Dear Michael

Thank you for your letter but I can assure you, no apology is necessary.  You write to express your regret that you asked "clever dick questions" and that you were "showing off"?  Michael, most people are aresholes and never more so than when they are going through adolescence.

Now, in any given year I have around three-hundred and fifty pupils on my timetable.  I think it's fair to say that usually the arsehole quota will reach triple digits most years.  While you obviously regret your particular brand of arseholeism, can I put your mind at rest and tell you that there was nothing exceptional about it?  It didn't bother me that much.  Coping with it is, after all, what I got paid for and when I wasn't working, I did and do things like drink, eat, sleep, read books, watch movies, hang out with friends, raise my children, fuck make love, play guitar - had a life, in other words. I see from your recent pronouncements that you disapprove of such things but most of us then were accustomed to thinking this sort of activity formed part of what we considered the Good Life.

Ego-centrism is part and parcel of the adolescent experience but I have to say that I'm more than a little disappointed that you don't seem to have got over this. I often meet former pupils and the more troubled but intelligent ones realise we were just falling into the roles society had assigned for us.  They give you a nod of recognition as if to say, "I was an asshole and I thought you were an asshole but we've both moved on from that."  And you nod back, saying, "Uh huh.  Peace - and all the best for the future."  So what's the deal with you, man?  You're talking about 'us'.  There is no 'us', dude - it was thirty years ago.  What makes you think I'm interested in your apology now? You weren't that important then.

 P.S. Don't call me 'Danny', you over-familiar little prick. It's 'Sir' or Mr McGlumpher.

Yours etc,

Mr McGlumpher