A Cleaner in a Foreign Land- A polish refugee’s tale of translation from the untranslatable.

Magda was lost.

Just two days earlier her cousin Brtyk ,correctly pronounced Brtyk, had accidentally impregnated her and, offering his apologies, had suggested she flee to the promised land- England, to pay for her mistake.

Now she was facing a door with an incomprehensible drawing of a man, and had just ben sympathetically removed from the opposite room with the drawing of a woman. The man nervously ushering her out had kept repeating the word that her cousin had advised her to use in all emergencies repeatedly -'sorry'.

Holding her imported sheepskin bag and clutching her prized nutrition, a bottle of Vasyk Vodka, she put on her best refugee smile and ambled to the moist-eyed Englishman at the passport counter.

As she signed her name with a well-practiced 'x' under the 'I have been beaten repeatedly to a pulp' box she breathed a quick Hail Mary and rushed to the dark, eager-looking man beside the taxi before anyone could see the Jeffrey Archer novels in her bag and arrived just in time to whip out her 'slightly dented' refugee look.

True to her cousins' warning, she repeatedly used her minimal vocabulary. The taxi driver, noticing her sheepskin and thinking her to be of oligarchic descent, urged her unto the vehicle and quickly locked the doors before she could escape. Smiling to herself in deep simplicity Magda looked up to the rain and saw little queens floating down from the sky.

She was on her way to earning her first hourly pound..

A Song Too Far - A woe betided tale of a Jamaicans' over enthused larynx.

'Ye who enter, shut it' - so read the unwritten sign on the entrance to the evaporation room.

It was known to all, that this room was for breathing and sweating. Yes, occasional bouts of machoistic conversations were allowed, even encouraged, a rhetorical results query such as 'watch the match today?' was sometimes quietly applauded. But no, no, no - to rampantly chatter or sing was heresy.

It was recounted once of a Chilean immigrant who had entered whistling an old caustic refrain; they had strung him to the evaporator so that he could 'sing now'.
Another Saudi had decided to chant to Allah- blessed be he mid-morning; he never mounted a camel again.

Thus, in keeping with the law of the non escaping goat, it was inevitable for another to be strung.

And so it was on the 5th day of the week, as Samuel H Rousta entered the maze of water, it dawned upon him a tune and what a tune! ‘Three blind mice’, ooh he must 'av earrd it laast in kiingston'.

Throatily he cleared his pipe hole, and readied himself for his performance.

James T Hogby, had had a particularly doursome day.

Middle management had given him a real gooly twisting about the state of the centre. As he traipsed past the lockers near the steam room, he tripped, fell and heard the song three blind mice, as sung by his abusive stepdad whilst on the whipper.

This version was also in no particular key and emanated in a trebly wheezing voice.

Enough, said James, Enough he even screamed, and crawled over to the non-assuming Caribbean gentleman. 'Ouuuuut' he shrieked, as Samuel cowered from the white settler.

Once more in exile, once more 'byy dee riivers of..'

Alas poor Yochi he did not know me well

I have a good pupil. Any scholarly educator would probably laugh, say 23 hail Mary's, and then proclaim me a sayer of falsehoods for saying these words. But I can, I can. Usually…

Yochi, short for Yerachmiel,Solze, Reuven, Dovid, and Jacob for good measure, is a good kid. He clears his toys, brushes his remaining molars and giggles at squirrels.

Always a pleasure. I dumdidum as i knock on his door with brisky joy. 'Huullo'. A pokerfaced weener stares up at me,sucking.

"Bob...bob...bob...bob…BOOOOB THE BUILDER CAN HE FIX IT"... I jump… It seems this weener's automobile has an Asian sound system, the one where the driver has no brain, coz the bass has removed it whilst he plays the look 'no hands' game with his mates like the weener, only the bus heading towards his doesn't say 'Fisherprice' on its side it says National Exp…BOOM.

Anyway,bob, bob, bob, bob… BOOOB, ok,ok. I decide to kick my way past the weener with the glandular dysfunction, crushing bobs skull on the way. He'll never sing again.

The keyboard is in the adjoining room and I sit idly, perceiving a rogue hair on my arm, whose impertinence is making me re-consider its swift execution. Mid-execution Yochi walks in with a look of bafflement at the sight of a teacher, knee on the keyboard shouting ' OUT YOU PIECE OF SH…MALTZ, OUT'.

I calm Yochi with a soothing lulllaby as he rocks back and forth whispering chassidic nonsense; the melody is ' A little boy from Bethlehem'. After another fit and various euphoric hymns, we get on with the lesson. But as we progress I notice a strange whiff in the air, I check the baby; its not him. Its not that smell anyway I realize. It's alcohol. I ask Yochi if he had booby, 'Nooo'.he slurs. Glorious,he's 8 and p***ed out of his mind.

I decide to take advantage of the situation in a legal manner.

'Play me Chopin's concerto in D flat minor'.

’Tihihihi nonono’.

'Now play me a Beethoven nocturne, any you want'

'Whatsha whatsha ho notchurn’.

Now it’s my turn to break. After I've finished with my high Ha's and many, many Hi’s, and my tear duct is as dry as a Saharan well, I call the police. They're busy, ah well. Back at the party Yochi is conducting an experiment. He would like to discover the full capacity of his left nostril by taking a… oh no... party's over.

Mrs Yochi walks in. I explain fervently that part of the classical methodical training involves nostril stretching, particularly the left one as it is good for a child's development. Those two words have done wonders for me in previous parental inquisitions and this time is no exception. Like a shake of a wand, she disappears into the night and I'm a free man, able to enjoy Part 2 of my evenings entertainment, the right nostril.

Alas, Poor Young Man, He Meant Well

'Please refrain from touching the exhibits, Please refrain from touching the exhibits, Please refrain from touching the exhibits' …

So sounded the increasingly angry-sounding  voice mechanism as a middle aged man, bored with life, prodded the explosive looking mechanism at the Imperial war museum.

His wife, outside the blocked of area, was enigmatically motioning for him to follow, pertaining that we’re-going-now-and-we-don’t-care-about-your-middle age-crisis with her eyes.

The purpose of my visit was a Holocaust conference, at which numerous la-di-da type characters would be present, me being the exception of course. I mentioned to the security guard all hmph-like that I - 'ynow am attending the..ahem conference' … he saw straight through my act and instead of addressing me as guvnor or the gentleman he called me his mate and pointed a waning finger somewhere north. After i had finished careering around the 1st floor like a Iranian nuclear test missile, I bumped into a cardboard guy waving with a funny short moustache and a quiff and thought, ah, this must be it.

Gently sidling in through the doorway I nearly managed to avoid any late-attention. Unfortunately, i had managed to involuntarily make the acquaintance of an idiot…who bumbled his way in tripping over the samsung YH1000 projector wire thereby cutting off Mr Wiesel’s nephew mid-sermon and seriously irritating a number of attendees who grinned and ok'd in much feigned amusement.

After the presentation was over, it was decided that people should make their way to the coffee and tea where they should ooh and ahh at each other, which they did, and quiet professionally. I decided to ooh  with an author of supposed famed repute, a veteran ahher by all accounts, chap named Bill Knight.

I looked at his Tag; it said 'Bill Knight'. He looked at mine, and kept on looking. You see, although i was, on the list, it seemed i wasn't poloi enough to have my own tag. So I scrawled one meself.

Knight kept staring languidly, then gave up and said 'so… Aurom'.

I am a fairy liquid, I didn't say.

'Yes'.

'What..who..err. What are you?'

I thought about the answer for a bit, long enough for him to turn and stare at the 'Security' sign at the end of the room.

'I'm a student, a student' I hurried.

‘Aha,aha’  the paranoiac story plotter inside him wasn't really convinced, so I gave him a cookie and a minstrel to calm him. We spoke at length about this and that and when he was satisfied i was no Hezbolla agent he let me go play.

A tall woman, with a short no-messing hairdo, and a definitely-messing-around-because-my-husband-is-oblivious top, got up and spoke about shoes. I like my shoes, so I was quite interested. However, the young man beside me was the short, bald, I’m an intellectual and EVERYONE must know me type and he salivated at every opportunity to address everyone about himself.

The woman did not like anyone else talking. So she told him that first of all he may be right but he was wrong, and didn't really get the second-of-all as there didn't seem to be any. So he looked elsewhere for comfort. His teacup.

I saw him continue to mount sugar into his teacup until it resembled Mount Harari, there was no stopping the sugar-capped PG tip, but the young man, now fully immersed in researching his next academic advert, did not see the tip become Vesuvius. I did, but for the sake of light entertainment, I kept shtum.

‘Woowoowo’ I bowowed like a war mongering Indian just in time before Vesuvius became Pompei. Sadly the shock was too much for the young man, and PG Pompei erupted.

Short excerpts from the Confessions of an Aggrieved teacher

It was raining out. 

Drip,drip. Fuck, Man it was pisssssing it down. 8pm. I was late. Fuck. Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. That helped. I looked at my watch. Fuck. Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. And walked to the rhythm. A child had called, a little cretin of a whelp, saying he wanted 'lethons', get some teeth.

I could hear his dad in the background, breathing like an overweight frog, urging him on in his first TELEPHONE conversation, while I fucked around trying to make out what the little brat was saying.

'Sooo would you like some lessons then?'

'Say yes Andrey, say yes' papa urged now in deep elated frog breath.

'Oook tuesday 8.30 it is'

I managed to squeeze in 'you little prat' just after slamming my finger on the red button.

And here I was, body and soul, urging to whack something, waiting to teach some little goon named Andi. The idiot-frog opened the door.

 'Halooo…'

 I didn't share the enthusiasm although I had to present it.

After all the niceties and traditional offspring parading had been over and done with, I politely
escorted the patriarch frog out of the room as he babbled incoherently about this and that Andi achievement. I told Andi to open the book. He said 'yup'. This puzzled me as he had not used that adverb before. 'Yup' he repeated perkingly. I could not control this dog.

I pushed his fingers roughly on the d string. 'Play', I said roughly. He looked at me fearfully. I looked at him menacingly, and gnarled. 'No CLOSE your hand'

'Yup!'

I could not take this for long. My eyes averted to a thin knife then to his dad and the tenner his hand cradled. I would have to deal with this later.

I decided then to treat him as a new specie, and in my next lessons much would be learnt about how to control this particular breed. As I left the house I said 'see you next week'?
Yup Fucking, yup.

Blade on a C

Today, I rollerbladed to my lessons. And not out of choice. My Black beauty, my amour,my combustion joy was ripped from my heart by two Umbro garbed ferrets who hopefully slipped and died whilst peppering cannabis on their omelettes.

I arrived unpromptly to my first lesson at exactly 7.38. The pupil in question was a small, goggle-sporting talking mannequin. Let's call him goggles.

We sat down, and he began mannequin-like tinkering the keys whilst I dozed off. Then whilst playing a lullabying f# he turn around to me and with a smile of mirthful insolence said " Has your motorbike been stolen?"

I turned around and slapped him, not once but twice, mainly for insubordinance.

I wish. I turned around and lightly tapped the keys saying quietly "go on". He saw my fingers shake and decided to carry on.  I resumed my sleepy demure when suddenly out of the corner of sleepy eye 1 I spotted something move on the couch, it looked like a towel. I pinched myself then pinched goggles to check I was still awake, and then the towel wailed. I got up and started to encircle the couch thinking I had gone cuckoo due to my bereavement.

I touched the towel to see if it would bite, and it did, whilst the camouflaged foundling behind it snickered at its combative utility.

Twas a babe, just a babe. I turned around to check on goggles and found him examining the C to check if it was indeed, a C.

Harry Potter Hollow’d Heads

Lorraine was revealed to me at a friends do. And a revelation it was. If you can imagine long raven black hair, a perfect smile, languorous brown eyes, and a pretty pear shaped chin. No? Ah well. She was staring at me, because I was staring at her and we'd decided to keep our eyes fixated to see who would give up first, that’s what attracted me to her aside for the raven hair ect ect. She was a competitive one.

I approached her and gave her the old 'how youuu doin' only the 'you..' was cut short by the old 'cut the crud and state your business'. She was feisty this one. And I liked it. We discussed various philosophical issues, and when that didn’t work, because she was a girl, we moved on to films which did work and got me on the fast lane to the cinema question.

I told her I’d pick her up at 7, and picked her up at 8, to make her understand I wasn't an easy cookie to chew but quite a pleasant one, once you got to the chocolate chips. The rain poured outside and as I arrived I gave her a cursory nod; after I had adjusted the radio for a few minutes, I let her in. I faffed with whatever I could faff with whilst she shivered, and then I let her have it. I threw my ego at her from all sides, me this, I that, in short I moi'd till I was purple. That certainly warmed her up. After a long moi'ing session, we lay back exhausted, had a post-egus cigarette and serenely admired each other in wearied adulation. I murmured 'I love you, loving yourself' she cooed 'I’ve fallen for your love, of yourself'. We had decided on watching the film about the geek with the scratch who defies all other geeks, and is good at shaking a wand.

The man at the office scrutinized me closely as I over nonchalantly told him I was a student, and did some more scrutinizing after looking at my rather expensive looking (yet inexpensive) watch. He asked us what film we want to see,

'Harry potter, MAN'…

Immediately he began beaming at us like an S.O.S signal on coke

'Ooh cool dude'.

Yess. I'd decrypted the student code. We bought slush puppy’s that tasted more like Grand retrievers and entered the cinema, choosing a seat as far away from the yobbo make-out station at the top. After making ourselves comfortable, I started sipping. At first it was just a sip, sip, sip. Then the sipping started to get mushy and it developed into a shhhhhip, shhhhhhip.

' WHO'S F***N SHHIPPIN?' boomed a strong Salfordian voice from the cinema make out yard.

'IF I HEAR ANOTHER SHHIP..' the threat could not be completed, as he had overused the department required for speech.

I was perturbed by the chutzpah of this chap. But everyone seemed to be impressed, and the row at the back decided to break out in cacophony of violent remarks about the shhhip offender, which made me tremble slightly. Lorraine was already under the seat.

'Lyyyynch 'im', came a particularly shrill sounding voice from the back. Luckily the fire was doused by the credits rolling on, and a tattooed potter fan with glasses shouted 'POTTEEER' who followed his words by a warning glance to whoever was interesting in following his cat call.

The film finished, I woke up. I shook Lorraine. We sidled out, so as not to be recognized by the zealous Orcs. After strolling around the corner I realised I required, so I calmly informed Lorraine I was going to the toilets, and that no Orcs would kill her whilst I was about my business. As I walked out after finishing my business I recited the after the business prayer; unfortunately as I was doing so, I happened to be staring fixedly into a tattooed guy who, immediately recognizing a hex, impulsively reached for his wand.

How Two wrongs Can Make a Right

After trotting through the desert a few score years, pretty dehydrated, and tired, we received our Bible. We called the day we got it a name, Shavuot.

A few thousand years later my front suspension was recovering from the cheese blintz I'd eaten on that festival, and I was cursing the bloody Americans for adding obesity to my already stretched Jewish holiday requirement.

My destination on this day was a learning session organized by a local kiruv organisation and I was in the mood for controversy.

A little man with a little beard and large spectacles was sitting awaiting some new customers, he was shuffling some sheets nervously upon which he had scribbled, there is a G-d, there is a G-d.  

Next to him sat Philip. He was going to break him.

Philip, is an interesting gentleman, of mixed Irish, South African and G-d knows what descent, he was brought up to have an attitude of total scepticism towards any clerical authority whatsoever, even from his own religion.

Philip sports orangey hair oval spectacles, and a constant scowl, sometimes he smiles.

On this rare occasion, Philip seemed to have been blessed with a partner. I bounced to the table eagerly and the Rabbi beamed, Philip frowned.

'Lets talk about Shavuot', said the Rabbi.

I nodded.

'Hrmph', said Philip

'We all know that there must have been a reason for us to receive commandments…'

We tensed.

'Its like a marionette..' Oops.

'Nononono' muttered Philip, head bent and shaking in frustration.

'It not like a marionette.'

The Rabbi looked up concernedly and then checked his sheets, they hadn’t told him this about this customer.


I decided to put some sugar in the stew.

'It's like the matrix' I cooed.

Philip grinned.

'Ah yes the matrix', said the Rabbi. 'I've heard of that example before'.

Ooooh.

I began explaining the ins and outs of Morpheus and his comrade Neo as the Rabbi earnestly looked with puzzlement and Philip giggled.

'Neo wants to marry the girl, but is mixed by a sense of conflict about saving the world'.

I tried hard to hold myself, but the seams in my mouth, they burst, and out flowed a barrage of rubbish, which Yoshke would be ashamed of.

Philip at this point was rocking back and forth on his chair and was getting commenting stares from all sides, of which he didn’t care. He was in his element.

I decided to end it by finishing as Philip was choking on his Laffy Taffy.

'So you see, the pill WAS blue… and the right one..'

The Rabbi stared emptily. G-d forgive me.

Memoirs of a moose chapter 4

At this sombre point between the brink of forever lost innocence and escape to freedom in the rainy dark and murky streets of Leeds the choice was quite an obvious one. Nonetheless, to enlighten his intrigue of the secret, guarded goings on in 6+ female households the committed unsteady step was taken.

Let me stop here for a moment to reflect, my dear eager readers, on the previous pursuing’s and cooing’s of our dear character moose. By all means a charming and pleasant woman to behold, the moose was deeply affected by the non-reversible affliction of RTS otherwise known as repeated text sending.

She would not, could not release her finger off that dreaded x key. By night sleep, by day text. On some nights Avrom would be unexpectedly roused by the mindless tremor of his communication device followed by the squinted perception of innumerable x's on his screen - the mark of the moose.

On other occasions, whilst in the midst of a deep reverie of tantalising musical expression he would be jolted into reality by the roving creatures unpeaceful messages. There were times also, when the adhesive leech would ring and he would try to squeeze out a few drops of ego boostage which could be compared to squeezing the last droplets of Heinz ketchup from a large glass bottle.

Upon releasing the answer button she would launch into a lengthy tirade of her leeching problems with her camel friend "oh, but this hump is slippery, oh but that hump is unsteady": to put it mildly she attempted to learn from him what a Camel somewhere in Arabia had upon its mind.

But, dear eager readers, I digress with this tale of the moon and Mooses' tale must go on...

Chapter 2 ‘Leeches Territory ’ Rated R

Avrom slunk back in the leeches nail-bitingly female dominated mode of transport.

He was doomed.

He knew all too well, as he saw the leech peering closely at him in the moose-encompassing rear-view mirror that this was not going to be a light skip in the simple minded park of female courtship. Ohh no. This was the new and improved Mark II model, the ultimate Jewish manhood numbing female.

He reached cautiosly into his pocket and pretended to flick sullenly through his missed-call text messages. This was a ploy. A ploy which to his chauvinistic disbelief turned very sour. Moose shrieked into his ear, meaning to sound soft and womanly  but sounding like a bitch being repeatedly humped for non reproducing purposes - from the wildly averted corner of his eye she seemed to be a moose on heat.

He murmured something feverishly in a wild desperate moment which fell on completely club-deafened ears as the beastly twosome clattered on about which venue to proceed to, piercing the ever so frustrating bass noise a-la-mode. He bellowed, making them turn around in slightly annoyed surprise, their eyes berating him on his delinquency.

But he wasn't taking any faecal matter. He bellowed again. This time slightly increasing the tone of his volume.

This time he got the required response; leech jumped huddling closely to the protectful moose
before tightly gripping her femininely garbed steering wheel as if it would save her from this
maniac she didn't seem to know too well.

It seemed to her as she repeatedly glanced guardedly in her rearview mirror that this relationship was not as simple as it had seemed in her pink hindsight....

“Memoirs of a moose"

Chapter 1 - Leeches territory

After pondering upon ponders, Avrom decided to go satisfy the mooses insistent urges. He duly booked a ticket to the slow rhythm of an unavoidable female catastrophe. In his minds sexually depraved but nevertheless myopically focused eye he pictured a cosy environment overflowing with scurrying nymphs of hedonistic natures. He even pictured an idyllic scene whereby he would induce the moose to dispose carelessly of her clothing at the very moment her eyes were cast on him, thus satisfying his much discussed ego. He was mistaken. Greatly mistaken.

Having thus perused over the heavenly gildings of his imagination on the national express bus service, Avrom, with formidable grandeur, descended from the service only to be morosely greeted by two dull looking Bangladeshis querying him for their overpriced cabs. He grabbed their touristic offer with gusto. As he proceeded to the meeting point, Avrom swung his newly acquired Primark clothing to and fro with the true bounce only an Italian prince would feel ascending his throne.

An impatient beep greeted him as the unhelpful leech impatiently peeking through her largely rimmed spectacles with her chlorine blue eyes. This was not going to be a princes' reception..

Receiving The Bag- The Malaise of Organizational Release

Receiving The Bag- The Malaise of Organizational Release


Deep dark murmurs could be heard in could be heard in the corridors, some would flash glances in his direction. Others would avert their gaze in fearful apprehension. No one likes to get chucked. There were no shortages of vultures as well, ready to sink their teeth into some juicy promotion; most of them were suckers, but some were ready to go that extra serpential step. Sometimes he would return brave understanding smiles in exchange for their 'I emphasize with your situation, but I ain't gonna risk getting friendly with a firee' looks.

On other occasions he could conceal himself between shadowy office doorways and spend lengthy periods nursing a plastic cup wistfully at the water dispenser or broken copy machine, inanimate objects he would dearly miss.

Then his hands would tensely start forming a fist as he cast his mind back angrily to the moment his ample sized boss directed him his office at a time when he wasn’t expecting a pay rise. And as soon as fatty repeated the all too well known, apologetically patronising sentence 'I am really sorry BUT..', he began pondering a flamboyant exit as his eyes cast themselves upon the more than warmish 'Best dad' mug the cocky cretin in front of him was holding and the interesting effectible physics of its dispersion.

But an inevitable eye warning was made accompanied by an 'Is it worth your last pay cheque’ regard, he decided against direct terrorism and resolved to some mental guerrilla warfare. He began by eyeing plumpie's prized handcrafted vase circa 1930s pensively, which brought a sudden fearful look into his eyes, he was ready to play ball with an open net, and suddenly the corpulent domination was on the ropes.