English Dignity

Around this time last year, my classmates and I went on a field trip around the picturesque Swiss and Italian Alps. We observed mountains, glaciers, dams, ammonites and all manner of interesting geological sites. The only major downside to the whole trip was our transportation. The sun in central Europe is cruel even in early summer, and the minivan we spent the majority of each day in while we negotiated mountain passes high in the hills was a sweat box at any temperature over 20'C. The compounded heat on our pale and unprepared  bodies was reminiscent of a scene from a Vietnamese POW camp.

The highlight of the entire trip was a two night stay in the magnificent resort of Serpiano, a five star luxury hotel nestled in the hills of southern Switzerland, near to the Swiss-Italian border. 

As a general rule on these sorts of trips, the expectation is that you will be staying in 15 a room sleeping pit where running water is a luxury, so this was a wonderful surprise. 

The highlight of the hotel  was it's ample swimming and water based relaxation facilities. In particular, it's steam and sauna rooms. After four hours on a sweaty coach we donned some towels, lay back....and continued to sweat.

It was paradise. 

There was one aspect of the whole experience though that we found slightly jarring. In order to enjoy the facilities to their full extent, nakedness underneath towels was mandatory. This wasn't too much of an  issue for our little group. The English get through events such as these by clinging to our towels for dear life and desperately pretending that nobody else is naked under theirs. This was all well and good, until a new force capable of causing massive awkwardness among our ranks made itself painfully apparent. 

Naked Italian Men.


Apparently the towel was one item of clothing to many, and letting it all fly was the way to go. They were completely unfased by their state of nakedness and, for the next couple of hours, we were subjected to an  unrelenting display of wang.

Again, this was not too much of an issue, because we ourselves were not naked. We kept ourselves tightly wrapped in towels and scuttled to and from our respective changing rooms. There was one activity though, that could not be completed clothed. A dip in the plunge pool. The open area between the sauna and steam room had a rather handsome plunge pool and although we were all keen to go in visits to it had to be timed with military precision.

After 30 minutes of sweating my guts out in the sauna, I decided that it was time to  brave the pool. I checked to make sure the coast was clear and gingerly stepped from my sanctuary. I checked a final time, dropped the towel, and hopped up the steps of the pool to immerse myself in the icy water.

It was a this precise moment, that a pack of 45 year Italian men descended on the sauna rooms. Naked as the sunrise and looking my way.

The hell they were seeing my boobs.

As I sat hunched in the 2C water, waiting for them to get out of sight so I could get out and return blood to my extremities, I had a thought. I had just voluntarily thrown myself into a vat of icy water (I really did, the urgency of my actions is in no way exaggerated) and was now sitting in it waiting for solitude......or death. 

This is because I was raised English, and we are not naked. Ever. 

I stand by my actions. 

Tortoise Me

When I was very young, I was very deaf. I had trouble understanding anything that was said to me and often ignored people. This confused me school and distressed my parents greatly. It did not bother me though, I was too deaf to understand what was going on.

It was like living in a world where everybody talks like they do on The Sims.

As it was so long ago, I can only remember a tiny amount about not being able to hear.  The one memory that sticks out concerns a song we had to sing at school assembly. I'm guessing the purpose of the song was to instil the importance and value of friendship and communication in our young minds. The teacher sang it through a couple of times, and then we had to join in. 

The lyrics of the song confused me slightly, but I was not about to start questioning authority. I was already getting in enough trouble because of my inability to follow basic instructions. I inhaled and began blasting out my rendition of a song entitled Talk to Me, at full volume. 

It wasn't my proudest moment. 

After this my parents decided to seek medial advice. 

Now I can hear. 

THE END

Horse Porn

One fun and little known fact about me is that when I was in secondary school, I was very into drama. There is little about my life these days that would indicate this, but my level of commitment at the time was fierce. I spent  hours and hours a week rehearsing, learning lines and practising stage entrances. These performances weren't just confined to my school stage either. I performed nationally at numerous locations, ranging from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the Globe. I was involved in improvisation, classical theatre, Shakespearian masterpieces, comedies, abstract miming and plays that were first performed in ancient Greece.

I was quite the little Thespian.  

When I look back on this period of my life, one play, out of the near fifty I was a part of stands starkly out. This play set the tone for the majority of productions I would be involved in later and, on reflection,  is probably one of the most bizarre things I have ever been involved in. 

First, lets set the scene. 

In year 9, I was thirteen years old. I had messy hair, was a foot shorter than I am now, and desperately needed braces. The last major school production had been the Wizard of Oz two years previous, in which I had been a Munchkin of the Lullaby League. The head of drama was not a fan of musicals, and the experience had left most people soured to the idea of doing one again. It was decided that we should do something new. Something......... different. 

I was presented with a script for this: 

Equus is a play about the reasons why a young man by the name of Allen has blinded horses at the stable where he works. The psychologist who interviews him slowly discovers that due to a lack of influence from the outside world, and some seriously confused ideas about sexuality, young Allen has created a religion with a horse at it's helm that he worships through highly charged semi-masturbatory self flagellation. 

A year 9 production of Equus. You can't make this shit up. 

Several of the older years were drafted in to play some of the more challenging roles.  I was cast as the leads' mother, an overprotective religious crackpot who provides much of the ideology on which young Allen builds his sexy horse religion. With the cast prepared and a date set for performance, it was time to learn the lines. 

I'm not entirely sure what my parents thought when I skipped home with a copy of this in my hand. I imagine its's how Linda Blaire's parents felt upon first reading the script for The Excorcist. 

All doubts aside though, I was allowed to continue and spent my time after school watching a screaming topless guy spank himself with a whip and making wire horse heads. 

My mother still says it's the best play we ever did.