And what is that?

And 'that'? That is my brother, Iain.

What is that?

'That' is my brother, Chris.

The question all teens are asking.

Passing notes is an age old practice, helping thousands of bored, naughty or flirtatious school kids get through the last lesson of the afternoon. History was our lesson of choice. And I remember a friend being caught with a round of consequences by our History teacher, who was the star of that particular round.

'Passing notes, are we? Right, read that out, Gardner', he bellow, face reddening.
'Um. You sure, Sir?'
'Read it!'
'Yes, Sir...' His stammering voice betraying the fact that 'Gardner', usually quick witted, was somehow unable to improvise something else as he stared at the hideousness ahead,
'Er, right. Er. Fat Sack (the teacher's affectionate nickname - we all looked up, so if said teacher didn't already know that was his alterego, he did now) meets Brodie (this the name of his colleagues' labrador). 'He says to it, You look lovely tonight...' and so the teeth were drawn. Passing notes was fun. Being caught red handed? Agony.

Even the Sutton hoodies would rather remove their fake tan than read the intimacies being passed around rhe room. In Sutton all sort of venemous filth could be found on the floor before, during or after lessons. Whilst often indecipherable, txtpsk Souf Landan slang, it usually revolved around who was meeting whom in the park.

u goin up t prk l8r?
yeah, u goin?
yeah
wiv Ryan?
yeah
ee iz buff
yeah

And so on until you died of boredom.

But two such notes have found their way into my possession of late.

The context: two tweenager girls who had obviously being neglecting each other and the 'make up note' culminated in the following line. It also signals the moment where two fine languages die. It read: 't-kro 4eva'

t-kro as in txtspk for 'te quiero' meaning, love you. love you 4-e-va.

I know what you're thinking. There isn't enough vomit in the world.

So I opened the second, today's entry, with a feeling of dread. What hideous teenage subculture would this reveal? I confiscated this as a pesky young sprog was surrepticiously passing it to her evil, evil friend. Ha! I've been on to you, young lady, I thought. Now, what devilish mind is at work here? What is the question these teens are asking?

'Now pass that here, thank you,' I said in my finest smug teacher voice. 'Now what exactly is so important, so pressing that you just had to pass it to you little friend at this exact moment, hmm? Hmm?'

Grabing the note, I read: 'Podemos hacer que el sol de la energia?'

'Does this say what I think it says?' I replied.
'Um. I don't know, Sir.'
'Well, what does it say?'
'Um. I was asking: What can we do with the sun's energy? Sir.'

Damn it, I thought.

That would never have backfired in Sutton.

My typical day 0611 - 0815

0611 (Exactly) Neighbors' car alarm goes off. Four bars of bleeping and it stops.

0630 Alarm goes off. Get up. Curse neighbor for costing me 19 minutes of sleep. (That's 115 mins each week, so roughly 34 hours since I arrived And yet if I were to have him killed, they'd send ME to jail.)

0631 Put on espresso maker. Check weather. The weather is: dark.

0632 Shower, shave, resolve to go to bed earlier tonight. British early as in 10pm, not Argie early as in 2am.

0645 Leave shower. Check coffee isn't burning. Get dressed.

0650 Cereal and morning paper. We get the Buenos Aires Herald, which generously and accurately describes itself as 'the best and only English language paper in BsAs'. Generously because it is appalling written, like reading homework or the news on teletext. Accurately because it is the only English language paper.

0700 Finish coffee, feel artificially awake, grab bag, head off to meet the coletivo, the minibus that drags eleven of the teachers from this area to work.

0710 Coletivo arrives: all the Argentines are sound asleep. Put headphones on to distract conversation, sleep behind my eyes.
Preferably listen to Kermode rant about the world as we know it.

0745 Drive past Cerberus through the gates and into the seventh circle.

0800 Flag ceremony. Where the entire school, 300 or so, turn to pay their respects to the national flag. The prefects raise the flag until it stands against the blue sky. Except that the pulley mechanism doesn't really work, so this increasingly tattered rag of a 'bandera' get dragged up the side of the wall.

On Tuesdays, assemblies. These are marvelous things: more on those later, no doubt.

0815 Tutor time. Don't have a tutor group, so photocopy resources etc ready for the day.

Bell rings.

Dwindling Community

Katie and I agree that one of the best things about living here is that you have a genuine little community. Without trying to sound twee, you have your little bakers, butchers and grocers and you spend ages doing your shopping and it's all lovely and hello and how are you. This community extends far and wide - essentially anyone you've ever bought anything from (flower shop, barbers etc) remembers who you are and says hello.

We had this little community until a couple of weeks ago. Key word is 'had'. It's dwindling, for a number of apparantly unconnected reasons. So this, essentially, is the toll of places we can no longer show our faces. Person responsible in brackets. See if you can work out the pattern:

1. The doctor's. (Katie)
We can't go there anymore (which is a freakin tragedy if only becaue they have a Dr Gambacorta, which translates to Dr Short Prawn). No, we can't, because Katie shut her own head in the door.

She was asked to 'come in' to the room, and then she was asked to 'close the door behind you', which she did, forgetting to remove her own head from the doorway first.

And I refuse to go there through association. What a mong.

2. The panaderia. (Katie)
No real fault of ours, but they think we're Mexican. Katie didn't contradict them at the time, and now it's too late and she discusses how life is different here (than en la ciudad de mejico) and how her breathren are mostly working in the States.

3. Bonafide: The Coffee and Chocolate Shop. (Katie)
This was hilarious. First and last visit. This shop is awesome, like something form a Roald Dahl novel. Katie wanders in, chatting away in Spanish as she comments on the wonderous array of chocolates available. 'Oh, this is wonderful... (Turning towards the woman at the till) How on earth do you work in a place like this without eating everyth...? Ah!'

The woman was a monster. And, staring back at Katie, replied:
'I do.'

Agonising pause.

'That is why I am so fat.' (Pictured above)

So, best shop in Argentina now also off the list, but I reckon it's almost worth it. It's the weekend now, so doubtless I can update you on another one soon.

Bread.

Back in Buenos Aires after two initially mental and eventually blissful weeks in Blighty. Ah, Blighty. The land of rain, floods, cider over ice, traffic, good curry, road rage, outrageously expensive petrol, drunkeness and dreadful R&B: my new definition of a 'chav' is one who rhymes the word 'umbrella' with the word 'together'.

Or, on the positive side: sense of humour, great village pubs, cricket, good newspapers, good coffee, Jelly Babies, festivals, Mark Kermode, Cornwall... not to mention family and friends.

But it is surprisingly nice to be back, with a bit of tennis yesterday in the sun, 18 degrees and blues skies in the middle of winter, and another week before we go back to work.

A bit sleepy with jetlag last night, we decided to hire a movie. At the checkout, we collected our movie and were given a little biscuit, and a loaf of bread. 'Promotional offer', the lady said, as if that explained something.

Freakin' bizarre country.

Rain

So, this was on Day 3 in Buenos Aires. Monsoon rains towards the end of summer.

I woke to insane rain but having packed only the essentials, I had no waterproofs.

Fortunately, the shower curtain hadn't been put up in the flat, so I wrapped myself in that and got on with it.

Three blocks to where the bus picks us up. Ridiculous looking, but dry...