Trust: My list of ridiculous experiences.

As Plebgate rolls on and on, for 'lists' week I thought I'd share my most memorable encounters with the police. 

I will start by saying that, on the whole, I like to think I could trust the police. Most coppers I have met genuinely want to be a force for good, strive for an excellent service and, rather a lot like soldiers, are tarred by one or two knobheads that decide torture and power are perks of the job. This is ultimately headlined, written in large on the Daily Mail and made as fact. I like to think I could trust 99% of them, but in making this list, perhaps that number is just wildly optimistic. 

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This Wednesday night...

So it is almost Halloween. That means bobbing for apples, home made costumes and relatives doing the Monster Mash, right? Wrong. It means partying until 3am in full out fancy dress does it? Probably not on a Wednesday. Then it must mean having the wits scared out of you by a film on TV? Nope, you're wrong again. You'll have to sit in until 11.45pm to catch a 'scary' film on British TV, and then you're faced to pick between Hannibal and the oh so predictable Halloween 5. Seriously, this is a disgrace. There is nothing horrific on the tellybox and whilst I'm secretly hoping the BBC could pull something out of the bag and run the now famed Saville tributes in favour of Family Guy repeats, I suspect even that would be a disappointment.

This year, for something completely different, a man called Ste (with an impeccably clean record as regards children, I should note) has fixed it that some of the Dead Good Poets will be on Blackpool Promenade, positioned to perform outside the now much publicised Haunted Blackpool installation. This project is one of those opportunities I am devastated at missing but something I know so many people have worked hard on, and who am I to not join them in celebration. Find the tableaus if you're coming from the North and there should be an assembly of people slightly further on your right, head to the Old Miner's Home from the South and you'll meet us just before. One thing is for sure though, I'm looking forward to it. I even wrote a little ditty in the week, such as it is.

"There’ll be ghosts and there’ll be ghouls
There’ll be dames and there’ll be fools
There’ll be wind and there’ll be rain
There’ll be this, then ne’er again. "

I hope to see some of you there.

Thanks for reading, S

PS. Don't ask around for ghost stories when you're A: A nonbeliever and B: Pushed for time to blog. Ideas are haunting me now.

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A Mars a day.

For those of you that know, I have been getting some school days in as a Cover Supervisor lately. This is relevant to the blog for one reason and one reason alone, we’re running with ‘God of War’ for the theme.

Straight off then, I was drawn to Wikipedia and a never ending list of war gods. There are a lot of gods attributed to war, let me tell you. I get Monday though, so I’m starting with the easy one- Mars.

Being into the gods was always something I liked to think I was as a kid. I knew more than most year 5 kids at any given point on the subject of Egypt. I knew a hell of a lot about the Greeks for a long time thanks to an unhealthy obsession with a Theseus and the Minotaur VHS in the library. The Romans though, I never really was big on. It might be something to do with my year 4 teacher being off all year. Long term absence maybe, I should have known all about the Romans though.

I was of a ‘Mars a day’ generation. We got greedy over hyped up football boots and Pepsi Max. A chocolate bar was a reasonable price, as were decent comics and so, it was all pretty simple. We went to school, we learnt about something from a teacher and then we played out. I would say anyone of my age or above will relate to this general routine.

Something changed a few years after that. We became bombarded with ever-faster games consoles, we all got hooked up to the internet and, in the process of all of this, somehow learnt how to perform basic functions with an emphasis on speed and not thought. I think this perhaps is the reason why society is becoming such a negative place.

Now and again, we get people so intolerant of others, so misinformed or simply so volatile that they just pick the fights. For these people, they aren’t having the chocolate bar every day- they aren’t resting or playing half of the time either though. They have opted to have a rage.

It feels good to blow off steam, I’ll admit. I came quite close to punching a cantankerous old sod in the shop the other day, with his racist ideology. I’d have felt better if I did and though it doesn’t justify what happened in class, it maybe hints at a bigger picture- the under surface cracks that can appear in people.

To cut a long story short, I had a TA in who did more harm than good. How does this relate to my poetry blog? Well, I was so angry I’ve done one of those vent poems that gets written in a rage and never gets put anywhere. You can have a read below.  

Shakespeare said, in his introduction to Henry IV that ‘The speed with which falsehood travels was a classical commonplace’.  He is saying here a very similar thing to the much attributed ‘…before the truth can put its boots on’ line we all have heard before. That one moment of losing the plot by the TA though (in some part the fault of the seven kids in the corridor), well, it has forced something out of me and though I’ll leave the school details out, I wasn’t a happy chappy, put it that way.

We can all have a Mars a day. Make your Mars a chocolate one, or something else you enjoy (vegan alternative for me)- there really is no need to rock the boat all the time. I’ll leave you with that. I’m ranting.

The chain forgot that we exist

And talk of work like all the rest

That through our agencies we know

The schools to jump at,  the ones to say No

Way, Jose! Multicultural madness mushrooms

Chairs thrown by boys at the kid you detest

Whose dad is a racist, and the thug doesn’t think

that to risk stepping in means you’ve sexually groomed

The future Young Offender institute’s top detainee

I’d drive the little wretches out, one by one in assembly

For we talk about the day we’ve had at work and realise

There is madness in the youth, something is missing in their eyes.

I taught a class the next town down

A special business taster day

All safe in the help of a specialist TA

Who sent seven out for backchat,( I feel here that I should mention

That to bollock them in my lunchtime gives me unpaid detention!)

Yes, it is the children’s fault,

Yes, it is TV.

Yes, it is computer games and yes, it’s partly me.

For I’d sack it in tomorrow

Teach somewhere that is worth my while

With a badge not saying visitor where my colleagues wear a smile

I’d not teach in schools with scruffy kids and hormonal TAs

But the Tories are in, the sad fact is, and sadly morals do not pay.

Thanks for reading, S. 

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