I had a math teacher in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. A spinster. Real bitch. She had about three outfits. I hate to say that, it's about the same as what I have and it's really superficial stuff, but it's the only teacher I've noticed who had such a paltry wardrobe.

One time I "won" a prize to go to McDonalds with her over lunch. She was clearly bored out of her mind trying to get me to talk. I even recognised it as a kid. But I had no social skills. And even now, I hate talking while eating.

Another time, I asked her for some help with my math work. So she says, "Give me your pencil." It happened to be a larger pencil than your typical pencil. Not the giant novelty pencils that you win in the carnival but just a thicker pencil, maybe two or three times the thickness of a normal pencil. It's all I could find for that day. So she takes it and says, "Is this the sort of pencil that a seventh grader uses?" Well, yes. Seventh graders still do that sort of thing.

One time she kept saying, "spring cleaning!" in an effort to get us to clean up her classroom. This must have been around the months of March, April, and May. It became a catchphrase for the boys. It even made it to our graduation newspaper. It took a sort of sexual overtone. One boy even spelled it out with, "spring clean me", under the guise of this teacher.

So she assigned all of us a different part of the classroom to clean. We worked in pairs. So me and this guy were cleaning this cabinet. Sorting shit. When we were done, she looked at it, and assigned two girls to do it again. I was really pissed off because I thought that we did an adequate job. My cleaning partner was also outraged.

Class parties were called "social functions" under her watch. I suspect it's because she never went to a party herself and it made her uncomfortable. I've never been to a party either but I don't think I'd be socially retarded enough to make the kids call it a "social function".

On the subject of school parties, they were never fun. Not once. You'd play boardgames or your Gameboy. If you weren't playing a boardgame or your Gameboy (as most people weren't because almost nobody brought either) you had to do homework. You couldn't watch others play the game. Had to do homework and avert your eyes from the fun that others were having.

Later in her career, she stopped teaching math (she also taught English and probably some other stuff, she was our regular teacher) and started doing some computer teaching thing. It was basically moving her to a part-time basis. This was long after I had graduated, but I gather this from stuff I see on the internet.

She started working there in 1974 and retired just a few years ago. It seems to have been her only job.

What a sad, miserable life. From what I can gather, she graduated from high school in 1966. A turbulent time in our nation's history. Do you think she was smoking dope? Unlikely.

So she probably graduated from university in about 1970. Then yeah, she started teaching in 1974. It adds up. Maybe she did some other job between 1970 and 1974, maybe it took her a while to find work, maybe she did a master's degree, whatever. But it works out right.

She graduated from a local high school. She probably lived in this crappy town all of her life. Never married, no children. I don't think that she was a nun.

But getting back to that hemp smoking, I've been considering taking it up as a hobby. I know it's illegal but I have glaucoma. No jury on earth is going to convict somebody trying to reduce the pain from the scourge of glaucoma.

Smoking joints never really appealled but I'd like to try a bong out. Can you do this just by yourself? Not that I'd be fiercely opposed to group drug use but I'm not sure I'm in the right demographic to really find such people.

I'm also considering an electronic drum kit. I used to play the drums. There looks like some moderately fun stuff that you can do with them. But then I looked at the prices. As cheap as £500, as much as £5000. £500 is going to be crap and I don't want to spend £5000 on this. What's a good amount to get something decent and not feel like you're playing on a piece of crap? I don't know.

But that would be a hobby. And when somebody asks, "What do you do for fun?" I'd be able to say, "Play the drums."

It's also a natural pairing for the weed. Get completely "baked" and then start "jamming".

I don't know how much the marijuana would cost. That's another concern. And where would I get it? I'm sure it's sold openly in some of your seedier parts of town, it certainly was in London, but I don't want to deal with street thugs. Wymark mentioned a delivery service but I don't know how I feel about that either.