Nob Times

In primary school a friend and I started a radio show in Grade 6 I believe. It started off all very entreprenerial and well and shit. We sat down with the principal and pitched our idea, which was really my friends idea I never would have thought of it.
The principal was impressed with our entreprenerial spirit and agreed to let us do a radio show over the school PA system for 5 minutes every friday lunch time.

It was my genius idea to give ourselves the moniker's 'pricky & sticky' or something which with the wisdom that comes with adolesence are possibly the worst names we could have adopted for ourselves.

Yet we didn't know and my friend foolishly agreed to them, and that's what we were. I think my friend had just recently seen 'Good Morning Vietnam' and really had envisioned nothing further than lifting Robin Williams jokes for our own purposes.

And that was the best idea we had pretending to be a caller and saying 'I don't care what you play just play it loud!' which might have been funnier in the context of the shellshocked soldiers of the vietnam war. (Or whatever shock was dispensed by VC I'm pretty sure they didn't have artillery).

Anyway ripping off Robin Williams was the best idea we had and I didn't have it. Instead with stars in my minds I had envisioned billions of novelty show ideas such as a show where we sang operatic style for the entirety. Or one where we spoke in Jamaican accents. And writing our own hilarious song about the propensity for people to tuck the front of their shirt in along with their dicks after they went to the toilet. All this would pave the way for Rove like success (even though neither of us knew who Rove was at the time).

Our friend Dane advised us that 'people just blocked their ears when we came on' as there was no other way to avoid our show. In the end, I'm fairly certain the teacher subtley forgot that my friend and I were to be excused to do the radio show and it was over within 3. That or we were too disorganised to do the mixed tapes anymore. Anyway it was short lived but embarassingly public.

I was a Nob then, and a Nob I remained.

In year 10 I spent about 40% of my spare time at Chris my bff of the time's place. His place was just up the road from Q's old place where I had spent 40% of my time in years 7-8.

40% of the time is a lot when you consider another 40% of my time was spent sleeping.

Anyway one school holiday Chris had friends from Britain (or the UK or England as it should be called because it's not like anyone else in the UK apart from England likes being part of it) anyway they came to stay.

In a fit of adolescent jealousy I concieved of a way to impinge upon the time and attention that would not be lavished on me. For one thing I thought it would be hilarious to pretend as if I didn't understand that people from England can speak English, so I'd speak really slow and loud at them. (something I don't even do for my Japanese friends).

Anyway what I hadn't counted on was that one of them would be asian, and so I'm pretty sure I came across in my first impression as just 100% regular balifornian racist.

And sure you say 'it's okay he's from Ballarat' but it's not okay, and never will be so long as people keep treating Balifornians as the quaint backwards monkey's they are and thus not bound by the rules that govern civilised society.

Anyway stage 2 of hilarious prank was to convince these British people that I was some kind of soccer prodigy, resulting in hilarity when they actually condescended to play me.

This was way before wikipedia so I hadn't even thought to familiarise myself with the rules. The last time I'd played soccer I had been calling myself 'pricky' on PA radio.

Anyway it all unfolded acording to plan and instead of being hilarious was just a fucking boring exercise in tedium and made me feel like an inferior nob.

The worst part was I impinged on the quality time of two friends crossing the world to visit a mate and wasted everyone's time. Worse than that is thinking of Chris defending me saying things like 'he's actually pretty funny' and shit.

I'm sure plenty of people I have met have thought me a nob for all kinds of reasons, but these two stories in particular make my neck hurt because I'm cringing so much thinking about them. They are not the kind of embarassment of say 'being pushed into the girls toilets by a cool kid' or having the down's syndrome girl try to kiss you at the grade 5 disco, no this is the embarassment when you and you only are responsible and there's no salvaging anything from them apart from the fact that I'm a complete nob some times.

Anyway if there's any lesson to be learnt I guess it's this one, and it's not even mine:

"It is the duty of the host to make the guest feel at home. It is the duty of the guest to reassure the host that they are not."

Don't be a nob.