ANOTHER BLAST FROM THE PAST
Wednesday, 23 September 2015
The passing of the Times Educational Supplement Opinion Forum
Dear reader,
Come back with me to April 2005. I'm lazing back in an armchair in the school staffroom, my shoes off and my feet up on one of the adjacent armchairs. I'm flicking through the Times Educational Supplement when I come across an article about the TES website. Must investigate I thought. I did and that is how I discovered Opinion Forum. From that very day I have perused or posted on Opinion Forum. Something has now gone out of my life. I am bereft. If I ever get around to writing my memoirs I will not chicken out (unlike some I could mention!) of doing adequate justice to my involvement in that splendid project.
I remember my first post. It was addressed to the late Elaine C. She had been wittering on about some boring matter and I posted: 'Elaine, one day you will write an interesting post and pigs will fly over Uxbridge.' She was furious and launched into a tirade against me. Ha! Ha! Ha! Great memories. Very quickly after I got into a spat with some of Elaine C's friends, Mixu, Wordsworth, Inky et al. I'm afraid I lost it a bit and posted: 'You bitches! Call yourselves teachers? Ha! Ha! Ha! Don't make me laugh. I wouldn't give any of you a job as a cleaner in the lowest pissoir in Uxbridge.'
One of the first heavyweights I tangled with on the forum was Rob Steadman. Rob had the uncanny ability to keep four or five threads in the air at the same time. He was very knowledgeable but I had to correct him on several occasions about Oxford University. Then there was a very erudite poster named Jbloggs that I crossed swords with. He was an MFL teacher and a practising Anglican. We had a great ding-dong battle over the Church of England. It went to almost three thousand posts.
And all those usernames that I adopted: Existentialdyke, Nonexistentialdyke, Robert Pennington, Yarooleggoyoubeasts, Johnny Bluenote, Ralph Palladin, Gene Tunney, Albert Westphal, Gabriel 'Flash' Elorde, In You Go Jones etc. Then of course Big S. The Big S thread had I think the greatest ever number of posts on the forum. Remember Carol and Mr X who wore slip-on shoes with metal buckles and polo necks? OH! CAROLl! It developed into my novel, HEARTBREAK AT HILLINGDON HIGH. Then of course there was my old friend Detterling - he was posting under the username Selwyn in those days.
I remember my first post. It was addressed to the late Elaine C. She had been wittering on about some boring matter and I posted: 'Elaine, one day you will write an interesting post and pigs will fly over Uxbridge.' She was furious and launched into a tirade against me. Ha! Ha! Ha! Great memories. Very quickly after I got into a spat with some of Elaine C's friends, Mixu, Wordsworth, Inky et al. I'm afraid I lost it a bit and posted: 'You bitches! Call yourselves teachers? Ha! Ha! Ha! Don't make me laugh. I wouldn't give any of you a job as a cleaner in the lowest pissoir in Uxbridge.'
One of the first heavyweights I tangled with on the forum was Rob Steadman. Rob had the uncanny ability to keep four or five threads in the air at the same time. He was very knowledgeable but I had to correct him on several occasions about Oxford University. Then there was a very erudite poster named Jbloggs that I crossed swords with. He was an MFL teacher and a practising Anglican. We had a great ding-dong battle over the Church of England. It went to almost three thousand posts.
And all those usernames that I adopted: Existentialdyke, Nonexistentialdyke, Robert Pennington, Yarooleggoyoubeasts, Johnny Bluenote, Ralph Palladin, Gene Tunney, Albert Westphal, Gabriel 'Flash' Elorde, In You Go Jones etc. Then of course Big S. The Big S thread had I think the greatest ever number of posts on the forum. Remember Carol and Mr X who wore slip-on shoes with metal buckles and polo necks? OH! CAROLl! It developed into my novel, HEARTBREAK AT HILLINGDON HIGH. Then of course there was my old friend Detterling - he was posting under the username Selwyn in those days.
The first I remember of Detterling he was having a row with Sir Henry Rawlinson. I took Sir Henry's side and then Detters turned his guns on me. At the start most of the battles between me and him were over Mrs Thatcher's legacy but out of the blue Detters announced to all and sundry that he had a ginger nephew. Then all hell broke loose. Some forthright views were exchanged I can tell you. To ease things I invited Detters down for a day's fishing on the Grand Union Canal at Uxbridge. I had a spot in mind that is one of my favourites - Black Jack's Lock out towards Denham.
The Grand Union Canal towards Denham
The Grand Union Canal towards Denham
Yep, l had it all planned. I would meet Detters at Uxbridge Station, we would drive out to the Coy Carp pub and restaurant on the canal just out beyond Harefield. I would park in the pub car park, we would have a beer and then head up towards Black Jack's Lock. This is a beautiful spot where the River Colne flows alongside the canal. We would follow the towpath beyond Black Jack's Lock and fish the stretch out towards Denham. I would supply a Fortnum & Mason picnic hamper for lunch. Alas it was never to be. Sadly Detters declined my generous invitation. I guess here we got the first glimpse of the Tyneside bottle job he turned out to be.
Now this was August 2005. Back to the new academic year in September and there was such a buzz about Opinion Forum. Detters continued to draw a lot of flak from posters over his intransigence over his nephew. Self-righteous and inflexible he just could not be talked to. I did offer him wise and compassionate advice but would he listen? Would he hell. It was plain to all of us that he was in serious denial - in particular about the very real dangers of the gay lifestyle. He was pompous and arrogant and of course completely dismissive of any poster who did not toe totally the pinko liberal line on these issues. What he couldn't seem to get into his Tyneside head was that posters were in no way condemning his nephew. They were genuinely trying to help. Indeed I myself posted: 'In the Catechism of the Catholic Church it is made clear that all forms of discrimination, abuse, disrespect, prejudice, hatred, insulting remarks are to have no place among us. Often such behaviour really reveals the latent insecurities about the abuser's own sexual identity.'
Anyhow life went on and we were joined by some great new posters on Opinion Forum - in particular a very learned Aberdonian, Grunwald and a Headteacher who adopted herself the username, Middlemarch. Thling (who soon transmogrified into Cuteinpuce) was a well informed Catholic, and Existentialtyke, a solicitor turned teacher, kept us up to speed with legal matters in respect of educational issues.. Two acolytes of Detterling also made their appearance at this time: an awful Scots woman from the Gorbals named Seren_dipity and Bigkid, a total Mummy's boy. (If you are reading this Bigkid I do hope you are wearing your woolly vest. In these chilly evenings you could easily go down with something.)
Now in the next month or so something quite extraordinary happened. Something that stands out in the annals of the forum. One autumn evening Detters was engaged in a right spat with the poster Jjbloggs (Not the poster Jbloggs, the MFL teacher and active C of E member ). Can't remember what the subject of the discussion was - but that's irrelevant. Suddenly Detters threw in the towel. Yes, Detters threw in the towel and announced he was too dizzy to carry on! Who could believe it? What a craven surrender! What a bottle job! Nothing like it happened before or after on Opinion Forum. What a bottle job! In the following days, lambasted from all directions for being such a lily-livered so-and-so, Detters tried to excuse his appalling lack of backbone with all sorts of bluff and bluster. No dice! He was about as convincing as Andrew Neil's hairline. My goodness! Didn't Sir Henry give him hell for months over his yellow streak!
Nevertheless I think Detters benefitted by posting about his nephew. It was a way of letting it all hang out. A catharsis if you like. And that's fine. I actually did something of the same myself. I started a thread about my disastrous first marriage - well, I shouldn't say 'marriage' as it was annulled by the Church. A marriage in effect never existed. A couple of years before I had gone through counselling to try and come to terms with agonising flashbacks to that traumatic time in my life. I found the counselling helpful. I did get some sympathetic listeners on the forum thread and I felt this was also helpful. Not that in general everyone was sympathetic to Gene - far from it. But did I care? Millwall fans have a chant that goes something like: Nobody likes us... we don't care. Well that goes for me also.
By early 2006 I was becoming quite well known and quite well resented on Opinion Forum. I remember getting an email from a lady who had attended one of the TES meets - in Leeds if I remember correctly - and she told me that quite a bit of the talk had been about Gene. Then in February 2006 I started the Big S thread. Wow! Was it successful? Or was it successful? A brilliant wind up, it had the pinko liberal leftists grinding their teeth in fury. Detters was incandescent with rage. It led to my novel HEARTBREAK AT HILLINGDON HIGH. Let us recall the opening:
Nevertheless I think Detters benefitted by posting about his nephew. It was a way of letting it all hang out. A catharsis if you like. And that's fine. I actually did something of the same myself. I started a thread about my disastrous first marriage - well, I shouldn't say 'marriage' as it was annulled by the Church. A marriage in effect never existed. A couple of years before I had gone through counselling to try and come to terms with agonising flashbacks to that traumatic time in my life. I found the counselling helpful. I did get some sympathetic listeners on the forum thread and I felt this was also helpful. Not that in general everyone was sympathetic to Gene - far from it. But did I care? Millwall fans have a chant that goes something like: Nobody likes us... we don't care. Well that goes for me also.
By early 2006 I was becoming quite well known and quite well resented on Opinion Forum. I remember getting an email from a lady who had attended one of the TES meets - in Leeds if I remember correctly - and she told me that quite a bit of the talk had been about Gene. Then in February 2006 I started the Big S thread. Wow! Was it successful? Or was it successful? A brilliant wind up, it had the pinko liberal leftists grinding their teeth in fury. Detters was incandescent with rage. It led to my novel HEARTBREAK AT HILLINGDON HIGH. Let us recall the opening:
HEARTBREAK at HILLINGDON HIGH
A sneak preview of the opening of my novel HEARTBREAK at HILLINGDON HIGH. It tells the story of Carol, a stunning blonde teaching in the English department at HH, who falls for Mr X, a handsome, curly-haired Irishman who teaches in the MFL department at this same school. Mr X has soft brown eyes which are Sanpaku and is quite a charmer with a penchant for slip-on shoes with metal buckles and polo-necked jumpers. But Mr X has a dark secret...
EXTRACT:
EXTRACT:
Deputy Head Michelle Gove strode across the central quadrangle of Hilllingdon High. It was 6. 30am, a beautiful summer morning. A faint breeze wafted across carrying on it the rich tang from the Grand Union Canal. The breeze dislodged petal blossoms from the flowering cherry trees and they landed in flocculent dustings on the neatly trimmed lawns. The janitor, chirpy Cockney, Nobby Clarkeson, came across from his early morning opening-up doors rounds.
'What a beautiful morning Nobby,' said Michelle, 'I always love this last Friday before the summer mid-term break. It makes one feel there's a God in heaven and that all is well with the world.'
'If you say so Mrs G,' Nobby acquiesced.
'Let's hope the remainder of this term is not disrupted by any more of those public sector strikes,' said Michelle.
'Don't get me started Mrs G,' said Nobby. 'Know what? I would have any teachers who go on strike taken out and shot in front of their forms.'
'Why Nobby that is exactly the view of the SMT in this school!' exclaimed Michelle. 'But have we got a government with the guts to implement such a policy?'
'Have we hell!,' snorted Nobby and disappeared in the direction of the toilets in a jangling of keys.
Michelle carried on across the quadrangle and caught sight of leather-clad Dale 'Larry' Grayson, the Head of Drama, parking his elaborately customized Honda Gold Wing motorcycle in the car park. 'Silly old poseur,' thought Michelle, 'and I don't care much for his pinko liberal politically correct views either.'
Michelle entered the main block and coming from the ajar door of the staffroom she could hear music playing lowly - the Beach Boys singing Sloop John B. Gingerly she pushed the door open and at the far end of the staffroom saw Carol slumped across a table, her blonde hair in disarray and an Ipod player cradled in her arms.
'My God Carol! Have you been here all night?' exclaimed Michelle.
Carol raised her head from the table and looked at Michelle. Carol was devastation personified. In answer to Michelle she handed her a tear-stained letter and said:
'On my way home after the twilight INSET session last night I found this in my pigeon hole. It's from Mr X.'
Michelle read slowly:
My Dearest Carol,
Where do I begin? ...
Michelle finished reading and said to herself, 'I knew those slip-on shoes with buckles and polo-necked jumpers signalled something that would end in tears.'
Michelle had that indefinable feeling that someone else was near. She looked around and standing there was the notorious staffroom gossip, Amelia Wordsworth. 'Oh my God,' thought Michelle, 'this will be all around the school before morning break.'
OH CAROL ... NEIL SEDAKA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiTtfz2PZJw&feature=related
'What a beautiful morning Nobby,' said Michelle, 'I always love this last Friday before the summer mid-term break. It makes one feel there's a God in heaven and that all is well with the world.'
'If you say so Mrs G,' Nobby acquiesced.
'Let's hope the remainder of this term is not disrupted by any more of those public sector strikes,' said Michelle.
'Don't get me started Mrs G,' said Nobby. 'Know what? I would have any teachers who go on strike taken out and shot in front of their forms.'
'Why Nobby that is exactly the view of the SMT in this school!' exclaimed Michelle. 'But have we got a government with the guts to implement such a policy?'
'Have we hell!,' snorted Nobby and disappeared in the direction of the toilets in a jangling of keys.
Michelle carried on across the quadrangle and caught sight of leather-clad Dale 'Larry' Grayson, the Head of Drama, parking his elaborately customized Honda Gold Wing motorcycle in the car park. 'Silly old poseur,' thought Michelle, 'and I don't care much for his pinko liberal politically correct views either.'
Michelle entered the main block and coming from the ajar door of the staffroom she could hear music playing lowly - the Beach Boys singing Sloop John B. Gingerly she pushed the door open and at the far end of the staffroom saw Carol slumped across a table, her blonde hair in disarray and an Ipod player cradled in her arms.
'My God Carol! Have you been here all night?' exclaimed Michelle.
Carol raised her head from the table and looked at Michelle. Carol was devastation personified. In answer to Michelle she handed her a tear-stained letter and said:
'On my way home after the twilight INSET session last night I found this in my pigeon hole. It's from Mr X.'
Michelle read slowly:
THE HEART HAS ITS REASONS WHICH REASON CAN'T FATHOM
Blaise Pascal
My Dearest Carol,
Where do I begin? ...
Michelle finished reading and said to herself, 'I knew those slip-on shoes with buckles and polo-necked jumpers signalled something that would end in tears.'
Michelle had that indefinable feeling that someone else was near. She looked around and standing there was the notorious staffroom gossip, Amelia Wordsworth. 'Oh my God,' thought Michelle, 'this will be all around the school before morning break.'
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