In Loco Parentis #1

WARNING: There now follows reference – agane and agane and agane – to a classic of (British) English literature. If you are not familiar with it then may I suggest that you go away and read it.

Well, even with your help I’m still not in possession of a “career”. And so, as I intimated in the previous post, I may have to resort finally to Plan Z and start teaching. I’ve got precisely one student, my neighbour the cobbler, but he’s as keen as mustard. First, however, we need to establish an educational establishment, and set out some rules, which make no mistake will be very very strict. My first decision is that I will teach Molesworth English - spellcheckers will be set to English (Molesworth), accordingly - this being an altogether better spelling system than standard English and much easier for a foreigner to learn. I do, however, want your advice on several other matters, the first being this:

THE NAME OF THE SKOOL

St. Custard’s
As any fule kno this is the name of Molesworth’s skool and would be a very apropriate wun for ours seeing as how all classes will be held in the kichin.

Porridge Court
Continuing the kitchen theem. This was also the name of St. Custard’s rival skool to wich they lost many matchs of indiferently contested and mud-encrusted sport. I envisidge mud being a big feechure of skool life here as both of us have a habit of dragging it in from the garden and ekspecting our wives to cleer it up.

St. Cake’s
Fiktional skool from Private Eye magazine with Mr R.J. Kipling as headbeak. The only subjekt tort will be the pome If... chiz!.

St. Delia’s
Delia is patron saint both of custard and of cake and our neighbour hav shown a marked interest in subjekts of cake biskits jam chokolat et cetera every time he hav visited our kichin.

St. God’s
Our neighbour is however a Unitarian - a denomination that was started in this town akshualy if you are interested in hist.

The Fotherington-Thomas Academy for Young Gentlefolk
Being uterly wet and a weed who skip along crying Hullo clouds hullo sky! and blubbing like a gurl when seeing a lickle robin shall all be compulsory wich is another chiz.

St. Grabber’s
Former head boy of St. Custard’s and captane of everything (espeshialy foopball) and winer of the mrs joyful prize for rafia work. Grabber will by now hav inherited all his parents munny and we can name the skool after him for the ushual amount!

St. Elvis’s
Molesworth’s skool hav Wandsworth the skool dog a creechure so uterly sordid he make me shudder. Our cat Elvis will hav to take on his roll stoping the mice pinching the Radio Malt and runing erands to the bookmakers.

St. Mrs Dilo’s
Coo-ur gosh wot a titel but Mrs Dilo hav been apointed matron and hav to do most of the work:


Pleeze vote for the wun you feel most suggest akademic ekselense, caracter bilding and plane comon sens!

Welcome to Muppetsville

You may be wondering what I'm currently doing for a job after I announced last year that the boss no longer needed me. Well, he found some more things for me to do, so I'm still there, for a while, though on greatly reduced hours. One of these things included a gloriously boring task copying and pasting data about neighbourhoods of American towns from Wikipedia. Of course I had to stop my mind wandering away from the job at hand, but I still absorbed a lot of extra info about the demographics of the USA, proving to me, as if it weren't already apparent, what a wonderfully diverse and historically interesting country it is; and of course my mind did wander, and I found myself compiling my own made-up data about my very own made-up American town:

-----------------------------------

Muppetsville is a city in The United States of America, the third largest in New Berkshire, and the county seat of Muppet County.

The first inhabitants of the area were the Native American Sue tribe, who broke away from the Sioux nation after the Great Schism that followed the controversial 1674 Spelling Reform Act. Later, Dutch hunters arrived looking for beaver, but agents of the Hudson Bay Company, who were gaining control of the region, told them to stop it and go back home to their wives.

The origins of the town's name are disputed: it may be derived from the Sue word "Muȟpót", meaning "There's nothing here for you, Cheese-Breath!"; from the Dutch "Mupjet", meaning "Yeah, I see what you mean!"; or perhaps from Lord Muppet, a popular music-hall entertainer of the time who was mistakenly given the land rights to the place by the British House of Lords.

As of the census of 2005, the racial makeup of the city was 65.26% White, 29.29% African American, 3.84% Asian, 1.35% Native American, 0.23% Pacific Islander, and 0.02% from The Planet Aaamazzara (concentrated largely in Muppetsville "Pleasant Pastures" Maximum Security Home for the Highly Suggestable).

As at 2005 there were 65,648 households, 26.8% with children, 10.8% with a female householder and no husband present, 46.7% were “non-families”, 37.4% were highly disfunctional, and 28.3% have probably been on Jerry Springer*. The average household size was 2.40 and the average family size was 3.14. You do the math.

85% of the population speak English as their first language, 11% Spanish, 3% Chinese, 0.5% Sue, 0.3% Hindi, and 0.2% Klingon. Klingon speakers are not uncommon in this region of America, but the high incidence of those speaking it as their first language is a result of the first ever "Trekkies" convention, held in Muppetsville in 1972.

The city has had its share of sporting success: the Muppetsville Muskies have been NAIVE** champions for 37 out of the last 39 years, putting the town well and truly on the global sporting map.

Famous Muppetsvillians include Dude, where's my baseball cap? actor Jerry Brad, serial killer Cletus "Muesli Man" Muncie, and WWF wrestler The Lump.

The city is represented in the Senate by Muff Watney and in the House of Representatives by Tagg Bigley, scions of the famous Watney-Bigley urinal deodorizer block manufacturing empire.

Today, the town's chief exports are corn, pith, and homespun philosophy, perhaps the most famous example being "If it looks like a Muppet and it smells like a Muppet, it's a Muppet".

* Stick to the facts! (Wikipedia moderater: drivelmeister)
** North American Ice Volleyball Event


AN APPEAL FROM WIKIPEDIA FOUNDER JIMMY WALES: Please don't copy and paste this crap into any data repository that might be taken seriously. It's written by insomiacs, drones and dodos. Frankly I wish I'd never started it.