Saturday 14 April 2012

Civilian

Great - the kids got me to take them to the appallingly misnomered fun fair on a desolate piece of out of town scrubby pylon flecked edgeland on the way to the rubble of the former redundant power station. You get the picture. Well, it was the last few days of the holiday and it was a choice between the Horror and trauma of said  fair or the Horror and trauma of the DIY shop / gardening centre double header as Mrs B has got it into her mind that the house was looking all lived in and the neighbour had passed comment on the maturity of the garden.  No argument - it's a holiday, time off, getting away from the chores or helping out on the desperate Easter revision school....so needless to say the supposed fun fair won out as the nagging of the kids was more powerful than the call of Homebase or holiday revision for Year 11s ever could be. There is plenty of time for that stuff and nonsense when I retire at 75 or get receipt of  my P45.

I did use to enjoy amusement parks as a kid and enjoyed the Year 7 jollies to the money extraction themed Thorpe Park  and Disney on a spurious French trip - all of dubious educational value but Space Mountain was worth it. It's been a while though since I have been to one and it must be accepted that Grimmouth, like all past-it seaside towns, is to Disney as a Greggs pasty warm or cold  is to decent food. It's a marvellous mixture of patched up seedy rickety wooden 1930s style friendly rides and some shiny noisy ones with epilepsy inducing strobe effects,  movement designed to induce nothing but bubbling bladder boiling fear, blackouts and copious amounts of fun fair fast food themed lumpy steaming vomit of which there was much...and of course, bless 'em, there were several packs of the Academy's Most Outstanding  who had made it away from their screens and out, pale faced and blinkingly, into the sunlight. I always like the reactions of students when they see you out as a civilian. Some are very friendly and genuinely pleased to see you in the way they would be if a (very) minor celeb hit town - not that they ever would find reason to. Some are embarrassed, others look your children up and down suspiciously - you  can see the thought bubble develop: are they really his or is that twatty tosser who tries to teaches me a kiddy fiddler? Why else would a mostly middle aged man come to fair runs the logical logic? Indeed, why would one? It's like going to a kids film without kids.

Other studes,  as happened yesterday, come up to you smile, manage to articulate a cheery hello  (because you have small children with you)  and ask in Oliver Twistesque faux humility whether I could be possibly lend them a pound until Monday to which the only to the tutor group now sod off rule is strictly enforced.

My kids then whispered things about the money bludging scrotes around daring to murmur that  they aren't as bad as you make out dad  and asking lots of curious questions recognising them to my dismay,  as members of their fellow species after all a bit like early explorers encountering new and definitely lost civilizations...although civilization in south east Kent may be pushing it.