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Dr Klaus Bung
68 Brantfell Road
Blackburn BB1-8DL
© 2010 Klaus Bung
008a
Klaus Bung:
My Egyptian dentist
"Amor vincit omnia": Love conquers everything, especially in Egypt, where beautiful Cleopatra conquered the hearts of her Roman conquerors, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony (Marcus Antonius). Klaus also fell prey to an extraordinary Egyptian woman, Aya, and he did so happily, eyes wide shut. Aya is the lover of crocodiles, sharks and asps (don't ask me about the offspring of these dangerous and unnatural liaisons!). She fixed Klaus's teeth but broke his heart. No amount of amalgam and superglue can ever repair the damage. Like the enamoured violet, he, with his last dying breath, kisses the feet of the beautiful desert shepherdess who steps on, and crushes, him. Click here to read the extraordinary story in full.
2010-09-05 My Egyptian Dentist
The readers of my preceding essay (Why only Muslims can have "breakfast" at night) may be surprised and wonder how I could be so clever and knowledgeable about Arabic. Let me confess that I owe all my information on Arabic to my dentist. Her name is Aya. She lives and works in Egypt, but she is not a gypsy. She has forbidden me to publish her surname and her exact location because she already has far too many patients. She specialises in the ancient, and essentially feminine, art of pyramidal dentistry (see below).
Aya is not only a humanist, she also has a social conscience and does pro bono work for the under-crocodiles (that's what underdogs are called in cat-worshipping Egypt). Outside her surgery is a sign "Crocodiles please use side-entrance". She has built a ramp for them, and every day there is a trickle of her short-legged long-tailed goggle-eyed darlings coming to be treated on the Egyptian NCHS (National Crocs Health Service). It goes without saying that, out of sheer compassion, she warms asps at her bosom but, unlike Cleopatra, they do not bite her. Snakes never bite dentists. Snakes and dentists have had a special relationship for millions of years. Click here to read that amazing story.
When the treatment is finished, they reward her with a tender kiss - on the cheek, while shedding tears of gratitude. Crocodiles never cry except while eating politicians falsely accused of corruption and expenses fraud and when moved by Aya's kindness.
Wikileaks reported recently that the Egyptian government is about to ship a squad of crocodiles to be rehoused in the Thames to help clean up the river and British politics. "Selfish politicians will anilated (sic!)", an erudite union leader wrote in his blog when welcoming the immigrants from Egypt.
Aya is so good that, twice a year, I make the long trek from my little village in England to Egypt to have a checkup. For me it's like a pilgrimage. She is a direct descendant of the Pharaos, and her dental skills have been handed down in her family unchanged for thousands of years. I become acutely aware of this when she tackles me. This woman is genuine.
There is no dentist in the universe more dedicated and more thorough than her. When I open my mouth, she attacks my teeth with a vengeance: no caries and no microbes will survive.
Now click on the image to make it larger. It shows Aya at work on a British tourist, a peroxide blonde (link 2) who had dared to have a tooth ache while in Egypt. The bint should have known better. For Aya this is the chance of a lifetime to take revenge for the Suez Attack of 1956. For once, Aya thoroughly enjoys her job as a dentist. She has discovered her mission in life. God has delivered the enemy into her hands.
She is wearing a male mask because a face veil (niqab) would make it impossible for her to see which tooth she wants to destroy next.
She is also an extraordinary partner for any linguist and phonetician (I said "phonetician" and NOT "Phoenician"!). Through her dental training she knows all about dental stops, interdental fricatives, alveolar stops (voiced and unvoiced), retroflex stops, palatal plosives etc, and that makes her into an unbeatable teacher of Arabic pronunciation, the weirder the better.
The first time she beat me was when I was trying to pay her a compliment by calling her "qalbi" (= my heart, my sweetheart, my darling). But my Arabic pronunciation was so pathetic at the time that I said "kalbi", which means "you bitch" and is as bad as "kutti" in Urdu or saying "Jeremy Hunt" in English with the posh Southern accent of James Naughty.
Note: For a profound analysis of the Jeremy *unt story, go to
www.rtc-idyll.com, click on English Idioms, then on Contents, and then on "Berkshire Hunt invades BBC Radio 4". You will be bloody astounded.
As you can see when you compare the / q / and the / k / sounds, in Arabic it is easier to insult people than to be nice to them. Without a second's hesitation, Aya threw me a left hook that John Prescott or Max Schmeling would have been proud of.
Three of my teeth were instantly expelled (rather than extracted) and were sticking to the blood spattered walls of her surgery. Mercifully Aya agreed to replace them by implants, at my expense. She also offered to give me, as a permanent souvenir, a sample of her pyramidal dentistry, about which more anon.
During my previous visit, she had introduced me to a team from the Department of Archaeological Dentistry (or Dental Archaeology) at the University of Central Oswaldtwistle, a university which has enriched the world with many marvellous discoveries. (See their research report on: "The function of the Haggis in the eco-system of the northern and the southern hemisphere".)
The Oswaldtwistle scientists managed to establish that the pyramids are in fact not burial sites. They were created out of desert mountains and filed into their perfect (and dangerous) shape by armies of Pharaonic dentists. The so-called burial chambers in the pyramids were the result of caries. It is not surprising that dental gold was found in them. The beautiful artefacts in them are the result of Darwinian evolution.
When the Egyptian dentists were, for decades, diligently filing away at the mountains to turn them into pyramids, their pain was excruciating. It was at that time that Pyramidon (popularly known as C13 H17 N3O was invented to relieve the pain of the pyramids. Any street urchin in Cairo will confirm this.
Hoechst (German for "highest", another reference to the pyramids) and Bayer (pronounced "buyer") mass-produced the drug and supplied it to the Pharaos. The Oswaldtwistle scientists dug hundreds of the ancient Pyramidon tins out of the desert sand, and their battered appearance tells you instantly that they must be thousands of years old.
The pyramids were created as visual aids in the distance-training of Pharaohnic dentists, showing them the ideal shape of efficient teeth. That's why they had to be so big. All this has been proved beyond any doubt by the team from Oswaldtwistle University. The team has been short-listed for the next Nobel prize in dentistry.
Aya offered to reshape my teeth in a similar fashion. By ancient Egyptian tradition, this will have to be done without anaesthetic. "It's always been like this. Take it, or leave it, or leave me forever," she declared, flashing her stunning triangular teeth. She is so beautiful that I immediately accepted her proposal. The procedure will be carried out in February next year. The world's media will witness the event.
When Aya has done with me, my mouth will be that of a Terminator or of a vampire. There will be no stopping me then.
I shall be eternally grateful to Aya for what she has done for my teeth, my knowledge of Arabic (especially its dental sounds) and for her contribution to this essay.
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