Pages

Sunday 22 February 2009

Strange Shores 4, or Monty Po-thon's flying circus


Roll up, roll up for the latest edition of Strange Shores.

I think it is fitting that the theme for today's edition is Monty Python's flying circus, because it is English, and England is where I now pat my ex, and seeing as before I came here I had based my opinion of this country mostly on Monty Python episodes, well, I thought they were very strange shores indeed. And mostly they are. But with less spam (and eggs and spam, chips, eggs and spam, spam spam, bacon eggs and spam...) than I was led to expect. Thankfully.

I shall get myself out of the way first. Here is a post I wrote about grappling with the finer points of English -er- English. I should really just say "I am South African. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent? I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. I fart in your general direction." Or something.


Next up is Ladyfi, a Brit in Sweden, whose posts about the the weather, the moon, and ducks have me thinking that logically, if she weighs as much as a duck, well then she must be made of wood. And if wood and ducks can float, she must therefore be a witch. Logically.


Then we have Louise, another Brit, this time in Italy. Her post about the sky makes me wonder, do coconuts migrate in Italy too?

Cairo typ0, an American woman in Cairo, writes about the trials of finding work in Egypt. Well, if you take advice from Monty Python, you could always become "a lumberjack" and be ok. I am sure you have no problem wearing women's clothing and pressing wild flowers?


Next is someone who seems to be doing a cultural exchange with me, since he moved to Cape Town roughly the same time I came to the UK. I even ended up working in the same English city as he did. 6000's first post is about domestic workers, sore meninges and bees, which brings me to the thought that "half a bee philosophically must ipso facto half not be. But half the bee has got to be a vis-à-vis it's entity". Not so?

His second post is about death by giraffe headbutt, which is always unfortunate. Pity the person never took Monty Python's self defense class, good for fending off wayward bananas, and possibly banana-shaped giraffes?

Dora from Hong Kong, Toronto, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Bangkok and Rayong now in London met a drunken man hanging from a fence and tried to find out what he wanted. Was it..."a shrubbery?" Or merely the meaning of life?

Paddy K, an Irishman, tells us about naughty number plates in Sweden (nudge nudge, wink wink, know what I mean?), and about a situation that is frankly so Pythonesque that it needs no introduction, a driver recieving a reduced sentence because he was drinking.


PiNG, an American in Denmark, cannot understand why locals keep staring at her. You would think she belonged to the Ministry of Silly Walks or something.


And now for something completely different. Dash is an Australian currently in Kathmandu. In this post he makes a bit of a faux pas with his cleaning lady and communes with his dirty underwear.


I am most disappointed that there were no expats in Norway this time round, because I was itching to quote the "dead parrot sketch". Oh well. If you did not participate this time, please join in for the next edition.

This round of Strange Shores is "bleeding demised, it has passed on, it's expired and gone to meet its maker, bereft of life it rests in peace, it is no more, it has ceased to be... this is an ex- parrot post."

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I am South African. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent? I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! You mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. I fart in your general direction."

lol. I about spit my drink on myself.

I <3 Monty Python

Anonymous said...

OOOOOOH LINKS to see and read.

Thanks PO :D

Anonymous said...

Brilliant Monty Python humour! Thanks for that!

I'm sending people your way from my blog .. oh, and I've answered one of your interview questions too!!

Unknown said...

Hey Po! I am back with a new blog!
preggiepurringcat.blogspot.com

Tamara said...

To this post, I say, "Nee!" (not in Afrikaans, in Python).

Off to chop down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring and read these other expat blogs ;-)

po said...

Hey guys, thanks for reading. I had loads of fun writing this, cos I got to watch lots of Monty Python!

Kitty: cool, well check it out after work!

MsTypo said...

Thanks for hosting us this week! Anyone who loves Monty Python this much must be a good person! :D

Ok off to view all the links. Wheeee!!

Dash said...

i can't believe you managed to wangle all those lines in there!

"What's the air speed velocity of a swallow?"

"African or European?"

and thnks for including me!

Kelli Nørgaard said...

Darn .. I kept meaning to send you a post to link, but we had houseguests... But I will catch up and be ready for next time! Thanks for such a great post!!!

po said...

typ0: it was a very merry pleasure :)

Dash: it was quite a strain squeezing all those references in there, and some of them are rather lame. but I did enjoy watching all the skits again.

Kelli: next time for sure.

Tamara said...

Yo expat Po... check this out:

http://sarocks.co.za/2009/02/24/south-african-voting-overseas-follow-these-6-steps-fast/

Anonymous said...

Po Po Po..

I can too..like to love Monty Python!!

What a fabulous post.

Makes me wish i was an expat blogger...living somewhere like.. Pyongyang North Korea!

po said...

Tamara: Wow, thank you. I read the link but it seems you only qualify to vote if you are an ambassador or on a sports trip. Can I pretend I am on an extended climbing trip? One that lasted 5 years? It is vaguely true :)

JHBprincess: Well, what are you waiting for? Pyongyang awaits!