THE BULLY: Bal de Jour
Mr. Smith was the local fishmonger. He was
part-German, but had left Germany in 1937; he was not Jewish, he just hated what was
happening to his country. I can picture him now in his shop doorway with a friendly
word or pleasantry for everyone who passed by. Which is remarkable, as in
reality he didn’t have a shop, he sold fish door-to-door from out of the back
of his van. So much for our reconstructed memories. He was Old School, with a
belief in honesty, customer service and value for money. So while 4am found the
rest of us still fast asleep, he could be found making his daily journey to
Billingsgate: he wanted the freshest fish for his customers. He was a nice man,
a gent, happy doing what he did, very well. He was a modest, kind man, of whom
you might say “why aren’t there more people like him around: the world would be
a better place”.
Not so his son, who he had named Basil,
which may have been his undoing: less of a Basil it would be hard to imagine.
Basil – ‘Bal’ then, probably Bazza now – was a brute. He was not huge, but he
was tallish and overweight, not athletic but nevertheless extremely strong, and
all this menacing bulk was harnessed to an earnest desire to hurt people and
hurt them badly if they didn’t succumb, ask for mercy, or acknowledge his
supremacy. My acquaintance with him was slight and agonising: one lunchtime he
got hold of my thumb and bent it in a direction and to an extent to which
thumbs were not designed to travel. As it happens, I have ‘double-jointed’
thumbs which allows them go some way back towards the arm, but not to touch it,
which Basil achieved. The pain was sufficient to tell me it must be broken, but
it was not. Some ridiculous schoolboy code of honour persuaded me not to grass
him up to the teachers, but it was badly swollen and unusable and so difficult
to conceal from my parents that evening. My father was livid and marched me straight
round to the Smith house in Prince George Avenue, opposite the church: he would
have it out with father and son and make sure Bal was thoroughly
punished. As we neared the house a rather graphic and frightening image came
into my mind: of my father, no athlete, bodybuilder or fighting man, going down
under a rain of blows, having adopted the classic boxing stance of the silent
films, fists rotating; badly hurt and totally humiliated at being thrashed by a
13 year old bully-boy, would probably ground him with a well-aimed kick and carry on kicking. It was not an idle fantasy, it was a racing certainty
given my knowledge of the contestants.
It never happened because Mr Smith came to
the front door, not Bal. He listened with a palpable mixture of horror and
shame, summoned the young thug who was forced to apologise to me (while showing
clearly in his eyes that there would be a price to pay for this humiliation)
fined a month’s pocket money (which would be recovered in a few days via his
lunch-money-tax revenue stream, to the detriment of some hungry first years). I think I remember my father saying "he should be kept on a leash, with a muzzle" and Mr. Smith spreading his hands as if to say "What can I do?" For
some reason retribution never came my way. Bal continued to conduct his reign of
terror in the school which only ended when he decked a teacher, momentarily
forgetting that they had more power than the average small boy, or indeed very
large one. The teacher did not press charges, presumably because he did not
want to play out his humiliating trauma before a wider audience.
Bal was expelled but
admitted to another local school, on probation, where my primary schoolfriend (MD) went. He told me that Bal immediately set about expanding
his empire of terror. Everybody hoped that he would get his come-uppance, but
from a fellow-pupil, not just the power of the Feds. That was too good for him,
he needed to get a real beating if there was a Just World. Possible salvation
came in the form of a new contender (RP) recently moved to the area from
Manchester. He was one of those ludicrously early developers who is shaving
twice a day at the age of 14; already 6 foot 2, already with a hairy chest, a
six-pack, arms the diameter of the average thigh and – wait for it – North West
of England Under 15 boxing champion. Apparently, the school bristled with excitement. This diffused rather quickly; Basil
recognised the threat and, with two fingers to the Queensberry Rules, made the
pre-emptive strike. He caught RP at his most vulnerable, naked in the showers,
felled him with a single blow to the nose, breaking it, and then set about making
adjustments to the likely RP family tree. There was blood in the shower, rather
like Psycho, and appropriately so. RP, anxious for his reputation and
acceptance in the new school, obeyed the muerta.
When encouraged to get his revenge on Bal, he claimed to have become a Buddhist
and a pacifist who conscientiously objected to getting his face re-arranged,
again.
Bal disappeared, his father left the
neighbourhood – in disgrace in his own eyes – and neither were ever heard of
again. I am willing to bet, however, that records of Broadmoor or some similar
high security psychiatric facility would throw up his name. For Bal was a
psychopathic violent sadist albeit in embryonic form when he terrorised us. A
bully and a thug with absolutely no conscience, a Broadmoor would be his
university, his career, his natural home, in perpetuity. Or possibly not. A
couple of years ago I did see a newspaper photograph of someone whose features
looked hideously familiar: if I screwed up my eyes for a moment, adjusted for
some dietary improvement and gym work to shed a couple of stone, affected some
scholarly looking glasses to disguise the vicious eyes – yes, it could just be
him. But why would he change his name to ‘Michael Gove’? Of course it was just
my imagination and an unfair comparison: Gove’s bullying of the education
system was far more dangerous to British schoolchildren than anything Bal could
do.
Another National Treasure gone.
THE TEARS
Every now and then we get moments when something very familiar, momentarily feels odd; we see it briefly in a new light and question what we have previously taken for granted. Everyone remembers Gazza's floods of tears at the 1980 World Cup Finals (a.k.a. The Nessun Dorma Finals). They were seen by billions of viewers across the whole globe. We know why he cried, what caused his grief, but why do we squirt liquid when we're sad? But it was a cuspic moment for men: actually they were allowed to cry...
Everybody knows that the tear ducts secrete a fluid which lubricates cleanses and protects the surface of the eye, but that's different. 'Why do we cry?' Why should the eyeball need to be awash with fluid when we are shocked, very sad or in pain, or extremely happy? It seems to make no sense, nor to have any function or evolutionary role. Maybe it's a primitive, pre-linguistic signal to an attacker (or the world in general, that you are hurt, 'disabled' offer no threat and are deferring to them (I'm making this up as I go along, like most amateur ethology). That's not implausible but it) doesn't account for the depth of emotion experienced (similar to the other end of the spectrum, laughter. As with laughter, there is a great outpouring of energy, a need to externalise the emotion, that is almost too much for mere words and so it needs a physical conduit to channel its release. Maybe, as I've often felt, popular sayings express these things, these truths better than theories do: "Go on, have a good cry, let it out, you'll feel better afterwards"......
A Psychologist has been pondering these questions for the last 10 minutes without a satisfactory answer. It's a topic which deserves a book, not a part of a post of a blog. If you want to read a non-jargonised account, click on:
A Psychologist has been pondering these questions for the last 10 minutes without a satisfactory answer. It's a topic which deserves a book, not a part of a post of a blog. If you want to read a non-jargonised account, click on:
Meanwhile, consider the high profile tears have had in popular music: As Tears Go By, Tears of a Clown, Tears for Fears, Tears for Souvenirs, Big Girls Don't Cry, Crying in the Rain. Are you crying yet, because tears are contagious, like laughter? How about Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontear?
MODERN PROVERBS (1)
"A BAD CONSCIENCE IS GOD'S WAY OF TELLING YOU THAT YOU'VE BEEN A SHIT"
BRUVVAFROMANUVVAMUVVA: Gonzo & Kyle Walker
SOME POSTS OF THE WEEK
The extraordinary measure of her power and popularity is that were she to take this course, the issue would be settled decisively, with a huge majority, for good. On difficult, complex, ambiguous and uncertain issues we are often relieved to simply vote with the people we respect. Do it, Your Majesty, then abdicate for having broken your rule, have an enjoyable retirement and leave us to Green Charles - he can't be put off for ever, so we might as well get it over with....
THE GALLERY
FASHION: our correspondent writes:
Who invented light grey tracksuits and hoodies? They don't suit anyone! Whoever it was should be apprehended for this crime against humanity and aesthetics. No punishment is too severe, short of being stuck in a lift with Boris Johnson, Nicky Morgan and Nigel Farrago.
QUOTE/UNQUOTE:
Despite everything, no one can dictate
who you are to other people...
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