P&J Column for 11.11.13
“Remember, remember, the fifth of November”. Though some folk would prefer to forget.
Cava Kenny Cordiner, the football pundit who kicks back!
It was yet another hammer blow for that dying brood, the football hardman, this week when a Fulham player got into bother after the ref consulted video feetage. The boy had gave some little whapper-snipper in a Man Utd shirt a well-deserved stamp on the ankle, and had cleverly managed to shield it from the view of the whistler. But now he’s got his jotters, retrospeculatively. It might surprise my readers to learn that I, too, has also been punished after the event on account of video evidence. As soon as the laws was changed at the start of the season, some bob-a-jobs’-worth refs what still have it in for me got out their old VHS and Betamaxes to watch some of my old games. Needles to say, they’ve tried to pin all sorts of historic impingements on old Kenny. You don’t need me to tell you it’s an absolute stitch up cos the men in black have always had a vienetta against me. So far I’ve picked up an additional 2 red cards for off-the-ball incidentals and, after they got a lip-reader in, 13 yellows for dissent and foul language. This is the latest in a long line of changes to the laws of the game what is designed to margarinise those of us what have made our careers out of halfing more talented opponents. If you ask me, it all started to go pea-shaped when they made shin guards complimentary. They says it was for players’ safety but I reckon shin guards has caused more injuries than what they have not caused. I remember once going in studs-up on some chancer from Brora Rangers. It was so rough I tore his sock and put a big dent in the shin guard. He picked it up and waved it at me and he says to me, he says “you’re lucky I wiz weerin’ this, pal, you could of broke my leg!” The ref was looking the other way, so I grabs it off him and clouts him over the head with it. Obviously, if it wasn’t for the shin guard, he never would of got that percussion.
Jonathan M Lewis, local headmaster
Once again I find myself responding to completely baseless calls for my resignation in the wake of what has been mischievously, and erroneously dubbed “Anarchy week“. Let me take this opportunity to state that the events of the last few days have been nothing but a source of pride for all here at Garioch Academy. Mr Cameron has long been the inspirational figurehead of our successful History department. The way he brings the subject alive for the youngsters truly is without equal. Surely parents can appreciate the effectiveness of his lessons on Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, given the extraordinary lengths to which his pupils went to re-enact the events leading up to 5 November 1605. I was as impressed as I was surprised to discover that they had filled the cupboard below my office with firewood, coal and high-explosives. Indeed, when the janitor heard the faint cries of the first year boy they had locked in there, I was taken aback at the level of detail they had put into their efforts; the young person’s name was Kai Fox! Some parents have claimed, hysterically, that their children’s lives were somehow in danger. Yes, on one view, the materials did present something of a fire risk. And yes, young Kai’s absence was not picked up by any of his teachers, on either of the days he was locked in the cupboard. And yes, the school finances could do without footing the bill for the attendance of the army bomb disposal unit. But there was never any real risk to our safety. Given that this was obviously a factually accurate historical re-enactment, it was clearly intended to be discovered at the eleventh hour. Not withstanding the subsequent discovery in the fifth year common room of cigarette lighters and 200 feet of fuse wire.Some parents have asked further questions regarding my decision to allow Remembrance poppies with actual pins in the school. The usual Health and Safety nonsense spewed f orth but as ever our pupils showed maturity and creativity that belies their tender years. The physics department were most impressed with the pupils’ ability to adapt them into perfect aerodynamic projectiles. Whilst none of them broke the sound barrier, more than a handful broke the glass of the Chemistry lab’s fume cupboard. I maintain that the cost of a specialist glazier is as nothing compared to the value of a diverse learning experience. The poppies were put to medicinal use too. Kevin “Cold Sore” Corsar was treated to an extensive acupuncture session by his classmate, Scott “Psycho” Garvie. Their, entirely voluntary, exploration of alternative medicine resulted in Kevin being pinned from head to toe in poppies in the PE changing rooms. Though Kevin’s parents phoned the council to complain, they couldn’t deny that for the first time in this academic session, he wasn’t complaining about his cold sores!
See the Flying Pigs live in ‘Finzean in the Rain’ at HMT all this week until Saturday the 16th November.