Hi it’s me, Paul. I have a confession to make. Actually, I have more than one confession, but let’s start small.
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Mr Hughes, my junior school teacher, was getting angrier and angrier, some pupils in his class had been breaking the palettes that we used for painting, (they were saucers actually, donated by parents who had broken the cups the saucers belonged to and gave the partner-less piece of crockery to the school as an act of benevolence). Mr Hughes had a habit of grabbing pupils by the shoulders and shaking them violently until they cried. The child’s head looked like rag doll being shaken in the mouth of an angry dog when Mr Hughes was about his shaking business. I have seen true hard men, (well, hard boys) break down and cry like a baby at the hands of Mr Hughes’s juddering technique. These days, teachers are not allowed to dish out any sort of corporal punishment because it is wrong, unjustifiable and morally outrageous, but in those days it was fine. So imagine my horror when I found out that that the saucer, (sorry, I mean palette) I was using had just cracked in two like a McVities chocolate biscuit. I knew I ought to confess immediately but was a little scared of being clasped into the ‘Hughes Shuddering Machine’. So I wrapped up the two pieces of broken pottery in some newspaper and hid it in one of the cupboards that lined the classroom. It’s probably still there now. So for whoever finds it, it was me who broke it. By the way Mr Hughes was nice in every other way.
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There’s another thing I want to say - I once found a frog, fully formed and shiny in all its slimy skinned glory. I put the frog in my pocket and took it home. I lived with my parents, and I kind of knew my mom wouldn’t be pleased to have a frog in the house with us so I put it in a bucket, thinking I would feed it everyday. I went off to my bedroom to play my guitar for a while. Feeling hungry I went to the kitchen to get something to eat, and had a quick look into the bucket to see how my new pet was doing. I was shocked to see the bucket was empty. I had completely forgotten that frogs can jump. I looked everywhere to find the frog but he had hidden himself really well. We left that house shortly after that, so to the people who bought it from us, that stink that you smell but can’t quite locate, is a dead frog, (well he’s got to be dead by now, what would he eat etc...) located somewhere on your premises. Sorry!....
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Coming to think about it, I must have a list of misdemeanours as long as my arm.
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1 I don’t give our pet goldfish proper burials, but flush them down the toilet. That’s not so bad I hear you say, yes but our goldfish are still alive when I do it. (Just joking!)
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2 I once hit our dog with the pipe from the vacuum cleaner. Dogs are weird enough when it comes to vacuum cleaners but now our dog goes crazy to get out of the room whenever someone even says the words Vacuum Cleaner.
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3 I don’t get the vacuum cleaner out to clean the house but leave it to my wife, (she wonders why the dog goes nuts when it comes out). She thinks I’m a lazy oaf, when I’m really being kind to animals.
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4 In one of the first bands I played in I had an upset with the bass player. He was 15 years old and I was 13, so because of his attitude I detuned his bass guitar when he left it around. It was a bit stupid of me really because we were due to play that night and we couldn’t start because he took ages to get the thing in tune. So I’m sorry Paul, where ever you are.
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5 While we’re talking about bass players, I upset Tony Wright who used to play bass in the PPP. We were on stage one night in Plymouth and I made a joke to the audience at Tony’s expense. Sometimes I’m a stupid git, sorry Tony.
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Hmmm well I’m glad I’ve got all this off my chest, I feel better already. There’s one more thing I ought to mention but it’s too bad. Suffice to say, I tried to help a baby bird once and it ended disastrously, I still feel too bad about it to talk. But I’m sorry to birds everywhere, I’m sorry to the natural ecosystem and food chain. I’m sorry to God who made the little baby bird. I don’t think there’s anyone else to apologise to, but if there is, I’m sorry.
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Feel free to add your own confessions if you have any, it certainly helps you feel better about yourself.