» Eccentrics

The older members of my family
Being half Iranian means I don't get to see half of my extended family very often, but when I do I realise where the genes that make me find you arse whipes so funny come from.

I haven't seen my grandma much in my lifetime. Her age and the regime in Iran make travelling very difficult so she's only come to the UK a couple of times, but when she has I'm always left with moments to remember. I remember her years ago watching me and my cousins going through a newspaper drawing crude cocks at every opportunity, and her finding this just fine for a bunch of ten year olds to do for entertainment.

More recently though, she was in an airport somewhere transferring flights with a long wait. Having just had an operation on her knee so she wasn't in the best state. However, she used this to her advantage by requesting (god knows how, she only speaks Persian) a man to come and push her around in a wheelchair for the period before her flight. He does this for two hours as she goes from shop to shop as old people do, looking at things that really aren't that exciting. When it came to her being taken back to the station where all the wheelchairs were kept, she jumped out of her chair Little Britain style, wheeled it back to its position and walked off.

When she arrived in the UK, my dad picked her up to take her home. It had been a long flight, so they stopped at a service station for her to go to the toilet. It was only after they were back on the motorway that Granny Sebastiano brandished her knickers in her hand, explaining she needed more of a breeze.

As my Persian doesn't stretch beyond swear words, my communication with her is limited and mostly takes form through my dad who acts as a translator. It was slightly out of the blue then, when dinner conversation had hardly got underway, when she starts things off with "so, how often do you wank then?'" How then hell do you answer a question like that?

Things were even worse when I took a trip to California two years ago. I was at my great uncle's house, brother of the grandmother in question. I don't think I got as much as a "hello, welcome to San Diego" before he sat me down in front of various relatives I'd never met before and said to me "I'll give you $50 to show me your dick." Amidst it all, I seem to remember replying "make it $100 and you've got a deal".

Length? You'll have to pay me to find out.
(Sun 2nd Nov 2008, 20:47, More)

» Eccentrics

How could I forget...
My old maths teacher.

He had several obsessions, the most obvious of which being maths. He was a great teacher because he was just so passionate about his subject. He would get a sometimes worrying amount of pleasure from solving equations. He could easily spend half an hour telling us about why the date was so significant (1/3/08 - today is a fantastic day, anyone know why? If you square 1 and 3 and subtract them you get 8!). He never seemed to realise that it didn't really phase us in the slightest.

He loved Japan, accompanying us on our school trip there. Unfortunately this had its cons, as you will realise after sitting for an hour trying to understand maths with Japanese drumming blaring over the sound system. He also spoke some basic Japanese, as did a few of us, and I can tell you not many things are funnier than hearing someone speak Japanese with a scouse accent.

He also declared one day that he had logged the levels of rainfall in his garden for the last 10 years, and was genuinely offended when, upon him offering to share the data if anyone wanted to use it as a basis for their coursework, someone said what we'd all been thinking and came out with "but sir, rainfall is sad!"

Possibly his greatest obsession was sundials. No idea why, but he'd go on about them for ages. He almost died of excitement the day someone brought one in to be evaluated.

He had a strange thing about bow ties, too. Our school system was on a two week basis, and he wore a bow tie on week one and a "straight" tie as he called it on week two. Apparently this was in our interest to help us remember which week it was because there's two vowels in straight and one vowel in bow. Duh. One of the ties he wore bore the title HMS Woodcock on it. Now this isn't overly hilarious, but take it from me, when you're standing at the front of the class, all eyes on you as he marks your work not laughing has never been more difficult.

He also grew a Jedi style braid once which was the day he won my respect.

But the finest moment has to be this activity he arranged for a group of people. I think it was Japan themed and part of it involved smashing a melon with a hefty piece of log. One girl picks up the log, swings it back and WHAM! right into his face. I wasn't there, but I know a few people who claim they've never laughed so hard.

Apparently he's head of maths now though. Hats off to you sir!
(Mon 3rd Nov 2008, 20:20, More)