Abingdonian 2017

88 The Abingdonian School House We returned at the start of the year in School House with a new housemaster, new duty tutors and a lot less furniture. Despite the loss of a certain Rottweiler and also Buster, the house continued, our stag stood tall and doors remained in doorframes. It is a tribute to us that over this last year School House has remained the target of all students’ envy, or at least our staircase has. There have been tribulations as Head of House, but no one ever handed me a P45 in the middle of a speech and I have that to be thankful for. One key difference from last year is that sadly I cannot report us winning the Inter-house Singing Competition. We took a relentlessly positive approach, despite a limit in music knowledge, and in the end we achieved something: Mr Windsor is unlikely to ever again attend house singing for fear of being harassed in the audience by a fifth year. In terms of musical success, we had less of that. Our too-many-part harmony of Don’t worry, be happy brought many puns and cheesy references to the title, but limited joy to listeners. For a house that spent 90% of one rehearsal trying to get on stage I thought we produced something decent. However, I turned to the ever-comforting Di after the performance and she reassured me by saying ‘it was never going to be as good as last year, even if it had gone well.’ It was not all gloom, though. In preparing for this article, I e-mailed around asking people to select which of their successes from this year they wanted me to report. They are as follows: we won the U15 inter-house football for the second year in a row. Despite the plenitude of achievements, we are not all work and no play. We did in fact have a play. Or revue, as it is more accurately described. The post- modernist docudrama that we produced captured the harsh realities and widely felt fears of the post-truth era in the wake of Trump’s election and Nutella shrinkflation; in a word, it was art. That is, if art can revolve around itchy beds, smelly shirts and massages. The great thing about School House is that people here can experience cultures from all over the world. Many dayboys have been introduced by friends in the boarding house to delicacies such as Pot Noodle. Boys from all years will bond playing illegal games of Mah Jong late into the night. Throughout summer the house will gather together in the evenings to hear inspiring messages on the television about bomb disposal in Cambodia, Afghanistan and Mallorca from leading humanitarian George English