The Common Room

The Common Room (c)

By

Michael Casey

What are you sniggering at? You are worse than a child, I have to mark this drivel, you would think if they got to Cambridge they would have least learnt how to write, they’d know how to string a sentence together. Or at least make it interesting. This one will get an F, and F is the appropriate letter I should begin with for this drivel. If his Daddy paid for all the best schools perhaps he should have bought his a Dictionary too. Or at least paid for a French mistress who could have taught him English in his gap year. At least they leave a few cases of the 69 at the Porters lodge. He’s a decent sort, he told me to be really rigorous when marking his son’s papers. If only the French mistress was as rigorous and taught him a bit of English in the gap year.

You are smirking now, I’ll have to gather myself up from my chair and see what exactly you are reading. Oh, that 300 and Not OUT, a cricket magazine  or something. I would ask Jeffrey Archer to pop in and explain how to write  page turning prose, only he’s gone off with Andrew Graham Dixon and some Italian bloke to have dinner. I despair of the youth of today, they can’t string a sentence together, what they write reads like an obituary. Shakespeare should inspire them, or Charles Dickens, or that Little Woman, or rather the book Little Women, they should have Pride and no Prejudice in what they read and then write about. Instead its cut and *&***((ing paste, do they think we are stupid, WE ARE CAMBRIDGE DONS after all.

Yes I will have a Cuban cigar, and I know you really did steal them from Fidel, help yourself to some of the 69 while I light this monster. We are the last bastion of good taste here at Singing Anvil College, we really were founded by a blacksmith 100s of years ago. We are known as the SAC college because of all the ale stored underneath the chapel. That bastard you are reading stole the idea and used it in his butchered version of the baker and the undertaker story, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, my big fat hairy Cambridge arse.

You are still sniggering, is he really any good? Or does he just make lots of money from his books, even though his writing is horse manure, if I’m being polite. So he’s written over a million words, but is undiscovered, like a pearl of great price but you’ve lost the shovel and the map marking the spot. So he’s just a bit of a cult, yes I said cult. So who exactly reads him? Only Dons in Cracow Poland. But the Poles have a funny sense of humour.

But what do you see in him. He’s fat and silver haired and wears shades, mainly to hide his ugly mug. His structure is like an outside toilet, big and strong with the odour of something quite right, if I ever met the daft brush I’ll give him a bottle of something. No not a bottle of the 69, it would be wasted on him, maybe some cheap perfume for men, or failing that some Jeyes Fluid disinfectant to dab behind his ears.

He just teases and half tells a story and then expects us to finish it for ourselves. I say he’s just a lazy writer, or has run out of steam. You don’t think so? If a girl and a boy are alone then he should tell us what happens, it’s more like a Bollywood film and he just leads us a merry dance. I want more detail. He uses a metaphor. She weighed up his evidence, she assessed the power repeatedly, she smiles and gently glowed, and she in turn gave him a stiff sentence, or was it a stiff drink. Or knowing your writer it’s always  a pint of Stella Artois. The only thing sophisticated about his writing is the Stella Artois.

I know, but he’s big in Poland. Only Amazon don’t publish in Polish, the irony of it all, now that is amusing to me. I better mark some more of these useless bastards’ essays. And yes of course I do want to read 300 and Not Out when you have finished with it. He may be a totally useless writer but at least he entertains me, otherwise I’d have to read Harry Potter to my grandchildren.

Some say he’s really a Don at that crappy University, up the road, you know Oxford. He just pretends to be a moron, when really he’s an Oxford Don, though how do you tell the difference? The moron is better educated. Wasn’t there something in a Tom Sharpe book years ago about a writer who had somebody else pretend to be him to do all the publicity. While he stayed in some house of ill repute, like the House of Lords or something? Well whoever really is this Michael Casey I just hope that someday he gets discovered  then he can bequest all his money to our college. The SAC college wine cellar needs replenishment, those bastards from Porterhouse College tunnelling into the cellar and stole a load of the 69. Is there no honour any more?

With that it’s just after midnight, so go to bed with your wives and lovers and mistresses And if its 3 to the power of one its far cheaper, though for the mathematicians out there, you are in for a very exciting night, 3 to the power of one, is your favourite equation after all.  And if you don’t know what this fat silver haired writer in shades means by that, I’m sure your girl will enjoy explaining it to you.

See no wonder Cambridge Dons hate me, though one brother really went to Cambridge and another to Oxford. Me I was just more common, as common as a Common room.