INAPPROPRIATE MATERIALS

 A TALL TALE OF TOWER BLOCS

Eyes, red from last night’s exertions, are nevertheless focused on the scrawled mess on the back of a ripped open white A4 window envelope – an arrears letter from the council’s arms-length management QUANGO demanding she start to reduce the £2,ooo plus debt if she is to avoid further action.  Action? That meant what exactly? Another new Acting Manager, who she’s never heard of, and who’ll be out the door again before six months is over, like the last, and the one before, that has charged a £50.00 management feefor the privilege of informing her by letter of an increase in her arrears of, oh! I don’t know, £50.00.  The blank space on the back has been well recycled. Her internal Dot Cotton kicks in. It cushions her against life's little travails, not to mention long waits for council lifts: 

I told him I did. I said, You can stick your £50 quid where the sun don’t shine sunshine, not now, not now that they’ve been and gone and put all that bloody scaffolding up. Cosmetic cladding on the outside… half the block hasn’t even got gas… in 2017 I ask you, 5^th largest economy in the world, what?, the 6^th largest economy… ok 7^th largest ecosystem in the milky way, and they’re a  lot smaller than they used to be an all…

The envelope contains a sketch of how it would all go. Straight from the School of Scottish Socialist Surrealism (Liverpool, Militant Branch). She’s even drawn herself in, pointing at a $ sign on the whiteboard: a deformed matchstick figure; her head an @ with a misshapen K minus its leg. Mind you, I've done better than the crooked line with the tiny 666s for that Twat of an Outside Observer sat in the corner on  a ∑–  as per the lesson plan. That now lies on the kitchen floor of her 17^th storey high-rise. She stamps on it, leaving an imprint from her trainer sole. She looks at it again, then picks it up and walks through the door. Capitalism doesn’t pay for itself. Childfree and doing something for her while earning. Week 2. Vamoose. Tracey McClee odd. Mac Clee Odd! It had been funny the first week. So, in the box marked Anticipated Problems, she has written: Students may have difficulty when pronouncing my name.  Students may have difficulty understanding my accent on occasion. Only at first, mind. Aye. And the Aye instead of Yes, etc. It was just Summer School, why did they need a bloody intricate plan, apart from the observers, the twocks who only stay 20 minutes anyway, half-planned she always performs better, all the detailed plan does is to make you do the plan. As the lift arrived at the ground floor, it took an age to open… 

 
They have to tick their little boxes I suppose. They have their boxes to tick.  Tracey McCleod (clued like the Scots, or cloud, like the English, if you prefer) noticed something strange in week 1. The rigidity of the superstructure compared to the looseness of the format. The attempt at planning, but then it was like paying lip service to a plan, before deciding to go and do what you were going to do anyway. She also put it down to the novelty of the situation. I mean, the point of view is all over the place, is it first-person or 3rd? and where is this dialogue? that the plan said would spontaneously break out between students as soon as presented with the irresistible hand out on two sheets of A4 with black and white drawings, photocopied down the public library, the day their computers were down, typical, a plastic a wallet from a Woolworths that no longer exists, until she realises the lesson has started and the TOC is twitching his right leg like a crane fly listening to break beat in total silence, and she remembers now that the low-grade lemon-fragrance placebo was actually the cheesy skunk she’d got Ali to pick from Carlos’s, oops… She notices the twock has ticked the box marked inappropriate, and the word material is prominently underscored in the bright red pencil they give them when they qualify in bloodsucking. Aye. Well, get tae fuck… I’m doing it anyway, pal. 

Right, Student A sit opposite your partner, but with your back turned. Likewise, Student B. Remember Ali, like on the whiteboard. Look… back-to-back. Mauricio! What is it you have in your hand?

A plano.
A what?
Is plan.
OK. It’s a plan of what?... Rosario?

Is plan of apartment blocks, same but different.

That’s right. Your drawings? Are they the same?

Yes.

Yes and No. They are similar. SI-MI-LAR. Three syllables. You repeat. Stress the first. SIMilar.

SIMilar. Good.

Some of the people are doing the same things, but other people….

Other people?... Monkbayar?

There is 8 different peoples doing the different things…

OK good. Don’t show the plan to your partner…

Rosario… the other way. That’s right.

Remember, what does James Bond say?
TOP SECRET!

Ok… go! You have 20 minutes to find 8 differences.

What’s the man doing in flat 20? The man in flat 20 is watch, no is wash hair. He have the black hair, like me. What’s the man in flat 20?  What is doing the man in apartment 20? Same? Same as my picture? In my apartment 20 there is man homosexual, he is look like Freddie Mercury, he watch the dishes, he have mustache like Freddie Mercury, sing? No no sing? He watch, wash plate, like woman, he wear glove and, how do you do? App.. app.. teacher, teacher, how to say? EI… EI.. apron.. Ah Freddie Mercury wear apron….. That’s not Freddie Mercury, Ahmed. That is a drawing of a man with a moustache who is doing the washing-up, that's all. What’s he doing with the brush Carlos? The WA-SH-ING-up…That’s right. Look Ahmed, you switch partner. Sit with Keiko, please. Keiko? You sit with Ahmed, and Rosario can do it with me…ok what is the dog doing in flat 9, Rosa? The dog is sleeping on the cheap, inflammable sofa.. Good Rosa. The man in flat 8 is watching dogging, No Rosa, the man in flat 8 is washing his dog, no teacher, is no true, in my picture the man is watching dogging, you know, sex in car park, porno, al Tesco, like me and Carlos, sabes? Ali? where's Ali... have you been drawing on Rosario's  hand out again? Ok, the dirty old man is watching pornography, porNOGraphy...

Typical, I knew it, the second the twocks in the room, the bloody thing falls apart... Sister, this is as sturdy a lesson plan as I have ever put together. It used to work well back in the day. Aye, back in the day when she could stay up all night, doing papier mâché models of Prime Ministers repeating soundbites of doom  like an auTOMaton, AUTomaton. We used pull the cord out of the back and have a right laugh, like Toy Story's Woody on mogodon.... Days of avant garde tales of postmodern criticism and rebellious action. Action that involved actual doing, pasting, cutting, literally, physically, collaboratively, meaningfully, mindfully…..

Ms McCleod, are you sure this material is that appropriate given the recent turn of events? We wouldn’t want to alarm any of our residents unnecessarily. At the time it was given, it was perfectly formed advice, grammatically correct, and intellectually coherent, any mistakes were minor and fundamentally non-impeding as I think you were made aware at the time, going forward, forward, forward…

Carlos, give the outside observer another clout with The Guardian. The functionality’s stuck in italics again. It’s 2017, and I’m still having to use these old cassettes…. No, Hiroshi, it says Flat 13, that bit’s just Tippex, Tippex?, you know liquid ink? Never mind, what is tenant in frat 13 doing? Good Hiro… Don’t show him, Rosario, speak. The couple in flat 13 is watching TV. The man is fat and bald, he look like Freddy Mercury, but old and no hair, teacher, how you say? No hair like Monkbayar…Bold, bald, man bald, bald, fat man who have mustache and wife with blond hairs and both stare, staring at TV like robot, in my country we have TV robot, watch TV while you work. Teacher, teacher, Hiro say me in his country TV robot watch TV when he go to walk, work, when he go to work, I think Hiro is pulling your leg, Ali, how many hairs does she have, Monkbayar?

The outside observer has had his usual fill. Seventeen and half minutes in and she can sense him preparing his flight for freedom, thanking fuck he doesn’t have to endure another hour and 45 minutes of this Tower of Babel, in heat that used to be illegal back in the 90s when he first started in this God forsaken profession, his internal monologue is starting to cognitively affect the students. It’s time to abandon the plan. It is high time we introduced a splash of Tracey magic…. OK switch partners, only this time let’s include the Outside Observer…

In Flat 12 there is one couple who dance, they dance the dance of happy people, even if we cannot see the face. She is wearing an open-backed number, she look like Tracey, the man, the man is dressed in a classic black tux, white shirt and black bow tie, his half face reminds casual observers of Cary Grant, but on closer inspection looks more like inspector.

Ms McCludd, the lesson was all over the place, potentially it was an interesting spin on a well-worn idea I must admit, but just not that thought through, and I mean, the plastic cladding reference alone…. Far too soon to say, far too soon to say, public enquiry, public enquiry… Teacher talking time needs massively reducing, remember to slow down, talk directly to camera, or else get the BBC bastard off-guard and pretend you’re an earnest academic from the London School of Economics and not some scallywag EFL teacher from Dumfries winging it with a couple of dodgy photocopies and a tired old agenda. Magic just doesn’t work anymore. Empathy was the thing, but the Brand DNA? Ecstasy, euphoria, effervescence… such things can be bought at music festivals, £10 a gram of thin white watery powder, dries like Tippex, you remember Tippex? You used to be able to get it at Woolworths, a perfectly serviceable and recyclable brand, I think you'll find capitalism is  malleable, and perfectly capable of breathing new life into old DNA, the working class thrift monetized, entrepreneurship is not a four letter word, Ms McCastro! Though in this class nothing would surprise ...Carlos, give Keiko her pencil case and her dignity back, please.... Look, Ms McClot. It says, least ways, in the plan I am following, it stipulates that you are second-generation Scottish, and have only ever been to Dumfrieshire when passing through on the way to see that subversive family of yours in Free Derry, which I see you claim is not part of the UK, Ms McCleudo, said the Outside Observer mechanically.

And this rampant disregard for form, Ms McClueless. The rubric clearly states the intention of the cognitive affective activity you and your tenants have been engaged in amounts to a suspicious conversation with extremist content. The exponent that was supposed to be practised thoroughly, had you only thought to first present the target language, the purpose of the present continuous aspect is to focus minds on the extreme present, to be mindful of cause and effect at this present moment in time is highly inappropriate….  

• Would you like to be molested on a Saturday morning TV show that all your classmates were watching? Retorted Hermione mechanically. 

- There it is again, that persistent irrelevant irreverent line of questioning, said Harry Potter adverbially… and the utter contempt for the normal rules of engagement McCluskey, this isn’t Grange Hill. This is a paper-based activity about an apartment that exists only in the present to fulfil one function and on function only: to teach these boxes English, to fill up their empty heads with meaning. Rolf Harris has nothing to do with starting fires in tower blocks for Chrissakes.

It finally reaches the moment in the class plan when the T-shirt lift has once again become essential. Cause and effect. Lipstick and tits. Bit continental. Not very Brexit.
- But see that, see those, aye, you’re looking now pal, aren’t ye? 
- What do boobies say, teacher? says Ahmed, opportunely. 

- It’s nae aboot tower blocks; it’s class war.

Hell breaks loose. Plan goes out of the window. The outside observer's marginalized. Trump Towers becomes Twin Towers, Cleveland, near Middlesborough, thousands of miles from Cleveland, Ohio, 12th largest city in the U.S. home to 142 completed high-rises, 33 of which stand taller than 250 feet (76 m). None of which has anything to do with the day she saw the second plane hit, as she sat on the dodgy sofa eight months pregnant, reading English Grammar in Use religiously, crossing legs and fingers, praying today’s investment would pay dividends in a wicked world of work that she had hoped would never come to this, memories, a fragmented collection of ideas, in shreds, like a lesson plan from a pdf download that didn’t somehow seem the same. The bloke with the tash who lived across from her dad’s mother’s flat in Everton Valley did actually ring a bell, Freddywise, Mr. Lambert wasn't it? The Militant council asked Everton’s inhabitants what should be done with their towers, the reply was pull them down and give us back the streets. It was done. Just like that.Now, such things only exist in Guardian sound bites as pie in the high sky dreams, Ms McCommunist.

The recent upsurge in the class struggle should in no wise impinge upon the fee-paying student’s learning experience, Ms McTrotsky, I don’t suppose you believe in the sanctity of the polling booth, the sanctuary of democracy, your sort never do. No overall coherence to the plan. Very little cohesion in its execution. The tenants must remain in their individual, atomised, living space units until such time as they are informed otherwise, wet towels are an integrated part of any fire safety feature in the new millennium, moving forward in the 21^st central, century even, Ms McChomsky. So there. Put that in your lesson plan, and smoke it, just like that wacky backy that you and your bohemian behemoths toke on incessantly as you’re planning your plots to overthrow the massive spread of bloody manspreading on the Tube, I ask you. 

Can I ask you a personal question?

If you must, Ms McCorbyn…

Do you have a Freddy Mercury washing-up apron?

As it happens, I do.

Are you withdrawn, controlling, obnoxious and neurotic?

Yes, I am.

Would you prefer to be frenetic, flamboyant, edgy and famous?

…………………..

Would you wanna be Freddy Mercury, Adam?

Yes, I very much would….

Then, come over here. See that wall, the one with the sign on.

Yes.

What does it say?

The Fourth Wall.

And the clock on the opposite wall… what does it read?

10 minutes and counting... no, nine minutes and counting…

If you break down that wall, just once… then who knows?

But that’s ridiculous... you can’t end it here. I haven’t ticked all the boxes yet! 

Show me.

Well, for example, who’s Carlos? And what about the rent arrears?

None of your business. And squat.

Squat? With Carlos?

No. In the Tower Block, 17^th floor. Where I live.

My concrete haven in the sky.

But you, but your chest said…

I know what my tits say… What do you say?

In my picture, I can see one woman. She is showing to man chest with writing. In my picture, the woman have no writing, she have nice half-dress like woman in Harry Potter film. In Flat 13, the man who wear apron have lipstick. Your man have lipstick, Ahmed. Yes, I am the man who like to wear the lipstick and sister shoes.

Good, Ahmed. Let’s all step into the sisters’ shoes.
And that’s the end of today’s lesson. Well done, class.