My life as a French farce

Looking back over what I can remember of my chequered career, the incidents which stand out with the greatest and most appaling clarity are the ones involving the highest degree of buttock-clenching embarrasment.

The one which stands out particularly as being the sort of incident which - if I wrote it into a sitcom script - would be most obviously cut as contrived and implausible, happened when a student couple, both of whom I knew well, split up.

I was in my flat attempting to deal telephonically with a terrible crisis which had befallen a language student friend, and to cope with which I had to buy them a plane ticket home from their 'year abroad', when there was a knock at the door.

It was a tearful young lady - let us call her Beatrix for the sake or argument - who informed me that she had just chucked her boyfriend, an acned youth (let us call him Rodney) whose relationship with the sweet and extremely pretty Beatrix was a mystery to all. "Go and have a seat in the living room", I told her, "I'll be with you in a moment."

I then reapplied myself to the intricacies of coping with the multiple-choice button-pressing telecommunications nightmare that was the BA booking line in the early 90s, when I was interrupted once more by a knock at the door.

I gurgled helplessly as Rodney strode in, saying "I've just split up with Beatrix, I need a drink..." and made his own way to the living room. It was a good 10 minutes before I could join them, during which I gather silent recrimination was the order of the day.

Both eventually forgave me, though never each other, curiously enough.

Glimpses into forgotten worlds - 3

A kind colleague brought an absolute treasure into the office the other day - a copy of Major W. Turner's 1943 "Guide to Military Urdu", including a sample elementary examination paper. It belonged to her father, who served in India during and shortly after WWII.

As you would expect, it is a magnificent collection of phrases which no pith-helmeted, khaki-shorted gentleman should be without:
"Your rifle is dirty, why have you not cleaned it?"
"How many mules have you brought?"
"We shall be able to capture the position in half an hour."
"Tell the men not to clean their rifles with sand-paper."

There are sections devoted to military discipline:
"March the prisoner in."
"You are charged with disobeying the Havaldar's orders"
"- Being absent from parade on Saturday morning."

Bayonet training:
"Don't bend the left arm so much."
"Keep the right arm against the butt."
"Make the 'withdraw' in the same line as you pointed."

Anti-gas training:
"What is the first aid for mustard gas casualties?"

And enrolment of new troops:
"You will not allow your caste usages to interfere with military requirements."
"Look here! I am going to ask you six questions. You will have to answer them truthfully."

But overall - disappointingly - it lacks the crusty, bat-stretching insanity of the slightly earlier "Malay Made Simple" or "The Modern Pushtu Instructor".

Until we get to the sample examination. Here, we start to get slightly more entertaining phrases:
"He got up and threw an orange at the Havildar."
"We hoped that the train would start again, quickly, as we saw a man coming towards us. when he got near, we all began to sing."

Best of all is a story regaring a man's ill-advised kindness towards a snake on a cold day, which concludes:
"The man got very angry and killed the evil snake with a stick. That snake was just like the Japanese. We must remember this story, and never let the Japanese get into our homes."

I showed this to Mr Shandonger, whose respect for the Indian Army rose appreciably...

Great lines to overhear....

Today a colleague told me a merry anecdote of her time in Aleppo which included the line "So anyway, we jumped over a pile of skulls..."

My life has been far too sedate to match material like that. The nearest I came was walking through a pool of someone's blood, which was bad enough and gave me occasional nightmares for a year or so afterwards. And it wasn't even my blood.

For those with an interest in the Islamic world, my colleague's anecdote was in response to an office discussion of when exactly Idul Adha falls this year.

Nigella 1, Heston 0

Since our house contains an unfeasibly large number of recipe books, I feel I am sort-of qualified to comment on their relative usability. Many of them remain unused after a single disastrous experiment, others are cheerfully dog-eared and full of bookmarks, turned-down corners and scribbled pencil notes.

So here is a small selection of those we have found useful and those we haven't:

THE GOOD...
How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson.
It is only the barest of exaggerations to say that before acquiring this book I could not bake, and now I am infallible. Every single thing I've cooked/baked from this book has worked admirably first time of asking. Now I should stress that I grew up in a household where everyone was expected to cook, and did. I was non-negotiably assigned to helping in the kitchen from around the age of nine, and cooking has remained a pleasure rather than a chore all my life (one of the many varied things I have to thank my parents for). However, I wouldn't go so far as to claim to be an outstandingly good cook, and baking was always a stressful mystery. Nigella changed that for me - in her books I have at last found a cookery writer who explains things at my level, always giving easy-to-understand hints about judging whether things are ready or not. Her rhubarb grunt and baklava muffins in particular have been delightful revelations. The same principle goes for her other books too.

The Cranks Recipe Book/Entertaining with Cranks
My copies of these date back to the 1980s when my sister turned vegetarian and I then started going out with a vegetarian. This meant I needed reliable veggie recipes at my fingertips. My copies of these have been used so often, and had so many things spilt on them, that you could probably survive a week just by licking them. I still use them regularly, as my sister is still vegetarian.

The Covent Garden Soup Company recipe book
Like the ring-binder and wipe-clean pages; deplore the lack of an index. But the recipes are mostly fabulous anyway. Our copy has an interesting array of paper-clips/post-it notes sprouting from its upper edge.

The Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner - Annabel Karmel
OK, we're into specialist territory here I admit; but for those struggling to feed a baby with healthy meals this is a goldmine.

Larousse Gastronomique - Prosper Montagne
The serious foody bible - great for browsing, but the recipes are often a bit hit and miss and require a clasical training to understand at times. They are also wildly extravagant, often turning on phrases like "three days before serving, make a stock out of 15lbs of wild venison and 30lbs or freshly picked vegetables..." or "take the yolks of 12 eggs..." Makes good reading outside the kitchen, though.

THE BAD...
Anything by Heston Blumenthal
Probably magnificent if you're a brilliant cook to start with and can fathom what he's on about, but a path to dismal failure for the likes of me. I love his cooking - I've eaten once at the Hind's Head in Bray and it was one of the best meals I've ever had. It's just that his recipes are over my head - attempt them without being able to judge by eye when, for example, clarified butter is hot enough and you're sunk.

THE UGLY...
Gordon ****ing Ramsay.
Someone bought us a Gordon Ramsay book as a present. We tried one recipe. It was a disaster. As with Mr Blumenthal, this may be as much down to my native incompetence as Ramsay's impossibility, but the fact remains it was a mistake I won't be repeating.

Agenbitten.

No Good Boyo has developed a noticeable tendency to use variations on the phrase "agenbite of inwit".

I hereby propose the in the unlikely event of his ennoblement, he should take the title "Lord Agenbite of Llantwit".

The Mouth of Orlac

I have something of a social disability: My mouth has a tendency to answer people before my brain has woken up and realised that someone is even talking to me.

This unfortunate tendency is, indeed one of the things that attracts me to blogging - I can edit my comments before releasing them to the world. There have been occasions in my life when I have sorely wished this could be done with spoken comments.

In particular, there was the unfortunate incident with the nun and the crucifix. The Jesuit college at which I used to teach had, as is the way with Jesuit educational institutions, rather gaudy painted crucifixes of considerable size fixed to the wall, over the blackboard, in each lecture hall or classroom.

Coming in to class on the first day back after the Easter break, I was confronted with a dozen or so of my students who had turned up early (or more likely had been hanging around after an earlier class). Without planning, forethought - or indeed wisdom - I greeted them merrily with "Did you have a good Easter?"

So far so good.

I then turned to the crucifix and enquired "And did you have a good Easter?"

Most of them laughed in a slightly shocked manner. The main exception was the nun in the front row, who was clearly trying to judge my combustibility for a public heretic-burning.

The dear old provost of my dear old college

A recent thread on Mrs Pouncer's Counsel caused me to recall my Oxford days, when my college - let us veil its identity by calling it Christnose - was presided over genially by a provost of the old school (or more to the point, the old wine-cellar). Let us veil his identity by calling him Lord Fnord.

Anyway, Christnose had a reputation (before more recent, academically-inclined killjoy management decided it wanted 'results') of having more gaudies (college feast nights) than any other house in either of the two universities. Some time after midnight on one of these evenings Lord Fnord emerged from the Hall and wove his way gently towards the Provost's Lodgings, past the library. A thunderstorm was in progress, and as he passed the library a bolt of lightning struck one of the carved stone eagles which decorated the roof. It detached itself from the fabric of the building and plummeted into the lawn.

Fnord stared at it for a while, then concluded he'd better tell someone. Turning around with difficulty, he wobbled all the way to the porter's lodge and tapped on the glass to attract the night porter's attention.

"Good evening your grace."
"Th'librarary eagle. 'Sh flown off the roof. Whoosh!"
"Yes of course it has, sir. Shall I get someone to take you back to your lodgings?"
"Nonononono - y'don't undershtand. Eagle. On liberarary roof. 'Sh f***ing flown orff."

The conversation apparently went in circles for some time before His Lordship gave up and went off to sleep face down in a flower bed. He was vindicated on the morrow, however.