Tickle It Under There
Tickle It Under There
With the UK raising the retirement age to 66, to be increased from 2026, and Middle Eastern and Asian recruiters enforcing a ‘below’ job rule, that is, under 60s only employable, English language teachers now have the science fiction of ‘Lastday’ to deal with. Apart from what to do about Alice Cooper high, ‘School’s Out’ (1972), ‘for summer’.1
In the novel, Logan’s Run (1967), by William F. Nolan, ostensibly because of population pressure,2 all those above 21 years of age are killed by those who aren’t yet running things. On 9/11, 2001, when airliners, hijacked at Logan airport, crashed into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center on Lower Manhattan island, Downtown, it was Lastday explained, for a 60s generation that had ingenuously believed ‘All You Need Is Love’ (1967), The Beatles’ song, ‘No one you can save that can't be saved.’3
Nolan’s novel about Logan 3, ‘Sandman’ (op. cit. p.2), co-written with George Clayton Johnson, and set in 2116, presciently warns the 21st century of the doom of slavery; through pushers that addict to lobotomize: so confusing knowledge for the innocent with senility. Increasing the pensionable age every year means death before retirement, with the aged old enough to recognize they’ve been seniled by slavery; since they were teenagers. In Logan’s Run a ‘palm flower’ (op. cit., p.2) crystal, embedded in the right hand, changes color; yellow (age 0–6); blue (age 7–13); red (age 14–20); turning black, Lastday, at 21, as pedophiles, pimps, and slavers, start afresh.
The analogy for teachers is ‘the strap’, a de facto lobotomy treatment in the Scots’ school system, and the ‘ruler’ of the English system, where a child was required to hold out the palm of their hand, and the administering teacher, or appointed punisher, struck a stipulated number of times; leaving a damaged mind and a bruise, becoming yellow, blue, red, and black by turns.
For some, vengeance was the watchword, when ‘corporal’ punishment in the British education system was outlawed by Parliament on July 22nd, 1986. Obtaining a PhD in English from Hull University in 1992, before being asked by the local authority to qualify in Teaching English to Students of Other Languages (TESOL), with the Certificate awarded on February 14th, 1995, and leave England for Hungary, age 34, would attract the attention of avengers, somehow looking to repeat 1929’s ‘Valentine’s Day massacre’, with Thompson submachine guns.
Six ‘hoods’, and another later, found crawling, died at 2122 North Clark Street; a Lincoln Park garage, on Chicago’s North Side, Illinois, ‘These wounds they will not heal.’4 All assuming that someone date eligible would have been teaching in the British system before ‘86, US’ band Linkin Park’s ‘Crawling’ (2000), about the last murdered, won’t justify the teacher’s bleeding from a knife wound in the chest, delivered on the third floor walkway, on the way to his door.
In Logan’s Run those who refuse to turn up for the ‘Sleepshop’ (op. cit., p.5) administered pleasure-inducing toxic gas, that is, euthanasia, on Lastday, are labeled ‘runners’, hunted by ‘Sandmen’ (op. cit., p.31). Logan, one of a group of such, becomes a runner too.
For the EFL teacher the analogy is that of US’ heavy metal group Metallica’s song, ‘Enter Sandman’ (1991). The nightmare of those approaching their last stay, and with no preference for EU than Asia, can’t escape the ageism of slavery, while their seniled youthful replacements, ordered about willy-nilly by drainers, lack practical knowledge enough to ‘run’:
‘It's just the beasts under your bed,
In your closet, in your head.’5
Eurasia becomes much more attractive, once the Mid-Easterners have closed their doors, although many of the former Eastern bloc countries that had perforce adopted the Communism of their Russian ‘liberators’ from German occupation, subsequent to WWII (1939-45), became members of the European Union (EU), after the Soviet withdrawal from ‘89, which then presented a new bloc from March 26th, 1995, in the shape of the ‘Schengen zone’, permitting only 90 days stay for English teachers in any 180 day period, before they had to ‘run’.
That Jesus was a teacher, who was killed, because the perfume of a woman was ‘too expensive’ (Mk: 14. 3) for him, according to his disciple, Judas, is pertinent, ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.’ (Matt: 19. 14) He was a kindergarten rabbi who, espousing the theory that unfaithful women shouldn’t be stoned to death (John: 8. 7), was publicly executed by the civil authority for revealing a nature sexual, rather than that of a eunuch, which was upsetting for local pimps and pedophiles. In the same way that knowledge upsets slavers’ preference for senility and innocence. Explaining antipathy towards rejuvenation and longevity; on the part of those who want things to run.
For those subject to DBS police checks and mandatory ‘safeguarding’ courses, before their job application’s considerable, it’s familiar territory. If teachers won’t accept that they’re ‘beasts’ with children, the system of vetting is the drain for the brain it’s condemning as animal cunning. It believes it’s an educator, because intelligence must be educated. While slavery doesn’t distinguish between intelligence and spy rings, teachers are slaved intelligences, as free intelligents are slavery’s enemy.
Feeling like a prisoner of war (POW) in a concentration camp is the least of a teacher’s concerns. In folklore, ‘sandmen’ traditionally bring sleep, as invoked by Vaughn Monroe in the 1954 song, ‘Mr. Sandman, bring us, please, please, please, bring us a dream.’6 The ‘American Dream’, shattered by 9/11, was replaced by ‘political correctness’, where free speech became of secondary concern to those who wanted servility and are now deferred to.
Teaching by train from Budapest to Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, in the spring of 2025, the feeling was that of a rushing jew. Waiting, hunched up by the smartphone each Saturday for the ‘two-step verification’ WhatsApp message that would tell me where; the next step was to take a screen snapshot with the ‘phone’s camera of the location on Google Maps, before purchasing a MÁV, Hungarian railways, Eurocity (EC) train, or Flixbus, ticket, or a combination of these and others, so to depart Budapest on Sunday morning from points various. Keleti pályaudvar (Eastern railway station; district VIII of XXIII), or Népliget buszállomás (‘People’s Park’, bus station; X), and elsewhere, usually to arrive in Bratislava, railway or bus station, capital of Slovakia, where further ŽSSK Slovak trains/buses would be required to reach the sticks.
Having left and arrived, with but a smattering of Hungarian, for example, itt (here), ott (there) hol (where), közel (near), bal (left), jobb (right), tér (square), etc., and time in the compartment of the railway carriage, eating Hungarian bread (kenyér) and salami (felvágott), brought from the home fridge, to reflect on the crucial importance of what the teacher carried for Monday’s students, hoping to travel in English later on; Susan Thomas’ book, Picture Prompts Prepositions and Directions (1997),7 with the pictures prompting answers to the questions, ‘What’s wrong?’ (p.35) A: ‘Plant’s under the table.’ (#1, p.34) The next step was to scout out the accommodation, by reference to Google Maps on the smartphone; follow the Machiavellian instructions as to how to open the key box with the code sent by SMS to the ‘phone, and bag the bed. Before the other two teachers arrived to start an argument over who got to sleep on the sofa, ‘What’s wrong?’ B: ‘Robert’s under the table.’ Or in the bath.
Invariably it was one key between three: to concentrate the minds of the educators. It being impossible to leave the prison without a key; or a turnkey. Without locks on the inner doors, it was also essential to leave carrying all valuable equipment, and indeed valuables of any sort, to the local school where ‘English week’ was scheduled to demonstrate the efficaciousness of pictures linking prepositions and directions, ‘What’s Where?’ (p.33); ‘Up there!’, or ‘Under the chair!’, and ‘In his underwear!’
The three hour train ride to Bratislava pales into insignificance, compared with the five hours to Pardubice in the Czech Republic. Having arrived and, following Google Maps, directed off in the opposite direction, Thomas’ ‘One Way System (p.23) was carefully perused, ‘Where is the theater?’ (p.22) Searching for the old East Bohemian city building, Městské divadlo (Municipal Theater), ‘near’ (# 5, p. 36.) to where the hypothetically three-in-a-bed apartment was locatable, directions ‘left, right, straight, next to, before, between, opposite’ (p.14) etc., were subsequently afforded, at Zelené Předměstí (Green Suburbs) Uni Hobby store, to the box, which hadn’t the key. Whatever that’s in Slovakian.
Unperturbed, though being beaten by the sticks, sitting ‘on the wall’ (#32, p.39), Humpty-ish, studying Thomas’ ‘Old Town’ (p.19) street guide to find a hand pump in a square ‘there’, and thereby inspired to get ‘hands to the pump’ there on Náměstí Republiky. Wiping dry on a ‘that’s not clean’ hankie, while browsing how to find ℹ in ‘New Town’ (p.21), should information be needed, the theater façade was much in evidence, linguistically being ‘across there’, according to the Grammarians’ app.
Having experience enough of this sort of sappy thing already, with the ‘phone battery flat, ‘What’s Wrong?’ (p.35) A: ‘The ‘phone recharger needs a usb port and those at the airport are clogged with cigarette butts.’ Beneath the flat ‘phone was uncovered the secretly screwed purpose of all things. Bodgering a denizen to annoyance for his ‘phone, Jeeg and Vim would be arriving soon from the wine bar, while the boggled’s life was endangered as a ‘phonie in need of a Bud’.
Each night was spent on a mattress, not fancying a Jeeg sandwich, studying the ‘toon apartment block of ‘Who lives where?’ (p.45), for the ‘above’, ‘below’, ‘first’, ‘second’, and ‘ground floor’ (p.44) grammar; the living room for the variegated #1-18 Spots in ‘Spot the Dog’ (pp. 40-41), who were inveterately ‘on’ (#18, p.39) something or other, like Jeeg, and the similar ‘to cut out’ furniture to paste and fill the vocabulary emptiness in ‘Arranging a Room’ 1 and 2 (pp.37-38), while Jeeg, on the king size bed, gnomically suited, orange in a room, with his indecipherable utterances, watched the flat black flat black HD television screen hung opposed.
It required a fair long walk back to the local ŽSSK headquarters to get the number 84 bus to the juniors’ school in Třebor, as Vim, perhaps now ‘on’ the same thing as Jeeg, on first day steered the group of three past the mid-way to our destination stop, where the 84 could have been had a mile or so earlier.
Susan’s photocopiable book illustrations, ‘In the Fridge’ (p.49), ‘In the Wardrobe’ (p.51), and ‘In the Cupboard’ (p.53), would also soon be tested to the last nouns of their strength, ‘What’s in the fridge?’ A: ‘Bread and salami.’ Perusing ‘At the Hotel’ (p.27) and ‘At the Superstore’ (p.29) at the 84 bus stop, nearer to the hlavní nádraží, ‘main railway station’, than seemed humane; ‘How much?’ underscoring the importance of correct change in Czech coinage for the driver, koruna (crown) denominations had been brought from a previous jaunt to the Republic ten years previously, and for the same employer, at a school in South Bohemia’s Tábor.
With chuckling delirium, as without them there’d be no visit, the coins were relinquished, uncomprehendingly and severally, each day of the week; until all local transportation costs were dutifully paid, ‘What’s where?’ A: ‘The pig’s in the tree.’ (#7, p.32) Though it seemed unlikely, from what had already transpired, that the cash would be reimbursed, suit pockets were duly stuffed with the funfair passes; numbered and dated.
The school was Zakladná a mateřská, Elementary and kindergarten, which in Slovakian was Zakladná s materskou, where cartoons and songs were de rigeur, including The Beatles’, and a favorite of many was ‘Round and Round the Garden’, with lyrics to dully inculcate young minds:
‘Round and round the garden
Like a teddy bear
One step, two step
Tickle you under there!’8
The image of concerned and worried parents is always at the forefront of conscience, when teaching, as is the knowledge that slavers, pimps, and pedophiles want to be rid of those who become older and wiser. ‘Round and Round the Garden’ is a mnemonic for British commandos, ‘To kill you under there!’ ‘One step’ is accompanied by a movement of the hand up the arm, followed by ‘two step’ and a chucking of the chin; in place of the dagger. Also, and of some interest to England’s Princess Diana (d. 1997), campaigner against, used in land mine detection. One step, two step … boom!
The two-step verification system, accompanying the usage of smartphone applications for payments, electronic e-mail accounts, and sundry other passwordings, is similarly designed to ‘distance kill’ a life; locked down with his logout, ‘What’s where?’ (p.33) B: ‘The pig’s behind the tree.’ (#2, p.32) Job protection, masquerading as security generally, apes bank account security, as anyone used to consistently being denied access to their Cambridge Assistant Examiner portal, on the grounds that their password won’t do, knows.
After a hopeful ‘Prague Spring’,9 returning to Budapest each Friday evening, bussed/drained, leaving the Slovak/Czech school around lunchtime, teaching summer camp in England, with the help of Thomas’ ‘At the Campsite’ (p.53), ‘over’ bridge, hill, and road, did wicked service, ‘Carlos, where’s the swimming pool, please?’ (p.24) ‘In the rain, under the lightning and the thunder, near ‘a red wheelbarrow’, ‘beside the white chickens’.’
In a 3 month application process, according to experience, the DBS police check has to be supplemented by the receipt of a similar certificate from the police of every foreign country the teacher has taught in for the previous half decade or so. In a country, like Dorset, where people are expected to have lifetime occupations, with a single company or institution, that looks suspect to begin with. Hungary’s ‘good conduct certificate’ has a 3 month expiry date; presumptively in line with the anticipated length of the job application process.
Acceptance, in good time, presupposed booking a cheap flight through Wizz or Ryan, etc., with the problems attendant ‘upon’10 having but a single small free bag into which everything went. A tablet is a best bet, and aspirins are useful on long air hauls, as they prevent thrombosis, from arterial blood vessels clogging up, while experiencing cramp in ‘economy class’ seating. However, going on a 12/7 flight from Budapest Liszt Ferenc airport at Ferihegy to Leeds Bradford via Nicolaus Copernicus, Wrocław Airport, Poland, named for the 15th century astronomer, who showed planets orbited the sun,11 not the Earth, and with an eleven hour stopover, isn’t.
Bedraggled, on an A2 bus to Bradford, then on to Halifax, and another to Woodfish school, near Elland Road bridge, West Yorkshire, presumably rented by the Irish organizers, Balsa Associated Languages Summer Academicians (BALSA), two cloudy weeks were spent amongst Japanese and Greek teenagers, refreshing their A2-B1 (CEFR) English language use from ESL Brains, online downloadable lesson plans, for example; ‘Dream On!’ (B1),12 sleep vocab, etc. While taking ‘rainy day dream away’ trips to Liverpool and Manchester, and engaging in project work showing signs of dementia praecox; as favored by slavery and fatherliness.
Projecting a trip to the Tate gallery, L’pool, and/or the Manchester ship canal, after cutting a sizable piece from a roll of paper thoughtfully provided, along with colored crayons, was marred only by climbing out of a window, after the door failed to respond to the unlock code. Despite the tracksuit top, blazoned with the legend, SECURITY, the second step of the verification process had proven near fatal. Resulting in a fall into semi-unconsciousness, and later nightmarish dreams of Logon 4 being ‘taken down’, because of Logout 6’s refusing Login 7, and a bruised foot. Recalling a bout of leg gout, after a youth similar to poet Omar Khayyám of Iran’s (1048-1131) Rubáiyát (Quatrains), ‘A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and you.’13
A 27/7 return journey via Napoli, on the west coast, Gulf of Naples, capital of southern Italy’s Campania region, the boot’s shin, meant leaving the airport there at 10.30pm, because (‘ware travelers) it closes. A province is Pompeii, where the now extinct volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, buried a pedestrian community in molten lava and grey ash in 79 C.E. In Pomigliano d’Arco municipality, November 2024, during a 30 day run of 180 permitted in the Schengen zone, rising rent free from a cupboard-with-a-bed each day; rates, utilities and internet, to be paid from a ‘zero hours contract’ with Bonedice School. The vibrant cigs, at Carlo Sartori Science and Human Sciences (Scientifico e delle Scienze Umane) secondary school, had shown signs of being buried in some more ash, coached as they’d beans, though preferred to Cambridge by some, in Trinity’s Secure English Language Test (SELT) exams, approved by GOV for permanent/temporary UK stay applicants.
Awaiting, on a bench outside, a morning flight at 11.00am, it eventually left Ugo Niutta, the airport being named for a 1916 air ace in WWI (1914-18), niutta meaning ‘nothing’, around 1.00pm in sardonic sunshine. Concerned that the strength of the batteries would give out in the MP3 player, programed to cycle eternally between Christina Aguilera’s ‘Dirrty’ (2002), featuring rapper Redman, and ‘Men In Black’ (1997), featuring Will Smith, a bit crapper, the BKV operated Ikarus bus 100E service from Budapest’s airport, Liszt Ferenc, named for the 19th century Hungarian composer, Sonata in B Minor, etc., and deviser of the ‘symphonic poem’, to Kálvin tér, named for Susan Calvin, roboticist in SF writer, Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot (1950), loomed brightly in the consciousness of the traveler. With but a #49 tram to home thereafter, wings having flown close to the sun, and the sounds of The Mission’s ‘Tower of Strength’ (1988) still booming in the eardrums as, stairs ascended, the door key turning, there’d … beans … hum ... light at the end of the funnel.
1 Buxton, Glen, Michael Bruce, Alice Cooper, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith ‘School’s Out’, Alice Cooper, School’s Out, Warner Bros., 1972.
2 Nolan, William F., and George Clayton Johnson Logan’s Run, Dial Press, 1967, p. 10, pp. 133.
3 Lennon, John, and Paul McCartney ‘All You Need Is Love’, The Beatles, Parlophone, Capitol, July 1967.
4 Bennington, Chester, Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, Joe Hahn, and Mike Shinoda ‘Crawling’, Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory, Warner Bros., 2000.
5 Hetfield, James, Kirk Hammett, and Lars Ulrich ‘Enter Sandman’, Metallica, Metallica, Elektra, 1991.
6 Monroe, Vaughn ‘Mister Sandman’, RCA Victor, 1954.
7 Thomas, Susan Picture Prompts Prepositions and Directions, Delta Publishing, 1997, 56 pp.
8 ‘Round and Round the Garden’, Roud Folk Song Index, 19235, 1940s.
9 A phrase drawn from a period of freedom in the former Czechoslovakia, before some countries of the Russian-dominated military alliance, Communism’s ‘Warsaw Pact’, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia, invaded on the night of August 20th, 1968, to crush it.
10 Williams, William Carlos Spring and All, ‘XXII’, New York: Contact Editions/Dijon: Maurice Darantière, 1923.
11 Copernicus, Nicolaus De revolutionibus orbium coelestium [On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres], Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire, 1453, pp. 405.
12 ESL Brains, ‘Vocabulary - sleep and dreaming’, https://eslbrains.com/esl-lesson-about-dreams/ .
13 Khayyám, Omar Rubáiyát (transl. Edward FitzGerald), Quatrain XI, 1859.