Beat the school run

As I drove my personal pollution solution to work today I became frustrated by the well-to-do kids being panzered 400 yards to prep school by Mummy. If I leave the house after 7:45am it's almost impossible to get across Tunbridge Wells in less than half an hour.



Confronted by the grille of yet another X5 skewed across a junction in my path, an idea hit me. It did so with such force that I swear I heard the "swooook doing!" of an arrow embedding itself in my bonce.



Why don't we equip all mothers with kids of school-going age with a medieval trebuchet? You know - the catapault contraptions that besieging armies used to hurl rotting mutton carcasses into castles.



At 8am every morning we'd all carefully seat Isobelle and Lawrence askance the taught sling arm and give the wooden lever a solid tug. For 20 seconds the skies over Tunbridge Wells would rain with pigtails, lunchboxes and mittens; then voila! As the whistle blew in the playground our little treasures would hopefully land somewhere in the environs of the tennis courts, paw themselves for broken limbs, and limp along to lessons.