Things Danda often says

Me: Put the TV on.
Danda: It won’t fit!

Me: Danda, put the kettle on.
Danda: It won’t fit!

Me: I need a wee.
Danda: I haven’t got one.

(He does a variation of this story every time he sees a cat.)
Danda: I came home the other night and I’d forgotten my keys so I looked through the letterbox and the cat was sitting there so I said, “Let me in,” and he said, “Me… Ow?”

Danda: Ohhhh, do we have to watch another food programme?
Me: Yes.

Danda: The French are revolting.
(This is a reference to the revolution, not just a comment on the French nation.)

(Variations on this are said every time Danda tries something new. It happened yesterday when we went ice skating.)
Danda: Did you see that bloke come running over when I got on the ice then? Did you see him? He come running over and said, “Oi, no professionals!” I said “I’m not.” He said “Well, you should be cause you’d win the world cup at ice skating.”

Danda: Aren’t I the tallest, most handsome man you know?

Danda: Why do girls wear perfume and make up? Cause they smell and they’re ugly.
(I like to think this is a funny little joke…)

Danda: Ah, ah, ah, ah…. *pointing to his open mouth and doing a sad face*
(This means he would like a cup of tea and he has seen me move in the general direction of the kettle.)

Danda: Shall we tidy up, its getting a bit messy.
Me: Do we have to?
Danda: No.
Me: Ok.

The French teacher

When I was about fifteen, we got a new French teacher at school. I went to a girls’ school so anything male was an object of interest. Boys were accepted in the sixth form (the final two years of school) so there were groups of girls dedicated to spotting their boy of choice and reporting back on his activities. Brushing past one’s favourite boy in the corridor was sublime in our fifteen year old minds. Talking to them was a dream come true.

The teachers were slightly different. You couldn’t fantasise about potentially falling in love with them in the same way. Instead of being a few years older, they were twice or three times our age and in charge. There was the Maths teacher who a few girls fancied but it was generally accepted that he was not up there with the best. There was the Music teacher who was lovely and friendly and a great teacher but not fanciable. But then there was his son who came in a few times to help him with something, who looked like Seth Green and had quite a following. The rest of the male teachers made for slim pickings. All great and liked a lot by the students, but not attractive to 15 year olds.

Then along came the French teacher. Cue some atmospheric French music (Joe Le Taxi by Vanessa Paradis, for example) and in strolls Monsieur Perais through a haze of clouds and fuzziness, to the cheers of adoring schoolgirls.

Monsieur Perais was perfect for our cause, ideal for someone predisposed to fixating on things for long periods of time. He divided the girls into those who ridiculed him for his body shape and those who wanted his children.

His body shape. Let me explain. He was a bit short and obviously had worked out a lot in the gym or been a rower or something because he had very muscular shoulders and his upper arms were quite big. From his shoulders down, he got slimmer and slimmer. His waist was quite small and his legs and feet even smaller. There were unfortunate comparisons to Johnny Bravo and quite a few of us took to calling him The Dairylea Triangle.

The crescendo of this Dairylea Triangle love came one evening when I was listening to the radio. It was Sunday and I was waiting for a regular feature with a local Liverpool presenter called Pete Price. One of my claims to fame is that I once called into the Pete Price Show and offered an opinion about whatever he was talking about that day.

Anyway, back to this Sunday evening when I was waiting for Pete Price to come on. It was the section of the show where people can request songs. As I listened the presenter said, “And this next one is a request for Nelly Furtado, I’m Like A Bird, and it’s dedicated to Monsieur Perais.”

One of the girls from school had called in to dedicate a song to the French teacher! I remember thinking, if you’re hoping he’s listening and you’re telling him how you feel, you’ve chosen the wrong song to do so. How does ‘I’m like a bird, I’ll only fly away, I don’t know where my home is, I don’t know where my soul is,’ let the French teacher at school know how you feel about him? If he was listening to it, he must have thought, ‘Ok, well there’s someone out there who telling me she won’t be around for long… Ok. Wierd.’

We all talked about it in school the next day and giggled. Someone had dedicated a song to the Dairylea Triangle! Teehee! I’m going to take a guess that that ‘relationship’ didn’t come to fruition as hoped following the song dedication….

“I’m so different and unusual”

This is one of those things that doesn’t need to be said. When people write in their descriptions of themselves on their ‘About’ pages for Facebook or something, “I’m really wacky and random,” I just don’t believe them.

If you really were so unusual and wacky and different and cool and funny, surely it wouldn’t need to be said? It’s not as though I’d be chatting away to you, thinking how normal you are, and then you’d suddenly say to me, “Omygoodness, I’m really wacky,” and I’d suddenly think, ‘O yes, yes you are. Now that you’ve said it I can see it.’ If you have to point it out, it’s not actually that noticeable, so it’s not really true.

I went to university with a girl who I got on really well with. We stayed in touch a little afterwards. I moved to a different university to start a new course after one year, she left to go and live with a guy she met on the internet. I got a friend request from her on one of these social networking sites, it was before Facebook was really big so I don’t know what site it was. I went on her page….

Awfulness. There was a photo of her doing slightly shocked eyes and jazz hands with a bit of a mad hairstyle and her description of herself went something like this:

“I love making jewellery, I live in Ireland with the best boyfriend in the world, I have the best friends ever, I’m totally wacky and I love being quirky. Take me or leave me!”

Now, this is not only annoying in the way that I have already explained. It is annoying on two more levels. One is that she is the furthest thing from ‘wacky’ I could describe when I knew her. She was just down to earth and normal. A little bit mumsy, if anything. She wore a sturdy but unfashionable backpack and long, heavy, war-time-ish skirts. She was lovely. I loved killing a few hours in the cafe chatting to her. I never noticed how she looked really. And then I got this silly friend request about how ‘craaaaazy’ she is and I thought about her and thought how definitely un-craaaaazy she is. And I just didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her description of herself and I didn’t really want to be friends with her anymore.

It reminded me of going to secondary school and getting all excited because I’d moved up a year so there were younger ones to boss around. You know, you suddenly get really full of yourself and think you’re extremely cool and everyone else is thinking about how irritating you are.

It’s like Danda says, “If you have to try for even one second to be cool, you ain’t cool.”

The second reason this statement is annoying is this whole ‘best in the world’ thing. This is so silly. Birthday cards that say, ‘To the best sister in the world,’ for example, are ridiculous. How can anyone possibly know that? Unless they have had every sister in the entire world and concluded this one to be the best. Yes, they might be great and kind and lovely but ‘the best in the world’? Did they donate a kidney? Did they die trying to rescue you from a treacherous river? Did they carry you single-handedly across a desert to save you from thirst? Did they? Unless you know what every sister in the world has ever done done for their sibling, it’s a statement you can’t make. People say it on Facebook when it’s Valentine’s or something. So-and-so has got the ‘best girl/boyfriend in the world.’ As though we’re all sitting there going, ‘O well, I thought my boy/girlfriend was amazing but now I realise that person’s actually is. I’m so jealous. I only have the second best boy/girlfriend ever.’