Don't turn right

Around Christmas time last year, I decided to modify a bit of my behaviour that I wasn’t happy with.

It wasn’t about my glee in relating 70s, schoolkid anecdotes to my children, with all the wonderful elements of Health and Safety removed.

“And do you know, kids, in those days we didn’t even have to wear hi-viz vests when we were in the playground after school.”

“Really dad?”

“It’s all true, in fact at my secondary school, when we were raising money for St Joseph’s Penny, the teachers used to allow us to box at lunchtime. I think that Mr Fedoruk, the Games teacher, used to run a book on the fights, resulting in one of the Maths teachers getting heavily into debt.”

“Wow, I wish we went to your school.”

“Yes, it was great. It was a place where people who obtained more than a couple of O Levels, were seen as professors.”

I love horrifying and wowing the kids in equal measure, with embellished tales of my childhood, so it wasn’t this that needed some thought.

It was about driving. I don’t get the classic road rage that Channel 4 like to make documentaries about.

I’ve been in a car with someone who has, so I know I’m not in that league. It was a Geordie mate of mine and we were travelling up the M6. We were in the left hand lane and as we passed Junction 38, a little old lady came tootling down the slip lane, ready to join the motorway and head for Penrith. The only thing was, she didn’t have her indicator on, so my mate wouldn’t move over and kept pace in his car. As the old lady got closer and closer to me, it became very clear that she was coming straight on. I relayed this urgently to the driver and he replied,

"How man, she’s not fuckin’ indercayatin’, so she can fuck off.”

He wasn’t screaming his head off, but that’s a level of intolerance I know I’ll never reach. He’d have been happy for us all to have a nice big crash, because of a ‘tech-ner-fuckin-cality.’

What I have is more of an urban impatience. If you’re driving round a city, then you need to be quick off the mark, or you can spend your life at junctions or traffic lights.

Over the years, I’ve found myself doing a little commentary as I go along and viewed objectively it’s a bit embarrassing. ‘C’mon mate’, ‘Are you ever going to go?’ ‘It’s on green! it’s on green!’ That sort of thing.

I was never shouting it, but that constant irritation has a corrosive effect on your stress levels. It serves no purpose to be annoyed. It doesn’t get you there any quicker. The person in the other car can’t hear you, so whatever you’re saying is going to have absolutely no impact on what they’re doing. Most importantly, if you’ve got anyone in the car with you, you look like a right dick.

So I decided at Christmas that I was going to stop doing it. I went cold turkey as well. No gradual reduction in the comments or volume. I went from being mildly irked by every perceived bit of ignorant or inconsiderate driving, to not giving a toss.

It’s absolutely great. You should try it, even just for a morning or a day. You’re mental state will be a lot better for it.

I was always happy to let people through on a busy road, where there’s only room for one car, but sometimes I’d make a bit of a snap judgement if they were driving a bit aggressively. Not any more. Happy to wait, on you go, mate, you’re obviously in more of a rush than me. It bloody works, you know. I’ve tried to keep it up and am achieving good levels of success. I occasionally backslide, but note it and spend the following few minutes being extra nice.

My greatest moment was at one of those junctions, where you get a bellend who races up on the outside in the right-turn-only lane and then goes straight over, bypassing the huge queue of highway-code followers in the left hand lane. A few months ago, if I found myself at the front of one of the left hand lane when this happened, I’d have consciously tried to beat him across the junction to annoy him. Last week, when this happened, I just slowed down and let him nip in. Amazingly, it felt really good. Course he’s a knob, but why should I be bothered.

The only nut that I’ve failed to crack, is a particular little junction in Chorlton. It’s where Kensington Road joins Manchester Road. If you’re daft enough to try and turn right here, you’re going to be there for a long, long time. Most people who live in the area will take a big detour, rather than attempt the madness of a right turn there. If you get stuck behind someone who is, you may as well get your butties out.

The couple of times it’s happened to me since Christmas, a quick, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ escapes before I remember my new ethos. I will do it though. By Christmas, I hope, if I find myself in this position to sit there with a smile like a Jehova’s Witness and say, ‘Good luck, mate. Hope you don’t have to wait too long.”

Embarrassing The Kids

One of the great delights in reaching the ripe old age of 43 has been the realisation that I’m officially uncool.

It’s not like I was ever very cool in the first place, but my children - particularly my eldest (13) - have now confirmed my status, usually by cringing whenever I try to impress them or their mates.

Rather than this eliciting a feeling of sadness, I really enjoy it. One of the great pleasures of being a parent is humiliating your children simply by asking innocuous questions when they’ve got their mates round.

Chester (13) has a pal, who knows all the current ‘street’ words. He was explaining a few to me as we drove home from footy training one night. Whilst I adopted the tone of 'interested moron', he explained that someone who I might have called a ‘villain’ or ‘scally’ is now called a ‘bad-mans.’ The plural confused me, but I wasn’t arguing, because 13 year old kids know more than me.

More confusing was the revelation that ‘bum’ now means good. No longer is it used to describe your arse or an American tramp. If you really enjoy your lunch, you might say.

“That sandwich was bum.”

The final bit of this tutorial concluded with him telling me that rather than call your friends ‘pal’ ‘mate’ or ‘chum’, they were now more commonly known as ‘blad,’ which is a bastardisation of blood. It was all very interesting and I could see Chester shrinking into his seat whilst I asked pertinent questions like,

“So, could I say a sentence like this? ‘My blad is a badmans but he’s bum with me?’”

It was worse for him the week after, as I incorporated some of my new found, linguistic coolness into the training session.

Whilst warming up with all 18 of my intensely self-conscious squad, I put a shot into one of the goals. One of them congratulated me and I replied in an over-the-top, public school accent.

“Cheers, blad. I am quite the badmans when it comes to bum shooting!!”

The horror on their faces was hilarious, so I carried on using ‘their’ words throughout the session. Each time I did, they all recoiled and howled at me to stop.

I assume that they all had to go home that night and invent some new ones, as I’d ruined it all for them.

Embarrassing your children has got to be one of the great pay-offs to being a parent. Having young kids can feel like a pretty thankless task. It’s all one-way traffic. You do absolutely everything for them: hug them when they’re upset; buy them lots of Christmas presents; try to take an interest in their homework; try not to think ‘Oh, fucking hell!’ when they say, ‘Can we take our bikes to the park?’ What do you get in return? Calendars made of spray painted pasta that are of no practical use, which will remain stuck to the fridge until the next bit of tat replaces them.

But this is fine. I can cope with all of it, as long as I get to make them squirm now and again, by doing some robotics to a Kraftwerk song in the car, whilst they try to hide in the footwells.

We were all waiting in the car a couple of weeks ago, whilst my wife nipped into Morrisons. Because I was bored, I tried on my little lad’s (7) cycling helmet. I looked stupid, but it amused me for a few seconds. My eldest then told me to take it off.

“Why? Is it embarrassing you?”

“Err, yeah!”

“Good.”

I had planned to take it off, but then drove home in it, hoping to God we’d see a couple of his mates, so I could shout out my window to them.

Though it seems like I’m doling this 'embarrassing the kids' lark out a lot, of course I experienced it myself when I was young.

We went through a bit of a Bob Marley phase at our house, in the mid 80s, coinciding with the release of his Legend album. Growing up in an Irish household, this was considered quite exotic fare, but - as well as being a stupendously great collection of tunes - knowing the lyrics to Bob Marley songs was an excellent shortcut to street-cred.

Unfortunately, whenever we were listening to the album in the front room, my dad would come in, chuckling and say.

“Is that my mate, Bob? Sure I love this music.”

Regardless of which tune was on, he’d then sing an approximation of No Woman No Cry, deliberately out of tune and with some of the words missing.

Whilst we screamed at him to stop, he’d just wander out of the room laughing, still knocking out his 'Westmeath reggae'.

I try to explain to my eldest that - thirty years from now - he will also be uncool. In 2042, his kids will be shaking their heads slowly at him as he tries to negotiate their world, whilst their grandad Charlie stumbles around in the background, with a tiny cycle helmet on and his trousers pulled up too high, singing the incorrect words to a 68 year old reggae song.

Supermarket Sheep

When I blogged about bargain hunting in supermarkets a few weeks ago, I was reminded that I’d forgotten to include something quite important.

It was about the desire for a protocol around bumping into friends or acquaintances whilst doing your shop.

What are the rules around this?

Last week, I was clattering around the local Morrisons and found myself on the first aisle, amongst the fruit and veg. While trying to find apples that displayed the mutually exclusive characteristics of being cheap and looking tasty, I bumped into one of the other parents from my kids primary school. We had that moderately stilted conversation, that you have in supermarkets, when you’re aware that neither of you had really planned this chat, people are behind you trying to get to the apples and you’ve got other stuff you’ve got to get on with, as soon as the shop’s out of the way.

So you go through the motions, ask each other a couple of questions and not really listen to the answers. Eventually, one of you says,

“Right, better be getting on. See you later.”

Then you go your separate ways. This is where there should be a rule made. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve now had our conversation and that should be it. I should be free to completely ignore you for the rest of my shop. It’s not like we arranged to meet here, like going for a drink or something, so let’s agree to just crack on. Supermarkets are full of things I don’t care for, like rude kids and people who clip you with their trolleys and pretend it was an accident, even though they really meant it, because you’d dawdled for a microsecond too long near the beans. Therefore, I want to spend the least amount of time possible in them.

Instead, because we met in the first aisle, we now enter into some sort of synchronicity and have to have several more verbal transactions. My heart sinks further and further with each one, as the law of diminishing returns forces us both to endure those shit one-liners that were solely designed for this purpose.

“Ha ha, we’ll have to stop meeting like this!”

“Hey, I’m sure I met your twin brother a few minutes ago!”

“Still here then?”

“Hello!”

“Are you stalking me?”

“Hiya!”

“Am I stalking you?”

“We’ll be working here, if we hang around much longer!”

All of the above are delivered almost apologetically, with a rolling of the eyes, as if to say,
“It wasn’t me that made these rules. I’m sorry, but we’re just locked into this. Let’s deliver the lines as best we can and hope to fuck that one of us is going to forget something a few aisles back and break this cycle.”

I have, on occasion, been that cheesed off with this panto, that I’ll invent a bargain on the other side of the shop and go there for a bit, till I’m sure there’s no chance of us bumping into each other again. This usually backfires. Chorlton’s a small place and I just meet someone else and have to start all over again.

The real hell of hells occurs, if you go through the complete circuit and then find yourselves paired in the queue at the checkout. You’ve already used all the ‘conversation’ that was available to you and are reduced to spending ten minutes saying,

“This queue’s not going down very quickly, eh?”

“Why does the other queue always move more quickly, eh?”

“This queue’s moving nice and quickly, eh?”

I have a real terror of this happening. It’s the perfect storm of supermarket synchronicity and to be avoided at all costs. I’ll happily join the massive queue for the cashier that I know will try and break my eggs and squash my tomatoes, if it means not having to feign interest in the price of the chewing gum on the impulse buy shelf, near the till.

There is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. On several occasions, without any conversation occurring, I’ve tacitly agreed with someone to just not enter into this modern dance. I’ve seen him and he’s seen me. We’re friends and are secure enough in our friendship to think simultaneously,

“I really can’t be arsed having a chat. I’ve got to get out of here before I throw a chicken at someone. I’m just going to avert my eyes and pretend to be looking at something else, whenever there’s the possibility of an encounter. When I get to the top of each aisle, I’ll have a quick look. If he’s down there, I’ll skip an aisle and double back. If we bump into each other in the car park after, we’ll continue with the charade and say something like, ‘Were you in there? Fancy that!,’ before nodding in collusion and legging it.”

Getting Your Farts Out

After dropping the kids off at school last Friday, I nipped to the Barbakan (brilliant Chorlton deli), to have a brew and a read of the paper.

As I got there, I noticed one of my friends standing outside, by his car. He appeared to be dawdling for no particular reason, so I strolled up, said hello and asked him what he was waiting round for.

“I’m just getting all my farts out before I go in, Charlie.”

It made me laugh out loud, primarily because of his candour but also because I thought I was the only person who made sure they were entirely vented of noxious gases before entering social situations.

Not always of course, but if I’m ever unlucky enough to combine the following two elements;

1. Social or work situation involving people who've no idea that you fart.
2. Recent meal including volatile ingredients.

then due consideration needs to be given.

With regards to the first element, for most of us, this is people outside of our immediate families or very close friends. Though having found farting to be an unending source of hilarity for my entire life, i’ve been made painfully aware that not everyone thinks this way.

Element two is often present, because I like to consume things that are known as, ‘gifts that keep on giving.’

I regularly find myself hanging around outside buildings, hovering delicately until I’m certain that I’m completely clear of any contraband. Outside is the farter’s friend, but living in a city means that, even there, timing is everything. My technique is to walk up and down a bit, get rid, then do a bit of a turn, sometimes 270 degrees is enough to sever all ties, but Guinness or curry can sometimes necessitate a complete 360.

This allows me to conduct whatever business I need to do in the building, without the growing fear of a pressure build up. It feels very wrong to subdue a burgeoning guff. I always feel that the horrible bubbling feeling it creates inside, distracts me from my meeting/interview and is probably wreaking unseen damage on my immune system.

I thought I was the only one, until that chance encounter outside a Chorlton deli, but now I know I’m in good company.

A teacher friend was telling me that, as head of a particular department, it’s very important that she keeps up appearances and maintains a strict social protocol of never dropping one in front of a class. Prone as she is to bouts of flatulence, this causes great discomfort. She bungs herself up for the duration of the lesson, suffering greatly. As soon as the kids leave and she has the door shut, she dives into the stockroom and deflates herself, dislodging ceiling tiles and turning the corners of books up. She says that a disgruntled caretaker has had to tighten up the hinges on the door three times in the last year and has modified one of the Chemistry lab signs to let her know he’s on to her.

It led me to thinking that, if I do it, my teacher mate does it and the chap who you don’t know outside the Barbakan does it, then everyone does it, to a greater or lesser degree.
It would be great if some of the social stigma was removed and we could engage in this practice quite freely, leaving people to nonchalantly hang back before a meeting and say,

“I’ll be with you in a minute, everyone. I’m just going to despatch this air biscuit, as it’s been baking for quite a while now.”
Had the subject been less taboo a couple of well documented ‘accidents’ in history, could have been avoided.

On June 26, 1963, when President Kennedy gave his famous ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ speech on the steps of the Rathaus Schöneberg, his Secret Service men rushed him to the podium. Kennedy had been planning to expunge the byproducts of a bratwurst and Herforder Pils lunch, but missed his opportunity. The photographic evidence is clear. Whilst President Kennedy concentrates on the correct pronunciation of the word ‘Berliner,’ he loses control for a crucial second, leaving the man to his rear thinking.

“Jesus Christ, that one could start a windmill on an old Dutch painting.”

But perhaps the most famous example occurred thirty-five years earlier, at Heston Aerodrome, when Neville Chamberlain triumphantly returned from the Munich Pact meeting to declare, ‘Peace for our time.’ Once again, the urgency with which the Prime Minister was ushered from his plane to deliver the speech, was his undoing. He had planned to hang about near one of the wings and disperse a particularly volatile hooberstank, resulting from the Scotch Eggs and Theakston’s Old Peculiar which he’d shared with Hitler earlier. Once again, the photographic evidence is conclusive.

The fortunate people to the right of Chamberlain have avoided injury, whereas the ones on the left are clearly affected. A no-mans-land has been instantly created, with a courageous policeman attempting to help the man to his front, who was directly downwind during the speech. Chamberlain’s attempts to waft it away and avoid blame were later explained away by claiming he was waving the agreement.

No Ball Games Allowed

Last Friday, I paid a visit to the vet with our male rabbit, Flapjack.

We got Flapjack last October, to give some company to our female rabbit, with the gender- confusing name of Flat Stanley. To begin with, Flat Stanley didn’t take too well to her new friend and took an unusual approach to welcoming him into the family, firstly by trying to beat him up whenever we weren’t looking and then to nibbling a chunk out of his ear whilst he wasn’t looking.

Time proved to be a great healer, both for Flapjack’s ear and Flat Stanley’s tolerance. By Christmas, they were rubbing along quite nicely together; Flapjack’s youthful exuberance being tempered by Flat Stanley’s habit of sitting around a lot.

Then Flapjack hit puberty and our lovely little back garden dynamic changed. Since January, he’s been hitting on Flat Stanley with all the subtlety of a Sid James chat up line.

He’s attempted to shag her from pretty much every angle, whilst Flat Stanley resists stoically. I’ve watched Flapjack’s mind working in an eternal circle that’s on a ten second loop.
‘Mmm this food is nice.

I think I’ll defecate a bit.

HOLY SHIT, THERE’S A FEMALE RABBIT OVER THERE!!!!’

This is followed by a bit of a high speed chase that looks like a Benny Hill sketch. Eventually he gives up and goes back to eating, before realising:

‘HOLY SHIT, THERE’S A FEMALE RABBIT OVER THERE!!!’

Poor old Stan is beginning to look a bit frazzled by the whole situation. The fact that she’s neutered is no deterrent to Flapjack’s ardour.

I’ve been getting tired of knocking out rubbish excuses to the kids.

“Daddy, what’s Flapjack doing to Flat Stanley?”

“She’s a bit tired, Son, so Flapjack is helping to push her back to the hutch.’

It was time to get him done. On the Thursday, I let him have his last afternoon in the sun, oblivious to the coming storm. His sophisticated foreplay technique was interesting to watch. He’d stand close to Flat Stanley for a few seconds, then a bit closer, then a bit closer, then conduct a full frontal assault before being immediately rebuffed. It’s a technique that can be observed in nightclubs up and down the land, usually between 1.30 and 2.00am.

This was him before the op, looking pretty chilled out, a long afternoon of unrequited love behind him and an evening of eating food and dreaming of a repeat performance tomorrow.

When we got him to the vets, I bumped into our friend, Jon. He’d brought their dog Freddie in for the same op. There was the strange, but nevertheless present, feeling that we were betraying our two charges on some level. As the door closed behind Flapjack, with the nurse sizing him up, it took me back to my own gelding six years ago and I somehow managed to concoct some empathy with a small mammal.

I got him back at 6 o’clock and put him back in the hutch. This is what he looked like then.

To the untrained eye, he looks exactly the same. He might be sitting a bit delicately and some of the light is missing from his eyes, but he’s essentially unchanged.

To me, with my daft habit of projection, he’s very different and seems to be saying.

“What did you let them do to me, man? I can’t work it out (because I’m a rabbit) but I feel really weird. Why doesn’t that female rabbit look as good as she did this morning? What’s going on, Charlie? I thought you were looking after me.”

By the next morning, a bit of realisation had dawned on him and he had the look of Randle Mcmurphy after he’s been lobotomised in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

I imagine that we’ll return to some normality now, with both rabbits cohabiting in an asexual spirit, similar to Morecambe and Wise or George and Mildred. Or perhaps, after a few days, Flat Stanley is going to start wondering why she’s not getting any of Flapjack’s attention any more. Look out for a blog about Stanley’s mid-life-crisis in the next couple of months.

Why can't people just be arseholes?

Why can’t people just be arseholes?

It’s a simple enough question. Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that people are never just arseholes. If I talk to someone at work, who’s had an argument with a colleague or been on the receiving end of what they consider to be shoddy treatment, they never just come right out with it and talk about the object of their derision in suitably frank terms.

These days, a little bit of justification or apology on the other’s behalf takes place before we get to the meat of the complaint. An example:

Last week, I was talking to a friend, who’d been asked to work an unreasonably long day without any thanks or remuneration. His boss has been a constant thorn in his side for the last few years, producing countless examples of arsehole-ish behaviour.

My friend said,

“I know that Bob’s got issues with anger management and I’ve got a feeling that he might be nudging on to the spectrum somewhere, but I would’ve thought he could’ve shown a bit of appreciation for me staying late.”

Had the same friend made the same complaint ten or fifteen years ago, he would have said,

“Bob’s a right fucking arsehole.”

I know that modern speech and workplace sensibilities demand that we adopt a more level and forgiving approach when dealing with people, but I do hanker somewhat for the old times, when people could be a little more blunt when expressing their feelings.

In those days there used to be a sliding scale of abusive terms to be used when describing your boss, depending on the severity of his or her transgression.

Twerp

Divvy

Knob

Bell end

Arsehole

Bastard

Twat

Fucker

Cunt

All of these words could receive additional emphasis by being preceded by the word ‘fucking’ or followed by a slammed door or finger jab towards the office.

Nor would these insults square with an initial attempt at mitigation.

“I realise that Michael is recently divorced and is having real trouble coming to terms with the separation, but he’s a fucking twat.”

It just doesn’t work. It’s all or nothing.

I suppose that I should be really happy that this sort of thing doesn’t really go on any more, but I sort of miss it. The brutal honesty was, in its way, quite refreshing, leaving no room for ambiguity or confusion.

When I was 19, I was helping to clean up on the camp at which I was stationed. This onerous task, known as ‘area cleaning’, was a job that all the single, low ranking soldiers had to do. We’d skirt around the camp before first parade, picking up pizza boxes and any other litter that had accumulated overnight. We’d have a Corporal wandering behind us, making sure we didn’t run off and go back to bed.

The Corporal that morning was a huge bloke from Yorkshire, who had to turn sideways to get through doors. One of the lads walking alongside me, suddenly thought he was living in a democracy and decided to complain that, as a non-smoker, he shouldn’t have to pick up fag butts. The Corporal’s reply was brief and to the point, but carried all the information necessary to resolve the situation,

“Get ‘em picked up, Trotsky, or I’ll fuckin’ flatten you.”

I like the swearing, but love the attempt to imply that a left wing coup might be taking place on an Aldershot army camp, because of a reluctance to put a B and H cork in the bin.

Today, I fear the conversation would be very different.

“Why should I have to pick up fag butts? I’m a non-smoker.”

“Hmmm, it’s an interesting point you make. I’d really like to ensure that our working areas are litter free but understand your concern. I’m pretty certain that once the cigarette is extinguished, its ability to transmit carcinogens is completely removed, but there are legitimate health and safety issues here. Leave it where it is and I’ll take it up with the relevant stakeholder. I may even organise a meeting that involves powerpoint and/or a flipchart.”

“Thanks, Corporal. I think you’ve handled the situation with admirable tact and consideration. But can you explain why you’ve stuffed me into the bin?”

Fallopian Tubes and Tartan Paint

One of the fundamental rituals of British working life is the fool’s errand. This is where a new employee, usually young and inexperienced, is given tasks to do or asked to fetch things, that invariably end up with them looking stupid.

It sounds a bit cruel, but whenever I’ve been on the receiving or giving end of one, they’re always funny.

The first one that happened to me was in the summer before I joined the army. My eldest brother John is a painter and decorator. He and a friend were working on a house and my function was to make brews and perform the most menial of tasks; tasks that were supposed to mean I wouldn’t get paint all over me. John and Pat were a real double act, spending most of the day singing along badly to whatever was on Radio 1 and accusing each other of various crimes against humanity.

One afternoon, Pat shouted down to me,

"Charlie, get the lid off that tin of white emulsion in the hallway, will you?”

Eager to please, I raced off to find a screwdriver, then set about the lid. I should have noticed that the tin was a bit dented and - in hindsight - it didn’t seem quite full. After a couple of minutes faffing about, I eventually got some purchase and levered the thing off. Instead of 5 litres of white paint, I was faced with a huge human turd, swimming around in an inch of emulsion. The smell was horrific, the mixture of the chemicals in the paint with the gently marinating log had created something truly awful. It was only then that I could the giggling of two grown men coming from the top of the stairs. I had opened the ‘shitty tin’ an essential item for tradesmen to use when a house has no plumbing.

Joining the army was no escape, but I was a little more savvy by the time I’d got to my first working unit. I avoided the obvious ones and got to chuckle at newer arrivals than me being sent for:

Quick burning sawdust

Tartanpaint

A long stand

A bag of short circuits

The keys to the Assault Course

The keys to the Parade Square

Sky hooks

A glass hammer

A goldfish fart for a spirit level

One fine summer’s day, we were on our way to the ranges in the back of a Bedford 4 tonner. The 'Robert Redford', as it was affectionately known, was the transport workhorse of the British Army and was used to move moderate numbers of troops about. They were usually reliable but it was only the most accomplished or slovenly soldiers who could manage to have a kip in the back of a four tonner, as their suspension seemed to be made from cornflake boxes.

About a mile outside camp, the thing packed up and the Corporal driving, pulled over slowly. We all de-bussed and sat smoking on the embankment whilst he decided what to do. After a short conversation with his co-driver, he shouted over,

“Who’s the sproggiest in the troop?”

All thumbs pointed to the new guy, who was trying to hide inside his own uniform. The Corporal spotted him.

“Right sprogladyde!! I need you to run back to the MT (Motor Transport) stores on camp and get me some fallopian tubes, so we can get this bugger fixed.”

He said it with such authority and confidence that I almost bought it, before conjuring up the correct gynaecological diagram in my head. Whilst the rest of us bit our lips, so’s not to give the game away, our young friend scarpered up the road, for a date with derision at the MT stores.

The wind-up is a great form of initiation. As long as the recipient sees the funny side and holds their hands up at being made to look stupid, they gain a degree of acceptance and hope someone replaces them as soon as possible, as the most junior in the workplace.

The one we used to love doing at my last unit in the army, was to call in the newest arrival, a couple of weeks after he’d settled into the troop. He would be given a fire extinguisher and a note and told to deliver them to the Squadron Sergeant Major. The desire to be seen as useful would override any of his misgivings or critical faculties and off he’d go.

The SSM is the discipline man in the Squadron and a good rule of thumb is to avoid him at all costs. If he has reason to speak to you, you’ve usually done something wrong and a bollocking or worse is on its way.

Our hapless victim would stand to attention outside the office and knock.

The SSM (in on the stunt) would impatiently shout, “What do you want?”

The nervous kid would reply,

"Corporal Bell sent this over, Sir.” Then he’d give him the note, which read:

GIVE US A DAY OFF, YOU BASTARD, OR I’LL SOAK YOU!!

The SSM said the look of terror on their faces when he got them to read the note out loud, would have him laughing for hours after.