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scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Has anyone else noticed that there are a large number of 'Walter Mitty' characters in the EFL world in KSA ? You know people who used to be astronauts before they decided to teach ! Or ones who have been close personal friends of Hollywood Stars and Royalty !

sheikh radlinrol · Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 1222 Location: Spain

I worked (briefly) with a guy in Kuwait who claimed to be a personal friend of Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton. It turned out he had played table tennis one or twice with somebody who happened to have been at the LSE with Jagger.
My colleague admitted himself to hospital and was later transferred to the psychiatric unit and then sent home. He's probably working in Saudi now and reading this.

jwbhomer · Joined: 14 Dec 2003 Posts: 876 Location: CANADA

I think this is true of EFL scenes just about anywhere. There was a thread on this in one of the China forums. "I'm a millionaire. I'm just here for the fun of it" pretty much sums things up. All their eggs have two yokes.

Bebsi · Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 958

It's true, Saudi is full of them.

I remember, when I was there working for the CIA, masquerading as an English teacher, I came across them all the time.

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

You're lying Bebsi. We all know it was MI6 that hired you.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

My sources in 'Durzhavna Sigurnost' said that he was a part-timer for the Irish Securitate.

Bebsi · Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 958

How did you know?

Ok, I was working for then Irish security service, as we were working to arrange an arms-for-dates deal with some governments there. Back then, dates were very hard to find in Ireland, and people would do anything!!

I had just finished my PhD in "The Literature of Nuclear War" and was in the process of finishing my fourth best-selling novel, Lying in Sand, when the first Gulf War broke out. I had been discharged from active military service after my escape from Bucharest in the months before Ceausescu was ousted. The Securitate had a price on my head (an insultingly low one but it may have just been communism) and I feared a life of torture in Aiud prison if caught, so I commandeered a 737 and took off from a cornfield near Constanta. I'd learned how to fly during the Battle of Britain, after having served as an infantryman on the Somme.

It was the Night of the Big Blizzard in eastern Europe, and I was forced to crash over the Borgo Pass. After five days battling with wolves and having to eat one of them to avoid starvation, I made it over the mountains to Hungary. I was in bad shape though, and had to be discharged from combat.

Since then I spent time in the ME for the Irish secret service, until three years ago when I retired early. I moved to Romania as my vast business interests kept me there (I have a multinational sized company that sells hi-tech surveillance equipment to the eastern European and Russian military services) but for reaxation I maintain harems in Bukara and Samarkand. I like Dubai also but I travel there incognito, as the royal family insisted I do when visiting them. After my first few towers, I stopped investing there. I left it to the Russians, they need the money more than I do, and I need more time to work on my private space-exploration project.

Anyway, back to Walter Mitty types. The Gulf is full of them, with their tall stories. There are Poets Laureate, former US secret agents, people who have worked for the Pentagon and indeed big-selling authors, not to mention mathematicians, academics etc. You get people in their early 20s who have PhDs and MBAs from Ivy League, Oxbridge or wherever and have spent "years" in the corporate world.

Laughing

Oh, I must go, I have a meeting in Shanghai with the chinese trade minister and my jet is waiting. It takes a while to get going of course, with lengthy security inspections as the KGB are always watching me.

See y'all later folks.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

Well all those details ring true... Shocked

I have to say that I didn't encounter quite the same eccentric tales in the rest of the gulf. Perhaps it is Saudi that draws the type?

But, way too many times I had people accuse me of being CIA. I have always been a collector of information and the curious type, so perhaps it is the folks suffering from paranoia that move beyond KSA.

VS

Van Norden · Joined: 23 Oct 2004 Posts: 409

I don't think Walter Mitty was a bullshi* artist. He was a dreamer with a fertile imagination. Same as me. I've always been a dreamer, but since coming to this sand prison I've taken it to new, elaborate heights. I couldn't have survived nearly 5 years here without these dreams. The reality is just way too unbearable. Just close the blinds and let your imagination take you out of here...

There's a city in my mind, come along and take that ride and it's alright, baby it's alright...

007 · Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:50 pm Post subject:

Bebsi · Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 958

One other thing about published authors. Saudi is so full of people who are best selling booker-prize winners, but they can never answer the rather pertinent question: "OK, so what is the name of your best-known works?"

One character...who was a great guy apart from the (actually fascinating) tall stories...told me he had a PhD in Gothic Literature. I asked him for examples and after pointing out that I would never have heard of the famous authors of the genre anyway, to which my response had been "try me", he told me that of course, no-one would be familiar with the writers of the 13th century novel as it was so obscure!!

Laughing

Now, I've got to dash as I'm receiving my Grammy award shortly. Mick, Rod, Phil and David will all be there, along with Michael, Alannis, Nellie and Shakkie, they keep pestering me for my autograph.

globalnomad2 · Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 562

I am not a Walter Mitty but I'm just two degrees of separation from the Beatles. Yup, true story, my uncle developed various electronics systems for the Beatles' Apple studios in the late '60s. He knew them all personally and got along well, since he worked in their studios. Too bad he didn't introduce me when I visited him in London in 1969 and 1970. Maybe Yoko pre-empted that Sad

Lloyd Bridges' niece was a college student and roomed at our house in 1958, and I got to meet Bridges and got a big autographed photo that said "Happy Seahunting,______!" (my name deleted). Does that count??
Oops...now you know I'm really old.

Sgt Killjoy · Joined: 26 Jun 2004 Posts: 438

Knowing how suspicious some folks are, I never get to tell my Moe Dalitz stories. Zany characters are part of the charm of TEFL teaching...I think.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Lloyd Bridges ? Moe Dalitz ? We obviously are in different universes.

Who in thename of Jehoshaphat are they ?

globalnomad2 · Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 562

As for Moe, I only know of Moe Howard of the Three Stooges. Lloyd Bridges starred in Airplane! among other films, and became a star with the 1950s hit TV show Sea Hunt. (He'd played small parts in movies, previously.) He was the father of Beau and Jeff Bridges.

My little stories above are true.