please empty your brain below

40 and a bit years ago ...Our school only had 'computers'as a CSE exam, and, having spent an inordinate amount of time trying to write a programme to just 'add up', which my mental artihmetic could do faster, I dismissed computers entirely. My pal didn't, and from what I know prospored greatly in Silicon Valley. sigh...
A fascinating set of recollections.
I note that the three bosses were all "he". Matches my experience. Plenty of colleagues were "she", but no bosses.
I like the Southwark anecdote.
I too was disappointed in the ZX81, but its successors were not much better.
I still have my old Parker 25, made special by using the cap from my grandmothers pen. Needed a new reservoir about 3 years ago, efficiently replaced by a small company in Islington.
What position did you have in the great library pyramid?
Nice Boss retiring and new boss being a slimly rat struck a cord with me. (It's like you knew him).
My solution was to take early retirement as soon as I could.(19months)
The male/female bosses comment made me look back over my career. In 40 years of paid employment, in four different areas (local authorty libraries; publishing/bookselling; Civil Service; medical education) I've had 15 different roles. In 11 of those I had a female boss, and in 6 my boss was male - in two roles my boss changed while I was there, hence the numbers don't add up.
It was 100 years since FA Cup began. Think '81 was 100th final.

6-year-old dg apologises: sorry, yes.
The 1971 FA Cup final at which Arsenal famously clinched their first league and cup double was the 99th in the competition, not the 100th final as stated. The 1972 centenary final didn't go so well for the Gunners.
Correction- 99th year of the FA Cup competition, rather than 99th occasion. It was stopped during both world wars.
Wow - that O-level revision list is pure poetry... in motion!
Hang on, Angela Lansbury?? Did you blog about that at the time?

dg writes: Prize for the least necessary question of the day.
I've never heard of the Magic Octagon, whereas the Rubik's Cubes were EVERYWHERE!

The Rubik's Snake was quite clever as well.
'because he wanted to steal one of my bedside drawers'

This raises the interesting question of 'can you steal your own property?'. Sometimes 'yes' - but probably not on this occasion.

I too loved the 'Ipswitch, Southwark' story. I was forever grateful to the boy at cubs who thumped me in the face and straightened out my wonky tooth.

Also the boy at school who accidentally dislocated my finger necessitating a trip to the hospital where I met a kind doctor who wrote a note excusing me from playing rugby for the rest of the rugby season once I made it clear how much I disliked the barbaric game.
Fascinating glimpses into the younger DG's life!

Had to laugh at the oh so typical early 80s school antics! Have kids become better behaved these days or are they just kept on a tighter, more stressful, leash?
That year I also chose to support Arsenal and my new friend chose Liverpool. He also cried when Liverpool lost, and I decided there and then that supporting a football team was not going to be a part of my life. At school not long after (perhaps a year), other boys starting caring who won lunchtime football, and a lot of the fun was gone from playing too.
I thought the word was rambunctious but apparently that’s the American equivalent.

When I lived in Southwark I think a lot of people pronounced it Suvvuk (cf Lambef) but the possible confusion with Suffolk had never occurred to me.
I recently found my old Parker Jotter fountain pen I must have bought as a student. It has a calligraphy nib that for the life of me, I don't remember buying. Still, I'm thoroughly enjoying writing my work notes with a fountain pen again. So much nicer than a cheap ballpoint.
I had a lovely matt black Parker 25 fountain pen which I was inordinately proud of since, being a horrible little snob, it bestowed on me a prestige that the standard and ubiquitous stainless steel version of the 25 simply could not. It was a sleek, stylish thing that looked like it had come from the distant future, the Stealth fighter plane of writing implements. I'm pretty sure it would have left no trace on radar, which may be why I couldn't find it when I lost it.
40 years ago one of my maths lecturers was said to be the world Rubik's Cube champion. A slightly eccentric chap with a slightly unusual name - Piers Corbyn. Wonder what happened to him...
Not so funny if you were the butt of these "antics", I imagine.

Was it always the same victim in the "bondage" episodes?
What happened to the chocolate biscuit wrapper collection?
Whenever I kept a diary, it always degenerated into 'went to school' or (on a good day, which would have been a Wednesday) 'went to school, then cubs' - by the second week in January. I did like the tiny pencil that tucked in the diary spine, and the tube map - going on the tube was a rare treat.
10 years you've been disappointing PR folk! You'd have thought some might have gotten the hint over a decade that DG thankfully remains a bolx-free corner of the internet.
I received a Letts diary from Father Christmas every year, and eventually memorised so much stuff that I successfully answered a quiz question about the times of Piccadilly Line trains stopping at Turnham Green without ever having been to London!
I had a Parker 25 when I was 18. Sadly, it was soon lost at University, and the replacement 25 was not as weighty and was slightly unsatisfying.
I had to check my HR file for correctness a few years ago, prior to the company I worked for being taken over by another. It was then that I discovered I'd been second choice/reserve for the job, and was only offered it after the first choice turned it down. Talk about ego deflating...

I still have my Parker 45 from 1972; looking rather battered but still working.










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