Monday 30 June 2008

For the high jump





Friday was Vis day (Viz Day? Do the fat slags come along to seduce innocent young public school boys...not sure)....in normal parlance this is Prize Day...dutifully I avoided the two-hour long ceremony (well the boy wasn't getting a prize, and I've had enough of chearing everyone else's offspring on) but attended the Chapel where the boy was performing in Latin. Oddly though, he was narrating so I didn't understand why he'd been practising his Latin. It was uproariously funny...everyone laughed their heads off, but I suspect that's because we were told to rather than because we could pluck our rusty Latin out of the deep sewers of memory. Play over, the teacher thanks us for coming along, so I wandered off to the Headmaster's garden (evidently 'headmistress' has gone the way of 'actress'...slaughtered on the alter of political correctness) to grab tea and a bun amongst the other parents. At home, the boy complained that I hadn't seen the Latin play...my defence that I had done and had photos to prove it was somewhat undermined by him pointing out that I'd seen the first play, but he'd been in the second play AND HE'D TOLD ME THAT. Apologies mean nothing when the need for imposing guilt was paramount.




Revenge, sweet revenge came all too soon. Sunday was Old Boys day...and amongst the many opportunities was the chance to leap over the high jump bar. I looked at it, and as it was so low I though I could just about step over it. A dozen tries and one bloodied elbow later I had to admit defeat...still mystified that my mind and body were clearly in two separate worlds. The boy was collapsed on the floor unable to stop the hysterical laughter. One day, one day he'll suffer the same humiliation....!