July 2017 3/4

Not the last Monday at Medium School, but nearly. We had to design and cost up a theme park as a business proposition to venture capitalists. I installed a toilet block and food area but then spent the rest of my funding on a giant haunted forest with big spiderwebs etc. The picnic and camping area was in a clearing in the middle.

There was the usual roundelay of Lion King rehearsals, this time I roasted my own butt sitting on the asphalt playground after it had heated itself in the sun. We all worked very hard on the Stampede Scene (in which I die heroically) and everybody except me had to have lessons in being louder.

Child Q has decided to leave school a week and a half early. He got miffed with people laughing at him so declared his years of academia to be over. I am not sure what the law or his parents will have to say about that, but as he is one of the 5 Rafikis in the play, Lucy had to take on his role and learn some new lines with only 4 days to go. Thank you, Child Q.

We were given helpful-looking, friendly booklets with tips for coping with the special changes in life associated with moving on to Big School. Highlights include saying no to girls, boys, drugs, rudeness and sloth, and saying yes to homework, togetherness, dedication to laudable enterprises, and finding god. You barely had to look in the small print to find the publishers are 'Scripture Union of the Church of Prophetic Portents and Brimstone'.

Another slow journey home with Ben who left some Death Candy and tried out the dumb-bells. At the seaside we all went in the sea and dived for rocks again, saw one jellyfish and didn't draw blood. Normally we get chips but the Miniature Village café (where you get tiny chips) was closed and I was forced into having a cheese'n'ham squashie, primarily marketed as a toastie. It was quite flat, but meant I didn't need supper.

In the last Scouts of the term we welcomed a new member and cooked sausage-inna-bun on an open gas fire in the church garden.

I had a burger (the second time tonight I didn't need supper), won 2 badges, ignored the dodgy coffee and said goodbye to Nicola the Leader-Helper who is leaving to get a real job and Flynn who is moving to Gloucestershire, as one does. Here I am showing off my once-svelte body and effort-efficient press-up technique to an adoring Flynn back in May 2011.

Tuesday was one of those days when your voluntary activities come back to bite you in the butt. Syd and I have a Drama School Showcase performance tomorrow so tonight, once I'd barely had any Minecraft at all, I had to go out for a 4-hour rehearsal.

It is my destiny, and I do have talent, and it's all worth it. But sometimes it's hard work. Bud has a Scout Group executive meeting tonight, same applies.

Jof and I made cheese and sweetcorn wraps which were little rolled up bits of heaven. Apparently there was a thunderstorm, but following the Battle of the Bulge, loud noises don't wake me up. Although sometimes I wake up hungry.

One Man, Two Plays

Wednesday was a day of great news! I was told that tomorrow, it will be a full 6-hour day of Lion King dress rehearsals. But first I had to hold down the lead role in our section of the theatre school showcase, a for-parents production in which they see where their money goes and what little Tarquin and Rosettina get up to when they're in stage school.

It is the enduring fault of my schoolteachers that am at drama school, and I thank them for it. I made myself a snack and then walked to Little Tesco to buy myself the food I most associate with acting - tuna and cucumber sandwiches.

Sydney arrived dead on time and we drove past a million students celebrating graduation day to the theatre, where we'd been asked to come in 30 minutes early to rehearse our pivotal sketch, the second half closer.

The show opened with a Greek display by the ladies both young and old. Heavy on veils and togas, they mentioned Phrygia a lot and were very meaningful about the origins of the spoken word upon the stage.

A talented yet thin dancer sang capably about popularity, Lee did a Shakespearean scene about a drunk man and a fish, and Sydney introduced the massive ranks of the Youngers who performed an impenetrable extended oriental play about a Princess escaping a bad king with the help of a magic Buddha (Naughty Bertie) who froze the river enabling the Princess to skate right on out of there.

Plenty of LSD, colour and tassels in this one, then I came on to introduce a song from Showboat and it was half-time! While we weren't onstage, Syd and I helped the Little People get to their stage cues on time, quietly.

In the second riposte the Younglings sang D'Oh! Re Mi and lots of girls in suspenders performed Money from Cabaret which woke everybody up.

There were nice songs from Pocahontas and Shrek and then we rounded off the show with 1 Man 2 Guv'nors. This is a slapstick farce in which I was the Man and was onstage practically the whole time, with my table, in what was a complicated section. I co-opted a member of the audience to hide soup and then sent her the wrong way before the fire scene.

OK, so we made a few mistakes and had to ad lib a bit and missed out a section but the imaginary flaming crepe suzette was good as was the real fire extinguisher used to put it out. But Thin Laura has only been with us a short while and was great, Sydney did some quick costume changes and I got a few laughs.

At the end, to cover for a forgotten line I ad-libbed a speech to the audience in which I said I hoped they'd enjoyed the show as much as we had enjoyed putting it on. Outside the stage door I got plaudits and congratulations from strangers and I was annoyed that I'd made mistakes but happy that I'd now only got 1 play to concentrate on. I was wired, incandescent with energy. And tumescent, didn't expect that.

Thor can keep his day

Late to bed last night and still fizzing mentally so was quite tired today. Once we'd done boring pointless stuff like reading, we tested the sound system for tomorrow's performance and basically had ourselves a disco!

We kept the beat going from break to lunch and so the whole school got to join in. Then we got into our costumes and rehearsed madly for a while. On the way home I met Jack W who was at my Tiny School and will be with me once more at Big School.

So, there I was (in pants) being REALLY angry about a Minecraft mission when Bud said let's go out, things to do, places to go. Thing is, the Mine-task was to get past the pavement of holes to the bridge of safety and drop the clock of insanity into the lava (hope you're following this).

But every time I was nearly across the Holy Pavement, a lava zombie or a magma skeleton would pop up out of nowhere, fire an arrow into my butt and I'd fall down a hole in the pavement to my fiery doom in the Volcano of Smaug beneath.

And it was mildly embarrassing when the man came to read the meter and I was only in pants, but then we drove (fully clothed) to the Scout Storage Garage and took out the empty gas bottles and signed the asbestos inspection register and got out all the plastic barrels for raft-building that we never use. I have a size advantage (that I am slowly losing) so was able to climb right to the back of the packed shed, even though I fell into a camping toilet.

These are the things you have to do when you work for the Scouts. Meanwhile, Jof's car was covered in so much guano, she had to pressure-hose it twice before her car felt able to park next to all the other, smarter cars.

The Garden of Remembrance

Friday at last, and one I've been especially looking forward to, at the end of a bizarrely busy week. We donned our costumery and did a performance of Disney's (remember this for later) The Lion King for the rest of the school and staff, which went down a storm because we're awesome. In fact, I remember last year when I was but a stripling in Year 5, the big, mature Year 6s did a talent-show type sketch revue and I thought they were the bees' knees, now it was our turn to sear the memories of talent onto the younger generation.

And we had an extra-long lunch break again, because let's face it, we're practically retired. The end of the day dribbled into being and the teachers set up the stage and sound system and delineated the audience area with millions of those little football cones, and we waited for the parents to arrive. One of mine was first into the playground and obtained Prime Seat #1, for photography purposes.

Then the chorus sat on the benches and the headmaster made a lengthy speech underlining how the nice Disney Megacorporation had stipulated that nobody could post to the web images or video of any sort, all the songs, lyrics, stage directions, costumes and characters were protected by intergalactic copyright, trademarks, hallmarks and any infringement of said rights would result in the Disney Corporation Legal Division suing the absolute botties off the school, and the school only has 2 botties left until the 3rd bottie gets out of prison in 2034. So as our epic performance will not get the coverage it deserves, here is a truly uninspiring picture of an empty playground with its football cones and a teacher scratching her foot, which is only invasion of shoe privacy, a shot of the cover of my script booklet but not any of the words or music, and a GIF of someone else getting affected by wind.

On the way in, I met the rest of my after-school gardening class and they said join us, but I told them I would remember them, but I had regal duties to perform. It's good to be the King (again). We have been practising this for ages so we were actually really good. A few amongst us were not particularly interested, but the 18 characters with lines spake them with gusto, the ones that sang, sang with many notes, often the right ones, and even Ben, Leader of Trees, had a grin.

It is a little unfair to review without pictures, but: the Rafikis were resplendent in their finery and makeup. The Poomba/Timon duo are destined for marriage, although Jessie (Timon) is the talented one. Ingrid (Zazu) will go far, with or without her unmanageable hair.

The wind played a big role in the production, erecting the tassels and ribbons of the Rafikis, animating a discarded crisp packet that made repeat unscheduled appearances, and going wumph wumph on the radio microphones.

I (Mufasa) had a loud voice and obvious stage training as did Stanley (Scar). He was pretty good, and could hold a tune. I made sure my dying roar reverberated a bit and then Owen the Destroyer took over from Harvey the Haircut as my son, and the world continued to spin once the hyenas had eaten Scar. I have some REALLY good pictures and videos of the performance but cannot use them here. At home I cursed the 2 lines I forgot and had a soak in a foam bath, for it has been a tough week.

RainShine Roulette

Because of the tough week, I was most miffed when he said we're going out. I was very miffed indeed when he said we're cycling, because I could see it was raining. I wanted a day of videos and chocolate, not wetness and torture. He said we'll play 'Rainshine Roulette' and hope we get away with it. I wore the special face of sulk, the one I can keep on all day if required.

Anyway, it cleared up a bit and we rode uphill against a 75 mile an hour wind to the Gosport Ferry where we bought the tickets with added bikes, and the man onboard said there's a special rate on for the summer - bikes go free. It is best to only tell people that once they've purchased their tickets from the machine.

While we were on the ferry, it started to rain. My bike squeaks and squawks when the brakes are wet, so every now and then I'd screech my brakes at him to tell him how angry I was.

Arriving at the Explosion Museum, I cheered up as I was surrounded by guns'n'ammo, although the rebel flag was not on the wall. Amazingly, I can still fit in the depth charge thrower, and a jacket potato with tuna and sweetcorn could still fit in my tummy. And nowadays I actually listen to the videos of ex-servicemen explaining how to fire a 5 1/4 inch gun.

In the shop I got [chocolate and] a T-shirt saying "I love Explosions" which Bud said I had to wear on the plane next time we go on holiday. So on that subject, I chose some Jasper Conran swimming trunks in Debenhams, and he swapped them for 3 Sports Direct ones for the same price. And then I got my sit-down time.

Saturday-night-is-Film-Night was Lethal Weapon 2 in which a man is decapitated by a surfboard. I liked the condom tree and the nailgun to the head and all the chocolate.

Pete Fountain's Half/Fast Walking Club*

After being forced outside against my will yesterday, I insisted on a day off, which in my book means one in which the wearing of pants is not guaranteed, let alone going-out type clothing.

But during the Minecraft Marathon I did ask to have a walk round the park so Jof and I fed leftover bread products to the birds while he fed leftover glass products to the bottlebank and clothing-banked some of my school uniform, for the End of Days is close at hand. Maybe one day in the future, some random African village will have an outbreak of maroon jumpers.

And I did do a bit of work in the swingpark for old time's sake but then, amazingly, it started raining, as if it hadn't done enough of that yesterday. We did a half-fast nonchalant walk back home, and I plugged in again, for I can never get Mining Fatigue. And apart from a couple of games of Uno, that's where I stayed.

*Jazz-playing marching Krewe at the New Orleans Mardi Gras. Originally the Half-Arsed Walking Club, the Parade organizers asked them to change it.