dispatches from the school run

January 29

It was the occasion of our parent/teacher meeting.
Teech was present.
Superkid's mother and father were present.
In a twist on the normal arrangements, Superkid was present.
He sat on a chair in a corner of the room with his leg crossed reading a book about the Spanish Armada while we talked about him.
Let's just say it turned out to be good for his confidence.
We left the meeting on a high.
That must be the essence of what having a child is all about.
Something that he has done leaves you bursting with pride.
We had a group hug and high fives in the car park.
It no doubt looked ludicrous but what the hell, these moments should be enjoyed.
Especially if one of the parents once had to swallow the bitter pill of scoring 13% in mathematics as a fledgling academic. Things were so bad that the
teacher rang home to ask whether the pupil concerned had a fever.
I didn't.

January 25

6.38am - woken by strange sounds coming from the bathroom. Sounds of inter-galactic warfare.
Further investigation reveals Superkid sitting on the toilet in his pyjamas playing Star Wars - The Complete Saga on his new Nintendo DS Lite. He has woken early to make inroads into reaching level 3 where he intends to fight General Grievous.
This must surely rank as inappropriate preparation for school and we may well receive an advisory note from the government indicating parental misconduct.
At least Superkid had words of encouragement about his father's general contribution before we left for school.
'Dad, you are good at a lot of things,' said Superkid.
'Oh, thanks,' said Undercoverdad.
'Helping other people put their socks on, for example,' said Superkid, illustrating his point amply.

January 22

Is this going to carry on for the entire year?
Every Monday of this watery, wind-swept annus (apologies for using medical terms before the watershed third paragraph) we have been battered by headlines telling us it is the most miserable day served up by 2008 so far.
If the trend continues, I can't see any point in bravely pressing on.
By definition, if each Monday is worse than the last, the year is going to be borderline unbearable by the time we reach mid-June.
There will be people falling on their swords left right and centre.
Even people who don't own swords will be borrowing swords from people who do and falling on them.
Simply to avoid the impending abject misery of the coming Monday.
Well it's got to stop.
As outlined by Undercoverdad recently enough, Superkid has got off to a flying start this year - an uplifting effort which his all-too-buoyant father is attempting to mirror.
No amount of doom-mongering in the national press is going to alter that.
And if you truly are struggling to cope with the competition, gainsaying, general jockeying for position and downright drudgery provided by Certain Mothers and Other Particular Mothers on your daily school run, never fear.
Undercoverdad today provides, totally free of charge, a priceless list of random and infuriating quotes to drop into your routine as and when you see fit - in order to 'help your general disposition' and perhaps 'shift the weight of concern' onto other shoulders.
It may or may not work, but it's got to be worth a go and is certainly preferable to lying weeping and alone on the kitchen linoleum having guzzled a litre of cheap vodka in an attempt to numb the pain before lunch time.
Remember, all phrases should be uttered at a healthy volume, preferably at bewilderingly inappropriate moments.

Phrase 1 - 'I wouldn't say it has made us any happier but a vast lottery win can put a certain spring in your step'

Phrase 2 - 'I didn't really know Great Aunt Helibore, but she has seen fit to bypass her own children and leave me the manor house with surrounding acreage and tithe barns'

Phrase 3 - 'I may take Poinsetta out of school for the entire Spring term, have done with it and simply decamp to the Virgin Islands'

Phrase 4 - 'It sounds glamorous, but the paddle gear shift on the DB9 becomes utterly infuriating at anything a tad over 130mph'

Phrase 5 - 'Drufus has said drop everything and come back to the chalet in Verbier for another month. Apparently the New Year's Eve party is still going strong'

January 21

Superkid is accepting the challenge of learning new skills on many fronts as the New Year develops.
Swimming lessons at school are passing without headline-worthy trauma, his name is down for theatre group, football training on a Saturday morning requires a beany hat and windcheater but is the highlight of his week and tennis on a Tuesday evening is revealing a penchant for the punched backhand volley which would not have shamed that master exponent of the net arts Stefan Edberg.
School work is being devoured as long as the requisite bribes and treats are put in place at the finish line and he is still finding time to start learning chess using the Star Wars 30th anniversary collector's set he received at Christmas.
Although his tutor is not and perhaps never will be of Grand Master status, the foothills of knowledge in this deep and thought-provoking game are not providing too many stumbling blocks.
But what of Undercoverdad - faced with this energising example of grasping life's opportunities in both hands?
Surely it is only right that the father should take the son's example and venture on to new and exciting ground.
But what shall it be? Knitting? Cross-country skiiing?
Integrating with Certain Particular Mothers more effectively? Chairing the Cappuccino Clan AGM/bring and buy sale?
Let's not rush into this one.

January 11

Superkid's class began swimming lessons today at the local sports centre.
A world apart, I'm sure, from the shambles which passed as swimming lessons when I attended an austere Grammar School in the north as an eleven-year-old.
The school did not have it's own pool, so an entire Wednesday afternoon was put aside on the timetable each week for us to undertake tutelage at the municipal baths three miles away in town.
To reach the pool we were entrusted with making an unchaperoned bus journey on public transport before alighting and marching two abreast in an orderly fashion to our destination. That was the instruction, anyway.
Thirty 11-year-old boys.
Unsupervised.
All carrying money supposedly set aside to pay for their swimming lesson.
It did not take an elite educator loaded down with qualifications and experience to predict that the arrangement had certain flaws with regard to levels of behaviour and, indeed, attendance.
By the time the bus reached the swimming pool, our number had usually dwindled to around nine or ten pupils.
If there was a good film showing at the nearby Odeon cinema, we could be down to as few as three or four.
Several of the more experienced truants simply debussed at a classmates house one stop on from school and would habitually spend the afternoon leafing through his father's leatherbound collection of Mayfair and Playboy magazines while smoking the absent host's favoured brand of cigarillo.
The swimming pool itself was a death trap. Built in Victorian times and cleaned perhaps twice since, the changing facilities would have shamed a battery chicken farmer.
We were expected to cram two youths to each tiny booth, get changed and then get on with the task of teaching ourselves to swim.
At no time was there any sign of a tutor from school or, indeed, an instructor provided by the pool itself.
I'm all for cutting out the middle man, but
if you couldn't swim to start with and there was nobody around to offer guidance, the chances of making progress were not healthy.
Perhaps we were meant to show some initiative and swim along with a self-help manual in one hand and one of the flea-bitten floats in the other.
The pool's overflow outlets were plugged up with unspecified clots of body hair and corn plasters while lumps of asbestos from the ceiling could fall on you at any time and made progress difficult at the shallow end, where they tended to congregate and bob around like a field of miniature ice bergs.
Come to think of it, the water was so cold, perhaps it was a field of miniature ice bergs.
The only people in there were us, a handful of dole cheats trying to break open the valuables safe and the dangerously infirm who could not get out of the pool unaided at the end of their over-70s aquacise class.
It usually took us 15 minutes to haul our elderly brethren out by the trunks before an hour of dive-bombing, bebriefing, dunking and sprinting around on the dangerously wet and cracked tiling floor ensued.
A hooter would sound to indicate the end of our 'lesson' and then it was back on the bus to school.
After getting clothed, obviously.
By the time our carriage pulled up at the school gates again there were often only one or two of our original party left.
None of the teaching staff ever seemed particularly perturbed by the disappearance of 90 per cent of the students they were charged with over-seeing, so the arrangement continued for the entire winter term.
I seem to recall that my friend watched the film Return of the Pink Panther with Peter Sellers nine times (Peter Sellers wasn't watching it with my friend - he was in the film. I think he could already swim).

January 7

'Darling, we're going to have to get Timmy a private instructor, he simply won't wear the ski school bib!'
Brayed down a mobile phone by some Henrietta in a fuschia one-piece lounging on the sun deck of a restaurant half way up a French Alp, this was certainly the pick of the season's Christmas bragging selection.
The quote was overheard by one of Undercoverdad's many agents out in the field and rightly took top billing, but there was plenty of competition for the prize when Superkid restarted school this morning.
The cluster in the cloakroom had a particularly desperate air to it, as if some mothers were unsure that their festive achievements were going to stand up to scrutiny from the more competitive element.
'Of course we went to Lapland to see him, just not for as long as last year,' explained One Particular Mother.
'Well, we couldn't stay there long anyway - we Christmassed in Whistler,' countered Another Certain Mother.
I ran away.
The soaring hormone levels were affecting my balance and the use of the word Christmas as a verb was bringing me out in hives.
For my part, I had been unable to locate Superkid's P.E. pumps in the cupboard under the stairs and received a stern but fully deserved ticking off from Teech.
This was not an exemplary manner in which to launch the new term and yet again I have let myself down in the parenting theatre.
If this carries on, I will be shunned - left to stand alone in a corner of the playground at collection time, unloved and under-valued.
This will bring a dramatic and distressing change to my position in the pecking order.