Shooteh bad
Lessons in Persian II

July 24, 2005
iranian.com

Beh ghabr-e babat khandeedee. (You laughed at your father’s grave). Expression used when one is extremely annoyed at the ineptitude of an individual or group. Take yesterday when Iran’s national side lost 3-nil to QPR in London. Iran were demolished by a team whose players used the time-honoured strategy of passing the ball to each other and providing a defence. It would be fair to say that “be QPR-e babashoon khandeedan”.

Parrrt. (Mindless soccer chant). Example: “Eeran cheekaresh meekoneh? Soorakh, soorakhesh meekoneh” (What’s Iran gonna do to it? Make holes in it). Few stop to think what they would in fact drill a hole in. The ball? It would deflate. The net? It already has holes. That leaves only the pitch: Iran will dig pits for QPR players to fall in.

Mashallah-mashallah! Irritating Arabic chant.

Khol. (khol) People who sing parrrt.

Toop. (adj. chipper) (n. ball). Mood of flag-waving crowd before ball entered its goal three times.

Sokoot. One-minute silence in honour of London bomb victims, observed by the stadium and QPR’s cat mascot.

Parcham (khol). Despite booing the presence of the Iranian ambassador, many were quite happy to buy and wave Islamic flags. None of the QPR supporters bothered to wave English flags, quite embarrassing really.

“Vali ma naft dareem” (But we’ve got the oil). Football chant I concocted to cheer up disappointed flag-wavers. It didn’t catch on.

“B1 1AKH” registration plate of BMW leaving stadium. Bilakh means “Up yer bum”. I kid you not.

“Shooteh khoob” (Good shot). Expression not heard once throughout match or likely to be heard when we play Milwall and Porstmouth.

“Shooteh bad” (Bad shot). Any one of the five bullets “pumped” into the head of 27-year-old Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes at point-blank range as the UK’s shoot-to-kill policy claimed its first innocent victim.