Young Archeologist of the Year (1980)
One thing about going on holiday with kids is that their grandparents always give them a tenner before they go. The cash burns a hole in their little shorts from that point forward. In a poll recently conducted by me on the streets of every major city in the UK 8 out of 10 kids claimed they would spend the tenner in the airport gift shop or the train station newsagents. The other 2 out of 10 said they wouldn’t wait that long and would spend it at the ice cream van before they even left for their holiday. Unless you are my brother, in which case you would wait until your sisters had spent theirs and lord it over them that you still had your tenner and the world was your oyster. The world, or a Hoseasons Holiday Camp, or Margate…whatever.
When I was around twelve I was in holiday in Northern Italy with my family, my holiday tenner a distant memory as my brother sloshed about town with his pocket chock full of about one billion lire. These were the days before the Euro when Italians had to take a suitcase of money everywhere with them just to go down the shops. Fashionable chi-chi suitcases mind, we’re talking Italians here. Regretting my purchase of five tins of assorted boiled travel sweets from an all night garage on the A96 on the way to the airport, I had to sit and watch as my brother skipped about an Italian toy shop eyeing up the Mediterranean childrens’ booty.
He’s irritating the hell out of me and my sister as he’s humming and hawing, but he knows the purchase better be a good one, because once the money is gone, he’s just like the rest of us-skint and reliant on good behaviour to make any ice-cream purchases courtesy of my parents’ goodwill. But then he spies it, and this ten year old with a notorious violent streak and an obsession with all things weaponry sees his must-have item- a bright green catapult with elastic so thick and strong it could propel a reluctant Italian into battle.
All purchases, even those made with your own money must go through my Mum’s strict and non-negotiable veto system. Needless to say strong banded catapults capable of taking the eye out of anyone in the firing line and the next three people behind them did not pass the test. “Put it back and pick something we can get through customs,” she orders the young warlord, now rendered impotent in a potential David/Goliath scenario. The boy is not happy and he refuses to even look at anything else, preferring to whine and sulk for the rest of the day. “This is just like the cross bow incident in William Tell country and the time I found an un-exploded grenade on the Normandy coast- you never let me have ANYTHING!” he pouts.
Some days go past and unexpectedly the boy makes no further mention of a desire to spend his tenner. The subject is dropped and we can all go about our 1970s business of cultivating skin cancer inducing sunburn and peeing in the Adriatic because we can’t be bothered coming out of the sea to find a toilet. It’s in one such dooks in the sea that a miracle happens. “Oh…oh…my goodness. Mum! Look! You’ll never guess what I’ve just found!!” the boy hollers as he runs excitedly towards the beach, something waving blurredly in his outstretched sea-wrinkled hand. The assembled parents look up startled- Jaws was only on cinematic release over a year ago and they are still a tad skittish.
My mum gets off her sun-lounger and heads towards her son who is still shouting excitedly. “Look! Mum! Look what I found in the sea!” he says to the woman like she herself had just washed up on the beach in a banana boat. A plastic bright green handled catapult , I’m guessing an ancient military relic from the epic travels of Aenas from Greece to Italy in around 300BC on his way to meet Sibyl who will show him the Underworld, has been found in the sea by this intrepid young archaeologist. The elastic has survived the briny harsh conditions of the Adriatic and indeed is strong enough to slay a Kraken should one emerge in a menacing fashion from the monster filled seas, even after a period of time that has seen civilisations rise and fall. What a find! What a red letter day in the field of archaeology and the study the weaponry of the Trojan era.
“Give me that” she says, the woman clearly a Philistine who callously puts the bounty in her raffia beach bag knowing nothing of its potential monetary worth and its certain historic and cultural value to the Italian and Greek governments who will surely hail the boy a hero and let him keep the relic to do with what he will for the rest of his holidays before they secure it in a museum.
“Give me that. Do you think my head zips up the back?”
(Thanks for the prompt, Ellen at Ready for Ten)
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From Hull to Rotterdam via Hades
Little did Leo realise,he would spend the rest of the night
holding Kate’s hair back
The Flying Martinis are off once again. Except this time we’re not flying. We are, in the words of craggy-faced, fake-Scotsman, brunette-shunning, lothario Rod Stewart, sailing.
Cross the water, cross the sea to the Netherlands, as it happens. I am really looking forward to it. At least I was until French workmate’s response to me telling him that I was going on a caravanning holiday to Holland was a simple and deadpan,
“God, that sounds terrible”
We leave on Saturday departing from Hull, as sailings to Holland from the far closer Rosyth are twice as expensive for no good reason. Maybe the expensive air and ferry fares in my country are a ruse to keep us Scots firmly within our borders. We do have a tendency to kind of take over. (Waves) Hello wee Gordy from Fife!
It has occurred to me that I haven’t been on an overnight ferry for a very long time indeed. There is a good reason for this. And that, my friends, is the theme of today’s Misssive.
At age sixteen my childhood friend Helen and I are allowed to go on our own on holiday to visit our other friend Julie whose parents have taken her to live in the Hague. We arrive in Hull 10 hours too early for the ferry and spend the day being skittish and nervous of other people as we are only 16 and from the sticks.
That night we board the ferry and we excitedly find our “couchettes”. Couchettes are wipe clean (and this is important, folks!) armchairs set in rows in a large lounge area. They are not designed for comfort in any way. But they are the cheapest option for wee lassies on a budget.
The journey is underway and after skittishly checking out the vessel for teenage boys, who we may lust after but won’t approach, we make our way back to the couchette lounge to play cards. Outside the rain and wind lash the boat, “Poseidon Adventure” style. The boat starts to lunge.
As darkness falls and the storm outside gets worse, we begin to upset the Dutch gentleman behind us. He apparently cannot stand the excited chatter of annoying girls and complains bitterly to us every five minutes. He is a pain in the arse. So, when he starts to vomit loudly and constantly into a plastic bag, we laugh our asses off. He is well aware of our mockery and scowls at us in between gagging.
“Yaaaaaaarrrghhhhh!”
“Heeheeheeheheheeehheheheheheee!”
“Yaaaaaaaarrrgghhhhhhhh!”
“Hahahahahahaaa! Heeeheheheheee!”
Within 15 minutes it seems that everyone is vomiting and plastic bags are becoming a real commodity. The waves are crashing over the front window of the ferry and at times it feels like the boat is on its end. Despite the hurly-burly, we are still laughing our asses off every time our Dutch friend retches. Sixteen year old girls can be right bastards.
Then it hits us. Repeatedly. We are both sick as dogs for 8 hours straight. We can’t even make it to the bathroom, as we will get flung all over the ship. We do try, but some near misses with falling in the vomit of the many people who tried before us, forces us back to our seats. The couchette saloon becomes the Vomitarium. The walls are spattered with it, the couchettes are covered in it and the floor is swimming in it. It is absolutely vile. Projectile doesn’t even cover it.
The only thing to do is try and sleep on the plastic couchette, clutch your plastic bag and threadbare blanket, pray and wait for morning.
When morning arrives, the place looks like the pits of Hell, the passengers look like the residents of Hell, and our Dutch friend is silent. As are we.
It is 7am, the Tannoy bing bongs,
“We would just like to remind all passengers that the restaurant will be serving breakfast until 9am”
*Collective heave!*
Gloating the night away!
A lot of you may hate me from this point forward. But I’m going to do it anyway
Woooooooooh Hoooooo! School’s Out for Summer! SIX WEEKS! Get In!
Don’t expect me to apologise. In fact I am going to justify why I and the other teachers and lecturers of this country are defiantly not going to apologise for our six weeks.*
1. Two degrees we need. Count ‘em! Two! Doctors and lawyers only need one and they get paid shitloads and people make TV shows about them that make what they do look cool. What do we get? “Grange Hill”? “Teachers”?
2. We are to blame for everything apparently.
“Oh I’ve got a shit life because the teachers at school didn’t like me!”.
Oh, dry your eyes! You were probably a horrible little shit. Your workmates probably hate you too.
“It’s the fault of the schools that our children have no respect anymore and rampage through the town at night with their pants on their heads and scare grannies!”
Thanks Daily Express, love your work.
3. The pay’s not magic, to be honest. I refer you to the two degrees again. Costly business that, getting two degrees. In Europe our French and German counterparts get nearly twice what we’re on. Education is valued over there.
No, really valued, not just by some muppet saying the word “Education” three times in a speech and calling it a policy. By actually valuing those that choose to do it for a living. With actual cash.
4. People are horrible about teachers. We’ve a lot of stick to put up with. First off, we get criticised for our career choice.
That “ Those who can’t do, teach” phrase. That’s absolutely horrible! Who the blazes came up with that? I want to drive to their house, with a dog turd in a paper bag, then set it on fire on their doorstep, ring the doorbell and run away.
Then sit in my car laughing at them when they come to the door and stamp the fire out with their slippered feet. Not that I’ve ever done that before, you understand.**
So anyone who knows the originator of that gem, let me know.
5. Every five minutes we have to completely change everything we do, because some vote-whore somewhere decides we must “change” because we’re shit.
Like the whole reading thing. Some smarty pants reads an article on the train to his dirty weekend away with his parliamentary diary secretary and decides that using phonics to each kids how to read was crap.*
“We must change it, it’s crap. Never mind the fact that children have been learning to read this way for decades. Never mind the fact that the teachers are in opposition (whinging bastards). I declare Phonics outdated as children now are completely different than children then. It’s a Darwinian thing. Well known scientific fact. Read it in “Razzle” on the train to my dirty weekend away with my horse-faced secretary ”
Ten years later kids can’t read properly.
“It’s the fault of the teachers. They are quite clearly crap!”
And then, quietly, “Let’s sneak phonics back in when nobody’s looking …shhhh! If anyone notices it we’ll blame it on the opposition…or even better, the teachers”
So six weeks of WELL EARNED time away from teaching your kids and making sure they can all do important stuff by the time they are spat out into the big bad world. Don’t begrudge us a wee bit of a rest. Those hols and sharing our working hours with the funniest, liveliest, most important people out there are the only perks we get!
Let the barrage begin in the comments box!
* Yes, yes, I know you all work hard too, but them’s the breaks!
** It wasn’t me that was a deliquent, it’s cos I had bad schooling.
*** They never got rid of phonics in Scotland. We can’t play football but, boy can we still read!
Disney’s Dream Debased
About 15 years ago I got a proper job and my mum promptly sent her “insurance man” round to see me. Apparently that’s what you do when you find yourself with a regular amount of money; you give 80% of it away to big companies.
Basically, I bought a savings scheme just to get rid of the guy. I reckon he’d be sat on the couch right now if I hadn’t ushered him out the door. So every month I have put a smidgeon away in what has been called the “Disney Fund”. At the time, I figured there were four ages of Disneyworld:
1. Being taken by parents as a kid.
2. Working there as a student
3. Taking your own kids
4. Going as a grandparent with grandkids
I also figured that the second two stages might cost a bit of cash. So I saved and didn’t touch.
I’m not going to use the Disney fund for going to Disneyworld.* I have completely and utterly changed my mind. In fact I can barely remember why I wanted to take my kids there in the first place.
I would much rather take the kids somewhere real. I think we’ll go and see actual stuff rather than miniaturised superficial and stereotypical representations of countries (Hello Epcot, Hello Small World), wonky out of date Animatronic shows (That Presidents’ thing in the Magic Kingdom-it’s crap!), and emporiums of overpriced tat.
Mind you, I did have a great time there when I was 21. That’s Item 2 . Except it’s not entirely true; I didn’t actually work at Disneyworld. I merely popped over from my three month stint in New Orleans to take advantage of the fact that a friend , E, was working her summer at Disney in Orlando and could get us in free.
A few things stick in my mind, which is incredible given that we drank like fishes the whole time we were there.
1. E worked in the “Rose and Crown” pub in Epcot and had to dress as a Nell Gwynn character. All the bar maids in the Rose and Crown had to dress like this, as that is what barmaids look like in Merrie Old England, even to this day, apparently. Unlike Nell Gwynn, and despite the 70+ degree heat, the barmaids had to wear full tan tights with gusset, underneath their mid calf length dresses. Never stockings or god forbid, nothing.
Thrush was rife amongst British girls who toiled there. And they were checked every shift by a supervisor to make sure they hadn’t welched on the deal and worn a pair of pop socks. The only time in your life you can ever imagine wanting to wear these hideous garments from the house of Satan.
“Oh yay, kind sir, I dream of a goodly pair of pop socks! For my vag; it itcheth” would be the cry of the Nell Gwynns, for that is how they spake.
2. E had it on good authority that the girl who played Cinderella was a slut.
3. Disney is full of secret underground tunnels and this is where the workings of the whole enterprise are. E could have got sacked for this, but she took us down there. We walked past the costume room and saw all the costumes hung up. People were getting changed into Pinocchio and Mad Hatter suits and the like. I swear to you, I saw Tigger having a fag**. I swear. Head off though; the guy wasn’t inhaling through the Tigger head.
4. Apparently a guy got locked in the Magic Kingdom at night and died whilst E was working there. I’m not suggesting that E was responsible. The guy obviously had a heart attack or something. The whole thing was hushed up by the Evil Guardians of Disney; no-one dies in Walt’s Magical Money Making Machine! They’ve even cryogenically frozen old Walt so that they can revive the old bugger, come the time. But unbeknownst to them an aerial photo had been taken by a tabloid newspaper of the dead body lying on the grass and Goofy poo really hit the fan.
5. You could get a degree from the Disney University. I can only assume this is where the phrase “Mickey Mouse Degree” originally comes from. Now usually applied to Media Studies degrees. Yes, a real degree. Try sticking that on your CV and getting a job, ya loser!
Hey, by the way, Google Blogspot isn’t owned by the Disney corporati——————————————————(arrrrgggghhh!) ————————————————————(#line dead#)
* To my American readers. “Fag” is not a derogative term for a homosexual here in the UK. You do know that, right? I didn’t see any Tigger-on-Piglet bummin’ or nothing….Just making sure. Also while we’re at it…..“fanny pack”, what the blazes is that about????
**Yep, it’s now been renamed the Mini Cooper fund.
