FEW things were more thrilling as a child than seeing the TV being wheeled into your classroom. However, the fun always ended in disillusionment, in these stages:
Giddy excitement
‘Amazing! TV during school!’ you thought as the teacher trundled the telly in, your stupid, childish brain convinced that the whole class was going to sack off boring lessons and watch Danger Mouse all day instead. That obviously wasn’t going to happen, however much Mr Higgs wished it could as well.
Mild suspicion
Um, hang on. Where’s CBBC? That’s on BBC1, not BBC2. And it’s the wrong time of day. If you’ve been off school sick watching telly your mum always puts on a dreadfully boring Europe-themed game show called Going For Gold about now. You begin to suspect it isn’t going to be episodes of Super Ted until home time.
Resurge of excitement
Oh my god! It’s the tail end of last night’s Neighbours. You can’t believe you’re seeing Helen Daniels at school! The whole class shrieks with excitement until the teacher hurriedly switches over to a boring clock with a title saying ‘Programme follows shortly’. Everyone falls silent again.
Dawning realisation
Oh right. You see what’s going on. This isn’t an exciting escape from the prison of the school curriculum. It’s a way for Mr Higgs to put his feet up for 20 minutes while you’re all bored rigid by some educational programming. Your friend Martin says Mr Higgs is probably hungover, but you don’t know what that means. He does look a bit pale though.
Bargaining
OK, so maybe it’s not all bad. Yeah, it’s schools programming, but you might be lucky and get something vaguely bearable like Geordie Racer or Through The Dragon’s Eye. You’d even put up with You and Me, as it’s got a funky reggae theme tune. You giggle at Martin saying Mr Higgs looks like he’s going to barf.
Bitter disappointment
Oh, f**king brilliant. It’s not any of the good stuff, it’s a repeat of Picture Box from 1979 featuring some old duffer droning his way through Peter and the Wolf. You’d honestly rather be doing a maths workbook. You hope Mr Higgs’ hangover gets worse and you can have a supply teacher to bully tomorrow.
