Postcard from Bishkek

I know that I going on about Social Media, but it’s a great thing for someone like me – an expat thousands of miles away from ‘home’ … allowing me to keep in touch with family and friends, to keep in touch and find out what’s happening in their lives. Sometimes it’s good news – […]

Social Media seems to have been undergoing some changes … and, perhaps, we can see the evolution most clearly on twitter, (which was envisaged to allow users to send short text messages – with no more than 140 characters). … whereas , some ten years ago, (when twitter first emerged), people would send their ‘followers’ short […]

I have to admit that the last fortnight has been a little more stressful than usual … but it was all my own fault! Three weeks ago we received an email announcing a two week course for those working in the hospitality industry.  I printed it out and circulated to the staff, asking if anyone […]

Opyat Dvoyka is the name of a very famous painting by the artist Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov in 1952. It depicts a boy coming home from school with his report card … and the attitude of the family to him.  He stands disheveled, (his clothes unbuttoned and casual and his blond hair ruffled), and dejected; unable to look […]

Spoiler Alert:  This is not really about Kyrgyzstan – although the inspiration for it came as I was preparing another postcard and the “religious” theme seemed appropriate for Christmas Day – Orthodox Christmas, that is. There are some teachers that we remember long after we have left school … and George Mooney was one of […]

One of the boys, asked me to help him with his English … he had a test coming up … and he wanted me to ask him questions and check his answers. For example: he was going to be asked questions about telling the time … “I always get confused”, he said.  “When is it going to […]

A few years, I served on a an panel of examiners at the end of a course for people who wanted to be tour guides. The aim wasn’t so much to assess their knowledge and mastery of the material that had been covered on the course … it would be very difficult, (no … impossible), […]

As a teacher of Mathematics, (many years ago),  I used a number of techniques to engage the children’s interest in the subject: games, puzzles and quizzes;  mnemonics, stories and jokes; drawings, paintings and models; video and computer animation … but I don’t think is ever used poetry. The idea was simple … we are all […]

The other day I was having a chat with another ex-pat who put to me an interesting question: “Are you an Oxford man …”, to which I was about to say “Yes … albeit by ‘sneaking in through the back door’”, but then he continued, “… or a Shakespeare man.” I realized that he wasn’t […]

In was on St Scholastica’s Day in 1355 that one of the most notorious events in the history of Oxford – both the town and he University.  It was such a significant event that the city museum used to have, (and I presume still has), a whole room dedicated to an audio visual presentation about […]