Prettygate Junior, Colchester

Good King Hal showing off his latest pick'n'mix selection of English Queen's.  There is Iberian Crisp, Six Fingers of Boleyn, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman Surprise, Flanders Mare Fondant, Howard Tart and Parr-line (geddit?).  I'll get my coat...

Back on the road and back to Essex, this time for a trip up to Colchester, fair Camulodunum, and a visit to Prettygate Junior.  Most of my communication with the school had been through a lovely lady called Kim Bellotti and shortly after my arrival I finally got to meet her.  This was a lovely school - two classes of year 4 pupils giving a total of about 65 children.  They had already done a lot of research and work on their Tudor topic and were very keen to get involved.  They had all dressed as Tudor's as well, and for once most of them had decided to dress as poor Tudors.  The costumes were great.  There was one little lad there who was very very thin, and Tudor peasant outfit aside (i.e. shirt, waistcoat, tights, hat etc) appeared to be wearing a loin cloth.  That added to his spaghetti-thin legs gave him the bizarre impression of being a post-medieval version of Gandhi.

This group were really enthusiastic - almost too much at times!  It needed occasional tugs back on the imaginary lead to keep them in check, but they were all mostly very good natured and friendly children - just what you want!  The morning seemed to shoot past - loads of laughs and some good learning.  I was in need of a cool down and some lunch, and rather appropriately I had picked just the day to come to Prettygate - it was a roast.  And very nice it was too!  Several ice cold glasses of water and a good sit down later and I was ready for action again.

Back to the hall for fun with the stocks and then a right Royal Rumpus of a jousting tournament.  I have recently taken delivery of new quintaines for the shows, and they are a lot more easy to knock over in comparison with the old ones, so this means the riders have to be that much more careful as they go - and it showed in the tournament today!  It was exciting stuff and was touch and go the whole way, but finished in a win for the Gents again.  The score then goes to:

GENTLEMEN 17 - 26 LADIES

So still a commanding lead, just not quite as commanding it was a few weeks ago.  As the end of summer term marches on, have the lads left it too late?

It was a pleasant drive back to see Amanda and James, and then a spent a lovely evening curled up with my little boy watching one of his favourite movies - a bit of Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest.  Not my favourite by a long way, but diverting enough.  And it is so lovely to see my little boy laughing so heartily at some of the silly jokes.  Good lad! 

I am in Shepton Beauchamp in Somerset on Monday for the Jubilee Celebration, then up to Sudeley Castle again for another Tudor fun day with the Tudor Roses.  After that the rest of the week will be spent at Leeds Castle in Kent with another jousting tournament.

Woodstock School, Bristol

The original Tudor version of the Buster Keaton "falling house" gag.  Sadly their primitive calculations were critically flawed and at least five of them were squashed flat.  The surviving members of this photo went on to find lasting fame as Abbot and Costello.

By the time I got to Woodstock , they were half a million strong. Everywhere there was songs and celebration.  And I dreamt I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky, turning into butterflies above our nation.  All right, Officer, I'll come quietly.  But thankfully that was when I woke up.  It was a nice bright pleasant drive this morning up the dear old M5 towards Bristol and my appointment at Woodstock School.  This was a morning only and I was due to be away and on my merry way by about 12.30pm.

The area around the school is very pleasant, quite surprisingly leafy and rural seeming, yet so close to central Bristol.  I parked up outside and was almost immediately greeted by the lovey Wendy Yeo, the teacher who had booked me for the day.  Wendy reminded me of someone and for a long time I couldn't quite grasp who it was I was trying to remember, but then it struck me!  Keagh Fry!  Keagh is the lovely lady who books me each year down at the Maynard School in Exeter.  Well Keagh, if you're reading this, I have found your long lost twin - she is called Wendy Yeo!  It was a lovely warm welcome.  We spent a little while trying to work out how the morning would pad out.  Woodstock is a special school for children with disruptive behaviour and I was to do two session with two small groups - one of a set of long term pupils there in the sort of year 4 age group, and the second group were newer pupils and ranged from year 1 onwards.... so quite a mixed group! 

I opened with a talk to the older group in their classroom and they were fantastic!  Really sparky, full of Tudor knowledge and really with the minimum of disruption, even though one lad was convinced that Henry's last wife was called Catherine Parrott.  I then took them down to the main hall for a fun jousting session where, as it was a small group, everyone got to have a go.  We then had a break for a cup of tea and a sit down and it was on to the newer group.  As they were a lot younger we made their session a lot easier - so we started with the jousting, then I took them back to a classroom and we just sort of chatted through their knowledge and pre-conceptions about Henry VIII and the Tudors.  It was a fun different sort of morning in a really charming pleasant school.  Wendy Yeo should be very proud of all the pupils and staff - they were marvellous.

I packed my stuff away and got in the car and headed up the M5 to pick up the M4 as I was now heading off to Essex.  I stayed with Amanda and James, which was lovely as ever.  Tomorrow I have a relatively early start for a drive up to Colchester and an appointment at Prettygate Junior.  Should be smashing!

More Dudley Castle Pictures

 Good King Hal, looking mean and moody and wondering who's just nicked his roll of lino.

 The main Castle courtyard rapidly filling with the punters for the evening show.

 Three Little Maids from School Are We, Tudor style and a real threat to next year's Eurovision.

 Good King Hal warming up a couple of Queens for a night of ghost hunting.  Please note substitute Queen on the bench in the background.

 This is truly magnificent.  A very nice gent called Ryan Howard came and took some photos of me and the Tudor Roses at the Dudley Castle event, but he showed me this photo from his house showing a "Henry VIII Knothole" on his bathroom door!  I love it!  I want that door!

Catherine Parr mere nano-seconds after Good King Hal showed her his infamous "white-eared Elephant" joke.

Yeovil Probus and Dudley Do Right (with added Ghosts)

Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour explain to the King their exact feelings about his rule of England, desire for a son and heir, and his treatment of women in general in Tudor England.  No solicitors were harmed during the making of this marital conflict.  If you have been affected by any of the topics raised in this photograph, please contact: Mrs Edna Colostomy, Dun Gossipping, Ratbag Road, Much Sniding in the Marsh, England.

Friday evening saw me finally complete a long standing promise, and this isn't the one for Lisa Rogers as the court injunction is still in place.  Cast your mind back, dear reader, to April 2011 when I wended my way up to sunny Stranraer in Scotland to go and view the footballing treat that Stranraer versus East Stirling promised.  I had travelled up with my father for the weekend with the proviso that I had to be back in Somerset for the Monday to give a talk to the fine upstanding members of the Probus Club in Yeovil.  Well, if you recall we had a bit of a nightmare with the car breaking down in Carlisle and being stranded in Cumbria until late on the Monday evening.  Luckily I had managed to get a message to the Probus club and explained my predicament and they were very kind and only ordered a partial fatwa.  The date was re-arranged, and then re-arranged again until it was finally settled that I should give my performance to the club and their good lady wives on the evening of Friday 25th May.  It was to be held at the Westland's Social Club in Yeovil, a place I had only ever visited once before and that was about 10 years ago when I went to an antiques fair and failed to buy anything.  I couldn't even remember what the club looked like.  I arrived on the Friday evening at about 7pm and to be honest it didn't look promising.  All I could see was what appeared to be a large garden centre and some tennis courts.  I asked a chap standing outside the "garden centre" if he knew where Yeovil Probus club normally meet and he assured me that after 15 years of working at this centre he hadn't got a clue.  Great.  I drove a bit further in and found the Social Club proper - a large 1970's square shaped building.  I parked up and went to walk in - and the first thing I saw was the horrific site of a poster advertising a forthcoming show by the highly talented and eloquent (not) rapper Dappy from N-Dubz.  Ooh, nasty and really something not to be seen, or indeed heard on an empty stomach.  I went inside to introduce myself but couldn't find anyone.  It appeared, from reading the "what's on" board in the lobby that Yeovil Probus were meeting in the Wessex Room.  I went down to this room, right at the back of the building, and it was completely empty and in semi darkness.  However, I was in the right place and eventually the club members and their wives began arriving.  I had been due on at 7.30pm, but events like this can sometimes be about as easy to organise as herding cats and in the end it was nearer 9pm before I was on.  It was a scorching hot night, but great fun.  They were a lovely responsive group, roared with laughter at most of my appalling old gags and I even got a chance to chop the head off a lady who used to serve me when I used to bank at Lloyds TSB many moons ago.  Smashing.  I partook of some of their buffet before heading home.  I stopped at a Spar petrol station on the way home as I fancied purchasing a bottle of wine to help me unwind, however I got to them about three nano-seconds after they had locked the front door for the evening.  I asked through the night till if the young lady serving could grab me a bottle of Shiraz.  "A bottle of wot?" she asked.  Shiraz, I replied.  "Wot?" her reply.  SHIRAZ! I yelled.  "Wot?" She said.  "Goodnight."  I said, and went home and stayed sober.

Up bright and early on the Saturday morning for a drive up to Dudley in the West Midlands.  I was appearing at Dudley Castle (which doubles as a zoo BTW) for "SPOOKFEST 2012", a ghost hunting and paranormal event hosted by TV's sweaty spiritual scouse medium Derek Acorah.  I was to be there with the Tudor Roses, late of Leeds and Sudeley Castles.  I was booked in at the Quality Inn Hotel in Dudley and arrived there and phoned the Tudor Roses to see if they had arrived, but they were having a horrendous journey and were stuck on the M25 still, so I checked into my room and ordered a sandwich on room service (£7 for a bleedin' ham baguette!) and settled down to munch on my priceless sarnie and listened to the Test Match on the radio.  About an hour or so later I got the message that the Roses had arrived!  We met up and went down to the car park where the Spookfest organisers were going to take us up to the Castle for a look about and a production meeting.  In the big castle courtyard the heat was stifling, but inside in our dressing room deep within the castle walls it was lovely and dark and cool.  It was only three of the Tudor Roses today - Lady Emma, Lady Erica and Lady Katherine, all chaperoned by Emma's other half, the near legendary Darren Wilkins and his ever-present camera.  We were joined by a Tudor music group that resembled either part of the Addams Family (if you were feeling uncharitable) or a pensionable version of Fleetwood Mac (if you were feeling even more uncharitable).  The plan was that we had to be changed into our gear and ready to rock'n'roll by 6pm to meet and greet the first punters as they wandered in to a Psychic Fair held in one of the Castle's restaurants.  Then at 8pm the main gates would open and the crowds could flock into the Castle courtyard where the main stage and show was to be performed, with various warm up psychics and comic turns entertaining everyone until Derek Acorah and Richard Felix, both late of TV's "Most Haunted" would then take over and carry on the ghost hunting.  Things would culminate with a night time night vision vigil in the Castle's under croft at about midnight.  Well we did our meet and greet - posed for hundreds of photos, greeted the customers as they came in when the 8pm gates opened.  By 9.30pm myself, Katherine and Erica were pretty much done in.  Emma and Darren were going to hang on for the late night vigil.  Therefore just as Derek Acorah was getting extra specially sweaty and psychic with the audience, Erica disappeared off into the night with her parents for the long drive home, and Katherine and I headed to the Castle gate and ordered a taxi to take us back to the hotel.  We both decided we needed a drink.

My wine hoodoo seemed to have struck again, Katherine and I burst into the bar, gasping for something cooling and alcoholic to be told they had just shut for the night.  We could still purchase a bottle of wine if we wanted to, so we bought a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc (for a breathtaking £19) and settled down with two glasses to attempt to put the world to rights.  I hadn't really had much time at previous events to speak to Katherine, but she is a simply charming lady - quite staggeringly young and pretty, but very bright and sparky with it.  Ah, if only I were about 20 years younger and good looking - she could be mine!  ALL MINE I TELL YOU!  (We pause the blog here as Mr Farley has a sit down and a glass of water to recover.  Welcome back!).  We laughed and chatted for what seemed like only a brief period, but before we knew it the bottle of wine was empty and it was nearly 1.30am - a really lovely end to a hot and busy day.  I have no idea what time Emma and Darren got back from the vigil, but they and Katherine were up bright and early and away from the hotel by 8am.  I had intended to try and be up and wave all three of them off, but I slept through my alarm and didn't surface until about 9am.

I packed the car and was away from Dudley just after 10am and arrived back in an equally hot and sweaty Somerset by 12.30pm.  So I have spent a lazy Sunday afternoon drinking tea and watching the Test Match, preparing myself for more Henry shenanigans on Tuesday with a morning at Woodstock School in Bristol before driving up to Essex for Wednesday at Prettygate Junior in Colchester.  Right, kettle on, more tea and.....  relax.

When Barry met Harry.

Good King Hal, testing the strength of a school table by lowering the Royal rump right on it.  The vicious swine.

Back on the road again means getting up at the crack of dawn, especially as the show was in Wales - Barry to be precise.  I had visited Barry once before, donkeys years ago and to be honest I couldn't remember it at all.  The drive up was quite pleasant and easy with the M5 being delightfully empty.  I got to to the Severn Crossing and now found that they were charging you £6 to go across.  £6?  How can they justify such a cost?  You should get a free balloon or a lollipop or something at that cost.  Anyway, I rolled up outside the school - Colcot Junior, and was very warmly welcomed by the lovely Liz Prescott, the teacher who had organised the event.

It was a lovely school with great kids.  The group was quite large - about 70 I suppose, and a mixture of years 3 and 4.  The morning ran it's usual course with great fun in the opening talk and a keenly contested quiz.  We broke for lunch and then things changed from it's normal run - first I was back in the hall for a Tudor banquet with a nice pottage, some gingered bread, marzipan sweetmeats and delicious spiced apple juice.  The children also entertained the King with some "knock knock" jokes - most of which I had heard to be honest, but there was one young lad who specialised in completely off the wall knock knock jokes such as "knock knock"  "Who's there?" "A chicken" "A chicken who?"  "A chicken trying to get to the other side of the road."  Cue total silence and tumble weed.  But he knew loads of them!  After the feast and the jokes the children then showed off their Tudor dancing skills which was great fun.  And from that we went straight into the usual Jousting tournament.  It was a loud entertaining affair finishing with one of those rarest things - a win for the gents!  Our score now rolls on to:

GENTLEMEN 16 - 26 LADIES

Colcot Junior was a fabulous memorable school and it was a delight to visit.  Now instead of heading back to Somerset I carried on down the M4 towards Newcastle Emlyn and my parents place.  On the Friday night we went out to dinner with my cousin George, who has just bought a fantastic big house near to my parents place.  George, his wife Alex and their two sons Arthur and Tom, joined myself and my mother and father at the Netpool Inn at St Dogmaels - what a fantastic pub.  We had the warmest welcome from the charming hosts and had a brilliant evening.  Another cousin of  mine - John Boorn and and his old pal Vic from Melbourne in Australia arrived on Saturday and it was great catching up with "Boorny" as he is affectionately known.  I spent a wonderful weekend with them all, got to catch up with my sister Sue and her other half Ian as well.  It was also nice to see some warm weather for a change as well.  I drove back to Somerset this morning and am amazed to find myself sitting here with the windows of the flat wide open and it actually feels like Spring has finally arrived.  And about time too...

Sudeley Castle 2 - Soaking in Sudeley.

The Jackson Five as seen in Tudor England.  From the left: Marlon, Tito, Groucho, Harpo and Sneezy.  Ye YMCA in full vigour.  Many thanks to The Tudor Roses for the lending of this picture.

You could tell it was a British Bank Holiday Monday by the Bible black skies and tsunami-like downpour of rain. What better way to experience this day than trudging round the soggy gardens of Sudeley Castle whilst dressed as a big Tudor Jessie.  To sweeten this less than appetising pill I was going to be wandering round with the Tudor Roses again, this time with the addition of Zarrina Bull.

No new name has yet been finalised for the King's new sat nav in the car.  The names Vivienne and Henrietta have been suggested, but more suggestions would be appreciated.  She got her first proper outing on the Monday morning as I drove up the M5 towards Winchcombe and Sudeley Castle.  However, she is going to have to get better at this as she insisted on taking me slap bang through the middle of Cheltenham - not too bad on a rainy early Bank Holiday Monday morning, but could have been a real pain in ye Royal posterior if it was a working day and getting close to rush hour.  I arrived at the Castle to be greeted by the lovely Kim Gibbons again - a charming lady looking a little under the weather this particular morning.  She insisted her ailments were self-inflicted, but I still felt sorry for her.

My morning got off to a bad start.  I arrived at the Castle in pouring rain - not good.  I knew this would soon be followed by the staircase equivalent of scaling the north face of the Eiger, whilst pulling a bloody great big suitcase after you - the room I use to get changed in is right at the top of a very high Castle tower... So to make things easier I decided to ease the weight of my Henry costume case, and before I went in I jettisoned my spare robe, pantaloons, doublet, tunic and anything else I might not need on the day.  Excellent.  I still sounded like a shagged out steam locomotive puffing up the last few steps in the rarefied atmosphere at the top of the tower, but I was happy I had completed my task and I was safe in the knowledge that my car was now parked about half a mile down the track in the staff car park, and safe and sound.  I got the costume out and stripped out of my normal clothes.  Henry shirt on - check.  Tights on - check.  Pantaloons?  Er.....  pantaloons?  I tipped the bag upside down and went all through it - not a sight of any of my pantaloons. Sod it, there was only one thing for it - slip my jeans on over my tights and put some shoes on and slog back DOWN the north face of the Eiger and slosh through the mud the half mile to the staff car park where my car was all safe and sound, but bloody miles away.  Sure enough when I got to the car I had indeed jettisoned both pairs of pantaloons I had with me.  What a complete and utter twit.  So it was back UP the north face of the Eiger and carry on changing.

I am always amazed by the tenacity of the British tourist.  In the pouring rain and howling wind the last place most sane people would want to go would be a cold old Tudor Castle - but came they still did.  Not a massive turn out by any standards, but somewhere in the region of about 400 hardy souls.  One of whom was one of the lovely teachers I had seen at Hugh Sexey Middle School on Friday!  She came with her husband, children and what appeared to be a full set of grandparents as well.  For services above and beyond the call of duty, she receives the Good King Hal Medal of Bravery in the Face of Inclement Weather.  It was fun perambulating the grounds with the Tudor Roses and dear Zarrina - their costumes look so fantastic and they're all such pretty girls. 

We lunched all together in the great hall dining room, surrounded by the tourists in for the day.  The big roaring fire in there was most welcoming.  You simply would not believe it was May outside - it was so cold.  The musical minstrels from our previous trip to Sudeley were not outside in the pouring wind and rain, but were stationed in the minstrel gallery above the restaurant and provided a perfect soundtrack to our lunch.

We were finally released at about 4pm and began our individual slogs home.  The M5 to begin with resembled being inside a car wash on full blast, such was the ferocity of the rain fall, but it eventually cleared up.  I was home by 6.30pm, and getting stuck into a glass of Shiraz by about 6.32pm.  A really lovely day with some really lovely ladies and looking forward to us all re-convening at Sudeley on the 5th June.

Confessions of a Sexey Model. (You'll understand...)

Breakfast TV on Tudor Vision.  Joining Henry and Liz on the sofa this morning will be lovable brain box from Holland - Erasmus; chum of the King - Robert Aske; and Perkin Warbeck - crazy name, crazy guy!  Stay tuned.

The middle of last week found me down in Folkestone in Kent to begin with, having dinner and meeting with my new brilliant agent, the legendary Michelle Coda.  I stayed the night with her and her other half Matt, and Michelle's little daughter, Victoria.  In the evening her parents Frank and Debbie came over and much wine was drunk and food eaten, which always seems to happen when Frank and Debbie Coda are on the scene.  I began the long drive back to Somerset on the Thursday lunchtime, but this time with one passenger missing - my poor old sat nav, the one dubbed originally Doris II by me, but later and more poetically Kanuna by my son James, she is no more.  Her power supply has broken and really I was just looking for a good excuse to get rid of her!  She had never been that good to be honest.  She can find easy addresses brilliantly - if you want 57 Hannover Street in Oldham or something, she can take you straight there.  But ask her to find some house in the middle of nowhere - hopeless.  You'd key in the post code for Little Rustic Farm, near Wurzel Village in Devon and she'd say "Well, I can't find that address, but I can find Rustic Road slap bang in the middle of Exeter, would you like to go there instead?" which is about as helpful as finding a man who is drowning and asking him to hold your anvil.  So Friday's appearance back at the wonderful Hugh Sexey Middle School in Blackford near Wedmore would have to begin with me finding the school manually.  I printed out directions from Google Maps and felt confident I could find the place the following morning.

Twit.  Total and utter twit.  Of course I wouldn't be able to find it with printed out directions from Google Maps.  I couldn't even find it with Kanuna in previous years.  Somehow, through luck more than judgement, I found myself in the village of Blackford and asked a very nice lady taking her dog for a walk where I could find Hugh Sexey School - a question which, asked in any other village in the UK would have probably resulted in a slapped face for me.  So here I was back at this lovely school, surrounded as ever but a veritable bevy of beautiful teachers.  It seems a pre-requisite to work at this school is you have to be female and attractive.  And I am not complaining!  Always makes my visits more fun for me!

Well, we had a great morning - it was a big group of about 100 children I suppose, and all of them in fantastic costumes.  Loads of laughs in the morning, and some really sound and impressive Tudor knowledge displayed by the children.  We started a little late because of a morning assembly in the hall, but we soon caught up.    For lunch the children had all brought in packed lunches, and as in previous years I was asked to judge which I thought were the most authentically Tudor of the foods.  One little girl had a yogurt frube drink and a chocolate bar and was surprised when I told her they weren't terribly authentic.  I was treated to a lovely lunch of pasta bolognese, followed by a chocolate cake in custard.  Terribly healthy!  I also shared a bottle of red grape Schloer with the teachers, with us all pretending it was red wine - but it was obvious it wasn't as we all went back to work after lunch!

The afternoon was loud and fun, culminating in yet another brilliant Jousting tournament, but this one ended in that rarest of occurrences - a win for the Gents!  This makes the updated score:

GENTLEMEN 15 - 26 LADIES

Still a big lead for the ladies, but the gents are at least hanging in there. We finally finished with some photos with the group, and a parade of the children's costumes with me picking the best.  I was absolutely cream crackered by the time it was for me to pick my way home.  But any ideas I had of a quiet lazy evening snoozing on the sofa, well, I could forget all that.

You may remember I modelled for the Shepton Beauchamp art group recently, in my full Henry gear, and I was heading back there for a return visit by popular demand!  I wore a different outfit from my previous posings and we had the usual banter and laughs with the ladies there present.  A very pleasant evening, and proof, if you ever wanted it, that not only Lily Cole is a "model" in this family.  So now you understand the title of the blog - Sexey Model?  Geddit?  Oh never mind...

I have purchased a new sat nav today - not sure of her name yet.  Any suggestions from readers of this blog?  She will first be used "in anger" on Bank Holiday Monday when I am back at Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe in Gloucestershire for another Tudor "fun" day. Looking forward to seeing my Queen's again as the Tudor Roses will be out in force again.  Smashing!

Falcon School, Norwich

Good King Hal, known as "The Tudor Pelvis", rocking through yet another rendition of "Hound Dog" to a stunned audience of easily distracted midgets.  Surely there must be a law against this sort of thing.

Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.  It gladdens the soul, folks, it really does.  But I won't mention it much more in this blog.  Honest.  I had driven to Essex on Sunday as a staging post for the next part of this journey to this show - onwards up to Norwich on the Monday morning for a return visit to Falcon School.  One of my friends on Facebook got terribly upset when she realised that Falcon School was just that - a school and not, as she had thought, a school for Falconry.  I promised to get it introduced on the curriculum as soon as is Kingly possible.

The pouring rain which has highlighted our drought over the past few weeks (eh?) had finally given way, and on waking in the wee small hours of Monday I was delighted to see the beginnings of a sunrise.  This made the morning drive up very pleasant indeed, and even at an early hour it was warming up nicely.  To be honest, for someone who was going to spend the whole day in furs and heavy clothing, it was warming up a bit too much.  I was warmly welcomed with a cup of tea and even a hug from one teacher!  It was a bigger group than in previous years at Falcon - just under 100 children in three classes.  Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.  Ah!  It just sounds better each time you mention it, doesn't it?  Today's show was just one of those days when everything goes right.  It was a lovely group of children, great teachers and everyone got really involved.  Loads of laughs and also some very impressive Tudor knowledge, one little girl scoring a rare 20 out of 20 in the Tudor quiz. 

Lunch was an ice hockey puck and chips.  Sorry, lunch was a BEEFBURGER and chips, and it filled a void, though when it did go in my mouth a big bell rang out, organ music played and loads of very fat Americans started waving flags and shouting.  (This is a joke BTW).  Meanwhile, Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.  And does anybody even care what a Rock Hyrax is?  I do.

The afternoon session was hilarious, loads of laughs, and one of the teachers let slip that one of the others is on the verge of emigrating to New Zealand which apparently the children weren't supposed to know.  Oops!  That is the sort of thing I do normally, so it was nice to see someone else putting their foot in it.  In the joust, one of the gents teams had this young lad in it who frankly hadn't got a clue what he was doing. He just randomly prodded at quoits in whichever direction he felt like at the time, and then wandered aimlessly between the quintaines as the crowd howled at him to get on with the race.  Somehow his team reached the final against the ladies team, but he put in a similarly bewildered performance in the final which allowed a very good ladies team to romp to a deserved victory.  Our score now goes up to a very one sided:

GENTLEMEN 14 - 26 LADIES

They are getting away now.  It is not as close as Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0, but it is just as joyful.  Almost as joyful as watching Sir Alex "Complete and Utter ****" Ferguson losing the plot midway through the second half when his team couldn't win.  I was very sympathetic.  I only laughed for 38 minutes.  And then a further 25 minutes.  Right, the King is off down to Folkestone tomorrow to see his agent, then back to Somerset for a return visit to the delightfully named Hugh Sexey School in Wedmore.

Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it....  Manchester City 1 Manchester United 0.