Harold ready to teach curriculum of useless stuff

While Harold is a jerk in all trades, his church house, the headquarters of Harold Assemblies of Holy Associates (HAHA), is a jack of all trades.

In the past, it has been used as a campaign hall, a mini-stadium in which we watched football and hoped Arsenal would get relegated, a hideout for Harold and fellow drunks who owed Sue money and even as storage for stolen goods, loot from women to whom Harold sold prayers.

And now that he has taken up one extra career, teaching, this place will be his school.

He insisted that I should be a member of his class.

But as the head of the judiciary and one of the most learned people in the village, I politely declined over dinner, instead promising to help him develop the curriculum and, if need be, take up the role of principal in this school.

But because Harold has never had principles, he declined the idea of a principal but endorsed the curriculum.

Being a school for adults, we would have loved to assume they all had common sense but aware that Harold has a dearth of this, we included it as one of the key subjects to be taught.

The art of offertories was also included as a subject, and Harold spiritedly argued to include wines and spirits in the curriculum, which I declined. We also came up with a subject called DAT (Debt Avoidance Techniques), which I ingeniously introduced in the following manner:

"Credit the debtor who, time and again, evades the creditor's trap, leaving the latter trotting about like a loan ranger..."

The AOD, or Art of Despotism, will be a special course only available to those who want to become politicians.

After passing that level, they will then be ushered into the science of remaining relevant after losing elections, for which Harold needs no special training ahead of facing his first class.

LTYBT, which had shocked Harold at first when he thought the initials stood for something else altogether, will be the most important course. This one, which in full is Lying Through Your Biting Teeth, is only available for men.

If you may remember, we had a problem on Valentine's Day with men who were unable to sweet talk their women and avoid spending big monies for the holidays. Those that Harold convinced to avoid their houses were met by the wrath of their women when they inevitably returned.

Harold sought to teach men a thing or two about facing their wives and explaining themselves.

What remained, even as we deliberated on a timetable, was naming the school. I suggested we should call it Harold International Academy for Teaching Useless Stuff (HIATUS) seeing as it was admitting those who had been on an involuntary academic break.