I don't know whether you'll remember that I mentioned an e-mail I received out of the blue from an ex-pupil of many years past, but if you do, you might be interested to learn that he and I are meeting for lunch tomorrow - after a gap of more than 30 years! We have quite a bit of catching up to do, and I must say that I am greatly looking forward to such an auspicious reunion.

Allow me to share with you a hosuemasterly moment that enabled me to realise that my grip on this place has not entirely deserted me. A resident came to me this evening, at the start of silent reading (about which you may have heard - or rather, you may have actually heard the 'call to read' from where you are now) and informed me that 'the showers won't turn off'. I'm always amused by the things I'm asked and told, and of course, I'm flattered by the assumption that I am omniscient. All teachers are perceived as being, of course. As a dad, though, I tend to favour the words of Mark Twain, who said, I think, "When I was nine, I thought my father knew everything. When I was sixteen, I thought my father knew nothing at all. Now that I'm in my thirties, I realise that my father does in fact know everything, after all." (It was something like that, but my ageing memory can't recall the exact wording, or the exact ages quoted, and if I log on to Google while N f N is open, the computer will probably blow up, collapse, or just turn itself off.)

"Ah., that," I replied, sagaciously. "Yes, well, all you have to do there, you see, is to turn the shower on just a bit, leave it running for five seconds and then turn it off again."

Did it work? Course it did. My informant was well impressed. (Like.)

Teachers like me, though, do say some extraordinary things. I heard myself saying, not so long ago, as I picked up an exercise book dramatically from the floor, "I fail to understand the meaning of this," - with just a hint of interrogative at the end. The other thing we have to be careful of is the use of the pronoun 'we'. Teachers are prone to employ that particular personal pronoun in a vague attempt at dramatic emphasis, viz: "And what do we think we are doing, Thomson? Do we think that is clever? Oh, we do, do we? Well, we'll see about that. And what's more, I do not think that we speak to me like that."

See what one means?

Oh dear: it's been a long day. Thanks for reading, and until the morrow.