I’ve just come across this great passage from a 1928 essay by Russell called “Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness”.
I MUST confess that, since I came to know China, I have regarded laziness as one of the best qualities of which men in the mass are capable. We achieve certain things by being energetic, but it may be questioned whether, on balance, the things that we achieve are of any value. We develop wonderful skills in manufacture, part of which we devote to making ships, automobiles, telephones and other means of living luxuriously at high pressure, while another part is devoted to making guns, poison gases and aeroplanes for the purpose of killing each other wholesale. We have a first-class system of administration and taxation, part of which is devoted to education, sanitation and such useful objects, while the rest is devoted to war. In England at the present day most of the national revenue is spent on past and future wars and only in residue on useful objects. On the Continent, in most countries, the proportion is even worse. We have a police system of unexampled efficiency, part of which is devoted to the detection and prevention of crime and part to imprisoning anybody who has new constructive political ideas. In China, until recently, they had none of these things. Industry was too inefficient to produce either automobiles or bombs; the State was too inefficient to catch either bandits or Bolsheviks. The result was that in China, as compared to any white man’s country, there was freedom for all, and a degree of diffused happiness which was amazing in view of the poverty of all but a tiny minority.
I did a talk at the Big Chill on Sunday. I was a little bit hungover, as the previous night I’d been on stage at the Garage in Islington, singing “Teenage Kicks” at their weekly punk rock karoake night. It was a friend’s engagement party and very enjoyable it was, too.
No punk rock at the Big Chill. It is a weekend of mellow dance music for 30,000 chillers. All very lovely, but somehow lacking… edge?
I was booked in to talk at 2.45 and made my way to the library tent. There is quite a nice libraries promotion going on right now. They are trying to make libraries cool, which seems like a good idea, and my son Arthur and daughter Delilah duly covered themselves in stickers which read “Libraries Rock!”
The talk was great fun, largely because I had a very intelligent audience. There was a guy who’d been on the dole for ten years, plus a cynic who accused me of hypocrisy for criticising the industrial world while benefiting from it.
I put forward the idea that festivals such as the Big Chill and Glastonbury fulfill a human need to turn everything upside down for a few days. The old medieval calendar was full of such blow-offs.
But perhaps we need to think about organising our own festivals and making them free, rather than forking our vast sums to other people to do them for us?
After four weeks of hard toil we sent the new Idler off to the publishers last week. It is the Money issue and you can find it on Amazon already, although it is not published till October.
So now we’re kicking back. People accuse us of working too hard but they don’t understand that idleness is all the sweeter after periods of intensive toil.
Back in June, a load of Idler readers went on a weekend retreat at Dial House, the arts centre run by Crass founders Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher. Editor Tom gave a talk, as did John Nicholson, Jay Griffiths and Penny Rimbaud. John Moore played songs round the camp fire. So far so good. But the whole thing has been written up in a piece in the Times Saturday magazine, to appear tomorrow (6 August 2005). So you might like to take a look. We await the article with some trepidation, as who knows what cruel spin a Murdoch paper might put on our band of idle warriors?
So crap even the sand on the beach left about 10 years since.
Like a bad 50’s holiday to the worst seaside resort, Withernsea is where the Neandertal still has yet to become extinct.
Everything is run down, its just dreadful.
Why anyone would want to go on holiday there is beyond me. It’s difficult to get to, and the food on offer is that of the worst seaside fare-fish & chips, or would you like sausage and chips, or perhaps just chips, oh you like French food? French Fries perhaps?
Most exciting part-the amusement arcades (not). Highlight of the year is some dreadful day in August when they drag some bad pub bands who are willing to play in the mini park between the amusement arcades and the sea front.
Sit on the “beach” and look at the muddy water, or marvel at the ships on the horizon pumping out the oil ridden water from their bilges, and throwing there exotic litter & sewage overboard.
Walk along the tide line and marvel at the exotic litter-watch children run up to their pubescent mothers showing them an empty German Condom packet.
A weekly market is where you can buy all of those most needed cassette copies of Humbersides finest country & western singers, or perhaps imbibe in another packet of chips.
Wander around dodging snotty families with pushchairs, and grannies with pull along trollies, marvel at the chinese wares hawked by the Benefit Cheats. Haggle over such classy items as the fibre optic clock with real cat fur on its face… Jesus wept.
M Bond
Withernsea, needles, rats and underage sex
With…a delightful seaside resort with the character of a corpse, and with Hull just down the road, what a wonderful part of the UK to be!
Numerous arcades, full of bandit addicts, alcoholics passing time before the pub opens and 12 year old girls dressed like they are on their way for a night on the street corners of Hull.
Two clubs, if you can call them clubs, both playing shit teeny boppy music and playing host to the many drugged up, pissed up, peodophilic wankers that you get on a Friday night in this town.
So much for a beach, rats, dog shit, litter and needles are scattered over the broken bottles and rocks they call sand.
Its even better in the summer, with the place swarming with townies taking a holiday from Hull, need I say more?
Nicola.
It’s probably my own fault.. as a man with stock phrases, using ‘like a wet weekend in Swindon’ as the last word in pejoratives for any dreary event was probably asking for trouble. But then the year before, my girlfriend had taken us to Rome for my birthday, so you could understand why I got excited when just before the next birthday she’d told me to leave the weekend clear and pack a bag. She didn’t explicitly mention a passport, but I packed it anyway..
I guess she didn’t really know what she was letting us in for. After all, she was from Birmingham so not only did somewhere in Wiltshire sound impossibly glamorous, but even Swindon probably seemed like some West Country Xanadu…
We lasted less than 24 hours. From the dingy hotel with its hysterical guide to the highpoints and history of Swindon (including the wonderful claim that Oasis had taken their name from the town’s leisure centre) to an afternoon at some particularly down at heel and rancid retail park on the other side of town, it was just a protracted trudge through a grimy 70s theme park. We still held out hopes for the evening’s entertainment, although when the least vile bar we could find was some kind of confused Che-style kitsch style job we should have known it was a non-starter. I can’t remember where we ate – I suspect that’s not because it was unmemorable but because it was so unspeakably bad I’ve battled long and hard to keep it deeply, deeply buried in the boxroom of my mind – but I do remember the chilling moment when we realised that the best the evening offered was a Specials covers band at the pub near our hotel… which was sold out. We stuck it out in the upstairs bar, just able to make out the sound of ‘Too Much Too Young’ being murdered through the floorboards until we gave up and headed back to the hotel. We would have made our own entertainment, but 10 hours in Swindon could dampen Mick Hucknell’s libido.
We left by 9am, virtually running to the station. I’ve never been so pleased to see West London.
My girlfriend and I are, surprisingly, no longer together.
Lee Fisher
When I was at school I went on a cruise to Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Greece. For anyone thinking this was some posh school and some luxury trip let me stop you right there. This was a no frills, pack �em in, out of season torture fest. The week before we went the boat we were due to go on sunk off the coast of Italy. Bedraggled school kids were airlifted to safety and the companies �reserve� liner was brought into action for our cruise.
It must have been an ex-prison liner. Our cabin was so low in the depths of the boat that it took ten minutes to walk down all the stairs. In the light of the previous boats difficulties safety was one of the more pressing issues on our minds. There were no fire extinguishers, none of us had any idea how to get out if we had to, kids just ran wild down the corridors, on the spot beatings were issued from each school�s bullies while the teachers reclined and got pissed in the more luxurious cabins at the top of the boat. Mealtimes consisted of a long walk down into the dark corners of the boat to the kitchens where you were issued with a prison metal tray filled with ladels of unknown slop from pissed-off looking Africans. It was so bad I lived off bread rolls for the entire week.
When we got to Egypt we got on a bus for a three-hour drive to see the pyramids. The company had arranged packed lunches, which they had stowed above our seats on the coach. Jeremy Guild pulled his box down and disturbed a large community of cockroaches that rained down on top of him.
After regaining our composure we arrived at the pyramids. Everyone had been warned about the dubious nature of the characters that prayed on young tourists there and we were specifically told not to accept the offer of camel rides. We all took heed of this advice. Everyone that is except for Chloe Richards who was taken out into the middle of the desert on a camel and relieved of all her money and possessions. She wandered back aimlessly screaming her way to the coach. Mr Bunting went off in a rage to �kick the crap out of the fucking bastard.�
On one night my nerdy friends and I attempted to keep a low profile and escape the attentions of the various bullies that prowled the corridors by hiding in our cabin. Sadly for us our very own bully, Gordon Bruce, was determined to find his regular punchbags. Luckily for me my good but undeniably stupid friend Michael had decided to strip down to his pants and wrap himself in sellotape, which Gordon was happy to rip off him before shaving my head and my friend H’s eyebrows. He then proceeded to take a shower with Diane in the cabin opposite (who I was secretly in love with and who always smiled at me) and then spent the night shagging her senseless.
Next stop Israel, the Wailing Wall and the Dead Sea. Chloe Richards was still in a state of distress after the previous ordeal and refused to get off the coach when she saw the machine guns being held by the prowling soldiers at the Wailing Wall. Later I broke my glasses getting changed while Gordon attempted to drown Michael in the Dead Sea.
Last stop Turkey where everyone was determined to buy a cheap leather jacket. After hours of searching the bazaar Michael finally bought one and rolled his shoulders smugly all the way back to the ship. Then Gordon pointed out that the zip was on the left side not the right, which, according to him meant Michael had bought �a bird�s jacket� cue much laughter from everyone while Michael, fighting back the tears, buried his new purchase into his bag, never to wear it ever again.
I decided to treat myself and spent the last of my meagre spending money on a bootleg of Bon Jovi�s New Jersey from a stall at Athens airport. I switched on my Walkman when I got on my seat on the plane and discovered I�d been conned. It was a blank tape. Just when things couldn�t get any worse Gordon decided to sit behind Michael and I so he could spend the entire four-hour flight kicking the backs of our seats. The bastard.
DK
The island of Rhodes stinks of shit. The food, which comes from the same sea that Albania empties its lavatories into, is overpriced and tastes revolting. The local beer is awful. Most of the island’s architecture is half finished and covered in shit. Local flora and fauna consists of lizards and scrub coated in motor oil. Worst of all is Faliraki which nightly fills with the grunts of a thousand drunken women being roughly buttfucked by disease-addled strangers. I’d rather eat my own shit than ever visit Rhodes again … twice is enough.
Ben
When our daughter was about 3, my wife and I decided it would be fun to spend a week near “Parc Safari Africain”, Quebec, in a small cabin on the shores of New York State’s Lake Champlain. We live in Ottawa, so the plan was to make a comparatively inexpensive arrangement that would allow time for leisure, swimming, and couple of zoo visits to view wildlife our daughter had only ever seen, to that point, as photos in books.
Having boundless faith in the Internet and armed with the
telephone-reinforced verbal promises of a cheerful helper at the host town’s Chamber of Commerce, I booked us for a week, and pre-paid for same, into a place with the charmingly rustic name, “les Chalets de Celine” in the town of “Venice en Quebec”, perched atop the one tiny finger of Lake Champlain
that juts out of New York State into Canadian territory.
After a couple hours on the road from Ottawa, as we drove into town we passed a roadside bar whose parking lot was filled with about twenty evil-looking black Harley-Davidsons, surrounded by dozens of bikers wearing “Satan’s Choice” colours — these were the genuine article.
“Les Chalets” turned out to be a line of shed-like structures that resembled those U-Stor-It mini-garages you see for rent; the “beach” was an oil-slicked boat launch ramp across an exceedingly busy roadway. The “pool” was an above-ground thing. As we headed into the office to register, we watched as some slob stood atop a minuscule poolside “diving” platform,
chewed the last few kernels from his heavily-buttered cob of corn, tossed it onto the grass, and then toppled into the water. Thoughtfully, he left his half-consumed bottle of beer on the platform.
I don’t even know why we unpacked. But we did and, about fifteen minutes later, someone opened the double doors of an actual garage (the kind for cars) that lay just across the driveway from our “chalet”, revealing two columns of
massive stereo speakers. The next thing we knew, our one tiny window started vibrating as the near-deafening strains of Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart” finally pummeled us into submission.
I took the cabin key, walked back into the office, mumbled something about a “family emergency”, asked the owner to send us any money he thought fair if he was able to re-rent our hastily-vacated “chalet” (no prizes for guessing how much of a refund we received), packed the car with recreational luggage and family and drove back home through scenic Akwesasne, a First Nations reserve straddling the Canada / US border, where every second house was decorated with a flag proclaiming “You are on Mohawk Warrior Land!”, and the
ones in between displayed hand-lettered signs offering “Cheap smokes!” for sale. Once safely back in Ontario, we stopped at a convenience store and our toddler was beside herself with pleasure as she sat on a tiny patch of lawn lapping up an ice cream bar, while my wife and I agreed that we’d just go
home and spend the week day-tripping out of the house.
Mdicola520@rogers.com
To be honest it wasn�t a crap holiday, not to start with at least. I was thirteen when my mum, dad and I hired a powerboat and spent a fortnight gliding round the Islands off the coast of Greece. At first it was heaven. Deserted islands, cheap and delicious food, the gorgeous daughters of fellow tourists to flirt with, warm clear water and blissful sunshine. The first week was perfect, but then we met Greg and Claire from Hartlepool.
They got on with my parents like a house on fire and we spent the rest of the holiday shadowing each others boats from one island to another. Not so bad you might think, but Greg and Claire were not all they seemed. The next morning when we emerged we discovered that Greg and Claire were completely-shaven naturists.
Once their early inhibitions had been quelled they were naked all the time. At breakfast, when they went for a swim, when we moared on a deserted island and climbed a bracken-covered hill. There seemed no limit to their nakedness. But if you think that sounds excruciatingly embarrassing it soon got worse. Much, much, worse. To my eternal shame, within two days of meeting them Greg and Claire had persuaded my parents to become naturists too.
Embarrassing isn�t the word. Everywhere we went I was the only one wearing any clothes. I went from being an normal teenager on holiday with his normal parents to becoming a maudlin thirteen year old child with startlingly hairy and naked parents. Other boaters avoided us like the plague, especially other boaters with beautiful thirteen-year-old daughters. Holiday romance? Yeah right. But the worst thing was trying to make small talk with Greg and Claire. Talking to friends of your parents when you’re thirteen is hard enough at the best of times, but when they’re naked? And when they’ve made your parents naked? Jesus wept.
Years later while talking to a man I was paying by the hour to disentangle the emotional trauma of my early years, my opinion that my parent’s behaviour had verged on child abuse was confirmed.
Craig
Picture the pointless blight that is Las Vegas, subtract the vice, add lots of humidity, and then place the whole mess in a WalMart parking lot…and apparently what you are left with is the place where people from American crap towns vacation. I dare anyone to locate a business that is not a chain, or a structure that is original, or a natural landmark of any kind.
The local population sequesters itself into a mundane patchwork of gated communities. There is actually a significant young population here, but they seem contented to live life in what are really glorified retirement
communities.
And I haven’t even mentioned the wellspring of high culture that is Disney.
John-Paul Cardoso
Once upon a time Newquay was a sleepy fishing village that had some of the best surf spots in the country. That was then now you will find it promoted by ‘The Sun’ as the Ibiza in the UK.
Go mid summer or any bank holiday and you will find a town over run by illiterate morons who are trashed on a concoction of Scrumpy cider and as may illegal substances as their body will hold, slurring obscenities at any member of the opposite sex that crossed their path.
If you can find a space on the beach it is likely to be littered with used condoms and empty McDonalds burger boxes and god forbid you try surfing these legendary waters, again you will be assailed with sewage and joined by thousands of people who cram themselves into the sea only leaving space for a small five year old.
Night time will bring out the lager outs, prostitutes, drug dealers and night club vampires who swarm on the streets on mass and pile into these extortionately priced dens of iniquity they deem to call night clubs.
Newquay was once a place of relaxation, now it’s just a place of desperation where brides and grooms to be gather for their last night of freedom and debauchery.
It says something when the local people leave during the summer.
James
Llangrannog was (and is for all I know) a muddy field perched high up over Cardigan Bay that was used by the Welsh Youth Movement (Urdd Gobaith Cymru) for summer camps.
Accommodation was provided in ex-Army bell tents and facilities were contained within WW2 era wooden huts mounted on brick columns (not dissimilar to Stalag-Luft 13).
Led by over-enthusiastic rosy-cheeked Welsh Nationalists, we, a hoard of under 13s, sang anti-English “folk” songs, dreamt about deposing the Prince of Wales, blowing up water mains and daubing road signs. (No one had thought of burning out holiday homes back then.)
Weather permitting, we were led in a crocodile down to the beach where we tried to see if anyone had started to grow pubes and stuffed ourselves with chips on the way back. The evening excitement included us teens standing round a Dansette, enjoying our first confused fumblings (or in my case watching one or two others doing so) followed by a hymn and a prayer before bye-byes.
To cap it all, I was a bed wetter and had to conceal the specially designed pads my mum had sewn into my sleeping bag and which got heavier every day because of the accumulated pee.
The highlight of the week was seeing two horses mate outside the canteen.
Anon
A couple of years ago I started seeing a new girlfriend (who I shall call M), who only five weeks into the relationship suggested we went away on holiday together. Despite my misgivings that it was a bit soon for such things, she insisted that she had a good ‘2 for the price of 1′ deal, and that I may as well go. So I went. The trip was to the Red Sea, and I didn’t
have to pay for anything; a week of free food, beer, sun, sea and sex… it sounded great. Unfortunately, M turned out to be a whinging, paranoid, jealous, desperate weirdo who stuck to me like a limpet. If I so much as looked in the general direction of any woman wearing a bikini (hard not to do on a beach) I got a tearful earful about being an ungrateful, lecherous bastard. I was her prisoner. In desperation for freedom I opted into everything going, all the water-sports, the diving, the trekking, seeking anything that she’d turn down and say “No, you go, I’ll just lie by the pool”. No such luck. I’d drink myself to oblivion every evening just to avoid having sex with her.
The high point came on one of the excursions offered; a trek up Mount Sinai, where Moses received the 10 Commandments. The idea was you climbed it at night, so as to watch the sun rise from the top. Sounded well cool. This
involved a couple of hours coach journey through the desert, a camel trek, and a 3 hour climb, leaving the hotel at 11pm. All of this sounded like it might just be too much effort for M, so I jumped at the chance. Alas, she insisted on coming too. Unfortunately, she neglected to mention that she suffered from BOTH night-blindness AND vertigo, so perhaps climbing a mountain in the dark wasn’t the best idea.
Things began to go wrong on the coach. We picked up another party from a nearby hotel, amongst whom was a very friendly and pretty girl who insisted on talking to us. Any attempt at a response to her conversation from me was met with an elbow in the ribs from the jealous bitch I was saddled with.
When we finally arrived at the drop-off we hiked to the camel-station where noisy Bedouin tried to encourage us to get on their camels. It was a confusion of darkness and torches, campfires, roaring and charging camels, shouting Bedouin, and about 150 tourists in several parties, and we quickly got separated from our group. As soon as I mounted my camel, the guide rushed us away as he wanted to join a party that was just leaving for the trek up the lower slopes. I looked around in vain for M, but couldn’t see her, so assumed that she was on the camel behind and that she would catch up
at one of the many stopping points.
The actual trek up the mountain was one of the most magical events of my life, and I heartily recommend it to anyone, the swaying camels, the darkness, the cries of the Bedouin, the millions of stars… best of all, I was free, if only for a short while. Eventually, another camel joined mine, and it was occupied by the pretty girl from the coach. We chatted, and
started to get on rather well. Eventually, we reached the point where the camels could go no further, and we alighted ready for the last part on foot. We decided to sit down and wait for the rest of our party, while we continued to chat. Over an hour later, M stumbled into view, blinking like a mole and being led by a middle-aged German, at precisely the moment when the pretty girl was giving me her email address. M was incandescent with rage, and I had to wait a good half hour before I could even begin to get a word in. It transpired that when her camel reared up to it’s full height, M’s vertigo had kicked in and she had had to get off, leaving her alone and in the dark (I had the only torch), and having to make her way up on foot. She was exhausted, bruised, bitter, humiliated and
furious, and had only managed to make it up out of fear of being left behind. We finally made it to the top, and watched the sun rise in silence, for which I was thankful, as it would have spoiled the sheer beauty of it to have her whining continue.
The trip down was even worse. As if actually having M with me wasn’t bad enough, now the sun had risen meant that she could see the steepness of the mountain we had to climb down. Her vertigo meant she got dizzy on virtually every rock higher than your foot and she had to be coaxed and cajoled and
cursed to take even the smallest step. To make matters worse (for M at least) the pretty girl stayed with us, chatting gaily, helping M and leaping from rock to rock with the grace of a gazelle, which must have really annoyed M even more.
I needn’t go on. The relationship did not survive the holiday. We parted at Gatwick airport (where she called me a sponging freeloader!) and I never saw her again. And nothing happened with the pretty girl either.
Robert
The childish protestations had failed; my parents were packing me off on holiday with a semi-estranged branch of the family. I suspected that I’d been given as a sacrifice or peace offering as I hesitantly boarded the Isle of Wight ferry with my Nan, her husband, my Aunt and cousin.
On arrival we took to the road, driving past endless fields of cows while my cousin and I were regaled with facts from a guidebook. It was a rare and as it turned out, groundless moment of enthusiasm from the adults. “The tiny island can be circumnavigated by car in hours” my Aunt enthused. At the time this seemed revelatory – especially so, as our drive inland had already taken hours. We were lost. It had become dark when someone spotted a collection of decrepit pre-fab huts in the distance. “Imagine if that’s where we’re staying” my cousin joked.
On the positive side, our clapboard village boasted a social complex. Here, under-16’s hung-out in a games room which comprised a dozen ten-penny fruit machines. This could have been a refuge, but the intense popularity of the fruit machines hindered interaction – unless you count hostile stares. It served as a rigorous initiation in rudimentary gambling where, if you weren’t careful, you’d have your lunch-money taken by a rat-tailed kid on a losing streak.
Back at the hut, family bickering would usually subside at 9pm. This was Golden-Girls time. The show was on TV every evening and my Nan and Aunt adored it. If they weren’t watching The Golden Girls, they were talking about it. This regularly drove Grandad out onto the porch seeking solace in
Golden Virginia and still provides me with a residual resentment of Bea Arthur.
Meanwhile, I was becoming consumed by the feeling of grim desolation that permeated every waking moment of the trip. The essence of a seaside town on a Sunday, combined with the feeling aroused at the very moment that you hear your much loved pet has died, still comes nowhere near it.
Because of this unremitting grimness, distraction of any kind was welcome. I was almost looking forward to visiting to the islands theme park. Sadly, Black Gang Chine was less of a theme park than a disparate collection of macabre, aged, fairytale-style fabrications. And even these were gradually
falling into the sea as the tides steadily ravaged the parks cliff-top location. Over-sized toadstools, a giant mouth and crazee wonkee house were among highlights likely conceived when fibreglass offered limitless wacky potential. As a fun day out, it fell short of Epcot.
On another afternoon, my cousin and I persuaded my Aunt to drop us off at a local indoor swimming pool. For some reason, the lifeguard (unaware of our presence) knocked-off early and inadvertently locked us inside the building. We were baffled when we emerged from the changing rooms to find a deserted
pool within a pitch-black room. Hours later my Aunt returned to collect us. Having mysteriously dispensed with traditional maternal emotions, she began screaming at us maniacally through the window and threatened to leave us there for the night. Thankfully, she eventually relented and tracked down a
key-holding member of staff. By the time we were released, we’d been locked inside for over six hours.
That night we were sent to bed early as punishment (?), while the adults enjoyed another sidesplitting episode of the Golden Girls. But all was forgotten the following morning and for a treat on our last day we were taken to see a film. It was 1981; the year of ET and Poltergeist, but we went to see “Bobbies on the Beat” a film starring Cannon and Ball.
Rock-on.
Christianne Flowers
Looking for somewhere to go on holiday this summer? Well, if you’re the type of holidaymaker who likes to drink, beat, rape, and piss in the street then Great Yarmouth is the place for you.
In fact, if you’re even considering Yarmouth as a holiday destination, you probably fit the description above. Each summer the town is plagued by foul-mouthed reprobates who won a week in a pissy caravan park from a competition in The Sun. The streets are awash with obese, drunken imbeciles, their screaming kids, regurgitated candyfloss, and dogshit.
Which makes a pleasant change from the scag-addled locals, who roam the streets in desolate winter looking for a quiet place out of the driving wind, to shoot up / rape / abuse their children.
In winter there’s something beautiful about Yarmouth, in a post-apocalyptic kind of way; sand blows across the promenade like nuclear dust, while mewling miscreants drool in the gutter or prowl the backstreets like packs of rabid dogs.
It’s hate-crime heaven.
People who remain in Yarmouth after leaving school fit into two distinct categories: heroin addicts and alcoholics. The height of a Yarmouth boy’s ambition is to own a Vauxhall Nova with a spoiler on the back. The height of a Yarmouth girl’s ambition is to have as many children as possible. Whilst chain smoking. And shooting up.
Did I mention incest?
Don’t even go there on a dare.
C White
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now my mind has blanked out the events of that horrible week to such an extent that I couldn’t even tell you where we were stayting – it was somewhere in France, and as it was pretty hot it must have been Southern – if you want any more detail than that you’d better contact one of the other attendees on the Deacon’s School Summer Trip of 1992.
The trip itself was planned for first and second years, but, in their wisdom the staff felt it would be a good idea to bring along a few sixth form types, to help supervise the youngsters. Having been assured that, even at our somewhat tender ages, we would be able to drink while on the holiday, a bunch of us signed up. It all started so well – we made our
way to the back seat of the coach, evicted the munchkins who’d set up camp there, and got settled. In my experience, coach drivers are some of the most miserable people on Earth, although the two we had were quite the opposite, and they couldn’t do enough to please the kids they were driving across two countries, including agreeing to their requests when it came to music. Unfortunately only one of the kids had a tape
they were willing to let be aired over the coach stereo – I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to a Right Said Fred album on a perpetual loop for three hours, but it’s not a pleasant experience.
Stage one of the journey ended with us boarding a ferry. Having stuffed ourselves in the canteen we then headed to the bar to find to our delight that they sold Stella for the princely sum of 88p a pint, and better still, they had a juke box. On closer inspection it turned out to only contain two records, ‘Temple of Love’ by Sisters of Mercy and ‘Jump Jump’ by backwards-jeans wearing teenage lackwits Kriss Kross.
Still, the Stella was cheap, so we took advantage.
Back in 1992, however, I was ignorant to the dangers of Stella, and the French leg of the journey was one long misery-filled hangover, accompanied by yet more Right Said Fred…
On arrival at our resort, the weather was almost as miserable as I felt, so activities were strictly indoor. This was only a problem because, being a beach resort, there were no indoor activities on offer, meaning the whole party squeezed into a room far too small for the numbers to play a team game loosely based around Pictionary. Luckily we had found
time to visit the local Hypermarket and stock up on beers, because nothing makes looking after children easier than a skinful.
Breakfast the next morning was an awkward affair, given that all but two of the teachers who were with our party were refusing to even look at me following my ‘erratic’ behaviour the previous day. Undeterred by that or the grey skies, a few of us went off for a game of tennis. After a few hours of shirtless play it became apparent to me that the sun had
come out. It had in fact been out pretty much since we all removed our shirts, but we weren’t going to stop our game for anything as trivial as suntan lotion.
I’ve experienced many kinds of pain before and since, but nothing I can remember came close to what I had to contend with for the rest of the holiday. Probably the lowest moment came at breakfast the following day when my mate Matt gave my blistered back a hearty slap. The resulting skirmish was over pretty quickly, but not before the kids had learned a
few words that they had not heard before. The remainder of the holiday was largely uneventful, spending long hours on an airless coach nursing my burns and listening to ‘Deeply Dippy for the 300th time, although the physical pain came nowhere near the mental anguish of knowing that, on my return to school, everyone would know about my drunken attempts to
stick my tongue down Mrs Burgess’ throat on our last night. It still amazes me that she was so polite about it…
Bill Handley
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"I do nothing and then I do something. But it's taken years of investigating idleness in all its forms to be able to achieve this. My discipline is borne out of concerted study of idleness."