Lothians SNP MSP Ian McKee displayed a commendable knowledge of thrashings at school (Fettes College in his case) when he spoke in the parliamentary debate on the subject recently.
He told members that a silk handkerchief tucked down the pants mitigated the effects of being attacked with a cane, and that “a magnificent extra- heavy-weight three-tailer” tawse could be bought for Pounds 250. Former GP McKee had, as he revealed, spent the previous night looking up details on the internet.
This prompted the Conservatives’ Murdo Fraser to comment: “I am surely not the only member who is concerned that Dr McKee spends his evenings surfing the web checking the prices of various instruments of punishment.”
Perhaps McKee’s position on the Parliament’s subordinate legislation committee has something to do with it.
Eton swan song
References to alma maters always get competitive juices going among politicians. McKee’s reference in the self-same debate to the fondness for “hanging and flogging” among Tories of the Etonian and Fettesian variety stirred Tory deputy leader Murdo Fraser. “I should say that most Conservative members of the Scottish Parliament went, as I did, to comprehensives,” he said. “We have no old Fettesians on our seats. Some might say this is a sad reflection on today’s Conservative Party that we are down to our last old Etonian.”
Surely not a reference to the dear leader - David, not Annabel.
No silence from the hams
Tommy Bradshaw, former head of Glasgow’s St Thomas Aquinas Secondary, and stand-up at the Catholic heidies’ annual shindig, hasn’t lost his touch.
A cannibal’s wife goes to the butcher’s, he says in his after-dinner speech. Delicacies on display include missionary brains at 30p a pound and sailor brains at 40p a pound. But, she’s taken aback at 90p a pound for HMIE brains. “Why so dear?” she enquires.
“You’ve no idea how many inspectors we had to kill to get a pound of their brains,” replies the butcher.
When the chips are down
Alan Jones, star turn at secondary heads’ conferences, tells us a bit about himself in their School Leader journal. Not for him the prosaic CV: “Following five years in the early 1970s teaching classics in the multiple deprivation of Hutchesons’ Grammar, I moved to the Elysian Fields of Shettleston as principal teacher at Eastbank Academy, outpost of the classics and home of chips and curry sauce. After 33 years, I consider I have excellent east end credentials. Since August 2007, I have been acting head in Eastbank while Jim Dalziel is on secondment to the authority. (Jim occasionally rings me. I never knew you could reverse charges on a mobile).”
