The cushion queue

To the Globe Theatre, for a rather fine production of “Anthony and Cleopatra” – a play which, perhaps surprisingly, I’d never previously seen.

We joined the queues outside for “programmes and cushions” – the latter, at a loan price of a pound each, an essential accessory given the hard wooden benches.

Immediately, I was given to speculation. No-one knew whether the two girls who’d been caught coming back to the hotel after the curfew on the school trip last night had actually been caned or not, but rumour had it that the deputy headmaster – in charge during their visit – had beaten them both soundly in his room after breakfast. And there they were: the only pupils in the queue – proof that they were indeed incredibly sore.

Only, of course, the deputy head would see them and would walk over. “I don’t think cushions would be appropriate: you can sit on the benches like your fellows.”