Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

Wistful reflections, petty glories.

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Location: The House of Usher, Brazil

I'm a flailing TEFL teacher who entered the profession over a decade ago to kill some time whilst I tried to find out what I really wanted to do. I like trying to write comedy (I once got to the semi-finals of a BBC Talent competition, ironically writing a sitcom based on TEFL), whilst trying to conquer genetically inherited procrastination... I am now based in Brazil, where I live with my wife and two chins.

Friday 30 May 2008

I WAS IN THAT NUMBER

One of our number has posted the following video on YouTube. Despite the shaky camera work, we weren't in fact performing on the Portsmouth to Cherbourg ferry, but in an auditorium in Sorocaba, Brazil, days before our triumphant tour of Pomerania.



NB The author reserves the right to delete any derogatory, defamatory, inflammatory or anti-Welsh comments that may ensue from the playing of the above clip.

13 Comments:

Blogger Gadjo Dilo said...

Ah, very nice! I was fearing that you'd have hired an accent coach to get the vowels right, but I'm glad you didn't. ;-) (That would actually have been quite pointless and horrible.)

I tried to find something anti-Welsh to say, just for the anti-hero prestige of getting deleted, but this seems so gloriously far from Cwm Rhondda that I was unable.

30 May 2008 at 16:05  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Your restraint is appreciated. It isn't the best performance we've ever done, but it gives a flavour of our exotic cocktail. When we sing samba we really hit our stride.

30 May 2008 at 16:12  
Blogger El Gringo Vasco said...

BRAVO!!!!!!!

31 May 2008 at 02:18  
Blogger Gadjo Dilo said...

It wasn't supposed to be a criticism - I really like it! And I imagine the Poles etc were glad to have something a little exotic at their event. Talking of samba, the salsa club here in my Romanian town will give its first samba class tomorrow - really looking forward to that, wild horses wouldn't keep me away!

31 May 2008 at 03:59  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Thanks gents.

I was amazed to find that samba has almost as many varieties as bananas. I want to learn the solo version - our best sambista was toast of the festival.

31 May 2008 at 11:58  
Blogger No Good Boyo said...

Welcome back! YouTube presence is true fame. There was a clip there once of Gyppo Byard mocking Mrs Boyo. It has vanished, as have his fingernails.

3 June 2008 at 06:26  
Blogger M C Ward said...

Thank you kindly, Mr Boyo, and good day to you sah!

Was Wales everything you expected? Poland was nothing like what I expected, a lot more and a lot less at the same time.

I shall be supporting Polska in the forthcoming European Championships of Association Football.

3 June 2008 at 10:02  
Blogger No Good Boyo said...

Wales was a great improvement on the earlier model, MC. The draughty hall in my native town (Dolgellau) has been turned into an innovative arts and music centre called Tŷ Siamas (http://www.tysiamas.com/), and Mrs Boyo was impressed by a new clothes shop on the main street which stocks human sizes.

I also lika Polska. Most Welsh seem to be supporting Italy, on some sort of corruption solidarity/tenors' unity principle. They are doomed.

3 June 2008 at 20:55  
Blogger Gadjo Dilo said...

I'm supporting my adoptive homeland, who've just held France to a very creditable 0-0 draw, as I'm hoping they'll also do to any other country daring to play interesting football.

p.s. Is there really film of Gyppo Byard mocking Mrs Boyo?? One would like to see it, even if entailed buying a TV license.

9 June 2008 at 15:09  
Blogger No Good Boyo said...

Gadjo, at great risk to my sweetbreads, here it is, back briefly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2gF1-fkDpY

Mrs Boyo's current cover name is Irina.

10 June 2008 at 06:26  
Blogger Gadjo Dilo said...

Boyo, I'm in a quandary here. Part of me really wants to see this video clip; but another, possibly nobler, part of me thinks that Mrs Boyo should keep her mystery and never be presented to the world via anything so sordid and demeaning as a facsimile produced by a camera lens. It's like with the The Archers characters: they should never be photographed, the images we have of them in our minds' eye will always be more true.

Maybe I'll play the video with my eyes closed.

10 June 2008 at 15:03  
Blogger Mrs Boyo said...

You passed the test, Gadjo. To gaze upon even a shabby Rrom simalcrum of my being is to risk turning into a piece of street masonry.

10 June 2008 at 17:25  
Blogger Gadjo Dilo said...

I did, Mrs B, I resisted, like an architypal fairy-tale prince, and the you I know is for ever preserved. Also, my Gyppo is still, for me, a snaggle-toothed, golden-earinged larrikin with a full head of lustrous, tousled hair.

11 June 2008 at 02:32  

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