Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

My heart has felt the warmth that is sympathetic joy this past few days after I got back in touch with ex-TEFL cellmate Crappers, (aka Scream, a moniker derived from his passing resemblance to the subject of Edvard Munch's masterpiece, due to his despairing state of mind, which I suspect was largely TEFL-induced), whom I was delighted to discover has wed, procreated twice, producing two enchanting offspring, and is now living it large up London. It was he that rescued me from the bouncer's bed and watched with a mixture of horror and amusement as I ate a mini pizza that I'd recently dropped on my shoe . Judging by his showreel , if his name isn't in lights yet, they're certainly ordering a gross of bulbs . I last saw him in the late nineties, when he suddenly broke ranks and left to do some kind of degree in arty stuff - and look where he is now. Clearly it helps to be lavishly talented , but even so. Living proof that there is life beyond TEFL. I've surmised t...

Special Brewman has enquired how the singing Poles are getting on with the brasileiras . Whilst I haven’t received word, I did prepare a list of travel tips for them before they moved on, with a view to helping the travelling minstrels avoid problems on their tuneful odyssey. To make them easy to memorize, you will note that I cunningly crafted them into rhyming couplets : IF THERE’S A GUN POINTING AT YOU, ACT LIKE A STATUE. Rio de Janeiro may be the Cidade Maravilha , but it plays host to the largest number of armed juveniles in the world outside a war zone, beating areas of conflict such as the Occupied Territories . Tragic but true. IF HE’S GOT A KNIFE, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. Disclaimer: Tourists should be circumspect when using this advice near travelling circuses, as knife-throwing acts are still popular in Latin American big tops. IF SHE’S GOT PECS , BEWARE THE SEX. It’s easy to make this mistake – sometimes you jus...

That's queer as in strange, before we get started. There are moments when I suspect that the person who invited me to join my male voice choir wasn't a musical conductor at all, but an undercover psychiatrist from a shadowy government agency , and that all this singing is just therapy designed to keep us harmless . Such a suspicion grew on me over last weekend, when we had the pleasure of receiving our Polish friends, who organised the festival we sang at in May, into our collective bosom, as they took a detour on their way to Cabo Frio in Rio de Janeiro state to swing by our neck of the rainforest. Firstly, they were greeted on Thursday on their whistle-stop tour by the penetrating stare of the bipolar paediatrician in our midst. Ironically for somebody who participates in a choir, he seems incapable of accepting group decisions, resolving to do everything his own way, even if it means separating three of the anxious Poles from their brethren on some madcap jaunt he's inv...

Yesterday I received an email from the translation agency that sends me work with the subject "Client's complaint." Eager to find out more, I read on. "I much admire the typing mistakes," the bolshy shagsack whined, I suspect sarcastically, "it should be shopping mall and not shopping centre , specially and not especially and industrialization and not industrialisation ." Teeth champing at an imaginary bit, I responded that the words in question were (and indeed are) correct in British English, though they were quite at liberty to change them to the stateside spelling if it were going to make them feel suitably made up - though why they'd want to is a mystery, as the text was a script to be used for narrating a video anyway. This is a common practice among Brazilian professionals, I have found - sending disgraceful, disrespectful comments questioning peoples' English, just because they've been to Disney and feel buoyed by their managing...

In celebration of fully 10 years of wedded bliss with my first wife, Show , I strategically suggested we spend a day at a spa as reward for her forebearance, despite my being steadfastly heterosexual. So it was that last Friday morning we packed our rucksack with bathing costumes, flip flops and towelling robes and sped off towards Grande São Paulo. Driving in the metropolis is always stressful, as no matter how early you leave, you're always guaranteed to arrive at least half an hour late, as the traffic chaos in the state capital reaches near gridlock, despite vague attempts to limit the number of cars on the road by the introduction of a rotation system according to the last digit of car number plates. Indeed, predictions have been made that, with 200,000 new cars coming onto the streets per annum, within five years traffic will simply grind to a complete halt. Without a functioning rail system and possessing a paltry metro, travelling around the city looks destined to become ev...

The excellent Gadjo Dilo has come up with a festival of films that should be/should have been made. Clambering onto the bandwagon, here are my entries: MISSISSIPPI GURNING Hardboiled cop Gene Hackman and idealistic sidekick Willem Dafoe head to the deep south to tackle inherent ugliness in the redneck population. Hackman's unorthodox methods include intimidation and grabbing people by the clangers under tables, much to the by-the-book Dafoe's chagrin. The masked people with pointy hats turn out not to be Klu Klux Klanners but a fringe and highly dangerous band of gurning competition organisers, and webmasters at mingers.com . FROM BEER TO MATERNITY What really happened to Deborah Kerr after that roll on the beach with Burt Lancaster - unemployment, a council house in Wooton Bassett and liver disease brought on by drinking alcopops. Could be used in schools in teenage pregnancy prevention campaigns, if I were paid loads of money for the rights. MY LEFT FOOT M.P. The ultimate b...