Monday 20 January 2014

I'm a Stupid Bastard

IQ tests are intriguing. I've always fared badly on conventional tests. At primary school I was designated last but one according to the ‘star system.’ Every time a kid did well they got a star on a chart which was placed prominently on the wall. Yes they did that in the sixties. I had two stars. To place that in perspective, Leslie Green had 52 stars (I fancied her rotten) and David Manning had one. Now David Manning was a bit of a ‘spakker.’ Thinking back, poor David was intellectually challenged. Poor bastard, he really had no chance. I failed my 11 plus and Leslie passed. I went to a sink Secondary Modern in the Black County, West Mids. They put me in the third set for maths, English and Science. By year two I’d worked my way to the fourth set. I was bumping along at the bottom. My form teacher suggested ‘I would be better served by being placed in the remedial class  Note the quotes that are not there. I have a mind for remembering this sort of shit. Mr Masters you are a cunt, but long dead, I’m sure.  Now the remedial class is not a place you want to go unless forced. I had an interview with the Headmaster. It would be down to his wisdom whether I would be placed with the unteachable. I told Mr Evans that I didn't want to go with the mongers cos I had a bad chest and that the smoke would make it worse. The thick fug of smoke in class was a constant reminder that these kids were way past the fourth set. Luckily for me Mr Evans decided to send me to the monger class after all. Thank you Mr Evans, you did me a service. And yes I've checked, Mr Evans is long, long dead.      

5 comments:

  1. This explains a fuck of a lot, Flaxen.
    Although I do not know what 'sets' are, I gather placement in one or the other is based on one's perceived academic ability. Which requires greater academic abilities, the fourth set or the third set? And does allowing the Magister access to your tender nether regions effect/affect the placement criteria?
    It's the UK, right? Priapically induced rectal haemorrhaging is a rite of passage in your school system, yes?

    And I detest having to prove I am not a robot, face the spammers like a man and dispense with it will ya?

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  2. Okay, I was a late intellectual bloomer. I came from a very poor background and went to shit schools. Fourth set is much worse, and yes, I was buggered mercilessly at school. 'Massaging dat prostate, boss.' The robot spam thing came automatically with the blog. As you are my first, and let's be honest, probably only commentator I haven't had to deal with it, yet. I will consider your request and after a suitable interval of rumination with make my pronouncement.

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  3. ".....I was buggered mercilessly at school....."
    Admitting it is half the battle. You're well on your way to healing.
    Don't give me this poor background sob story. Although I am of extreme wealth and privilege, none of it escaped with me from Myanmar. The Tutor was poor, dirt poor. His father used to get up an hour before he went to bed so he could work 25 hours a day. The Tutor endured Canadian public schools(opposite of what a Public School is in the UK) having to rub shoulders with vile Anglo-locals and immigrants from swarthy Mediterranean countries. And he had to accept teachers like this

    http://aquarianslovetofuck.blogspot.ca/2013/12/blog-post.html

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  4. Contrary to popular opinion it not the psychological scars which hurt the most it is the physical ones. I have an abundance of both.

    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
    SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
    Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
    THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
    You're right there, Obadiah.
    FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
    Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
    SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
    A cup o' cold tea.
    FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
    Without milk or sugar.
    THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
    Or tea.
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    In a cracked cup, an' all.
    FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
    Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
    SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
    The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
    THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
    But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
    FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
    Aye, 'e was right.
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    Aye, 'e was.
    FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
    I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
    SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
    House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
    THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
    Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
    FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
    Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
    SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
    We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
    THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
    You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    Cardboard box?
    THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
    Aye.
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
    SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
    Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
    THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
    Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
    FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
    Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
    FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
    And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
    ALL:
    They won't!

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