Jolly Lucky

[Phone rings to the Nokia tune]

[answers, shouting]  Hello... What? …No I’m at Haileybury Almaty… No,… in Kazakhstan, there’s another one…. Yeah… in an assembly… no… it’s boring…

This is what I wish I had thought of staging for Dom Jolly’s arrival. His shouty phone prank is his trademark, always brilliantly executed and an astute satire on the British mobile phone culture. I am sure he would have appreciated it.

As an Oldboy of Haileybury College UK, Mr Jolly came to visit the school today… out of interest… I presume. There were no cameras, not an ounce of hype and he seemed genuinely interested in speaking to the kids and finding out about the Kazakh twist on the Old School ethos.

This afternoon I showed my Year 2 class a few of the classics from Trigger Happy TV so they would understand who was arriving to be greeted by the Kazakh national anthem, God Save the Queen and all 5 verses of the school song. I met him later in the day and he was chuffed to hear that Class 2DM loved it. The big phone, the fighting squirrels, the slow crawling snail on the zebra crossing...

I asked him about the snail because I’d heard once that he got in trouble for it. The first take is the one you see on the telly, but they tried a second take which was never aired. As he crawled across the second lane during this second take, he heard car doors opening and shiny boots approaching. “I don’t know what you’re doing but get the **** out of the road, now.” Two very serious undercover anti-terrorist officers were very adamant that Mr Jolly’s classic prank should stop obstructing justice asap. He gathered as much dignity as is possible in a glittery snail costume and walked away before getting collared. Hopefully his stay here in Almaty over the next few days will be lower profile.

Luckily for him, the cops that day weren’t interested in a quick buck or an easy Tenge. In a not disimilar situation last week, I was collared for perambulating across the highway and I wasn’t even wearing any glitter let alone a snail costume but crossing Al Farabi Avenue after a night out with my French visitors (again) seemed to be enough.

Xavier and myself were hosting Letiticia, a French African with a wicked sense of humour and a hilarious English accent . We had just got out of a taxi at the entrance to the pedestrian underpass 200 metres from my flat across the road. After my last late night walk through a tunnel with this certain Frenchman I was accosted by a security guard acting way beyond his station. So I thought we'd try to cross the road instead.

This time it attracted the attention of the police car on the corner. They swiftly approached and asked for our documents. It was time again for some badly pronounced Russian key words. Everything is in order so we'd just have to play out the Stupid Tourist routine.

They tried to say that the French visitors had not registered in the required 5 days even though all five of us there knew full well that Europeans have the favour of a 90 days registration period.

Then it was on to me for not carrying my original passport and registration document. My colour laminated scans should be good enough but I was gently escorted to the police car for a discussion about the ‘fine’ that was to ensue. At this point I decided it was about time to remember my Russian and I lined up my tools of evasion and obfuscation in a previously practised but never before used combination. Contrite, Direct, Race Card, Slight Lie, Slight Exaggeration, My Joker and a final challenge.

My spit dried in my mouth as the adrenaline pumped.

Contrite:                     “I’m sorry but I do in fact speak Russian….”

Direct:                        “It is quite clear that my documents are in order. This is just about getting a bribe off a foreigner…”

Race Card:                 “Is it cos she is black…” (it was worth a try...)

Slight lie:                    “I worked 10 years for the British police and have never encountered such a situation…”

Slight exaggeration:     “Your President invited me here himself you know…”

My Joker:                    “Here is a picture of your President and me shaking hands at my place of work
                                     when he came to see me… I’m sure he’d think this situation a complete disgrace…”

Final ultimatum:          “What do you think are you doing? What are you going to do?...”

‘Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect 4000 Tenge’... I'd won. Check mate, mate.

He looked at the photo on both sides as if it was supposed to have a stamp of authenticity, gave me back my laminated card accompanied by a defeated glance and waved me away. He called to his colleague who was playing good cop 20 metres away, having been trying to learn some French phrases from the Parisians, and they got in the car to leave. We walked home in triumph.

I thought that photo might come in useful- but I didn’t think it would work like that. Top value- and evidently better than a passport.

But would I be confident enough to take on the local Plod dressed up as a shiny Tortoise or a glittery Snail…if Mr Jolly happens to have brought some props with him on his visit, I might be tempted to have a go…

Dom Jolly - Snail Zebra crossing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqrBYRCxy2E

Dom Jolly -  Train telephone call

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xut__-uXG8U