Job Discussion Forums

[Gerund]

[veiledsentiments]

Fortunately for you, most of dmb's posts are one-liners.

I have to admit that I usually enjoy both Bebsi's and DMB's posts, and even tend to like emoticons now and again...

At least neither of them talk to themselves like Frank/henry...

VS

[Mark100]

Some of the worst weasels i ever met in Saudi were British and US expats so as to who i would rather work for all depends on the individual.

On balance i think i prefer the Saudis at least when they stab you in the back you can rationlise why they did it.

[blindjackdog]

I'm no logician, but I have a problem here: you assume you can identify Henry/Frank as the same poster, based on the content and style of his/their English, yet you also assume you can identify his/their nationality based on the same. You see the problem? Surely if he/they does/do correspond to a stereotype, then those identifying characteristics must be shared by untold others, including, potentially, 'both' posters.

And if I'm right there's probably some technical term for this possible fallacy and hopefully the redoubtable Henry or Frank will be able to inform us of it.

And I have to admit, Frank Verity's a hell of a good name.

And Bebsi's posts are amusing enough - like second rate Mark Leyner novels, they're somewhat entertaining in a verbose kind of way but leave you feeling slightly ill.

Personally, though, I'm in love with Cleopatra and thrill to the rage she is able to evoke in others - simply by being articulate and right.

[veiledsentiments]

I am confident enough that Frank/Henry is the same person, that I would be willing to bet money on it. And I am well known for being a very financially prudent person.

There is no way in the world that there are two people that would write in such an identically eccentric manner. At best, I would say that 'they' might be two identical twins using the same computer (shown by the odd formatting problems of the two first posts). But now that we all know, we can judge any further posts by 'them' accordingly.

I just knew that Cleo had lots of secret admirers out there.

VS

[Frank Verity]

My answer to the maledictions of the elderly harridans who insist I am not me:
'My counterfeiting the action of an old woman'

' harpy claps his wings upon the table'

[veiledsentiments]

Oh henry... you DO say the sweetest things... you sound just like a rather dated movie that my grandmother would have liked...

Give it up... no one is the least bit fooled... of course you are you... Mr Frank Henry Verity, esq...

VS

[blindjackdog]

I think I've found a way into the Henry/Frank mind.

What better example of the destructive legacy of American imperialist antics than the two Koreas today?

What more sickening sentimentalising of this than the weasley Allan Alder's M*A*S*H?

Who represented the two extremes of gentleman versus nasty and bitter creep on that show?

Yes, Henry and Frank, the one tragically shot down over the Indian Ocean, the other returning to the states to take up again his faithless, corrupted marriage.

Now, while Henry began this discussion with the charming and gentlemanly intention of facilitating cross-cultural discourse, Frank's influence lead rapidly into the terra mauvais of carping, carking, insulting etc.

What we have here, clearly, is a rather subtle disquisition-in-code, or parable if you like, on the very subject as announced by the OP, but it is in the dialogical matrix of the Henry/Frank posts that the moral here is being rendered.

I also detect a further, more suggestive, literary reference in this fascinating dialogue.

You guessed it. (Henry) Blake; (Frank) Burns: opposing spokesmen of the romantic spirit, William and Robert, the latter a drunken Northern Brit (and freemason), the former composer of "America: A Prophecy" in which we find, of course, these lines:

The plagues creep on the burning winds, driven by flames of Orc,
And by the fierce Americans rushing together in the night,
Driven o'er the Guardians of Ireland, and Scotland and Wales.
They, spotted with plagues, forsook the frontiers; and their banners, sear'd
With fires of hell, deform their ancient Heavens with shame and woe.
Hid in his caves the Bard of Albion felt the enormous plagues,
And a cowl of flesh grew o'er his head, and scales on his back and ribs;
And, rough with black scales, all his Angels fright their ancient heavens.
The doors of marriage are open, and the Priests, in rustling scales,
Rush into reptile coverts, hiding from the fires of Orc,
That play around the golden roofs in wreaths of fierce desire,
Leaving the Females naked and glowing with the lusts of youth.


Be not so quick to condemn, friends: in Henry and Franks' posts lie 'messages of great urgency to our time'.

And I think 'maundering' means aimless wandering or some such thing. A friend of mine was once in a band called 'The Maunders'. Yes, I admit it, they changed their name from 'Frank Verity and the Henriettas' at my insistence: I will not have these men mocked!!!

[Frank Verity]

Actually its Shakespear
Could Veiled Sentiments distinguish between Congreve and Wycherley?
Could she distinguish between Marlow and Dekker?
Would she confuse the literary style of D.H.Lawrence with the instructions on a bottle of botox?

[blindjackdog]

'Shake spear', a colloquial term for 'hurry up', I believe, in the late paleolithic period.

Or was it Shake's pear? A lovely, succulent fruit of a tapering mould, which Shake enjoyed daily with his banana breakfast.

Nothing at all to do with the over-rated sodomitical bard, whose name, you'll recall, ended in an 'e'.

Does botox come by the bottle? Does Frank?

[henry]

Without debating the more exclusive points of solipsism or recondite ethical issues I must protest my innocence of Verity.
In any case,this thread was meant to initiate a scintillating debate on the
various styles of EF management ranging from Oriental Despots from
the UK to bearers of timeless wisdom from the East.Unfortunately,the hags,
harpies and harridans who infest this site appear to have tarnished this golden thread with baseless
speculation about form rather than attention to content.

[Bebsi]

I was going to ask who is Frank Henry anyway, but Blindjackdg has put forth an excellent theory, based on Alan Alder's M.A.S.H. (There was a very similar series at the same time, of the same name but better known, directed by a guy called Alan Alda) which is indeed a most interesting one.

I will ask, however, who for suck's fake is Mark Leyner?? I mean, if I'm going to be compared with him, I want to know what he is like!!

Who, for that matter, is Gerund, that individual on whom Bebsi seems to have such a nose-penetrating effect ? An enlightened, incisive and objective commentator on expat life in KSA, who writes frequent postings offering advice and assistance to all, and perhaps an occasional giggle? Or is he a bitter, hard-faced, miserable old git who has nothing constructive to say and who only posts from time to time in order to snipe at other posters in a negative, humourless manner redolent of a senile centenarian whose family committed group suicide on the day he was released from jail after a 60 year stretch, all guaranteed to have the mouse-hand twitching for the "Turn Off Computer" icon?

What is a "weiner" anyway, Gerund?

Another thing, on the subject of name origins, where does Gerund get his from in the first place?

Perhaps from what must be his real identity, The Boring?

[blindjackdog]

Well, Bebsi, I could say, 'Heard of google?' But I won't. Mark Leyner, I don't know, some yank (I guess) who wrote a bunch of smart arse 'postmodern' novels, including 'My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist' (excuse spelling if need be: ditto re. Alda - hate to offend the great sanctimonious git).

I read one of them (not the above), can't remember the title: it was, as I recall, smart arse and postmodern.

Or should that be 'smart arsed'?: don't you love the way we passify nouns to turn them into adjectives?

Nice to see Henry's reappeared. 'Timeless wisdom' eh? Reminds me of Dr. Johnson and his remark on the belief that 'Time is ever more simply transcended, the further one is willing to journey away from London, to observe it'.

In my experience (nil), 'EF Management' is an oxymoron.

As for bosses, well, call me a Marxist if you will, but given that they're all complicit agents in the exploitation of the workers, it seems to me that the 'best' type are those who are most incompetent at their jobs, which sounds like a vote for the alcoholics. Further to that, I've always found that the diffident matiness of the sot is easily exploited: they're generally desperate for affirmation, the proffering of which can do much for one's position.

But then, as my true love Cleopatra has observed elsewhere, the EFL experience tends to inject a certain grandiosity in even the most dissipated of chaps.

But I have to ask, Henry (or was it Frank on that occasion?), why not simply evince a false interest in football? Why not regale the staff-room with elaborate tales of your debauched nights? Earnestness gets you nowhere in this life. (You seem inclined, at least, to test the possibilities of this theory in the cyber-world; believe me, it's even better when done in physical space.)

Are those Muslim converts, for example, really for real? Or do they simply perceive a certain advantage in the appearance of religious conversion?

Heard of the Spanish Inquisition, anyone?

I've only ever had one boss who I actually liked - as in, trusted. And he died of a lymphoma, which was surely retribution from the invisible hand for his unconscionable decency.

As for 'Muslim Gentlemen', rather a broad term isn't it? Not that I know anything, but isn't a good deal of the disaster we like to term the ME got something to do with various Muslim gentlemen's inability to decide which kind of Muslim gentleman one should be? I'm sure many a Jesuit gentleman has stuck a stiletto into the heart of a Protestant gentleman over the years, no? Something like the same thing? Correct me please.

My guess on Gerund is he's a guy (I think a guy- has he indicated this? Honestly, Bebsi, I thought you were a girl - but maybe that's just to do with your slightly feminine name - but I digress....), he's a guy who learned a new word when he became an efl teacher.

Finally, I have to say, Henry, it's hardly gentlemanly to harp on about anyone's susceptibility to the inevitability of ageing. I suppose if one is going to a greater place ultimately it is hardly a matter of concern, but for those poor souls trapped within the positivist world of religious scepticism, the grave is the hardest thing to face, and its worldly metaphors are apprehended in the morning mirror with an almost unbearable grief.

[blindjackdog]

Oh, Henry, your 'innocence of Verity'! I didn't notice before: that is clever.

Reminds me of a 'reference' I once wrote for a friend in which I recommended him 'without qualification'. He got the job.

[henry]

Your postings dazzle the mind and titillate the senses Mr Blindjackdog.This
thread may be redeemed from gerontophiles if not from gerunds expressing obligation.