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GREAT TEFL WASTERS I HAVE KNOWN

According to behindthename.com, the Welsh name Idris means "ardent lord", and nothing could be more appropriate. Though I never met him personally on his trail-blazing summer passage through sunny Bournemouth, his all-to-brief career left its mark on many, including rope marks in many cases.

The Ardent Lord's speciality was putting Scandinavian teenagers to the sword, "with ropes and everything", as he used to slobber on the many mornings after. Always displaying an unpredictable fashion sense, Idris was evenually fired for turning up to a Business English class with a group of inevitably disapproving German executives in full Arsenal kit.

We can only assume that the school owner was a Tottenham Hotspur supporter.

Comments

Ms Scarlet said…
Oh to be blessed with an ardent lord...
Sorry, I know very little about the Welsh... I know very little about football... but the words 'ardent lord' struck a bell. I'm sure Mrs P will be able to do the German executives...
Apologies for time wasting...
Sx
6 November 2008 at 14:35
Gadjo Dilo said…
An Arsenal kit? It doesn't sound that offensive - Arsene Wenger era, I'm presuming. (Wasn't there also a dragon called Idris? Or was that only on Ivor the Engine?)

I'm sure she will, Scarlet, I'm sure she will.
7 November 2008 at 08:07
Mrs Pouncer said…
Where are all the ardent lords when you need them? I am currently bemoaning this very state of affairs in my own dear comments box.
Anyhoo, German execs I can take or leave (remember, I had to sit next to the German CEO of a pharmaceutical company at the Fat Duck. That was the night I was obliged to eat snail porridge and egg and bacon sorbet). No, it's the French Diplomat for me. You know, the one Special Brew Man introduced. The one who looks like Sean Connery with a good tan; faultless French 'n German, his dad was a member of the occupying army. You KNOW. Surely you READ that post. I pored over it late into the night. One of the greatest TEFL timewasters I have ever known.
7 November 2008 at 12:42
No Good Boyo said…
The head of our family is Uncle Idris. He lives on chicken & chips, wears Brylcreem and bloodstained clothing, and has run two businesses into the ground. His wife had the same maiden name as Mother of Boyo but, unusually for our part of Wales, happens to be a different person.

Our local mountain, Cader Idris, is named after an idle giant who had nothing better to do than lounge around on the Harlech Dome. Spend Midsummer Eve up there and you return a poet, madman or not at all. Colin Jones got hypothermia, but then he was out by one day.

This TELF Idris sounds like a fine ambassador for our nation. More, please.
8 November 2008 at 09:13
Tom Crapper said…
But ... why were the German executives in full Arsenal kit? Surely they should have been wearing Werder Bremen outfits, or some such similar kit?

Yours in confusion,

Tom Crapper
9 November 2008 at 03:57
M C Ward said…
Ms Blue - I too know little about association football, but I do know my primitive tribal bloodletting.

Gadj - It was pre-Wenger as I recall. George Graham was at he bridge I believe.

Mrs P - meet Boyo's Uncle Idris - Uncle Idris, this is Mrs Pouncer.

Boyo - are you sure they aren't one and the same? The similarities are uncanny. It's good to know your roots.

Mr Crapper - fine work in spotting my deliberate ambiguity. I can tell you're from the regiment.
9 November 2008 at 11:23
Gyppo Byard said…
TEFL and football. A depressing combination, since one finds many in foreign parts whose knowledge of Britain is apparently informed only by watching 'premier league' games on their wood-burning TVs.

Whatever a premier league game is.

I once got in a taxi at Jakarta airport and struck up a conversation with the driver. "Where are you from?" he asked me. "England" I replied disingenuously. [It's a simple answer that raises fewer eyebrows than telling the tangled truth. Besides, I was born in England and live here now so that's close enough.]
"What city?" he probed further.
"Reading."
"Oh! You've just been promoted to the premier league, haven't you?" he said brightly, and thence delivered a soliloquy about Reading FC, while I muttered "Yeah", "Right", "Is that so?" and so forth. Javanese has a word for this - ngegongi -"to punctuate the other's monologue from time to time as a gong punctuates a piece of gamelan music."
12 November 2008 at 11:05
Well-lighted Shadows said…
There is a best seller in that post title or similar...keep going with this series...

My Dad´s into bird watching, me? Well I´m into Tefl wasters:)
2 December 2008 at 09:11
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