The following month, in French, around the 10th or so, the Teacher, though he wasn't a very good one to be honest, as he couldn't control the class, asked me if I was ready when he asked me a question. I replied, "I am ready when you are, Shaky!". All the class started laughing. On this occasion though, I intended to be funny. He didn't understand what the joke was. I don't think half of the class did. To them, they probably laughed because it was such a off-the-wall answer. However, I knew the relevance of what I was saying. It was based on Cliff Richard and the "Young Ones" 1986 Comic Relief video, in which they did a reworked version of Cliff's original 1959 number one, "Living Doll". It sounded slightly different to the original, and in the song, the "Young Ones" were asked if they were ready. Vivian replied, in his usual angry voice, "I'm bleeding ready when you are, Shaky!".
I remember helping my older cousin do some work on his sister's house during the summer of August 1991. It was a warm, dry and sunny month. It was at the time of Mikhail Gorbachev's overthrow in a coup, though it happened to be temporary. On my birthday that year I went for a meal with my parents, and we were talking about the coup and I quoted something the then Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, said in August 1945. It was when he slammed East European elections as being one kind "Totalitarianism replacing another".
On Sunday, 15th September 1991, my mum told me off for something I had said or did. I had gone to Thoresby Market with my parents and an Aunt and Uncle. I sulked that day, because I was in the right. I barely spoke for a while, and my uncle cheered me up by buying me a huge Laurel and Hardy framed photograph, as I was a fan of theirs, and still am today, but looking back now, two decades later, I would say I was suffering from a form of depression at my life in September 1991. Of course, it wasn't taken as seriously in teenage school pupils then as now.
On Wednesday, 4th December 1991, I had a chat with my Form Teacher about how I was faring at school and how I enjoyed it. I didn't tell her everything, how I felt, what my views were on school. I always have been an outspoken person, as I was then, but she wasn't someone I liked, or trusted, or who I could confide in. She asked me what my hobbies were. I gave them, but what I said I can't remember. I think it was playing computer games, reading and listening to music. She said that they "Are solitary activities aren't they?".
On the penultimate day of 1991, I was asked if I wanted to go ten-pin bowling. I said that I couldn't afford it, and that they should be aware that "There is a recession on". They laughed and replied that I wasn't helping the recession by not spending money. I went eventually, and it was memorable for someone I went with falling down as he was about to take a shot!
