Nearly good
This clip, which I posted on Facebook the other day, amuses me more than it probably should. My old geography and sports teacher, a dry and phlegmatic Yorkshireman called Malcolm Milne, used to employ the title of this post in superbly withering fashion, as in “nearly good, Stafford”. Seeing this video clip made me think back with affection at Mr. Milne’s oft-used assessment of his pupils’ efforts.
The voice of frustration in the crowd displays a more gallic directness with the nearly-man of this race, shouting at his blunder “putain”, which literally means “whore” but in this instance is probably short for the similarly hard-to-translate “putain de merde” which has a literal meaning that I shan’t repeat here but roughly equates to something Anglo-Saxon along the lines of “bloody hell” of “effing hell”.
Anyway – please consume and enjoy. Nearly good, monsieur …
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
This is the no. 1 entry for a Google search on “Malcolm Milne” + “Geography”.
Well done that man.
How hilarious. And, yes, he did very, very occasionally used to utter “well done, that man”. I also remember his asking one boy, in a geography lesson, to climb on to a desk and demonstrate the correct stance—backing one’s hands up with one’s leg yada yada—for stopping a cricket ball in the field.
Who are you and why are you searching for that anyway? And, assuming you went there, when were you at Pocklington?