Orange Highlighters

Aged fifteen, I got into a fair few corners, scrapes and brushes with the powers that be, mostly the head of year nine. The icing on the cake was an end of year geography exam in which I became so disinterested with 90 minutes in one room, my desk exactly one metre from Jenny Briggs on my left and the door on my right that I decided to use my learned vocabulary rather than employ guess work to describe geographical terms. If you cast your mind back, in school the pen was the tool of the mind, the sword of studies, the link to a brighter future. I always used to find that my parker fountain pen wanted to take me, and my creative juices, places not necessarily on the curriculum - having spent four pounds on special parker cartridges, it was my ink.

Tattooists’ ink marks for ever, as do BSG jabs and scars on the forehead. Apparently geography inspired cheek does the same. Filling out an essay question on precipitation and its affect on urban centres, (YES, effectively what happens to rain on contact with concrete) my brain powered up and my parker went to work. Culminating in a line that was to be photocopied at least four times, so it could be highlighted without smudging ink onto a much treasured orange highlighter nib. "So, in conclusion, I don't really care about precipitation OR its affect on urban centres and seeing as this is the end of my geography career I think I may as well go out with a bang." (Bang in capitals.)

I have trawled through my school history and drawn out this enlightening tale of parker pens and overactive imaginations to illustrate how year nine geography exams invoked exactly the same feeling as insurance does in my brain lands. The only difference is, it’s brokers not precipitation and organiseit (not even a word) rather than geography. If I flip reverse this however, I do realise there is one person in their job ever who hated it more than me: my year nine geography teacher. If now by chance, I chanced across a policy renewal in which a broker mentioned it was the end of their insurance career and they would rather go out with a bang (bang in capitals) I would send it round the office with a NB saying although the turn of phrase is rather teenage in its application, it is a good and a true one, and then I would take the orange highlighter sitting on my desk, highlight something with smudging properties and throw it in the air conditioning unit and watch everyone gradually turning into sunnyD.