Actually, the half-shaven Libyan loon has a lot to answer for, in Tefl terms. You see, he alone is the man responsible for Sandy's return to the blogosphere. Were it not for 'Go-Go' Gaddafi's ill-fated act of careless judgement in machine-gunning a few entirely innocent Libyans a couple of weeks back, Sandy McManus would still be shuffling around an oil-field in one of Tefl's least glamorous locations.Anyway, I am, however, extremely happy to pass on the wonderful news that I somehow did manage to extricate myself from that grim and grimy oilfield in the south-east of Libya, a veritable 'detention centre' that I unwillingly referred to as 'home' for more than three months. Quite how I managed the awesome feat of escapology I refuse to divulge, but Fitzroy MacLean would have been mightily proud of me, I'm sure.
Fact is, the situation there was REALLY grim - I was in real danger of dying of complete boredom. No internet, no booze, and only the muffled gruntings of cute Libyans being 'friendly' with the foreigners to remind me of how coarse the simple act of copulation could be. It would be putting it very mildly to say that I felt left out - alienated, more like it.
And when I get home, I see the Daily Mail shrieking 'MY NIGHT OF HELL!' - too right, mate! In fact, the biggest real news there was that we had an intermittent supply of eggs for a few days. Yes, no eggs. Oh, and a complete lack of drug-crazed black-african desperadoes in hard-hats intent on loot/murder/rape etc., skanking their way through the compound a-robbin-an-a-shootin. I tell you, man - it was TOUGH!
Okay, some dodgy stuff actually did happen - there were a few alarms and even the odd snippet of gunfire, in the distance - but that was days ago, and the end result was ... nothing of any significance at all. In fact, all this crap about a bunch of Ross Kemp types swinging in through windows and kicking open doors is totally bewildering, like sending in the SAS to unblock your drains.
So, the only thing that HM Government really needs to do is hang on for another week or so, and then all the expats could probably get a very good introductory deal with the first Easyjet flight to leave the new independent Libya. However, I suppose the prospect of a trip on one of the Royal Navy's last surviving ships will prove irresistible to many Brits.
So I'm back. Hello, hello.
19 comments:
Once Colonel Gadfly is gone, The newly democratic country of Labia will be crying out for English teachers.
So you might get some Course Copulation of your own.
Well done my friend, good to hear you are back and that all is well!
But how did you get out?
Enjoy your eggs
As one ME TEFL bod to another - good to hear you got out, and I'm not surprised the hyperbole in the British rags (particularly the Daily Fail) was inaccurate.
That being said they have to make up stuff when they can only get their info from passengers in an airport, just arrived from Libya.
Enjoy your eggs, beer, life...
Welcome back. There was talk not long ago of sending teachers from our department to Tripoli and Benghazi instead of Libyan sts coming to us. I had no desire to go but economic necessity might have forced it on me. Very glad it didn't happen.
Vilges; did your department mention the lack of distractions, outside of work, in Libya? It's even worse than Saudi, so I hear. A little heads up and advice to bring every DVD/CD/book ebay/Amazon has and will fit in your luggage would make a lot of expats less likely to lose their minds or just quit.
How did I get out? It was surprisingly easy, actually.
I just hitched a ride on a bus that the Filipinos had arranged to take them to the border with Egypt, bribed the guards to give me a transit visa, and then made my way to the airport via public transport. From there I caught a plane back to the UK.
Notice that the Filipinos actually had the balls to do something positive, rather than sit on their arses complaining that their government was doing sweet FA to help them. Because they KNEW their government would do sweet FA to help them!
@Anonymous, no, the lack of distraction was not mentioned but I suspected it would be pretty dreary. No, only utter desperation would get me anywhere near the place.
My stint in Libya a few years ago was also dull as fuck. But I had debts to pay. An excuse probably used widely at Nuremburg.
Glad you're back online, though.
Glad to hear you got out safe and sound there Sandy!
And just be sure PLEASE not to disgruntle the mighty ARCHITRAVE who sits in judgement that you have so foully LAMPOONED : you must be aware that my BOOK "A day out in England" (you may google it) is now published on INTERNET including my observATIONS on castletown, trading guffaws and the ROYAL WAVE.
HA HA who wins now?
"It was unappetising reading for me and I spent a long night tracking the roots of this cancerous growth in all its tendrils and strands as they split off to other sites, blogs, comments and links."
Shouldn't that be "several years unsuccessfully trying to track..."?
Be aware, you WHELK, that cake-based fiction is quite THE COMING THING
OR "fing" as you have in your townie argot
'I've got a way with words...yes...and I'm not giving em back!'
Whooos larfing now chavster, you with yer camel photos or me with my PUBLISHING contract almost on the BLOCKS!!??
Weep you non-spark, weep and beautify the PAX WINDSORAMA with your welkin-resounding oblutions
Ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Here's a taster:
I listened. “Patience” was a small voice in my head appealing to me while a juggernaut of irritation was steaming down the highway of my consciousness and would soon “blow these people away” if they didn’t stop comparing the colour of fucking forms. Aside from anything else one of the colours had ceased to be and the other colour introduced, what blind bit of difference did it make? I thought sarcastically, perhaps they should call for a third opinion and we could all wait another fifteen sodding minutes while they decided if blue or pink was better! A wide ribbon of blue nylon somewhat “contained” the Post Office’s clients, but bulged in parts where the English Language old or young leaned in to it for reasons of being oblivious or mischievous. A really very fat man and an equally fat and “matching” woman stood stolidly like twin-islands of human bulk towards my end of the queue and spoke intermittently. They had both decided at some point in life that certain clothes, haircuts and habits suited their vastness. They each sported an open flapping coat with no detectable hems or fastenings, allowing for maximum freedom of movement. The “fattist” in all of us was to be seen around them, we were sneaking looks in studiously disinterested ways, and momentarily looking ourselves up and down for inner reassurance that we had not let ourselves go in the manner of these Huge Ones. “We”, we told ourselves, had maintained our dignity, were able to walk without wobbling and shuffling, avoiding the mute sneers of others. In the days before “correctness”, we thought to ourselves, we could have been more overt in our judgements. Now all we could do was view oddities like the Huge Ones and then exchange looks with other “normals”. Mind you the high numbers of –at least relatively- fat people had begun these days to take away even this pleasure since almost everyone is, we are told, carrying around sack-loads of dangerous lard strapped to our embarrassing trunks and backsides.
Impressed??
Oh my God, what have I done!!
I wish I'd stayed in Libya now.
Almost.
Part Nine- Crime and Prejudice
The statements were ghastly, really, consisting of a concerted effort to get me to swing. I was certain that a malign email must have done the rounds among those who were out to get me. I didn’t have far to look since their names were all there in black and white. What I figured though was that they were just the tip of a murky iceberg of gits that wanted me out of English Language and probably thought it better if I was dead too. It was amazing I also mused that so many people who I didn’t know and whom I had never met, never would meet, hated me so much.
“It is in the nature of things” opined Mr Vyle, “there is something in all of us that wants to hurt. Much of it can be put down to opinion rather than substantive facts. Some of it though is bound to stick, if you know what I mean?” I knew exactly what he meant.
“No I meant mud Mr (my name)” we try to use, well politer terminology when addressing clients or in court don’t you know?” Again I was struck by his impressions from the hazy, gentlemanly past and said that in the end what it meant was pretty much that I would have the book thrown at me, right?” He didn’t agree, necessarily, he said, and to give him his legal escapologist due, he didn’t disagree either. He was better than any politician I reckoned and made a real art-form out of both not committing himself whilst coming out with one nightmare scenario after another and then saying quickly after it, “But that may not happen of course”. I was no better off when I left him for the last time before I was to be hauled up in front of the beak. But of course there were others to be thought about. There were the various witnesses or witlesses more probably, and they were what really bothered me. They were people that I had met and people who were part of the fabric of English Language. Much worse than this, they were part of the same piece of fabric of English Language. It was matter of annoying one of them and you annoy them all. The fabric was a continuous warp-around, which brought English Language folk in to a close-knit group hug of civic duty. They were eager to cut out any rotten part of their sacred heart and spit it as far away from them as possible. In this example, I was that bad part of the heart and they were plotting to chew me up and spit me out! It was an unappetising thought that haunted me until I met up with Georgina again later that evening in the English Language Wine Bar.
“Next Wednesday” I said gloomily in answer to Georgina’s question. I was in the habit of playing it up with her now because she was a motherly type, underneath, and her sympathy had a wonderful outlet in comforting the needy in ways that I found agreeable and regular. “You poor old thing “ Georgina cooed and put her hand on my leg for moral support. “Shall I come and watch?” now I hadn’t considered this until she asked it now, and I had to think carefully before answering. I didn’t want to offend her but equally I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted her there either.
“Let me think about it” I delayed.
“Okay, let me know”, she said.
She was a great girl with a perfect posterior- I was a lucky guy. Some girls I knew would have bridled the second you didn’t immediately say yes, but Georgie was just so relaxed and didn’t mind either way. Brilliant I thought and forget about it completely and forever. It wouldn’t have been her kind of thing I argued to myself. She was more a part of my good times and this dark day didn’t need to get her down. I just hoped that I would make it back to her comforting arms at the end of the day!
Now that really is a crime.
A subculture had grown up around me and this re-concocted past like slime round a pond. Pond-life from the “web” were multiplying and feeding (in a frenzy) on my flesh. Flesh-eating pond-life had sprung to life, harbouring a death wish for yours truly and everything I stood for. It was unappetising reading for me and I spent a long night tracking the roots of this cancerous growth in all its tendrils and strands as they split off to other sites, blogs, comments and links. The “search engine”, like an enormous power-mad ghoul had given errant human nature mind-blowing powers of destruction over other human beings’ rights to exist. It had set burning a flesh-eating chain of countless poison “bloggers” wearing a thin see-through veil, called “Freedom of Speech”. To all those harmed in a myriad of ways that will never be known. Here was this virginal-seeming goddess of “Free Speech”, strumpeting around defiling the truth with her many sick “lovers”. She was mocking of people’s misery, “cooing” about the “right” to “speak out”, and “the truth, the truth, the truth….”
Yeah, “fuck off love”. I thought, the truth according to whom?
Then, ah yes the truth according to The GooGhoul. I said to myself whatever its merits as a means of getting information, it is an unaccountable, unstoppable, multi-headed monster of greed and hatred. Its liberty to expel any amount of lying shit in to the world denies others their lives. On this battlefield no rules apply and no clear geography exists. Myself, and others like me, are like soldiers sent into battle without armour or weapons. Maps are of no use either, because there is no territory to take. Like threads of smoke, the enemy defies capture and censure. This battle is fought according to The Law of The GooGhoul- a massive obscene “weather system” of shadenfreude. May it die horribly and soon, I thought without hope.
Iss the sand that makes them all angry an' that, I reckon.
I mean 'Omosexuality: you could get nicked for it. Like, you meets a lovely man with eyelashes like a really expensive camel. Then you 'ave to drive off into the desert BUT then push on: ALL the way up Brokeback Mountain. If there's anything that will fookin ruin bummin', iss sand.
But' in Libya them guns is symbols of willies: like Freud said. Gaddafi is shootin' his loads over everyone an' den gettin' a fair few shots back. In his hair. An' eyes. An', later on his lower back. An' up his (tight yet yielding) bum.
Anyway, oil is the key to better anal sex so I'm very pleased you went to the source. I hope you've kept some in reserve.
And also my apologies: if I've used to many colons then please forgive me.
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