Somewhere, and it seemed as if it were from, oh way above the clouds so high, I heard Manolo’s familiar foreign language pot-shots at advice amidst a sea of angels in white jackets. For a few nanoseconds I had an horrendous vision that I had lost my mortal curls and gone to that great blackboard in the sky where the chalk no longer squeaks, where the tuck shop is forever open, and where, apparently, I was surrounded by people in white coats and where novel anatomical restrictions demanded that I would have seriously to bide my time for any descendants. But, far worse, my most terrible fears had come true: i) Manolo was to be my only company up there, and ii) expiration had done nothing to improve his fluency. I tried desperately to re-trace my steps…

As I raised my head after having slurped down another ladle-load of Chechu’s finest Gazpacho in the forecourt of the “Seex penis” restaurant (“Mah best deesh: eeza cold soap weeth two mates and grim peepers”), my attention was inevitably drawn to a poster blu-tacked onto the wall in front of me. It had clearly been home-baked by Chechu (cf. Lesson Three): charmingly enough adorned with assorted cut-outs of clichéd Spanish memorabilia (including the Giralda in an impossibly bright blue sky and the Alhambra set against the setting sun on the Sierra Nevada), all topped off with a bull sporting a rather constipated demeanour, and bilingually emblazoned with “y Viva España (‘Long lives for the Spain’)” around the top. On closer inspection, however, there were odd scarlet marks along the peaks of the Sierra Nevada which looked worryingly like tomato puree, and raised yellow outlines across the ramparts of the Alhambra which disappeared into the sun and which I had no trouble whatsoever in recognising as having their provenance in yesterday’s tortilla española. It had thoughtfully been divided across the middle into one Spanish and one Eengleesh section, no doubt responding to Chechu’s current clientele, and sounded, well, inviting. Perhaps – in parts – a tad over-enticing in translation:

I was still trying to get my head round the idea of religiously fanatical seafood when my musings were interrupted by Nacho, as he served me another round of warm crunchy home-baked loaf.

“Ees very recommendable, Meester Crème. Itch jeer eez deeferent and Chechu organize the treep and orll the restaurants he advance book. Orll hchees friend beeg chiefs, beeg discunt, and dilishoos tapas.”

And so I was hooked. I had seen little of Spain so far and the chance of making a gastronomic tour made it all the more appealing. I packed thoughtfully, using my trusty Plan A as a basis (see Lesson Nine), removing only the aftershave as this was basically a boys’ trip.

Chechu had taken the trouble to book with a company who provided an in-bus guide and – in the pocket in front of each seat – a guide book (“Cities of the Spain”) for each and every city on the itinerary, courtesy of the Granada Tourist Board, of whose existence I had learnt on the second day of my Granadinian life when – desirous of the directions to the Generalife Gardens – I was told by the assistant, “Wok strait, curve to the left, bend backwoods and the Gardens are closed by your hand.” I nestled into No Smoking H3 Left Aisle and opened the book: “Version English Number second edition printing” was emboldened on the third page. I sat up a little bit more in the seat, realising that comprehension of this tome might require a little bit extra concentration. Chapter 3 dealt with what was to be our first port of call, Madrid: “Industrious city, full of leathers, and their interiors, and a large peoples”. I read on, eager to find out what these large people and their interiors did with their leathers. “…excessively hot and cold, very elevated in the centre of Spain and during big war was besotted with the Nationalists”.

A sudden revving down of the engine and the sight of my fellow companions looking eagerly out of the windows interrupted my linguistic trudge. It suddenly became clear that the real objective of the trip was far from city tourism and rather closer to Chechu’s heart. After only fifteen minutes up the road – I swear I could still see my undies left drying on the pensión balcony – we were pulling in at a big sign which read: “Restaurante Los Rodeos: Pescados y tapas variadas”.

Chechu then informed me about the stop: “Meester Crème, ees boss chere Paco and beeg freend. Tapas, and a teacoop if joo want.”

The combination sounded interesting enough although 1025 a little early for it.

Then Manolo suddenly grabbed hold of my arm and whispered epicurean devotion in my ear:

“Leesten me well, Grammer, dees man has enormouse tapas and ween beeg price for hchees contents las jeer. Ess very tasty hchees fishy balls and crap paste. Orll good. But – and eef joo follow my advices – I recommend to you eating those toona, may and daisy sandwich.”

Somewhere, at the back of my mind, I remembered a section in the British Council Guide for GB Nationals On Long-term Contracts in the Exterior someone at the BC had so thoughtfully dropped into my briefing pack at the pre-posting orientation meeting…something about hot days and cold salads and salad cream and eggs…and…now what was it exactly? At which point, as always, I followed his advices and he led me, as ever, unto the table, and my fate.

The last thing I recollect after feeling my stomach wrench and myself passing out, was Manolo leaning over me in the ambulance. I distinctly remember spotting a drop of the wretched salad cream entering and exeunting his lip left and right as he mouthed his advice to me. Poor man, desperately trying to calm me down and me desperately trying not to get anxious trying to fathom what on earth he was saying to calm me down.

“Aksprosimately seex days, Meester Crème…ees for in-ars training. De bonk send eets members to the bitch for some good lessons.”

Well, lucky members, thought I. Now that’s what I call a bank that cares. For a young fresh thing straight out of university, and one who was having only moderate success in his attempts to get o-layed through the power of dance (see Lesson Four), Sr d’Avila’s description of the annual bank symposium sounded almost too good to be true. And I, for one, was only too willing to experience the kind of lesson he described. Unfortunately, it was indeed too good to be true – I was not to be on the receiving end.

“If joo come, joo wuld titch to us ingleesh for internashunul bonking. Joo know, iikschange rats, creedit trunsfers, and similar trensactions.”

Someone at the bank head office in Madrid, with momentary – but blinding – insight into personnel mis-management, had decided to promote the digestively-challenged Sr. D’Avila (see Lesson Two) to what he proudly referred to as “Ched of Stuff” of the six Granadinian branches which had “Bureaux de change“. The appointment had clearly gone straight to his head. Some days earlier I had been lucky enough to preview (and halt prior to mass printing) a copy of the English visiting card he had somewhat hastily drafted, which read “Sr. Jesús Mª. d’Avila. Stuffing Manager and Head of Change“. It transpired that, from those he currently “stuffed”, would proceed to be chosen ten persons to accompany him for a week of Business English lessons in a rented villa on the Costa del Sol. Jesús had graciously decided to offer me the contract first. He was not in the slightest put off by my total lack of knowledge of the banking world:

“Ees nothing for to worry about it. Joo have a great times pooting suncreems on de bitch and make also a fart buck,” he assured me. “Joo are a cooker, no?”

“Eh?” I eyed him with curiosity, bordering on bewilderment. However, at times like this, experience had now taught me that when confronted by this kind of stabbing at my language, I should hastily go through my now well-learnt gamut of choice Manolo & Co. mistakes trying rapidly to fathom what he might be getting at. On this occasion, however, I remained beaten.

“Ees slafe-catering. Itch day another cooks heemself for de others. Joo can?”

“Er…perdón…por favor…” I was flabbering again. Enough for Jesús, anyway:

“Dat is sittled den. Joo stand on de corner at nine on Freeday and joo get peecked up by Maria Teresa. She ees my secret area.”

Well, there you go, I thought, there was something positive coming out of it, anyway. Up till then, the only thing I had picked up regularly on street corners was dust.

There is (or was), I firmly believe, a number of situations in life for which the solitary British male is rarely well-prepared. If he does attempt to prepare himself, he is doomed to failure. A seaside romp is just one such occasion. One stands facing the suitcase, late for one’s encounter with Sr. d’Avila’s significant other area, and pestered by gnawing doubts which strike at the very soul of one’s untainted Englishness:

You might be hot, Graeme. Better take some T-shirts.
I pack six. One for each day.

They are bankers, Graeme – serious students who want to learn.
I take out the two red and yellow-striped t-shirts and hide the “Barclays imprisoned Mandela” one in my tracksuit top.

You have excess body hair, Graeme.
I remove the remaining three white t-shirts, chuck in my pocket “Clip-’n'-Go” nose-hair remover, and add the five M&S long-sleeved Oxford Style I’d picked up in the sale (dangling label worryingly reads “Nearly perfect” – I agonise for minutes before opting to keep these visible for extra sex appeal).

There’s bound to be some girl there you’ll fancy, Graeme.
I chuck in my Duty Free bottle of Aramis and the two free phials of YSL Jazz I got in the airport bag.

They are Spanish girls, Graeme. They’ll like ‘em hirsute.
I reluctantly remove the nose-hair remover from my Boots toilet bag.

Maria Teresa turned out to be a redoubtable “secret area”, indeed. She was that rare breed of English student in Granada who actually had something of a grasp on English. This tended to slip at key moments, however, revealing her balder linguistic areas. She eyed me suspiciously at the pick-up point.

“Ten minutes have gone. You are late to come. And I am expecting.”

Her comments were undeniably correct, if biologically questionable. On our drive down to the coast I had enough time to check her out and come to the sensible conclusion that she might be as good as it was going to get down there so, having deftly managed to open up one of the Jazz phials with one hand in my pocket and dowse the left side of my scalp during a rather aggressive piece of cornering, I made an opening gambit, based on a potent combination of considerable scrutiny of Latin seduction techniques, careful experience-based comparisons of similar past opportunities, and many years of studying the Spanish female psyche:

“So, Maria Teresa, tell me, got a boyfriend, have you?”

“Juan, from Sevilla. A big man. He likes doing his Gym.”

“Ooo…lucky Jim, eh?” No response to humour so I quickly popped the top back on the phial and decided to fix my gaze on the fast-approaching glistening seas. This was my first, and as it turned out, my last bank symposium. To this day, I know not whether it was my cooking or teaching which let me down. I doubt the latter, for I decided to go for an avant-garde methodology whereby class input was followed by class practice on the street, taking advantage of the (patience of) innocent British tourists who abound on the Costa at this time of year. The first two classes concentrated on the requesting of personal information and details in English. However, I failed to take into account just who was being sent out on these sorties. Thus, I would like to end by taking the opportunity offered me by this column of apologising to the Thomson Holidays Sing-and-Swingalonga Over-Seventies group who happened to be on the wrong beach at the wrong time and, in particular, to Harry Wolfowitz, who I do hope by now has learnt to pardon the Deputy Exchange Manager’s (Málaga) opening request to his wife, Dot, which came out as “Can I take down joora dress for more contacts?”. It was only the second class and he was only obeying orders.

“Ees to beat eet and sock eet eslowly”, said Manolo as he handed over the brightly-festooned box, its sweet label decorated with a three-kings motif that carried a handwritten verse written by my dearest student, which touched my heart and, somehow, covered all his recent deafening linguistic clangers in a rosy glow, making for one of those moments when a teacher feels – despite everything – well, you know, it really has all been worthwhile:

For joor first Creesmas chere, may joo pass many thing good
Joor friends, joor presents, and joor food.

You could fault the rhyming, but his concern for my digestion was admirable. It was, thus, with a smidgen of concern that I eyed the contents of the box. “Turrones de España” was written on the outside; I quickly rejected the idea that this might be a Spanish cover video of Señores Barker and Corbett in a Navidad special. It smelt of vanilla and marzipan, was cut up into small cubes, weighed a ton, and had the colour and consistency of polyfilla. I swear I could feel my teeth shouting: “Brace! Brace!”

“Ees espeshal food at Creesmas in Espain. In my callings*, it refir to “New…gat” or somethings like dees”.

Christmas, my first, was indeed one to remember in Granada. As the outsider that you inevitably are, you have a straight choice. Be a Brit and spend a BritChris by closing the door, going all gooey listening to your King’s College tape of best-loved carols, getting in supplies of a local pastry, filling it with dark lumpy jam and imagining it is a mince pie, and then moaning that nobody invites you for a nibble at their parson’s nose. Or go local.

Since, as you may now have gathered, I never willingly admit to being the cause of my own disasters here, I have singled out Isabel, the nine-year-old daughter of – as I now learnt – the long-since-divorced Sr d’Avila, who must shoulder the blame. The corridor inevitably became the channel of communications in the hostel and, equally inevitably, I was on one of my excursions down the flight of stairs to the first-floor ablutions centre (see previous episode for flowing details):

“Meester Crème, I hef oorgency to speak with you sumthink.”

I had my own urgencies, but he was a pupil and business is business. As always on these occasions, it was with much reluctance and tightened downstairs sphincter that I made a hiatus in my trip.

“Do joo know de Creesmas estory?”

You really would have thought that seeing a descending fellow-lodger with toilet roll in hand and evident suffering on face would have suggested leaving evangelical excursions to a more opportune time.

“Um, the stable, the mule, the kings, and the star bit…you mean?”

Forgetting my diligent student had only reached unit four in his BBC English course with me, I registered the poor man’s look of horror.

“…Mah dochter teeshirt asks her for joo go to learn dem some good Eenglish Creesmas tunes”

“You mean, carols?”

“Is no matter for dem. Joors, jor seesters, Carol’s, or choo joo want. Dey want joo to learn dem. Dees is orl.”

And yea, so it came to pass that, some three weeks later, I found myself the unwilling scriptwriter, director, conductor, and prompt in the dress rehearsal for the “Sagrada Corazón” 1997 school production of the Nativity Play, en inglés. Once again, it did not take me long to realise I had bitten off far more newgat than I could chew. My presence was brazenly taken advantage of as an excuse to show the parents on the night that their offspring’s English knew no bounds as they effortlessly gouged their way through carol after carol. Indeed, as long as these parents had no idea about what the carol was supposed to sound like, we were on to a winner.

In practice, however, I was now to be faced not just by one straining English pronunciation, but two hundred and thirty-seven, in assorted angel and shepherd attire, with abilities ranging from upper-intermediate, through beginner, and down to a one-off viewing in a friend’s house last June of a pirate Teletubbies video.

“Now, listen everybody, try to think of the metronome. BOm, BOm, BOm, Be-BOm, Bo, BOm-Bo. So it’s “ONce In RO-yal DA-vid’s CI-ty. Now everybody, uno, dos, tres, and…”

“Once… a… royal… dave… hees… seeting
Stood… alone… een… cattil… shit”

“Perhaps we could move on to that solo, just before the final scene in the barn. Nacho, could you perhaps find that music on the disc…mmm?”

Nacho, who you may have chosen to forget worked as a waiter in the “Seex Penis” bar, had been roped into being sound manager as he was the only one with a portable CD set and a working remote control. Up from the little ‘uns row stepped a sweet little thing with sprouting foil annexes:

“Welsh heaps wash der flocksed night, arse heated on de grown…”

The big night arrived and, now elevated locally to the status of invited director, I was running about like Almodóvar on sherbet-dabs. As is often the case on occasions like these, an over-thoughtful parent decided to video the whole spectacle. And then, caring nothing for my state of mind or future legal wrangles, to sell copies to other unsuspecting parents at 10 euros a guffaw. On days/months when I feel things could surely not get worse, I still pull it out of its dust-jacket, pop it in the Panasonic, pour myself a double Martini, and realise just how easily they can. I still shudder to think that somewhere this Christmas, in at least one Granadinian home, after a hearty meal of suckling pig with all the trimmings, followed by tooth-terminator nougat, some of the parents present that holy night might well gather round the radiator with, say, the new English au-pair, or that sweet American family they met on holiday just over for the Crimble break. They snuggle down – tapas in hand – to behold this final barnyard scene, now immortalised on Video 8. I do so wish Betamax had stayed on for just a few years more.

The artistic concept I was striving for in writing this last scene, do you see, was to leave the audience with something to remember, to mull over, to bring up around the table on Xmas day after everything else had been brought up….I was, in short, being Brechtian, wouldn’t you know. Didactic theatre at its best. Make Christmas local, give it a Granadinian hue, bring it back to the people, and all that. As the lights fade up, we see a bare stage, only the outlines of some familiar buildings can be seen on the back projection: the Alhambra and the Generalife. Off stage left and – as if by divine intervention – Nacho finally came in on cue with a recording of a solitary flamenco singer drawling out a painful lament. Good, eh? Silence falls on the scene, the papier-mâché palm tree lovingly licked together by Class 5c having done so seconds before. A spotlight focuses on Mary (Sr. D’Avila’s daughter, now bent double with baby Jesus under fallen tree), and the audience – for once – went silent in awe of the scene before them. Those that hadn’t already gone could not fail to be moved. Slowly, and again right on cue, two follow spots picked out the humble Balthasar (aka Sr. d’Avila; enter stage left) and the angel Gabriel (well, Gabriella, as it turned out, since the headmistress insisted on playing her; enter up stage right). Then, the culminating moment, just four lines to set you thinking, to ponder in the bosom of the Spanish family Christmas, to send us all home with that rosy glow of Christmas, warming our cheeks and softening the nougat:

Balthazar: O deer lord…may der be luff and gucchi at de end of dis jeer…
Mary: May der be presents for mudder and farder…
Gabriella: May der be toys for de pupils and rest for the teeshirts…
(FX: music rises to crescendo)
Balthazar: …And pis…orl over Granada.
* This was the way Manolo referred to his pocket Collins tourist dictionary, his firm companion on many an English mystery tour.

I gulped my customary litre of air before bungee-jumping out the reply. “Well, perdón, but actually, er, no lo sé, er, I don’t really notice when. They are just there, really…all the time. Are they, I mean, is it…er… important?”

When your foreign language skills are not quite honed, your initial encounter with what are everyday, non-threatening situations back home can take on a whole new startling aspect once you are faced with the inevitable. At such crucial times, you cannot rely on sign language and/or sound effects to get you through. Ironically, if the interlocutor’s own grasp of your language is somewhat precariously based on spasmodic attendances at medical conferences in the USA, and he or she is doggedly determined to wow you by sprinkling the conversation with lubricators come what may, it can make matters far worse. Be it that first visit to the hairdresser’s where styles have to be discussed, the first description at the butcher’s when cuts of meat must be ordered, or that first visit to the doctor’s where symptoms are related – sooner or later, you’ll get the call. Mine came at about half-past one in the morning – and on three consecutive mornings.

The toilet – those of a nervous disposition might like to skip the next two paragraphs – in the “Pensión Los Girasoles” was on the ground floor. Nowt too inconvenient there, you might think. However, I was on the third and, to put it nicely, at times like these, an extra G-force clicked in at each landing and, well, the faster I ran, the faster it ran. But the obstacle race did not end there. To make matters worse, on my way down, I had to pass most of the fellow-lodgers’ rooms. As you may now have worked out, they are a jolly bunch of Spanish revellers and 1.30 in the morning in the middle of August here corresponds to about 1300 GMT. It is far too early and hot to kip down. Hence, most doors to the bedsits are open to ventilate rooms and enable the free flow of visitors. I, however, had quite different ventilation and flow to cater for.

I had already discovered on an earlier mishap in the toilet that there was no permanent supply of what an Icelandic student once translated in her composition as “anal blotter”. Perfumed toilet paper had just arrived in Spain, and it seemed everyone wanted to turn the wiping of their rear into an aesthetic experience. Purple forest-fruits roll in hand, trailing a subtle waft of spruce and wild berry behind me, I could hardly disguise the reason for my descent. I turned the corner at the second floor to find Paco, the travelling insurance agent, desperate to break into world futures, reading through his latest copy of The Economist, a subscription to which he had acquired on the basis of my advice to him to widen his vocabulary. Now, at every opportunity, he’d try to impress me with his new insights into the lexicon. I steeled myself – this time literally – for the inevitable query.

“Goonight Meester Grammar. De rest room for mens, she ees ocupated.” I sighed and hesitated just that second too long.

“Jossa minit. A qwestyin. Een Eenglish ees ‘I sink’, den past tense ‘I sank’?”

“Yes.”

“…aaaand …’I stink’…jesserday ‘I stank’, no?”

“Er…if you say so, Paco, yes, but…tell you what…why don’t I come by tomorrow and go through the irregular verbs so…”

“No, no chere.” He licked his forefinger and picked out a dog-eared page in the “USA politics” section. “Chere it say, ‘President Cleentun winked at de bjootifool Frensh joornalist’. Now, shirly, dees shuld be ‘he wank at de…’”

Luckily, before he could finish, I heard the lock on the toilet door pushed back and I was down like a shot.

By the fourth day, I could bear it no more. I was so desperate I decided to consult the fount of all local weesdom:

“Manolo,” I pointed to my lower abdomen and groin, “have you ever had a pain here?” Manolo nodded reassuringly:

“Once, jes, I chad. But de eenk go on mah trouser orl over. Seence den chai kip dem chere,” he too pointed and patted, “in mah jackit pokit.”

Prior to my arrival in Granada, I had been in Brazil under contract to the British Council, who – bless ’em – always prepared their teachers for every eventuality, providing us with a little book of dodgy diseases and their symptoms. I now grabbed it off the bookcase and it fell open immediately at the particularly gruesome “Visual aids to diagnosis” section. I proceeded nervously to flick through the chapter with Manolo wincing and gasping at my side at the sight of every sebaceous cyst or lichen planus. Suddenly, the next page fell open ominously.

“Chapter 4. Tumours of the colon.” I gulped. Manolo goolped. Then we both leant forward and focussed on the text, my hand trembling as it approached the page. I placed my finger on the text and slowly read the sentence aloud:

“Colon cancer: often no symptoms in the early stages.” Manolo grasped my shaking finger and turned his head slowly towards me, eyes wide open in disbelief:

“Mah gorsh*, Meester Grimy. Ees iksactly what joo have got.”

At this point he swung into action. Inevitably/ominously, he did indeed know someone who could help. I paused only to check that this was, in fact, a person of a medical ilk. I was still reeling from my last despairing cry for first-aid a month back when I had asked Granada’s next ambassador to the UN if he could recommend someone who could give me something to help stop my “burning neck ache”. Upon returning from a shopping sortie next morning, outside my door, I found a long round packet with a note from Señora María del Socorro, the pensión owner, to which Manolo had clearly chipped in as translator and scribe:

Here is teen fol. Is to embrace itself around the meexture bifore cocking complitely with littel heet. ¡Que aproveche!”

Yes, don’t worry, it took me aeons to work it out, too – and I’d been teaching the guy for months. Anyway, this time the medical meeting was kosher and here I was, baring all to a stranger. The doctor now eyed me in the way doctors do when they see you have not the slightest grasp of Gray’s Anatomy and are about to trounce you with a piece of mind-blowingly obvious diagnosis. For Dr. López, boolls were not just a body part. They were the essence of life itself. He referred to them with the affection normally reserved to the things one holds most close to one. Which, in a way, I suppose they are, really.

“VERRY EEMPORTANT, Señor Crème, so verry. Never is to onderistimate the language of joor bolls, man. Joor boolls movimiento will tell joo eemeediately if joo sorta like or if joo don like.”

Well that had been my experience in life, too, I could not argue. At this point he passed me what looked suspiciously like a Dulux colour chart.

“Before joo come choomorrow, ebacuate. Den look carful at joor ebacuation and write de color for us to check eet out.”

I must have looked dazed. Here was I desperate for some jollop and this guy wants to choose wall shades.

“…and take plenny of lechers or fresh garbidge, bawld kitchen, and nottink fried in bother. And cot out de darned fried lamp.”

And he was the specialist.

*Buoyed up by a recent borderline fail in the Cambridge Preliminary English exam, Manolo had now decided to “speak more like an Eenglish peerson” and had taken to the irritating habit of exclaiming a number of “Blytonisms” at all the wrong moments. This one, he reliably informed me, was what “Meester Geebs”, a hapless character in all three series of his – as it turned out – very aptly-named “Let’s Do English” primary-school textbook used as an all-purpose phrase of surprise, given the slightest stimulus.

Cheet won bi eezi
Joo weel teenk eet estrange
Chwen ah try chew esplain chow ah fill…

Ne’er a truer lyric. The strange and the inexplicable. Susan and Celia, the singing policepeople down Granada way, were that most dangerous cocktail of student. Blindingly obvious deficiencies in the linguistic flair direction, yet driven by a relentless will to succeed. You held them back at your peril. These two came armed with a wondrous enthusiasm, launching themselves at every preposition and phrasal verb unit in the book as if their next traffic ticket depended on it.

Now perish the thought I should ever seek to use this column as a platform for teacher motivation but, for any budding EFL professionals out there, not already put off the idea of doing all this for a living, may I just say that such base learner material should not be shown the door at once. Hopeless cases are always handy for the penniless language teacher anxious not to lose potential students who – by virtue of their very ineptitude – are likely to remain on your books for many years to come.

The message left on my answerphone (kindly loaned me by fellow lodger Sr. d’Avila the bank manager (“is very usefool for peepools to know joo are not orll chere”)) had intrigued me: two policewomen whose main interest in foreign language learning was to sing karaoke. How do you prepare a lesson with these two? No use planning a quick dash through the Present Perfect. If anything, it was going to have to be Sing Something Present Simple.

And so it came to pass that my life was illuminated with two new budding stars of stage, screen, and the local clink. I always knew when the two were on their way up to my bedsit. First, I’d hear the screech of tyres as Susan put the CatMobile through a hard left turn into my street. Next, there’d be a “ssschooooopp” as what sounded like every window in my pensión and the neighbouring houses was pushed open to see what the fuss was about and discuss who might be about to get roughed up.

As you can imagine, after five or six lessons, I became the centre of attention in the neighbourhood. Understandably, my landlady, Señora María del Socorro (credibly translated, you might remember, by Manolo’s “Muther off God, hilp me”), began to think of her reputation:

“Professor Crème, plis onderstant… eez no right two pliswimins in joor bedroom in de night. Eez very estrange deez noisiz joo make up dere.”

She had a point. They always arrived to classes uniformed and then proceeded to spend the first ten minutes divesting themselves of their armoury on the table. It was all so regimented, yet faintly erotic, you see. First, both stood up and insisted on unlocking and unhooking each others’ belts, and then the attached handcuffs were placed side-by-side between us. The respective truncheons were not so much pulled as coaxed by twisting them this way then that out of their leather belt. Bullets were then emptied from the guns, which themselves were then employed as temporary lecterns. The bullets always lay disconcertingly close to my pieces of chalk.

“So,” I began, “why do you want to learn to sing English? I mean, speaking must be more useful with all these tourists around in Granada?”

Susan soon put me straight on the motivation angle: “We are plees only in dee day. In dee night we do a transform together.” *

Celia clarified matters: “In dee day, we are Celia y Shoosan. Pleeswimeen on dee bit, as joo say. De night we are ‘El Duo Dinámico’, dee seenging Granada grope.”

This was all new for me. Up to then, I had seen policepeople in far more obvious roles in Granada – politely hassling suspicious foreigners for their ID cards or helping uncomprehending tourists find the Alhambra by the least beggar-infested route. From the glossy publicity photos the dynamic duo now pulled out of their holsters to prove their calling, I was going to have to rework my image of yer average el cop – and fast. I cannot print the photograph here for copyright reasons and out of respect for the duo’s enormous Berettas, but for those of you old enough to remember sexy, slinky, hot-leathered Suzi Quatro, try get a picture in your minds of the hirsute, muscular bass guitarist and drummer just behind her and you have got it in two.

They proceeded to explain the real motivation behind their desire to learn. It all centred on the act itself. The photos revealed them in what at first appeared to be round blonde gigantic Brillo pads. They allegedly did covers for Madonna songs, but recently had received an offer from a local impresario clearly desperate for a regular spot to aid digestion of the paella at weddings and christenings. This potential prod into local stardom had made them realise it was time to get some learning in as regards them thare lyrics. Might I just add, to excuse what now follows, that my sole intention in asking to hear their current level of lyric-learning, was merely to set a benchmark for the lessons to come; I was rewarded, however, with half the show. And this without the benefit of the paella to distract me. Opportunity proceeded to thud for the dynamic duo.

“Dis chere…” said Celia, grabbing my prize plastic Tiffany’s imitation lamp standard, “…iz mah light…imagine de fukoos iz up mah left chick.”

“Ahm wolk around cher, so,” chirped Susan, stomping this way and that, truncheon in one hand marking time with it on the other, “…and ah sing “Oooo” every time iz necessary.” Meanwhile, Celia was searching round for anything remotely resembling a microphone. Luckily, she lighted upon her Beretta first and brought it to her lips. I closed my eyes (and ears) in anticipation of what was to come and tried to think of alternative ways of earning a peseta.

In comes the truncheon as Susanna marks time: “Un, dos, y…“:

“Like dee veergeen, (Celia: “Ooooo… jes“), tossed for dee fairy feerst times…”

The set then continued to another little number, this time with Celia on accompanying side-cosh and polished handcuffs:

“Troo loaf (Celia: “Oooa Aaah Oooa…“), joor de hchwone ahm driimink off, joor hchart feets me like de gloaf…”

The duets, in particular, were quite disarming and well-choreographed – if you appreciate gun-belts and holsters being swung through the air with the greatest of sleaze. “Moo sick… (Celia: “Jes, baby…“) make dee pimpels come togeder…” and alternating duets:

Susanna: “Wen joo korl mah name, eet like de leetl prayer…”
Celia: “Ahm down on dee nis, ah wan chew take joo der…”

As pure entertainment, I was touched, but not half as much as they seemed to be.

“So, wot joo think? Give us joor veredict.”

Truncheon pointed straight at me, Beretta in mouth, bullets and handcuffs on the table still clinking together from the pulsating efforts of the two, I had been left in little doubt.

“Guilty as charged,” I thought.

I replied: “Fine. How about starting with the Present Perfect and see where we go from there, eh?”

*Aside for budding previously-cited EFL professionals: advise you not to correct this at this point.