Fete Worse than Death
Yes, yes, terrible pun in the title, I know, but I have had a morning of suffering at the hairdresser's, so please forgive me.
This morning the topic of discussion (not my topic, I hasten to add) was her daughter's GCSE results.
"Lucy's not a studious person. She's too creative." (She's not really called Lucy. I can provide no evidence for you about her creative abilities.)
Lucy had not done as well as had been hoped for in her GCSE English and it was all the fault of the person who set the exam.
One of the essay titles was "The Village Fete". (Very dull title, but that's what you get in exams.)
Lucy had never heard the word "fete" before and thought it was "fate". Therefore she wrote an essay about a murdered girl who met her fate in the village. Hence Lucy didn't do very well in this exam.
Lucy's parents are going to appeal to the examining board against this cruel twist of fete, sorry, fate. How could Lucy have been expected to know this very very rare English word? This word had never been mentioned in any of the English lessons all year. Lucy has had years of private education at a cost of four squillion pounds and it's not fair, is it?
Again - as always at this hairdresser's - I felt completely unable to make any contribution to this discussion. All the things I might have said felt completely embarrassing - - to me.
"Well, I used to be an English teacher and really by the age of 16 and at a Posh Private School Lucy should have come across the word fete somewhere - - " - - no, no, I just couldn't say it.
"And what if it had been a maths exam and Lucy failed it because she couldn't remember how to do sums? Would you have appealed against that, too?"
No, as always with this hairdresser, I don't like the critical, supercilious person that I turn into when I walk through the door.
"Anne's been coming here for years, haven't you?" said the hairdresser to another customer. She was talking about me, because she sometimes calls me Anne. Occasionally she calls me Brenda.
mustfindanotherhairdressermustfindanotherhairdressermustfindanotherhairdresser - - but I know that I won't bother, I'll just wait until my hair needs cutting. Then I'll sigh to myself and pick up the phone and dial the same old number.
This morning the topic of discussion (not my topic, I hasten to add) was her daughter's GCSE results.
"Lucy's not a studious person. She's too creative." (She's not really called Lucy. I can provide no evidence for you about her creative abilities.)
Lucy had not done as well as had been hoped for in her GCSE English and it was all the fault of the person who set the exam.
One of the essay titles was "The Village Fete". (Very dull title, but that's what you get in exams.)
Lucy had never heard the word "fete" before and thought it was "fate". Therefore she wrote an essay about a murdered girl who met her fate in the village. Hence Lucy didn't do very well in this exam.
Lucy's parents are going to appeal to the examining board against this cruel twist of fete, sorry, fate. How could Lucy have been expected to know this very very rare English word? This word had never been mentioned in any of the English lessons all year. Lucy has had years of private education at a cost of four squillion pounds and it's not fair, is it?
Again - as always at this hairdresser's - I felt completely unable to make any contribution to this discussion. All the things I might have said felt completely embarrassing - - to me.
"Well, I used to be an English teacher and really by the age of 16 and at a Posh Private School Lucy should have come across the word fete somewhere - - " - - no, no, I just couldn't say it.
"And what if it had been a maths exam and Lucy failed it because she couldn't remember how to do sums? Would you have appealed against that, too?"
No, as always with this hairdresser, I don't like the critical, supercilious person that I turn into when I walk through the door.
"Anne's been coming here for years, haven't you?" said the hairdresser to another customer. She was talking about me, because she sometimes calls me Anne. Occasionally she calls me Brenda.
mustfindanotherhairdressermustfindanotherhairdressermustfindanotherhairdresser - - but I know that I won't bother, I'll just wait until my hair needs cutting. Then I'll sigh to myself and pick up the phone and dial the same old number.
posted by Daphne at 12:10 pm
6 Comments:
Please PLEASE don't change hairdressers.
It's just so much fun to read about your experiences with this woman every time you go.
You should store them up and in a few years time bring out a book. Then you could casually leave a copy lying around for other customers to read.
How could you even THINK of going elsewhere and just having to listen to chat about the weather or holidays or the usual stuff.
This one is priceless. Hold on to her !
You have to love that it's always someone elses fault.
I share your hairdresser angst. I hate how I feel upon entering the place. My nose seems to go so far up in the air it gets frostbite.
I like toast.
As an English teacher, I actually have some sympathy with Lucy. They were meant to be testing her writing skills and so the questions available should have been golden and clear invitations to write. Would the stuffy people who set the questions be as comfortable with "razz" for example as they - from their middle class coccooned worlds - obviously were with the old-fashioned term "fete". It was probably the same examiner who set the awful question "Describe the room you are in". Oh yeah! I'm at the front of the sports hall gazing at some breeze blocks!
It's a good job I'm not marking exams, I'd've given her extra points for being creative with the title - as long as the story was decent.
LOL, your trips to the hairdresser never fail to crack me up! I go to a Turkish (I've always assumed they're Turkish) barber in SE London that I've gone to for years now. They don't really talk, which is fine. Occasionally the daughter cuts hair and she will talk for England.
PS SB's book idea isn't half bad!
Hang on a moment - harking back to your previous post - if you "dial the same old number" next time you might get someone different. Someone who knows a different hairdresser.
By the way - Lucy (and probably the examiners) have obviously not watched enough Midsommer Murders. If she had, the fateful murder in a village she wrote about would almost certainly have featured a village fete at some point. They always do.
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