False memory syndrome

Childhood was an idyllic, carefree time where everything was wonderful. Or was it? Here are five lies your brain tells you about it:

The sun always shone all summer long

Bollocks. Your brain can’t be arsed remembering the endless days of incessant rain, and why should it? No one wants to dwell on being bored shitless stuck in the house before they’d  invented the internet and all you had to entertain you was Connect 4.

Subbuteo was brilliant

Even in the primitive world before Playstations, Subbuteo was unrealistic rubbish. Have you ever seen a real life footballer shoot from 30 yards out and somehow end up flying into the back of the net before the ball did? Let’s face it: Subbuteo was shit.

We’d graze our knees playing and it wouldn’t bother us one bit

The truth is you bawled your eyes out every time you came off your bike and skinned your knee, just like any other child. Not least because you knew it meant your mum would scrub it with TCP that stung worse than the original injury, after first giving you a clip round the ear for being so clumsy.

Christmas was such a magical time

Christmas as a kid was about hoping and praying you’d get the new BMX you wanted so desperately, and then experiencing crushing disappointment when your parents had fobbed you off with a Care Bear. And they made you eat lunch while the Top of the Pops Christmas special was on, the vindictive bastards.

School days were the best days

If you were at school during the 70s, 80s or 90s bullying was basically part of the curriculum and if you told a member of staff about it they’d give you detention for being a tell tale. In those days the teachers could fling chalk, blackboard rubbers or even chairs at you and nobody would bat an eyelid. It was Grange Hill on steroids.

The Daily Mash

Of course.