Polish

Somewhere there's some sort of equivalent blog by a fan of Nick Griffin. If he sees this word he's going to come up with a very different piece.

One of my most ineffectual teachers was called Mr Sheen, like the polish. He taught biology. In theory biology should have been my favourite science - I quite liked the natural world as a school child and knowing how it all fit together is theoretically more interesting than knowing the specific head capacity of iron filings. Unfortunately, Mr Sheen was not the kind of man to imbue his subject with any joy. He was particularly unforgivable for turning a blind eye one year as the class bully moved his stool behind me and punched me regularly in the back of the head.

He also had a slight speech impediment, something I wouldn't mention if it was for the whole blind-eye-to-violence thing, but it was a little hard to stay interested through a talk about invertebwates wepwoducing. Still, we got to experiment with beans and blotting paper. I do hope that everyone got to experiment with beans and blotting paper, not because it was fun, but because if it wasn't standard teaching practice then I'm very scared as to why anyone wanted me to germinate a bean in a jar.

Still, I suppose it prepared me for an adulthood where about 75% of all the vegetables I buy have sprouted before I remember I own them. It's good to know exactly what's going on.