» School Assemblies

Dawkins would be proud...
When I was training to be a teacher, I taught in a lovely C of E village school, set in the lush green hills of the west country. Taking a reception age class to assembly is usually relatively entertaining, as the little tikes can barely restrain themselves from shouting out at every available opportunity. As this class had one or two children who were more vocal than your average five year old, I was encouraged by the the main class teacher to sit with one of them, whom I shall name Archie.

The assembly begins with the headteacher lighting a candle and the whole school murmuring 'Jesus is the light of the world'. The headteacher then asks the assembled mass, "What do you know about God?"

Little Archie begins furiously whispering. I encourage him to raise his hand if he has something to say, which, to my surprise, he complies with. The bespectacled and cardigan-wearing old lass, who was the sort of headteacher you couldn't ever imagine shouting, leans down and kindly asks Archie, "What can you tell me about God?"

There is a hush around the hall as all ears crane to hear what the one of the youngest of our gathering has to say about theology.

"God died a very long time ago. Now he's gone." Archie replied, beaming. As a vaguely agnostic Hindu, it was all I could do to repress the belly laugh at the expression of revulsion and horror that crossed the headteachers' face.
(Sun 16th Jun 2013, 16:34, More)

» Worst Band Ever

Jack fucking Johnson.
Bubbly toes? Banana pancakes? I'll bend the neck of that guitar round your head like a garland, you ponce.
(Fri 31st Dec 2010, 18:45, More)

» Vandalism

The joys of being a night-shift worker...
At the tender age of 19, I was hiding up in North Wales, doing a psych degree. Being a student, I was desperately poor, but having a high-maintenance girlfriend meant that wasn't really an option if I wanted to keep ploughing her lovely furrow. So, to BnQ I went, with my hands out, begging to be employed as part of their 'night crew'.

Roll on three weeks and i've been trained as an on-site forklift driver, meaning that I am qualified to drive a forklift, but only on that premises. Hilarity. Over the course of 6 months, I destroyed china baths, whole pallets of bricks and paving slabs, an oven, two washing machines (speared them) and one highly-expensive RF gun (ran it over).

Fortunately, my friend Mike was equally destructive (spilt 300 gallons of white emulsion in the stock yard... took 6 hours to clean), and was 'best mates' with the wideboy of a shift manager, so he covered for us and we overlooked his late-night shenanigans.

One night, somewhere around the witching hour, I was carefully manoeuvring a pallet of loft insulation to the top deck of racking in store, (about 2/3 storeys high), when I accidentally nudged the racking. "A nudge? What's so bad about that?" I hear you ask... This nudge resulted in the store's fire alarm wire being cut clean through (due to it being in the wrong bloody place), setting off the sprinklers. Doesn't sound so bad, right? However, the servicemen for the fire alarm system had been during the week, and had forgotten to close off the main stopcock for the sprinklers, meaning that thousands of gallons of rainwater per minute was gushing down to the floor... Right over the wallpaper aisle.
The fire alarm was connected to the emergency services line, so while we were watching BnQ slowly flood, wondering what the fuck to do, the boys in blue, plus a fire engine, plus a bloody ambulance all turn up in the carpark, expecting the worst. The manager goes outside to tell them that nothing too serious has happened, but we may be flooded within the hour. The firemen help to close the stopcock and the water stops gushing... All we could hear was the steady drip, drip, drip of water on paper.

Damage? In excess of £10k. The fire alarm servicemen took the rap, as the wire that I cut due to my negligent driving wasn't meant to be where it was in the first place... And I got an overtime bonus for helping clean up the water! Result.
(Sun 10th Oct 2010, 21:41, More)

» Losing it

Mmmm... Discobiscuits
*WARNING* STORY CONTAINS MASSIVE DRUGS (ahem).

Global Gathering - 2006. A young and impressionable Ragathi goes to his first festival. Munches a few too many disco biscuits... Hilarity ensues. Highlights include; wandering around unable to speak, nodding like a gurning Churchill, losing control of my gross motor system rendering my coordination nonexistent, something akin to a spastic rubber band. The worst bit however, was somewhere around dawn breaking... My faculties returning slightly and attracted to a grease van ... Stumbling towards its glow like something out of a Hunter S vision. Acquired chips. Yummy chips. Tasty chips. Chips chips brown sauce and salty chips chips chips. Crunch. Why crunch? Upon closer inspection, it appears that I had liberally covered my chips in sugar. *bleurgh*
(Sun 24th Jul 2011, 9:49, More)

» I'm glad nobody saw me

Back when I loved the disco-biscuits
Used to get together with friends once or twice a month, get pretty fucked up... starry-eyed, red-lipped, nonsense-chatting, gurning moron. Fact.

Post party, strolling home with a stogie of a joint to the family household, safe in the knowledge that at 5am no bugger would be awake, leaving me to sneak to my bed, wake up at about noon feeling like shite, but safe.

Bumbling along with nary a care in world, rounding the corner, to see ALL the lights on in the front of the house.

Fuck.

Fuckitty fuck fuck.

My parents are straight-laced immigrants, lovely people but no idea of drug culture. To put it bluntly, had they suspected anything, I would have been disowned.

In the weird otherworld that I tend to inhabit at the tail-end of a night of psychadelics, I reasoned that it wouldn't be so bad, and if it came to it, I'd just tell all and be done with it... No more hiding.

Deep breath, key in the door, my jaw clenching repeatedly as I try to relax... Finding my dad, asleep on the sofa, in front of the Ashes.

*exhales noisily*

Saved by cricket, whowouldathoughtit?
(Sun 30th Jan 2011, 11:30, More)