THE TIGER

I'm laughing too. I do enjoy a good bollocking (sorry - I couldn't resist - that's my new favorite British term - bollocking.).

*And by the way - my poem is no worse than yours.

aidan wrote-



How about a nice smart spanking aid? Would you like that? Most naughty girls do.

I'm not naughty Spendius. You missed my whole explanation of my over developed superego (due to my devout Christian upbringing, I believe, as well as to the fact that my father is a Baptist deacon and probably the most upstanding, responsible, law abiding, most naturally non-sinning person I've ever met). And despite all this (because it could make him absolutely insufferable and a wet blanket to be around) - he's not and I almost worship the ground he walks on.

So no - I have this mental image of Jesus and my dad watching everything I do, so I rarely do anything overtly naughty.

Mischievous, however should be my middle name.

Anyway - what did you find naughty about my post? Bollocking means kidding around, right - or pulling the mickey as you would say. It's the same thing as saying, "I like a good steak" or "I like a nice sunrise". That's all I said, "I like a good kidding session" . What's naughty about that?

*By the way, I don't like spankings. As an incorrigibly mischievous child - I got quite a few- enough to last a whole lifetime. Most of the time, as a matter of fact it was for acting silly and laughing overtly in church. My father would watch my sisters and I from the choir loft and we'd get in big trouble when we got home. So no, no spankings by choice for me- I'm not into pain.

A bollocking here means a telling off by a person in authority usually accompanied with a high incidence of un-necessary words used solely for emphasis.

Not only is spanking little girls sinning it is also on the verge of being made a crime punishable by up to five years.

Spanking big girls is different.

I would be wary of inviting a lady round for tea and toast if she carried a mental image of Jesus and her father watching everything she does.

Why wary? Maybe wary of being bored because you'd know she'd be on her best behavior. And of you're just eating tea and toast - why wouldn't you want Jesus and her dad watching?

I'm just kidding about that stuff (kind of). But when you do hear over and over again as a child that someone or something knows everything about you - even what's in your heart and not openly expressed - it sticks.
But in some ways it's good - it keeps one on the straight and narrow.

It's not good at all, it's bloody scandalous, brainwashing somebody like that. The child spanking deserves a prison sentence as well.

aidan wrote-



What on earth is that?

Spendius - you know good and well what the straight and narrow is. I think you try to stay on it yourself sometimes. Mathos, on the other hand,
is another story.

Spanking kids - hmm... I'm of two distinct minds about it. I know when I have spanked my kids it has been when I've been absolutely at the end of my rope (tether) and it's always been in total frustration - and that's not a good way or time to discipline - so I've always been ashamed of myself when I've done it and in fact, always end up apologizing to the child I've spanked for having done it. But, on the other hand, I also know it has a big impact in terms of getting the message across that a certain behavior will not be tolerated.

The problem of course is that there are always people who take it past reasonable discipline and into abuse. So in some ways it is safer for all children to make corporal punishment illegal. Although I guess I feel from seeing all the children I've taught over the years in really scary home situtations - if a person is so unstable that they can't be trusted to administer appropriate discipline - can they be trusted to do anything else for a child appropriately? I mean the child might be protected by law from being physically abused - but what the hell else are they being exposed to from someone who would beat the **** out of them if it was legal to do so?

I saw an interesting movie the other night about this very subject - Wah-Wah. The kid who played the boy as his younger self was a really good actor. I don't remember his name, but he was so good at conveying the sadness and lack of control and emotional toll that children suffer when their parents just can't hold it together in their own lives.

Well, both of my teams are out. Do you think Rooney meant to step on that guy like that? I don't. And I don't think skillwise the Portuguese team was any better except when it came to placing their penalty kicks during the shoot-out. Lot of tough breaks for England in that game. I didn't watch the Brazil/France match.

Rooney should have been arrested.

For what?

Yeah, if he stepped on that guy's crotch on purpose - that was pretty much a vicious assault and just because it happened on a soccer pitch shouldn't excuse it. But if it was an accident, it was an accident.

Having not watched any of the other matches or even any soccer at all since I've been here - I have no idea what Rooney's personality or profile is. Is he someone who would orchestrate something like that and then pretend innocence? I don't know. The people I was watching it with were Rooney fans so they were convinced he was as pure as the driven snow in the whole thing. But to my unbiased eye, there did seem to be some kind of undercurrent going on about the whole thing - Renaldo winking at the camera - Rooney getting the red card for what was a very perfunctory push- him "accidentally" stepping right on that poor guys you know what very, very solidly. (Did that guy play the rest of the game?). I don't know. What a mess.

Anyway - who's to say that his staying in and playing would have made any difference? From what I heard in the after commentary he wasn't playing his usual position anyway. What do you think?

My son said France won fair and square 1-0. He thought they played the better game and he was rooting for Brazil - so that makes me feel alright about that. Sometimes you just have to accept that you were outmanned.

I agree, for failing to flatten that whinging cheating Portugese bastard, prior to leaving the field of play.

I have to say Aidan, I am totally amazed and extremely dis-gruntled to hear that you hit your children.


It's wrong.


I think the problem lies in your violent upbringing. As the late P Larkin wrote, (from memory)

They f*** you up your mum and dad
They never meant to do
They gave you problems of their own
And added new ones too.

It's not much good splitting somebody's head open and giving them a band aid after.

You need to sort this out Young Lady and get it sorted with your kids or they will become child abusers too.

Come on Mathos-

You can't mangle Larkin like that. It's unseemly

The poem is known as This Be The Verse and it was first published in 1971 in the New Humanist and it has been read on the BBC on numerous occasions as well as appearing in some newspapers.

Larkin sent it to Anthony Thwaite on April 14 1971 for inclusion in Mrs Thwaite's prospective anthology of new writing for children called Allsorts.

They **** you up,your mum and dad;
They may not mean to,but they do.
They hand on all the faults they had
And add some fresh ones,just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one anothers' throats.

Man hands on misery to man:
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

That's the original-it got polished up later and I can burnish it a bit myself.

But when you quote a man like Larkin for others you ought to-

Get it right and live by it. Otherwise you could look like someone who wants the admiration for quoting high class poetry and being similar to the phoneys the poem was aimed at.

Spendius 'Dear Boy'


Are you looking for trouble?

Not particularly.

I was just setting the record straight about Mr Larkin's famous verse and what its message is. You quoted it not me.

If you don't agree with the message of it, and many don't, probably the vast majority, you ought not to give it airtime. I happen to agree with it. Some of my favourite writers go much further than that.

I agree - it is wrong to use violence against a child. I said as much and said I felt ashamed and apologetic after I'd done it on the few occaisions I did. I haven't spanked either one of my children in years though and I have no desire or need to now that they're old enough to know not to run out in the street in front of cars or leave the yard to go play down by the river when they're not supposed to- you know stuff like that that used to scare the **** out of me and elicit an impulsive swat on the butt from me.



Right - whatever you choose to believe Mathos.
I do like some of Philip Larkin's work though although I've read he was a racist and mysogynistic and just over all unpleasant to be around. Still, you can tell from his writings that he was a very clever guy. I even named my first dog Larkin. He was beautiful - a golden retriever/malamute mix, 120 lbs- just a perfect specimen.


Yep, that's true too. Whose head got split open and by whom? I'm just trying to keep up here....


Don't waste a minute thinking about it Mathos - it's all sorted- I assure you.

Coincidentally, I'm reading a really interesting book by Lionel Shriver about this very subject called, We Need to Talk About Kevin. It won the orange prize a couple of years back. It's fascinating. It's a series of letters this woman is writing to her estranged husband about their l6 year old son who is in prison for killing seven of his classmates and two teachers at his school. It's pretty much an indictment of America's fostering of spoiled kids who have a fascination with violence, but told from the very interesting perspective of this mother who produced this incredibly evil little seed. It's so interesting because she is very clear-eyed and objective in her description of him- never sentimental or in denial about who he was or what he did. She goes all the way back to her pregnancy and just outlines his behavior and the sense of menace just grows and grows with every page.

She does a great job of describing American upper middle class life with children very accurately - but I keep finding little clues that she may be English. I'm gonna google her. There are just some word choices that ring false. But the biggest clue is that though the child refuses to talk, play, interact with other children or even be completely toilet trained by the age of six (and these are all choices he's making, he's very, very bright and capable but incredibly manipulative) - he's not in any kind of therapy. That just wouldn't happen in America. That kid would have been evaluated and in treatment and on some type of medication before he hit three.

*That should give you some kind of clue as to what kind of kids I teach Mathos.

It also gives me cause for concern regarding the American need to control, I despise the thought of an "unruly or mischievous child" being put on medication before he/she attains the age of three years?

On whose authority or law are you allowed to do this?

There are many children found to be hyper-active, to me this is abundant energy, nothing more. I have come across and been involved with such children, sport is usually the answer and as a rule they do well, both in the sport and in getting the hyper activity in normal times greatly if not totally reduced.

I hope your not attempting to introduce such assaults on babies onto these shores?

aidan wrote-



He had a number of ladies squabbling over him even on his deathbed and he wasn't exactly conventionally good looking. And, apart from one, who I do believe he was fondest of, they were well educated.

He should not be underestimated on the basis of a few labels.He was a bit more than clever. How could he say that Mr Tambourine Man was the best song ever written otherwise. He knew "song" backwards. He was brave. First.

Such talents still do not rule out the claim made by Aidan that he was a racist and mysogynistic Spendius.

Adolf Hitler was an artist but he wasn't a very nice man, was he!

I'm in total agreement. I can't even tell you how upsetting I find this trend. But I saw it all the time in the US. It is much less common here, but nonetheless something that is beginning to happen more and more often. I do think there are interesting differences in the American and English psyche though that account for the very different ways issues in general are looked at. I think we could have an interesting discussion about that sometime.


I don't do this. I'm not licensed to prescribe medication. The usual route is that the parent asks for an evaluation of a child that they are having trouble controlling or who is not performing up to his or her standards. A doctor makes a diagnosis and either does or doesn't write a prescription and the parent then decided to put the child on meds or not. The teacher has absolutely nothing to say about whether a child takes meds or not.

I totally agree. But for many parents it's not about an abundance of energy- it's about a lack of achievement. And in the American system where overachieving is seen to be the norm - many parents look for a reason their child is not performing up to snuff. If they can get a diagnosis - and a label - they essentially buy their children all sorts of accommodations in standardized testing and day to day classroom activity to try to boost their achievement. I've worked with kids who had IQ's of 140 who were called learning disabled so they could have extra time to take their AP Physics exams. It's ridiculous - and epidemic in the states sadly.

I think it's less rampant here because there are other alternatives for students who don't want to pursue University.
Never!