Giddy excitement to bitter disappointment: the six stages of seeing the TV wheeled in at primary school

FEW things were more thrilling as a child than seeing the TV being wheeled into your classroom. However, the fun always ended in disillusionment, in these stages:

Giddy excitement

‘Amazing! TV during school!’ you thought as the teacher trundled the telly in, your stupid, childish brain convinced that the whole class was going to sack off boring lessons and watch Danger Mouse all day instead. That obviously wasn’t going to happen, however much Mr Higgs wished it could as well.

Mild suspicion

Um, hang on. Where’s CBBC? That’s on BBC1, not BBC2. And it’s the wrong time of day. If you’ve been off school sick watching telly your mum always puts on a dreadfully boring Europe-themed game show called Going For Gold about now. You begin to suspect it isn’t going to be episodes of Super Ted until home time.

Resurge of excitement

Oh my god! It’s the tail end of last night’s Neighbours. You can’t believe you’re seeing Helen Daniels at school! The whole class shrieks with excitement until the teacher hurriedly switches over to a boring clock with a title saying ‘Programme follows shortly’. Everyone falls silent again.

Dawning realisation

Oh right. You see what’s going on. This isn’t an exciting escape from the prison of the school curriculum. It’s a way for Mr Higgs to put his feet up for 20 minutes while you’re all bored rigid by some educational programming. Your friend Martin says Mr Higgs is probably hungover, but you don’t know what that means. He does look a bit pale though.

Bargaining

OK, so maybe it’s not all bad. Yeah, it’s schools programming, but you might be lucky and get something vaguely bearable like Geordie Racer or Through The Dragon’s Eye. You’d even put up with You and Me, as it’s got a funky reggae theme tune. You giggle at Martin saying Mr Higgs looks like he’s going to barf.

Bitter disappointment

Oh, f**king brilliant. It’s not any of the good stuff, it’s a repeat of Picture Box from 1979 featuring some old duffer droning his way through Peter and the Wolf. You’d honestly rather be doing a maths workbook. You hope Mr Higgs’ hangover gets worse and you can have a supply teacher to bully tomorrow.

Woman with older man fantasy disappointed by reality of dating older man

A 27-YEAR-OLD woman with a fantasy of being romanced by an older man has had her illusions shattered by the realities of actually going out with one. 

Lucy Parry had imagined being swept away by a sophisticated, experienced guy at least 20 years older than her but was disappointed after her date with 54-year-old taxi driver Roy Hobbs.

Parry said: “It started well when he made an unsolicited remark about how he is ‘not racist’, but he followed it up by saying he just wanted a sensible conversation about immigration, before gesturing to the waiter in the Indian restaurant where we were eating and saying ‘no offence, mate’.

“And it got weirder from there. He went to the loo three times before the main course arrived and I was imagining he had a cocaine habit, but eventually he told me his prostate isn’t what it used to be.

“He did eventually ask me some questions about myself. He wanted to know what I’m going to do with a ‘useless’ degree in Fine Art, if I think I’m a bull because I have a ring in my nose, and whether I’ll regret my tattoos when I’m older.

“After dinner he invited me back to his place to watch something called ‘On the Buses’. Is that some kind of niche porn I’ve never heard of?”