Blessed Sacrament was a strange school. We had school caps that nobody wore, but used in more sensible ways. They made most excellent swords; in the mind of a ten-year-old boy that is. The cap was rolled up tight, the pointy end facing your opponent, and we were off, the three musketeers –sometimes ten or sixteen. Sometimes I was Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood fighting Basil Rathbone’s evil sheriff; on other occasions, Sir Percy Blakeney fighting the villainous Chauvelin. I was master of the thrust and feint, the strategic pirouette. I was in my own little world. My opponent, a boy one year older than me was not impressed. I danced and lunged, tickled his throat with the pointy end of my cap. He stood and looked at me, then punched me in the face.
Lesson learnt. The direct approach. Don’t waste time. Go for what you want. My fencing days were over, though I continued to fire imaginary guns with two pointed fingers and a noise I can still make with my mouth.
The direct approach. It works in advertising. Who can forget the jingle ‘You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent’? I haven’t seen a tube of Pepsodent for years. The jingle remains, as cheerful as ever and more meaningless now than it was then. And apologies to anyone who now cannot prise the tune from their heads
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