COMPETITION
Wrinkles for the wrinklies
Jaspistos
IN Competition No. 1516 you were invited to supply an advertisement for a school for the over-80s.
This was not an easy competition, for, as one taxed entrant pointed out, the line between humour and offence is perilously thin when the subject is old age. Conse- quently, references to hearing aids and rubber sheets, unless fantastically witty, were unacceptable. Ted Thompson struck a good opening note: 'Find it difficult/ impossible to understand tax/pension documents, alternative comedians, bishops' pronouncements, TV plays set in Glasgow, poems by the Poet Laureate, your doctor, your (great-?) grandchildren? Can't explain megabyte, 20K, interface?' Who could feel young after answering those questions? The winners printed be- low get £15 each, and the bonus bottle of White Horse Whisky, presented by United Distillers Group, goes to J.G. Links, whose school might have flourished in Erewhon.
The School of the Open Mind is for those who wish their eighties and nineties to be their best years, free from the accumulated prejudices of a lifetime. Lectures are given on the elimination of religious, political, and general preconcep- tions, and invididual tuition to enable students to recognise and dispel their personal prejudices so that everything may be seen with a fresh eye. Visits are made to museums, after removal of all labels, to concerts, without programmes, and to nursery schools for conversation with children under five.
No printed, written or broadcast matter is permitted to enter the school. Students of either sex are admitted but couples will be expected to discard existing preferences. Students may be- have as they wish so long as they do not influence the behaviour of others.
The Course is complete when the students has been set free and can return to the outside world in the condition he or she first entered it, thus with a Second Chance. (J.G. Links) Dotheold Hall uniquely combines up-to-date educational disciplines with an irresistible appeal to nostalgia. Here elderly folk joyfully rediscover their past while simultaneously embracing the future. Teaching rooms feature serried ranks of desks, complete with brimming ceramic inkwells (slate boards optional for the over-80s). Staff wear Edwardian dress and decor is unrelieved institutional brown.
The curriculum cunningly blends the ultra- modern with the easily accessible. Thus our Media Studies course provides options in 'The Legacy of Alexander Graham Bell' and 'The Wireless Revolution', while our literature facul- ty offers 'Deconstructing Masefield' and 'Buchan and the Saussurian Tradition'. In Data Processing (compulsory) students use a specially designed computing language, AGED, based entirely on arcane 1920s slang. Residential students are boarded in back-to- back terraced halls of residence, complete with outdoor 'privies', in the unforgettable setting of the 'Temps Perdu' Heritage Park, with its cobbled streets and working tram network.
(Peter Norman) Join us for a weekend introductory course at the Sam Beckett School for the Over-Eighties. We take life for the very old very seriously. Not for us the Californian spectacle of the lame and senile pretending they are teenagers 'having fun'. Our institution pursues the more arduous but more rewarding path of truth. The day begins with a refreshingly honest self- examination session in which we review each guest's life in turn. You are encouraged to be critical of each other's shortcomings and fai- lures, though physical violence is frowned upon. After this adrenalin-rousing session there will be no lunch. Fasting concentrates the mind. For the rest of the weekend your time is your own. Further speech is forbidden, bread and water is available at mealtimes. (Jeremy Clarke)
The Octoaggro Academy of Disruptive Behaviour
Do not go gentle into that good night — make them drag you kicking and screaming into the darkness. Learn to burn and rave with authority. If you are 80 plus, a social misfit with a good track record of civil disobedience and GBH and are pathologically disinclined to snuff it peace- fully, the OA is just for you. Staffed by the 'Old Devils' backed up by a disciplinary corps of drummed-out Chelsea Pensioners and Andy Capp clones, it offers elderly subversives the chance to hone their skills in a sympathetic environment.
The available courses include 'Exterminating the Young' ('At the going down of the sun and in the morning we shall dismember them'), DHSS harassment, persecution of relatives. wheelchair warfare, retirement home sabotage, deafness simulation and much, much more. Our teaching methods incorporate the latest de- velopments in educational terror, torture and psychological cruelty.
ENROL NOW AND GO FOR THE FINISH WITH GUSTO. (Philip A. Nicholson) Terminal College: a co-educational boarding establishment for extremely mature students. We provide a liberal education for boys and girls who have passed the 80-Plus. The college is divided into four houses, Twilight, Bed-pan, Catheter and Crem. Nonagenarians are auto- matically appointed prefects and centenarians are excused contact sports and Morning Assem- bly. The College boasts a variety of specialist societies, including Debating for the Slightly Demented, Archaeology for the Arthritic and Chess with Cataracts. We can provide tuition in Hypothermia Control, Intermediate and Adv- anced Continence, Colostomic Callisthenics, Gum Gymnastics and Senile Psychology. Intra- venal 'Cordon Bleu' drips are available as extras, but terry-towelling, walking-frames and life-support systems are inclusive. We have our own Rusk Shop, Milk Bar and Coughing Cor- ner. A Disco in the Jack Buchanan Room is available for students who are capable of shuf- fling. Corporal punishment by arrangement. Private mortuary and embalming parlour. DHSS approved. The Headmaster is a delegate to the British Undertakers' Conference.
(Russell Lucas).
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