Stumped for Something to Say

Tags

Christingle, cow shot, Devil's Number, dibbly dobbly, dinks, Educating Essex, glovemanship, Harley-Davidson, innings, mankad, Morality play, Nightwatchman, Ofstead Inspection, pantomime dame, psychobabble, red cherry, Sahara, snickometer, Speech Day, St Birinus, sticky wicket, stodger, stonewaller, tautology, Test Match, the crease, the Yips, World Cup, Zen, Zoota Flipper

Augustus Snodbury was trying to compose his Acting Head’s Report

for Speech Day.  He was endeavouring, in vain, to find a string of lexical

chains to give rhetorical cohesion to his oration.

When I first came to the crease, I felt a bit of a Nightwatchman, but I

determined that I would never be a mankad who left before the bowler

released the red cherry.

But would everyone latch onto his cricketing references?  They were

probably anticipating him making allusions to standing on the shoulders

of previous giants, acknowledging colleagues who would be off to

pastures new and so on.  Nevertheless, he decided to be true to his own

field of interest and continued to unearth parables from the sphere of the

Test Match.

When I was invited to assume Captaincy, I was hoping that I wouldn’t

be on to a sticky wicket.  Speaking as a ferret, I feel that I have played a

cameo of an innings and, if I have been a bit of a stodger, at least no one

could accuse me of having been a stonewaller.

Hmmm, maybe too much damning of himself with faint praise…

We- ah, the first person plural always lends a bit of authority!-have never

been a school which encourages cow shots.  We have dealt firmly with pie

chuckers. (Here he found his thoughts straying to Boothroyd-Smythe)

We have survived sledging, marilliers, dibbly dobblies, dinks and

haven’t got off our duck yet.

I may hear the death rattle and realise that I am bowled, but I- eh,

we haven’t reached the Devil’s Number yet and refuse to offer tea towel

explanations of policy to those who are little better than Zoota flippers,

or who have the Yips.  Trundlers need to be faced down and what we

need in this day and age- a cliche or two could be allowed to slip in- is

all-rounders and future generations who do not expect a featherbed.

He was beginning to enjoy himself.

We can offer our incoming Batsman a belter of a pitch.  He is, we know,

no hack and has a proven glovemanship in other series, so we wish him

a good knock.

We are happy to demote to match referee, so long as we are able to

uphold the spirit of the game.  We gladly bequeath him the snickometer

of a 2015 Ofstead Inspection.  May power hit his sweet spot every time.

Oh!  He’d better mention his predecessor.

The educational de-toxification of our previous Head Teacher has already

commenced.  Even now, he is indulging in a catharsis of his delayed mid-life

crisis and is kicking up a sandstorm with his Harley-Davidson, somewhere in

the Sahara, a trip which his wife understands has little to do with Zen.

He is clearly in touch with the Zeitgeist as other Heads have recently

been in the news for absconding- granted on unpaid leave- to follow

their dreams, or delusions regarding national success in the World Cup.

But here we award trophies to more achievable victories gained by our

future global citizens- attaboy, Snod!-to young people of distinction. 

Now he  was sounding like that Educating Essex chap.

Oh, maybe the whole thing was too dense.  He’d better start again.

Every school is unique and St Birinus is unique in its own way.

Useless!  Complete tautology.

In the family community which is St Birinus, we try to support each other

with tolerance and humility…

He could hear inner heckling and felt as though he was a character in a

Medieval Morality play, or a pantomime dame subjected to shouts of Oh

no, we don’t!   He heard the piping voice of John Boothroyd-Smythe shouting,

It’s behind you!, presumably referring to his career.

Okay, this was enough for tonight.

Mr Poskett’s marvellous Christingle concert illustrated the benefits of PTA

involvement and co-operation with staff, and pupils from our-hah! sister

establishment, as well as funding from our beloved stakeholders.

Oh, what was the use?  He couldn’t sound enthused.  He would just

have to purloin some cribbed sycophantic drivel and motivational psycho-

babble from the internet and hope for the best.  No one would be listening,

anyway.

He had drawn stumps and so he could only hope that he’d be remembered

as the tail that briefly wagged the dog.  The best bit would be when the twelfth

man- that Milford-Haven twit brought the drinks to the pavilion.

 

 

Speech Day

Tags

aigret, Ascot, Auchenshuggle, Charles Saatchi, chavette, Isabella Blow, Old Girl, Philip Treacy, Pippa Middleton, Prizegiving, Rabbie Burns, Shard, Speech Day, The Hatpin, To A Louse, Yarn bombing

Juniper Boothroyd-Smythe’s mother, Gisela, had been trying to find a suitable

hat to wear for the St Vitus’ School for the Academically-Gifted Girl‘s

Prizegiving.

Her daughter was going to receive the 2013 Sirdar Yarn-Bombing Textile Award

and her classmates, Tiger-Lily and Scheherezade, were being awarded

acknowledgement shields and cups for being The Girl Least Likely To and

The Girl Whose Mother’s Timekeeping Has Improved Most Markedly.

Gisela was going to be braving the marquee toute seule, since her formal

separation from Juniper’s father- realised after a much less provocative

gesture than that of Charles Saatchi’s.

Gisela had spotted a hat in Help The Ancient, Suttonford’s designer charity

shop. Some tattooed chavette may have abandoned it post-Ascot.  It

wasn’t exactly Isabella Blow-cum-Philip Treacy, but, for £9.99, it was a very

good deal and could be re-cycled afterwards.  Hat boxes took up too much

room in the wardrobe, she felt.

Drusilla Fotheringay-Syylk had just come out of her closet- not in a gender-

assertion manner.  No, she had literally de-cluttered her bedroom in her

flat in the boarding house, before vacating the premises for the summer

school let.  Lodging with her mother in Bradford-on-Avon usually stretched

both their reserves of patience.

She was glad that she had been disciplined enough to rid herself of that

hat which she had optimistically purchased in anticipation of her mother’s

demise.  It would have fitted the daughter of the deceased’s role very well,

but her mater was obstinately clinging to life and so the millinery moment

had not dawned.  Help The Ancient had been the beneficiary.

Drusilla intended to sport a Pippa Middleton-style fascinator for Speech Day.

She had fastened two aigret feathers together and secured them to a scrunch

of net veil with a vintage brooch.  Burlesque not.

Come the day, Gisela was sitting two rows in front of her daughter’s

housemistress and she was unaware that her headgear was being scrutinised

as closely as Rabbie Burns had inspected the louse on the woman in the pew

in front of him.

Drusilla knew it was the same hat which she had donated, as she could detect

the pinholes in the brim where she had removed the amber-headed hat pin

which she had inherited from her grandmother, who had advised her to stick it

into any male who bothered her in the dark at the cinema. (Drusilla had never

had occasion to employ this strategy and felt that she might have been

arrested if she had done so.)  Even after all these years of teaching in a girls’

school, she was still somewhat in the dark as to what male reprehensible

behaviour might consist of, and she was, frankly, rather disappointed that no

one had ever molested her sufficiently as to render the bodkin’s function as

anything greater than decorative.

In fact, when she saw how fetching the hat could be, she immediately wished,

like many other women who part with items from their bulging wardrobes, that

she could turn back the clock and reverse her actions. She was completely

distracted and paid no attention to the Head’s speech, in common with most of

the assembly, admittedly.

She missed the accolade to all those who have acted as the pacemakers of

the pastoral heartbeat of this remarkable institution. Old Girl, Ffion

Tullibardine-Tompkins’ account of how she had scaled The Shard in aid

of the locally-favoured charity, Anacondas In Adversity! went entirely

unregistered.

She was last on her feet for the rousing school song, scraped enthusiastically

by the Junior Orchestra: Here’s tae Us/ Whae’s Like Us?/ Gey Few..An’ They’re

A’ Deid, to the tune Auchenschuggle.

By Monday, the first day of her holiday, she had re-purchased the hat for

£12.99 from the charity shop.  She couldn’t believe her luck, having spotted

it immediately it had re-appeared in the window.  She’d been on her way to

meet an ex-colleague for coffee, since friends were in rather short supply.

Help The Ancient is, as you all know, dear Readers, right next to

Costamuchamoulah, the must-seen cafe.  Now she only needed the

appropriate occasion to bring the cat, I mean hat out of the box.

Hi, Miss Fotheringay-Syylk.

Drat: it was that awful Juniper girl.  Why hadn’t she gone away like the others?

Of course, Mrs Boothroyd-Smythe had to work, unlike most of Juniper’s

classmates’ mothers.

It looked better on you than on my mum!

(She had been spying through the window.)

But why did Drusilla always feel that the girl was being sarcastic?  Maybe it

was the not-so-fleeting snigger that played about her lips.

Have a nice holiday, Juniper, she smiled.  In fact, she thought, Why don’t you

take a premature gap year, or ten?

And then Drusilla tripped over the pavement art.

Yarn bombing! Grrr!!!

Sorry, Miss Fotheringay-Syylk. I hope you haven’t broken your ankle.  Do you

want me to call an ambulance on my mobile?  Let me carry your hatbox.

The first day of the holidays in Casualty.  She might have known.