Scotland v New Zealand: the inside story

My Old Man pulled rank (I don't know over whom) and got himself box seats for the Scotland - New Zealand game. Sitting right behind Graham Henry and the coaching staff, these are a few of the choice lines he overheard. Great stuff.

In all seriousness, I was proud of the boys and they fronted up well. All about Italy anyway, and I'm not sleeping at night over that one. Vamos Escocia!

Graham Henry, on Paterson's 'injury' after 20 minutes.
GH, to Steven Hansen, defensive coach: "Ah, what's this? Right boys, heads up... Looks like Paterson's coming off. And they're putting on... Parks at 10. All right, Steveo, you can have the rest of the day off."

Paterson, speaking to Taylor, regarding his 'injury', showing his experience:
"Didny fancy this lark, Si, y'know? These boys are muckle, and I'm slower than their hooker. So I look up and see Parks wi a smug grin on his puss, and I think, Right, Parks, you think yer gonna start against the muppets and the minnows, see how you like this? Next tackle. Brought the big yun doon nae bother. Och, ahh, ma leg - he he - I'm off after 20 minutes. How do you like those apples, Aussie boy?"

Hadden, to big Jason.
FH: Why do I not recognise that winger, Jas? That Number 11...?
BJW: Er, our winger, Frank?
FH: Ay, he looks familiar...
BJW: Ah, that's Nikki Walker, Frank.
FH: Christ! Walker? Wit's he doin' here?
BJW: Ah, well, that's what a lot of us were wonderin, to be honest, but we were too embarrassed to say anything...
FH: Och, wit have I dun?

Hadden, to physio Stephen Mutch, re Marcus Di Rollo (pictured above, middle, crouching, trying to keep his head on his shoulders):
FH: Should we take Marcus off?
SM: Scotland physio: Ah. If you like? Why, he's having a stormer.
FH: He's got a hell of a swellin' ti his heed!
SM: Er, I think that's just Marcus' heed, Frankie.
FH: Jeez, Lord, poor lad, poor lad. Best leave him on then. Jeez...

Hadden (on Southwell's heroic effort to stop a human battering ram with 10 yards of steam in the shape of Tony Woodcock from scoring from point blank range:
FH: Ow.

On the clash of strips (which was ridiculous).
Girl: How can you tell which team has the ball? They're wearing the same colour.
Boy: Can you see the ball?
Girl: Yes.
Boy: That's New Zealand.
Girl: And if Scotland has the ball.
Boy: It means New Zealand have just scored.

Where do you think you are, Norway?

Trying to be a good father to be, I innocently asked in the Primary how many days Paternity Leave you got in Argentina.

Ninety days, I was told.
But, are you sure...
Yes.
For Paternity leave...
Aah!! (Pause while whole staff room collapses into laughter). None! Paternity leave! Where do you think you, Norway?

Turns out I actually get 2 days. So there.

I got almost this exact reaction again the other day. We´ve just moved house (another entry to follow, but man it´s nice), and I was concerned that two days before I moved in there were no light fittings yet in the unfurnished flat. So I asked at school.

Er, should I expect light fittings in an unfurnished flat in Argentina?
(Pause to allow for Where do you think you are, Norway? types of laughter to die down). Fortunately, someone nice ´explained´.
Some landlords are now including them as an incentive to tenants.

So we went to buy some lights fittings.

New world order

I have four days before the notional World Cup Final on Sunday, Scotland v New Zealand at Murrayfield. This gives me only four days to bask in the glory of back to back Scottish victories (not to mention the football), making two mighty rugby nations looks like minnows.

With New Zealand on Sunday I can only say the following. Carter is a poor man's Parks, McCaw is like an old Hogg, Webster a quicker Rokocoko, Lamont brothers? A pair of Jonah´s... Ah, it´s going to be marvellous.

Good morning

"Good morning school. You will see that a small nest has appeared. (Points to nearby tree.) It is there. Let's all do our best to make sure it remains alone. Thank you. Any other notices? No? Then have a good day."

Deputy Headteacher's address to the school this morning at our daily 'Flag Ceremony'.

Parenthood

Women say:
"Ahhhhh! Oh my God, that's AMAZING. How long? Boy or girl? How long have you known..." and so on. As a gender study, it's a pretty revealing one. This reaction is pretty similar whether it's a colleaguette who had never previously spoken to me before, or a Primary 6 class.

Men say one of the following:
Argentine men, standard joke: "Do you know who the father is? Six week, eh - I remember meeting a Scottish girl around then..."
British guys: Radio silence,
And Pricey sent the above sketch.

Palermo Parques

The difference in life here when the sun is out is incredible. For example, we've had three days of grey drizzle that would have your hardened Glaswegian wondering why the sky was so low. Why is that when all you see is grey you find it impossible to think of anything to do other than throw yourself out of the window.

So here's a reminder, to myself really, of how lovely it is here in the sun. Pictures from a couple of weekends ago, easy cycle to Belgrano and picnic in the parque. Que lindo!

Choripan v Hotdog

Argie's version of the Hotdog is in my opinion a far superior beast to its North America cousin. The boiled mush, the greyish meat; overcompensated by mustard. I could never stomach them.

The choripan is for me a far better beast: beefier, fattier, and saltier; best cooked on the fires of hell. A good guideline: the dirtier the chori stand, the better the chori.

You hear the chori vendors, like the Sirens, calling you from across the parque: Chori chori chori chori... Hmm, sweeter music hath no sound.

France 0 Scotland 1

Oh Lordy, did that just happen?

Ageing

So, I have noticed a few changes recently. These may be because I am married now, they may be because I have turned thirty, they may have been there all along. You tell me, but recently I have started noticing that I do, or have done, following things:

I said ‘Well done’ to a complete stranger, a youngster, after watching him hold open a door for an old lady.

At work, the phrases 'Sonny Jim', 'Young Man' and 'Settle down' are essential parts of my armoury.

I look at weather before deciding what to wear. (A practical decision. Where is my vanity of youth?)

I hardly ever check if my flies are undone. Not because I think it’s a good look, I just don’t think it’s that important.

On Friday night, preparing for what I would have previously described as ‘a big night out’, I made sure both laces were of equal length before tying my shoes. (Katie hates that I wrote that. Me, I think it’s just good sense.)

Also on Friday night, whilst preparing to go out, I turned the volume button to the left.

I actually listened to someone before offering my opinion something.

I 'offered my opinion'. Previously this would have been known as ‘telling them the answer’.

If offered the option of a Happy Hour or a Nap I would momentarily fail to remember the difference.

Ask yourself, when you get home from work, what comes off first: jacket or trousers? Thought so, You too are old.

Fortunately, Latin American culture means that ‘early night’ means 130am and a ‘nap’ is called a ‘siesta’, which is keeping me cooler than frankly I have any right to be.

Oh, and you know that noise you make when you get out of a chair? Well I do.

A corner of Argentina that is forever Scotland

So, disappointed at the lack of interest in the Rugby World Cup at school I decided to abuse my position. I say 'lack of interest': there is a huge amount of interest in Los Pumas, Pichot, Contempomi and 'el sexyman' Hernandez (that really is his nickname) and all of that. But 'interest' in this case is a little more specific. Namely: Scottish.

The catalyst was the horrific sentence offered by one of my Year 6s: ´Sir, who is Chris Paterson?'

So, as we are studying Research Skills at the moment it seemed only right that they should find out as much as they could about ´The Best 22 Rugby players in the World´.

Each student was given a name, starting with Blair and ending with Southwell, and asked to come up with a poster profile of each player. Bless them, we had reached player 16, Scott Macleod, before one of them pointed out that they were all Scottish.

And now I have two Year 6 classes who in their weekly test will be asked: how many tackles Alistair Hogg make during the Six Nations, what is Simon Taylor's height, who is the all time leading scorer in the RWC, and, of course, who is Chris Paterson (the only acceptable answer to that is: Scotland First Choice Fly Half)?

Posters up on the wall. Not a Puma in sight. There is now a corner of some foreign field that is forever Scotland.

I am old because they are young

It doesn't seem that long ago, to quote a famous man's words, that the toughest decision you had to make was 'shirt or t-shirt' on a night out. Now all sorts of grown up things are happening. I find myself in a philosophical frame of mind. Where did that time go?

It’s exacerbated by my job, and particularly by my timetable. In London I taught almost exclusively A level. Those people were 18. A mere 11 years younger than me. My wee bro is 21. By my Maths that makes me 3. But now I teach Primary. Those little things are TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER than me. Do you know how weird that is? I asked them today what age you become 'old'. They agreed, pretty quickly, on 'thirty'. I pushed them for an reason, and they said: 'Cause you can't really do stuff like run anymore.'

So, I thought I would try to compile my own list of things that get better and worse as you get older, and some signs to look out for. Watch this space.

Black Tuesday. Rant.

Dark morning, overcast, humid as hell suddenly and sleepy from too many car alarms. Bus muggy, arrived late.

Assembly on 'Community Service'. Two minutes in the room was collectively entering hypnosis. I could only concentrate by sweepstake betting with the person next to me on which kid would fall asleep/lose consciousness first. Turns out it was a dead heat between the girl in Year 9 and EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ROOM.

I swear I could feel my heart rate slowing.

So, man wth microphone rambles on for TWENTY FIVE MINUTES, ruining the chance that ANYONE would ever want to do ANYTHING for the community again. Spanish collegue leans over: 'Are you understanding this?' I shake my head. She looks jealous, 'Enjoy that.'

It takes a certain arrogance to be THAT DULL for that long. And I'm free Lesson 1. Or I was. 15 minutes left, barely enough time to do anything useful. Curse Community Idiot.

Lesson 2 in Library, destroyed by loud irritating class whose teacher wouldn't even tell her students to be shut up.

Lesson 3 and 4, dull, though mostly my fault. Lesson 3 I had a teacher observing. She taught them last year. There are 24 of them, and clearly it would be impossible not to greet and kiss EVERYBODY before you enter the room; that would be just rude. Glad I planned for an hour and wrote a tightly timed lesson. Lesson 4 taught in dark, dank room with brown curtains like an old woman's hair.

Lunch. First 30 mins, stopped in to Admin. Found out our flat has 'fallen through'. Wonderful. Landlord has apparently sniffed that some English speakers are renting and uped the rent by 20%. Boludo!

Arrive late for lunch: food cold, maximum possible noise in the canteen. One empty table, thank the Lord: I can sit on my own like a loser and relax without having to talk and silently fume about the flat. About to enjoy my food, I look up and the originator of this disasterous day - the Community Service guy - takes a place. And he speaks English. So I get the ENTIRE torturous assembly for a second time, and, though I would have thought this impossible to believe this morning, it is even more dull in English.

Lesson 5: Primary. The little monkeys are trying on their outfits for the school play today. So obviously their Mummies have all come to look at them. Every time I look up during the lesson there's another Mummy at the window asking if they can just borrow little Manuelito for a momentito. Rolling subs of a lesson. Only the town orphan makes it through the lesson uninterrupted.

Spanish meeting. One hour: at no point are their less than two people speaking, at no point is anyone speaking English. Which is fine, but made my response to the question, 'Doug, what do you think?' slightly monosyllabic.

Toys out the pram, I phone for a remise (taxi) to bring the day to a close.

End of Black Tuesday, end of rant.

Bees

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I spent the whole of lunch talking to a fellow teacher about bees.

No, it wasn't, it was fascinating. It turns out that bees are amazing, and here's why, in 5 easy to remember facts.

1. Your average honey bees lives for about 2 months.
2. A queen bee, genetically identical to its honey bee brothers and sisters, lives for 6 YEARS, simply due to it's uber-organic royal jelly diet.
3. Honey bees become alcoholics (but they never smoke).
4. Hive politics: on occasion, a hive will rebel against the queen bee, and breed and feed up a rival queen bee II. When queen bee II is big and strong, there is a mutiny, and the most dominant set of bees forces the other out. (And you can bet your ass there is then one hell of a hive party.)
5. Bees are not allowed to travel to the United States as stipulated in the Patriot Act.

Good, eh? And you're still dining out on your 'bees-can-only-sting-you-once-cause-they-die-when-they-sting-you-oo-but-they-can't-tell-anyone-cause-they're=already-dead' knowledge. Shame on you.

So the next time somebody snooty tries to get one up on you in the workplace based on their superior bee knowledge, that's apis florea, by the way, hit them with some of these learnings.

And yes, no 3 is almost completely true. Google it.