Chair dancing is funny

Simple yet true. it's one of those odd things that is funnier than it should rationally be, the joy it generates is greater than the sum of it's parts. I might do an equation on the subject. However, this is the exact opposite of most films, whereby the artistic endeavour is tortured and minute but the end result falls a little flat to the average viewer [or is this just me?] Chair dancing on the other hand is a delight. For true chair dancing joy I recommend a song that is similarly, more enjoyable than it should be. You know, the odd, cold dance track that for some reason captures a great beat which somehow imbues it with soul anyway. For example, Freddie le Grand's, 'Put your hands up' (for Detroit) Perhaps it's the refrain, I love this city, which unites the listeners to others, perhaps it's simply the beat production, however it works. For reasons that are probably still a mystery to the songsmiths themselves.

So chair dancing, consider it my gift to you, the gift that keeps on giving.

There are four types of people in this room

1994: It was hot and after the pointless hysteria of the internal exams we were, as a class, united in the countdown until the summer holidays. Our last lesson of the day was geography with our prickly teacher who was a rather wry individual, however this was largely wasted on my 13 year-old self. Listless, tired and wishing for an easy class I remember being lazily pleased that we were going to be spared further discussion of the slums of Bogota and were instead going to have a talk. To "talk" in England means trouble and my fellow class mates picked up on it. There was a barely perceptible stiffening in the room as slumpers sat up in their chairs, hair was brushed out of eyes and hands emerged from sleeves. This was a third-tier private school for girls in a provincial southern city in the 90s: we did not indulge in 'talk'. "You're ok, I'm ok" hadn't made it to Norfolk and whilst there might be the odd admission of these intangible, inscrutable reactions [read 'emotions'] we would not, as a class, as a school, as a county, do anything as sinfully obvious as acknowledge them. This was for our chirpy counterparts over the Atlantic. To 'talk' meant that we needed to and to need to talk was frankly, a little embarrassing. And yet, here it was, but then almost as soon as the implications of 'talking' were understood so came the realisation that when adults say they want to 'talk' it actually means that you, as a youth, listen.

In short, we were due a bollocking and make no mistake.

And so it began, the talk, the teacher calmly and economically listed our failings. There was theatre in it's restraint. The quieter the voice, the more we leaned in to hear it. It's like rewatching a film: you know exactly what is coming but you can't quite believe the drama of it. We were so stunned that, for once, the 26 individuals to whom this speech was intended, did not make eye contact with each other, seeking validation among their own personal peer group and thus confirming that the teacher was wrong, no, for once, it felt as if this speech was aimed at the individual, a collection of individuals and we reeled, collectively for once, we reeled.

There was truth in it, as a class we were horrible, precocious, mean, arrogant and proud of it. The other three forms in our year group were skanky, wet or boring, at least we demonstrated pluck and verve. Within the class there were two warring factions. The posse: so cool, so 'fucked-up, so what? Then there was me and my friends, we were the sad group, because we weren't in the sports teams and we did our homework ourselves. Yes, we were sad. The confines of our lives were such that you had these two options in this girl's school in Norfolk of the 90s. The teacher however saw things a little differently. He listed The Four Types of People in this Room as follows:

" there are fools, people who thoughtlessly plough through life, hurting feelings and creating tensions, then there are the loud-mouths who ensure that every minute situation escalates into a drama, then there a couple of individuals who are bitches..."

I felt myself flinch at this word, 'bitch' was certainly not within my received dictionary of suitable teacher vocabulary. The teacher was a renegade, going off book to shock us! My god, was all of this true? Were we these people? He then resumed that the final group was the group of nice people, just trying to get on with their lives. Before we got too carried away with the idea that we had all been discussed, that we had elicited attention, we were drily informed that each and every single one of us knew which group we were in and we all knew everyone else's label. This last development was a relief: finally a return to stoicism, we didn't need to talk about it at all, we all understood implicitly our place within this particular hierarchy. Couldn't we just get on with it now? The socio-economic growth of Bogota never seemed so interesting to those twenty-six girls trying to forget this entire experience.

As the class recovered we began to fidget and adjust, yes we were horrible but now what? A staff meeting with all the teachers unfortunate enough to teach us had been unequivocal. We were on probation. Things were apparently so bad that we were all on a three-strike system, and out meant expulsion which, as a threat, carries a fair amount of clout when you're thirteen and likely to get into seven kinds of trouble at home. It was fine to act big at school but no rational person took the attitude home to parents unlikely to humour it.

To be continued...