.jpg)
This is Roland Browning.
Roland arrived at Grange Hill a year or so before I went to High School. He didn’t have a good time of it, being the fat kid who everyone picked on… his only friend being annoying Janet with the whiney voice. He was singled out by school bully Gripper Stebson, who made his life a misery, and towards the end of his first year, he ended up in hospital after running out into the road in front of a speeding car.
I missed the episode where Roland got run over, so somehow I managed to convince myself things had got so bad he’d tried to commit suicide. The internet tells me, years later, that it wasn’t actually a suicide attempt, but Grange Hill went to some dark places, so I’m not 100% convinced.
The reason I’m telling you about Roland is that when I started High School, the bullies and the wags soon twigged to the fact that I share the first three letters of my Christian name with the Grange Hill character played by Erkan Mustafa. And even though the end of my name was different – who cares? Rol became Roland… and the sound of kids mimicking whiney Janet’s catchphrase, “I only want to help you, Ro-land…” was soon echoing through the halls of our Secondary. And I hated it.
Warren Zevon - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Author and neurobiologist R. Douglas Fields created the acronym LIFEMORTS to summarise nine triggers in our brains that cause us to get angry, lose our shit and full on HULK out. Last time, we looked at the first of these – L for Life or Death Situations. Today, we’re looking at I… for Insult.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” That’s what they told us back in the day.
Hogwash.
The Divine Comedy - Sticks And Stones
I’d argue that many times, getting hit by a stick or a stone – even if it caused us the long term inconvenience of a broken bone – is preferable to many of the insults we’ve received in our lives. The insults the cut us to the quick. The insults that we lay awake at night recalling. The insults that leave permanent scars.
Suzi Quatro - Sticks And Stones
Unsurprisingly, scientists have studied the way our brains react to insult, and they compare the effect to a “mini slap in the face”…
The researchers found insults uttered by a fictitious person triggered short bursts of brain activity in the front part of listeners' brains, regardless of who the insult was directed at, themselves or somebody else.
These very rapid responses, which the researchers say are akin to a slap in the face, did not diminish over time; offensive statements continued to grab the brain's attention, generating large responses of similar magnitude, regardless of how often the invectives were heard.
Insults elicited a larger response in brain activity than compliments, and they continued to do so throughout the session, the experiments showed.
The Righteous Brothers - Sticks And Stones
Ouch. Insults have a bigger impact and stay with us longer than compliments. So much for “names will never hurt me”!
It's a telling reminder of how our brains tend to fixate on negative events more intensely than they do positive things – what's known as the negativity bias.
Get that – what they’re basically telling us here is that our brains are much more likely to brood over negative things than they are to get zuzzed up by positivity. Our brains are essentially miserable emo/goths. It’s a wonder we’re not all on Prozac.
The Mountain Goats - Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds
The reason our brains don’t like being insulted goes way, way back to the dawn of man when our very survival often depended on being part of a fledgling community, and hierarchies became suddenly very important. The higher you were up the hierarchy, the more chance you had of surviving. Of getting food and water, or having others help you by sharing resources and skills. Of finding a mate and being in with a chance of passing your genes on to the next generation. However, even back then, there were lots of buffoons who made it their business to try and batter other people down, and if they couldn’t do it physically, maybe they could do it verbally. The insult became as much a threat to our position in society as the stick or the stone… and our brains, whose primary job is to keep us alive, began to realise that insults could be deadly.
Johnny Thunders - Society Makes Me Sad
When Swanny chanted out, “I only want to help you, Ro-land,” and the other kids laughed, he was knocking me down the hierarchy ladder, and cementing his own position near the top. And this made me angry.
Tears For Fears - The Madness Of Roland
According to Psychology Today though, Anger is the absolute worst response to Insult. Whereas the strongest way to respond might well be… acceptance.
When someone insults us, we ought to consider three things: whether the insult is true, who it came from, and why. If the insult is true or largely true, the person it came from is reasonable, and his or her motive is worthy, then the insult is not an insult but a statement of fact, and, moreover, one that could be very helpful to us.
Which seems fair enough… although in that case, it is really an insult? Aren’t we just talking about constructive criticism there? Some people have a hard time with that too – any form of criticism – but it still differs from an insult.
Whereas, if it comes from Swanny…
On the other hand, if you think that the person who insulted you is unworthy of your consideration, you have no reason to take offence, just as you have no reason to take offence at a naughty child or a barking dog.
I think that as we get older, it becomes a lot to ignore insults from dingbats who aren’t worth expending a breath on… but when you’re a teenager, that’s much harder. Everyone’s opinion matters to you in the deadly hierarchy of the school yard.
Jim Bob - Revenge Of The School Bullied
As kids, we’re more likely to return the insult… I know you are, you said you are, but what about me? That doesn’t quite work when the insult is linked to your name though. I suppose I could have tried to come up with an equally stinging riposte linked to Swanny’s name – yeah, well, you look like a swanee whistle (maybe I could have imitated the sound of a swanee whistle every time he walked past?) Or could I have compared him to a Swan Vesta – you’re a hothead, Swanny… where’s your vest? It’s hardly Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker, is it? And chances are he might just have (to use another swan analogy) broken my arm in return.
The fundamental problem with the put-down, however brilliant it may be, is that it equalizes us with our insulters, bringing them up to our level and us down to theirs. This gives them, their behaviour, and their insult far too much legitimacy. Returning the insult also risks injuring the insulter (who, in all probability, is fairly fragile) and inviting further attacks.
Depending on the power differential in the relationship, fighting fire with fire is rarely a smart move… not when the other side has bigger fists and is more than prepared to use them.
If you can’t use humour to deliver a stinging rebuke then, perhaps you can use it to defuse the situation in another way? When Swanny piped up, “I only want to help you, Ro-land,” maybe I should have replied, “Cheers, Swanny – any chance you can do my Maths homework for me?” Or turn the mockery back on myself to show him it didn’t bother me at all. “Ouch – that hurts. I’m going to have to go do what Roland would do in this situation… eat a few pies and wash them down with a gallon of Irn Bru.” Of course, it’s all very well thinking of witty ripostes after the fact (shades of L'esprit D'escalier), particularly 40 years after the fact! But I think eventually this was the strategy I began to adopt in terms of dealing with insults. I got in there first. I insulted myself, put myself down, before anybody else could. Take the insulter’s power away by showing them I had an even worse opinion of myself than they did. It works… to a point… but no wonder I ended up with low self-esteem.
I've written about Mrs. Tebb before.
She was the primary teacher, you may recall, who insisted I drink my free school milk even when I told her I didn't drink milk because it made me throw up. And Mrs. Kaye never made me drink it last year! "Drink your milk," ordered Mrs. Tebb.
So I did. And I threw up.
The Beach Boys - Be True To Your School
Maybe this set the tone of our relationship and explained why Mrs. Tebb didn't like me for the rest of the year. She thought she knew better than a 7 year old, but actually... guess what, Mrs. Tebb... sometimes you don't.
The Lemon Twigs - The Student Becomes The Teacher
Then last week, while discussing knocking down walls in Emergency Questions, Alyson jogged my memory about another incident - one in which I was far more culpable - which cemented the animosity Mrs. Tebb felt towards me. The time I pushed Andrew Lodge through the classroom wall.
I'm pretty sure it was Andrew Lodge, but I might be wrong about that. Either way, my apologies to him. And my apologies for the time that he attended my birthday party and I threw a dart in his eye, almost blinding him. Believe it or not, Andrew Lodge was a good mate of mine in junior school. But these things happened.
Mrs. Tebb didn't have a classroom in the main school. She taught her class in a portacabin out in the school garden. It was a very nice portacabin in a very nice garden (we had school chickens too, provided by my mate Simon, whose dad was a chicken farmer). Far be it from me to suggest that the Head had arranged it that way to keep Mrs. Tebb away from Gen-Pop... or the other teachers... but if he had done that, I could easily understand why.
Jim Bob - The School Is Not The Building (It's The Children)
Anyway, as you entered the portacabin, there was a small cloak room, then a door that led into the main classroom. One morning, I was messing around with Andrew Lodge (or someone else whose name has been lost to antiquity, but Andrew Lodge is taking his place), playfighting, and... y'know, I had a bit of a temper when I was a kid, and maybe things got a bit out of hand... so I pushed Andrew Lodge straight through the cloakroom wall (which to be fair, was obviously made of an amalgam of tissue paper and spit) and into Mrs. Tebb's store-room.
Looking back, I'm starting to understand why Mrs. Tebb didn't like me. She was never going to teach me love, to quote Rockpile...
Everything I know about Dr. Samuel Johnson, I learned from Blackadder. As an English teacher, I can say with some authority that it's really all you need to know. Except that he once wrote that, "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life". And if that's the case, I know a hell of a lot of people who are fed up with living.
Over the last year, I have encountered a couple of fine songs that reference the first man in dictionary corner... so I was sure I'd be able to find some more with a little digging.
Let's start in 1923...
Ernest Hare & Al Bernard - Samuel Johnson (Get Thee Gone From Here)
And if we drop his Christian name, I'm guessing these will also suffice...
The Fat White Family - Fringe Runner
Paddy goes to Holyhead - Seldom Sober
Meanwhile, today's finest discovery are called Tankus The Henge. Yes, they are.
Tankus The Henge - The Deviationist Society
Now, when I extended my search to include Johnson's famous quote about London, all kind of things crawled out of the woodwork. All kinds of Dirty Pretty Things for a start...
Dirty Pretty Things - Tired of England
And then there's this little seafood delight...
The two artists I had in mind when I decided to feature Dr. Johnson here both mention him by name and reference his love of the capital... though they do seem to disagree with that quote somewhat.
10. Humanitarian relief workers.
9. Sit down, then get up to speed faster than anyone else on the road.
James sang Sit Down.
The McMurtry Spéirling "electric hypercar" can go from 0 to 60 in 1.4 seconds, faster than any other car on the internet. No, I wouldn't have known that either.
James McMurtry - See The Elephant
8. Barbie, Cindy, Action Man.
Last time I did a Top Ten Elephant Songs, more than 7 years ago (not that I'm running out of ideas or anything), Charity Chic complained that I hadn't included The Toy Dolls. There! Happy now?
The Toy Dolls - Nellie The Elephant
7. Venue for drums.
6. Was Johnny's wife, now a Walton.
He used to be a Carter (USM), like June. Now he's just Jim Bob, like the Walton.
Jim Bob - The Loneliest Elephant In The World
If you've never seen that before, I recommend having some tissues to hand.
5. Half a famous painting plus Teutonic null.
Half of the Mona Lisa plus a German 0.
4. Hoover discovered after putting a Manc in India.
Henry Hoover discovered after putting a Manc in India.
Henry Mancini - Baby Elephant Walk
3. Domesticated Chevy.
Tame your Chevy Impala...
2. Just inside the crematorium.
Just inside the crematorium.
I don't know if REM were entering a Madness lookalike competition in that photo or what.
Yes, it's the song about pushing an elephant up the stairs.
1. If you're heading north of Blackpool, I'd recommend a raincoat.
Just north of Blackpool, you will find the town of Fleetwood. You may also need a Mac.
What's the Fleetwood Mac song about elephants?
The interweb tells me that "Tusk" is actually a metaphor for a penis. I prefer to think it's about elephants.
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
George Safford Parker was born in Wisconsin in 1863. He founded the Parker Pen company when he was just 25, although until 2011, their headquarters was based in Newhaven. Then they moved to France. "From the 1920s to the 1960s, before the development of the ballpoint pen, Parker was either number one or number two in worldwide writing instrument sales." When I was a kid, the Parker Pen was a much desired item... though I'm not sure anybody knew why. Parker's writing implements certainly made an impression on these guys though...
From one loudmouth Manc to another...
Followed by some pretty clever wordplay...
Kae Tempest - Lionmouth Door Knocker
And as usual, there's some weird blippy-squelchy dance track named after the product of the day, because why not? It's not as though your song's actually about anything...
Far more satisfying to these aging ears is some 21st Century bluegrass...
Terry Earl Taylor - Wish I Had A Parker Pen
I am also convinced there is a Jim Bob song that mentions a Parker Pen. But I can't for the life of me find it. So here's another great Jim Bob song just because...
Today though, I have a chance to re-share one of my favourite songs from last year, by the inimitable HMHB. Tissues at the ready, folks...
10. First Aid Kit - Palomino
Every year I do these countdowns, I have a little whinge about the artists who wait till late November to release their records. Yeah, you might sell a few more copies in the Christmas shopping rush, but you don't really stand much chance in year end lists against records we've been living with for months.
This is the fifth album by Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg, who weren't even born until the 90s, but live forever in music's best decade, the 70s. Another gloriously catchy set of West Coast Americana-flavoured tunes that sound like you've known them all your life... though it's still unfair to ask them to compete, after only a couple of weeks, with the year's constant companions. Ask me again in March and this might well be in my Top 3.
First Aid Kit - Turning Onto You
