Christmas Day Comes Earlier and Earlier

I know this is a little premature, but if I don't do it now I'll probably forget.

(Originally posted on TOP last year)

Christmas Day

It's Christmas time
 a time of cheer,
for presents and food
 and dad drinkin' beer.

Broken new toys,
 wrapping paper still on the floor,
a visit from those neighbours,
 the ones you don't like anymore.

Mum in the kitchen,
 strugglin' with the lunch,
trying to prepare food,
 for the whole bleedin' bunch.

Dad's on the bog,
 with a can of Newkie Brown,
lukkin at his Sun calender,
 n he don't mind that it's upside down.

The 'outlaws' arrive,
 around about two,
and all they can do,
 is complain about you.

At the table it's said,
 the turkey is dry,
the sprouts are too soft,
 and you just want to cry.

Then back to the telly,
 to see the Queen,
cos she speaks the bestest
 english what's ever been.

Around about six,
 there's more food on the table,
and we all start eating
 as much as we're able.

later on,
 lunch time sprouts play their part,
as adults sip wine
 and secretly fart.

Over at last,
 you sip your brandy
n tell your ol' man
 forget bein' randy!

Off to bed,
 straight to sleep,
all that hard work,
 and not one 'thank you' peep.

German For Runaways

The title is, of course, a pun which maybe only Germans will understand.

It refers to the German phrase "Deutsch für Fortgeschrittene" which means 'German for advanced students', but 'fortgeschrittene' could also mean someone who has run off, hence German for runaways.

Now that has been explained (it has little to do with this tale, but I thought it was worth a mention as I have at least one German reader), I shall tell you of mornings encounter with two German students that we (my client and I) bumped into as we left the cafe after our morning ritualistic latte.

"Excuse me" said a thickly accented voice. "Do you know where I find Charles Street please?"

I recognised the accent as being German straight away.

"Yeah", I replied. "Follow this road all the way to the third traffic light then turn right. At the next set of lights, turn left. Go straight over the following set of traffic lights and it will be the next right after that."

Easy.


He 'sanked' me very much and turned to go, whereupon his colleague said "Was hat der blödmann gesagt?"*


This rattled my cage big time!

As they started to walk away I shouted "Moment mal!"*

They both turned towards me. The student that had asked for directions was grinning. His friend looked decidedly shell shocked, as if he'd just been caught with his fingers in the cookie jar.

" 'Der blödman' ist gar nicht so doof wie du denskst, mein fruend. Du solltest etwas vorsichtiger sein. Jetzt verpiss dich, aber schnell".*

I don't have very many opportunities to use my German and, over time it's become a little rusty, but I really enjoyed that moment and the look on that guy's face.

* Translations


Was hat der blödmann gesagt?            =  what did the idiot say?
Moment mal                                             =  Just a moment
Der blödman' ist gar nicht so doof 
wie du denskst, mein fruend.                =  The idiot isn't as stupid as you think,  my friend 
Du solltest etwas vorsichtiger sein.     =  You should be a bit more careful.
Jetzt verpiss dich, aber schnell.            =  Now Fu%& off very quickly.

The Elephant On The Roof!

We decided, my client an I, that an elephant jumping from the roof of a six storey building would make a very big splash on the road below.

We also decided that we would not like to be in the clean up crew that had to deal with it.

At the time we were eating bacon sandwiches in a small cafe just up a side street of a welsh coastal village.

I no longer remember how we, in our minds that is, managed to get the elephant on the roof or why we would want it to commit suicide, but somehow we did.

I remember my client had just told me about a row over a cup of tea and the ownership thereof.  There were words, the tea was spilled and, for a while, he and a friend stopped speaking to one another.

Then suddenly .... there was an elephant and it was on the roof about to jump.

But how we got to that point is a mystery to me. I must have dozed off!

When working with people with learning difficulties, you have to be ready for sudden changes in conversational direction.  A degree of mental agility equal to that of a gymnast is required in order to keep pace at times.

One moment, as was the case recently, I would find myself discussing the benefits of a nice cup of tea on a cold day, only to have the topic of conversation change in mid sentence to election manifestos and why none of the major parties include a policy of 'being more helpful to people who have lost their train ticket'.

You never see the changes coming ... but you have to try to react as if they are normal when they do.
You have to make the flow from one subject to another seem .... well, seamless, and although you may think the conversation you are having is illogical and disjointed, you have to remember that to your client it is all logical, well thought through and in need of being said.

Meanwhile, back on the roof, the elephant is still teetering on the edge.

I have to admit that I made no attempt to talk the elephant down to safety as our topic had already been changed to the subject of buses (why do they have to go down narrow lanes?) and had moved on to post offices (why is the government closing them all?).

I wonder if the elephant is still up there?