I'll be back...

The people I most admire on Facebook are the wits. The friends who can think on their feet and come up with a witty reply to someone else's post. That's not me. I was once accused of inventing a nickname for a colleague, a total incompetent who did my head in just as much as he did everybody else's. It wasn't true. I fumed about the guy but I'm not witty. It's not something you learn - you've either got it or you've not.

The best people to invent nicknames are kids in secondary school. When I started teaching (1973 - sorry - that's two generations ago to some of you), I had a colleague called Whispering. It had to be explained to me that this man was (1) very soft-spoken, (2) thought to tell the headteacher everything that happened in the school over tea in his office and (3) regarded as a grass by staff and kids alike. Put the clues together and you come up with an Ink Spots song that appeared in a Laurel and Hardy film. I'll put the name at the end of this just in case you're as dense as I was.*

Islay High School was a mass of nicknames: Cheyenne was a very tall, very gentle head of science. Snipe was a female Maths teacher whose head movements were quite like those of the wading bird. My own nickname was The Terminator. Not because I was horrible - I hope - but because after listening to kids speaking French in the classroom I would give them something else to do and say: 'Get on with it - I'll be back!' Well, I didn't get it either: I didn't go to the movies very often or watch TV very much.

I should add that some nicknames from Islay High I can't put up here for fear of being sued.

Tonight, I put up a post on Facebook about the chairman of the ethical Coop bank and Methodist minster who was (allegedly) caught buying cocaine.

My comment: You couldn't make it up!

I was then told that he had bought ketamine and crystal meth.

Quick as a whip, in came Peter from Bruichladdich: So is he a crystal Methodist?

See, I don't have that wit. But I'm helluva glad my Facebook friends have. That gave me the best laugh of the day.

 And I look forward to all my ex-students reminding about the nicknames from Islay High!


*Whispering Grass http://uk.yhs4.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=Babylon&hsimp=yhs-004&type=br110dm25af121845&p=whispering%20grass