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NEW! MR MONDAY BANS CHESS! FOLLOW THE PAGE DOWN TO READ THE SECOND EXCITING INSTALLMENT!
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Okay, so I was born near Manchester, UK. I moved from house to house. Manchester to Devon, Devon to Cornwall, Cornwall to Portsmouth, Portsmouth to Oxford, Oxford to Leyton, Leyton to Clayhall, Clayhall to Epping, Epping to Sawbridgeworth, Sawbridgeworth to my now not so secret hide out (and to those who don't know it's location, my VERY secret hideout).
My school was the Bishop Stortford High School where they taught me how to hate people. Not intentionally, mind you, but in a more round about sort of way.
I studied Art and Music at College and am flitting between the two while sustaining life through office work.
I hate the smurfs.
I hate TFI Friday (change the format, dude).
I have a love/hate relationship with music, art and sci fi. I enjoy LEXX, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the GALAXY, Blake's 7, Buffy and Doctor Who.
I hate Sliders and Star Trek fans.
I "luv" Homicide: Life on the Street, James Bond (no Moore please, I'm British), Jeeves and Wooster, Friends, old Monty Python and Futurama.
I adore animation nostalgia (He-Man, Godzilla, Inspector Gadget, Battle Of The Planets and the Incredible Hulk.)
Give me Final Fantasy 7, Hardwar and Commandos for ma software, see?
Give me braces, waistcoat, a scarf and a cheap guitar and you've made me happy.
Is that all?
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I was educated primarily at the Bishop's Stortford High School, where I lead a rather introverted existence (picked on, role playing, library, science fiction et al). Until the sixth form where the bullies chased girls, the lads got on with the work and the would-be-grammar school seemed to center on me and friends. So in turn, I'll center on...
I remember sitting in the Sixth Form Center on those dull on Wednesday mornings. Assembly with our Head Of Year, Mr Monday. It was a cramped affair as the Sixth Form Centre had been designed with a capacity of two Sixth formers in mind. This startling foresight meant that 120 seventeen year olds had to pile into this one room every Wedensday. There were never enough chairs so no horizontal service (except the floor of course) was safe from the teenage horde.
There we all were, waiting for purgatory to have the guts to stand up and identify itself as being the Wednesday Sixth form assembly.
The Head of Sixth Form, Mr Monday. He stood at the front. He was a ridiculously tall man. He liked tweed, although it was apparent that tweed didn't like him and thus he and his clothes always looked distinctly uncomfortable with one another.
Like all teachers, he had a strange affliction. Mr Monday would preach to the Sixth Form, but it always felt that he had more interest in the hideous green girders that graced the interior of the building. With his eyes firmly fixed above, to ever get Mr Monday to look you directly in the eye would involve a strong armlock and a swift expulsion.
Mr Monday would approach the end of his diatribe. He would pause, studying the greenness of the girders.
Sometimes, I would see his eyes lower from this vis a vis with the metal infrastructure and party on down with the rest of us homo sapiens. Like a robot his eyes swept the room. Swift, quick and methodical. They then would return to their original position as his facial muscles locked his eyes back into formation.
For he was Mr Monday.
A man with no sense of humour.
*A vowel in his name has been changed to protect his identity.
One is never surprised when the likes of Pokemon are banned from schools.
In an effort to prevent theft and to keep the minds of children firmly fixed on what they should be doing**, Schools have been known to adopt the likes of prohibition.
Of course, by doing so, one risks creating an underground movement - a black market if you will. Pokemon may be considered a hazzard to children's education, but could anyone be so foolish to ignore the dangers of chess?
Be thankful kids, for the intervention of Mr Monday.......
It was a day in the year of the sixth form. A year of study and refinement. Prefect duty, presentations, reading, dramatic discussions and plays.
More importantly, it was a year of producing stunning exam performances and furthering the reputation that the school was an academic school which excelled in all things that boys should excel in.
Science, Maths, Economics, Rugby and Cricket.
Study and refinement in all things snobbish.
Study and refinement in Art, Music, English and Languages however, were considered a waste of time as these were clearly girly things and left to the thicky girls at the nearby girls school.
It was Mr Monday's duty, as Head of Year, and of course, Economics and Business teacher, to stamp on any activities which did not encourage the pursuit of Science, Maths, Economics, Rugby and Cricket.
When it was discovered that during free periods, certain pupils were playing chess, alarm bells began to ring. If this sudden fad was not crushed, the may have been a chance that the nearby girls school would once again beat them in the League tables......
A ban was enforced. Anyone seen with an illegal chess board would have it confiscated.
This really didn't bother the sixth form underworld as the chess boards they were using were owned by the school and once confiscated, would simply be removed again from the games cupboard. Further more, the asking price for a simple chess set was very low and the market for chess sets was wide open outside school grounds.
Mr Monday had to be cunning. It was a big school and chess could be played anywhere. He would find them in the CDT department, Music block, the hall and despite being taller than average he was unable to survey everywhere at once. Also, he had classes to run. If he was lucky he may spot a possible offender scuttling towards the hall with a retangular object under his hand. However the importance of economics would prevent him from pursuing the individual.
More often than not, these offenders would take to the level above him. The walkway between the language and humanties block was an excellent place to hide as these were vaguely girly subjects and often remained unchecked.
Eventually, the chess movement dried up. Less to do with the ban and more to do with chess actually being rather dull.
But then there was kossack dancing.........
Mr Monday's job was a never ending one.
I wouldn't want to be Mr Monday.
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