Meet Mr Graham Barnes, a physics teacher with an unnaturally high voice. We used to sit at the back of the class shouting 'Graham is gay', prompting him to one day reply with 'I'm not gay'. Naturally enough. From then on, any accusation of someone being gay was met with a barrage of high-pitched voices stating 'I'm not gay'. He once broke down in tears after we told him we had phoned Childline and said he touched us.

To say "I'm not gay" is the highest, most solemn, most utterly damning evidence that one IS gay, and not just gay but a big brassy transvestite to boot. The quickest, kindest cure for this was to boot the fuck out of the victim. Ironically, the one time we actually discovered that a kid was genuinely gay and confused about it, we were so freaked out by such a display of vulnerability that we formed a protective group around him, on the strict understanding that he NEVER discuss it with us again. We later booted fuck out of him for having periods, which he probably didn't, now I come to think of it.