Last night,in my official capacity as Chairperson of Friends, I welcomed a Professor of Glaciology to the school and introduced her to a group of attentive parents and students. Also among the audience were a group of boys from the boys school, privately invited for the Lecture entitled "The Effects of global Warming on the Arctic".
The Lecture was to be held in the Bar.
I think I may have to report them to Trading Standards.
The term Bar refers to the ballet bar all along the wall rather than the type of room I imagined would serve an excellent Claret. A number of us were very disappointed.
The Lecture was actually really good. The students helped make an 'ice flow' experiment which worked perfectly.
We were shown a photograph of the tent the Professor lived in for three months when in the Arctic. Now either she was really clever and had discovered the true theory of time and relative dimension in space, or that tent didn't have an en-suite.(OHMYGOD!)
Around halfway through, thankfully after I had extinguished the lights, a slide appeared on the screen highlighting an illustrative map of the contours formed by heat on an iceberg. It was the exact same shape as the male genitalia. I looked at the floor, frowning and trying not to laugh, but the boys in front of me obviously thought exactly the same thing. They struggled to stifle their giggles and their shoulders shook for some time as they laughed. I hoped the lights wouldn't be required to go back on for some time.
After the Lecture some intriguing questions were put forward by the girls.
Then a parent asked a few questions.
He hogged the floor for some time even ignoring the obvious hand waving from the Head that she'd like to ask a question. He was obviously prepared to heckle for some hours that Global warming is total nonsense and the audible groans from the students each time he put another argument forward were becoming cringingly obvious.
The students started to laugh and everyone was getting twitchy, I got signal across the room from a Head of Year in the form of fingers across the throat and a look of panic, from the Bursar.
Totally out of my depth I leaped up and Thanked the Professor very loudly, thrusting a beautiful bouquet of (eco-friendly and environmentally sourced) flowers at her.
The Professor looked a little stunned and the man glared at me.
The audience heaved a sigh of relief.
As I left the school I realised I was following the Professor in her small and low-emission car. She was lost and had pulled over to look at her map, so, being the people person I am, I went to her rescue, and show her how to get back to Swansea.
Me: "Shall I tell you how to get onto the dual carriageway?"
Professor of Glaciology: "Yes please"
Me: "Go up to the traffic lights, turn right and when you get to the roundabout, turn right towards Newport"
Professor " Brilliant, Thanks"
Me " No problem..right at the lights, right at the roundabout"
Professor of Glaciology: "Thanks"
She drove off.
Straight through the traffic lights and up towards school again.... (sigh!)
