When my maths teacher was introducing us to functions, she wrote f(x) on the blackboard and informed us that it was pronounced "f of x". I shared a desk with a boy called Scott, who thought she was telling a letter of the alphabet to "f. off".

He spent the next hour repeating "f of x! f off x!" - experimenting with the delicious phonetic closeness of the two words - and giggling helplessly into his own neck. No-one else laughed at all. We were 14, and most of us were quite accustomed to telling people, things and abstract concepts to fuck off.

Flashers and Proud. An organisation set up by a group of 13 year old girls with the sole purpose of lifting up their skirts or tops at random victims. If anyone complains, they are presented with a FAP membership card and told to 'deal with it'.

Should a member of the FAP meet a member of the FBI (Federal Breast Inspectorate), then a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship might well result.

An oft discussed playground myth was that there were men out there with penises so huge that, should they happen to get a full-on boner, they would actually faint due to the redistribution of blood from the other parts of their body. In hindsight this seems unlikely, although I would be interested to hear if it were medically possible. Maybe the purpose was to make the more conventionally endowed feel a bit better about their pathetic maggots.

Not that I have a pathetic maggot. In fact, I do faint because mine's so huge. Don't know why I asked. Case closed.

A girl who sat near me in 11th grade English came into class one day, looking rather sweaty and pale. As the teacher read from Tom Sawyer, this girl began to moan low like a wounded animal. Suddenly, her eyes rolled up into her head, she barked like a seal and then passed out, her face slapping down on the desk in front of her. But as soon her head hit the desk, she let off a fart like a goddamned foghorn. A fart which smelt like death.

Fainting was a brief but common practice amongst 7 year olds in 1979. The would-be fainter and his assistant would stand by the playground wall. The fainter would breathe deeply in and out as fast as he could, whipping up a nice dizzy spell of hyperventilation. After 20 deep breaths, he forces out his final emormous gob of air, and just as he does so the assistant lunged and pressed his chest against the wall as hard as he could. God knows how it works, but the fainter will immediately conk out and collapse, usually falling slightly unconscious and no doubt nearly dying in the process. I've no doubt Michael Hutchence did something similar on his final night alive, only he got his cock out first.

Inducing a fake faint was also known as 'Harvey Walbangers'. Everyone who's done one will generally insist that they nearly died that time, really.

One of the side effects of this singularly stupid activity was that you would often hallucinate as you came "back to life". Juzza, aka The Terminator, admitted that he had hallucinated about playing computer games.

The best hallucination I could manage was a sort of swirling lino-cut impression of the local church, which, while quite psychadelic, was definitely very uncool.

One boy refused to take part, as he felt that abusing yourself to amuse others amounted to prostitution.

When the 'fainter' hit the deck, it was considered fair play that they received a good kicking while they were down.

Well you had to be sure they were OK.

There was a brief craze in the final year of my primary school for mousetrap-type contraptions disguised as chewing gum. When you went to take a piece, a bit of metal snapped down hard on your unsuspecting finger. Hilarious!

At the age of eleven or twelve, my fingers were still quite wee (still are) and it REALLY BLOODY HURT. By the way.

One boring day in the grey and brown surroundings of my secondary education a fake hand appeared. We decided to try it out on one of the brothers (Jesuit in training) and placed it on his chair. He came into the room and did not sit down. He did not look in the direction of his desk or chair for 20 minutes. The tension was electric. When he eventually looked down and saw the hand/part of bloody arm (not particularly well rendered - standard joke-shop fayre) his face went a dead off-white and he squealed "Eeee! What have you little bastards done!" - we were all simultaneously stunned and delighted, expressing it in the only way we knew how... Whooping, hollering and laughing. When our mentor realised what was going on he turned a shade of red which, to my sincere regret, I have not seen anywhere since.

Consequence-free rudeness. Extending the ring finger, or making V-signs with the middle and ring fingers, will cause initial shock and offence, but when it is pointed out which fingers you are using, the parent or teacher will find themselves impotent in the face of your devilish wit. That's how it's supposed to work, at least.

Also:
Bull Poo (pathetic),
Sheet Head (better),
Mother Fudder (acceptable).

Fudder can be explained away as a mud distrubution system not unlike the jobby wheeker, which is the last funny thing that Billy Connolly said.

I'm sure everyone who had been forced to learn Latin at my school knew that they had free reign to scream "Fac id!" and then be left to try to explain to a teacher how actually they were demonstrating their dedication to their schoolwork by practicing irregular imperitives in their spare time.

Not a good idea in the presence of others, as they will all invariably start chanting "She fell over!" and push you over again, in a nearby patch of mud where possible. Falling over is an even worse thing to do in the lunch hall, where falling over can result in your lunch being tipped all over the floor and three hundred children laughing at you simultaneously. The headmaster will invariably choose this moment to walk in and randomly give a table of laughing boys detention as you run off crying. (You may recognise the voice of experience in this.)

Playground Australia Special!

A schoolroom version of the game show "Wheel of Fortune", also called "Duster Roulette".

On any hot summer day in Australia, the ceiling fans in each room will be running at the highest possible level. When the teacher leaves the room, a student in the front row dashes to the blackboard, picks up the board duster (which should be one of those big old wooden ones, not these modern foam versions which are, frankly, shit), screams "Fan of Fortune!" and then throws the duster into the fan.

A number of outcomes can occur:
1. The miracle of the duster passing through the fan untouched.
2. The fan smashes the duster in a sideways motion, sending chalk dust all over the room.
3. The fan hits the duster and propels it downwards on to someone's head. Hard.

Naturally, (3) is the best outcome. I still recall with fondness the moment when Patrick Dwyer - the fat-ginger-freckly-twat - got hit by the duster above the eye, splitting his eyebrow and spilling claret. Fantastic.

Alternatively, attach one end of a metal slinky spring to one of the blades, retire to a safe distance and switch on. Congratulations! You've just created a whirling blade of terror causing maximum damage over a large area, with the brilliant included risk of blinding everyone in the room.

At the Bungay Town Fete, two kids dressed up as Klansmen and, I shit you absolutely not at all in the slightest, won second prize in the fancy dress contest. They lost to a kid dressed as a womble. The story amuses me so much because the fact that they came second almost suggests that the judges knew what a good Klan outfit looked like, and knew that Cobby and Jaff had missed some important gilding around the cuffs. Or something

I did the same with a mate. Claimed to be 'Spanish Inquisition' when sent to headmaster. All very odd as very mixed race school where caucasians in the minority. Still have great photo of me pretending to axe off my best mate's head (who was Indian) in the woodwork room. Pupils thought it hilarious and voted us joint winners of the 'mufty day' prize. School photo shoot with local paper was cancelled though. Instead put some fat female teacher dressed as a St. Trinian in. Original.

Taking the theme 'famous people' perhaps a little laterally, nine members of my school arrived at the sixth form Christmas party dressed as Klansmen and attempted to burn a six-foot crucifix in the quad. Only the fact that it wouldn't catch light prevented them as the teaching staff looked on in puzzled but benign indifference.