But first, let me give a quick explanation. Every Public School in England has its own set of very esoteric rules. Every school has their own. For example, in the school of Radley (or as it's more properly pronounced, "Wadley"), all the boys must wear blueberries on the cuffs of their bell-bottoms on Saturdays and midwinter holidays. Meanwhile, at Eton they must wear top hats and tails every time the Headmaster is making an inspection of the school. They must also refer to male teachers as "Sir" and female teachers as "Giddy Ma'am". Over in Tiffin, all blonde pupils must keep their armpits and noses thoroughly waxed. This is inspected every Ha'Penny day. However, 6th formers are encouraged to grow long bushy mustaches. Our school is no different, and thus the Prize-Giving ceremony followed a very set ritual.
Well, first of all came the ritual sacrifice of the pig. Now many of you Americans who read this blog may not know this, but pig-sacrifice is still a fully accepted part of Independent School life (as long as it follows EU standards), as well as canings and the occasional bit of sodomy in the boy's common room. Smoking is forbidden on school grounds, however. But anyway. The tradition in our school is to sacrifice the pig and then daub the blood on the forehead of the boy who wins the Headmaster's Commendation Book Award. So, after Mr Cullen (RS teacher) had taken out the ceremonial silver knives and pierced the swine's throat, and allowed the blood to collect in the ceremonial silver dish (this was by far the most exciting part of the evening, especially when the pig nearly kicked our history teacher in the face), the silver bell of Sageness was rung by the oldest boy in the school and the Prize-Giving Ceremony could begin.
The rest of the teachers then filed in, wearing their ceremonial robes and looking either very proud of themselves, or mortified beyond belief. Everyone in the audience pretended that they were taking this solemn procession very seriously. I don't know why, it looked frankly ridiculous. I kept rupturing blood vessels in an attempt to not laugh at Mr Simpson wearing his huge fluffy red robe. I'm sorry, I should have been taking proceedings seriously, but COME ON. THEY WERE WEARING STUPID ACADEMIC ROBES. I bet that they all chased each other around the corridors beforehand yelling "I'M BATMAN!", giggling madly, and pushing hoops along with a stick.
Oh yeah, and talking of dumbass uniforms, the MP (member of parliament, dickhead) of our region was also present. Now it is the rule that MPs in this country have to wear full elaborate beefeater dress complete with huge gold medallion and lacy gloves at all time. He sat on the front row for the entire proceedings, said nothing, did nothing, just clapped ocasionally. Wearing lacy white gloves. I actually wish that I was making this bit up.
Next came the speeches. The school governor, a solemn looking man wearing the traditional public school laurel wreath across his ears and carrying the Hampton chalice of knowledge, gave a glowing speech about how great the school was. This was followed by the Headmaster (an aloof character who never leaves his office in school hours except to administer canings), who gave a glowing speech about how great the school was. Between the two speeches, everything possibly connected with the school was complimented, many times over. The buildings, the staff, the chapel, the buildings again, any future buildings that they might be planning on building, the staff again, the sports results, the staff, the way that the wind blows past the south-east block, the trees, the grounds, the groundkeeper, the little hobo who lives in the entrance halls and shines the teacher's shoes, the staff AGAIN, the gruel provision of the kitchens, the caning facilities, the caretakers, the staff, the exam results, the exam results, the exam results, the exam results, the brilliant way in which we did in our exams, the staff again, and finally... the staff.
This speech lasted roughly fifteen and a half hours. The staff were mentioned about seven hundred and fifty times. The boys in the school were not mentioned once. We are therefore not important. We knew this beforehand. There are posters up all around our school with the words You are not important in big bold letters. The teachers take these down every time parents come for a tour of the school. We're also allowed to smile and breathe above the regulated 20 breaths a minute when parents come round. It's quite a treat, really.
Finally, the prizes were given out, the winner of the Headmaster's Commendation Award was daubed, and I recieved my book prize (seeing as I won an English prize and I no longer do art, I chose an art book about Banksy; king of graffiti artists) and heartily shook the hand of Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. "Very well done," he said to me cheerily. I nodded at him with a healthy amount of respect. Actually, I was kind of glad that he hadn't just taken that opportunity to flick through the book he was about to present to me. The artist has a kind of anti-police thing going on. This was like on the second page:
Would it have done for him to have seen that? No. I think not. Anyway, after three solid hours of prizes being given out to increasingly stoned looking leavers, and a nice recital by the school Chamber-Piccolo Sextet, Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police gave us a speech. It was a very rousing speech, full of such hilarious jokes as 'Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police phoning up another police station, only to be rudely treated by the operator" and "Sir John Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police tells a joke featuring a boat and a lighthouse". Man, how we laughed at his many witty jokes. You know, if he hadn't been the Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force, I reckon that he'd have been an EXCELLENT stand up comedian. No, seriously, people were ROLLING IN THE AISLES. I was laughing so hard, my sides LITERALLY split. Actually, I was too busy watching him and thinking about how many confessions he'd beaten out of people in the past. There's a man whose done some torturing, I thought. Ol' Sir John "I'll hacksaw off your other foot if you don't tell me who sold you those drugs" Stevens, Ex-Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police - funny guy.
Talking of torture, I haven't even got to the reception after the main event. Well, first the school amateur mime-acrobatics team had to perform a ten minute solo from the acrobatic-mime adaptation of Journey's End. Following this, the organist played the National Anthem. Everyone stood up and sang it, looking very confused. I got to 'God Save our Gracious Queen" before petering out into singing random vowels in the vague tune of the song. Personally, I think that they should replace the National Anthem with "Into The Groove" by Madonna. That's a song that everyone loves and can sing along to. It's also finger-clickin' groovay.
Finally... FINALLY... we were allowed into the reception area, where we all mingled and congratulated each other on being just so damn amazing at everything. I also invented myself a brand new game.
Canapé Russian Roulette
This is an awesome game. It's a game of skill, luck, and bravery. And best of all, it's very simple to learn, and can last you any number of foolish corporate gatherings. You don't need very much to play this game. In fact, all you need is yourself. And one other person to play against. And some canapés. And possibly a large prize-giving occasion in which you are served such canapés. Because you can't go out and buy them yourself, oh no! That would ruin the whole point of the game.
Right. Once you have your crucial elements, the game is simple. You just pick up a canapé at random (one that you've never seen before in your life) and take a BIT bite. You must then chew and swallow it. You are NOT allowed to poke, closely examine, sniff, nibble, lick, test-taste, gulp, sluice, or spit out said canapé. That is against the rules. Once you've done this, you can either eat the rest of the canapé, or get rid of it. You then move onto the next tray and repeat. This continues until you are physically incapable of trying any more disgusting cheese whip garlic fish paste puff pastry chewy crunchy vegetable paste spicy crap covered wrap sausage battered pieces of shit canapés.
I was not good at this game. I managed a total of ONE canapé before giving up. But it was a motherFUCKER of a canapé. Of all the canapés in the world, this baby must have been the worst. This baby and its brothers and sisters. There was a big pile of them. They looked like a delicious combination of Yorkshire Pudding and Profiterole. There was a delicious looking white cream oozing from one. "Ooh" I thought to myself. "That does look delicious. I shall partake." I then picked it up and took a huge bite.
Oh. My. God.
I don't know what was in that canapé. I don't want to know. It was like some weird salmon mousse cream cheese culinary inbred incestuous abortion of a paste. Literally, the room span around me. I choked on it, gasped for air, leapt around gurkking, before rushing to the juice bar. Christ. And then I was stuck with three quarters of the canapé of doom still to eat. Because you can't just put it down somewhere. Oh no, that's against social conduct. And you can't just put it back on the plate, half eaten. Unhygenic. And you can't throw it in the air then punt it across the room into a crowd of 13 year olds. So I was left holding this thing, until I thought 'fuck it' and threw it into a random sink.
Who the fuck eats canapés and enjoys them? I'll tell you who: RICH PEOPLE. There. I made some social commentary.
So that's Canapé Russian Roulette, the first of two games that I've been playing recently. The other is the original Gameboy version of Donkey Kong Land. This game is so awesome. First of all, the cartridge is YELLOW, which is pretty cool, as all the other Gameboy cartridges were crappy old grey. Secondly, you get to play as either Diddy (boo) or DONKEY (woo) Kong, and you can run around jumping on the heads of snakes, gophers, evil monsters, armadillos, flying pigs, giant men, but not wasps. Whatever you do, DON'T try to jump on the wasps. They kill you.
What's brilliant is that its been like seven years since I last played this game, but I still remember the exact location of nearly every enemy, every K-O-N-G piece, most of the bonus levels, and in fact every jump in the game. I automatically remembered the traditional 'roll off every edge to give yourself an extra long jump' tactic without even thinking about it.
THOSE are reflexes. Awesome. And yet, I can remember all that, but I have no clue about the subjunctive? Life, ce ne'st pas fair.
I'm living it up, y'all.
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