An Awful Lot of Trousers

Refreshed, I awoke at 0710 and read for a bit. This is the life, apart from where we lost the swimming relay because half of our best swimmers were put in another team.

Today we got our order forms for the week-long residential school trip where we practise leaving home. It makes it very clear that we shall be outside for a lot of the time so big shoes and many socks and trousers are on the list.

And because there is a special law that dictates that as soon as you have put on your last pair of trousers, thou shalt spill hot chocolate right down them, I shall be taking spare trousers for the spare trousers with possibly some tertiary redundant leg coverings.

A Short Treatise on Punishments.

As you know, regular as well as targeted punishment is a vital part of any balanced upbringing and is so often the cause for whippy, leathery peccadilloes amongst Her Majesty's Judiciary. But in recent years the accent has shifted away from basic corporal punishment towards structured negotiations, deal-making, and vague threats of privilege erosion, rather than instant, stiff penalties for transgressions.

Thus nowadays a 'punishment' may take the form of a cessation of X-Box play for a week, suspension of football rights or cancellation of the promised sleepover etc. This approach is doomed to fail because children live only in the minute: so if they get what they want now, they will ignore any possible consequences and indeed, do not believe the parent or care-giver will follow through on the threats anyway. No child believes in Santa any more so third-party proxies are impotent: what child will knowingly be good for 364 days on the promise of a Lego Millennium Falcon when he knows full well it has to be purchased months in advance.

In today's pitifully liberal society, a good birching or six-of-the-best has been knocked into the long grass so the short-sharp-shock I am given in extreme circumstances is a nasal explosion. He grabs my head and blows up my nose. Setting aside for one minute the sudden aroma of coffee or beer, let's concentrate on the revolting burbling noise as a gout of my own sinus fluid goes the wrong way down my throat. Believe me, I hate it and it is the only true threat to stop me in my tracks.

So today I tried to get my own back. I attacked him with my increasing size, strength and bodyweight and nearly had him. This meant several minutes of giggling, fighting and tussling where it was never quite clear who would prevail as what I lack in muscle, I make up for in speed and determination.

So Jof came in to tell us off and cheated of my victory, I went to my room fizzing with energy, jumped onto my bed and face-planted it in a display of simple youthful exuberance. But my steadily increasing size meant a greater impact value which cracked one of the support struts and that earned me lots of shouting. It will have to be replaced with a plank from a pallet from Bud's work. Goodness knows how adults don't break their beds all the time with their greater weight and the nocturnal machinations I know so little about.

Keen-eyed viewers may detect a previous pallet-plank from a previous exuberant impact ...