The time I first took a girl out on a date

I was a huge Twin Peaks fan. Huge. I had to have or watch anything I could find that was even remotely related to it; film, TV, music, book, clothing, food, posters, audio recording. Anything.

So when I got the opportunity to see Boxing Helena at the cinema, I seized it.
I knew it was going to be a bad film. I'd followed its production in Empire and was fully aware of the plot and the controversy.

But Sherilynn Fenn was in it. She was in Twin Peaks. And she reportedly went topless in it. I, like so many boys my age, had a massive crush on the female cast of Twin Peaks. So I had to see it.

The opportunity to go to the cinema was the occasion of my awkward first date with my first girlfriend, Charlotte.

The first time I saw Charlotte was in my Psychology class at college. She was wearing dungarees, had very short hair and said "all meat is murder" in the first class.
I instantly assumed she was a lesbian.

Turns out that she wasn't. She was a Madonna fan instead, which is arguably worse.
She also, unaccountably, liked me.

So at the end of the year I asked her out on a date. To see a terrible film. Because I fancied the lead actress. Who got her tits out.

The film itself was so bad that it was funny. Laugh out loud funny.
I laughed all the way through.
I laughed as Helena was hit by a car.
I laughed as she woke up to phantom limb pain.
I laughed as she tried to escape in her wheelchair.
I laughed as he cut off her arms and stuck her in a box.
I laughed when she learnt to love him in spite of his psychotic amputations.

Then I walked Charlotte to her bus stop, had my first kiss and went home.

The fact that Charlotte thought I was boyfriend material after that should have sounded alarm bells, but that's another story all together.

The time I broke someone's arm with my face

You take your victories where you find them. This is a celebrated victory for the little guy and the genesis of my tried and tested fighting style.

I'm eleven years old, and it's my first week at 'big school'. I've not made many friends as yet, and my genius move to attract more is to walk around the school grounds alone every lunch.

This lunch I'm walking along the fence that divides the tennis courts from the hockey pitch and I pass three older boys on the other side.
They call me names. I ignore them.
This is unacceptable to them, so they squeeze through a gap in the fence and chase me.

When they catch me, which wasn't hard - I was a fat nerd - they surround me and make some threats. I threaten back, although mine are a lot less convincing.
Their appointed leader decides that things are taking too long, and swings at me.
He his me soundly on the head, above my eye, on the brow.
I rock backwards for a moment.
He cries out in pain and clutches his wrist.

You see, 12 year olds are not that skilled at throwing punches. He literally swung at me and whacked his wrist right onto my forehead and, it turns out, fractured his wrist.

I only learnt this because about two weeks later I saw one of the gang in the corridor at school and called him and his boss out.
Because I'm a fucking genius. I was born that way.
So, when the gang of older bullies turn up in my class room, the leader shows me the cast on his wrist and threatens to beat me to death with the pot.

I think my school bred geniuses.