Half term. A bastard inbreed to real school holidays.
Of course I’m not dumping on it; a week with no school is a week off school. But what better way to start the holidays (I.e. the Friday before) with a trip to the O2 arena – Which is what the millennium dome would be like had it had been successful.
Being school-run there would obviously be some catches. For instance we were going to see some poets. Admittedly ones we’re doing for our course, and hear them talk about their poems. Wonderful. We would go there and catch some glorious nugget of knowledge that would shoot us towards that wondrous A* all thanks to “GCSE poetry live”. The second catch is that it’s not at the O2 arena.
Of course I’m sceptical of many poets. There is no way a trade-unionist with his fair trade black bean flip flops and T Shirts fashioned from the cannabis plant can cram much meaning and symbolism into a poem. They just write some random stuff that comes into their heads and let English teachers across the land do the tricky bit of squeezing meaning from it.
A prime example of this is “Hitcher” by Simon Armitage. If you were to read this poem the first question that would come into your mind would be “What the hell??”. The next would be “Hmmm. What was he SMOKING when he wrote this? Where can I get some????” However my English teacher assures me it’s an unappreciated art form. I assure you it isn’t. When I was in year 6, to get back at my English teacher I handed in the most stupid story I could possibly think of for my homework, delighting in that she would have to mark it. It was about a lion called Mr Teabag who was elected prime minister and appointed most of the London zoo as the cabinet. The plot revolved around a coffee machine. However even that it Tolstoy compared to Hitcher.
However we were then told that the poets would not be actually talking about their poems, No! This bit would be done by the examiners. The poets would rush through their material then piss off in their 1978 un-serviced Nissan Micras.
Not much happened until we arrived at the dominion theatre, home of the queen musical “We Will Rock You”. As we walked in to not see Freddie mercury we were sat in the front 7th row. Just a note, people there were Sam, Luke Trevan and Amir. Anyway they were good seats, shame about the show. Anyway while we waited for the other schools to walk in (which took an HOUR!) Sam and I and some… Enlightening conversation .
Sam: Luke look! Those lights are moving!
Me: Hmm. Its obviously part of some evil plan….
Sam: You mean subliminal messaging??????
Me: Exactly! Hypnotizing us to buy more poetry! See! What’s ‘Live’ backwards!?!?
Sam: Gasp!
The first poet we say was Carol Ann Duffy. Christ she was awful.
“So I know you’re all here for the gee-cee-ee-cees”. Then everybody burst out laughing.
I mean what the hell? She’s in the damn anthology we’re doing and she can’t pronounce the name? WHAT THE HELL. She’s been in that book for more than five years and the GCSEs have been going for longer. There is really no excuse for that.
Anyway if you were watching you would have been able to see pretty quick that her favourite colour was probably beige. Or cream. She read her poems with the same sort of emotion that I’d expect from someone who is dead. Or a rock. And the way she did the last line of her poems. From the reading of “Anne Hathaway”
“Upon…the………………next……………………………….Best………………………………………………………………….………………….Bed”
Then we had an awesome guy called Daljit Nagra. Infinitely cooler than Carol Ann Douchebag with a hoodie and jeans rather than what appeared to be sandals and a large grey sheet.
HE WAS NOT ON THE FRONT COVER OF THE LITTLE BOOKLETS. All the other shit poets had their mug on the front cover BUT NOT THE HILARIOUS ASIAN MAN. WHAT THE HELL.
Nothing happened until lunch, which as we all know is…
RUN ABOUT DOING CRAZY SHIT TIME!
Of course we couldn’t go too crazy. Me and Amir (who thanks to me survived paintball) just explored.
Amir: Let’s go out this door! (Opens door to red and gold hallway)
Me: Left? (Opens door to identical red and gold hallway)
Amir: Umm… Ok. Forward? (Reach red and gold staircase. Go down four flights reaching a red and gold painted hallway)
Amir: ARGHH!! (Throws open door on right to reveal red and gold hall) ARGHHHH!!!! (Throws open door on left. Plaque read “Judy Garland Suite”)
Me: (Sees poets) Shit! Let’s go!!
Amir: (While running) who were all those old people??
When lunch finished we had another poet. Who had made the longest and worst poem ever. Each verse had four lines. 3 of these lines were “And she was OVER THE MOOOOOOOOOOOON……. OVER THE MOOOOOOOOOON……”. It was incredibly stupid and lasted for THREE MINUTES!
The poet was “Imtiaz Dharker” who was like the Daljit guy in stereotyping, just without the awesomeness. She was also dressed in the same sort of hemp-infused sheet that almost all the poets seemed to be wearing.
Imtiaz: Not long ago a ceiling in my house fell down. I did not resent this, see it as a bad thing. I say it as a sign that the room was trying to tell me something, communicate with me that other things had to come down as well, walls and floor. So I broke down the walls, I broke through the floor. I sold everything in the room to help the room communicate its message to me.
Amir: Is she retarded????
Not much happened after that. We had this awesome Caribbean guy called “John Agard” who was very stereotypical and very funny. Green cricket hat, grey beard and hair with dark brown skin. God he was awesome.
If you were there and you’re complaining that this is missing something huge please, feel free to sod off. Meh I think I covered a lot of the good stuff, the day was six hours so its bound to have a lot of stuff cut but there was a lot of boring stuff. Yes, I did have a few rapist jokes prepared about the chief examiner, but I’m not doing those in case he finds out and feeds my paper to a lion.
No comments:
Post a Comment