I remember the futility and stupidity of having to write out 200 times things like "I must not be late for class" as if this would make you turn up on time. Actually thinking about it, it probably did have that effect but not for the right reasons.
I remember getting lines once for turning up late for a lesson. I had been to PE which took place on the playing field which was a good five minute walk or two minute run from the classrooms. Often, after a shower, we were given so little time to get to the next lesson that we had to run with all our bags. On this occasion I was desperate to go to the loo and as a consequence was late for the next lesson and got the lines.
Then you did that ridiculous thing of tying pens together in an attempt to write five or six lines at a time. The pens break out and the whole thing became a mess.
Early in my days at grammar school, discipline was metered out through a feeling of fear. When the Head walked across the playground to go to lunch we all had to remain completely still. Obviously this was thought to be a mark of respect but it was exactly the opposite. It was a mark of fear and resentment.
Then when I became a prefect I used to give out lines. I wasn't old enough to realise that this was a pretty moronic thing to do. I remember the one that was the favourite amongst prefects.
"Persistent Perversity Provokes the Patient Pedagogue to Participate in Particularly Painful Punishment."
What a mindlessly irrelevant phrase that seemed clever at the time but now just seems risible. We lived in fear of that Head Master. He had the initials AS which seem to have occurred many times in my life. My father and grandfather had those initials as does my wife (and we all know I'm scared of her). Also they are the initials of Arnold Schwarzenegger which has no relevance to anything but I just thought I would point it out.
Interestingly when AS retired as Head he was replaced by a new head with the initials SA which seemed appropriate because SA was the mirror opposite of AS. I hated AS and had no respect for him but SA began to modernise the school. I had a deep respect for him and got on very well under his tutelage.
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Yesterday afternoon I got my COVID jab at Cringleford Surgery. I decided to walk there as my daily Steward Stroll, hoping that I would have no adverse reaction to the vaccine but knowing that if I did my wife would drive out and pick me up. I was working on the assumption that walking and fresh air are good for you.
It took me 50 minutes to walk there - which was much longer than it took to get the jab. I was booked in, stood in a line of just two and within a couple of minutes was having the jab. Didn't feel a thing. As I had the sit and wait 15 minutes jab, I had a short sit and then the long walk home. By the time I got back my feet were hurting a lot more than my arm, although I did feel shivery and very tired during the evening.
But I'm so pleased to think that over the next days and weeks my immunity will increase and there's still the second dose to look forward to in May.