» Dumb things you've done

Some people shouldn't be allowed to teach
This was recalled by someone much earlier telling tales of scientists doing stupid things.

For my sins, I am a science teacher in what would be politely referred to as a 'Comprehensive' school. Seeing as we're in the near-vicinity of several grammar schools, we are in fact more of a bottom-feeder. Needless to say, any illusions I once possessed of being a cross between Mr Chips and Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society have been crushed under the sheer weight of imbecility I have to deal with while attempting to be inspirational.

Most of the teenage twunts I have to deal with aren't permitted to go near glass or tweezers, let alone Bunsen burners, because of their incessant need to attempt to burn, lacerate or throw things at each other, rather than carry out the carefully-planned and sterile experiment I had in mind. The aforesaid seem to be very contented with the 'turn to page 152 and copy this diagram' style of teaching. It keeps them out of my hair while I sit at my desk and read b3ta and my email under the guise of 'writing reports'.

But every now and then, I get a fresh intake of wide-eyed youngsters who are pretty well-behaved and I feel inclined to show a bit of practical work to. So the first thing we do is a little Health And Safety exercise. I say 'little' - this can often drag on for several lessons. We're talking here about youngsters who will look straight down into a lit Bunsen to 'see if it is working properly', and take a sip of sodium hydroxide because they weren't sure what it was and thought their gustatory senses would be better able to cope with it than the complicated business of reading a fecking great big label with 'caustic soda - harmful' written on in child-friendly 50-point Comic Sans.

So, eventually, we work our way round to 'safely handling glassware', for which I have to demonstrate the use of a test tube rack. I make sure to warn the little chitterlings not to put anything containing glass on the edge of the bench and never to put an empty tube straight onto the bench, because it will roll straight off and break. I also deliver a stern lecture on the perils of broken glass, not trying to clear it up themselves, and making sure they don't have more contact with it than necessary. I tell gruesome, and largely fictional, tales of what happens to people when fragments of glass get into the bloodstream or the digestive system. To be honest, I terrify this bunch of 11-year-olds about as much as amorphous silica ever could do.

And then I lean over to the sink to carefully rinse out the tube I had been showing them. I had neglected to wear my lab coat for this bit of the lesson, as it's bulky and smells of cats' piss, for reasons that I've never been able to identify.

The corner of my suit jacket catches in a tub of 50 test tubes which I had, against my prudent advice, left on the edge of the bench. 50 test tubes shatter on the floor. I don't think I've ever seen so much broken glass. The floor of the lab ceases to be pristinely swept and now more closely resembles the shoot-out scene from The Matrix.

Every pupil in the room instantly flattens themselves against the back wall, terrified in their new knowledge that they might "inhale some and rupture their pulmonary blood vessels" (why did I tell them that? Why?!). The inevitable cynical kid, that even the nicest class always contains, is pissing himself laughing. The words "Oh Cock" have unavoidably escaped my lips and the Teaching Assistant, who is a firm Catholic, is standing there mortified and already composing a letter of complaint to the Head.

As I tell the youngsters not to worry (so much), I shift slightly towards my trusty dustpan-and-brush and realise that a large shard of hitherto test tube has somehow entered the top of my shoe and is burrowing along my instep, apprarently intent on severing any tendons it may encounter. The blood is already oozing out of my tasteful grey sock. Several pupils are then further alarmed by my bellowing like a werewolf with his goolies trapped in a vice.

I bend down to remove the offending glass, headbutt the bench on the way down, and collapse in a heap on the floor. Only the certain knowledge that there will be chaos if I pass out stops me going for a little sleep right there and then.

Trying to regain what's left of my composure, I lever myself up on the side of the desk, and address the class: "OK. Now you need to open the textbook to page 152 and copy the diagram".

Length? A full page of your exercise book, and don't forget to label with a pencil and a ruler.
(Thu 27th Dec 2007, 17:02, More)

» Family codes and rituals

The family chant
Forgive me if I may be serious, but our only meaningful family ritual pays tribute to a gentleman who means an awful lot to me.

My family have produced a glittering array of male relatives whom I find mildly embarrassing or annoying (and I have no doubt they feel the same way about me). However, every March 1st we all gather together to recite:

"Come quaff off your Sherry, and let us be merry
All you that look to be saved
Then toss of your bowls, and be merry souls
For this is the day of St. David.

This is a good week, when we wear a Leek
And carouse in Bacchus' fountains
We had better be here, thou in pour small beer,
Or in our Country Mountains."

For a long time we thought that Ode To The Welsh Leek was a slightly crazy invention of my grandfather, but as time went by we discovered it has a rich history (see www.povertystudies.org/Links/Rhwymbooks/Ode/Ode-TitleStory.htm) and the family genealogists believe we might well stem back to the battlefield origins of this noble poem.

In any case, this annual recitation is a sincere and heartfelt tribute to my grandfather, Ken...

Ken was a man of few words but incredible courage. He served the Royal Navy during two wars and was the Service heavyweight boxing champion on two occasions. He returned in 1945 with barely a penny to his name, adopted a smallholding in his native Taff valley for a pittance of pay, and began raising sheep.

Over the 1950s, he and my grandmother became completely self-made and self-sufficient, raising two children and being able to scrimp enough money to buy the farmhouse and small patches of land thereabouts. Yet he remained infinitely modest, dry-witted and an inspiration for his sons, their sons' generation (including myself), and - through his inexhaustible fund of his anecdotes which have been passed down - the next generation today.

He was a wizard with his hands, always ready to make wooden toys for children, and right up to his 80th (and final birthday), a firm devotee of his Welsh heritage, Christianity and real ale. He was - in short - the perfect grandfather.

'Ode To A Welsh Leek' was his personal signature tune, from lord-knows-where. He used to usher us all into the front room to raise glasses of homemade mead and recite this ancient poem. His face remained solemn, and often a trickle of a tear would course down his cheek as we chanted away. It was odd as kids, but we grew used to it, year upon year, and it was finally how we knew him best.

It was finally adopted as our family memory of him in a freezing cold late-winter in about 1996. Grandad was well over seventy at the time, but he still kept a small flock and several hives, and tended them with the same love as he would his own family.

March 1st rolled around, we had a smashing roast dinner and congregated with our glasses to chant our paean to St David. No sooner had we finished, then a white-faced farmhand appeared at the patio doors. Several of us were scared out of our merry little skulls by this flat-capped apparition, but Grandpa calmly strolled across the room and a muttered conversation ensued. Before too long, Grandad gasped in shock, quaffed his mead and dashed out; nine other family members all followed with concerned yet helpless looks on our faces: we were no sheep-farmers.

One of the flock was having terrible difficulties giving birth. She was thrashing around on the barn floor, in grave danger of killing her lamb. The vet was on call, but we'd all sensed it was just too late.

What Grandad did then seemed nothing short of miraculous...

The adults, expecting a grisly birth, had protectively shielded the children, but Grandad - with terrifying strength - wrestled the sheep to stillness, and then take the terrified head, lay it in his lap, and mutter gently in Welsh. For twenty...thirty...forty minutes, we stood there dumbfounded, watching a septugenarian man on his knees in a freezing cold barn, treating a pregnant ewe with as much love and tenderness as he would a member of his own family. The sheep lay terrifyingly still: we could have sworn it was dead.

Eventually, the miraculous happened. A slight twitch, and a bloody ball of skin and bones was deposited onto the cold concrete floor. Matter-of-factly, Grandad hauled himself to his knees, slapped the lamb on the rump, checked its breathing and watched the little mite meticulously until it began to suckle. We all exhaled for the first time in nearly an hour and a half.

Grandad was suddenly, uncharacteristically sharp: "Inside! Now!" he ordered. It was difficult to argue. We all trooped inside silently.

Inside, he recharged our glasses without a word, his eyes glazed over and he chanted again:

"Come quaff off your Sherry, and let us be merry
All you that look to be saved..."

Falteringly, but with increasing strength, we joined in with this charming, strong and granite-muscled pinwheel of our family. It was a wonderful, touching moment, albeit a primitive one, and something I am sure that no-one who was present that day will ever forget. The song had always been once, and once only. To repeat it, in honour of a member of Grandad's flock was something quite unique.

Since then, every March 1st, this poem has been our own, as we remember that great day. The day that we heard...


Farmer leek odes sandwich ewe ills.


(Ah, sod it. I've already been to Hull...)
(Thu 20th Nov 2008, 21:40, More)

» DIY Techno-hacks

Confunded by kettles and Geordies
My Mother, bless her, has always been a bit confounded by technology and such simple things as email, manual gear shifts. But I thought she could at least manage with a kettle!

She's recently moved up to Newcastle with her partner, and is having a bit of difficulty settling down, partly because her new job sucks, and partly because her thoroughly RP ears have a lot of difficulty deciphering some of the natives.

I went up for a stay recently: fair play to her, she's landed a lovely house, except they'd found the hot water tank was slightly leaky. Never mind, a chap was coming around at 9 o'clock tomorrow to fix that.

Promptly at 11:30, the British Working Man stood on the doorstep:

"Worcumterdeeyerboolerlahk"

Apparently, he'd come to fix the boiler.

My frightfully refined mother showed him up to the hot water system, where in a startling display of industriousness, he whipped off his tool belt and got straight down to it.

"Toongwanoopnexyeeahaye?"

Apparently this was an enquiry as to whether I thought Newcastle would be promoted this year. As a Scunthorpe fan, I expressed the thought that there were a lot of strong teams in the division.

"Haadyergobyerweeshite"

I shut up.

"Gorrablindinthirs, mind"

I gathered he'd probably want a drink, so I toddled down to the kitchen to make him a cuppa.

Now, I'd already received training in my mother's kettle. She doesn't have the regulation type with an element at the bottom, oh no. She has one of these water-filter jobs that actually heats the water on demand. So, quick as a flash, I was back with chummy's tea, and I left him too it.

Ten minutes later I heard a small roar from upstairs.

"Divvenbrangmeshitecuppayerradge!"

Wandering back upstairs, I noted that our poor plumber's tea was indeed a bit shite. There was a grisly purple skin on top, almost a bit like gravy. Only purple. Now I've made a few cuppas in my time, and none have ever turned out like this, so we went to inspect the kettle. There we saw testament to my mother's genius with technology.

Apparently the entire button-push mechanism had dropped off this morning, and rather than doing something sensible like - say - boiling water in a pan, my mother had attempted to fix it. With plasticine.

Bearing in mind that the push button and very powerful heating element were connected, this was less of a success than she might have imagined. Upon pressing the button, the element had sprung to life, the plasticine had liquidised and slowly dribbled down the nozzle, mixing with the freshly filtered water. Very shortly, some solidification had taken place, and an unpleasant waxy topping formed on the water.

Apologising gratuitously to the fuming Geordie next to me, I offered to bring him a replacement. "Or would you rather have coffee?"

He shook his head and quipped.

"Tea, why-aye, ah tek' no wax!"




Good to get it out of your system from time to time, isn't it?
(Mon 24th Aug 2009, 10:02, More)

» My most treasured possession

The Drinking Jacket
1 M&S suit jacket, second-hand from charity shop: £7
20 second-hand beer towels, bought on Ebay for an average of 80p (inc p&p) each: £16
1 very patient Mrs Ousgg, who's good at sewing things in funny shapes and doesn't mind stabbing herself in the thumb with a heavy-duty needle a few dozen times: Shagwanking Priceless!

The end result is by far the only 'cool' item of clothing I own. Given that the rest of my wardrobe consists of suit-and-boot work clothes, beer-promotion T-shirts, jeans from Matalan and generic Burton's underwear, this is hardly a surprise.

I would post a photo, but frankly I can't be bothered to drag out the camera and upload it, so you'll have to imagine what I look like.

This modern-day harlequin's coat is warm in winter and features a range of beer-towels, chosen for colour rather than brand (as is evidenced by a purple Abbot Ale on the right breast, and a rather embarrassing green Carlsberg Special Brew on the left shoulder). There is no visible black jacket left - the only uncovered area is underneath my armpits, for reasons that involve me not having to walk around like a cyberman.

The reason it is my most treasured possession is the instant credibility it seems to bring me in any sort of drinking establishment....

"Nice jacket mate!"

"Bet you don't worry about spillage!" (I don't - it's fully machine washable)

"Er...this is a bit embarrassing - would you mind if I took your photo?"

....Put on the jacket and I'm a smegging celebrity all of a sudden!

On the strength of one £23 home-made bit of kit, I have achieved the following over the past two years:

- At least twenty pints bought for me by complete random strangers. Probably more when you consider I occasionally suffer from ethanolic amnesia.

- Instant (and often free when applicable) access to any drinking establishment in my home town. I got sniffy looks at a club in Cheltenham; I'm not going back there.

- Preferential service at several locals who are packed three-deep on Friday and Saturday nights. It's also quite easy to order ales over their deafening metal music, by pointing to the relevant part of my jacket.

- A pat on the shoulder from the bobbies for breaking up a fight in the town centre, by the simple expedient of walking in between the two protagonists, who both drunkenly "Woah"ed and did a reasonable 'rats of Hameln' impression.

- An impromptu invitation to join three different stag nights.

- Three genuine offers of a blow-job, which I felt sadly obligated (due to the aforementioned Mrs Ousgg, who was only my fiancee at the time) to turn down. Although, having now been married for a few months, I'm more open to persuasion.

I think making a pair of matching trousers would be a good continuation of the project, although I'm worried that might make me look like Ian Poulter, the golfing prat, rather than the cool chap in the slightly wacky jacket.

Seriously, guys, if you've got a good sewing hand and a few quid in your PayPal account, you could do far worse than make one of these little babies. But don't come around my patch please, otherwise we'll both look like idiots.
(Thu 8th May 2008, 19:16, More)

» Things we do to fit in

Plastic Surgery - too much?
Axel was one of the nicest guys on my landing at University. He was on a secondment from the University of Gothenburg, where he was taking something terribly cosmopolitan like 'EEC Studies' or somesuch, and - unlike most Scandinavians - he was terribly, painfully shy.

Still, after he'd understood why we sung the theme tune from Beverly Hills Cop everytime he walked down the corridor, he became one of the lads, joined in the all-night sessions of Championship Manager and necked beers with the best of us. He spoke better English than anyone on the corridor (especially because fate had lumped us with three Sports Scientists, and...well, let's say I'm glad I don't have a qualification in Games)

He was still very self-conscious, no more so than about his figure. Axel was comfortably six-foot-eight in his stockinged feet and rangy as a beanpole, and no amount of Worthingtons Creamflow and late-night curries seemed to do anything to change that. Plus, he had a rather unfortunate facial feature. His nose. It was - to put it mildly - fucking freakishly horrible. And Axel, I'm sorry if you're reading this, but I think those were your words after the infamous February 20th tequila session. More on that another time...

Anyway, this nose. Well, imagine a cock. Make it a MSPaint magenta cock with thick black hairs if you like. Imagine somebody had broken it. Twice. Once each way. And then imagine somebody else had stuck a bicycle pump up the end and inflated it (laterally) to about twice its original size. That was Axel's nose, bless him.

We did our best to help him out and find him a quiet gentle young girl who would give him a proper welcome to Blighty, but he always used get jittery and claim his height, his skinniness and his nose were just making him stand out from the crowd, and retreat back home. We felt genuinely sorry for the chap; it wasn't his fault, after all, and we were making a concerted effort to boost his self-confidence.

Anyway, after several failed attempts in all the tackiest parts of Birmingham (and it takes a while to find them all, let me assure you), Axel came down the corridor one morning in unusually high spirits. 'Whooping' might be a touch melodramatic for this staid Northern European; let's just say he was a bit boistrous. It was about 10:30am and naturally we were all still in bed.

"Lads! Lads!" he was hollering. "Come and look at this!"

Bleary-eyed and tucking willies back in where they should not be seen, we staggered out onto the landing to see Axel brandishing an A5 flyer. The sort that you see literally by the million wherever students congregate.

This flyer was advertising cut-rate aesthetic surgery. In Longbridge.

In FUCKING LONGBRIDGE?

I'm sure many of you know that Longbridge is scarcely the well-heeled suburb in which to have a discreet tummy-tuck.

Like some awful unfunny comedy act, we all stood there in our pants and looked in slow-motion at the flyer, then at Axel's great conk, then back at the flyer again....

"Don't be ridiculous..."

"Where'll you get the money...?"

"It's dangerous...."

"....fucking LONGBRIDGE?..."

Well, we knew money wasn't an issue. Axel had come loaded with Gothenburg's equivalent of Bond's expense account. But did he really want to go to these drastic lengths to be one of the guys?

"I do, and I will!" he stated triumphantly. An then, ominously but even more triumphantly: "And I want all you guys to be there when it happens..."

It was getting fucking cold standing around in this corridor in our boxers, so we all turned round and slammed our doors, leaving him standing there alone like a pathetic and dejected Peter Crouch.

Thankfully, it turned out that we didn't have to watch the operation, but we did accompany Axel down to a dodgy little back-alley behind KFC (note to self - don't eat there until their supply certificate is renewed), and watch a huge butch doctor, with the muscles of Larry Fishburne and the voice of Julian Clary, guide Axel through what I can only describe as a nose catalogue. We cringed as he took the measurements - height, breadth, depth, the whole works. We frowned as Axel tried on this horrific nasal guide and the Doc held up all sorts of pathetic looking prostheses. And we yelped as the big man waved a scalpel and a felt tip about simultaneously with one hand, barely millimetres away from our friend's eyeball.

Two weeks later, he went back, was put to sleep and woke up shortly afterwards with a brand new facial appendage. No fuss; no bother. He claimed we were over-reacting.

A bit too much, even for a 'One Time Only! Less-Than-A-Grand Offer!', was still our considered opinion, but it didn't stop Axel picking up a sweet young student nurse a couple of months later and spending lots of jolly time with her and her uniform. So, I suppose it was worth it.

But that's the last time I go to a Thin Swede Hooter Fitting.

(For fuck's sake! What's wrong with me? Haven't I got anything else to do with my time?)
(Mon 19th Jan 2009, 8:16, More)