Why all motorway signs are wrong

The bank holiday weekend

To distract myself from an ever worsening tooth situation, I determined to take the matter of the Latvians into my own hands and visited Starbright. The proprietor – one Salubrius Mint - managed to make Ziggy look like the sort of guy one might agree to have a dance with on Saturday night.

I asked him if he was aware of our school. He looked vague. “Toxic waste,” I said. He looked me squarely in the eyes. I tried some other verbal triggers: “Red spots, Spiders, Frogs….” He didn’t blink. “Work experience students?” Still nothing. “Dr Havoc Blythe.” A strange twitch passed over his face and he agreed that his resident linguist could perhaps spare half an hour to visit the school after half term.

Saturday night a group of us gathered at Janice’s house to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. We all determined this year that we would take it seriously, listen to the songs and decide on our own votes, but somehow it never works out like that. Blinky Althorpe arrived in hysterics which had something to do with her aunt in Sheffield and her boyfriend’s dog, but somehow it all washed over me, as did most of the entries.

The Head of Sport (whose name I have still not got) got into a state over Terry Wogan’s sarcastic comments about the Spanish entry – it seems his partner is Spanish (although she kept rather quiet about the whole thing) and he felt he ought to defend the piece (which I think was called “Bong dong billabong bing bang gong – although that may have been the Australian entry.) The next time I noticed him (the head of sport that is) he was considerably the worse for wear, his partner had left and he was attempting to whisper sweet nothings in Janice’s ear.

Dr Havoc-Blythe arrived late and immediately announced that Russia would win. We all scoffed until Russia won, at which point we refused to talk to the doctor on the grounds that no one likes a know-it-all.

Miss Sallyband was also there. I asked her if it was true that she had created alien life in the biology lab and she said she had. The head of sport, who was wandering by at the time said that the alien was in fact that headteacher, and from that point on called Miss Sallyband, Miss Sallybang, which I thought rather childish.

When he stumbled away to get more wine I asked Miss Sallyband how she could put up with such a bore, and she said, “Everyone gets my name wrong – I’m quite used to it.” I said, “Do they?” and she explained that her name is actually Sally Band, but that Miss Marchmount had written it down wrong on the first day, and ever since we’d all called her Miss Sallyband.

On Sunday drove to see Aunt Jackie. I suddenly realised that almost every motorway sign I passed was wrong. Left lanes were indicated as being shut before the right lane closed, six signs in a row all said “End” when nothing had started, three “Queue ahead” signs related to nothing more than a coach to be over taken. And yet when I was utterly stationery I found myself looking at signs telling me not to drive at more than 60mph when I was utterly stationery.

The lack of alcohol today (brought about by the fact that I was driving) brought a return of my tooth ache. Trust me to get tooth ache on a bank holiday weekend.

I asked Aunt Jackie why all the motorway signs were wrong. She suggested that Sir Terry Wogan probably knows.

On Bank holiday Monday I went with Janice to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Sally came along too, although I don’t know how she knew – Janice denied telling her, and I know I didn’t mention it. But she turned out to be good company and we all screamed together at the bit where the ants attack the Russian and drag him into their lair. At Pizza Express afterwards I asked Sally what had happened with the head of sport. Sally said he’d asked her back to his house just before he collapsed. I asked if she knew his name, and she said she hadn’t quite caught it. Turns out Janice doesn’t know his name either.

I suddenly wondered: is he on the payroll?

This entry was posted on 27/05/2008 at 06:40 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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