UNLEASH THE HOUNDS

It is half-term week in many parts of England, including Cambridge. This means that schoolchildren are not where they ought to be: namely, AT SCHOOL.

Instead, they are running amok in the town and more importantly in my shop. I could understand this if I worked at the children's division of Gap, but not in the adult store. I'm sorry, but unless you are at least my size - I fit into the smallest size of everything we carry - and have plenty of cash to burn, my shop is not the place for you to be. More importantly, it is not the place to a) run laps around the displays (for the younger ones) or b) make out with your boyfriend in the checkout line (hopefully, only for the older ones). Yes, we can see that you have a tongue and that you know how to use it. Charming.

Normally, I truly appreciate the company of wee ones. Little ones are adorable - recall my bopping to the store soundtrack entry - and the older ones are generally polite and well-spoken. But a pack of British pre-teens is an entirely different ball of wax, and witnessing their antics this week gives me a much better appreciation of what our friend Warren, teaching at a highschool in a Scottish village for a year, is experiencing.

The British have a really great word: yob. This slang word, the backwards spelling of "boy" (not a coincidence, I might add, in a most sexist fashion), means a "lout, yokel or hoodlum" according to Merriam-Webster. This may offend some of my British readers, but it has come to my attention that a certain percentage of English schoolchildren are yobs (and this week, yobs-at-large). They are loud, obnoxious, and even slightly threatening in a way that I've yet to discern in Canadian kids. I asked my British co-workers why children are so horribly-behaved, particularly in school or in public (i.e., away from their parents) and the matter-of-fact answer was "Because we can". This theory is certainly corroborated by Warren, who has had a never-ending issue with his students and their unruly behaviour. Discipline is almost a foreign concept, even when the students are outright misbehaving or acting aggessively.

The most interesting aspect of the whole badly-behaved children issue, to me, is that the vast majority of yobs grow up to be terrific adults. The terrific adults seem, for the most part, to be unconcerned with the yob-ness of their offspring. I guess it all turns out well in the end...until then, Warren - good luck with 'em!