they tried to embarrass us

Linda is our kitchen cleaner. She has orange hair, and looks like Matt Lucas with a woman's wig on in Little Britain. It may not be a polite way to describe Linda's look, but I can't find a more effective way to portray her image.


"Oh, it's sleeting now." Linda entered the kitchen while I was having breakfast.

"I haven't seen you for a while."

"Another woman should have come to clean, but she just retired, and we are lacking people. The school asks new people to provide lots of documents. The procedures take a long time, longer than it used to."
I don't remember how I responded, but then she started talking of her husband.

"My husband is a handyman. He works in the undergrads' blocks. One day he went to a flat to check the toilet there. He knocked on the door, 'handyman!' no answer. 'handyman!' no answer. He opened it with the copy of the key. He saw a girl lying on her bed with nothing on, and she said, Go get the toilet fixed."
"Why didn't she answer the door at first?"


"Because she wanted to embarrass him. That's why she had nothing on her. The students are always doing these kinds of things to embarrass us. Sometimes when you go into a student's room, you'll see him lying on the bed with his girlfriend. They saw my husband come in, and the boy said, What are you looking at? Go get your business done. I once went to a kitchen to clean, and there the young fellows, they were only covered in towels. They were chasing each other in the kitchen, and would swing the towels to hit."

"Are they all undergraduates?"

"Oh, yes, those daffed young men. But I'm a mother of two kids. They thought they could embarrass me but I'm OK with that. I know what it was all about. In summer, you can also find some girls sitting on the lawns with little on their bodies. They want to be noticed. That's why they behave like that, want to be noticed! Sad. Very sad."

*下午上纪录片课，angela给我放了新一期的Panaroma——are you a danger to the kids，讲的是英国政府为了保护孩子和有智力障碍的成年人（怪蜀黍走开），成立了一个叫ISA（independent safeguard agency）的组织，并立法规定所有与上述两类人打交道的个人和机构（教师、义工、医生、学校大巴司机、学校保洁工、招募儿童演员的剧院……）必须向该组织注册（要缴纳注册费），只有通过ISA鉴定才会被允许与孩子和有智力障碍的成年人打交道——涉及到的人有900万之多。政府推行的这一措施遭到了巨大的反对声浪。