They, the Kids, were all sitting around the table watching me tube some smokes.
Youngest Offsprung (19) had had some of his mates come round. All of them topless cos the sun was shining, all of them with their jogging trousers almost around their ankles so they could display their boxer shorts to all.
...and that was just the girls.
Some of them on furlough from HM Forces. Not that any of them would actually know what 'furlough' means of course.
"Fur low?" "iz like 'poOO-BiKK Hair'(this is Norfolk) innit, ai?"
Yep, and that'd be just the girls. Again.
Anyways one of the little Cherubs asked me:
"Excuse me Sir, may I inquire where you purchased that tin of tobacco and how much you paid for it?"
No he didn't actually phrase it like that but writing in 'chav' for too long makes my nose bleed.
I replied "In Belgium and it cost me a tenner"
A look of confusion passed across their collective angelic little faces and then one of them posed the question that titles this piece.
"Wotz a Belgium innit?"
No, I'm not joking.
Anyone here care to defend the teaching profession or Blair's Education Policy? No?
Thought not.
How on earth does one reply to that level of mind aching ignorance? Should I have said 'a small continental nation betwixt France and Holland, member of the Benelux and seat of the European Union but has no actual Government of it's own'?
Not really an option seeing as I'd need to start by explaining the four proper nouns in that description.
However before I could formulate a reply one of the others, one of the brighter ones said:
"If you paid ten quid then that means you saved, I dunno, fifty..sixty..fuck loads of money. I'm going to drive there and get some myself, how much can i bring back?"
Which is the reason for this article.
Smoking Hot's Guides are brilliant. They should be required reading for anyone wanting to shop abroad.
Problem is they, the guides, contain lots of those 'word fings'. They were written by an educated literate adult for other educated, at least to O level standard, adults. They were written for people who can read a wall of text without moving their lips.
But the people keeping the White Van Men in business aren't 40 year olds who wore proper shirts not polo shirts to school.
I tried to explain briefly to the kids that it isn't just a question of driving over to Belgium and bringing back as much tobacco as their giros/wages will allow and that they should, under no circumstances, take their own car anyways.
I then showed them my latest SOT and the half inch of 'evidence' that goes with it.
"So that's like basically telling Customs to fuck off like?" as one of them put it....while the rest of them were backing away from the table and from anything called a 'Statement' like vampires at daybreak.
It would have been really helpful if I could have said something along the lines of:
"open the internet on your cell phones and go to "n2d".
"n2d" tells you all you need to need and shows you how to do it. Lots of piccies and no big words!"
Basically we need a glossy online brochure of very basic advice with SH's guides condensed down to a very simple level. For example "NEVER TAKE YOUR CAR COS THEY'LL NICK IT" or "BUY TOBACCO HERE [map]".
And at the end of the 'brochure' a simplified Statement Of Truth. "My name is, I went, I bought, I ain't done nuffink wrong like"
Think of the Children SH, Think of the Children!
They did like the badges though but prefer different text, something like "Fuck Off Goonies!" they said.
