Ofsted, 16th century style

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We popped into the Guildhall to buy our annual load of charity Christmas cards. They were being sold in a room adjacent to the Roysse Room, which of course has a certain interest to us as it was the site of the original Abingdon School. (Oh, yes, and we got married there.)

In the lobby outside you can read the rules of the original John Roysse School. They knew their stuff in those days.

The children shall come to school at 6am in the summer and leave at 5pm. In winter school will start at 7am at the discretion of the Mayor and headmaster.

And …

The headmaster will not allow the children to play for more than four days a year. If he lets them play for more he shall pay three shillings and four pence to go into the school funds.

And (my favourite):

Every six months the Mayor and Principal Burgesses shall visit the school to make sure that all these rules are being kept. The second time they find things not in order the headmaster shall be expelled, especially if he is not doing prayers.

Fraudulent slip

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We have very excitingly triggered the first ever investigation into fraudulent activity on the family credit card.

It’s that time of year when we book tickets for next year’s annual Sweden holiday. Usually we book so far in advance that our carrier of choice, Ryanair, will take us at 2 shillings and sixpence if we promise to strap-hang at the back, plus a small mortgage’s worth of airport taxes. This year we’ve left it late enough that Ryanair is actually slightly more expensive than SAS, so that’s who we will be going with, with the concomitant advantage of flying out of Heathrow rather than Stansted and landing at a proper airport at the other end rather than a converted airforce base.

Anyway, I came home this evening to what sounded suspiciously like a phishing scam on the answerphone from the card company. “This a message for-” (change tone) “Ben” (change back again) “-concerning possible fraudulent activity on your card. Please press any button on your phone now …”

It turned out to be a genuine query and I set their minds at rest. For some reason the ticket purchase had tweaked their antennae and they wanted to verify it. But it’s not the first time I’ve spent a sum like that and previously it’s always gone through without a quibble.

“Obviously,” I said to Best Beloved as I hung up, “they’ve got us down as Ryanair customers …”

Musical movements

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A colleague at works likes to sing on the toilet. I discovered this fact today. I didn’t recognise the voice or the song, but singing it was.

It wasn’t the guy who likes to make mobile phone calls from the same place. His accent is distinctive and Scottish. I’d have recognised him. Today’s singer was more generically middle England and there’s a lot of us about.

I thought of sending back a few bars of the first song that came to mind, but didn’t, (a) because he might regard it as a challenge and (b) because the first song to come to mind was John Rutter’s The Angel’s Carol, and it would be ironic if he ended up thinking I’m the weird one. There could be a blog out there saying something like “guess what, I work with a guy who likes to sing carols in the toilet …”