For almost as long as I can remember, I've wanted to see the world. It's been one of my burnings ambitions since I was maybe 15 and 16. I guess that the first time the travel bug bit me was…
Author Archive
Phrase of the day: forewarned is forearmed
I've spent the last few days working with some wonderful Russian teachers in the city of Saratov, which is on the mighty Volga River, about 850 kilometres south-east of Moscow. The day before I was due to fly out last…
Phrase of the day: damn with faint praise
I was chatting to a friend of mine the other day about the school he's recently started working at. I asked him how it was going there and then tried hard to keep a straight face and not burst out…
Phrase of the day: anything but
I was flicking through the in-flight magazine on the plane home from Spain last Sunday evening and came across an article about Coco Chanel. Now, I'm certainly no expert on the life and times of the French fashion designer and…
Phrase of the day: on the town
As you may have read in yesterday's post, I spent the weekend in Elche in Spain. I flew out to Alicante from London Stanstead on Friday morning at 6.30am and, as is often the case, my flight was depressingly full…
Phrase of the day: even if I do say so myself
I've been lucky enough to have spent this weekend in the beautiful city of Elche on the south-east coast of Spain. The town was the venue for this year's Spain TESOL conference, an always-excellent gathering of English language teachers, and…
Phrase of the day: make a (right) meal of
Some people have sensible hobbies that help them relax in whatever time off work they manage to get. Maybe they go fishing or do yoga or paint. Me? I watch football . . . and in particular my local team…
Word of the day: baby boomers
Over 400,000 British people people died during the Second World War, the vast majority of them men. Now, while this pales into insignificance when compared to the tens of millions who died in the Soviet Union, it still led to…
Phrase of the day: get the hang of
Yesterday morning, I took my four-year-old son trampolining. It was the first time he'd ever been and even though he was very clearly having a whale of a time bouncing around, it was also pretty clear from the rather clueless…
Phrase of the day: can’t get the staff!
We've had quite a hectic week this week. We're putting the finishing touches to a high school book we've been working on; we've been catching up with our email backlog; and on Monday we were inspected as part of our…