Chris Dowding - writer

When I wrote 'a few Drops short of a Pint', I expected to have a certain Irish employer sue me for defamation. Possibly I will put on a return flight home if I land at Dublin airport again. And I've certainly earned the eternal emnity of Dublin Bus drivers by posting my opinions of their driving on www.busrage.com I didn't expect this one - check it out at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2009-05/06/content_7747788.htm . It's pretty funny.

I attended my 20 year High School reunion last night. I approached the door of the Shark’s Football Club at Victoria Point with both excitement and trepidation. What would all of us be like after 20 years? When I started high school in 1985, there’d been a fight between students almost every lunch-hour. The school had been stretched to the seams with around 2000 kids, and the fights seemed to be a reality we had to deal with, and in my case, avoid. The fights in school kept going for a couple of years and then died out. I found out that there had been a senior Year 11 student making younger kids fight by threatening them; and then placing bets on them to make a buck. (My father was a teacher at the school, so he knew the story.) A variety of tough-case principals were posted to our school to sort us out with discipline. These men and women cracked down on behavior, uniforms, and students who liked a cigarette or two, in the days before smoke-free workplaces were thought of. Dress stand...