The Tar Pits of Otley

This memory is fairly notorious, and is recounted here for posterity.

On one rare occasion in the summer of 1994 - when I would really rather have been watching Wimbledon, or reading PG Wodehouse in the garden - I was holed up in my bedroom revising for my A-Levels.

Revision was not strictly necessary for most of my A-Levels. One could pass Economics with an hour of good preparation as it was mostly a multiple choice exam (and Mr Shutt had kindly given me a stack of former papers to memorise). The rest of was a broad essay question - it was sufficient here just to memorise two fairly general articles from the text book, such as What Is Economics and Why Do We Use Money.

Mathematics also required minimal revision, as there are no facts to learn in maths. It's just the application of a few basic rules which are pretty much intuitive, and they even let you take in a calculator and provide you with a key equations booklet. History was more complex, but we didn't need to learn long lists of names and dates as it was by then more fashionable just to study broad themes, which were so broad you could pretty much make them fit anything you were asked to talk about (for our period, 1871-1939, pretty much any waffle about social unrest or international tension covered all bases). Mr Tarbett also advised we learn a few basic quotes to create the illustion of being well read, and it was for this reason that everyone in my class still knows that Nicholas II was a small man lost in the immensity of his realm.

During this feverish revision, two men were working noisily on the roof of the house next door. One was singing and the other shouting instructions, but given this was summer it was too hot for me to close the window to block them out. When you're disturbed by noise it only ever gets more irritating, and when one started with his singing again I soon found myself thinking: "I wish he'd fall off that fucking roof and shut up".

I got half of my wish. Although the worker promptly fell off the roof, he sadly did not shut up. He had been holding a bucket of hot tar, and the contents went all over his face. Instead of shutting up, therefore, he started screaming. This was even more distracting than the singing.

Defeated, I got up and closed the window so I could concentrate.