Back to the real world, alas.

My pleasant two-week sojourn in the backwaters of British education is over for another year. Every year about this time schools up and down the land discover that they have basically finished the syllabus and have more reports to write than can comfortably be managed while managing a class of screaming, hyperactive monkeys, making it an ideal juncture to bring in an outside tutor to run some workshops. And so it is that I am invited in to introduce said hyperactive monkeys to the delights of Javanese gamelan.

Although a standing bet with No Good Boyo compels me to refer to them as monkeys, I do have to say - to the chagrin of Daily Mail readers everywhere - that the vast majority of today's yoof are in fact pleasant, well-mannered (if talkative) young people who show a a keen and intelligent interest in things. You just have to know how to talk to them. Or failing that, pick a subject such as gamelan which means that whenever you go into a school you have a large array of hammers immediately to hand.

The exception is Year 9, or what in old money was called 'third formers'. These are 13-14 year olds, wallowing in the first wash of strange hormones and convinced that street-cred involves sniggering, refusing to answer questions and being sulky. "Attichood" is everything, and can be accurately gauged at a glance by the amount of time spent on the haircut. The more gel, dye, sticky-up bits and razored designs involved, the less cooperative will be the tiny brain rattling about inside. Girls with long plaits or boys with tousled fringes are never a problem, for some reason.

I propose that this should be used as the basis of a new stop-and-search initiative by the police. Better still, march all the hairdressers off to re-education camps to be taught more useful skills. Sheep-shearing, perhaps. Although doubtless a few months down the line there will be the first reports of delinquent sheep with gel in their wool terrorising old-age pensioners. You read it here first. I think I need to go and take one of the blue tablets now. No wonder teachers are all so twitchy...

Does everyone have conversation like this? - 2

"Daddy, what's your favourite musical?"
"I like the Rodgers and Hammerstein show about the Canadian vet who has to investigate a sudden outbreak of vomiting among wild hoofed mammals."
"Is that a real musical?"
"Yes darling! It's called 'The Sound of Moose-Sick'."

Mussolini is alive and well and running Italy

An Italian court has ruled that proactive prejudice on the basis of crude racial stereotypes is legally defensible.

Italy's highest appeal court has ruled that it is acceptable to discriminate against Roma on the grounds that they are thieves.
The judgment, made public yesterday, comes amid a nationwide clampdown on the Roma community by Silvio Berlusconi's government. Last week his interior minister, Roberto Maroni, announced plans to fingerprint all of Italy's Roma, including children.

So that got me thinking - it must now be fine to go to Italy and punch someone. 'Cos after all, I could get away with it seeing that all Italians are cowards. And it would be justified by the fact that they all attempt to misbehave with the womenfolk.

First they came for the Jews...

It doesn't matter whether you are Roma or not; this ruling brings shame on Italy for resurrecting some of the worst elements of fascism - legally enshrined racism and collective punishment on the basis of suspicion without evidence to name but two. When this happens, we all need to don the yellow star.

Does everyone have conversations like this?

"Daddy, what's your favourite Beatles' song?"
"Ooh - depends. Which album are we talking about?"
"This one."
['Help' is indeed playing at the time]
"I like the one about the lady getting the Isle of Wight ferry."
"Which one's that?"
"She's got a ticket to Ryde."
[Sighs deeply, rolls eyes]
"How about on Rubber Soul?"
"I like the one about the chap who makes the costumes for Japanese classical theatre."
"Is there such a song?"
"Yes. Noh-wear Man!"
[Groans, exits sideways looking worried]

The precocity of my offspring - 4

Yesterday my daughter started singing "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, let it burn your body away, flatten the planet by it's enormous gravitational pull and destroy all life on earth!"

Well, her version is more accurate!

More music-hall recitations!

No Good Boyo graced the Armenia thread (see below) with the charming music-hall ditty "I slew the Black Armenian". In similar vein, Major Buffy Fortescue-Trouserbugle bids me quote his most famous work, in the style of J. Milton Hayes. With pleasure, major:

The Green Eye er the Little Yeller Dame de Nuit

There's an idle yeller Dayak ter the East er Tanjung Kot
With a British Army spade lodged in his head;
While a broken-molar'd maiden tends the grave er "Scottie" Scott -
And the silly blighter isn't even dead.

He was known as "Scottie" Scott because his name was Captain Scott,
And his Christian name was Scott as well ter boot,
But what made his dull life bearable out there in Tanjung Kot
Was the maiden fair ter whom he pressed his suit.

Her eye was green, her hair jet-black her cheongsam it was red,
And the name above her door was 'Fu Man Minh' ;
But though Scottie loved her dearly she'd grace any feller's bed
Fer a satayed goat and sev'ral pints er gin.

Her uncle was Scott's orderly, his name was Corporal Ngurk;
Though Dayak-born he'd risen through the ranks,
And though diligent by daylight ter avoid a stroke er work,
By night he had a love er boyish pranks.

Miss Minh went ter her uncle to request a favour great -
A potion strong it was her dearest wish;
But what Ngurk put in the potion she intended fer her mate
Was an extract from the deep-sea puffer-fish

Poor Scottie hadn't any sort er inklin' of a notion
Why young Fu Man Minh ran screaming from the room,
But then her potion from the ocean set his motions in commotion,
And his thunderbox exploded with a 'BOOM!'

His boots flew North, his hat flew East his Sam-Browne sped North-West
And the handle of his spade went swiftly South,
Where - though tryin' ter escape young Miss Fu's efforts were the best -
It struck the poor young gel right in the mouth.

I'll speak no ill of a lady lest I face m'comrades' censures
And the thing I hafter say may seem quite tacky,
But her adventures with entrenchers sadly robbed her of her dentures
And what's left was only fit fer chewin' baccy.

Old Ngurk did even worse because the blade er Scottie's spade
Flew true - although the edge was rather dull -
And though Ngurk was cacklin' foully at the work his prank had wrought,
He stopped laughin' when it landed in his skull!

When the CO heard about it (it was I, I must confess),
His voice rang forth like peals er summer thunder;
And respondin' ter his bellows men came pourin' from the Mess,
Carved a gravestone fine and placed young Scottie under.

There's an idle yeller Dayak ter the East er Tanjung Kot
With a British Army spade lodged in his head;
While a broken-molar'd maiden tends the grave er "Scottie" Scott -
And the silly blighter isn't even dead.

Anything to declare?

Gadjo Dilo has raised some interesting questions about ethnically specific foodstuffs re marmite (memorably described by Bill Bryson as 'an edible lubricant'). This set me thinking about some of those weird and wonderful edibles/smokables/unguents that only appeal to people of certain ethnicities or long residence in a particular country.

For example, my return trips to Blighty from the Malay Archipelago always involve packing large quantities of the following: cartons of clove-flavoured kretek cigarettes; kacang mete, which are garlic-roast cashews fit for deities; kopi luwak, which is coffee that has been passed through a civet (seriously); and ting-ting jahe, which are fiercely hot and very chewy ginger sweets. I now have regular 'customers' for all these. Tiger balm used to be a must but is now widely available in the UK.

Marmite, of course, is a major component of British diplomatic bags; and I have known Americans in Asia dedicate much time and effort to tracking down 'peanut butter and jelly'. Though quite why, I have no idea.

What's de rigeur for other countries?