A.K.A
Damian Cowell, one of the members of
This Is Serious, Mum otherwise known as
TISM.
Damian/Humphrey was also my year 10 English teacher at Croydon High school. With hindsight I see that a lot of his teaching was tempered with a condescending "what do these stupid teenagers know about anything" attitude. He marked an essay I wrote with a comment of "...I find it ironic (look it up)...". Sure, most 16 year olds would be pressed to correctly define irony, but to suggest I need to look it up in the dictionary to understand his comment? Come on...
He may have been justified - teenagers can certainly be ignorant. Perhaps his calling should not have been that of a teacher :) This may be why, last I heard, he worked for Melbourne radio station Triple M.
I love TISM, and I don't have an issue with "Mr C" as we called him. In retrospect I take issue with some of his teaching methods but he did let us get away with things most other teachers would not. For example a project we did which was to record ourselves on video tape, combined with edits of X rated pornography purely for shock value. We showed this to the class. Porn in highschool. Not only did we pass the project, but we got a B for it. Any teacher in his or her right might would be talking expulsion. This is why we loved the guy.
And if you don't get the reference, Channel 9 TV here in Australia has a childrens' show character called Humphrey B Bear.