Comedy shows on TV come and go, as do the associated catchphrases, which spread
like wildfire around the school before fizzling out when the next big thing arrives.
There are two ways to approach this. One is never to watch TV and therefore remain oblivious to the irritating repetitions of gormless phrases and the associated sniggering. The second method is to enjoy the shows, bandy the catchphrases around the staffroom, and then tread with utmost care in lessons, anticipating trouble before it arises.
Of course, I would do well to heed my own advice, so sage in retrospect. But we
all learn by our mistakes. The current catchphrases of choice come from the sketch
show
Little Britain, which is being shown on BBC1, having graduated from the lesser
BBC channels. Some hail it as a work of comic genius, whilst others prefer to let
the fact that it appeals to your average 13 year old speak for itself. Some of it is
indeed hilarious, particularly the clueless teenager Vicky Pollard, whose response to
everything is a rapid stream of verbal diarrhoea that inevitably includes “Yeah but
no but it weren’t me right”. A favourite catchphrase of teachers confronted with
such nonsense every day, I can tell you, especially as it silences a kid about to
launch into a “it weren’t me” monologue. Another character is the bloke in a
wheelchair who isn’t disabled but just lazy, whose few words are parroted by the kids
at school. One of the favourites for imitations is the mental hospital patient, and
don’t even get me started on Dafydd, the only gay in the village.
Some of the sketches are cringeworthy and just downright sick. One of these is the
grown man who is engaged to be married. Each week we see him and his lovely wife
to be planning their wedding. But he has a particular quirk, in that he is still
breastfed by his mother, who thinks nothing of yanking up her twinset in public to
do the deed. He can be in a restaurant, at home, or even standing at the altar,
when he suddenly regresses, insists on “bitty”, and goes to suckle on his mother.
So when I stood at the front of the class, leafing through a textbook and apologising for jumping about from page to page, perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully. But no, I had to explain that the task was very “bitty”. I knew what I meant, but it was the word to spark a series of nudges, smirks and sniggers. Pupils twisted round in their seats to repeat what I’d just said. Giggles were very badly suppressed. And I tried to move swiftly on, except that now I too had an image dancing before my eyes that I tried to shake off as quickly as I could. Sometimes, the bliss of ignorance is more preferable to being in the know, however cool it makes you feel in the staffroom.
added 14/12/04
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