The Office weekend

David Brent? Finchey? Mackenzie Crook playing Gareth? It's embarrassing, but I wasn't familiar with these names until yesterday when I renewed my British Council card and went for The Office, a TV series I read about but never really even considered watching. This state of affairs is now over, I've seen the complete series 1 and 2, which is pretty much everything they've made in the UK version.

The idea behind the series is just brilliant, simple but spot on. It's a fake documantary following the daily toil of a paper merchant office in the uninspiring British city of Slough. The job is mindless and no effort is made in the film to change that, all the staff mucking around or doing the usual office chores, getting bored at their workstations, passing the time, playing tricks on each other. And it's the odd collection of employees in the office that makes the difference, in particular the hyperactive, egomaniacal boss who never loses an opportunity make a fool of himself. He's reinforced in his obsessions, especially his insatiable urge to make others laugh, and self-love by his personal assistant, an awkward, socially retarded Gareth, who keeps dreaming of taking the office over and bringing in the rule of iron fist. There's also Tim, a timid, funny guy, just turning 30, who still lives with his parents, and Dawn, a receptionist, who he quietly fancies, but who's in a relationship with a coarse warehouse worker.

I like the setting of the series, away from glamour and perfection, and this everyday eccentricity that nicely mirrors what most people go through day after day, either working in offices or elsewhere. Seeking to imitate real life, it's peppered with ordinary language, imperfect, lacking the soundbite quality of American series, but highly educational in terms of slang or UK pecularities,. Here's a quick round-up of some phrases and names I learned while watching:

1) When you're poor or disabled in the UK, you might claim money off DSS, these's a nasty scene in one episode when David and Gareth speak over each other to the camera how they would test the eligibility of the disabled to receive benefits, with one wheelchaired employee listening with growing disbelief,
2) I'd been wondering for long what you call a bum-bag,
3) since "The Office" plays on the racial and homophobic obsessions in the UK, the stock of terms to describe a homosexual is long there: a poofter, a bender, a bummer,
4) I've never eaten a proper flan and I'm not sure how to translate it into Polish,
5) I didn't know a (leather) basque had a different meaning to an adjective descibing somebody from the Basque Country,
6) There is a vital difference between a midget and a dwarf, the latter having disproportionate limbs in addition to being markedly small,
7) When you're on waccy-baccy, you're on marijuana,
8) Slough is near London and a crushing bore,
9) Morecambe and Wise, a British comedy double act, has ranked 14th on the list of Britain's 100 greatest TV programmes,
10) Rory Bremner is another comedy legend in the UK.