Tuesday , First Lesson, French

I was on time for tutor this morning, Mr Chipolata called the register.  Gazzy was off, apparently his homework ate his dog[1]. The tutor room is used as an English classroom during the day and there are copies of the greatest works of English Literature on the shelves, ‘Great Expectations’, ‘Moby Dick’, ‘Budgie the little Helicopter’. The Oxford Scenglish[2] Dictionary has recently added a few words which have somehow crow-barred themselves into today's dialect such as 'Fantakka'[3], 'Arse'[4] and 'Top Deck'[5].  I use all three all the time, sometimes in the same sentence but never in my diary on a Tuesday.

This is 'Fantakka'

The bell sounded to signify first lesson, French.  It was a bit grey outside and when we went into the classroom, Mr Londis[6] yelled, “Il fait brouilliard” whilst pointing out of the window.  We assumed he’d gone mad and took our seats.  I’ve been doing French for four years now and I can still only say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’ and ‘What damp patch?’  We had to do a listening test this morning – I thought he said we were having a whistling test so I failed straight away.  We got some question sheets and we had to answer by listening to the French dialogue on a tape the teacher played at the front of the class.  I have a problem with this – firstly because the tape player he uses was bought at a car boot sale for 23p and has no volume dial; secondly, I can’t understand French and thirdly, whenever it gets to the part of the conversation where they’re about to give you the answer to the question, a massive articulated lorry goes past in the background and drowns it out.  Why they have to set the listening test role plays next to busy motorways, I don’t know.  I spent the lesson putting speech bubbles on the people in the French textbook. One woman was saying “Alors!!” and the man was saying, “No, parliament haven’t passed the bill yet so it’s still legal”.  

The most vandalised book of the 20th Century.

We then had a role play, the teacher is a bit kinky like that.  I don’t know what the curriculum is coming to, I really don’t.

[1] His homework was to make a cyborg from the future out of sellotape and offal

[2] Scottish is now part of English culture

[3] A contraction of the word Phantasmagorical

[4] A contraction of the anus

[5] A 'soft drink' with actual alcohol that children can drink. 302767 cans will cause your liver to fail.

[6] Full name Mr Londis-tenforapoundonechildintheshopatanyonetime