Compared to any fix I might have on Albanian, my command of the Greek language borders on fluency. When my electric hob packed up last week, I mentioned it to the cleaner…who is (you’ll have guessed by now) Albanian. Her look of concern was enough to convince me that the hob might be directly connected to an out of date atomic reactor.

“Ouurr?” she asked, “Zelectrika scom nuddle pamf?”

“Cooker trip electricity” I replied, “Cooker not work”.

She fiddled with some knobs, and then saw the forlorn, uncooked bacon in the pan.

“Barkonud spitz bim zordle remble?” she suggested, dragging me towards the door and pointing at nothing in particular.

I was reduced to mime. I switched on the oven. The power tripped off. I put the power back on again. I switched on the oven again. The power tripped off. I put the power back on again. I switched on the oven again. The power tripped off. I shrugged theatrically. Her eyes lit up.

“Aaaah!” she said, “Hobskon Zelectrica orrof transk! Telfonskron Jobsworth fixata!”

“Exactly,” I agreed.

When the electrician arrived, not surprisingly he was Greek. But I wasn’t phased by this, because I had my handy pocket-sized ever-useful Quick Greek for Tourists to hand. It wasn’t a lot of use, and I feel somehow compelled to tell you why.

First off, there is no section in the book called ‘The Repairman”. There are headings like ‘Monasteries’, ‘Health Studios’, ‘Dry Cleaning’ and even ‘Draughts and Chess’. There is a section called ‘Repairs’, which enables one to ask “Do I need a new inner tube?” There’s a section called ‘Trains’ in which you can say “I need a reasonably priced porter”. Under the Hotels section you can ask for Roon Service. But nowhere in this slim volume can you say, “There’s something wrong with the cooker”

Second, there’s a lot of profound obscurity in there one is never likely to need under even the most onerous circumstances. For example, ‘At the Pharmacy’ includes the Greek for “Help, I need a Yellow Fever injection”, and “Please don’t extract my tooth”. Under ‘Getting Around’ is the translation of “I need a guide to the suburbs”, “Do you play Backgammon?” and “I want some rubber bands”.

But daftest of all, there is no alphabetical summary at the back. So when the Hellenic electrician said to me in Greeklish, “I coming back ee-treeti”, I had no idea whether he was mentioning a time or had merely fallen in love with me. In fact i triti I now realise is Greek for Tuesday. He was as good as his word, by the way, and replaced the hob in no time.

As he left, the sparks turned to me and announced, “Very calming now with your food”. It occurred to me that books promising Quick English for Tourists are very probably just as useless.

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