Cosmic snorkelling in a snowstorm of chipmunks

I totally made this post title up in an effort to see what bizarre keyword searches I get on the back of it. In the last month, the most common search term for finding my site is “Bumfluff Moustache”, with “Be alert, Britain needs lerts” a close second. I have a particular fondness for the latter, having chuckled about it since I saw it carved into a desk in “Dempy” Dempsters maths class in second year at high school.

There’s a man who deserved a medal. That poor bastard got mentally and physically battered by the pupils every day of his working life. He must have woken up in the morning and let out a silent scream to himself before regaining his composure, slapping down his comb-over with brylcream and heading into the abuse filled halls of Preston Lodge High School.

It’s 20 years this month since I left school. 20 years. That’s a long time. Such a landmark has got me reminiscing about that golden 6 years from 1983-1989. Predictably enough, I remember the “culture” more than the education.

Kids are probably all banging drugs down their necks like it’s going out of fashion. In our day though, glue sniffing was the big thing, along with “buzzing” Soft and Gentle deodorant from KP crisp bags. Not that I did either. I was too busy getting a kicking from the selection of village idiots who often made up your classmates in first and second year at high school.

It’s funny, looking back now, I can see that many of the more troubled kids at our school weren’t just nasty by nature. Many of them obviously came from fairly poverty stricken backgrounds. I remember one guy in particular who stank of piss and shit all of the time. Even first thing in the morning when you’d have imagined he’d be at his cleanest. I feel sorry for him now really. Poor sod never stood a chance. Not a bar of soap in the house. You’d think he’d have nicked some, but he eventually got locked up for stealing chicken wire, not soap.

Of course, the younger, less idealistic me just thought he was a smelly prick.

School was a good time overall though. No real concerns other than what you’d get up to after school and what Spectrum games you could copy off your mates using the somewhat primitive method of connecting two tape recorders together with whatever cabling you could find. It was all about getting the volume right if I remember correctly. Spectrum games were so tempramental that I swear I had games that would only work on a Wednesday.

As you get older of course, life throws bigger challenges your way such as paying the mortgage and feeding your kids. I’ve also noticed grey is creeping into my stubble. I’m a couple of days growth away from looking like Roy Keane. Except less mental. You don’t think about having a beard, let alone one with grey creeping into it when you are 17.

20 years. I remember walking out of school on my last day like it was yesterday. I don’t feel any different now from how I did then. Of course, if I take 30 seconds to think about it, I’m really a million miles removed from that rubber-heid who left school at the end of may 1989.

I sat down the other day and read the Sunday Times Magazine 20th anniversary coverage of 1989 as one of the most important years of the 20th Century. Loads happened then. With the exception of the Berlin Wall coming down and Tianamen Square, most of it passed right over my head. I was too busy out spending my £340 monthly salary from the Royal Bank in those days. What did strike me was how bloody old fashioned all the clothes and people looked in the photos. Did we really dress like that then?

You all did. I’m pretty sure I didn’t.

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