White van passengers

Standing by the side of the road, waiting for the lights to change, one has plenty of time to survey ones surroundings. But sod that, it's much more fun to stare at the occupants of the cars whizzing by. Someday, somebody is going to author the definitive spotters' guide to the British diver, with descriptions and illustrations of the School Run Mum, The Commuter, The Angry Man, The Fun Car Driver, The Soft Toy Farmer and so on and so forth. Next month, they'll start work on updating the guide, that's how definitive guides work.

A particular sub-set of traveller is the white van driver. Lots has been, well, not so much written as said about white van drivers. True, the vast majority of it is not social commentary in the formal sense, but rather along the lines of immediate feedback on the white van driver's skill at, say, filtering, usually delivered by somebody in a neighbouring car to an audience of an empty passenger seat.

And while much has been said and shouted about the white van driver, less has been said about the white van passenger, which is a shame. Because I think this is a particular social type that could stand some examination. Looking at white van passengers, you can't help but think that there is a story there. They occupy a special place, and not just to the left of the hand break. Rather, like the girlfriend of a a provincial gigging DJ who keeps other women away from her man simply through the power of sullen glower, they have a purpose of their own. Often, of course, this will be to load and unload crates of fanta, but there's something else going on there too.

The passengers essentially break down into three types; mates, girlfriend, family. Mates are there to help shift stuff from the van or to the van. A mate can be identified not just by posture - they are happy to sit in companionable silence for long periods - but by the little nest they make on the passenger side of the van to reinforce their sense of identity even though they are not the driver. The base layer is constructed of coffee cups and tabloid newspapers, further than that it's at the discretion of the mate except that before the invention of the Internet there would always be at least one soft core porn mag.

The girlfriend is rarer, but easily visible when present because her posture manages to convey 'I want to spend more time with you and if I have to spend Saturday in a van with you, I will, although it will not be pleasant'. The van driver's originally chirpy mood will be ground down throughout the day, turning very bleak indeed when he realises about three o' clock that his planned evening of drinking cider with his mates is unlikely to happen.

The family member is about the best. Specifically, small boys and dogs. Small boys, or girls, in a van are always uplifting. Somehow taking your kid to work in a van goes beyond the normal 'I have fucked up the child care arrangements, again' that typify the appearance of a child in an office. The kid is normally excited beyond even the power of haribo to induce giddiness, because they are finding out what happens to their parent during the day and, when you're a kid, there's nothing quite like seeing your parent at work and realising that other people do not call him 'Dad' and riding high above the rest of the traffic. You conclude the day learning that his name is either 'Geoff' or 'wanker'. You also conclude with a free tray of fanta but you're not to tell anyone.

The only family member more pleased than a child to ride in the passenger seat of a white van is a small dog, usually a terrier, usually with its head stuck out of the window looking happy beyond reason because surely there is no greater thrill than accompanying your dad on a job, unless it's sticking your head out of the window and letting your ears blow about in the rush of wind.

Scooter Park

Off to the village school summer fete. I thought that it was a joke when I was informed that there was a bar there. In fact, it wasn’t true. There were two bars, one flogging Pimms and lemonade, the other doing a roaring trade in beers. These already very popular refreshment tents (nobody drinks like a parent, want to know why? Spend ten minutes in the company of a child who has access to haribo) became even more popular when the rain came on. Naturally, as the school fete was being held on an English summer’s day, the rain was biblical.

It was, on the whole, cathartic.

‘Wet play’ at school was something of a drag, playtime traditionally being the time where there would be a tremendous release of all that energy that had been pent up daydreaming through a maths class. Not being able to tear round the playground pretending to be a Spitfire and instead being confined to a classroom with two dozen other fusty kids who smelled mostly of kids parka, but in an enclosed space, watching the windows steam up, is hardly the sort of stuff that is going to make it into the pages of ‘First period at Chalet School’.

More like misery lit.

But standing in a school playground watching the deluge while drinking beer…ahhhhh, this was much more enjoyable. Suddenly it became clear why so many teachers drink, it’s not just because they have a shit job, it’s because they had a shit time at school the first time round and by encountering it all again but amiably hammered, certain ghosts are laid.


Many of the kids had obviously come on that popular kiddie form of transport, the scooter. I was particularly pleased to see them parked up near a rail in the schools scooter park, looking for all the world like tiny tot versions of cowboy horses tethered at the saloon rail.

What I really liked was that I noted the same number of scooters coming out of the fete as I noticed going in there. Scooter theft from schoolkids must be one of the lowest crimes, and typified by a fat chav bending the board of a scooter, shooting sparks from the pavement, as he tries to make off with it.

This must go beyond a simple social compact not to steal a kids’ toys, I think this has to symbolise a recognition about the sort of thing that happens to people in prison who are convicted of scooter theft. Nonces and peados are one thing but somebody who is banged up in Strangeways for stealing a scooter, possibly from a disabled kiddy, has invited a special kind of hell.

So, you can leave your scooter in confidence that the nonces, the peados and the scooter sniffers will not touch it, all you have to worry about is another kid making off with your bespoke Barbie pink or Action man Camoflage scooter when the temptation becomes too much.

I’ll be the judge of that

Judges may only work from ten to two with a break for a lunchtime visit to an S&M parlour, but they get a lot done. Or rather, their predecessors did. The law is built on precedent. A judge’s job is to flick through one of the books you always see behind lawyers until he finds a case roughly similar to the one being tried, then copy the judgement. Hey presto! Not only is the establishment maintained but he can knock off early and be first in line at the canteen and/or flagetoruium.

I don’t think that a lot of judicial insight was required last week in New Zealand when a judge ruled that a young girl named ‘Talula does the Hula from Hawaii’ could change her name. He probably just looked up the case law on ‘stupid names’ and the book fell open at the most popular ruling, ‘change the name, stone the parents to death’.

No matter the rights and wrongs of the ruling and how it affected the rest of the Does-The-Hula-From-Hawaii family, there’s no question that Talula is a silly name and that it’s right to change it, and I hope that Kate Does The Hula From Hawaii is happy with her new name.

The judge considered that one of the reasons for allowing the change in name was that children taunt and can be cruel. This must be the same judge that made the landmark ‘bears and woods’ ruling in 1996. But I think he’s missing the point. Of course children taunt other children, but that’s not because the victim has a silly name, it’s because that children are little sods.

Children do not need a reason to poke fun at another child. They can simply make a reason up. These are people who live in the land of imagination, it doesn’t take much for them to take one look at a kid, decide his hair is cut by gypsies and start the chant of ‘pikey-top’. This they then escalate to the dreaded rhyme, such as ‘pikey top, lives in a bog in a bog, stinks of poo and eats hedgehog’.

Unhappily the world of education is basically just one long opportunity to set yourself for a career as taunt-fodder and if, by some miracle, you manage to go through school without embarrassing yourself don’t worry, your family are always there to take up the slack.

Almost everyone gets teased at school. You may be kid normal for almost the entirety of your education but everyone will remember that time in gym where, despite not feeling too good since lunch, you were keen to show off your handstanding skills, farted and accidentally defecated appalling steaming dihorrea all down your back.

After enduring a few months of humiliation, the circus moves on, possibly to the kid who ate a whole box of crayons for a bet in art class and, after throwing up onto a canvas, was known as ‘Rolf’ for the rest of term.

Rest assured though, your torture is somebody else’s nostalgia. Logging onto Friends Reunited for the first time, look at the message board for your primary school and see for yourself the posting: ‘whatever happened to poo nape?’ (Hint, don’t e mail that person asking if they are single).

So kids can be cruel, in the sense of a group of pre-adolescent girls chanting ‘Debby has nits’ at some poor unfortunate in the corner of the school playground? But let’s not forget that adults can be cruel too. Deciding to felt tip ‘special needs’ on a kids locker can be cruel, but it’s hardly making a pyramid of naked prisoners and then taking a photograph of yourself giving the thumbs up in front of them, is it? I somehow doubt that the crew-cutted torturers at Guantanemo look in at their orange boiler suited victims and have a conversation along the lines of ‘okay, so we’ve tried electrodes on the goolies, sensory depravation and wake-boarding or whatever it’s called and he still insists he’s actually just a school kid from Darlington who was on an exchange visit to Afghanastan. I’ve got a great idea, why don’t we chant ‘spaz’ at him until he starts crying’.

Postcard from Spain - Children's holiday settings

It was a new experience, being on a prolonged holiday with children. They seem to have an endless 30 minute cycle of; play, get in fight, cry, tantrum, blaming one another, make up, play. I learned two things – there’s no reasoning with kids and their parents’ get very funny if you scream ‘shut the f**k up or I’ll beat you to death with your own spleen’ at a four year old.

Given that children show an amazing disregard for danger when climbing on rocks (I came a cropper when doing the same and would have had a nasty cut to the head if I had not been wearing my safety panama), they are astonishingly conservative when it comes to food. Faced with an astonishing selection of the foods of the world children, it appears, like nuggets. I’m not sure they care about the contents, possibly because they drench the nugget in enough ketchup to disguise the taste even if it was polonium.

Which made eating out in a Spanish resort quite an experience. One thing was for sure, I was in no danger of having my food poached. Judging from what turned up on my plate one evening, my phrase book Spanish let me down and instead of having a seafood selection I was confronted with what might be more accurately described as Horror from the Deep. The last time I saw that many tentacles on something was during a cheese and pickle binge induced nightmare. Predictably, it was delicious. The kids nearly went into convulsions So win win really.

12 days of Christmas – Christmas Day

Whoever maintains that ‘Christmas is for the kiddies really’ clearly doesn’t realise that having an excuse to drink champagne before breakfast is great!

Kids and Christmas does not constitute peace and goodwill. I used to think that the tradition of gift giving at Christmas started with the three wise men – wise indeed, because how were they to know that Jesus was an only child? That’s why they took, basically, a token, bath salts and perfume – three things that siblings would never squabble and fall out over. Believe me, if the wise men had bourn gifts of lego and Jesus had had a big brother, it wouldn’t have been a silent night in Bethlehem.

In fact the tradition of gift giving on Christmas Day was invented, or re-invented, by the Victorians, probably driven by popular culture or Fisher-Price, Sony and Mattel.

Thankfully, I am still enough of a big kid to enjoy Christmas. The difference is that while as a child and teen I was a horribly materialistic little git, I now take great delight in my new Doctor Who mug, which comes complete with spoon or, as I see it’s titled, a ‘time-stirrer’. Honest to God, it’s more fun than a DS.