The bain of Aussie schoolchildren's lives. Once a year, for the seven or eight years that made up primary school, you would arrive out the front and there in the teachers' parking lot was what had probably once been a burger van, now painted brightly with pictures of flowers, smily faces, "no smoking" signs and children holding hands. Its back doors would be open and on the steps, unpacking equipment from his car was a small weedy ginger hippie in a cardigan whose purpose, his raison d'etre, was to encourage kids to make healthy, positive life choices. Turning away before the pervert caught your eye, you'd hastily make your way to your classroom, where your teacher would inform you that in the double period between break and lunch, you and the class in the room next door would be visiting the Life Education Van. Now, at this point, a bit of genuine excitement might have started to swell inside you, even if you weren't the sort of sad anorak who actually enjoyed going to the van. Because, you would realise, that was when you normally had your double music lesson with the saggy titted old crone who called herself head of the Music Department, a strange title to have given herself considering a) your school didn't have a music department, and b) even if it did, she was the only music teacher in the school anyway. Excellent, you thought. This week you would be spared the humiliation of sitting up the back banging on the percussion because you were too outrageously tone deaf to do anything else. No, no, no. What awaited you in that tarted-up Meals on Wheels van would make the stuffy music room a welcome sight the next week. After break, you would be told to line up in pairs outside the van. You would all hurriedly put yourself in pairs, pitying the poor soul who had to stand next to the prematurely spotty slime bucket who ate his own snot, and who has probably grown up telling his therapist that it's all your fault. The teachers of both classes would come along the lines, handing out nametags which you would stick on your jumper, unless you were particularly witty, in which case you would stick it on your forehead, nose or, for the more daring, your crotch. Once all the class wits had had their nametags ripped of their faces and privates and stuck on their chests, the more assertive of the two teachers would warn you that Mr Ginger Hippie was a guest at your school, and that you had all better be on your best behavior or there would be trouble. The less assertive teacher would nod and say "That's right, Judith" and the door of the van would creak open, and you would all file in. The inside of the van was dark and creepy and full of things that were clearly designed to brighten it up, but were effectively useless at doing so. No amount of children's paintings, stuffed toys and posters could disguse the fact that this place of learning was just a dingy van. Once inside, you would sit down on the prickly red carpet and Mr Ginger Hippie would inform you all that his name was Colin or something like that, and your teachers would lead you all in a chorus of "Good mor-ning Co-lin". At this point, all your vague excitement had vanished and you just wanted to sit in the corner of the music room and play your triangle. As the day wore on and you were subjected to more and more mind-numbing exercises like role playing games in which you said no when someone offered you a cigarette, role playing games in which you said no when someone offered you a swig of alcohol, role playing games in which you said no when someone offered you what was presumably supposed to be an ecstacy pill, considering it was around ecstacy revolution time, though they never actually used the word, you began to wonder whether a few stimulants might make this bearable. You then watched a video in which various Christian teenagers were interviewed about saying no, as if they'd ever even been asked. But all this paled into insignificance as Colin the Ginger Minge, inexpertly sporting a monkey glove puppet, told you that Mr Giggles would be talking to you about sex. After the initial panic that Mr Giggles would soon be found halfway up some personal orifice, and having been told by the more assertive teacher to settle down, a deep sensation of nausea began to sink in, and it only intensified as Colin got braver and began to use words like "vagina" and "semen". The one blessing that could be gained from this cringefully embarrassing discussion, however, was that it was always the last item on the agenda. Then, once you had been told again to make you own choices, provided they were the same choices that Colin told you to make, and handed a pile of pamphlets and stickers, you were free. Free to go out, live your life and make the choice to get pissed, take up smoking and get loved-up. And if you didn't make these choices, at the age of fifteen you would appear in an interview on an educational video about saying no, which would be shown to forty weary children on a Thursday afternoon in the Life Education Van.