The Penguin Lessons

Gracias.

Hey.

Hola.

Whoa!

I'm the new English teacher.

Gracias.

Mr. Michell.

Leave your bags. We'll take them to your accommodation.

-Ah! Mitchell. -Mr. Buckle.

Welcome to St George's.

Timothy Buckle. Headmaster, known as Timbuk.

-It's, uh, Michell. -Yes.

How was your flight?

Good. Uneventful.

Explosion-free.

Ah, yes, I heard that from my office.

Another bomb, I expect.

-Another? -Oh, yes. Argentina's in chaos.

A military coup is imminent.

Now, we're thinking of putting you up in Chaucer Wing.

Follow me.

A crackdown by the military has not gone down too well

with the countless revolutionary factions.

Trouble on the streets, economy in free fall,

the government are losing control.

It's a ghastly business.

"Don't let the bastardos grind you down".

-Come again? -I saw some graffiti

on the wall outside. It doesn't matter.

Well, we try to keep out of it all, you know?

Very much a small "p"

when it comes to politics here in St George's.

Lots of rich families send their sons here.

-Understand? -Yes.

Excellent.

Thank you for coming on board

at such late notice.

English teachers like you

are in short supply over here these days.

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to read your CV.

Where have you been lately?

Um, I was teaching in Ecuador,

and before that Venezuela and Brazil,

and before that Chicago,

so I've been steadily working my way down.

-Hm? -Geographically speaking.

Oh. Yes, yes.

Well, you're up here, room 23.

No loud music, no smoking, no pets.

-End of lecture. Hear, hear. -Huh.

Now, we have a meeting

in the common room at 1630 hours.

Don't be late. Pet peeve.

Welcome.

¿Hola?

¿Hola?

¿Hola?

It's definitely all my fault.

Yes, it's your fault.

Well, you heard that all right.

I bet your husband does as he's told.

-No, he's gone. -You didn't kill him, did you?

No, cancer.

Oh. Right. Well, sorry to hear that.

Welcome, welcome to St George's.

Hey. You're Michell, right? I'm Tapio.

I'm a physics master from Finland.

"Good day" in Finnish.

A lot of umlauts in that.

- Sorry, are... are we roommates? - No.

It's just that you walked right in.

I was just being friendly.

Oh. Okay.

-You have the terrace. -Yeah.

Maybe we can have parties out here.

You have any vodka?

There's a bottle of gin in the kitchen on the side.

Help yourself.

Gin.

Well, yes.

So the boys here,

they're very privileged and spoiled.

And Mr. Timbuk, the headmaster, believes he's Napoleon.

Hm.

He was very nice to me.

Some people have two sides to them.

Mm. Even Josef Mengele was a nice doctor to some people.

In fact, doesn't he live around here?

Yeah, there were a lot of Nazis

emigrating to this part of the world

after the Second World War.

Not very funny.

But also funny.

Icelandic fishermen, commercial whaling,

the hydrogen bomb,

the political situation here in Argentina.

Whatever strong opinions you may have,

I strongly urge you to keep them to yourselves

and don't bore the rest of us with them. Hm?

- Hear, hear. - Hear, hear.

Now, we are joined this term by Mr. Tom Michell.

Hello.

Michell will teach English.

Hola.

Now, I've assigned you to Woolsey House,

where you'll be in charge of the Lower Fourth Remove.

Oh. And I've also got you down

as assistant rugby coach to the under-14 second team.

That may be a problem, Headmaster.

Because?

I don't know anything about rugby.

In fact, I... I actively dislike it.

Why's that?

I like my balls round.

Excellent. Yes.

Sit down, please.

So, English from now on.

Let's begin by you telling me your names.

Uh, you.

What's your name?

Ernesto Castillo.

Ernesto.

The importance of being Ernesto.

Oscar Wilde.

So, uh... you.

What's your name?

Quiet, please.

- Diego. - Diego.

And what did you do at the weekend, Diego?

Did you go to the park?

Did you go to the shops?

Did you dress up as an astronaut and go to the Moon?

-No. -No what?

I did not go to the Moon.

That was me being sarcastic.

That was...

There are different forms of sarcasm.

Uh, to be sarcastic,

you can employ one of the following.

Metaphor, bathos, puns, parody,

hyperbole, litotes and satire.

So I'd like you to write down

a sarcastic sentence in English,

employing any one of those forms of humor.

And I will look in this English newspaper

for some sarcasm...

for us all to discuss.

All right. Scrum down.

-No! -What, sir? Why?

Scrum? What for?

-Forward pass. -For who?

Ernesto.

-No, he didn't. -No, I didn't.

-He didn't. -Didn't he?

No!

Okay, I thought he did. Um...

Look, why don't you keep playing by yourselves

for another 15 minutes,

then get into groups of three or four

and discuss why it's important in rugby

to use oval-shaped balls and not spherical.

Okay?

I'm gonna check on the rules about forward passes.

- Michell? You in there? - Come in.

What are you feeling about this crazy but serious day?

Oh, yeah. I woke up this morning

to the theme from Monty Python's Flying Circus

and there's all this marching band music.

It's martial music,

like all the music on every channel today.

There's been a coup.

The boys are being sent home.

-The college is shut for a week. -Well, that's good news.

The situation is very serious.

There have been reports of shootings.

The generals have taken control.

The army are fighting the Montoneros guerrillas.

Next, they will round up all of the left-wingers,

unionists, activists, intellectuals.

We got a week off?

Until this situation becomes clearer.

Say goodbye to freedom and democracy.

Week.

Say hello to fear, intimidation...

-I might go to Uruguay. -...and brutality.

-To Uruguay? -Yeah, for a couple of days.

Why do you want to go to Uruguay?

Uh, you know, architecture, history.

-Really? -Yes.

Actually, this is a good idea.

Because there's very little practically that we can do here,

and Uruguay fascinates me very much.

It became independent of Spain in 1811,

but it's a common misconception.

It became an independent nation

-at this moment... -Uh...

...because it was immediately

annexed by Brazil until 1825.

I'm only partially interested

in the history and architecture of Uruguay.