poor old Mr Storie had calmed down and let us take part.

We all still held grudges against Mr Hill, the technician all the way through school until the end of sixth form.

If Mr Storie ever happens to read this - I'm sorry - you probably put a lot of effort into that game to entertain a class of 13 year olds who really didn't care for what the Romans gave to us; but then again, if I hadn't, I wouldn't have a reason to skive off work to type up this pointless tale.

Length? 27 BC–AD 476, and I had to get that off Wikipedia.

*actually, I don't think he was that polite about it
( theoriginalsteve <this space intentionally left blank>, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 13:53, Reply)