browsing the letter k

'Pastime' derived from an Indian sport that used to be on Channel 4. The actual game involved two teams of Indians in nappies on a dusty court, with the apparent aim being to hit each other in the legs. Why, with a little fine tuning, this would make a great playground game, we said.
We 'fine tuned' it to the point where we actually just beat each other up whilst yelling "KABBADI!".
Although the casual racism was the cherry on the cake, it was those two key elements - shouting and fighting - that made it such a hit.

The sound one must make when launching handfuls of foam ripped from the bus seats out of the back window and onto the windscreen of the jeep behind, causing it to swerve wildly.

Nickname given to boys who had brain tumours. Whether true or not, to us the tumour was removed with a big metal skewer by a doctor who fished around in your brain until he got it. Hence, brain tumour patients were human kebabs, and were so dubbed.

One PE lesson I hid, with a bunch of equally physically inept mates, behind a wall which was being used as one of the goals for a game of football. Amos, a normally tolerated child, was in that goal. Sadly, he soon let one in. For about five minutes after this he stood there, watching the game and repeating, through gritted teeth, the phrase that would haunt him for the next two years: "Keep it together, Amos!" This would be repeated to him after every slap to the head, after every drop of a pencil, after every sneeze. Ironically, he very rarely did keep it together, regularly going into a total rage in response to the taunts. The pinnacle of this was when it was said, unwittingly, by a teacher in Science. He ended up on the floor, in tears. Never have I felt such love for a teacher. Except Ms Freeman. She was fit.

This should be shouted whenever a goalkeeper ventures outside of the goal area, in football. You know, like when they go up for corners and stuff. I'm sure John Motson said this once.

Daring to wear white socks with your school uniform? You're not being rebellious, you are simply being a Kevin.

Woe betide the white-sock-clad rebel whose name really is Kevin.

At the beginning of every music lesson we were told to make a composition, and there invariably followed a madcap dash to the end of the corridor where the more expensive keyboards were kept under lock and key. Their appeal lay exclusively in their ability to play 'demo' tracks, utilising every instrument in rendering, for example, the theme from Star Trek or Air On A G-String. When I got my hands on one, I spent the lesson completely engrossed, and when we performed, Pearson played the Beverly Hills Cop, Josh had the chords, and I turned my keyboard off and pretended to play accompaniment on the click-clacks. I got an E, and our teacher died two years later in his classroom, although these two facts aren't connected.

Everyone knows that girls get germs from boys and boys get germs from girls. If a boy touched a girl, she wouldn't get boy germs if she had 'keys', which simply meant that she had to cross her fingers.
If you got tired of having to keep your fingers crossed, you could 'swallow your keys', by miming sticking your crossed fingers down your throat. This provided germ protection for a considerably longer, although undefined, amount of time.
'Keys' also worked for some things that weren't germ-related. If someone was doing the "I'm crushing your head!" bit with their thumb and index finger, as seen on the TV show Kids in the Hall, you could hold up your crossed fingers and say, "Nuh-uh-uh! I got keys!" This rendered their crushing of your head ineffective, so then you'd probably just punch each other for a while.

Approach someone from behind, and throw a bunch of keys at their feet. As they bend down to pick them up, say "You've dropped the keys to the Gay Club, and now you're picking them up."
This is a better insult than "you've dropped your bender card", because you had proof that they were not only members of the gay club, but also such trusted members that they were keyholders of the Gay Club HQ.
Ch*rl*e W*bb spots a flaw...
Surely this is ruined by the fact you'd have to - presumably - throw your own keys, thus leaving you to sheepishly ask for them back, after declaring them gay?
You : No, seriously. Can I have them back? I need them.
Them: You need the keys to the gay club?
You : No, they're my house keys.
Them: YOU LIVE IN THE GAY CLUB HQ?
Potential nightmare.

Martin would be asked a question. If he answered it correctly he was kicked once. If he answered incorrectly he was kicked twice. If he didn't answer at all he was kicked until he did. Best question therefore were along the lines of "Do you shag dogs" or "Do you rim old men?" where the only way to minimise the abuse was to give the "correct" answer of Yes.

A variant of football in which the pursuit of goals was scorned in favour of nutmegging* the weakest child, who would then become the gaylord until he could touch the oak tree, which stopped you being gay. Sounds easy? Well, the only thing is, when you're the gaylord, everyone has to kick you, trip you up, and generally stop you getting to the tree.

A game devised to administer pain on an individual by as many people as possible (whoever's there at the time). The game can be initiated for many reasons, such as birthday's, new shoes, new haircut etc, in fact it was a generic game used in place of the traditional methods of distributing pain to any fellow pupils who deserved it at the time (bumps for birthday, christening for new shoes etc). We soon realised that the game was so much fun we couldn't just wait until there was a special occasion to play it so we devised a rule where the last person to get to the playing field at any break time got 'Kiddy in the Middle'. This allowed us to master out techniques and we all became pretty efficient Kiddy in the Middlers quite quickly.nnThe game consisted of the chosen one lying down in a circle made by all the other participants and then having to stand up whilst everyone else kicked them as hard as they could to keep them down. The kicking would stop as soon as the 'Kiddy in the middle' was stood up (which isn't easy to do when your arms are kicked away as soon as you put any pressure on it to left yourself up). There were no real rules to this game but there did seem to be an unwritten rule where you wouldn't kick anybody in the face. This of course wasn't always upheld but most people obeyed through fear of having their teeth kicked out the next time it was their go.nnOne of my favourite memories of school was when we played Kiddy in the middle with Ben Caddy, who was officially the school bully, on his birthday. We had a huge crowd for the occasion and you could see in Ben's eyes that he knew he about to get the kicking of his lifetime. He couldn't back out as he was one of the main instigators of the game and he couldn't be seen to not be able to take what he gives out but he also knew that the normal Kiddy in the Middle etiquette was out of the window and there were one (or maybe fifteen) too many old scores about to be settled for his liking. We gave Ben a severe kicking and it was wonderful to see the kids who owed Ben a kick or two, but didn't want to upset him through fear of retaliation, join in as well once they realised that there was no way he would know they were involved with the blur of legs and DM's flying in left right and centre.nnBen came away pretty beat up and had plenty of bruises, a few nice cuts (the one to his lip I like to take credit for but it's impossible to say for sure) but my favourite injury he suffered was the black marks all over his body where the rubber had been rubbed of peoples shoes and onto his skin. It took him a while to scrub those off.nnAhhhh, happy days.

Colin Holmes was in the army, at the age of eight. Not the real army. The Kids Army, not that it was any different, really, just shorter. They gave you real guns and bullets.
One week he shot the sergeant with a sub-machine gun.

Any time a teacher picked on him, Kieran effortlessly outdid them.
Annoying face-fungus'd history teacher: "Kier Hardie was a bastard. What's a bastard, Lavery?"
Kieran: "Man with a beard, sir."

Poker-backed Principal trying to be witty, pointing to dog-end in the playground: "Is that cigarette butt yours, Lavery?"
Kieran, feigning politeness: "Oh, no, sir, you saw it first."

When we recorded a punk version of the school song (originally to a Bavarian drinking tune), Kieran did the vocals, and it degenerated into a chant about the same Principal: "Tommy Garrett, Tommy Garrett, Tommy Garrett, Tommy Garrett, anal stricture, anal stricture, anal stricture, anal stricture..."
He took a commission in the Army.

A primary school urban myth, said clowns would hang around outside your school in a Transit van, depending on which school you attended it was either blue or white. Once a killer clown would catch a child they'd slit the unfortunate victim's mouth at each side, then tickle them until they laughed, causing the cut to tear their mouth into a grotesque smile.

Bearing the ultimate hallmark of an urban myth, everyone knew of this happening at another school.

A particularly loathsome game where I asked the quiet kid in our class if he was kind or mean. When the response failed to come, the question would be repeated, only in a more complex variation, such as "Are you kind or are you mean? Because if you're mean you can't be kind, and if you're kind you can't be mean, which means your kind of mean, or are you mean of kind?" Occasionally I would throw in the odd chant of "MEAN CHILD" or "KIND BOY". Whatever the case, the game would only end when the subject was reduced to tears.

Nigel Bullimore: An Apology
I'm sorry, Nigel, for making you sit on a table and say "chocodooby" before i pushed you off the table backwards, hilariously. You must admit though, you did look like the character in the advert. And it was funny. In fact, I'm not sure I'm that sorry.

This is a really fun game from Western Australia, invented by me and my brother. To play, you get in the shower with someone else and two flannels and nominate who will be teacher and who will be the child. Then the teacher says 'It's time for a nap now'. So you both fold a flannel in half and lie down on the shower floor, using the flannel as a kind of pillow. You also have to kind of spoon each other because there's not much room. It was a really good game.

Graffiti daubed on the school wall, circa 1980 :
Whoever said punk's dead is a Cnut
At least that's what I thought it said. Eight years old and convinced that it was a grave insult to compare someone to the viking king of England (1016-1035).
I tried to explain to my peers that Cnut had been a good king, that the popular myth of him trying to turn back the sea was wrong, and thus this was not a very effective insult. It was about that time that the beatings began.

The name given to the early developer, Patrick Downey, based on the prosthetically-phallused porn star of the seventies.
His crime was to get an erection one rainy afternoon after double games whilst in the post match showers then wander bold as brass into the changing rooms with his engorged member standing to attention.
The appreciative cries of "Look at the size of Paddys dick!", "Nice one, Patrick" and "Ha ha ha! Patrick's got a big dick!" were followed by a whimper of "Leave me alone! I havent got a big dick!" as Patrick fled from the changing room in tears.
Thanks to this baffling reaction, the rumour spread like wildfire that Patrick has an oversized man's cock. From the sixth formers to the braver first years, all would chant "King Dong", "Donkey Dick" and "Patrick's got a big dick"
Saying "Patrick's got a big dick" never failed to cause the well-endowed fella to run off, crying "I haven't got a big dick! Leave me alone!"

An unlikely Jewish misinterpretation of the hit song "Kinky Boots".

The child who shows most effort. The child who has his tongue so far up the teacher's anus that the teacher turns around and says "For licking my arse so well, I crown you King Lick - but with your new title comes responsibility - the responsibility to have no friends, to have your every achievement ridiculed, and most of all, to keep on tonguing my arse."

Although not technically a proper mong, Ross did have a speech impediment somewhere between a blocked nose and a cleft palate. This, combined with his shambling gait and lack of academic ability, made him the closest thing to a proper mong we had in the absence of a dedicated special needs unit at our school.

During one day of particularly heavy taunting, Ross tried to escape by climbing the side of a building. There he hung by one arm, and with the other swiped feebly at his tormentors ten feet below, emitting a low guttural moan.

It later turned out that Ross was a very sick young man, and had suffered abuse at the hands of his family from an early age. Nonetheless, I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for providing me and my friends with the wonderful phrase "King Mong". Long may it continue.

A gentle, quasi-insult from more innocent days, when climbing up a thing just to get to the top of it was the giddiest of thrills. "I’m the King of the castle/and you’re the dirty rascal!" you’d shout from the top to your fellow climbee, and genuinely, you couldn’t have felt king-ier if you tried. Try calling someone a "dirty rascal" these days and seeing where it gets you.

Interestingly, even girls shouted "KING of the castle". Presumably it’s not considered a very queenly thing to do, climbing stuff, though HRH would probably be more popular if she did occasionally tuck her skirt in her pants and got a boostie up the side of a bus shelter.

I made my pre-school brother a Rocket Man suit just like in the series (BBC2, black and white – cliffhangers? – I know it had a Rocket Man in it). It had a helmet, a jetpack and some buttons on a belt. I was so proud, and the costume rocked so much that I played outside in it. And got spotted. To some, I remain King of the Rocket Men to this day.

The title bestowed to the first person back to their table after lunch break. There was no crown, and the King of the Tables had no special powers apart from being allowed to sharpen the communal crayons on the teacher’s special windy-handled desk mounted sharpener.
Wayne Hales would generally win, not through athleticism, but through brute force. He would swing and maul his way to the title, then set about daintily sharpening crayons for us for the rest of the lesson.

When we were at primary school, all the toilets were made by Armitage Shanks - and their name was printed with pride at the top of each urinal.

Whilst having a piss, it was imperative that you touched the "k" in "Shanks" making you The King. Of, er, going to the toilet.

However, if there was more than one person in the toilet, you could lean over to someone else's urinal and press the "g" in "Armitage" because that meant that, far from being King of doing a wee-wee, the user was gay. And you would shout 'GAYYY' just to drive the message home.

This is one of those pastimes I wouldn't really recommend continuing into adulthood.

Yet another game with no obvious intention or worth beyond providing further means to elevate yourself a whisker above your peers. The game operated only within a small social circle and involved asking a friend a question you already knew the answer to. At the game's most base level, for example, you may ask "is this a banana?" while clearly holding a banana in front of the proposed kippering victim. If he replied with a straight answer to the question then he had been "kippered", and the correct response of the kipperer was to adopt a dramatically pained expression and look away while exhaling heavily, usually following up with the phrase "ooh, kippered him a treat". If the proposed victim spotted the kipper coming, saying "You're alright, mate" would block the kipper. The game died a natural death after a couple of months when no conversation could occur among my friends without a dozen kippering attempts and everyone was constantly on their guard to the point of replying to any spoken word with "You're alright, mate". I'm ashamed to say that me and my friends were in our Upper Sixth when this game evolved from christ-knows-where.

Running around, imagining that you know what an erection is, and hoping to touch a girl's gusset peach. Had you managed it, you would have been sick.

The flap of material in the back of your blazer, right next to your arse. The 'kiss flap' was used by gaylords and homos when they wanted to do something to your bottom.

Barry Symonds was thrown out of maths for telling our teacher about kiss flaps.

The somewhat bitter despatch of a payslip to that teacher who told you you'd get "nowhere in life studying art and drama" (Mr Welsh.. kiss my bank balance). Highlighter pen allows clear demonstration that you pay more tax in a month than he takes home over two.

Extreme version of kiss chase played at my primary school. Boys would chase the girls, as usual. Upon capture, however, the victim would be offered one of three eqully attractive options: a quick dribbly snog, a slightly less quick grope under the vest, or a much longer grope in the Victoria Plum gusset region. Answering 'nothing' was deemed to be a shy request for torture. I was a very fast runner and never got caught. I was forced to develop a limp.

"Oh, Neil!" - a cry of anguish from an exasperated maths teacher directed at her most infuriating pupil...

...and a cue for the entire class to drop to their knees.

The act of creeping up behind someone in the the playground, then repeatedly kneeing them up the arse while chirpily singing the famous cockney ditty. Joyous in its simplicity.

An old dictionary definition for knickers, was short trousers worn by footballers, and by women as underclothes. This dates back to the time when knickers was short for knickerbockers, you see. It was quite acceptable at one stage in British history for men to say "let's put our knickers on and have a knockabout".
Anyway, the girl discovering this definition would ask the boys if they played football. Of course we did - we were boys. So she replies "you wear knickers", to which we, in turn, would say "don't be stupid".

Joke that you can use to ridicule Jehova's Witnesses. "Knock knock / Who's There? / It's your mum and dad....". See also Christmas.

A book in our religious education class was written by David Konstant, and John Cumming. It was written by Christians, and it was called "Beginnings". We were never made to read the book, but I have the grim feeling that it may have been disappointing. If you don't believe me, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0855320176/qid=1039435680/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_0_2/202-3612813-8749448" target=_blank">look here.

Completely random careers advising computer programme. Kind of similar to CASCAiD, really. I was once advised to become a book binder, and my brother a ballet dancer.

The corridor cleaning machines with circular furry discs on the underside.
This name must be unique to my school. As a group of us were engaged in some light vandalism of the sixth form common room, the head caretaker walked in and caught us.
Angry, but not having enough respect or guts to challenge us directly, he said "stop that, or I'll go and get Mike Webber". The idea of our Deputy Head, Mr Webber, having an informal first name didn't register, so there was a moment of confusion before someone asked "what's a kwebber?"
The only thing that made sense was that he was offering to tidy up our mess with his massive sandy-wheeled machine. So on we carried.