back up blog

So. The Media. Gotta love it. And its capitalisation. I was lucky enough to spend an hour in the audience of Radio 4's Women's Hour last week. I was dead excited- not least because it was a thrill just to see which pashmina Jenni Murray would turn up with strewn casually across her shoulder, like the radio royalty she is. I mean, come on- Jenni Murray . The Murray Monster. Jenz. On my way in, a PR grabbed me by the arm and said, "I need a gobby student!" I should have said, in no uncertain terms, "Buggar off!" and stomped haughtily to my seat at the insinuation that just because I had been talking to some strangers behind me in the queue I would be 'gobby'. But I didn't. Caught up in the excitement of watching Jenni-bloody-Murray record such an iconic show live had sent me all funny. So instead I went weak at the knees because a fancy PR had chosen ME to be the gobbiest of them all, and so I just sort of looked at her like a dog to owner would. A...

Me: Baby Brother, I just don't know what to do with my life. I feel like I need to be a grown-up and start making CAREER choices, and other sensible things. I don't know what to do! Say something nice and make me feel better please x A message is sent by instant reply. Baby Brother: Uncertainty is a luxury. Get over yourself. x Charmed, I'm sure.

Samuel was one of the more memorable kids this summer. At lunchtime he would come and sit beside me so that he could stroke the heat rash on my shoulders. He liked the way it felt. He did sound effects to mimmick the bobbles, "DUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUD". The day he found the stubble on my legs was a happy one for him. That was super-duper 'DUDUDUD'. I felt particularly attractive in Samuel's company, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Well, it was an adventure. Four months living in Italy- the getting around, the meeting people, the getting out of tricky situations- and, of course, getting into them. My favourite saying is, after all, that famous, 'when in Rome, do the Romans' . Oh, that isn't it? Ooops. It was a touring teaching job and I lived with Italian families. I do not speak Italian. You work it out. We survived, in general, on broken odd words here and there, a bit of French and lots of those annoyingly redundant hand signals that mean different things to different people and so cause more harm than good. Example: I was trying to explain to one host 'dad' that at school the children were very loud in the classroom. I tugged on my ear to signify 'loud'. Simple enough. Except that I later found out that my gesture means homosexual in Italian, so essentially I had called my class a bunch of little gays. Awkward . With another family, at dinner one evening, my host 'mother' ...