Education

****Crucial Amendments********

The Irishman has been teaching me Irishisms - Irish words and phrases and Irish swear words and for good measure British swear words and lots of such words. Why is it that calling someone a "Wally" or a "Wanker" seems more refined than calling someone a "Arsehole"* or "Moron"? Sounds much nicer, and still has the same effect. Of course, if one wishes to properly and truly swear at someone, Hindi (more specifically the variety spoken in Bombay), is GREAT. But that's for another post.

Sidebar: I've decided that referring to the Irishman as The Irishman is getting rather tedious. Also, it is rather impersonal. Yes, he's Irish, but he's also so much more! And since everyone else on the blog gets to have nice snappy nic names, why not him? So, after much pondering here's the decree: The Irishman will henceforth be known as Beanpole. Yes, the name is quite apt as he is well over the 6ft mark and more so to me because I just about make the 5ft4" mark. Barely. And no, you durrty minded freaks, it has nothing to do with his *ahem* manhood, though let me just state right now on record that he's certainly not lacking in said area. ;)

Anyway, where was I? Right - learning new words.

And it's not just with words (swear or otherwise) that I'm trying. I have suddenly taken to reading all and much about the weird and wonderful world of Rugby. Beanpole is a big fan total nutter about that game, and apparently so is the rest of the family. Mommy Beanpole (who is actually rather wee), Big Brother Beanpole and Little Brother Beanpole are all apparently super addicted and they spend an extraordinary amount of time calling each other (long distance) to discuss recent games. (matches?) So far, my education has included
a) the teams he supports (Munster and Leinster - don't they sound like 2 of the dwarfs?)
b) their team colours and unis
c) the match between Munster and the All Blacks in 1978 was historic in every way (and some day I'm going to have to watch the bloody thing)
d) that Ireland generally loose to Scotland that Ireland is a damn good team
e) If Ireland isn't playing, you don't care who wins as long as England looses.

**In conversation with His Beanpoleness last night, he asked me what exactly I had said about my basic understanding of the sport, and so I told him. Apparently, even my "basics" are all wrong, hence the above amendments.** (Damn, I almost messed up the entire relationship there!)

My education is been sadly impeded by the fact that I am a visual learner and need to see/do/touch my way around something new, and so far most of the education has been him trying to explain things to me over Skype. Suffice to say I'm horribly confused about the sport and the only fact that I was able to fathom myself is that you have throw the ball (is it called a ball?) backwards. Beer Baron, in an attempt to help told me that I just needed to know about a Hooker (eh?), Lock and Scrum and that the person with the most broken bones looses. Beer Baron didn't however expand on those terms, so the concepts are still fuzzy.

As if long distance dating wasn't hard enough already!

*Spellcheck seems to want to change Arsehole to Arsenal. Even as a non soccer person I am thinking that is poetic justice!