In an idle moment the other day, I decided to have a look at my school yearbook. The real reason I was looking at it was a self-indulgent one, as I recalled some quote from my former English teacher about my “instinctive written fluency”.
Or something like that.
I will confess that he also mentioned my inability to use the semi-colon correctly, although I would point out that we all have our private struggles (just look at those Vampire Weekenders, and their dismissal of the finer points of punctuation). Grammatical problems aside, it shames me to say it, but I can still get a jolt of confidence from a 10 year old piece of praise.
Having dosed up on approbation, I then decided to take a nostalgic stroll down memory lane, looking at comments written to me by my school friends. Some examples:
Laura B: “When I first met you I thought you were a lairy bitch! But now I know different.”
Ah, sweet huh?
Given that I have not since spoken to Laura B since leaving school, I fear she may have reverted to her original appraisal of me.
Kevin P: “It is a DISGRACE that you did not get best arse of the sixth form” (his emphasis not mine).
I always admired Kevin for his good judgment.
Perusing the rest of the misspelt (shockingly so, as we all went to grammar school) teen-speak messages, I stumbled across a quote from my history teacher, Mr. M (in fact, slightly misquoted....evidence appears to be mounting for a re-examination of the quality of our grammar schools):
“Golden boys and girls all must, as chimney-sweeps return to dust.”
Depressing, much? At the time I remember thinking that this was a peculiarly morbid quotation to write in the yearbook of an 18 year old. I recall wondering whether he used the same quotation for everyone, or whether he had an arsenal of equally depressing quotes up his sleeve with which to remind his young charges of their inevitable mortality and the futility that any of their adult efforts to stave off the essential pointlessness of life (...I think at this time I was studying Existentialism, so may have read more into this than was warranted).
Being literatorially fallible (and prone to making up words, grammar school education y’know), I looked this quote up the other day and discovered it was from a funeral song in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, the exact wording being: “golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers come to dust”.
So I guess what the bard is trying to put out there is that it doesn’t matter what you do for dollars or how fancy yo crib is, you’ll probably end up doing panto in Wimbledon (see P-Anderson) or singing on SAGA cruise ships (see entire cast of X-Factor runners-up), these surely being the equivalent of a slow and painful death.
Food for thought as things currently stand for me. Going to tell me ma not to fret her pretty head about my joblessness, I will eventually die and all this worrying will have been fruitless. Muchos gracias, Mr. M.
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