Detentions Can’t Touch Him Any More

After having a few sideways moments in the wind yesterday I didn't fancy a repeat today and the wind seemed even stronger this morning, so I take one of those unpunctual buses. I will save my legs and go for it on the bike tomorrow. This means of course that tomorrow it will rain.

In the evening it’s Daughter’s GCSE presentation evening. I think when we did Son’s two years ago I dubbed it the Oscars. Well this time that description is probably even more appropriate as they’ve moved the venue from the school hall to the Belfry hotel where they held their school prom, which was also off the premises for the first time.

It’s a fitting setting, there just one thing missing, a stage. We can’t actually see what’s going on. It’s a bit like being too far back at Rock City and only getting to see the tops of the heads of the band. That’s an appropriate comparison or another reason too because this bash turns out to be a bit of gig in itself.

The lad who two years ago gave us a totally inappropriate rendition, for a school setting, of the Libertines’ ‘Music When The Lights Go Out’ sets out to go one better this time with Mumford And Sons’ ‘Little Lion Man’. He’d obviously been briefed to keep it clean and aside from the odd mention of rape, he sang to us that he’s ‘really mucked it up this time’ which isn’t quite the right words but then by the final rendition of the chorus he’d realised that he’d left school now and what the hell, detentions can’t touch him any more, so he put the f-words back in. Cue a mixture of gasps and mild amusement from the assembled parents and heaps of kudos from his peer group.

Then after a saxophone rendition of ‘Because Of You’ the rubberised ex-deputy head returns to deliver a speech intended to inspire and hands out the certificates. I say rubberised because he’s supposed to have left so many times but just keeps bouncing back.

Then we get a group of students delivering the Killers’ ‘Human’ which I find infinitely more palatable than the original and a girl who sings ‘Misty’ which I think may have been a really old Johnny Mathis number.

A couple of ex-pupils return for cameos. Nottingham Forest’s David McGoldrick, recently signed from Southampton. I had no idea he was a local, let alone an old boy of the school.



Then there’s a comedian called Josh Knott who is now working the local circuit as part of a local double act and is really good. Someone else who is able to verbally embarrass a few teachers without fear of repercussions. To be fair, it’s all terribly good natured.

To close, aside from the usual from the speech from headmistress and a few scripted but badly delivered addresses from current pupils, a lad sings Kings of Leon's 'Use Somebody'. What a good choice to end an evening of school presentations, another of Caleb's songs about prostitutes. Well that's always been the general consensus, most of his songs do seem to be about that subject, until Hayley Williams from Paramore, and also some chick from American Idol, decided to cover it. God knows what the girls thought it was about. That said, Paramore's Live Lounge version is actually rather good.



So that’s a wrap on the night. Well for us anyway, it’s barely half time for Daughter. She’s off to the midnight preview of ‘New Moon’, the sequel to ‘Twilight’. If she stays awake through it she’ll be shattered tomorrow. I hear it's full of bare chested boys, so I'm sure she will.