My old school still sends me its twice-yearly magazine, and in it I recently read that Mr Sheldon is retiring. That's the Mr Sheldon who formerly gloried in the title Master of the Lower School at the risible Eton-wannabe institution I had the misfortune to attend for six years. In an interview for the magazine, Mr Sheldon said that he'd enjoyed his career, but the one thing he could never bring himself to enjoy was having to administer corporal punishment.

So that'll be why he used to make you spread your legs apart, bend over on his plush red leather chair, and wait, arse up, for long agonising minutes while he stood in the corner where he kept his quiver of canes, selecting one cane after the other, flexing it between his meaty fingers and swishing it through the air a few times to test its suitability for the melancholy duty it was about to perform. He was punishing HIMSELF more than anyone else. And his distaste would be clearly evident afterwards, in the way he'd stand there puffing and blowing, sweaty and claret-faced, agitated out of all proportion to the physical extertion involved in botty-whacking a small boy a few times. It was because he HATED it.

...can I just add to this that Mr Sheldon was the uncle of Bob Sheldon (see: 'Bob baiting'). If you could provide some sort of link between these two entries, it will give readers a chance to reflect on the way in which being a bullying cunt can be genetically inherited.

No sooner said than done, Simon.