And today we'll be studying Cats Do the Funniest Things

Banshee: O, I am so stressed!
Ma: It's only your first week.
Banshee: But if I don't get all As, I'll never get into university.
Ma: Says who?
Banshee: All the newspapers, all the TV channels, all the teachers -
Ma: Erm -
Banshee: And it's going to be much worse in two years' time.
Ma: Well -
Banshee: If I don't get into university, I'll have to be a plumber.
Ma: A plumber?
Banshee: I don't want to be a plumber!
Ma: You could be a dog-groomer. You like dogs.
Banshee: Aprons make me look fat.
Ma: Or a -

But we'll draw a veil over the mother's well-meaning, but ultimately stupid, unhelpful and depressing (quote) suggestions.

O, the poor younger generation! We pile on so much pressure throughout school: exams, exams, exams. Results, results, results. And there are few jobs at the end of it all anyway.

When I was at school, we ran books on who could distract the teacher from his/her subject the longest. (Richard Meeks won in a German double lesson by stating that all German pillows were as flat as envelopes and setting Frau Taillby off like a battery of Howitzers.)

Today, Banshee is distraught because her double lesson of Religious Studies was spent watching The Truman Show. Why? Because apparently Plato's Allegory of the Cave is 'too difficult'. (I think the teacher wanted a nap.) History was spent watching  The Tudors, and English was spent watching - O, I forget. I'd zoned out as the level of indignation rose.

Banshee: I didn't sign up for two years of TV.

Watching a film - and it was a film, in flickering black and white, projected onto the gym's wall - was a real treat in my school days. For seven years, if a class teacher was off work, the Head, Mr Turner, showed us a slide show of his honeymoon in Venice and a film about a steam train. We knew the script by heart, but never failed to be thrilled by it.

Still, that's probably because the rest of the time we were stuffed full of books and encouraged to discuss, challenge, and debate.

I am aware that many on Blogger battle to deliver an enriching educational experience. Somehow I suspect the Hollywood blockbuster isn't part of their source material, and thus cannot help feeling that Banshee is being cheated.

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Sir or Madam

I am taking a moment from my busy schedule of needlepoint, deportment classes, quadrille practice and conversational 17th Century French to firmly suggest that I have had enough disgruntlement in my life this year and therefore feel I am deserving of a Disgruntlement Pass for the rest of 2010.

I hardly think this is too much to ask.

Whilst I am making demands, I'd also like the word 'scum' to be added to the list of words due to be rehabilitated this decade. I know you are planning a public awareness campaign about the name Adolf. You say it has been the recipient of general opprobrium for over seventy years and if we are not going to drown in Jacks, Connors, Joes and Harrys, then we need to spread our nominal net a little wider.

Fine. There is nothing wrong with the name Agnes either, so rehabilitate her whilst you're at it.

But back to scum. Apparently, I cleverly - and regularly - achieve the status of both middle class and scum. I never put roquette on my open sandwiches (closed sandwiches are infra dig), nor do I have a 'Weekly', nor do I sponsor a one-legged seamstress in Papua New Guinea - and crow about it - so I fail to see how I am in any way middle class.

I am not well-bred enough for Upper Class. (Father was in Trade.) I haven't found a satisfactory term for the - hmm - little girls' room (twee!), lav (common!), washroom (I want a pee not a wash!), and I'm never sure whether I should say napkin or serviette. Though I do use proper cotton handkerchiefs. All things considered, perhaps we could focus less on class and more on scum ...?

I wish to reclaim the word scum. I want it redefining. In fact, I shall personally redefine it. For am I not fragrant? Do I not float like the lightest of thistledown, dancing in the gentlest of Zephyrs?

Well, I'll grant you a less thistledown-like woman you are unlikely to meet, but I am fragrant. I currently smell of Ginger & Nutmeg, an expensive cologne from a chic emporium with haughty saleswomen where I dithered and shilly-shallied about the purchase for months; spraying it on my wrists, wandering off through the cobbled streets of Deva Victrix, sniffing, getting other people - often strangers - to sniff me. How foolish I was to be so cautious! It is a daily delight to smell like a steamed pudding.

Scum is the scent of sticky, stodgy desserts. Scum is the throwing-caution-to-the-winds purchase of reckless (some might call it cavalier) sofas. Scum is the art of making men in uniform giggle unexpectedly. Scum is an unseemly devotion to ones virtual fish. Scum is not buying the spray paint (with which you plan to deface several unsightly political billboard posters) on your debit card in case the unique chemical identifier in the paint is traced to the store, CCTV cameras and, eventually (due to the pigeon chest and dragging left leg) to oneself.

Scum is - quite clearly - delicious. I am proud to be scum!

So, if you could put your considerable all into reclaiming it - phone grumpy old Rupert, Paul, Jeremy and Nick and get them onside - I foresee a happy and satisfactory resolution for us all.

Yours in anticipation,

M.

P.S. I enclose an S.A.E. (1st Class) for the prompt dispatch of the Disgruntlement Pass. Merci.

Political Birdfeed #1

The Youth of Today

The teenagers in the house opposite are hanging out of their bedroom window puffing on a fag. At last, teenagers behaving like teenagers.

History started badly and hav been geting steadily worse. Teenagers started badly and should be steadily getting worse - but they're not. In fact, they are a huge disappointment. And considering they didn't even exist as a group until the 1940s, they've fizzled out remarkably quickly.

We have given them every opportunity to become angry, dissolute and rebellious. We have saddled them with debt, abolished free university education, and made their qualifications all but worthless. We have closed youth clubs in their thousands. We have stopped them razzing round on scooters and descending on seaside towns en masse. We have colonised their music and used it to advertise mobile phone networks. We have stolen their clothes and their clumpy great training shoes with sensible soles and room for their toes to grow. Any bizarre haircut they invent, we are but a scissor-snip away in imitation.

Media headlines proclaim our ephebiphobia: gangs, knifes, rainbow parties (of very doubtful provenance) - the little sods won't even give up their bus seats for their elders (and obviously betters). We provoke and provoke and provoke. Their response? A shrug of the shoulders and a mumbled Whatever.

We've banned marbles (a choking hazard), skipping ropes (a strangling hazard), Top Trumps (potential for RSI injuries), rubber balls (they might become MPs and move onto oranges). We have ensured that every school playground in the country is full of children standing about with nothing to do - ready to become bored, destructive teenagers.

And what happens? Have they taken to manning barricades? No. Have they arranged convoys of caravans and raves in Stonehenge? No. Have they invented ways of tuning in and dropping out? No. The only drug they've come up with is a plant food. Let's get high on Baby Bio? At least your foliage will have a healthy shine. They've got smart phones and crack cocaine. We made do with a tin on a string and a Sherbet Dib-Dab. Yet still they refuse to rise.

The Youth of Today's acme of rebellion is wearing a hood.

A hood.

One word: monks. Not so rebellious now, is it?

Besides which, we all know they wear hoods to hide their acne (with an N) and to keep their ears warm, and because they're having a bad hair day (which is every day of your life from 13 years onwards unless you are Ross Kemp).

They wear hoods because they own anoraks and all anoraks come with a hood - damn Brussels and their Directives - and their mas tell them, "That coat cost me £29.99 and you will blimmin' well get your money's worth out of every bit of fabric. Put your hands in those pockets! They're not just for show, you know."

And The Youth of Today
Does everything his ma says.