Chris mistakes Baz Luhrmann for the sunscreen
For a one-off Monday edition of 24 Years at the Tap End, Chris revisited a Year 10 school assembly. His class had been given more responsibility and he had come up with what he regarded as a simple, clever way to use Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).
The plan involved pupils walking on stage with cards carrying key words while the song played. Chris added small bottles of sun lotion to the production, apparently because the song was called Sunscreen, and the project already had the makings of a school-hall spectacle.
The problem was that Chris had fundamentally misunderstood its best-known line. He believed the finale was “trust me, I’m the sunscreen”, rather than advice to trust the speaker on sunscreen, and built the entire ending around that confidence.
Scott and Beccy had little sympathy for the distinction being explained to him years later. Chris insisted his interpretation had seemed logical at the time, while the others delighted in the certainty with which he had delivered an entirely invented phrase to his school.
The tale ended with Chris accepting the headteacher’s displeasure as the price of learning responsibility. It was another Tap End memory in which a sincere attempt to organise something had become unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.
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