Eureka

Settle down, class.

I could never be a teacher. (Stop talking) I don't have the patience or the tolerance for people younger than me. I'm afraid of metre sticks. Bells make be violent. I can't read. I encourage fights. I have no teaching qualifications and no desire to get them. I have a beard.

But some people can do it. They must be driven by selfless ambition. (It's your own time you're wasting) They want to mould young minds and prepare the generation of tomorrow for the rigours of... tomorrow. And Saturday.

They probably like children. That's what they've got going for them. And I'm pleased. We need teachers. I couldn't be one of them, but that's not to say that all teachers are control freaks, pedants, show-offs, failed stand-up comedians or chalk addicts.

Yes, chalk. I'm aware that chalk makes me sound like an old man. I'm sure your touch-screen blackboards don't need chalk. Or, if they do, it's a special kind of invisible wi-fi chalk that's also an atlas.

When I'm older, my experience of chalk will be totally alien to young people. It will be our equivalent of racism or disco.

"How did you live like that?" they'll say.

And I'll say: "We lived with a permanent undercurrent of melancholy that would only dissipate with the coming of Nicki Minaj."

They'll say: "Nicki Minaj? Is that your current cultural reference. She's older than you. Also, given that this is the future, she's probably dead by now."

I'll say: "Not only that, but I don't really know who she is. I just heard it once. I didn't even know how to spell her name. I thought it might be "Menage". It was all chalk and menages back in my day."

Then they'll turn off their consciousness-circuits out of boredom.

In the future, young people will be robots.

Where was I?

Ah yes: teaching.

I'd like to congratulate all of the people brave enough to stand in front of a pack of savage infants and try to get them to do long division. You're the real heroes. You don't even get to kill people, like soldiers or inept fire-fighters. Your only perks are really long holidays and the pride of a job well done and Apple Tango from the vending machine.

(No smoking, boys and girls. Shut up and drink ink.)

Teaching.

***

I didn't want to talk about teaching. I just started typing. I have no say in this process.

Lor.

See? No thinking man would type "Lor".

We nearly saw a squirrel get run over this morning.

Well, not nearly. But nearly nearly nearly.

The driver saw it and hit the brakes. But for a few seconds, we were frozen in terror. Imagine seeing a squirrel being run over! It doesn't bear thinking/writing about.

The driver saw our shock and smiled. I hope he was just happy to have saved the life of a cute mammal. I hope he wasn't laughing at our concern. He might have thought we were overreacting, just because Lucy screamed "HITLER!" and I dropped a tropical fish tank.

But I'm sure it was the first thing that made him smile. The kindness.

No doubt the squirrel is laughing about it with his friends right now. Its whole life probably flashed before its eyes. Acorns of many hues, branch leaping... some other things. Squirrels lead very full lives.

Lor.

Pluh. I'm sick of this "this afternoon" business this afternoon. I'm impatient. Another reason I couldn't teach. I just want to go somewhere else. The evening, maybe. I'm on my way there, but the commute is a long one.

Let's play a game. I'm thinking of an animal.

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No, it was a French pig.

Your go.

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Is it a fish?

Oh. That was easy.

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No, I'm bored now.

***

I was raised by wolves.

My parents just kept throwing them into the well, until the water level was high enough for them to pluck me out.

You might think I would have been mauled by the drowning wolves. But no - they were already dead. My parents have always been extremely thoughtful.

They could have thrown any object into the well to displace the water. That's basic Archimediary thinking. But wolves were all they had to hand. Dozens of dead wolves.

They also could have lowered a rope. But I was already clutching two wolves (I'd been holding them when I fell), and to let go now would have set back the taming process.

So they did the right thing. I was safe and sound. They told me not to play too close to the well any more, especially whilst enwolfened. I agreed. And from that point on, we've been firm friends.

They can no longer use the well (or the wolves) for water. The area has been cordoned off as a warning to people who might think that any of the things I've discussed today are worth doing.

They are not. None of them.