Neducation.


Don’t let it be said that I harbour grudges, but the fact a guy in my class at secondary school once called me Ned Flanders still pisses me off.

It doesn’t matter that it happened twenty years ago. It’s still raw. You may think it sounds like a tame insult, but it wasn’t. It was said with venom. I was the butt of his ‘hilarious’ joke and he didn’t care that I knew it or how I felt about it. What a cunt.

He announced it in a Maths lesson like he’d stumbled across a witty, undeniable truth. “David’s just like Ned Flanders.” I wouldn’t have minded if it was accurate. I wasn’t a Christian zealot with a tache. I didn’t have a surprisingly muscular physique. I still haven’t, more’s the pity.

My only similarity to Ned was that we were both big fan of The Beatles, but the boy in my class wouldn’t have been armed with this information back then. Bart and Milhouse didn’t stumble across Flanders’ secret Fab Four shrine until 2003, which was nine years later. This kid also knew nothing about me. If he had, he might have come up with a more appropriate comparison; a cross between Comic Book Guy and Troy McClure would have done it.

If there’s a moral to this story, it’s ‘be careful what you say to me’. I'll never forget it. I once gigged with the actor who voices Ned Flanders at the 100 Club. Andy didn't. I win.

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