ONE FOR THE BOYS

Most TEFL teachers have at some point at least entertained the idea of coming hither with the foreign students they are charged with enlightening, and those who deny fostering such designs are liars, fools, or both – it is the only perk. The flames of our duplicitous tendencies are often inexplicably fanned by the fact that a majority of English-seeking visitors to our mountains green seem to lose all sense of discernment when confronted with an otherwise average Joe with a face puffy with drink, a whiteboard marker and hazardously dated fashion sense.

Let me come clean now and say that my experience of this kind of horseplay is relatively limited - TEFL philanderers have always provoked in me a profound mistrust. No sooner have they waved off some damp-eyed maiden at Heathrow Terminal 3, than they’re hovering around the Information Desk posing as a taxi driver ready to whisk off, and get some sober groundwork in with, another perfumed delight eager to be hoisted off the TEFL baggage reclaim. I suspect these healthy misgivings are, if truth be told, largely based on white-hot envy, but I just don’t like the buggers, and I refuse to apologise for it.

If, like me, you have taken occasional advantage of the romantic opportunities the language barrier offers and managed to somehow persuade desirable foreigners that you’re a catch that’s really going somewhere in life, please help me with my research by ranking your favourite nationalities. Here are mine:

1. Brazilian – hotter than a burning sock
2. Spanish – earthy and all-consuming
3. Spanish Basque – earthy, all-consuming and sullen
4. Russian – beautiful enough to spark a border incident, yet maddeningly aloof
5. French-Iranian – unhinged and apparently married
6. Er, that’s it...

This is not in any way to disparage other races, creeds, nationalities or states of evolution, it simply means I haven’t managed to manhandle them in any meaningful way. (If Show is reading this, my use of the present perfect in the last sentence was figurative and not literal, of course.)

I invite you, gentlemen, to opine away without fear of judgement or condemnation. If you prefer doing this in pairs, so much the better.