Don’t you know you’re driving your mammas and pappas insane?

A friend’s son turned 11 today and, spurred on by Mr Hg, I bought him his first David Bowie CD, fully intent on corrupting his young mind. I got him a Donald Duck comic and a scientific youth mag too, just to be on the safe side.

He’s growing up quite sheltered and seems petrified of going to high school next year, where there are ‘bigger boys with gel in their hair’. I don’t think he was ready for the CD, but his mum liked it. I had hoped he’d pick up on the ‘space’ theme and be intrigued by Major Tom, but I forgot he doesn’t understand English yet. Hopefully he’ll remember the CD is his and will come back to it in a year or two.

The two younger sisters asked me to teach them to eat with chopsticks, the minute I walked through the door. I think their hands were still a little too small to learn. Or I’m a crap teacher.

But I’d like to think I am a better teacher than their brother’s primary school ‘master’. I was shown one of this man’s hand outs, containing 25 ‘true/false’ statements about America. It was full of spelling mistakes and some very dubious questions. Sample question / spelling:

Q: ‘The Biggest park in New york is called Yellow stone Park’
A: True

The guy should be flogged. If I had kids, I’d only want the best of the best to teach them. Wouldn’t you?