The methane produced by a classroom of six year old boys should be harvested in some eco-friendly way to heat the water or something. It's the bum side of the job (Richard's joke not mine. There's the salary aspect too that could do with improving and class size, of course, but if I had a choice of no farting or no above-inflation increase in salary for the rest of my life, the farting ban would probably win out. But you very rarely get stark choices like that in life. Fern, my classroom assistant, believes in visualising yourself out of your problems. She takes charge while I stand in the materials cupboard, breathing deeply and imagining myself in the Alps. The sky is clear blue, there's been an overnight fall of powdery snow. My nose is too cold to smell anything. Miraculously I can snowboard ... I'm zipping down the mountain, there's a crowd cheering me on, the noise of shouting is becoming almost - 'Emergency, Miss!' Geri's screaming at me. 'Robbie has thrown paint all over Ethan!' I summon my extremely unamused face and burst out of the materials cupboard. Fern is wonderful at alternatives but she doesn't do discipline.