Diary of an Assistant Mistress (7 page)

James said we could buy our own toasters.

Sunday 13th March

Judo display at the Parish Hall. I attended in order to watch, then it turned out that one of the display team had a broken ankle and please could I ...

The long and the short of it is that I did, in a borrowed judoji which was too large for me and had not been very carefully washed. It wouldn't have been too bad if our enthusiastic Sensei hadn't decided that we should demonstrate breakfalls by doing cartwheels.

Why?

Does it make any kind of sense to the audience? Do they think that being thrown in randori is in any way like performing an inaccurate cartwheel? Would this encourage them to join the club?

Then on top of everything else I had to bump into Torquemada in a corridor. Naturally I was still sweating from my exertions and still wearing the disreputable judoji. He was there for a meeting of the Church of the Second Coming (a group of Methodist sexual deviants?) and accompanied by a couple of Second Comers.

He greeted me with a supercilious "This is our Miss (or should I say Ms) Power." and put a proprietorial hand on my arm - the right arm.

Where does that man get off putting his hands on me? I tried to step backwards but there was the wall. I excused myself on the spurious grounds that I had some randori to get on with and they looked at me on the assumption that I was rather strangely dressed for a cookery demonstration.

In fact I think the Second Comers are

(a) opposed to women wearing trousers for any purpose and

(b) opposed to sports on Sunday - this particular Sunday, I am inclined to agree with them.

I wonder what they would have made of me doing cartwheels (all right attempted cartwheels) without trousers on. A meal, if I know anything about Torquemada's mind.

Monday 14th March

I ache in places where I didn't know I had places. It was the cartwheels that did it. I now know what the phrase "broken on the wheel" is about.

There was a note in my pigeon hole this morning demanding to know why I had not filled in a 40d/487 - notification of return to work - the ranks for the filling in of. In fact it must have got lost among the mass of promotional material from computer companies which always arrives in my pigeon hole on any occasion when I have turned my back on it for five minutes.

Today a parcel arrived and James showed me a privately-made amateur video. Apparently a woman in Darlington makes these videos in the privacy of her own bedroom and sends them out to selected clients: I can only assume there is a lot of unemployment in Darlington.

The video - which consists of ten-minute clips: Susan strips; Susan and a friend have some bi-girl fun; Susan get's rogered by her overweight friend Roger from several different angles; Susan uses a dildo of ludicrous proportions for various purposes etc - was at least uninhibited. There weren't attempts to exclude penes, there were considerable attempts to get Roger's large member into sharp focus. The picture quality was fairly poor and, although I didn't think much of Roger, some of Susan's friends were more prepossessing and - yes - I was turned on by parts of this video because the amateur nature of the video suggested that they were somehow more real than the actors and actresses in James' usual videos.

Of course there is a price to be paid for all this entertainment, so I thought I'd start out by getting him to put some Algipan on my aching back to stress my decrepit state. This didn't help because he got Algipan in all sorts of other places as well and in the end we both got rather hot and bothered.

Tuesday 15th March

I thought I had back ache yesterday. This morning I had difficulty getting out of the car I'd vowed not to use again.

The day started badly with a major row about timetabling with the Maths department. I don't wish to record the details except to say that I am entirely right in every respect and they are entirely wrong.

To say that Pat and I are not talking would be inaccurate. We had a lengthy stand-up row in the staffroom at lunchtime. If he thinks I am giving up my computers (all right, his computers) for a group of seventh years to use when I am supposed to have a group of tenth years learning IT without computers, he has another think coming.

I have the backing of Oz, which is negligible, but for some reason Snooks dislikes Pat more than she dislikes me so could be regarded as neutral. It all depends on how Peter (the deputy head) responds. Fortunately he has had arguments with the Maths department before.

Wednesday 16th March

This morning I find that the Maths department have pre-empted the issue by taking all their computers out of the computer room and putting them back into classrooms. There is now a computer room without any computers in - in which I will be teaching Information Technology on Friday.

Big girls don't cry.

Thursday 17th March

The good news is that the English Department Archimedes has arrived back from the repair experts. The bad news is that the disk drive still gives a "broken directory" message with every disk we put in it.

Big girls don't cry.

Friday 18th March

Eleventh year Information Technology. No Maths Department computers available. Business studies have offered the use of two computers providing I only send my pupils up two at a time. I assume I have to do community singing with the other fourteen (it used to be fifteen but Ali dropped out of school and is only nominally on the register now).

In the event I got hold of two - count them two - old BBC B's and they played "Developing Tray" - it is not relevant to the course but it kept them more occupied than they would otherwise have been.

After school I tried to get hold of Pat, Peter and Olive but they had all mysteriously disappeared. Oz told me helpfully that he wouldn't put up with it himself, but then he doesn't have to put up with it, does he?

James had another of his videos tonight. This one - a pirated version of a European film - is called simply "Girls who suck." and does not feature lollipops in any fashion.

I assumed that he was making a request of some kind but I warned him that I was in a biting mood. He said that as long as I was in a biting mood, would I mind digging my fingernails into him as well. He is incorrigible, thank goodness.

Saturday 19th March

Today I did no marking and I made a conscious effort not to think about work. This was only partly successful because when we went for tea at the vicarage, John asked me how things were at work and - in a fit of bad manners - I told him.

He sympathised and suggested all sorts of unprofessional (and ungodly) things I might do to Pat and the mad mathematicians. None of it helped but it made me feel a whole lot better.

Sunday 20th March

Today I had to do all the marking I didn't do yesterday. Neil had written a poem entitled "Our Teacher"

"Our teacher is a wonder.

Full of airs and graces,

When we make a ruck,

She don't give a fuck,

But sits in her chair and makes faces."

This is the longest, neatest and probably politest piece of writing Neil has ever done. He quite literally will not understand me when I criticise it.

Monday 21st March

Oz was away today. I told Clair that he was on a training course at a brewery.

"Making pea soup" she retorted.

After school I went to tackle Peter in his office. He was away at an SS meeting (they prefer to be called SMT - Senior Management Team) but his computer was there.

I was sitting at his keyboard when the computer seemed to turn itself on. I was musing on what password he used when I happened to notice a seven digit number on a piece of paper in the bottom of his drawer. Oddly enough it was the codeword in reverse.

I once had a friend who worked for the BBC. He claimed to have put a logic bomb into their computer system which would start deleting random data files if his name were ever removed from the payroll.

Tuesday 22nd March

Today I started negotiations with some of the less computer-minded members of the maths department about moving their computers back into the computer room. They were mystified by the original decision to put them in their classrooms.

Auberon - who is listed as a teacher of computer studies in the staff guide - confessed that he didn't know anything about computers. John didn't want it but didn't like to offend Pat. Debbie thought that after ten years in the Maths department she was qualified as a psychiatric nurse. ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ Rule 1 for survival in disputes with Maths: ³ ³ Your main ally against one member of the Maths department is³ ³ any other member of the Maths department. ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

Then there came a summons to Peter's office and the news that I was being covered for the rest of my lessons today.

The problem was that the network had gone down. Peter tries to take an intelligent interest in computers and he knows enough to make it difficult to pull the wool over his ears.

I started in his office, although I had a feeling I would find the solution to the problem in another office. I started printing out his autoexec.bat and config.sys files on the printer and giving him a bit of an ear-bashing about the computer room.

Then I solemnly went off to every other member of SMT to print out their autoexec.bat files. I happened to know what these files contained - they had to be the same - but a batch file is only as good as the actual files it lists and if one of those is a rogue file some discontented employee had installed the previous night ...

I took the opportunity to sound out opinion and by the time I had finished, I had acquired a fair list of examples of Pat's bloody-mindedness. By three I had quietly eliminated the rogue file, the network was running again and the computer room was to be reinstated.

I was able to recruit the services of my tenth years to move the computers back - I knew Pat could find reasons to stall the move if I left it to him. No more teaching InfoTec without computers - until the next crisis.

Wednesday 23rd March

I felt emboldened to ring up the CRE and speak to the man who answers the phone but doesn't know anything about computers. He said that the man who did know about computers had been unable to find anything wrong with ours and they were sending it back.

Thursday 24th March

Unscheduled shopping trip to Safeways. Met John who inquired why I didn't go to the Co-op and I enquired why he didn't. He then told me that his curate had committed the ultimate, but unfortunately unpunishable sin of defecting to the Methodists.

He then delivered some remarks about Methodists which would have made the reverend Ian Paisley's views on Catholics seem positively ecumenical. I listened in rising bewilderment until I saw the expression in his eyes and we both burst out laughing.

We looked round to see that practically everyone in Safeways wanted to see what the vicar was giggling about - and who the strange woman with him was. I took his arm and led him in the general direction of the condom counter but he wasn't having any. He "made an excuse and left" as NoW journalists once said.

I don't know what the curate's defection actually means but I am sure that John was not unhappy to see the back of him.

I have just remembered that the curate's name was Victor and that a "curate" is a small poker. I don't think I will be able to explain that joke to John.

Friday 25th March

One of the current "buzz words in Education" (apart from "buzz words in education" that is) is "cascades". The idea is that some hapless individual - usually Oz - goes off on a course and then comes back and tells us all about it.

Oz came in to one of my tenth year lessons to tell me about such a "cascading" session and Mandy (who is called Mandy Lifeboats so frequently I call her that myself) and her friends had a fit of the giggles.

It transpires that a "cascading session" means something QUITE different in Mandy's little circle. It sounds perfectly unhealthy.

Saturday 26th March

I told James about Mandy's "cascading sessions." Fortunately he didn't express any interest. You never know with him.

Sunday 27th March

Ninth year marking.

Monday 28th March

As far as I'm concerned, the holiday hasn't begun until James goes to work and I don't. I am being virtuous and spending at least an hour a day marking. Well today anyway. This way those wretched projects which I got my eighth and ninth years to do will eventually get marked.

Tuesday 29th March

Edie had what was referred to as a "hen party." I honestly didn't know anybody did things like that these days. It was a very dreary affair consisting mainly of PE teachers with about half a brain cell between them.

They dutifully squealed when the male strip-o-gram indecently assaulted their colleague in public.

I tried to be bright and amusing without mentioning religion or politics. It was rather like attending a convention of Klanswomen - except they were less interestingly dressed.

Wednesday 30th March

I have the father and mother of all hangovers this morning.. and for what?

Thursday 31st March

Tried to make up for the marking I didn't do yesterday and succeeded. Only the SAT forms to go now.