Virginia Water is a town I could not afford to live in. A report from October 2015 listed Virginia Water as the most expensive town (excepting individual London boroughs) for property in the UK, having an average house price exceeding £1m. The 2011 Census showed the population of Virginia Water to be 5,940. Many of the homes are situated on the Wentworth Estate, the home of the Wentworth Club which has four golf courses. The Ryder Cup was first played there. It is also home to the headquarters of the PGA European Tour, the professional golf tour. The estate reached the headlines in 1998 when General Augusto Pinochet was kept under house arrest in one of its houses prior to his extradition.
“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.” – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)
Sting, the lead singer of the The Police, attended St Cuthbert’s Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a young man he visited nightclubs, such as Club A’Gogo, to see all the groups he could, including Cream and Manfred Mann, who influenced his music. After working as a bus conductor, a building labourer and a tax officer, he attended Northern Counties College of Education (now Northumbria University) from 1971 to 1974 and qualified as a teacher. He taught at St Paul’s First School in Cramlington for two years.
At night he performed jazz with The Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. It was whilst playing with the Phoenix Jazzmen, wearing a black and yellow hooped sweater, that he gained the name Sting.
He no doubt experienced situations, whilst teaching, that mirror the words in the song. It must be incredibly difficult for all young teachers to manage situations in schools where the hormones of youth are working overtime. The reference to Nabokov, at the end of the song, refers to the novel he was most famous for, Lolita!
Without further ado here is Don’t Stand So Close To Me. I hope you enjoy it!
Young teacher the subject
Of schoolgirl fantasy
She wants him so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Inside her there’s no room
This girl’s an open page
Book marking she’s so close now
This girl is half his age
Don’t stand so close to me
Her friends are so jealous
You know how bad girls get
Sometimes it’s not so easy
To be the teacher’s pet
Temptation, frustration
So bad it makes him cry
Wet bus stop, she’s waiting
His car is warm and dry
Don’t stand so close to me
Loose talk in the classroom
To hurt they try and try
Strong words in the staffroom
The accusations fly
It’s no use
He sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabakov
It’s time again, for Kat Myrman’s wonderful challenge, to write a story, inspired by her picture prompt, in 280 characters or fewer.
Here is this week’s prompt and my contribution.
Check out all the fabulously creative entries here and, if you’ve never had a go, why not try a story of your own? You may surprise yourself!
Photo by Moritz 320 at Pixabay.com
My mind was a complete blank for this prompt. Not unusual for my mind to be blank, but I can normally dream up some weird linked tale. Well, not this week, so I let my mind run a little bit wilder and came up with this little poem which is, I hasten to add, entirely a figment of my weird imagination. HONESTLY! Also, it fails miserably to come within the correct count.
All is ready, what a lark hands unsteady, oh it’s dark tripod mounted, camera fixed film all counted, cocktails mixed off with tops and let’s get snapping I love swaps but not the slapping All gone home, the films are printed all alone I stared and squinted Some may say I’m sad and lonely Come and join us, ah, if only!
Quokkas twice in a day has to be some sort of record.
Apart from that, this is really lovely, and well worth a look at the original too. There are some nice people around, and you don’t have to look far to find them!
Recently Sunny Skyz posted a collection of the most wholesome tweets of 2018. I’m recycling a few of my favorites here. See them all here.
It’s time again for Kat Myrman’s wonderful challenge to tax our creative souls. Just take her photo prompt and write a story, inspired by it, in 280 characters or fewer.
Photo by fotoerich at Pixabay.com
Here is this week’s prompt and my contribution. Check out all the fabulous entries here.
Those new contraceptive tablets were great. The instructions were really clear. I just had to make a sheath out of the intestine of a goat and stretch it over my organ, before ravishing all the handmaidens I desired. I didn’t have an organ, or a piano, so I stretched it over my lyre!
Photo by Moritz 320 at Pixabay.com
Photo by fotoerich at Pixabay.com
