Life is Healthy

I found this unfinished Guardian quick crossword on a train last month. At least two different people had already had a go at it, but by far my favourite part is that the first person's first answer for 17ac (Water Tortoise (8)) was PORPOISE.

Brilliant! As though the whole of biological taxonomy worked on the basis of rhyme alone. It's a wonder that Darwin bothered going to the Galapagos Islands, he could just have sat at home going "Bat, cat, rat..."

Our LOVELY BABY has been eating lots of interesting things recently. Not just coins, batteries and carpet fluff, but stuff recommended in baby books as well. As a result I have been sent to Tesco to buy tofu.

Being a lifelong omnivore (apart from a few weeks in my teens when I was trying to impress a vegetarian girl, but it turned out that there were other, more fundamental things putting her off from going out with me) I had no idea which supermarket aisle I would find tofu in. My local Tesco is one of the largest in the country, so I thought I had better ask for help.

As well as being massive, this branch of Tesco is in the most ethnically diverse part of the most ethnically diverse city in the country. What I am saying is that the staff look like the cast of Mind Your Language. This is absolutely fine with me - if I wanted to live entirely surrounded by white English people I would go back to the village I was brought up in, with its pure Anglo-Saxon language, albino-white skin and particularly choosy females. (Why wouldn't she go out with me? Why?)

So I asked a West Indian shelf-stacker where I might find tofu. He didn't know, but went to ask a Middle Eastern man on the deli counter. He didn't know either, but asked a passing South-East Asian colleague. She didn't know either, and the game of Chinese Whispers continued. Literally in her case. Then it became a game of Indian Whispers, then Hispanic Whispers until that employee asked an Eastern European man with a particularly thick accent who was pushing a large trolley of empty cardboard boxes.

"Tofu?" he replied, like a young spaniel who had just been asked if he'd be at all interested in chasing a stick. "Yes! Aisle seven!" He quickly set off, motioning that I should follow him.

I liked this last man immediately. It is perhaps a patronising cliche to say that all Eastern Europeans are hard-working and polite and respectable, but I knew instinctively that this man had come over with his wife and children to London NW10, where the streets are paved with fried chicken wrappers, but that he loved it here, and that he loved to work and that his heart was overflowing with pride and joy at being able to help someone on what was almost certainly his very first day in the job.

I followed him down an aisle that I had never been down before, full of strange, exotic items.

"There!", he beamed, proudly pointing at a shelf. "Tofu!"

I looked at the bags of Winalot and the tins of Pal and tried to pinpoint the exact link at which communications had broken down. We were looking not at tofu, but at dog food.

I scrutinised the Eastern European man's face. It was full of expectation, desperately hoping that I would validate his reason for emigrating here. Would he be able to go home to his wife and children and proudly say, "Today, I help man"?

"That's great, thank you", I mumbled. "He'll love this." I picked up a couple of tins of Pedigree Chum with the intention of leaving them at the checkout. Though I expect they're tastier than tofu.

The three Poles stand in a line in my bathroom. By this I do not mean that I am installing telegraph wires; I mean that there are three men from Poland standing next to each other. I was just making a pun on their nationality. Bob Monkhouse used to claim that he could make a pun on any nationality.

“Japanese?” someone not at all planted in the audience would shout out.

“Give a chap-an-easy one”, Bob would reply.

OK, so the Pole/pole one is not quite up there with Bob’s best, but no Japanese builders contacted us, so I have to work with what I’m given. The EU might like to consider pun-ability when it next votes on accepting new members. I could do something great with Turkey. If I were Hungary I would be Russian to get some. If Hungary were not already members.

The bathroom is tiny, and with me in there as well there is not a lot of room. It would have been better if they were just poles. If poles could tile and drink coffee with four sugars in.

ME: We were thinking of putting a concealed cistern in here.

POLE 1: Kjkćź kw łńkwzwv z ńżćczś.

(Note that this is probably not actual Polish – I am just pointing out the funny way that foreigners all speak.)

POLE 2: Vzwjkćtczćź kw łńkjlw v zńżś.

POLE 1: That is OK.

ME: And, er, perhaps put the shower here?

POLE 1: Wjkćtczć kjwl zńkpżś wćźt.

POLE 2: Złńkwzwv kz ńżćczś zjlk.

POLE 1: That is OK.

ME: Tile along this bit.

POLE 1: Zńkćź kwś łzjkwv z ńżćwcz.

POLE 2: Vkzjk wś łwvćcz zjk żćw.

POLE 1: That is OK.

ME: And perhaps a cupboard here?

POLE 1: Zkżćwv kz ńżćcz wz kwżćc.

POLE 2: Zkżćwv kz ńżćcz wz kwżćc?

POLE 1: Vzź kw łńkjlw wjkćtczć jkćź kw kwzwv złń.

POLE 2: Wjltnzć kjwl zńkpżś jkćtcz?

POLE 1: Wćwv żćkz ńż wz kw kwzw.

POLE 2: Zwjkćtcz jltnzć kjwl ńżśkp jkćtcz zćt kwzw zwjkćtczćź kw łńkjlw v zńżś kwś łzjkwv z ńżćwcz ćczćtcz jkćź kw kwzwv złńćcwjltnzć kwcz kw łńkwzwv z ńżćczś.

POLE 1: That is OK.

What was wrong with my choice of cupboard location? Does Pole 1 actually speak English, or does he just know the phrase “That is OK”? More to the point, where does Pole 3 fit in?

Just to reassure myself that there can be no actual problem with hiring builders on the basis of price alone I watch the episode of Fawlty Towers where O’Reilly’s men block off the wrong door, put a door in in the wrong place, then use a wooden lintel on a supporting wall.

Yes, it will all be fine. At least they were not Israeli. To make a pun about them is-really impossible.

My girlfriend and I are out for a meal with some of her family. When we arrive at the restaurant, the waiter hears her mother and her uncle speaking in German (they are German – it’s not a party trick or anything), and immediately addresses us all in German, gesturing towards the table that we should sit at. I spend most of my life not really wanting to make a fuss, and I’m so impressed by his linguistic capabilities and welcoming nature that I feel it would be churlish to mention that as I am English, he is English, and we are in an English restaurant in England he and I could just converse in English. Instead, I make the subconscious decision that I will go through the whole evening just saying “danke schön” to him and pointing intently at the menu.

We take our seats. Here is a table of languages spoken, going clockwise around the table: