School stuff that has stubbornly stuck in your head

[SlayingDragons]

Just that really - what has stuck in your head since you were at school?

• I remember a poem I had to learn in P5 for a Christmas concert. It was 30 years ago now but I can still recite it word for word. (It wasn’t short either!)

• I can recount every county in Ireland in alphabetical order.

• I can direct you to the train station in German just so long as it is straight ahead, take the first street on the right, second on the left and the station is on the right hand side.

(Useful stuff like how to work out the angles in a triangle so I can help my first year with her homework - not so much!)

@PristineCondition did you HAVE TO?? I sang it as I read it,and now I can't get it out of my head-thanks!
Mine is
Milk bottle tops and paper bags
Iron bedsteads, dirty old rags,
litter on the pavement
paper in the park
Is this what we CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Really want to see? clap clap clap clap
No ! No! No!
Old plastic bottles, silver foil ,
chocolate wrapping , Engine oil,
rubbish in the gutter, junk upon the beach,
Is this what we
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Really want to see?
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
NO! NO! NO!
Help us , lord , to find each day
Ways to help to keep away
That litter off the pavement,
That rubbish off the beach.
For this is what we
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Really want to see.
CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Yes! Yes! Yes!

@Kalim8 @exWifebeginsAgainat46
Sorry! Not a musical. Just a regular play! I'm just proud it was my only line

The books of the bible (Old and New Testament) in order
Quite a lot of poems
Quite a bit of the first chapter of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

None of those were taught to me at school - I just liked memorising stuff!

Oh I've thought of another weird one - rhymes for imperial/metric conversion! A litre of water's a pint and 3 quarters, 2 and a quarter pounds of jam is just about a kilogram.

@wanderings and others thank you for remembering other bits of Ecce Romani! It was a good grounding for me as I got A at Latin GCSE.

I wondered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er hill and vale
And all at one I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Caecilius est in horto
Metella est in culina

King Cogidubnus

My carol service reading:
But though Bethlehem Ephrata
Though thou be little amongst thousands of Judah
Then out of thee shall he come forth
Unto me that is to be ruler of Israel
Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting

A long speech from 'Trojan Women' by Euripidies

All the books of the New Testament - but that was learnt at Sunday school....

OMG! I came on to say all 6 songs - every single word - from Jonah Man Jazz. I see a couple of others have beaten me to it!

I was 9 when my class performed it in the local church.... I'm 51 now!

I also know all times tables to 12 by heart and am another still very well informed on the subject of ox bow lakes.

Just wish I could remember anything recent or useful.

Times tables
“The barge she sat in like a burnish’d throne, burned upon the waters”
Antony & Cleopatra

We used to snigger at “Oh, happy the horse which bears the weight of Antony”

Also remember ox bow lakes and tectonic plates.

The hymn to St Columba (possibly outing myself)
“Hear us Columba - a - a -a
Light of Iona -a -a -a
Guide us to heav - e - en
Across the wi-ide sea....”

How to spell onomatopoeia 'Ono-mato-po-ee-i-ay'

Wed Nes Day

Reactivity series of metals:

Potassium
Sodium
Lithium
Calcium
Magnesium
Aluminium
Zinc
Iron
Lead
Copper
Mercury
Silver
Gold

Ignore the rogue lithium

When I was about 7 we had an English lesson where the teacher told us there was never a need to use the word 'got' and that it was poor grammar. We had to draw a picture to depict never using the word got. I drew a coffin with 'RIP GOT' on it. Random. It was a private Catholic convent school if that makes a difference! Even now I always try to avoid using got!!

Actually I had it right first time. Only 30 years since I had to know it

Lake Titicaca (highest in the world).

Yulishka under the lilac tree
Oh faria, faria
Yulishka where my heart must be
Oh faria, faria
Don’t cast down your eyes so bright
Come and dance with me tonight,
Faria, faria, faria, faria, fa-ri-a!

Sun
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

3 types of rock: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. That is literally all i remember about geography.

A play in junior school where I had to say:

A long time ago in olden days
People told time in many strange ways
They had no clocks and they had no watches
So they told the time by hour glass and notches!!!!

The full lyrics to Ob la di. We did it for choir (trendy 60s teacher) Everyone giggled at BRA!
How to van dyke a grapefruit. What the Domino theory was and Why We Should Be In Vietnam.(rabid right wing teacher)

The enthal-
Py change when
One mole of an element
Or a compound reacts with oxygen
Under standard conditions

To the tune of this old man

ohwhat we did that too, lots of folk music too in assembly at primary. A world away from stuffy hymns I had never heard at secondary (but I love a good hymn now).

I also have the Tarantella by Hilaire Belloc stuck in my head courtesy of Rips, our mad English teacher who would roar at you if you didn't pay attention but was really all bark and no bite.

My very easy method just speeds up naming planets

My - Mercury
Very - Venus
Easy - earth
Method - Mars
Just - Jupiter
Speeds - Saturn
Up - Uranus
Naming - Neptune
Planets - Pluto

Can't say it came in that useful until DD's interest in the solar system began.

Oh and with a twist to the ox bow lake, the same teacher (also rabid Australian nationalist) told us with a sneer, that "Yeah, the poms say ox bow lake, but WE say billabong." He hated all the English migrants in the class.

I learned the words to Waltzing Matilda at primary school. Like so many other, I learned about ox-bow lakes at secondary school. It was many, many years later that I found out that a billabong is an Australian ox-bow lake.