no. not Patsy.

The finals I gave the rocks: business english, class 1&2. rocks hardened by years of despise to study, by online gaming, by raging hormones and junkfood.

the students had to sit on two classrooms , a depressing late wednsday for everyone.

oh, indeed distinctly I remember,

it was a dusty, bleak December,

And the faculty offered me no member,

to stand watch upon the chore,

quote the teacher:NEVER MORE.

so two classes and no one to help me invigilate.

at the last moment , my supervisor, tells me she could get one, but only for half an hour. great. cheers.

so i hand the rocks their sheets, explain, then run to the adjacent room, do the same.

when i get back, i see a young student, who isn't one of my pile, standing outside, looking in, fingering his phone intently.

a curious student? not in this world. i ask him to kindly leave, as i already suspected foul play.

the young gentlman pretended that he did not understand english.

another approach, then was required.

i closed the door and set about finding the beneficiary of his assistance.

it took less then a minute for my eagle eyes to catch the guy, who was sitting in the back and holding something under the desk.

i approached with caution, taking care to not disturb his serious work. sure enough, against the shadows of the desk and the blackness of his jacket, there was the unmistakable glow of an electronic device.

I quickly sprung my ambush, and confiscated the communication apparatus.

“but teacher” protested the young pimply teen, “I was just talking to a friend. ” and he showed me his chat log, which was truly not in english.

i kept the device, and moved the young man to the front row, , where i could keep an eye on him. Hammer, his chosen English name was Hammer, incidently. honestly , i was surprised that he could say that much as an excuse, he used to alternate between napping and texting during lessons . but this is collage and you must do crazy stuff to remember fondly years later. if only it was sex parties and booze all night. but no. i am sure he only got games on his mind.

so Hammer, as in the stormgod’s tool, sat grudgingly in the fore, and i hastened to the other classroom to see if there are any casualties yet.

surprisingly , they were working on the composition, and there was an eerie quiet. class two had a better group dynamic, i guess.

i walk back to the fighting “ones”, wondering if I will get a question about the exam. will there be problems with section 2? could they see the tricky question in section5?

the only question i got, though, shortly after returning, was from good old Hammer. and it was ” teacher, may I go to the W.C?” no 'bathroom', 'restroom', 'lavatorie' or even 'toilet', in this guy’s vocabulary.

i can not refuse a question of such importance, though i recalled that the young man suspiciously standing before outside my classroom, was still waiting in the hall.

Hammer left , and i resumed my watchful work.

after making another round in class two, pointing out the tricky question, which i feared they will all trip over, i returned to class one. it was then that i recalled that young Hammer was not back from his visit at the acronym.

fearing for his soul, i went to the water closet, finding the suspicious Mr. X standing at the entrence , talking to soneone who was hidden from my sight.

Mr. X noticed me and his expression turned to sheer terror. it is true I am ugly beyond words, but it was evident that something was afoot.

i took another step, seeing young Hammer, holding out the exam sheet.

it gets tragic at this point. Hammer noticed me as well, and jerked back, running into the stalls to hide...

or so he had hoped. sadly, the flooring of the men’s restroom was slippery with filthy liquid, of which sort you can easily imagine.

and so, in his haste, young Hammer slipped on the drippings of the urinals and plunged into the depth of the floor. he rose up, his clothes awash . and so was the exam sheet.

i said nothing, just returned to the classroom. this future giant of industry did enough for himself. he came humiliated and dripping to the classroom, where i did not accept his questionair. he had to do the exam again, and i did not have to do anything in way of punishment, for him to bomb.

such is the truth of life. stupid crime does not pay. and that is why i will do my best to never teach collage english again!

The precarious first step, the realisation that you are stuck in the mud, that you are no longer a teen, you are 20-ish (creative licence used), and drowning in the situation you have found yourself in.

That trapped sinking feeling in your stomach. That you are 20-ish feet deep.

The first step for me was not when I left school, or finished University or even when I was on the cusp of being made redundant. The realisation that I was drowning came when my long-standing family, friend who I had lost touch with for years decided to visit.

I had heard from my parents that he had gotten a girlfriend, gotten weighty and gotten a baby. All of these things repulsed me, the idea of commitment was a ball and chain that I almost laughed at, that I was free of such things.

It was when they came down to the quiet of our little baby-less bubble that I realised he was happy. It was when he asked what I was doing now that I realised, I had been stuck in the mud without realising it. I oodles in educational debt, no commitment, soon to be no job and no clue. That the sleepless nights and the headaches were symptoms of restless mind.

That evening the meal out was a nightmare, I never went out. I, as my dad commented was a “home-bird” this only added to the discomfort. As they cooed at the baby in the cot remarking of their recent venture into getting their own place. I could only nod and smile. The only saving grace was another friendly face, some guy from school-days behind the bar I had been crushing on, but would never fully consider.

We parted ways for the evening and promised to meet the next night, having completed the first reunion dinner, I turned to bed, as least I had managed to go out.

Then with another restless night, I checked social media armed with a name and face of my long-standing friends’ girlfriend. After about 10 minutes I found myself scrolling to the waiter of that evening only to be rejected by his relationship status with the waitress.

Having reached that first step, the moment of greatest enthusiasm with smallest follow-through, wanting to change.

#shaynabryer

I suspect only movie aficionados and folks of a certain generation will know the name Walter Matthau. He starred alongside Jack Lemmon in The Odd Couple and has 106 entries on IMDB.

Perhaps the most flattering thing to say about his appearance is – he was not a handsome fellow. Funny? Yes. Talented? I think so. Successful? 106 entries on IMDB. Good looking? Erm….

But that didn’t stop me being star struck when I saw him in the centre of my home town.

Born in 1920, Mr Matthau was 50+ years older than me. However, as two of my favourite pleasures in life are watching films and laughing, I was a fan of his work and therefore could easily spot him in a crowd. Even if that place was nearly 5,300 miles from Hollywood in a busy city in the north of England.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not some little backwater settlement which has never known the grace of celebrity. Queen Victoria herself opened our Town Hall and we have given the world a member of a very successful and popular girlband. (Admittedly, that second adjective is debatable.)

But I have not met either of those women nor in fact ever seen, up close, a real-life legend of the silver screen. So I was amazed and shocked when I glimpsed Mr Matthau through a shop window.

Let me try and set the scene…

It was late morning on a Saturday in June. Though I don’t remember the exact year, I was in my early twenties so it would have been the mid-1990s. I’d finished work for the day, having done the 6 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. shift, and was hastening to the bus stop so I could get home to rest. (I’d also worked 6.00 a.m. - 5.00 p.m. the previous five days, hard days of labouring in the claustrophobic cellars of a prime hotel.)

As I wandered up the street, I glanced in the windows of the shops I passed every day. Sunlight glinted, causing me to squint quite often. Most of the displays I knew by heart. The shoes, the electronic goods, the record stores. (Yes, this was back in the day of vinyl.)

And then I saw him and stopped in my tracks.

The wrinkled face. The sagging jowls. The bags under his eyes. (As I said, not a handsome man.)

I stared and, as my mouth fell open in wonder, I saw he was looking at me. Right at me. Walter Matthau, the star of Bad News Bears and California Suite, was seeing me, a nobody from England. He opened his mouth but said nothing.

For a good ten seconds, we gaped ay one another. I couldn’t wait to tell this story, to exalt my friends with my brush with stardom.

Until…

A cloud covered the sun. The window dimmed. And I was left peering into a high-end clothes store, my reflection gone.