FIVE YEARS AGO, when things were a bit brighter in Kyiv, as I was contemplating yet another end of summer and reminiscing on summers past, sitting on the embankment looking out over the Dnipro River, watching a fisherman wading into the murky waters, up to his waist, calmly and patiently casting his rod into the reeds, I opened up to chapter 2 of my book and came upon this lovely passage, as if there was an inner spirt tapping into my thoughts:

As my trip to the US to visit my parents, as well as summer, winds down and I get ready to return to Vienna, I’m left with that usual end-of-summer wistfulness, even though I don’t like the season at all.

A very brief summery (sorry)

I’ve whinged about the downsides of summer ad nauseum, so…

Let’s take on a more wistful tone: it’s still sad to see summer winding down. For as much as I look forward to the start of autumn, there’s a forlorn, elegiac ending to summer that lends itself magically to reminiscing. There’s something so poignant about the heat and fading sun of August transitioning into the crisp chills of September, and the changing of the leaves and the start of the new school year herald a more serious, get-back-to-work mood, signaling the end of the lazy, sultry days of basking in the sun and sipping hazy IPAs watching the sunset.

If you’re a kid, the end of summer is a dreaded time. It means back to school. Once you get to the university years, there are mixed feelings – not everyone relishes summer and for some there’s a desire to return to classes, away from family, and back to your new friends.

After you graduate and enter the real world, the end of summer takes on a whole different feeling. Sometimes it just blends into the rest of the year, and you hardly notice the gradual change in temperature and feeling.

For teachers and those in academia, the end of summer means the start of a new year, a time for some to make resolutions. If you have kids, it’s another story altogether. Probably less nostalgia and more relief.

As a teacher and parent, this end of summer feeling is a recurring theme, with all sorts of mixed emotions. Which is why it’s fun to wax nostalgic about the more carefree, less responsible days.

The end of summer evokes powerful nostalgia

There was the 1986 father-son cross-country American road trip, from Washington to Jacksonville, Florida, as we left the US for Madrid, Spain. Though I was only 9 at the time, I still think the friends I left in Washington were the best I ever had. The memories are the most powerful for sure, despite their fuzziness in my mind.

There was the trip three years later to Miami, where my summer lasted into September. Growing up in a military family meant moving somewhere new every few years. This time it meant bye-bye Spain (and tears at the airport) and hello Germany. But this wasn’t your traditional end of summer/start of school situation. We had a month holiday in Miami, my dad’s hometown, to see my grandmother before heading to our next destination. That meant a farewell to summer, a farewell to more dear friends but a delayed hello to a new school year and an extended summer.

August 1994 was the start of university. Which is kind of a big deal. The summer leading up to it was bittersweet, saying goodbye to friends you hoped to see again one day but deep down realised you probably wouldn’t. Such is the life of the military kid with no real hometown.

Two years later – thirty years ago (!) – I was in between my 2nd and 3rd years of university and I debated whether to go home – England at the time – for the summer. It was Euro ’96 with England hosting and I really wanted to be there for that.

There was more incentive for staying: I was studying at Tufts in Boston, and my girlfriend was from the area, and I stuck around for the summer to be with her and get a decent job – for I was going to be studying in London that autumn.

And then she dumped my ass right at the start of June. (soundtrack to that summer: “Oh Yeah” by the Northern Irish band Ash, a song we both loved: “Oh yeah, she was taking me over, oh yeah, it was the start of the summer…”)

It turned out to be an okay summer after its terrible start. I made great money working as a waiter in the Tremont House Hotel in Boston’s Theatre District, and met a few famous people, including Ash themselves on their US tour; I even served them breakfast but the tight bastards stiffed me on the tip – they left $30 on a $28.50 check, but they did put my Irish colleague and I on the guest list; which was nice and all except that we already had tickets so she invited a couple of her flatmates; oh and I also told them about how “Oh Yeah” was me and my ex-girlfriend’s song, and then – shock horror I still can’t believe I did this – I then sang THEIR OWN SONG back to them while lead singer Tim Wheeler looked at me sheepishly and said, with a nervous chuckle, ‘Yeah, nice one’.

They were kind enough to sign the menu for me:

August 1998 – damn, I’m old (!) was the first end of summer that never seemed to happen. I had graduated from university in May and started my new job early August. That goes down as a rather anti-climactic end of summer but June and July had its special moments.

Late August of 2002 was bittersweet (yet again) as I said goodbye to a nearly five-year relationship and left the US (for good, as it turned out) for Edinburgh.

Before that, it was time for an epic adventure.

With over a month to kill before starting my Master’s course, I set off on my first solo backpacking adventure: Prague-Krakow-Budapest-Zagreb-Dubrovnik-Split-Ljubljana-Salzburg. It was also the first time I had a proper journal where I scribbled down my musings and shenanigans. It would pain me to read now, especially the absinthe-soaked night in Prague where I scrawled down God-knows-what in some probably indecipherable squiggles.

After the trip, I sent the journal to my girlfriend (ex?) – in retrospect I’m not sure why. When I met up with her years later and asked whether she still had it, she had no idea what I was talking about.

Oh well. Like I said, I probably wouldn’t want to read any of that drivel. It’s far worse than the crap I write about now, if you can believe that.

Anyway, it was a fun trip, from what I can remember.

So at least it was another extended summer. Nice, eh?

Goodbye America (again)

As I get ready to depart from the US, this is where my current reminiscing comes to a close, with memories of leaving the US twenty-four years ago.

And even this summer, as sweltering hot as it was, despite the dry July in the UK where I never so much as felt a drop of rain, and even with the hecticness of a family holiday where everyone wanted to strangle each other, where I’ve barely had time or peace to read or write (or think), there’s still a sadness to it all ending (and even saying goodbye to the parents).

As summer fades into twilight, I like to watch Stand by Me, which has to be the best end of summer film to capture these fleeting feelings. It’s a film I’ve re-watched dozens of times and is always comforting.

This year, I’m not watching it – instead, I’m reading the book (The Body), for the first time. In fact, it’s my first Stephen King novel.

There comes a time when you feel like letting old memories and traditions wither away and introduce new ones. I suppose that’s what happens when you get older – even the summers you didn’t particularly enjoy become summers you miss.

Stay tuned for some exciting changes/developments in this newsletter, including a spinoff dedicated solely to reading and bibliomania, but with a twist.

I hope you’ve had a pleasant summer full of enduring memories (while managing to avoid any major kerfuffle with beloved family members).

You romanticise and wax nostalgic about the good ol’ days of air travel, when metal cutlery was still in use, when there was only one choice of film – two, if you were lucky – that showed on a drop-down screen which you could see properly only if you had a good seat.

You also remember the less glamorous days of life in this metal capsule suspended thousands of miles over the earth, as the reek of cigarette smoke filtered throughout the cabin no matter where you were sitting (and you wonder if the stories of Aeroflot were true, or whether it was just urban legend: that the smoking section was divided, with the entire left side of the plane able to smoke, while the non-smokers sat on the right).

You’re taking a Transatlantic flight, a route familiar to you from years of traipsing back and forth to visit family. What surprises await this time?

It’s a 10.05am departure and your first thought is, “Too early for a beer?” before remembering that when it comes to travel, time is of no consideration. You don’t make a habit of drinking on planes, or even overdrinking, now that you are travelling with your daughter.

It hasn’t always been thus. You recall, fondly or otherwise, those flights where you probably had one or two many and were even cut off. This isn’t something to boast about, but it was circumstances that led to it.

There was that 11.30pm flight from London to Lagos, after a turbulent family get-together in Belfast, and a relationship tottering on the brink, where your seatmate, an affable, talkative Nigerian chap, insisted on drinking Johnnie Walker Red until he passed out, while you continued, at the back of the plane, regaling – or boring – the poor flight attendant with your tales of romantic woe, arriving in a dishevelled state with a throbbing headache at 7am.

There were the times you flew first-class international – this is not showing off, your friend used to work for American Airlines and would offer you his buddy passes so you could fly cheap; you’d never fail to marvel at the goodies on offer, being cut off on one flight after a few too many scotches, but it was all perfectly justified for it was a traumatic goodbye to Chicago after falling head over heels for a Northern Irish-born barmaid who begged you not to go to Ukraine in what is the singularly most impactful ‘what-if’ story of your life.

But this is not intended to be a recollection of sordid stories of debauchery – although you also recall from that flight, sitting in the very first row one seat over from a young pilot, studiously (and nervously) examining his thick flight instruction manual, and when he disappears midway through the flight and never returns, you assume he’s headed to the cockpit to land a plane for the first time, a fact confirmed when you face one of the bumpiest landings of your life, and you recall that this is the clear sign of a new pilot, the quality of the landing (bear this in mind next time you fly – if you’re worried about how (in)experienced your pilot is, you won’t know until you land, so there’s no point in worrying).

You remember not having to worry about liquids in luggage and security screenings, and now every airport features different rules and regulations. Here you must remove your shoes, there you mustn’t, no need to toss your water bottle here, it’s fine, take it, but not today, not here, you cannot take it here, and why did you remove your laptop from its case, there’s no need, keep it all together…sir, why haven’t you removed your devices from your carry-ons, now we’ll need to run this through the scanner again.

You are comfortably seated on the plane, the anticipation is building – what films will we watch? What will we read? What will the meals be like? (Bad, almost certainly, but yet you still look forward to it, and reflect back on the delectable first-class meals you enjoyed; now your friend works for another airline, with stingier benefits that only apply to immediate family.)

So many films to choose from, and yet, so few you want to watch.

Should you read instead?

You start with a film. You choose The Running Man and you’ve misunderstood the concept of the film, even after reading ’s fine review months ago. For some reason, you expect a marathon type event, where people are literally running and chasing the entire time. It’s far different and very dystopian. Do films like this portend the future accurately? You fear so…where there is no escape from prying eyes, where privacy is a thing of the past, where the gap between the haves and have-nots is massive…are we heading this way, you worry, especially as you look to your right, your daughter at the window, innocently laughing at The Parent Trap.

And what’s this? It’s only midday – you did have a beer, two in fact, small cans of Goose Island IPA (couldn’t get beer like this back in the day!), and you’re not even remotely tipsy, but the lights…the windows…what on earth is this? Where is the sun?

Why is our window purple and just ahead of us…is natural light?

You remember the epic flights over some of the most stunning scenery on our fragile planet. The days before the back-of-the-seat flight map, so you only knew where you were going if the pilot announced it or you had a good sense of spatial geography and knowledge of flight routes. You’ll never forget the majestic scenes of Greenland, the barren, isolated wilderness of northern, northern Canada, how serene and peaceful it was, as you flew from Belfast via London to Seattle and back as a child.

And you remember being invited into the cockpit! You tell these stories to your students, those too young to know of a time like this, and they look at you in disbelief, most of them calling you a fibber – stop for a moment to lament the shameful disrespect of today’s youth – no matter how much you try to convince them.

Your grandfather worked for the long-defunct Eastern Airlines in the 1970s, and your old man has told you endless tales of the trips he took up and down the Eastern seaboard, often in the cockpit, or running around the plane, with barely a concern for safety.

But…“just”10 hours? To get from Miami to New York? Goodness gracious.

But wait, let’s not get away from those breathtaking views from the plane, the memories. It was still a more innocent time in the late 1990s, before September 11 changed air travel forever. That flight you took in 1998 from London to Manila and the scintillating sights on the ground. Where was this you flew? Khiva? Karakorum? Kashmir? The Khyber Pass? Wherever it was, it was unforgettable and awesome (in the true sense of the word).

But now you’re faced with a disorientating scene. The colours, the lights, what’s going on? Where’s the natural light? How do we control the settings and colours? Your daughter is fiddling with the controls, and it seems to be changing willy nilly, and why do those lucky bastards in business class in front of us get the natural light? Why is it purple on one side, green on the other?

Are we living in a Running Man world?

Your reading choice of Orbital seems oh-so-appropriate, especially when you encounter this passage:

“Forty minutes have passed since dawn and sidling in now from the east is the shadow of night. It seems not much, just a portside smudge. Blue has turned purple but that’s about it. Green has turned purple, white has turned purple, America has turned purple, or what’s left of it anyway…Night has unravelled the earth’s blue-green weave…Suddenly now, as if displeased, the Terminator swipes daylight off the face of the earth and the stars burst up like snowdrops from God knows where…”

But you’re struggling to read. It’s close to impossible to read considering you’re not an acrobat, gymnast, or octopus. The reading light beams into a position on your right shoulder, and it’s impossible to adjust. It’s so dark in the cabin that you have no choice but to use the light, but unless you can contort your body and neck in such a way, it’s a futile endeavour.

What, do they not want us to read? What happened to the option to adjust the position of the light? Your kindle is an option but it’s Orbital you want to be reading. It’s captivated you so far and you’d like to finish it on this flight.

Alas…(pause for a moment to lament the decline in reading today)

Your next film choice is Project Hail Mary. But for whatever reason, you cannot get into it at all and after just 10 minutes, you call it quits, only to be met with this message:

A watch party? What does a watch party entail? Is this some type of in-flight dating app? What is one supposed to do, walk up and down the plane to find someone you’re interested in and invite them to this so-called watch party? This is surely creepy.

Ah, you realise, of course. Project Hail Mary is such a good film – you’ve heard – that the airline is nudging you to find a buddy to support you. You can watch together, rows and seats apart.

But no, no thanks you say. Let’s try Mercy, another film portending our dystopian future, where a man has to convince an AI judge that he’s innocent of a crime, a crime for which he’ll be automatically executed within two hours if he can’t prove his innocence and yet again, you’re wondering if we can expect a future like this.

Your little girl is giggling away to Freaky Friday.

Later, snacks and drinks are being offered again, and you hear a flight attendant say, “You guys want anything to drink?” and you think, my goodness, where have their manners gone? It was never like this…and then you wonder whether you’re just an out-of-touch fuddy duddy – this is rhetorical, of course – and need to get over stuff like this.

You’ve arrived at your airport – smooth landing, experienced pilot – and you realise right away that you’re unprepared for what lies ahead, the blasting air-conditioning in the airport greeting you harshly as you make your way through various terminals, passport control, customs.

For the first time in your life, you do not interact with a human at passport control as you arrive from your international flight. You don’t even need to brandish your passport! You simply stare into the camera, wait a few seconds, and are ushered on your way.

You are back in the US for just over a fortnight and you have no idea how much of a cultural shock you’re in for. You’ve spent around a quarter of your life in the US – along with another quarter in the UK, and another in Ukraine – and though it’s only been two years since your last visit, you’re heading to a different part of the country from the one you’re used to and barely know what’s in store because things have changed so much and you’re comfortably ensconced in a European mindset and lo and behold what do we have here greeting us at the airport bookstore…

If you missed part 1 of my daily shenanigans, catch up here:

These are lightly edited for clarity and to make some of them sound less nonsensical and more coherent.

Summer school shenanigans (day 16)

A day of contrasts:

A new batch of students has descended upon the campus, and we started the morning with placement testing. I usually teach higher levels, but the placement test groups are random. I had a class of 18 lower-level 11-12-year-olds, many of whom struggled to appreciate my fine wit and stellar humour:

“Where are you from, Alice?”
“Pisa.”
“Ah, when I went there I had a Pisa pizza, it was delicious!”

I repeated the joke at least 5 times and only the same 2 students laughed.

After lunch, I had a high-level class of 17-18-year-olds and we were in a stiflingly hot classroom with no windows, no air and no A/C. It was like a hot yoga session, all of us gasping and sweating profusely. I probably lost a few kilos.

We spent our final 90-minute class of the day outside on the university square, mainly chit-chatting and them getting to know one another, telling stories, etc. With a fairly fluent, chatty group of students, this is one of the easiest jobs in the world.

Especially when they laugh at most of my jokes (mainly out of pity, but I’ll take whatever I can get).

Day 17

Potentially troubling news – some colleagues and students have discovered my Substack. Does this mean I’ll have to be more careful about what I share?

For now I’d just like to say that all my colleagues are wonderful, professional, caring, conscientious people and I wish I could spend all my waking hours with them and my students are exceptionally motivated, hardworking, always attentive and I’m grateful for the effort they consistently put in every class.

And my job is perfect, best in the world, no complaints, it’s an absolute dream, nothing I’d rather be doing.

(I somehow forgot) Day 18

I was probably cracking up at this point – the strain and pressure had no doubt got to me.

So I shall share my student ’s exceptional board drawings (I don’t believe the ‘67’ was his handiwork).

Day 19

My cherished one day off – haven’t decided how to spend it yet.

It’s the World Cup final tonight, but of course everyone is totally aware of this so there’s no need to mention it.

This is my third time teaching at a summer school when there’s a final of a major competition. All three have included Spain.

Euro 2008, Canterbury: Spain 1, Germany 0
World Cup 2010, Wokingham: Spain 1, Netherlands 0
World Cup 2026, Colchester: Spain 1, Argentina 0 (?)

Unfortunately, unlike previous experiences, there’s only a handful of Spanish students around. It’s now 90% Italian (who all seem to be supporting Spain anyway).

(Editor’s note: Daniel tried to take credit for Spain’s victory after the fact, but come on now, let’s be serious)

Day 20

There are many things language learning students do to piss their teachers off, but a particular one that drives us bonkers is when they claim the class is ‘too easy’ and request a move to a higher level.

For goodness’ sake, PROVE that it’s too easy by showing me your fluency and range of language. If you speak in short sentences with basic vocabulary and loads of errors, it’s not EASY at all. Don’t bullshit us with ‘but I understand everything!’

Day 21

I like Italians very much, but…(there’s always a but)

This is the 5th time I’ve worked at a summer school. The first 3 had a terrific mix of nationalities in one classroom: Spanish, Italian, French, Greek, Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Baltic, Ukrainian, Turkish, Cypriot, the occasional German or Pole.

My current classes are 100% Italian, and between this summer and last, they’re usually ¾ Italian on average. They’re mostly good kids, but many are disappointed with the lack of diversity, as a teacher it’s that much harder to get them to use only English, and the classroom just lacks a certain oomph. The most rewarding classes are when the nationalities are mixed up and happily chatting away – in English – and making new friends.

On the plus side, my Italian is improving dramatically, so…there’s that.

Day 22

Child protection is taken extremely seriously in the UK and one of the guidelines is that we are not to have any physical contact with anyone under 18. I don’t think this extends to handshakes (though I wish it would, I don’t want to touch anymore sweaty, clammy palms, but the students are quite insistent about it).

I had one lesson a few days ago with an 8-year-old named Samuele. He’s a very chatty, quirky, amusing character, and even though I no longer teach him, every time he sees me around he runs up and shouts ‘Daniel!’ and gives me a massive, overpowering hug. I spilt my tea all over myself this morning, but the kid is adorable and I hope I don’t lose my job over this.

Any witnesses will verify my account of this egregious transgression of the law.

Day 23: ‘Call me Nasty’

I can’t, I just can’t. There’s no way I am calling my 17-year-old student ‘Nasty’ even if that’s what she insists on. It’s creepy, and I refuse to.

Her name is Anastasiia, and I know many Anastasiias, all of them Ukrainian. I have a few friends called Anastasiia. The usual diminutive is Nastia (or occasionally Ana), which is perfectly fine and natural. But Nasty?

This one is Italian with one Moldovan parent, and she’s steadfast in her demand to be called Nasty.

For now, I’m avoiding calling her anything and merely looking in her direction and waiting for eye contact to signal she should speak. I think she’s cottoning on to my ruse though.

I must tread delicately in this matter.

(For some amusing and wise ways to handle this situation, check out the replies on the original note: Call me Nasty)

Day 24

‘English food is awful…terrible…so ugly!’

Yes, some of them use the word ugly to describe food.

Years ago, this was mildly amusing and I tried to see the lighter side of it.

But now I’m beyond fed up and it’s pissing me off. There’s the constant whingeing from students about how bad the food is, and yet they NEVER actually try proper British food while they’re here. The crap they serve in the canteens is painfully mediocre and you wouldn’t find most of it in any respectable gastropub or restaurant.

On trips to London, Cambridge, Canterbury, or wherever they go, what do they eat? Five Guys. McDonald’s. Starbucks. Or, gasp…pizza.

They get pizza and then complain about how bad it is!

Thankfully, there are some curious, adventurous souls who do try something local – usually fish ‘n chips, which they usually praise, and on rare occasions a curry or a steak and ale pie, bangers and mash perhaps. A few of them enjoyed jacket potatoes, which is not something that I usually think to recommend (it just doesn’t feel British enough to me, I don’t know why).

Shan’t give up the fight though. Must persist.

Read my more in-depth rants:

Day 25

It’s hard to maintain any semblance of professionalism whilst teaching so many Italians, once they find out my surname.

It translates as stench in Italian.

Daniel Stench, that’s me. Or Stinky Daniel if you prefer.

(and thank heavens I don’t teach many Greeks, because it’s far worse and far more embarrassing in Greek; and in Ukrainian, pronounced a slightly different way, it translates as ‘belly’ – damn you, ancestors, you’ve stricken me with an accursed name!)

Day 26

Day off, hanging out in Brighton with my sister and wiseass brother-in-law (who stubbornly refuses to read my posts and insists all my followers are bots, which is obviously false; only around a third are bots).

The place is crawling with Spanish and Italian language students – there’s no escaping them! Thankfully, none of mine are in town.

I’ve had a fair bit of fun asking the Italians if they can recommend any good pineapple pizza places – this drives them mad – and the Spanish if they know anywhere to get ‘English tapas’ and everyone is looking at me like I’m nuts.

Day 27

We have a couple dozen Saudi students floating about, and they’re getting mixed reviews from teachers. Some are struggling with their behaviour, frequent absences, tardiness, classroom disruption, disobedience, and disrespect. They even trashed a classroom by overturning chairs, leaving litter everywhere, and disconnecting all the devices when they were forced by their teacher to stay after class to tidy up.

I’ve had an overall positive experience with my students. The older, higher-level boys (they’re all boys) have been talkative, open-minded and more than happy to interact with the girls (some of the younger ones apparently ‘aren’t allowed to’).

The majority I’ve taught are quirky, memorable characters.

One guy, however, is a pain, but in an impossible-to-get-irritated-with way. He needs to use the toilet every 20-30 minutes or so and his excuses are so amusing that I can’t help but laugh:

• “Sorry mister, it’s the English food, it’s not agreeing with my system I believe. It’s probably food poisoning.”

• “Mister, I think I have a bad case of dysentery.”

• “Mister, it’s my cholera, it’s acting up again.”

• “I’m sorry, mister, it must be the microbes in the water, I have to go.”

• “Sorry mister…” rubs belly, has pained look on his face, makes a groaning sound, points to the door…

“Fine, okay,” I respond, exasperated with another interruption. “But will you stop calling me mister!”

Day 28

Some of the amusing stuff the kids have said over the past few weeks:

“How are we supposed to know that, we’re Italian?” (said during one geography guessing game where they had to identify photos of cities like Berlin, Prague, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, etc)

“How is anyone supposed to know that?” (said by a few students during a game of Kahoot! in response to the question ‘where will the 2034 World Cup be held?’ - the answer is Saudi Arabia, and this isn’t exactly a closely guarded secret)

“I can’t speak English because I can’t speak English!” (said by a 15-year-old who’s been studying English for a decade but couldn’t even say this in English - her friend translated)

“But I don’t know English, that’s why I don’t speak English!” (said by a 13-year-old who refuses to make an effort to learn any English in class, also translated)

“You looked so much better before with your beard” (said by the majority of the students in two separate classes)

“You looked terrible with that beard, it’s good you shaved it” (said by the majority of the students in two different classes, a week later)

“You don’t have pasta every day?” (asked by an incredulous young Italian shocked by the fact I rarely eat pasta)

“Ewww…” (groaned by the same Italian while pulling a face when I told her that I usually ate fish, chicken, tofu or vegetables instead)

It’s a funny old business teaching English to teenagers.

You be the judge: here’s me with and without the beard (I didn’t clarify whether I give the students the heebie jeebies).

The stunning drawing on the right is by (trust me, I’m nowhere near that cool and sexy in real life, and I truly have no idea how she got the chest hair so right, I NEVER took my shirt off in class, I’m not that creepy and weird).

Day 29: the final day

And…that’s a wrap!

The mayhem is over for another year and now the summer holidays can properly start.

I said my goodbyes and can genuinely say I enjoyed working with most of my colleagues and it’s sad to think I’ll probably never see most of them ever again.

And despite my snarky comments about my students, the majority were good fun and I met some memorable characters (but let’s not kid ourselves, there were a few I wanted to strangle, wink wink).

Postscript(s)

Almost an entire month (29 days) in the UK and I neither felt nor saw a single drop of rain.

The campus geese were a constant menace, hissing at and chasing me, the miserable bastards.

Having a temporary summer job with colleagues you’re unlikely to see again is bittersweet. Some I was glad to see the backs of, others I’ll miss, whether it was the innocent small talk in between classes, idle banter, complaining about our students, or nerdy language discussions.

Then there’s the…regret? I’m not sure it’s regret – it’s those you meet in passing, have good chats with, but are never close enough to, to say ‘hey, let’s sit down and grab a beer/coffee’ especially because you expect opportunities to naturally present themselves (and that’s the way it tends to work at summer schools), but then suddenly it’s time to leave and as the days are ticking away you think ‘damn it, I’m not going to get to talk more with so-and-so’ and it’s such a shame.

The lesson to be learnt here is obvious, but I’ll probably do the same thing in future jobs.

The (short-term) future

The summer school experience now, at my ripe old age, couldn’t be more different from my first job, in 2005. A contrast between the shenanigans then and now will be coming your way in mid-August, along with loads of photos, including naughty classroom language, more food pics, amusing student writing examples and assorted bits of tomfoolery.

As well as tales of heartbreak and love’s labours lost.

A shameless bit of self-promotion

Trust me when I say this – is in the extreme minority here. In every class of roughly 18-20 students, 2-3 of them actually like me, 7-8 can merely tolerate me, 3-4 don’t give a flying toss about me, 2-3 vehemently dislike me, 1-2 viscerally hate me, and occasionally, once in a blue moon, you get crazy students like this with really nice things to say.

(Agila, reveal yourself –– I’m pretty sure I know who you are, but you know what they say about assuming, right?)

Inspired by Agila’s thoughtful words, how would you like a free copy of A Classroom in Kyiv: Life Lessons for English Learners?

If you go to my site, A Classroom in Kyiv Potential Freebie, click on ‘Buy Now’, and enter one of two special discount codes, it’s yours as a gift.

What are the codes? You’ll have to guess – but if you’ve been paying attention, one of them is easy.

They are both 10 characters long, written as one word in UPPERCASE.

For example, an option could be SHENANIGAN or DANNYPUZZO (though it’s neither of those).

One of them is directly connected to my summer school job this year.

The other is one of my daughter’s favourite footballers, who played at the World Cup, someone I consider one of the best midfielders in the world.

Go on, give it a try, it’ll be fun!

Daniel’s other lousy books for if/when you’re truly desperate:

Because I don’t want all my loyal, wonderful readers to miss out – since the vast majority don’t fritter away your time on Substack like many of us – I offer you part 1 of my daily mischief making: the first 15 notes, lightly edited for clarity.

Background

This is my 5^th summer school experience: 2005, 2008, 2010, 2025, 2026. I’m teaching English in in the UK to students between 11-18, mostly Italian, but with sprinklings of Spanish, Colombian, Brazilian, Greek, Turkish and Saudi students.

It’s a demanding job: 6 days of teaching a week, 6 hours of teaching a day. One measly day off. It might not sound like much, but it’s draining.

Classes and students are constantly changing, things are flip-flopped, you might teach the same core group of students a few days in a row, you might meet some classes only once.

As a residential teacher, I stay on campus in halls of residence/dorms, and eat at the canteens/dining halls.

In my younger days, I taught 3 hours a day in the morning, and did activities and sports and went on excursions with the kids. These days it’s all teaching.

A typical day: up around 6 for an hour or two of reading, coffee and faffing about. Breakfast either in the small kitchen I share with 6 other teachers, or at the canteen before class starts at 9:15. Three hours of teaching, then a 90-minute lunch break. Three more hours, then dinner.

Back to my room around 7pm or so, but I try to go for walks around the campus, which is lovely (except for the nasty geese who hiss and chase me). By the time I’m back in my room, my brain is fried and I can barely stay awake.

Complicating matters this month has been the World Cup. I’ve watched way too much of it, leaving precious few hours to do more worthwhile things.

BONUS!

Teachers love doing ‘True or False’ get to know the teacher activities. Or sometimes we tell stories and they have to spot the lie(s).

You can do the same, dear learners, with these notes – one of them is not true. Can you guess which?

Summer School Shenanigans (day 1)

As an old cynical bastard in this business for far too long, I’ve seen it all, not much fazes or surprises me. I’m unflappable most of the time, which may sound surprising to those who know me for my curmudgeonliness and complaining.

Today was the start of the adventure. There are some 25 teachers in the WhatsApp chat, meant to resolve or report issues (it’s soooo hard to resist the temptation to post snark).

The same 10 or so teachers make up 95% of these so-called issues:

• ‘my computer’s not logging on, can someone help?’

• ‘can I get some paper in room 22?’

• ‘I don’t have Francisco DePoopi on my register, can someone check?’

• ‘what’s the Kahoot! password?’

• ‘the lesson PDF isn’t opening, can someone fix it for me?’

• ‘Giulia di Verde from room 18 went to the toilet 20 minutes ago and hasn’t returned, can someone she if she got stuck?’

• ‘the A/C doesn’t work in room 8’ (it wasn’t turned on)

I kid you not, there are over 100 messages littering the group chat.

Things can only get better.

Summer school shenanigans (day 2)

In the first day or two teaching Italian, Spanish, Greek and Colombian teenagers, we’re introducing them to UK culture with power points, games, quizzes and making them do poster presentations about their upcoming excursions.

A lot of the kids are going to the British Museum. I told them about all the plundered loot from around the world that the British are hoarding, and how it was their patriotic duty to demand the return of what is rightfully theirs. As a team, they’ve been to work together to smuggle the Elgin marbles out and they seemed excited at the prospect.

Tomorrow might be the end of my career/freedom and a bunch of kids might be heading for prison too. Keep an eye on the news.

Summer school shenanigans (day 3)

Today we had ‘spot observations’, which means members of academic management pop into the classrooms unannounced to make sure we’re doing our jobs properly and not misleading the kids.

Here’s a snippet of the feedback I received:

‘You seem to really enjoy what you’re doing and the students appreciate your teaching, even if your sense of humour might be an acquired taste. I can understand your desire to lighten things up and make the students laugh, but I’d be wary of the choice of jokes you choose to share.

‘For example, I don’t think ‘what do excuses and assholes have in common? everyone has one’ is suitable for a group of teenagers.’

Summer school shenanigans (day 4)

It’s my one day off a week and I’m relaxing with a pint or two of bitter in Colchester city centre.

But work is never far from my mind - I’ve already bumped into a few of my students around town and two of them were gawking at me through the pub window mere minutes ago.

The place is crawling with foreign teenagers.

Spotted on the streets:

• Three Greeks ordering souvlaki from a food cart

• A group of Italians going into Five Guys

• More Italians and Spanish entering Burger King

They’ll no doubt come to class tomorrow and tell their teachers they tried local food.

And complain about how bad it was.

Summer school shenanigans (day 5)

Today was an almighty struggle. One of the toughest days of my teaching life.

It didn’t get off to the best start - I barely slept after staying up till the wee hours watching the England match. (It was well worth it.)

I then had 6 hours of lessons with 18 low-level Italian 12–13-year-olds. Most of them could barely string more than three coherent words together and they understood little of what I was saying. It wasn’t my usual set of students - I was sent in as a reinforcement after they made their two regular teachers cry this past Friday (no joke).

I was fighting to stay awake and maintain calm. I might’ve shouted once or twice. Might’ve even dropped an f-bomb (or two). From their side was racism, absolute disrespect, insolence, nastiness, constant jabbering in Italian…tbf, it was ‘only’ 2/3 of them - 5 or 6 kids were trying their best.

Will tomorrow be any better? Thankfully, I’ll have different classes, with a handful of Spanish, Colombians and Brazilians, and they’re higher-level, but I’m likely to be just as knackered - I’m staying up for USA-Belgium.

Will I ever learn my lesson? No, I will not.

I’m too old for this crap.

Summer school shenanigans (day 6)

Breakfast was so good this morning that I decided to keep it with me.

All day.

I was groggy this morning from staying up late watching the WC (bad idea), and as I perched my tray precariously on the counter whilst trying to pour myself a cup of tea, the tray went tumbling, splattering my brand new, first-time worn trousers with egg and baked beans. Many students witnessed this.

As a firm believer in never playing down an embarrassing situation, I lapped it up, raising my arms in the air and proclaiming loudly, ‘you see that? you see what an idiot I am?’ I then stubbornly and childishly refused to get another breakfast, saying that I ‘deserved to be punished for my clumsiness and negligence. I will carry this shame with me all day!’

The staff looked at me, bemused.

In fairness, it wasn’t entirely my fault - the sleeve of paper cups was stuck together and it was impossible to pry one cup lose without using two hands and a lot of force. Even once my food had splattered on me and the floor, I struggled with both hands to pry one free. From the mangled cups I saw lying around, it appears I wasn’t the only one who faced this battle.

Silver linings: my students got a kick out of the story (only one of my own students had witnessed the carnage) and it led to a few minutes of fun discussions about various embarrassing moments.

Everything is a teachable moment.

Summer school shenanigans (day 7)

Class finishes at 5.45pm each day, and Argentina-Egypt kicked off at 5. Of course we were going to watch it. With their team not in the World Cup, most Italians are getting behind Argentina.

Questionable educational value? Not at all - the commentary was in English and Scottish, and I have no doubt the students improved their listening skills while listening to the soothing dulcet tones of Ally McCoist.

Gianpaolo, in the role of teacher, is giving this a thumbs up.

Summer school shenanigans (day 8)

A contrast from before and after lunch:

This morning I had a terrific class with Italian, Spanish and Greek teenagers. We discussed feminism, equality, homophobia, transphobia, racism, they were so into it, using excellent language, justifying their opinions, showing passion and emotion, which usually produces a richer range of language. The 3 hours flew by and the kids could’ve gone on about this for hours, there was no stopping them.

After lunch, we always switch classes and I was eager to see how my next class - similarly motivated and passionate - would get on. If they generate the ideas, I go with whatever the flow is. I don’t introduce these topics - our theme was speeches and in the brainstorming process, we got sidetracked and ended up having vociferous debates.

A message arrived from management over lunch: “Please be aware that with the arrival of the Saudi students, because of their religion, they are prohibited from working with girls in class, and please avoid any sensitive topics.”

You effing kidding me?

The two (new) Saudi students were pleasant enough, but the class was a fair old slog.

I’ll have more to say on this at a later date.

Summer school shenanigans (day 9)

Classroom chaos: good (sometimes)

Organisational chaos: bad (always)

This morning I had a perfect mix of 9 Italians and 9 Brazilians, higher level, motivated, talkative. I couldn’t get them to shut up. It was chaotic, loud, out of control.

But…it was brilliant.

I have a classroom rule when it comes to summer school - you can go off-topic and not do what I ask, as long as you’re speaking English. The kids are there to communicate and have fun, not do tedious grammar exercises.

They were all gabbing away in English, paired up perfectly with a different nationality, and the pairs morphed into small groups and then back to pairs and back into groups and…

At times I could barely get a word in edgeways but I didn’t mind.

You see? It’s not always so bad - chaos can be great, if it’s (somewhat) under control.

As for the (dis)organisational chaos, and the shambolic ways that classes and students are constantly shuffled around, confusing teachers and students alike…the less said, the better.

Summer school shenanigans (day 10)

Not even close to the halfway point and I’m wiped out.

At the pub now for the England match and I’m not sure I can stay awake.

Summer school shenanigans (day 10…or is it 11? I’m losing track)

My one day off. A well-deserved pint after a robust hike. No kids or colleagues in sight.

The book is terrific. The Hazy IPA even better.

Blisteringly hot day. Had to go back inside right after this photo.

Summer school shenanigans (day 12)

We’re not only teaching English, but also trying to instill British cultural values into these European and Brazilian heathens.

Queue jumping at mealtimes is absolutely not tolerated. But staff - teachers, especially - are allowed, even encouraged, to jump the queue. Most teachers take full advantage of this right.

I, being unfailingly polite - too much so at times - try not to cut in, instead patiently foolishly awaiting my turn.

This morning at breakfast, the queue was absurdly long and I had to get to class to prepare (‘prepare’, I should say). So I cut in near the front, as is my right, only to get aggressively and rudely told off by…a colleague.* Not a teacher, but one of the local activity leaders, the younger people who wear purple shirts and maintain law and order. Funnily, it’s these VERY SAME activity leaders who, when they see idiots like me queueing, will say ‘what are you doing, you don’t need to wait!’

This woman was very unpleasant and told me I couldn’t cut in. A mild argument ensued, though on my part I was polite and only marginally passively aggressive. She, on the other hand, was nasty and condescending. What happened to respecting your elders, eh?

The one lousy time I jump the queue this happens.

I reported her to her boss but guess what - she had reported me first, the brazen hussy!

(*you could also say I got a bollocking)

Summer school shenanigans (day 13)

With the first batch of kids leaving, they were issued their ‘graduation certificates’. We had to give them marks based on ‘effort and participation in class’.

The scale: Outstanding, Excellent, Great, Very Good, Good

I’m all for positive reinforcement and not destroying these kids’ confidence, but…some of those getting ‘Good’ were nowhere near ‘Good’ and they’re bound to see their mark and think ‘A-ha, you see? I did well!’

Where were the options for Disgraceful, Appalling, Shocking, Horrid, and Hopeless?

Kids are coddled too much these days. Poor preparation for the harsh reality of the real world.

Summer school shenanigans (day 14)

It was time for goodbyes, as the first intake of students going home. There were tears, emotions, hugs, heartbreak…not from me, but from them 😉

I’ve seen this before and I’ll see it again. It is so sad to see them having to say goodbye to their new friends, I get a bit teary-eyed (though try to hide it, obvs) when some of them say really nice things to me. Most of the kids I’ve met and taught so far have been superstars and if only all students were like them…

A part of me is tempted to say ‘you know kids, this is life, it never gets easier but let’s be honest - you’re unlikely to see each other again, even if you live only an hour apart in Italy/wherever.’

Then again, with Instagram and Snapchat and The Facebook, mySpace, Tumbler, etc, they can easily stay in touch with each other.

As a teacher, saying goodbye to colleagues after a few weeks in a summer school has been heartbreaking in the past (these days, as a cynical old misanthrope, I try to flee in the dead of night and hope no one notices).

For teenagers, I have no idea if it’s tougher.

(Now let’s see how many of the little darlings read my book 😂)

Summer school shenanigans (day 15)

I’ve hit the halfway point of my stint and with a lull in between one big group of kids leaving and another arriving, most of the teachers had two days of professional development…meetings/seminars/workshops (?)

Yours truly delivered easily the most stimulating and worthwhile training session (trust me).

There’s a mixed bag of teachers here, quite the motley crew. Which describes many English as a Foreign Language teachers around the globe. Many of us - the author very much included - are oddballs, some more loveable than others.

In attendance, we had:

• the nonstop talker, the interrupter, the dude who has an opinion on EVERYTHING and drones on and on - no one knows how to get him to keep quiet and on topic

• a couple of non-native English speakers with impenetrable accents - if I can barely understand them, I wonder how on earth their students can

• the oversharer who, within the first few minutes, has revealed to us all her entire backstory, including relationship troubles

• the teacher who manages, in every comment, to drop in another country she’s lived in: ‘Yes, well, in North Korea we used to…ah, that reminds me of when I taught in Mozambique…not necessarily, in Kuwait, we…but in Suriname we always…’

• the wisecracking Irishman whose always witty quips are appreciated by only 2-3 of us (a pity, he’s quite the craic)

• the idiot who insults his colleagues and doesn’t take anything seriously

No points for guessing which one is me 😉

Did you guess which one of the above is not true?

It can be hard to take me seriously at the best of times. My snark and sarcasm has got me into a fair bit of trouble over the years.

But do I learn my lesson?

Have a think, go back if you must.

The false one is…

Day 3:

Today we had ‘spot observations’, which means members of academic management pop into the classrooms unannounced to make sure we’re doing our jobs properly and not misleading the kids.

This part is true - we did have observations.

But I most certainly did not tell this joke in front of an observer. I might be bold and foolish, but even I have my limits.

‘For example, I don’t think ‘what do excuses and assholes have in common? everyone has one’ is suitable for a group of teenagers.’

(though to be fair, I have told this joke in class plenty of times, just not in front of an observer)

(and I hate to bring this up, but in case you’re wondering - the actual feedback was half-decent; apparently I know what I’m doing in the classroom)

The rest of my shenanigans will be shared once my time here is up.

The end is…in sight.

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

I have a degree in history from a half-decent American university so I’d like to think I know what I’m talking about. History has always been a passion, and the same goes for literature.

The World Cup has introduced many nationalities to a side of the US they perhaps hadn’t considered, as the endless reels and social media videos demonstrate. Away from the nastiness and politics, it’s a fascinating place, full of contradictions and idiosyncrasies, and plenty of self-mythologising.

Apart from travelling to the US, and trying to see as many places in between all the more well-known urban locales, what better way to understand America’s complexities than through books?

I have my own complicated relationship with the USA. Sometimes I feel more American, other times more British (see my spelling of ‘favourites’ above), occasionally a wee bit Irish. I’ve lived all over the place, and I’ve always been drawn to the history, politics and especially literature of the home of the brave…the land of opportunity…the new world…the land of the free…the great experiment.

This is a long, but far from comprehensive list – bookmark it, skim it, peruse it, come back to it.

All I can present to you is the books I’ve read over the years, where I highlight my favourites. There is a decent chance I’ve forgotten a book or two. Forgive me for that, and please do enlighten me in the comments, but remember – I’m only listing the books I’ve read. Don’t berate me for failing to include Norman Mailer, John Updike, or Philip Roth (for example).

Nonfiction: History and Politics

Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States, Gary Younge

Long-time Guardian correspondent Younge drives around America during the Bush years and talks to actual people instead of pundits, offering an outsider’s perspective (he’s of Barbadian ancestry), pointing out some of the absurdities Americans may not notice.

A Turn in the South and The Loss of El Dorado, VS Naipaul

Naipaul brings another outsider’s viewpoint (Indian ancestry, born and raised in Trinidad) to the American South, diving into race, religion and history. El Dorado focuses more on Trinidad and the wider Americas, particularly the Caribbean.

These Truths: A History of the United States, Jill Lepore

One of my favourites because of its readability and because it encompasses so much, including America’s founding contradictions – equality and slavery, democracy, political squabbles. The best books, it should go without saying, take a critical, incisive stance, not shying away from any unpleasantness. This is one of those.

The Penguin History of the United States of America, Hugh Brogan

I first read this over 15 years ago and I’d be curious to see how well it holds up. This is a brilliant book, but I don’t know if I can sell it very well – I seem to remember the font being small, and it being dense and overly wordy at times. This is yet another outsider’s take, from a crusty, occasional passive-aggressive British historian. He approaches American history with a healthy scepticism and bits of snark. I remember this being a joy to read, and one of the most exhilarating overviews.

When America Stopped Being Great, Nick Bryant

Another snarky Brit! How can you say no to this? This is the best diagnosis of American decline, especially the nastiness and breakdown in cooperation between Republicans and Democrats from the 1960s onwards. But the rot back goes even further back than that.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Gordon Wood

This is one of the first American histories I read that made a huge impact. I first read it while a teenager way back when shortly after its 1991 publication, and then reread it at university a few years later. Like the Brogan book, I can’t be sure how well it holds up all these years later. Wood is also a polarising historian, but let’s not speak too ill of the recently departed. Wood died on 7 June at the age of 92, getting hit by a car in a supermarket car park. There’s something doubly tragic to me when someone dies at such an advanced age from non-natural causes. My great aunt Dolores died in a car crash in her 90s, and she was in terrific shape at the time.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt

Want to understand more about why Uncle Larry says those nonsensical things at the Thanksgiving table (probably soiling himself in the process)? And why Aunt Martha snaps back at him, quoting the Old Testament? While Cousin Bobby spouts his torrents of vile fascist filth? And Niece Cassandra tries to ‘educate’ the table about the merits of socialism?

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, Arlie Hochschild

A liberal sociologist spent years embedded with Louisiana Tea Party supporters and actually tries to understand their grievances after Donald Trump won the 2016 election. This is excellent for getting to the root of some of the contradictions at the heart of people’s beliefs – for example, with such overwhelming evidence of climate catastrophe right on their doorstep, affecting their community directly, with Republican promises usually coming up short, how does this not turn the locals against the party they voted for?

Race, Slavery and Memory

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

A letter from a father to his son on what it means to live in a Black body in America.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

No history of America makes sense without this, and the next book.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

One of the earliest accounts of the slave trade written by a survivor of it, predating Douglass. The narrative is gripping and hard to put down.

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with Slavery in America, Clint Smith

Smith visits plantations, prisons and memorials to track how America remembers, and conveniently forgets, its history of slavery. I read this one recently, and it’s very readable.

Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy, Ethan Kytle and Blain Roberts

A look at how Charleston, South Carolina has fought over its own history for 150 years, with the Confederacy’s defenders and slavery’s chroniclers locked in permanent battle over the same streets.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson

If you’re only going to read one book on this list, make it this one. One of the best works of narrative nonfiction written about America.

When I was teaching a class of teenagers in the mid-2010s in Kyiv, one bright, motivated student asked me a question. She said that a friend of hers had visited the US and gone to Detroit (or St Louis or Chicago, I forget) and she wanted to know why so many Black people live in such poor parts of these cities.

I wasn’t sure how to explain this in a mere minute or two (I was meant to be teaching them English). I could’ve just said, ‘read this book’, and I did, but I also tried to give a potted one-minute version, which probably failed to capture the whole story.

Capitalism, Culture, Wisdom and the Twentieth Century

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

One of the best self-improvement memoirs you’ll ever find. Forget self-help – read this instead. (Also well worth a read is his highly underrated, magisterial Fart Proudly)

The Big Change: America Transforms Itself, 1900–1950, Frederick Lewis Allen

This might be the most accessible on this list. I read this earlier this year and it was a treat – I consider this a breezy, perceptive account of how America went from horse-and-buggy to superpower in half a century. It covers a lot of cultural and social trends too and really gets to the root of how income inequality sprouted.

American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good and American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Colin Woodard

Though these are both excellent, it’s American Nations that’s one of the best for highlighting America’s internal divisions. Woodard’s argument that America is really eleven different countries highlights the stark divide in today’s fractured political landscape.

The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket, Benjamin Lorr

Perhaps an unorthodox choice, and Lorr’s style can be wordy and ponderous, but I found this compelling. It’s a fascinating investigation into the supply chains fuelling supermarkets, and a reminder that American abundance runs on labour most shoppers never think about.

Americana: A History of American Capitalism, Bhu Srinivasan

A history of the US told through its businesses and entrepreneurs, from railroads to Silicon Valley. This one has excellent reviews but I can’t say it grabbed me. Worth checking out if this is your thing.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West, Stephen Ambrose

The Lewis and Clark expedition told as the founding adventure story of westward expansion (it was also the winning answer for the Griswald family in Pig in a Poke, from National Lampoon’s European Vacation).

Fiction & Literature

I’ve left off commentary for those that stand on their own merit.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Innocents Abroad (not technically fiction), Mark Twain

The USA Trilogy (The 42nd Parallel, 1919, The Big Money), John Dos Passos

An experimental, collage-style attempt to capture the entire country across three decades, mixing fiction with newsreel and biography. I loved this, though the format takes some getting used to. So uniquely postmodern.

On the Road, Jack Kerouac

Beloved by many, but it failed to make an impact. Maybe you need to be young to enjoy this one, I read it just a few years ago.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

An all-time favourite. Recently reread this 20 years after the first time and it’s just as hilarious as I remember. Ignatius J Reilly is one of literature’s most gloriously cantankerous, flatulent slobs of a protagonist. My kind of character, in other words. Maybe not directly about the US, but it gives a unique insight into some of the oddball characters that populate cities like New Orleans.

The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams

The Crucible, Death of a Salesman and A View from the Bridge, Arthur Miller

Miller’s plays turn American anxieties – McCarthyism, the failed promise of success, immigrant pride – into tragedy that still packs a punch.

The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

My Ántonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

The American frontier written about brutally and without the fluff. We’re talking immigrants, religion, hard labour and settling the land.

The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow

A sprawling, restless picaresque (love this word, always mean to use it more) through Depression-era Chicago, narrated by a hustler who refuses to be pinned down.

The Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp, John Irving

Irving is a quirkier, more offbeat choice (by the way, ‘quirky’ and ‘offbeat’ are the genres I’ve decided my own novel fits into – let’s see if my next round of querying bears fruit; I don’t dare compare myself in any way, shape or form to Irving, though).

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Truman Capote

The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh

A British outsider takes the piss out of the American funeral industry and Hollywood with vicious, gleeful precision. This features one of the most hilarious, laugh-out-loud lines in all of literature.

A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood

A day in the life of a gay British professor in 1960s Los Angeles. That doesn’t sell it well, but it’s a beautifully tragic story.

Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

Whitehead takes real American horrors – a reform school and slavery – and reshapes them with all their cruelty and consequences.

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

This one blew me away as a teenager. A muckraking novel about Chicago’s meatpacking industry that was meant to expose labour exploitation and instead triggered food safety laws. It’s also one of the best novels about the immigrant experience, with the discrimination and challenges of getting jobs, making ends meet, and surviving. Sinclair famously said he ‘aimed for the public’s heart and hit its stomach’. You probably won’t want to eat a hot dog or sausage ever again after reading this.

Song of Solomon and Beloved, Toni Morrison

This will be a lazy ‘review’ so forgive me. I read Song of Solomon in school and loved it, even if I barely remember it all these years later (I plan to reread it one of these days). I didn’t enjoy Beloved at all, found it a slog. But I know it’s…beloved by many (sorry).

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi

Two half-sisters’ bloodlines split across continents – one into slavery in America, one staying in Ghana – traced across two centuries in alternating chapters.

Native Son, Richard Wright

Bigger Thomas’s violence and doom in 1930s Chicago remains one of the most uncompromising indictments of American racism in fiction. (I’m proud of myself for that lovely collocation, ‘uncompromising indictments’, doesn’t it just roll off the tongue?)

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

The Joad family’s flight (and plight) from the Dust Bowl to California is the Depression-era American epic, equal parts tragedy and political fury. Steinbeck never lets you forget who built the country and who got left behind.

The Moor’s Account, Laila Lalami

Another favourite from this list, and a book I discovered during my year of reading only fiction by women. This is a highly entertaining fictionalised account of the first African explorer of the American interior, narrating a conquest expedition from the perspective of an enslaved man. Makes a nice companion piece to the Douglass and Olaudah Equiano narratives.

The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe

A satirical autopsy of 1980s New York – Wall Street greed, racial tension, media frenzy – that still reads as a blueprint for how American scandals get manufactured and consumed. This is where the classic phrase ‘masters of the universe’ comes from, describing the heady days of bond traders and the astronomical sums made, not to mention the copious liquor lunches (something I may have tried to replicate during my early, ill-advised financial industry days in the late 90s). Skip the film, it’s terrible.

Flashman and the Redskins, George MacDonald Fraser

You’ll have to overlook the un-Woke title. I’m a massive Flashman fan, and though we can’t always trust the historical accuracy of Flashman’s shenanigans, it’s an always raucous romp through historical battles, hijinks and mischief. In this one, the Victorian cad Flashman blunders through the American West and the Battle of Little Bighorn, somehow surviving through cowardice and luck. Which is pretty much how he survives most of his scrapes. (As do I, to be honest.)

White Noise, Don DeLillo

Consumerism, media saturation and the fear of death collide in a satire that’s only become more prophetic since 1985. The book is far better than the Netflix adaptation.

Netherland, Joseph O’Neill

A Dutch banker in post-9/11 New York finds an unlikely community through cricket. This is a book that highlights the modern-day immigrant experience.

The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri

A Indian-American boy navigates two identities and a name he never wanted, in another novel about the immigrant experience, as well as the particular loneliness of belonging nowhere fully.

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, Raymond Carver

Minimalist short stories of American blue-collar disappointment and the ennui of suburbia.

The Stories of John Cheever

Similar in tone to Carver. Suburban Connecticut’s despair, alcoholism and longing.

The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

A sprawling, satirical portrait of a Midwestern family failing to hold itself together at the turn of the millennium. This is a book that annoys plenty of people and can be a frustrating read, but I enjoyed it.

DNF

A History of the American Frontier, Frederick Logan Paxson

I’m not sure what happened here – it’s been sitting at 50% read on my Kindle for ages, I can’t remember if I’m taking a break or gave up.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Dee Brown

Such an important topic and a valuable viewpoint from the Native American side…I just struggled with the writing style, as did my sister. I found it dull and plodding and was quick to pull the plug, confident in the knowledge that I am pretty well-informed about the horrors perpetrated on Native Americans by colonial settlers.

All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren

Considered one of the great American political novels, I just couldn’t get into it. I gave it a solid 35% before calling it a day. Might revisit if I can be convinced.

Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis

Though I loved The Jungle, I made two attempts at this one before giving up. I might be way off here but I do believe it’s considered a reliable portrait of the shallowness and conformity of the American middle-class dream.

Don’t forget to like and share your thoughts.

• What’s missing and/or what else would you recommend?

• Any of my choices you disagree with?

• Any of my choices you equally enjoyed?

• Can you get good cheese in America?

  ---

Author’s note

My originally planned post, Nigeria part 2 (the prison diaries), was a no-go. Plan B was a more introspective, emotional look at what ‘home’ means these days, and why I feel wayward.

Also a no go.

Writing/thinking has been a slog lately. Whether it’s the heat, general fatigue, feeling in a rut, or overwhelmed with life/work/teaching/surviving/the World Cup, the words just haven’t been flowing at all. It’s more like spluttering and babbling, incoherent gobbledygook.

Normal service to be resumed shortly. Hopefully.

This time twenty years ago I left Ukraine, never expecting to return. I’d just finished my first year of teaching English and was off to Germany for the 2006 World Cup.

As a sucker for sentimentality, let’s take a wee trip down memory lane. It’s less about football - don’t worry, loyal non-football fan readers - and more about nostalgia and footballing fond memories.

With the certain fiasco of a World Cup about to kick off, I wanted to reminisce about my one and only visit to a World Cup.

Not that I can remember much of it.

9 June 2006: I left Lviv with barely any money to my name. I had a paltry salary by Western European standards, and luckily my kind boss David, gave me €100 as a parting gift with a note attached that read “to be spent very unwisely.” He was a good chap, was David.

Otherwise, I would be relying mainly on the generosity of friends to help fund the experience.

First stop: Munich

After missing a connecting train en route (the Lviv-Munich journey was around 24 hours), I arrived late for the England-Paraguay match, deeply upsetting Gen, my friend and generous host.

We hurried to the fan zone to meet up with her friends and get the party started with some early afternoon beers.

Here’s me in my Glentoran (Northern Ireland) top, my friend on the left (she’s somewhat camera shy). We’d met the year before in Prague, where we did our CELTA together.

I stayed in Gen’s cramped flat for a few days while she worked most of the time, taking in the sights, often by bicycle, carefully rationing my beer money and watching as much football as possible (obviously).

The highlight of Munich was the biergarten where I watched Spain clobber Ukraine, playing in their first World Cup, 4-0. Wearing my Ukraine top, nursing a beer, muttering under my breath and shaking my head every time Spain scored, I was joined at my table by four Canadians, who mistook me for a Ukrainian. I played along and managed to parlay my sorrow into two free beers, though by the end of the match, I think they suspected I wasn’t really Ukrainian. My lousy accent probably gave me away.

Next stop: Hamburg, by train

The first few days were spent watching on TV, soaking up the Munich Fan Fest atmosphere. Now it was time to go to some matches.

And so began a frenetic, helter-skelter couple of weeks of driving around Germany, racing from city to city to catch the matches.

I’d be meeting up with my good pal Andrew from high school, his girlfriend Maggie (now wife), his mother Eileen (my 11th grade English teacher), and Jen, a high school classmate, along with five or six of Andrew’s friends from university. They were all a great bunch.

Andrew had applied for as many tickets as possible in the lottery and was awarded multiple tickets for around ten matches, costing him no small fortune. I’m not sure how much thought was put into logistics, but my goodness, it was going to be a mad dash to make it in time to different cities.

As luck would have it, he had tickets for a couple of Ukraine matches, and I brought along the appropriate attire. From before Ukraine v Saudi Arabia:

Ukraine thrashed the Saudis 4-0.

Here’s me in the stadium, picture taken from way on the other side - can you spot me? Look very closely:

That night in Hamburg, in the infamous Reeperbahn…

Can’t talk about. What happens in the Reeperbahn absolutely must stay in the Reeperbahn. Suffice to say that I carried out David’s orders faithfully.

Leipzig, two days later

Iran v Angola (1-1). I didn’t attend this doozy of an encounter, instead waiting it out in the fan zone.

Things on this trip quickly became fuzzy. I have no recollection of what Leipzig looks like.

Nuremberg, the next day

Ghana v USA (2-1). Another match I had to sit out, watching from the fan zone with Jen. I was coming down with something and could barely speak. For some reason, perhaps due to my West Africa ties (having lived in Nigeria two years prior), we were both rooting for Ghana. When we admitted this to Andrew after he’d returned from the match in a foul mood, he was livid and threatened to not let me go to any more matches. I quickly apologised.

Berlin, the next day

I was a congested mess with a raging sore throat, pounding headache, my voice nearly gone. It was a very early start from Nuremberg to make it in time for Ukraine v Tunisia (1-0) at the Berlin Olympiastadion. As it was, we were late. Traffic was abysmal, we had to park way too far away, and ended up sprinting to get there, arriving some 25 minutes late. The only goal of the match came late in the second half, a dubious penalty dispatched by Andriy Shevchenko.

Afterwards, to celebrate Ukraine’s progression to the knockout round, we visited the Brandenburg Gate’s fan zone and partied till the wee hours. By this stage, we were very much the worse for wear. I have no memory whatsoever of this photo being taken:

The next day, don’t know where

Some hotel room somewhere, I have no idea at this point. We all watched Argentina v Mexico (2-1, AET) on TV (apparently), thankful not to be in a car trundling off to another match.

Have I mentioned that I was mainly sleeping on hotel room floors?

One day later, ticket swapping

I’m thankful that I was able to attend three matches in all. The final match I had tickets for was a 2nd round knockout affair between England and Ecuador in Stuttgart, a match I was underwhelmed for.

Andrew had tickets for the 2nd round match that day between the Netherlands and Portugal, back in Nuremberg, but he wanted to see England.

So we swapped and I went to Nuremberg with Eileen and a friend of hers for a tempestuous, highly entertaining 1-0 victory for Portugal. I was disappointed, having a soft spot for the Dutch.

England won 1-0 in what was a tame affair. I chose wisely.

I was offered tickets for Ukraine’s 2nd round match against Switzerland in Cologne the following day, but I had plans to make my way west, and I was flat broke by this point.

That night was utter hell. It was time to say goodbye as I headed off to Brussels to see a couple of friends (where we watched more matches). Nuremberg train station was chaotically crowded, and it was a lengthy, arduous journey to Belgium after spending the night in the station, desperately seeking a free bit of space to snooze. There had been precious little sleep on this trip, and I was in rough shape.

Everything is a complete blur by now.

The postscript: Euro 2012

That may have been my only World Cup experience, but six years later, lo and behold I was (unexpectedly) back in Ukraine, this time living in Kyiv for the 2012 European Championships, co-hosted with Poland.

My parents came out to visit. Here’s my mother being fleeced for a few euros - she naively thought these kind mascots were mere ‘volunteers’.

I applied for tickets all over Ukraine (Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk), but was only able to attend one match, the quarterfinal between England and Italy, with my old man. Here I am outside the Olimpiyskiy Stadium beforehand:

It finished 0-0, Italy winning on penalties.

Did you spot me earlier?

Look, here I am, waving my Ukraine scarf:

Thank you for the lovely, kind feedback from last week’s Nigeria post. Part two, my ordeal in prison, is coming next week. (Reliving the trauma has been harder than anticipated; bear with me)

An oldie in case you’re interested and/or missed it the first time:

The Outsider's Cut

Should You Move to Austria (via Ukraine)?

Granted, this is not a typical “Should You Move” survey because most of us are fortunate enough never to have been forced to flee a war zone. In his thoughtful and moving answers, Daniel Puzzo takes us with him as he travels the world as an ESL teacher and, after finally putting down roots, is forced to move once again due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine…

Read more

2 years ago · 31 likes · 4 comments · Elizabeth Coleman and Daniel Puzzo

Whether you love or hate football, go ahead and click on the heart to show me how much you appreciate me enlightening your day.

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

I worked for an education NGO, which is close enough to the truth. The outfit that employed me was a chaotic, corrupt mess, which is probably why they were out of business by 2007. Their stated aim was “widening participation in higher education.” In practice, it mostly involved being white, looking smart in a suit, and loitering around government offices asking for money or hanging out at the university to discuss educational cooperation with UK institutions.

We could leave it at that, or I could mention I was hired to be an assistant lecturer in history at Niger Delta University in Bayelsa state – honestly, I’m not even sure anymore. But it wasn’t actually a non-governmental organisation – I was working in the education sector but with local government cooperation. It’s just easier to say ‘education NGO’ and be done with it.

Here’s a map of Nigeria with the Niger Delta circled:

Most of the oil operations are based in the Niger Delta and part of our initiative was to lessen Nigeria’s overreliance on oil and seek ways of diversifying the economy – this was me putting my master’s in international relations to supposedly good work. At no point was I under the illusion that I knew what I was doing.

The Delta is bandit country, and especially so when I lived there. Local oil workers were routinely kidnapped and held for ransom. Many of them were Shell employees and I won’t get into the history of conflict there, but it’s long and sordid and there’s lots of pollution, corruption, environmental destruction, poverty, murder, land theft, and much else besides. It’s not a place for the faint of heart.

I was there with my girlfriend and we didn’t know the full extent of what we were getting into. She’s from Zambia and so had some inkling of what we were in for, but I think even she was shocked at how challenging Nigeria was.

As the only white people in the small town of Yenagoa where we lived, we were minor celebrities. We made an effort to interact with locals, took forbidden weekend trips, and rarely faced any real danger – the biggest worry was finding half-decent accommodation with electricity, running water and locks on the doors. And actual windows. So many buildings were in a half-finished, abandoned condition.

When my girlfriend left for the UK to start her PhD, I was on my own.

Sometime before she left, we were in Port Harcourt, a large, sprawling city where many oil workers are based. We ventured out late one night, despite being urged not to leave our hotel after dark. Perhaps this is a good time to remind you that Nigeria doesn’t attract many visitors. There’s not much of a tourist infrastructure, and places that attract foreign visitors in oil-rich countries – Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, for example – don’t cater to the casual tourist. Your diplomats, oil workers, businesspeople or journalists are put up in exorbitant hotels and told not to stray too far away. These are places with extreme income inequalities. You’re either well-off and isolated from any danger, or you are a part of that so-called danger, often living in squalid conditions. To the visitor who does chance it, you’re met with wary stares but ultimately genuine hospitality and authentic local cuisine.

Where were we?

Right, so it was late at night, Port Harcourt, and it had recently rained. We were in want of a snack, in particular suya, which we could call Nigeria’s equivalent of a kebab or fish supper, but likely healthier. Grilled strips of beef, along with bits of offal, spices, wrapped in newspaper. A cheap, nourishing snack.

We hopped on an okada – motorcycle taxi – and zoomed through the dark, barely lit streets. Despite being one of the world’s top oil producers, Nigeria lacked the ability to refine and use its own oil, ironically enough. Most of it was exported and the country suffered from regular electricity outages. The drone of generators was a regular occurrence, and in the distance, you could see the oil flares lighting up the night sky. It was an eerie, haunting sight (and meant dreadful air pollution – at the end of every day, when I blew my nose the snot came out black).1

At the local market, we were met with stares and silence. Because of the rain, there were huge puddles on either side of the street, with quagmires of squelching mud in place of pavements. The only option was to walk precariously on the crumbling curb (kerb, if you prefer). As we made our way carefully trying to avoid falling into the slop on one side, puddles on the other, we heard a voice cut through the sticky night air that froze us in fright: “Hey white people, why are you balancing with your life?” I was too terrified to appreciate the fine pun.

We got our suya, hopped back on our okadas and zoomed the hell out of there. We ate in the safety and comfort of the hotel.

Hygiene conditions, however, might leave something to be desired. If you’re squeamish, skip the next couple of paragraphs.

Regular, reliable plumbing and clean drinking water were rare commodities. There was nowhere in Yenagoa that catered to foreigners except for an overpriced hotel some distance away, but anyway, I steered well clear of any expat-populated joints.

This meant regularly enjoying side of the road grilled plantains or suya, where women would sit under a small tarpaulin in the dirt, with a makeshift grill of some sort. There’d be kids, many of them in semi-naked states, running around, picking at rubbish. Chickens and goats would be pottering about. People would often drop their drawers to drop a deuce – sorry for the crude language – on the side of the road. There’d be steaming piles of shit everywhere. Late at night I’d occasionally step in it – there were no streetlights to speak of.

At my usual local grill tent, the woman momentarily left the plantains unattended while she went over to wipe her kids’ filthy arses, returning to tend to my food without even a thought of washing her hands.

Day after day, I went back to these places and amazingly never had many troublesome gastrointestinal issues.

The secret? When we arrived in Nigeria, we stayed in a nice hotel in Port Harcourt where it was recommended we stick to the hotel food to get ourselves acclimatised. I don’t always follow wise advice but I’m glad we did in this case.

There were many other probably reckless things I/we got up to, like unauthorised and secretive trips away to various places, some more off-the-beaten path than others. But I’d like to think we contributed as much as possible to the local economy, minimising our negative impact.

My favourite story

I’ve told my students this one many times over the years, with all sorts of dramatic embellishment – yet it’s all true.2

My girlfriend left just before my birthday, and on the big day I was in a mopey mood, until my fond-of-his-booze Scottish boss insisted we have a few drinks. The trouble was, I had an early flight that next morning, for a very important meeting with the governor of one of the western Nigerian states – I forget which; my journal is somewhere in a box in Kyiv – who was the spitting image of Will Smith (Wilhelm Schmidt, for any German speakers). My Nigerian boss had stressed the importance of the meeting and ordered me to bring British gifts. The best I could procure was a decent bottle of blended scotch and something that looked vaguely like Scottish shortbread.3

I had the bottle in my carry-on – though this was just a few years after September 11, security wasn’t exactly tight for Nigerian domestic flights (which also, by the way, have a dreadful safety record).

While going through security, I was asked to open my bag, whence the whisky was discovered.

‘A-ha, sah, what is this?’
‘A bottle of whisky – it’s sealed.’
‘Open it, sah.’
‘I can’t, it’s a gift for Will Smith.’
‘Sah, please open it, drink some, to prove it’s not explosive.’
‘Oh no, I can’t do that, my boss will kill me, it’s a gift for Will Smith, I’m telling you.’
‘Sorry, sah, you must open it and drink some.’

I had a raging hangover from the night before. It was 7am. I wasn’t in the mood for this AT ALL.

I turned to my Nigerian colleagues for help. They pleaded with the security guys, to no avail.

I was left with no choice but to drink.

I asked for a glass. It wasn’t the finest whisky in the world, but I at least wanted to sip it from a proper receptacle.

‘No sah, drink from the bottle!’
‘What? Are you nuts? I’m not drinking directly from the bottle? This is ridiculous.’

I then realised they were completely taking the piss. The guards were laughing and just having fun with me. Phew – thank goodness for this.

‘Sah,’ a different guard said, with a straight face. ‘Drink it, now!’

Wait a second – they were taking the piss, sure, but they weren’t backing down. They were going to make me take a swig, the bastards.

How was I going to explain this to Will Smith?

My colleagues were getting antsy about us missing our flight, so…without further ado, I broke the seal, held the bottle to my lips and took my sip.

‘No, sah, not enough, drink more!’
‘What?! I’ve just taken a sip, see?’
‘Please, sah, take another drink, bigger!’
‘Oh no no no, please, I don’t feel well, I have a headache, my throat is parched, please don’t do this to me.’

The guards could barely suppress their giggles and now my colleagues were also chuckling.

‘What the hell are you two laughing at?’ I demanded to know.
‘Sorry, Daniel, just do what the gentlemen are asking, please, we can’t miss this flight.’

So I took another sip. And another. But that wasn’t good enough. More, they demanded, more.

Reader, my small sips added up to about a third of the bottle. In my delicate condition, on an empty stomach, raging headache, sweltering in the sticky early morning humidity, I guzzled some 250ml of scotch.

The good news? My hangover disappeared, somewhat.

The bad? Will Smith was NOT AT ALL HAPPY with being presented with an opened, 2/3 full bottle of whisky and my amusing tale of woe was not enough to make up for it. He still took the bottle and shortbread, but that meeting did not have a favourable outcome.

This was a disaster, but considering what happened shortly after I returned from that trip, I got off lightly.

For that was when I was kidnapped and imprisoned.

By the police.

At the behest of local politicians.

Coming up in part two: Daniel’s stint in the Nigerian slammer

I’VE FINALLY hit my breaking point.

Enough! No more! Stop! Please, I beg you! I can’t take it!

It takes a lot for me to NOT to click on a list on books, music or travel. If I see ‘Top 10 underrated Irish towns,’ I’m clicking. If I see ‘Seven Undiscovered Places in Central Europe’, I’m clicking. If I see, ‘Five Lesser-Known 15^th Century Polish Avant-Garde Eco-Fiction Classics’, I’m clicking.

But I can’t take any more book lists featuring any of these triggering words:

“The Best”
“The Greatest”
“Must”
“Should”
“Need”

I am talking, of course, about the Guardian’s recent ‘Top 100 Novels’ list, which I categorically refuse to read, and which people have been sharing and commenting upon on social media.

Haven’t we had enough of these wretched lists? Every few years another one pops up. People read, complain, comment, share their own lists, argue, debate, agree, disagree, go bonkers wondering how Ulysses could be three spots ahead of To Kill a Mockingbird, and where on earth is Samuel Johnson and Willa Cather, why aren’t they on the list?

With travel, we get yet another list proclaiming how wonderful Barcelona, Paris and Venice are, being ‘must see before you die’ destinations.

With music, we see the top 100 albums of the 1990s and excitedly scroll the list looking for Pulp, Blur and the Smashing Pumpkins and are incredulous that Different Class is only at #34, that they’ve inexplicably ranked The Great Escape ahead of Parklife, that Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is in the top #50 but where on earth is Siamese Dream?

I have already vented about how much I abhor certain words and phrases in English.

But it’s also the way they’re used that gets my goat, raises my hackles, has me spewing venom all over my keyboard, I can feel my blood boiling, my heart palpitating…I swear, one of these lists is going to be the death of me.

What the hell does best even mean? I’m not talking dictionary definition, that doesn’t help.

And yes, I am aware that many of these lists do offer criteria and rationale by literary ‘experts’, and I hate to throw out a lazy word like ‘subjective’ to describe these lists, but…well…

What’s the point of them?

Are they meant to display how well read (or unread) we are? To make us feel guilty and under-educated? So we can show off at social gatherings and say, “I’ve read 43 of the Guardian’s top 100, how about you?” “Uh, I’ve only read 24 of them.” “Oh yeah, I’ve only read 2 of them, but how many Instagram followers do you have, huh? And how many people have blocked you on Substack?”

Perspective

Don’t tell me what I should be reading, must be watching, or need to do unless I ask for it.

I know what the point of these lists are: clickbait. Engagement. Numbers. Debate. Triggering idiots like me to write screeds like this.

And then everyone wants to share their own top 100 best novels list.

Just so you don’t accuse me – yet again – of being a miserable old grouch, there are plenty of things I love:

• Simple book roundups like What I read in April – I am ALWAYS clicking on these, especially if I know the writer (on Substack, mainly)

• Some of my Favourite Irish Fiction books

• Books to read when you’re sad

• What my friends are reading this spring

• What to read next: the joy of the reading challenge

• On Serendipitous Reading

• 10 Powerful Books That Will Stay With You

• Why I Don’t Want to Read 100+ Books a Year

• 25 Books That Will Change the Way You See the World

Titles like this truly get my juices flowing:

• 15 lesser-known masterpieces of European literature

(And by the way, you’re meant to click on those links and read them, they’re from great writers!)

I have no problem at all with a list of a certain author’s best novels – it’s a limited sample size, after all. Dickens’ top 10 novels won’t be all that contentious (How have you ranked Heak Blouse over Cavid Dopperfield you nincompoop?!)

But when we’re talking literally millions of books to choose from, who has the audacity to proclaim the 100 best ever?

Shut up Daniel, what’s your point?

My aim isn’t to get into why we read, why we love the books we do, and what makes a book ‘great.’ We all want people to read the books we love, especially the ones that shaped us or left a lasting mark on our lives. We read for different reasons. We might persevere through a classic because we feel we must, whether that pressure is internal or external. We might want to read the overhyped, buzzy books so that we can take part in the chatter. We might feel compelled to read the books that everyone else has read.

Other than clickbait, are these lists meant to shame us? The so-called experts have spoken and have judged them to be the top 100 best of all time, and therefore you should be reading these.

If you want to make it your goal to read all 100 of the books, go for it. There’s no shame in that.

I’m just not going to click on these anymore.

That said, here are the top 10 best books ever written, as proclaimed by me, the almighty authority on this topic:

• The Sound of Furious Squashed Grapes, Willy Stein’s Beck

• A Thousand Decades of Petty Crime and Mild Rebuke, Gabriearcia Dogstee-Yevsky

• Three Old Men on a Boat with a Seaview Apartment, Jerome Kemingway

• The Unbearable Lightness of War, Peace and Excessive Bureaucratic Red Tape, Milan Gogolstoy

• Rebecca’s Blisteringly Withering Heights, Daphnely du Brontë

• The Sale of Two Little Women’s Titties, Louisa May Dickens

• Bell’s Beloved Crack(ed) Jar, Toni Plath

• The Tempestual Caesar Salad, will.i.am Shakespeare

• A Matter of Write and Death, Groucho Marks

• Squeeze My Peas, Rolled Doll

Come on Daniel, can’t you be serious for just once?

Fine.

This is absolutely NOT a best or greatest or whatever list.

I’ve already written here, on a guest post for , about a few books that had a great impact on my life: The transformative books that made Daniel Puzzo, teacher and mentor | Reads With Friends

For my list, I’m borrowing from Italo Calvino’s Why Read the Classics?

“The classics are books which…

• exercise a particular influence, both when they imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable, and when they hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual’s or the collective unconscious…

• with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.

• even when we read it for the first time gives the sense of rereading something we have read before.

• has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers.

• the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.”

And:

I have two Top 10 lists for you, which are most definitely NOT definitive must-reads. They are simply (fiction) classics as I see them, which I loved and would not hesitate to recommend.

The first list are the ones that are likely to appear on most people’s classics list, the more mainstream choices, the heavy hitters:

• Middlemarch, George Eliot

• The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

• Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

• Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol

• Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (though I might prefer The Book of Laughter and Forgetting)

• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

• A Bend in the River, VS Naipaul (though A House for Mr Biswas is also wonderful – take your pick here)

• Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis

• Ulysses, James Joyce

A word on Ulysses – don’t shout at me! I read this in my mid-20s and though I’m not sure I understood it very well – an understatement – I loved the process of reading, and the rhythm and flow of the language. I approached it poetically. I’d recently returned from a visit to Ireland and was feeling homesick I guess. It was summer, my girlfriend was away, I spent a couple of weekends reading it outside, in different parts of Boston. It very much fits into Calvino’s definition of a classic.

However, if and when I do reread it, I can very well see myself changing my tune. I might want to throw the damn thing across the room after 50 or so pages. If and when that happens, I’ll strike it from my list…maybe.

My second top 10 list – let’s call these somewhat underrated classics. I could very well be mistaken here, but I don’t see these as often as I’d expect on various ‘best of’ lists. Maybe I’ve been looking at the wrong lists?

• A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (I’ve just reread this for the first time in 20 years, and it was just as hilarious now as it was then)

• Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess

• The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles

• Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison (Beloved makes most lists, but I rarely see this)

• Of Human Bondage, Somerset Maugham

• If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller, Italo Calvino

• A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

• Money, Martin Amis

• The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow

• Grand Hotel, Vicki Baum

There are some tough omissions: Kurt Vonnegut, Evelyn Waugh, David Mitchell, Graham Greene, John Irving and Angela Carter. There are three or four books from each of them that might sneak onto a list and I’m too indecisive to choose their ‘best’.

I’m also just narrowly leaving off The USA Trilogy by John Dos Passos because it’s, well a trilogy technically and so I don’t know if it counts as one book or three.

Being so scatter-brained and forgetful, there’s a decent chance I’ve left an all-time favourite off one of these lists. Though if that’s the case, then I guess they aren’t truly a favourite.

Please share your thoughts in the comments. I always appreciate being (gently) insulted for my hare-brained hot takes, but I’m also curious about some lesser-known/underrated classics you’d recommend for everyone. Or what are top 2-3 favourite classics? Any classics you can’t stand? Do you get as riled up as I do with these lists?

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

Alternatively:

Help Daniel buy a proper classic

Travel Tales: Ethical, Irresponsible or Just Plain Reckless?

I’ll tell you some travel stories, and you decide whether I was ethical, responsible, irresponsible, foolish, reckless – or any other adjective of your choice.

This idea was sparked by my recent lunch with , an impassioned crusader for ethical travel. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll share a handful of traipsing abroad tales until either you or I get bored of it. It’s surprising – to me, anyway – how rarely I dive into old travel stories.

We won’t get bogged down in definitions of sustainable vs ethical vs responsible travel, and where ecotourism might fit in. Let’s keep it simple with a cobbled-together code of conduct:

• Don’t be a jerk

• Minimise your carbon footprint

• Support local businesses

• Respect local traditions

• Be polite and friendly

• Ensure animals are well cared for

• Better yet, avoid using animals entirely

• Follow local laws

• Stay out of trouble

• Use common sense

• Actually engage with the place

• Explore, get off-the-beaten path, but don’t be an idiot

Or, as my Irish granny used to say (borrowing shamelessly from America, don’t know where she learnt this): “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

As for foolishness or recklessness, that depends on your threshold for pain and suffering. If you want hair-raising scrapes, go for it. If you want to throw all caution to the wind and live on the edge, all power to you.

Just…maybe don’t tell your loved ones. (Until many years later, like…now)

With that, let’s revisit some questionable decisions and take some trips down memory lane.

Although I grew up moving countries every few years, my true solo misadventures began in 2002 with a backpacking trip through Central and Eastern Europe.

But first – the working world.

Working in the USA with those oh-so-generous two weeks of annual leave

You can possibly relate. Crazy hours in a stressful environment. You come home from work brain dead. You desperately crave a holiday but getting time off is a problem. You’re so worn out you can barely think straight. You’re not sure you have it in you to plan an epic adventure.

So you go to an all-inclusive resort. Or – gasp! – on a cruise.

I’ve always wanted to be a good traveller – curious, slightly contrarian, allergic to where the (m)asses go. Some of this is pure contrarianism (I’m mature enough to admit it now), but mostly it’s curiosity. I chase places because of a book, a story, a historical footnote.

Which is how we ended up in…

The Caribbean, Early 2000s

My girlfriend and I were living in Boston. We’d gone to Ireland the year before where it was windy, cloudy, rainy, flitting from one town to the next early each morning. She’d grown up in tropical climates and was like ‘bullshit, buddy, we’re not going back to friggin’ Europe this year and jumping on buses every damn day’ and so a relaxing beach holiday it was.

My stipulation was nowhere too mainstream or over touristy. I was fascinated by Dominica, but it was hard and expensive to get to and so, inspired by the US’s brave invasion of mighty Grenada in 1983, that was our choice.

This was early internet research days and my attempts to source local accommodation and flights proved futile. So we chose the most promising all-inclusive resort we could find, and as much as possible, ventured outside the prison grounds on daily excursions.

We used local transport, visited out-of-the-way local restaurants and even went on an evening booze cruise with thumping Afrobeat, steelpan drums, and all sorts of raucous singing, with the locals staring at us dumbfounded. It was impossible to hide the garish all-inclusive bracelets on our wrists, but it was telling that we were regularly approached and asked if we were lost or crazy. People told us they never saw tourists venturing into the towns or away from organised excursions.

Perhaps the riskiest thing we did in Grenada was on an inner island trek. This picture on the left is the proudest of my life.

I set the timer for the maximum of 10 seconds. My girlfriend expressed serious concern that I would hurt myself. You can see how shallow the water was, with sharp, jagged rocks just under the surface. This required me to do the shallowest surface dive imaginable, glide over the rocks and pop up in time for the photo.

We did it in one attempt. I resurfaced mere seconds before the camera clicked.

The following year, we considered a similar trip to another island – St Lucia this time? – but opted for a cruise.

Wait! I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking, ‘Daniel, your reputation for shenanigans and misdeeds is at risk, we thought you had more travel street cred!’ I never wanted to go on a cruise though I was intrigued by the promise of lobster nights, what it was like onboard, and we found one that went through some of the spots I was interested in historically and culturally – the US Virgin Islands, Antigua, St Lucia, St Maarten, and Barbados.

But the absolute clincher? My girlfriend worked for the advertising agency that handled Royal Caribbean’s marketing and we got it for half price. Tough deal to pass up.

We had fun and when we got off the boat at each location, we did our usual thing of eating locally and exploring.

But that was it, no more cruises, once was definitely enough. Recent events in the news should be enough to deter anyone.

For a highly entertaining in-depth account of cruise life, have a look at ’s hilarious article from The Atlantic:

Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever
Seven agonizing nights aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas

Nigeria, 2004

I’m going to be a horrible tease here.

I’ve hinted at my prison/kidnapping story one too many times, and readers will begin to suspect I’m a total fraud. I barely know how to begin explaining what I got up to in Nigeria – if enough people clamour for it, I’ll write the full story here soon.

Kyrgyzstan, 2009

Fialka and I discussed the condition of the horses in Kyrgyzstan, especially these days as it’s become a hot trending destination for influencers and adventure seekers looking for cheap, hidden gems.

By the way, those are just two phrases I detest.

Cheap for whom? Hidden gem for how long?

I lived in Kyrgyzstan for eight months in 2009, teaching English and studying Russian.

I found myself in one or two scrapes – being threatened by a Kyrgyz bouncer and bundled into a small room at a nightclub on one occasion (probably because I grabbed his balls and cheekily waved my finger in front of his face saying ‘no no no no no’ like I was talking to a small child) – and almost plunging to my death horse riding on a steep mountainous slope.

My sister is committed to animal rights and well-being, and the condition of these horses in Arslanbob in western Kyrgyzstan passed her test.

I could see my sister’s horse in front of me, regularly losing its footing, loose rocks skittering down the cliffs while I mentally drafted the speech explaining my sister’s demise to our parents.

She, incidentally, was more worried about the horses.

On the way back home to Bishkek, along with my good friends Brian and Kristen, we hired a taxi to make the day-long drive. It was a rainy, windy day on those narrow, winding, perilous mountain roads. Our driver, a devout Muslim with a predilection for Thai p0rn, could barely stay awake. We’d stop every hour or so for prayer time, and we took every occasion to ply him with caffeine. He kept trying to show me his sordid videos.

It’s amazing we didn’t go plummeting over the cliffs – there were a few hairy moments.

As we were nearing Bishkek early evening, our driver got a call from a guy eager to go back the way we’d come, right away.

I wonder whether that poor soul made it.

A couple of months later, another horse-riding excursion with friends on a blistering hot July day. As a man, riding a horse under ideal conditions is painful. On a day like this, where we got badly burnt and suffered through severe chafing, it was agony.

At one point on the ride, my horse started trotting off, away from the pack. In these cases, we were instructed to make a clicking sound that involved rolling our tongue to get the horse to stop.

I cannot roll my tongue. My attempts were futile.

Instead, I did something stupid – I used the little plastic rod I had to gently admonish the horse.

And the bastard took off at a gallop, faster and faster. I was terrified and quickly ran through the scenarios in my head. Do I take my chances and hope someone can catch up to me and rein this horrid beast in? Or do I deliberately fall off and hope that the damage is no worse than a broken collarbone?

Someone eventually came to my rescue.

The pain from sunburn and chafing lasted for days. I vowed never to ride another one of these ghastly creatures ever again.

I thought camels were bad, but…

Uzbekistan, the same year

When I write my Central Asia book, chapters will include:

• Soft Core P0rn in the Back of an Uzbek Taxi

• I Was Turned into a Human Pretzel by a Naked 16-Year-Old

Moving on.

Wadi Rum, Jordan, 2008 – where much of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed

We go back in time.

After a couple of nights camping with others I’d met in the desert wilderness, and eating barbecued camel, I was the only traveller making his way back to our starting point, a three-hour trek through the desert. My guide was leading the way, on foot.

It was hot, I was chafing, I had a plastic rod, and I was instructed to roll my r’s if I needed the camel to stop.

As a reminder, I CANNOT ROLL MY R’s. I couldn’t then, I couldn’t later, I can’t now. I’ll never be able to.

My trusted guide had to drop a deuce and once he’d found a suitably concealed spot, off he went to do his business, while my camel continued sauntering along. He must’ve had quite a lot to evacuate for he was taking his sweet old time and there came a point where he was only a faint speck in the distance behind us.

I got nervous and did something stupid.

Damn plastic rod, what’s the point of it anyway?

Off this foul beast trotted or galloped or whatever it is camels do. Smelly old wretched animals they are (but they seemed well cared for and in good shape).

The more I hit it, the faster the miserable thing ran.

I was jostled about, crying out in pain, my manhood was being mancamelhandled and I could feel the severe chafing working its magic.

I eventually heard the cries and shouts of my guide who was chasing after us as fast as the desert sands would allow.

I don’t know how long my agony lasted, I closed my eyes and tried to think of England. It wasn’t until we’d nearly arrived back in town that the guide caught up and boy oh boy was he livid. He delivered a furious Arabic lecture I did not need translated.

That evening in Amman, I attempted to soothe my chafed undercarriage in a hammam. I was aching, desperate for relief from my aching loins. I thought a hot, soothing soak would do the trick.

As I lowered myself into the steamy bath, I yelped in agonising, stinging pain.

I vowed never to ride one of these filthy beasts ever again.

Georgia, 2008

Earlier in the year.

No beasts or filthy creatures, thank goodness.

Well, almost.

I was wandering the streets of Batumi on the Black Sea coast, not far from Türkiye, late afternoon. Had nowhere to stay and my Lonely Planet was useless. Was lost, feeling forlorn, and considered finding myself a secluded spot on the beach to spend the night.

An old man with halting English approached and offered to help.

He insisted I come and stay with him. He said I could take his son’s room since he was away on business. It was likely to be my only offer that evening.

We trudged up some 20 floors – the lift was out of order – in the searing summer heat, with my heavy rucksack and the pain of recently cracked ribs.

When I got to the apartment, I quickly went through possible excuses in my head.

The place was filthy and the stench was overpowering. I wasn’t sure if I’d survive the stay – either bedbugs would get me or this old man was some psycho into snuff films.

But I’d heard about the legendary Georgian hospitality and took my chances.

He was a batty old man, but entirely harmless, eager to practise his English. He refused to take any money for my stay.

I’ve stayed in worse places before and since – for example, the hostel in Dublin that gave my girlfriend and I scabies, just one more reason she demanded a Caribbean holiday.

Latvia, 2007-8

The cracked ribs on my Georgia trip?

Another long story involving poor judgement and late-night establishments with ladies I thought I could trust.

A story for another time.

Transnistria, Moldova, 2010

Another story for another time.

Georgia, again, 2014

I returned to Georgia, this time with my girlfriend (and later, wife). Opportunities for hijinks and mischief are a bit more limited when travelling with a loved one, but there are still plenty of dicey moments.

Anyone who’s taken public transport, especially minivans bursting to capacity, in certain parts of the world will know you’re often putting your life in grave danger. It’s rare to find a driver who isn’t reckless, overtaking slower vehicles on blind bends high in the mountains, not bothering to avoid potholes, driving at breakneck speeds, constantly swerving to avoid hitting animals, people or other cars.

On a trip to and from Svaneti, the mountainous region in northern Georgia just a few kilometres from the Russian border, I faced what is, to this day, the most harrowing journey of my life. And that’s saying something considering the state of Nigerian roads, the ridiculous speeds drivers take, and the numerous potholes and obstacles lying all over the place.

I’m not religious, but I was ready to start praying.

The worst of it was probably the cow the van hit on the way there.

Poor cow.

Ukraine 2005, 2010-2022

These stories will fill a book, to be started shortly.

We’ve barely scratched the surface.

For some great insight into Georgia, especially its drinking culture, check out this excellent article from : Drinking to Freedom in Tbilisi

More travel tales

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

Alternatively, tips for beer, coffee and bread for my daughter are always welcome and greatly appreciated.

Bread for Daniel’s poor kid

On Prague-ification, Portugal, Horses, and Hypocrisy (and much more)

Prague is where my adventurous backpacking life began – which makes it rather inconvenient that I’m about to interview someone who believes people like me helped ruin it.

On top of that, I don’t even know her real name.

I arrive 20 minutes early at Hostinec U Tunelu and settle in with a beer, preparing for my first ever Lunchtime with DP. My guest is Fialka, Substack’s scourge of irresponsible tourism, a writer who has accused visitors of “throw[ing] up all over the city (literally and metaphorically).”

She is also, as I’ve dubbed her, Substack’s #1 badass, after her trip to Taiwan.

What she doesn’t yet know is that I’m about to ask whether Prague’s gentrification story starts with people suspiciously like me.

It’s a late lunch, after 3pm, because she has just come from a job interview. We’re the only guests in the restaurant for now.

“I actually did not prepare for this because I was preparing for my actual interview for the job.”

(Spoiler – she got the job; she has since removed ‘gap year at 31’ from her bio)

That’s okay, I tell her. I confess I’ve probably overprepared. So much so that I fire rambling questions at her in quick succession, trying to cover as much ground as she has, which is a lot. She’s an intrepid traveller.

Fialka moved to Prague in 2014 from her hometown of České Budějovice, home (she insists) to the best Indian restaurant in the world. Having been there on her recommendation, I can confirm it’s excellent.

She took her first backpacking trip in 2016, and since then she’s visited 48 countries – but not India.

Not that she’s counting, as one of her posts makes clear: i don’t care how many countries you’ve been to

Fialka is opinionated and unapologetically, brutally honest in her writing. She urges people to travel ethically, to resist chasing numbers or blindly follow TikTok itineraries. She backs up her arguments thoughtfully and passionately and isn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers.

My first order of business is finding out her real name. As she writes on tl;dr of the autobiography i never wrote, “My name is not Fialka but let’s all pretend it is. It’s Czech for violet, as in the wildflower, and it’s cute.”

She guards her anonymity selectively. She’s a prolific photographer who shares images of herself travelling, often with wry poses and devilish stares. In person, she’s sweet and charming, with an endearing laugh, occasionally giggling innocently after her answers (or at my nonsensical questions or incoherent stories).

After the initial chit chat, it’s onto ordering.

I’m already halfway through a Konrad pilsener, described as “beautifully malty and grassy coupled with a delicate bitterness.” I love Czech beer, though I’m no connoisseur – I’m just happy to try something new.

Fialka opts for Únětice, an unfiltered pale lager with a “pleasant bread-like taste that joins prime bitterness of hops in a space just so very close to heaven.” I’m not sure it reached heaven, but she seems satisfied.

I regale her (or possibly bore her) with a few tales of Lunch with the FT and how the guests typically have wine. But we stick to beer – this is Czechia, after all, the world’s #1 country for beer consumption per capita year after year.

“Because the people you meet in Prague are people who like to drink beer, which, I mean, is nice, but it’s not my number one hobby.”

Nor mine, I insist, though she looks sceptical at my protestations.

Fialka is the perfect guest for my debut edition of this feature, since it was here in Prague where my travelling shenanigans and (mis)adventures began, in 2002. Our lunch, on 2 April, was the very same day I returned to Prague in 2005 for the start of another adventure – my accidental career as a language teacher.

In her newsletter, unpacked by fialka, she tries to “practice traveling mindfully and respectfully” while “div[ing] into the imperfect reality of modern tourism and how we can be good guests on this planet.”

One of her projects of pride is a series of niche bucketlists: less touristy and less glamorous places that in some cases aren’t easily accessible (Dominica or the Amazon, for example). But the experience can be more rewarding and impactful than your usual run-of-the-mill destinations.

I tell her this lunch project is my own niche bucket list experiment. She appears rather nonplussed, with a look that seems to say, “Sure, whatever, old man.”

For our meals, Fialka opts for Slovak halušky with bryndza, a sheep-milk cheese, and bacon. Halušky are loosely translated as ‘potato dumplings’, though dumpling is often the catch-all term for any Central or Eastern European dish that bears a passing resemblance to gnocchi, ravioli or tortellini. I am tempted to call it a “Czech macaroni and cheese” but that doesn’t do it justice.

Whenever I visit Czechia or Slovakia, I’m tempted by pork knuckle, a lethal choice thanks to my high cholesterol. Luckily – or unluckily – it doesn’t feature here so I opt for vepřové výpečky: baked pork with cabbage and žemlové knedlíky, or ‘bread dumplings’. I’m under the delusion that it’s not so bad for me.

“This is not too unhealthy,” I say, more in hope than confidence.

“Yeah, no, that’s definitely not healthy,” says Fialka.

“Wait – not healthy or not unhealthy?” I don’t give her time to clarify before digging in.

I wax lyrical about the wonders of Prague, a place I hold dear in my heart. Fialka feels very much the same, but she laments the direction in which things have gone. In should we all just... stay home? she writes that:

“People come here, throw up all over the city (literally and metaphorically), gentrify, raise the prices, complain about things getting worse, and then leave. Back to their home countries, to a more up-and-coming digital nomad haven, or simply somewhere with better opportunities or better weather.”

In response to an article from an American writer extolling the benefits of “using my country as a stepping stone to get to ‘more desirable places in Europe’ while equating living in my homeland to a prison sentence,” she called the writer out on this in a respectful but passionate manner.

Whereupon she was immediately blocked – not that it bothers her too much.

“Maybe partially it stems from like my own frustration from here in Prague…I’m not just somebody who travels and sees gentrification – I live it. And it really makes me empathise with all these other places where similar things are happening. [S]ometimes people who are into ethical travel and this type of philosophy, they’re very one-track mind, like this is not ethical and sometimes it’s more nuanced than that.”

I bring up the downfall of communism and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which opened up the eastern bloc to swathes of adventurers. Prague was one of the first places foreigners flocked to. It was the cool new hip place, with English teachers arriving in droves. Mysterious businessmen started various shady import-export enterprises peddling who-the-hell-knows-what. I’ve met a few of these characters over the years. They brought a certain seediness to Prague. The backpackers and tourists arrived soon after.

Perhaps, I suggest, Prague was the original ‘poster boy’ for gentrification. Soon, other places became ‘the next Prague’: Krakow, Budapest, even Lviv (Ukraine) was a candidate.

“I love the context from somebody who’s really old, I’m sorry,” she laughs (and I do too). “Because I didn’t know any of this. Obviously I’m not from Prague, right?

“When I moved to Prague it was already gentrified to a certain extent. It was definitely already over-touristed. And I just see it getting worse over the years. It never really ends, unless we really decide that this is something we don’t want.”

What about the impact of low-cost airlines and how, in the early 2000s, it was cheaper for someone in London to fly to Eastern Europe for a weekend than a night out at home. That led to an onslaught of stag dos (or bachelor parties), something I noticed a lot in 2005 and more so in Riga where I lived in 2007-8.

“But it used to work the other way around too. There was a time when we had really cheap flights to England. I could go to London for almost no money but then the problem is that for me, London is insanely expensive.”

We talk more about some of the places she’s visited and as she is about to go to Portugal to hike the Fisherman’s Trail, a coastal hike that extends for 226 km (Fialka hiked 150 of them), Lisbon comes up. (She didn’t enjoy her trek: the hike that didn’t live up to the hype)

“Lisbon has been going through this more recently, but probably more intensely. And they showed a video of some creators just walking through Lisbon and complaining that it got Prague-ified. Like, are we really the model for everything becoming horrible?”

I suggest that perhaps she should be honoured that Prague has become a verb now. She shoots me a look of utter horror. I quickly backtrack and we move on to talk about the popularity of Portugal as an ex-pat destination. The cost of living, the climate, the food are mentioned as the biggest perks.

“I don’t actually read [about expats in Portugal] all that much because I know I would get pissed off most of the time. I’m happy if I see somebody’s perspective that is actually sound. I’ve said it multiple times. I’m not against moving to a different country. You just can’t be saying certain stuff online.”

Eventually our food arrives and we dig in. It’s late afternoon now and we’re both famished.

“I don’t know how this works. Do I continue or do I eat?”

As it’s also my first time doing a lunch interview, I’m not entirely sure either. A few times during our conversation she asks me to stop recording to say something “off the record.”

It sounds deliciously dramatic, as if she’s revealing dark secrets about Prague’s tourism underworld.

(And let’s be honest – it makes me sound like a proper journalist.)

Fialka’s halušky is excellent, but she’s been here before and knows it’s great. I wish I’d got it now, as rich and unhealthy as it is. I can’t complain though – my pork is tender and juicy, I’m always happy with Czech-style cabbage, but my dumplings are starchy and filling. A glass of wine might have gone more nicely with it rather than another Konrad. I’d normally try a different beer, but this one was delightful and really hit the spot.

I launch into a familiar rant about the trends that piss me off, especially those ghastly ‘Top 100 Places You Must Visit Before You Die’ lists and books that tend to feature the same popular places: Barcelona, Paris, Venice, etc.

Her niche bucketlists are a counter to the overtouristed destinations. She’s also written about authentic travel in the tiktok itinerary era and how AI didn’t ruin your trip, you did. As a cranky Gen Xer, I can barely relate, but it’s comforting to know that some millennials crave a more authentic experience. I was stunned to hear that Kyrgyzstan, where I lived for nine months in 2009, became a huge trending TikTok destination a couple of years ago.

“Okay but there’s a whole other side of it and Kyrgyzstan is trending for some reason, it’s become the go-to underrated place to [visit], so it’s no longer underrated, because it’s literally all over social media, just because some famous creators went and made it.

“Nowadays a lot of people are kind of burnt out from everybody always going to, I don’t know, the same places, everyone’s in Paris, everyone’s in Italy, whatever, blah, blah, blah. People are looking for alternatives.

“But I think most people who are going, I don’t think they’d be able to point out Kyrgyzstan on the map, it’s just a trendy thing to do.

“Tourism boards will invest [to get] people to come to their country. Saudi Arabia does this a lot, for example. Kyrgyzstan did something very right in this sense. If the goal was to boost tourism, they succeeded.”

Later, I look into these trends and am astonished at what countries are doing to attract influencers. One recent headline about Kyrgyzstan captures the sentiment perfectly: The unlikely country that lives up to its Instagram reputation.

A quick look at a few Instagram reels makes me cringe.

Bless my old Gen X heart.

It’s almost as if travel has become a competitive sport – a race to discover the next off-the-beaten-path undiscovered hotspot.

“I’m not that well versed in Kyrgyzstan, it’s just what I read about. Because the whole main point of this trip is [for] people to do it on horseback, right?”

Which brings us back to the start of our conversation and my first question: how did your interest in ethical travel start?

“I guess I was always a person who cared about ethics to some degree. I used to be a vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian anymore sadly because I’m a big hypocrite.”

I mutter something about all of us being hypocrites – potentially good food for thought for future discussions, something to chew over.

“I always cared about ethical animal travel, because when I first started travelling, I really wanted to see an elephant, but I didn’t want to hurt the elephant. I was really trying to make sure that the experience was ethical, no riding.

“[When] I went to Bali with some people, they went to the elephant park. I literally sat outside the elephant park for two hours waiting because I refused to go in.

“Eventually it kind of stopped being just about animals. Also as time progresses I realized, okay, well what we thought was ethical before is not really enough, it always evolves. So I [wanted] to monitor and acknowledge this evolution.”

Fialka confesses to being “low-key scared” of horses and I share my terrifying experience horse riding in Kyrgyzstan, where I thought my sister and I were goners. The animals appeared to be in excellent condition and well cared for. My sister is committed to animal welfare – she works in the field – and very much against using animals unethically.

“Again, as somebody who advocates for animal welfare, I heard reports that the horses tend to be in a pretty bad condition, because there is such a big demand now, bigger than Kyrgyzstan has ever seen. The tourism industry there is growing exponentially.”

Much like Prague some 30 years ago, Kyrgyzstan remains cheaper than other destinations. But how long will this last, we wonder, and I bring up her post, should we all just... stay home? Maybe that’s the most ethical solution, to not travel at all.

In her most popular post, let me ruin volunteering abroad for you, Fialka presents the dark side of volunteering, questioning the motives and ethics of those who go abroad to make a difference or gain work experience. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It reminds me of Ghana, derisively called ‘Africa for beginners’ by some because it’s accessible and popular for Western tourists. Nigeria, on the other hand, where I lived for a time in 2004, is very much not for beginners. It’s a place that Fialka “low-key” wants to visit – she’s fond of this expression, I’ve noticed.

“I realize there’s levels to it because I felt like, ‘oh, I’m used to Colombia so it’s fine’ but then we went to Johannesburg and we were completely overwhelmed by the insecurity there so I think probably Nigeria is even one step above that but I don’t know, it sounds lovely.”

Her tone is far from emphatic and I’m not entirely convinced.

David, her fiancé, is Colombian and she’s been to visit his home many times (he lives in Prague). She’s adventurous, not reckless, despite the perilous situation in which she found herself in the road to mozambique. She dispelled the stereotypes about how dangerous Colombia is in fear and delusion in latin america.

I’m fascinated by international relationships and I have to pry and find out more about David. He is an AI engineer, so I wonder whether their views might clash considering her belief in ethical travel and not following trends.

Luckily, they’re more aligned when it comes to travel.

They’re both avid scuba divers and Fialka despises cold and rainy weather, which must be problematic living in Czechia.

“Maybe I’m just being delusional here, but I feel like, if I lived in a sunny place that had a beach…”

I put it to her point blank: do you want to live elsewhere? Colombia, for example?

“You can be happy anywhere, but it is true that certain places attract certain type of people. And me, I’m a person who likes the ocean, who likes to dive, to swim, to surf, to be out on a boat, things like that. You can’t do anything like that in Prague.

“My theory is, if I move to a place that would allow all of that, then maybe I would meet people that are more aligned with me and the things that I do. Because the people you meet in Prague are people who like to drink beer. Which is nice, but it’s not my number one hobby.”

Fialka’s had two beers, I’ve had three and only later do I realise I’ve committed a cardinal Lunchtime with DP sin: I forgot to offer dessert and/or coffee.

That’s probably because we got so carried away talking about the ethics of having kids in today’s world, multilingualism (David doesn’t speak much Czech, making me feel better about my own language inadequacies), her dislike of travel books, getting to know one’s own country before venturing abroad, and where else she’d like to visit (just about everywhere).

Some of the most memorable interviews feature some provocation, pushback, disagreement, but our conversation is so cordial and my attempts to generate some heated debate don’t go very far.

There’s only one topic that has proven contentious between us: the merits of British cuisine. On my previous post, British Cuisine “is the food of dreams”, Fialka commented that she “scrolled past all the awful looking British food to admire the masterful creation of Gateway of India [in her hometown].”

After we depart it hits me that I should’ve dived into the origins of Indian cuisine and the heavy British influence. Some of the most renowned dishes were created by Asian chefs in Britain and curry has to be considered British as well as Indian.

For someone who’s travelled everywhere and eaten so many different cuisines, I ask for an official comment about British food.

“I’m a big fan of beans on toast.”

Be sure to subscribe to : unpacked by fialka, where she has so many unique and inspiring stories to share.

For the inspiration behind this project, have a look at my previous post:

In my next post, I’m going to share some of my experiences in a few of my own niche bucket list destinations and play a game with you: Ethical or Just Plain Foolish and Irresponsible? We’ll visit a Caribbean cruise, Grenada, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Transnistria, and Ukraine (of course).

A final note from fialka:

Thanks for reading! All unpacked content is free, and I’d like to keep it that way. If you enjoyed reading this post, here are a few things you can do to support me & my work. Give the post a like ❤️ (even if you don’t have a Substack account), share ↪️ it with a friend or on your social media, or buy me a matcha 🍵 to keep the newsletter going.

Frog food for fialka (or a matcha)

Appreciate your support xx

fialka

First, I want to tell you about my start in journalism and how I was under the delusion that I might be a journalist one day.

Unfortunately, a few things held me back:

• Shoddy writing

• Unethical methods – or rather, making shit up disreputable journalistic practices

• Sloppy mistakes and slipshod editing

• Pushing the boundaries of acceptable journalism

• Violating ethical standards

• Inappropriate, dreadful, and downright offensive ‘humour’

It all started way back in high school, a few decades ago.

Did I Peak as a Fraudulent High School Journalist?

In 11th grade at Lakenheath (American) High School (LHS) in the UK, I joined the journalism staff.

At first, I had whimsical duties like coming up with captions and subtitles, inappropriate fillers that my friends and I found hilarious, the joke page, and the fluff at the bottom, which unsurprisingly contains an error in the first line.
(what were the editors doing?)

Then I conducted the school-wide music poll, an idea ripped off from Rolling Stone. This may or may not have been somewhat rigged. Our newspaper had prestige - Michael Jackson even shared his thoughts, as you can see. I was also in charge of compiling the top 10 charts, which half the time were made up. In fact, even more made up are those top two bands on the concert list - Plam Poom and Chipweed, seriously? (I hope no one showed up to the gigs expecting to see them)

The editors were again doing a stellar job - check out “Riadio Head” at #8 in the American chart.

Looking back at these years later, I struggle to remember the fourth Best New Female Singer in the rankings below, on the left.

Have a look at the quote from our contributor on the right. I got away with it this time, but my luck wouldn’t last forever.

Eventually I had weightier and more prestigious ‘assignments’ - look, kids, I made the front page! I strategically cut off most of the articles to spare you from seeing how bad they are. The so-called ‘Experience of a Lifetime’ is one thing (spoiler: it honestly wasn’t, for me or for them, which I can now say with the benefit of a lot of hindsight).

But what the hell did I know about South African politics? This was before the internet for crying out loud!

(And thank goodness we live in a better world now, where there’s no more racial discrimination. Does everyone remember what a scourge on society that used to be?)

I quickly climbed my way from the lowly ranks of mere correspondent to your humble editor-in-chief. Finally, those pesky mistakes and grammatical inaccuracies would be quashed and our beloved Lancer Ledger would be a more reputable rag.

As you can see, my stellar thoughts were enriching and superbly well-written.

(Unfiltered thoughts, ignore this - Amanda Rase was lovely, what’s she up to now - wonder if she ever raised a son…badoom-cha, thank you, thank you…)

Making up quotations and music charts was one thing. Lousy jokes and silly captions were fairly innocuous.

But this? This poor, pathetic excuse for ‘poetry’ is what should have got me expelled.

Would you believe it? Your humble editor-in-chief and fledgling young poet, the future coming of Lord Byron and Percy Bisse Shelley was hauled over the coals not for that miserable example of so-called poetry, but for his poor choice of pseudonym.

And I got, officially, canned as editor.

That’s right - I was relieved of my duties. I got the old heave-ho. The sack.

Officially, that is. As Mr Murray wrote - it’s all his fault, by the way, he was supposed to be checking things before we went to press but he was too busy [redacted - editor’s note: these comments, while verifiably true, are inappropriate for a wider audience; suffice to say that Mr Murray had quite a rich, extracurricular life] - I was still the editor off the record, though whether I was truly a “dedicated staff member” is debatable.

I was still busting my ass editing things, but…whatever. Did I learn my lesson? Hell no.

I had to issue an apology, which was somewhat passive aggressive and sarcastic, but no one said anything, so…it was back to all the usual shenanigans before too long.

But this was towards the end of my high school journey and it was onto university, in the US.

College boy

Tufts University is a leafy, hilly and picturesque academic institution just outside of Boston. For my American friends and readers, it’s a Division III athletics program. College sports is quite a big deal in the US, but Division I is where the money and attention flow. Division II and III are for the smaller universities, or in Tufts’ case, a place more geared towards academics.

For my non-American readers, don’t worry about it, you can still appreciate the story, you’re all clever people, you can figure things out, don’t go anywhere.

It was back to journalism, this time more serious. I divided my time between two lofty publications: The Observer, a weekly rag, at first, and then The Tufts Daily.

My first beats were sports: (American) football and swimming. My debut story was an interview with star starting quarterback Greg Peters. If you haven’t heard of him, that makes sense. He’s likely now working as a senior accountant for Dollar General in Worcester, Massachusetts.

From here, I moved onto covering football/soccer, men’s and women’s, but I had to give that up. I found it to be frustrating as hell, and so annoyed was I by what the editors did to my stellar work, I destroyed all evidence of that period of my writing life.

Reader, do you know what those American editors did to my lovely football soccer writing?

They Americanized it! If I wrote “penalty” they changed it to “penalty kick” or the dreaded “PK”. When I wrote “in the 33rd minute” they changed it to “at the 32:41 mark”. If I mentioned the defense being at sixes-and-sevens, they changed it to something banal like “the defenders had miscommunication issues.” When I criticised the tactics and got super nerdy with my 4-4-2s and 4-3-3s, and then dared to suggest the American college style of 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 was a shambles, they edited it all out, mainly because they knew nothing about football and/or they knew that I was insulting the team.

Screw them, I was out of there. I cut ties with The Observer.

With the Tufts Daily I was given women’s basketball, where I may or may not have crossed some ethical lines by going out with one of the players, who then dumped me for one of her teammates, who I had briefly dated a few months prior.

I was also assigned to the premier sporting beat: the sailing team.

This may not sound like such a big deal, dear reader, but whoa boy, let me tell you. Remember all that mumbo jumbo about Division I, II and III? Well, there was one exception to Tufts’ athletic status - the sailing team was not only classified as Division I, but they were perennially one of the top two or three universities in the US national rankings, their main rivals being the US Naval Academy - shocking, I know - and the grand old University of Notre Dame.

I got to know the sailing team pretty well and let me tell you…the sailors are some hellishly devilish partiers. I honestly don’t remember some of the shenanigans that went on after reporting hours, but I most definitely kept things professional this time.

The Comeback of a Disgraced Teenage Editor: from Public Shame to Plam Poom

But I was well and truly in my element with music writing. I got loads of free albums to review and attended a ton of gigs, though only a handful were paid for, mostly because I bought tickets as soon as they went on sale months before knowing whether I’d get to cover them and the newspaper refused to reimburse me in those cases, the jerks.

One of my final articles before graduating was an exclusive scoop with Plam Poom. That’s right, the same Plam Poom that I made up back in the days of The Lancer Ledger. The shenanigans? They continued all throughout my university writing days. But this time I made sure not to get caught.

Stay tuned - you might be hearing more about this amazingly fictitious band in a future post.

On the right is my review of former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler’s first solo album - this may interest four or five readers, but the guy is one of my musical heroes, and Suede are still my all-time favourite band. This was the final article of my journalism career.

I graduated a week or so later and it was onto the real world.

I briefly considered a proper journalism career but for various reasons didn’t pursue it. No regrets, it’s just the way life panned out.

Which brings us to my exciting new project, where I attempt - sort of - to rekindle my journalism career some quarter of a century later.

Introducing…Lunchtime with DP!

Much like with the high school music poll ‘borrowed’ from Rolling Stone, I am blatantly ripping off borrowing an idea from one of my all-time favourite journalistic features: The Financial Times’ weekly Lunch with the FT.

To add my own personal touch to it, and to preserve the rhythm, we’re calling this Lunchtime with DP (better than Lunch with the DP).

It started in 1994, the same year I graduated from high school - come on, if that isn’t a clear sign…

The premise is self-explanatory. The newspaper invites fairly well-known public figures to lunch at a place of their choosing. The guests range from lesser-known writers, artists or politicians to some of the biggest names on the planet. Many of the figures are controversial. You don’t have to like the interviewees to love the feature. Some of the most entertaining and enlightening interviews are with the most odious of characters.

A brief roll call of some of the more renowned guests include Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Hilary Mantel, Richard Branson, Martin Amis, Wole Soyinka, Sheryl Sandberg, Roger Federer (lunch was served in the air onboard his private jet), Eric Cantona, Woody Harrelson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Angela Merkel…

You get the idea.

Different interviewers have different styles. Some will focus on the food and drink quite a bit. Others will gloss over the cuisine and concentrate on the guest. Loyal FT readers pick over the menu and much of the debate in the online comments centres around alcohol consumption and the price of the bill.

In short, abstaining from alcohol is severely frowned down upon by readers.

The default choice of tipple is usually wine, but there have been the occasional beers and cocktails, and boozy lunch affairs. Unsurprisingly, Nigel Farage had about six pints.

There have been a handful of cheap or even free meals - one public political figure I can’t recall hosted the writer in the staff canteen. During the early Covid days, lunch turned into a Zoom affair, which is memorably forgettable.

But the bills can get pricey. Extremely pricey.

The most expensive affair was with British newspaper tycoon/media mogul/polarising figure Richard Desmond. He famously - or infamously - ordered a £580 bottle of wine before the interviewer had even opened the menu, with the final bill amounting to £758.

Legendary French actress Isabelle Huppert’s lavish lunch was more modest in comparison: a twelve course, three-and-a-half-hour rendezvous for a mere £412 at L’Arpège, the Michelin-starred Paris restaurant

On the left is ’s bill from Vienna. Just after this lunch, I and my good friend and fellow Lunch with the FT devotee visited Porzellan for our own lunch. Though he’s an actual journalist who was in town for work, there was no interviewing going on. (There was also no drinking, as my pal is teetotal.)

($22 for a bagel?!)

Stop the Presses! (Before I Make Something Up Again)

Considering my own interviewing skills are shambolic, there’s no way some major public figure is going to stoop down to my amateurish level for a lunchtime interview. But I’m not complaining, for I had the perfect guest to launch this series, and thankfully, the places she suggested were all very modestly priced. In early April I headed to Prague for a slightly boozy chat where we talked primarily about travel, her area of expertise.

For now, a sneak preview. She’s a bit shy, but all will be revealed soon enough.

I can’t afford to hire an illustrator, and my own artistic skills are lousy (see my joke above), so a photo will have to suffice for this series.

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

The feedback and comments on the last post were so much fun, leaving me with no choice but continue with this theme.

Let’s focus on some of those comments, drool over some more mouth-watering photos, and find out how wide and varied British food is. This also gives us a chance to highlight the fine work other Substackers are doing.

And the terrifying pictures of that seagull were so popular that I’ve now included the video of the incident below.

These are slightly edited for clarity and brevity.

“British food, not the fast stuff you grab at the train station, though leaving Lime Street after a boozy night out with Liverpool fans, a train station sausage roll might actually hit the spot, but the good stuff at proper pubs with proper kitchens. An English Breakfast, A Sunday Roast, fish and chips from a real shop with some 50-year-old clean-shaven bloke named Greg manning the fryer, a meat pie from a joint across the street from a football ground, this is the food of dreams, my friends.”

gets us off to a rollicking start, while providing us with that fine headline.

“Often, after reading posts about how bad British food is, I question the author’s research skills and wonder how they managed to make such poor choices. They remind me of a conversation I had with a musician in a bar in New York. He’d recently toured Britain with his band.

‘You eat some strange things over there,’ he told me. ‘Like those weird squirrel sandwiches…’

My jaw hit the floor.

I think somebody must have been messing with him. At least, I hope they were.”

, for our sake and yours, I do hope they were messing with you – readers, has anyone had a squirrel sandwich in the UK? I think they’re a thing in some parts of the American south, though I’d hate to resort to stereotype here.

Speaking of which, check out Jack’s excellent post, In Defence of Bad British Food, where he shows you the eclectic range of regional British delights, as well as offering up a bit of culinary history.

On the topic of culinary history, from the perspective of a Briton in the US, ’s newsletter is a must read. She gets into all sorts of nitty gritty juicy details about American cuisine:

“It also really winds me up when I see people saying that pub food is bad, and then it turns out that the pub they went to is a Wetherspoons (which is something to experience for many reasons, but not its food).

I was also reading something recently…about how British food is designed to all be eaten together in one bite. Pickle and marmite are hard to like on their own, but with a hunk of mature cheese and some good bread they’re both fantastic!”

Great point – to truly appreciate a good pickle or chutney, listen to Laura’s recommendation (she knows what she’s talking about).

Then again, there are oddballs like , who make absurd comments like this:

“I miss the times when hot takes were about completely inconsequential things like “Call me crazy, but I hate cheddar!” and not stuff like human rights.” (her italics)

Either Miruna hasn’t experienced proper cheddar or she’s a lost cause and knows nothing about good cheese.

(Miruna, I’m only joking! I mean this in jest, I’ve enjoyed our back-and-forth about cheese and I’m a prankster at heart, no hard feelings, don’t block me or report me for bullying, please, I beg you.)

Perhaps she should listen to , a woman who knows a thing or two about food:

“I’m really keen for you to do a cheese edition of a British food overview now. I wonder if anyone could taste a really good cheddar or Stilton and still look down at the cuisine.”

Marci, please get in touch with Miruna.

Back to Laura’s point, and what I mentioned in my previous post – while teaching in Austrian schools we introduce them to British food by letting them sample some of the more iconic products.

But as pointed out, how can they be expected to appreciate Marmite if they’re given a dollop on a cracker?

It’s a fair bit of faff preparing these platters and we always make a mess – sometimes it’s five or six teachers during the 15-minute break trying to get these snacks ready, only for us to go into the classrooms and have half the kids turn their nose up at it. Adding cheddar and proper bread would be nice and obviously more of an authentic experience.

It’s no wonder they don’t have a high opinion of the cuisine.

For the week we’re in these schools, we put the students into teams and they get points for various competitions. They’re so desperate for points and badly want to win, so they’re happy to take one for the team and ‘enjoy’ a robust spoonful of some of these delights:

On the left is what the kids haven’t eaten in a few of these weeks and I’ve been able to take home – talk about a great perk of the job. On the right are other fine products, including Monster Munch Pickled Onion flavour mayonnaise. Hey, don’t knock till you’ve tried it.

It’s so much fun seeing the look on their faces when they eat the Marmite. Call me a cruel father – or rather, don’t – but I did a fun tasting challenge with my daughter as part of the ‘research’ for this post, and I’m going to post the full video one of these days. Poor kid did an admirable job in helping out her old daddy.

knows exactly what we’re talking about:

“Every few years I teach in our honors program in London. The very first time, many years ago now, the faculty sponsored a little “funny British food” party in our flat. Among the provisions was Marmite. Let’s just say it was not a favorite. There was one young man in particular who had a very expressive face, as if his cheeks were made of rubber and his eyes could expand to two or three times their size. I will never forget the expression on his face when he sampled the Marmite.”

It’s a priceless reaction, something everyone has to try in their life.

But Peter, what’s with the ‘funny’ food?!

Marmite might be the most quintessentially iconic British food item. It brings out all sorts of nostalgia and emotional fervour:

“It may have been too oversensitive a moment to read this, having just had my can of beans and squeezy Marmite taken off me at airport security, but I really agree that if you are going to try something, do it properly and especially if you are going to slag it off.”

Poor had her Marmite confiscated by UK airport security, who are no doubt enjoying the Marmite and beans as we speak (or rather, as I write/as you read).

On the topic of slagging off food you’re not going to eat properly:

“Your post reminds me of a trip to Edinburgh when we met up with my partner’s US family. We sat down to lunch at a pub on the Grassmarket, and I ordered haggis, neeps and tatties. My partner’s teenage nephews stared at it as if I was tucking into a cowpat. They ordered pizza, and my partner (who’s Scottish) shook his head and said, “this isn’t going to end well!”

The pizzas arrived – they really looked bad – and these two American teens were just staring in disgust at them! “Mom, this is a pizza? For sure?”

Yes, , it never ends well, does it?

When I lived in Edinburgh, I went to a pizzeria on the Grassmarket and had a haggis and black olive pizza, which was scrumptious and makes a fabulous combination. I’m all for fusion cuisine.

In fairness to the nephews, if they saw my attempt at haggis, neeps and tatties, I would understand their reactions:

“What happened to your haggis neeps and tatties, Daniel? they do not look right...And not sure your photo makes the haggis look ‘weel worthy o a grace.’”

Take it from a Scot – was the only one wise/brave enough to point this out. The haggis is fine, but those aren’t actually neeps, or rather, turnips. I’ve never been able to find them in Vienna so I resorted to parsnips, black radishes and carrots. To make up for it, I made a proper whisky sauce with lightly-peated scotch.

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o a grace
As lang ‘s my arm.”
Address to a Haggis, Robert Burns

Sorry Rabbie.

“When I ask my students in Glasgow about the Scottish food they’ve tried and all they can reference is fish and chips it’s a bit sad. We overprice all of our amazing locally sourced seafood and make it unaffordable or ship it off to mainland Europe and do a terrible job with restaurants/cafés in our museums where tourists inevitably end up eating food that’s not far from canteen and hospital food. Grim grim. It’s no wonder visitors think that our food is so bad…”

raises a great point – it’s not only McDonald’s and Pizza Express that attract so many visitors on their trips to the UK, but museum cafés. I’d be curious to hear – please comment below – if there are any museum cafés in the UK that you can recommend. I love the Wellcome Collection (London) café, but mainly for the atmosphere, I’ve never tried the food.

“Before I moved to the UK in 2004, I was warned about how shit the food was, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered it was actually great. The gastro pub meals, roast dinners, and even British takes on other cuisines that were so good. PLUS, you just can’t get anything like M&S food in Australia with its fancy sandwiches and snacks. I miss it!”

, you’re preaching to the converted.

I don’t know where to begin talking about curry. I’d have to save that for another post or defer to someone with more expertise. All I can say is that I love curry more than anything else, and year after year, chicken tikka masala is voted Britain’s favourite dish. A dish which, by the way, was “invented by an Asian chef in Glasgow,” as points out.

It might be the most iconic British dish.

This is from Gateway of India in České Budějovice a few weeks ago – it’s not tikka masala, though it was one of the finest curries I’ve ever had (my reasons for this trip will be revealed in an upcoming post).

“I wonder how this stereotype still exists. England has so many celebrity chefs. Probably more per-capita than anywhere else in the world. Gordon Ramsey. Jamie Oliver. Nigella Lawson. Not to mention shows like The Great British Bake-Off. Of course there’s lousy food to be found everywhere, but there are also so many great food options too.”

Yes, , yes indeed. But many visitors to the UK don’t really care or think about things like this, especially the students I teach. They are hyper-fixated on specific dishes and if you bring up curry, gastropubs or gourmet chefs, they’ll either ignore you, say that curry isn’t British, or mention Jamie Oliver and…well, that’s it, it’s a lost cause, you’re not convincing them otherwise.

Re: lousy food everywhere, I recall my first trip to Italy, in 2004. The food was terrific overall, but the pizza was not. We clearly didn’t go to the right places and we didn’t visit Naples, but it just goes to show how easy it is to get subpar food whilst travelling. London is full of painfully mediocre chippies/chippers – you have to know where to go and be sure to steer well clear of the overpriced touristy places.

When in Rome Italy, from :

“I’ve met two people in Italy that have had the experience of ‘British host family gave them a packed lunch with a traumatic sandwich experience,’ and I think it must have been either an egg mayo or cheese and pickle.”

Sandwiches! Sarnies! This is yet another topic deserving of its own post.

Which you can find here, where sandwich expert goes global, ranking his top ten sandwiches: The real Earl of Sandwich

One of life’s greatest pleasures – for me, anyway – is scouring the Marks and Spencer or Waitrose sandwich section near closing time, when everything is reduced to clear. I’ve been known to stock up on sandwiches and eat them days after their sell-by date (I’m still alive, so…).

Obviously the Italian and Spanish summer school students aren’t big fans:

And yes, of course I took most of these and ate them for weeks days afterwards.

“I’m not an adventurous eater but wanted to mention that visiting the UK was the only time I have not only enjoyed beans for breakfast but became slightly obsessed. Tried to recreate the whole bean/English breakfast experience at home [in Romania], was a letdown every time. I think actually being there is a big part of the charm. Same way that Guinness I had in Dublin was vastly superior to all the Guinness I drank in the times before or after.”

There’s so much I want to unpack in ’s comment here. There’s the ‘adventurous eater’ part as well as her Guinness experience. I have some fun stories to share about adventurous eating and experiencing certain food or drink in the right place and time, another topic for a future post (a teaser: insects, insect burgers, forcing encouraging my daughter to eat insects, giant snails and a creature called a ‘grasscatcher’ in Nigeria, cow brain and much more!)

You might recall the Chicken Kyiv picture in our last post, an example of what is typically served in UK university canteens:

“Chicken Kyiv – possibly one of the worst foods. Cut them out of my life once I realised they were (a) making me fat and (b) giving me heartburn. As a kid I remember having mini ones for my school dinners. Gross little things.”

I don’t doubt ’s experience with these “gross little things,” but I feel it’s my patriotic Ukrainian duty to point out that authentic Chicken Kyiv is wonderful and so different from what you get outside Ukraine. You can either trust me on this or visit Ukraine for yourself to find out.

More from Hanna:

“A good roast dinner is next to none. When I was on holiday in Gran Canaria eons ago, the hotel did a different themed buffet each night. British night was the absolute worst. I was gutted that they think that’s what Brits eat and enjoy. The fish wasn’t the kind you’d batter and serve with chips, and the beef was grey and chewy.”

This reminds me of the time I was on holiday in Turkey at one of those all-inclusive resorts. The selection of food during mealtimes was incredible – overwhelming and so much to choose from.

And yet, every day without fail, there were British kids and teenagers asking for ‘chips’ because there was nothing else they wanted.

Hang on – being told that this doesn’t fit with what I’m saying and is a topic for another time.

“I’d really recommend marmite in puff pastry pinwheels with a strong cheddar or a marmite and cheese sarnie dipped in tomato soup…we usually have a family roast every Sunday evening and then bubble and squeak is a great Monday dish – you use all the leftover veg from your roast and mash it together and fry. Then I usually do it with a poached egg on top!”

Excellent recommendations, . Readers, take note.

“I love a good roast, Yorkshire pudding, freshly fried chips. Marmite and beans on toast however, I could never really get.”

I’ll ignore ’s Marmite and beans on toast comment – to each their own, right? – but speaking of a good roast, look at this beauty from ’s Easter roast:

Creamy horseradish goes superbly well with roast beef, but many European cuisines – Czech springs to mind – use freshly grated horseradish, and mustard, with pork. Pork knuckle is one of my all-time favourite dishes (coming soon: a post with a Czech culinary theme).

In short: every country’s cuisine is almost certainly fantastic if you know where to look.

Speaking of which, is a woman who knows where to look. If you’re interested in seeing magnificent photos of different types of culinary delights, be sure to follow Alex. Start here for some mouth-watering Neapolitan pizza photos: Is the Pizza in Naples Really That Good?

For a true champion of British food, we turn to :

“I am convinced that a Cornish pasty in Cornwall with skirt steak is the best you’ll ever have – but the seagulls might try and steal them too. Scotch eggs and sausage rolls (both homemade) have been super popular with friends in Vienna and we are now obliged to take them to a Christmas Eve feast. Cauliflower cheese will always be a personal favourite. We make pies with super slow cooked meat when we are missing home and the weather is bad. Crumpets oozing with butter and marmite are a taste sensation. And cheddar cheese and pickle sandwiches are dreamy. Wensleydale cheese and fruitcake is also special.

Get Julia some butter because she’s on a roll:

“I also want to add that game, whilst not necessarily an everyday thing, were much more part of my life in the UK. Pigeon, pheasant, guinea fowl were accessible and a part of our food rotation. Then the fish, there’s so much good fish. I miss the freshness of the fish – fish pie but also smoked haddock, kippers, cod cheeks, skate wings, monkfish, snapper, brill, bream, lemon sole, sea bass, langoustine (especially as breaded scampi).”

Hungry yet? Unfortunately, there’s no convincing some people:

“Who paid you to write this article? 😂You might’ve changed my mind, only slightly enough to maybe one day give it a try.”

Sorry, , I failed to disclose that this and my previous post are indeed paid sponsorships. I should’ve been clear and upfront about that. In the interests of total transparency, I was commissioned by The Ministry of Underappreciated and Misunderstood British & Irish Cuisine (MUMBIC). My apologies.

is responsible for inspiring me to create a crisp sandwich using Austrian crisps somewhat akin to BBQ sauce flavour Monster Munch – second picture, bottom right:

“University dinners are a mishmash of everything in Ireland. I had to eat this type of food regularly when I worked in the sector. I do love a Tayto crisp sandwich. Cheese and onion every time. With a wee splash of mayo.”

, Emerald Isle Gal – I so desperately wanted to enjoy Ireland’s finest crisps in a sandwich, but the best I could procure locally was Pringles Cheese and Onion, a pale imitation of Tayto’s. My daughter and I each enjoyed a crisp sandwich. I went with 1/3 Marmite, 1/3 Branston Pickle, and 1/3 pickled onion mayonnaise, with sharp cheddar. It wasn’t bad.

A close call

“Seagulls are unironically my biggest fear and that picture is one of the SCARIEST things I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you managed to capture that, and I cannot believe how calm and composed you both seem. I flee the scene any time I see a seagull!”

, you’ll see in a second just how “calm and composed” we were.

“The seagulls in Brighton are some of the most frightening creatures I’ve ever encountered... I’m certain they were the primary inspiration behind Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’.”

has lived in Brighton and knows it well.

“How the heck did you manage to get a photo of that pesky seagull swiping the food from your ex’s hand? 😂😂😂”

asks.

I deliver:

Further reading

In addition to all of the brilliant writers I’ve referenced above, if you want to understand more about British food, from the perspective of an American, then , author of the brilliant An American’s Guide to British Life, is essential reading. She’s got you covered with all things Britain and America, culturally and culinarily.

Dive into her archive, but start with her UK Crisps Tournament:

An American's Guide to British Life

So… About That Crisp Tournament

If you don’t spend much time on Substack Notes, you may have missed a slightly unexpected development over the past couple of weeks…

Read more

7 months ago · 39 likes · 29 comments · Marianne Jennings

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

Buy me even more Marmite

This is most definitely NOT an English breakfast:

If you look closely, you’ll see tiny Austrian white sausages being fried, with a package of frankfurters waiting their turn. French toast and pancakes are also being cooked, and on the upper left is what appears to be tomato sauce. Out of the picture are white cannelloni beans and Nutella on toast.

It’s no wonder so many students find British food painfully average, bland or confusing.

The kids were doing a cooking lesson on the topic of British culture, something which had already been planned before our arrival for a week of theatre and video projects. The local school procured the ingredients for a proper English breakfast, but you’d like to think someone did a bit of research as to what constitutes an actual full English.

Evidently not.

Over some two decades, having taught thousands of students by now, the same tired old clichéd stereotypes about British food rear their ugly head.

But get this - the vast majority haven’t even tried actual British (or Irish) food. They think they have, but they haven’t.

I maintain it’s one of the world’s great underrated, most misunderstood cuisines.

Unfortunately, my lousy photography (and cooking) skills aren’t going to do British and Irish cuisine too many favours, but let’s try to keep an open mind, okay?

The summer school experience and my rebuttal to lazy stereotypes and tragic school fry-ups

I’ve taught at five summer schools in the UK, with a range of nationalities from around the globe, mostly Spanish and Italian. The students will argue with me endlessly about whose cuisine is better. I am most definitely not about to convince you that British cuisine is better than either of these - but I am going to politely inform you that these kids have no idea what they’re talking about.

That’s because even by the end of their stay in the UK, very few of them will have actually tried proper British cuisine.

What do they eat instead?

The usual suspects: McDonald’s and Burger King, mainly, but Italians will also go in search of pizza (and inevitably complain about how bad it is) and other nationalities will seek their own national cuisine or pizza (and inevitably complain about how bad it is).

As I like to say to them, British food is not the problem.

“You are.”

On the other hand, the poor kids are subjected to UK university canteen food like this:

From left to right: an attempt at fish and chips; toad in the hole; Chicken Kyiv; a mishmash of something.

Most of these students return home with this being their own only exposure to British cuisine. (Regarding Chicken Kyiv, which until a few years ago was called Chicken ‘Kiev’ - this is not actually British, of course, but just play along, these students lump it in with the rest of the cuisine on offer.)

Fish and chips? If you know where to find them, oh my, are they scrumptious.

On the left is Clacton-on-Sea, where I had to fight off a seagull onslaught. On the right, the pub version.

Speaking of seagull onslaughts - here’s my ex having her donut snatched away by a vicious seagull in Brighton. It’s a miracle she didn’t get her finger bitten off - in the bottom picture you can see that bastard’s beak going under her finger. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

(I have a video of the incident as well, perhaps to be shared another time.)

Recreating classic dishes at home, especially for an amateur cook like me, poses its fair share of challenges. Namely, access to the authentic ingredients.

That’s a (Scottish) Burns Night supper from January 2026 - haggis, neeps and tatties (to the uninitiated: haggis, turnips and potatoes, along with a whisky gravy); also pictured is toad in the hole, with Austrian sausages, with a Guinness gravy on the side. Proper British and Irish sausages are hard to get abroad, and this was the best I could do.

This attempt at an Ulster Fry/Irish breakfast, on the other hand, came out well. As you can see, two thumbs up from my rather discerning customer.

An Ulster Fry: egg, tomatoes, beans, mushrooms, sausage, bacon (more commonly called rashers), and potato bread/farls. Not pictured is soda bread. Also pictured is black pudding, which makes it more Irish than Northern Irish.

Here is an actual Ulster Fry - well, sort of.

On the left is a vegetarian Ulster Fry from Maggie May’s in Belfast. My high cholesterol means I have to limit my bacon and sausage products. What I was after was all the rest - on the bottom left, in between the hash brown and the eggs is fried soda bread.

On the right is a pastie supper, from legendary Belfast chipper/chippie, John Long’s.

Not to be confused with a Cornish pasty, these pasties are a beloved culinary masterpiece in Northern Ireland, made with minced meat, potatoes, onions, and various seasonings, deep-fried in batter. There were times during summer visits to Belfast as a child where I ate a pastie supper (pastie and chips) every day.

No wonder my cholesterol is so high now.

Although maybe I shouldn’t be too worried:

Who are we to argue?

Now we approach our more niche, acquired taste, love-it-or-hate-it goodies.

Starting with a crisps sandwich (or sarnie, if you prefer).

This is one I recreated in Austria. The simple version is on a roll with butter. On the right I went for the more upscale option with smoked salmon, cheese and alfalfa sprouts. It was, I’m happy to report, delightful.

Now for the heavy hitters. This is from the food lessons we do in our school project weeks. Any guesses as to how many of the kids enjoy the Marmite?

They usually devour the custard creams (top left on the tray), they love the golden syrup (top right), mostly enjoy the potent Trebor extra strong mints, it’s a 50/50 mix for the salt and vinegar crisps, but the Marmite (bottom left) and Branston Pickle, bottom right, don’t go down so well. Which is great, because I can take the leftovers home (and I now have multiple jars of each if anyone wants to come visit and help me polish them off).

Marmite is a tough sell, but there are a variety of ways to appreciate it. I love it with sharp cheddar on Scottish oat cakes. Many add butter to it to make it less potent (it’s pretty salty). You can add it to stews, though I’m not a fan. My ex and daughter don’t like it, but when I made fried turkey breasts coated in a Marmite glaze, they loved it. It also goes wonderfully with roast brussels sprouts.

Christmas time brings its own host of wonderful goodies. These mince pies from last Christmas were oh-so-scrumptious.

This is a very limited selection of delectable treats, and I’ve stuck to the examples I have photos of.

A final story: give the roast a chance

I wish I had more photos to share, this is barely the tip of the iceberg and there are so many other exquisite dishes I’ve not mentioned.

Canterbury, 2008: I went out on a Sunday afternoon with four of my Italian students - fret not, for Luca, Fabio, Chiara and Alice were all 18, and they were eager to try authentic British cuisine.

Where better to go than for a Sunday pub roast?

These were four self-professed foodies, all of whom arrived in the UK that summer thinking British food was wretched.

And they left thinking British food was nearly as good as Italian.

They enjoyed roast beef, roast lamb, bangers and mash, and a steak and ale pie, along with all the trimmings: potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire pudding, gravy. They were thoroughly pleased their dessert as well, sticky toffee pudding, and bread and butter pudding.

When they told their classmates about their meals, no one believed them.

“You absolutely must try real British cuisine, it’s fantastic!”

“Eh…McDonald’s…no, scusi, eet no good, I no like eet.”

“No, not McDonald’s you nincompoop, go to a pub!”

I’d love to hear your food takes.

• What are some of your favourite British and Irish dishes?

• What do you think of British and Irish cuisine?

• Are there any other underrated or misunderstood cuisines?

I’m prepared to argue that American cuisine is similarly misunderstood - to a language student abroad, it’s all fast food, burgers, hot dogs, etc. But obviously we all know it’s much more than that, right?

A bit more about me, along with some mention of food:

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

Buy me a coffee, beer or book

They don’t read.

They live on their phones.

They outsource their thinking and homework to ChatGPT.

Literacy is collapsing.

Civilisation is wobbling.

It’s all decline and decay and digital rot.

I’m not usually the man to argue against cultural and literary decline – it goes against my cantankerous nature – but this week, reluctantly, I have some good news. We’re going to take a welcome departure from my usual snark and cynicism.

On the train to work last week, I posted this note:

It warmed my heart to hear all this jabbering, even if I’m not exactly the most social person. It probably helped that it was in German and I couldn’t understand much of it – I might if I tried but I’m good at blocking it out, one of the underrated benefits of not knowing the language. (Just the other day, two teenagers sat behind me on the bus were nattering away in Russian and I understood too much of their conversation to block out the noise and concentrate on my reading, but at least they were talking, as banal as their conversation was – we can’t have everything.)

I’ll let you in on a little secret about teachers, and this might apply to many a parent as well: we don’t want to hear the sweet stories about what a charming and adorable student little Sofia is and the wonderful things she did in class. I don’t want to hear about how wee Charlie sounds like Mozart already after three piano lessons.

We want to hear the bad stuff. The naughty kids who make our life hell, the ones you want to strangle. The mischief they get up to.

We roll our eyes and cringe when we hear the soppy stories

In praise of classroom negativity

This is not at all a controversial hot take – students do better when talking about doom and gloom. Or when they’re pissed off with a classmate and arguing. This tends to produce better language and inspires more creativity.

“Alright, class, let’s talk about holidays. Tell us about a nice holiday you had.”

And this is what you get:

“We went to Barcelona and it was great. We had good food, we went swimming, we saw Gaudi, had coffee with Gaudi’s daughter, it was nice.”

“Class, tell me about an awful holiday you took.”

“Oh my God, two years ago we went to Prague and it was a disaster. First we got robbed by the Czech mafia, and then we had our passports stolen by a couple of football hooligans. We had to go to the police station and report what had happened. While we were waiting, we witnessed a massive brawl between some prostitutes and drug dealers. Then they brought in a book thief who’d been caught trying to pilfer a rare manuscript from Milan Kundera. Eventually we left, and three days later our passports were found, and to celebrate we had a few beers but then lost the passports and had to get in touch with our embassy, but then we got arrested for public urination and had to pay a massive fine, but we didn’t have any…”

You get the picture.

When I think about my travel horror stories – a nasty case of scabies in Ireland, being picked up by the police in Nigeria and having my passport taken away and interrogated for hours about the evils of British colonialism, and having my ribs broken by a Latvian bouncer at some sordid nightclub – there’s always a good story that comes to mind.1

The positive stories? They exist, but they’re less inspiring.

My rough back of the envelope calculations tell me that I’ve taught approximately 400 different students over the past year. Some of them I taught for a day or two, some for up to two weeks. They’ve ranged in age from 8 to 18, with most in the 12-14 range.

I always ask them these three questions:

• do you enjoy reading?

• do you spend a lot of time on your phones?

• do you use ChatGPT?

In short, very few enjoy reading, and of those who do, 95% are girls.

And the overwhelming majority use ChatGPT and think it’s okay.

And we all know how addicted to their phones they are.

This is what I’ve noticed – the correlation between creativity, critical thinking, and good language skills and those who read, use their phones less, and shun ChatGPT.

This is not exactly rocket science.

But the most interesting and revelatory part of this is the intensity of their reaction to the innocent question of ‘do you like reading?’

A ridiculous number of kids answer this question with utter disdain, the vitriol spitting out of their mouths:

“Oh no, reading is so boring.”

“Reading is for nerds.”

“Books aren’t interesting.”

“I don’t need to read any books for school, ChatGPT can summarise them for me.”

Even more fascinating: the more intense the reaction, the nastier and more unpleasant the student. We’re not just talking ‘bad’ language learners. We’re talking zero creativity. Zero critical thinking. Zero interest in anything, other than memes and TikTok.

Otherwise? Forget it. As a colleague puts it, “it’s not that they’re anti-intellectual, but more pro-stupidity.”

Educators everywhere are lamenting the decline in reading skills, critical thinking ability, attention spans, the prevalent out-of-control use of ChatGPT and wondering what we can do about it.

I’m not sure I have many answers but I do think it starts with parents. If you are a reader, your kids are likely to be readers. If you are passionate about books and read with them and never say “no” when they ask for a book, then they are likely to turn into good readers.

As a teacher, I can wax philosophical about my love of reading and I will gladly give away my book, A Classroom in Kyiv, to any students who want it – to date, around 25 or so students have taken me up on the offer and have at least downloaded their complimentary copy. (Whether they’ve read it or not is another question.)

Positivity time!

I taught thirty teenagers (ages 15-17) last week, two different classes, and it was a breath of fresh air. Well over half of them were avid readers, mostly in English. Most of them abhorred the idea of ChatGPT and didn’t understand why students relied on it so much. They didn’t use their phones all that much (or so they said).

They were curious, creative, excellent critical thinkers. Two of them were aspiring writers, with one girl already having written two books in English, and another telling me that he had yet to have the necessary life experience to start writing, that his ideas needed a lot of “fleshing out” before he was ready to get cracking (take note, writers who think they’ve started out too late.)

This school was similar to other schools I’ve taught at in Austria, but with a far more diverse mix of students: Austrian, Turkish, Syrian, Hungarian, Afghan, Kosovan, Romanian, Ukrainian, and one Russian (who when I asked her where she was from very defensively said, “Russia, but I’ve lived here since 2014 and I’m totally against the war!”)

Some of the students had only been in Austria for a few years. One Turkish girl and one Syrian boy had only come to Austria six years earlier. Both spoke excellent English (and German). Her secret? Books, and a bit of Netflix. His? Lots of English football content, interacting with others via video games, and reading a ton of football articles. They each had their obsessions, and they were reading totally different things, but it hardly matters what you read.

The point is to read. Never criticise a person’s reading choice, especially a young one (unless they’re reading the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Mein Kampf).

These kids restored my faith in humanity and future generations. They were bright, funny, engaged, curious, and best of all, they laughed at my jokes (undisputably the #1 factor in how good of a student they are).

There are bound to be other students like this out there.

And a few of them even wrote and performed a song for me. This is one of those potentially cringeworthy ‘why are you sharing this’ moments, but what the hell, let me share a story about the good kids for a change – although, in fairness, they weren’t so good. They realllllly pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in the classroom.

Last week’s school was in Wiener Neustadt, an hour from Vienna.

This week I was in Neustift im Stubaital, Tirol, western Austria, a beautiful location in the rarefied alpine air. You can see the school from outside and inside, and a few images of the surrounding countryside (with a couple of colleagues in the distance).

Unfortunately…and I so wish I could end on a positive (haha, as if), but this week saw a sad reverting to form. We taught a range of students over 5^th, 6^th and 7^th grade and the 7^th graders were…tough work. Some nasty, malicious kids with wretched attitudes. Dreadful English. Constant jokes about Epstein and Charlie Kirk. Disgust over the mere idea of anyone enjoying reading. Scoffing and sneering when I told them I wrote books and loved reading. One of their regular teachers told us they were a handful and challenging, and that their behaviour is typical of the region. I hope that’s just it and not a sign of a generation lost.

There are bright, curious, book-devouring teenagers out there. I’ve met them.

Perhaps some of the kids aren’t doomed after all.

There is…some hope (I hope).

Daniel is (or was?) a long-time English as a Foreign Language teacher, author, shining wit (and lover of spoonerisms), and cynical curmudgeon. If you would like to support him (thanks!), he’s written a few books, and they’re available from your preferred retailer. Actually, that’s not entirely true: only A Classroom in Kyiv is (and in print) but the other ones are currently only available as ebooks at Amazon or directly from him below:

Buy me a coffee, beer or book

This isn’t quite what Jayne and I discussed during our Live chat, but much of what we said about writing can certainly be applied to life in general.

Challenge yourself! Get out of your comfort zone! Stretch the boundaries! Test your limits! Be bold! Be adventurous! Take some risks! Throw caution to the wind!

This past week I had a couple classes of extremely bright and motivated Austrian students and some of the drama performances and videos they made had me in stitches - I’m tempted to share more of the stories here but so much would be lost in translation.1

But my goodness, did they test the limits of appropriateness (they were 16-18). Who am I to quash their creative instincts?

They had to write their own riddles with a series of clues for the other students to guess. I read a few of my own to start off with, so they had a model. The clues should start broad and then get more specific.

1 I’m small and round

2 I’m a yellow/green colour

3 I’m the size of an apple

4 You cannot eat me

5 You hit me with a racquet

Innocent, harmless, creative - what could possibly go wrong with their own examples?

Well, see if you can guess this one (skip it if you’re sensitive):

1 I’m wrinkly

2 I’m colourful after a spicy meal

3 I can clench

4 I’m surrounded by cheeks

5 I’m also an insult and everyone has one

I’m not revealing the answer, sorry. If you truly don’t know what it is…

Jayne is the author of The Useful and the Beautiful newsletter, and we had…

A stimulating and enlightening chat

Jayne is one of the kindest, loveliest, most supportive and generous people I’ve met on Substack. She’s also an incredibly talented writer who produces some of the most exquisitely gorgeous, elegiac, evocative prose you’ll ever come across. I cannot recommend her book, A Line Drawn or Printed: Six Routes Through Madrid, highly enough. It’s one of the rare books that I immediately reread shortly after I had finished it.

In January I attended Jayne’s workshop, Hit Submit in 3 Hours (And a Bit!), and it was there that my mind was really awakened to some of the possibilities with writerly experimentation. Jayne introduced us to the idea of ‘useful limits’, which she discusses here: Biig Stretch!

(It originally comes from Doris Lessing in her introduction to The Golden Notebook)

Perhaps giving oneself a tight structure, making limitations for oneself, squeezes out a new substance where you least expect it. All sorts of ideas and experiences I didn’t recognize as mine emerged when I was writing.

I’m bursting with ideas for writing, eager for new creative juices to emerge, and I wanted to chat with Jayne about some fun, possibly hare-brained ideas for experimental writing.

A rough outline of what we talked about (and apologies for my sound quality, I was using my new tablet for the first time, but that hardly matters; my ideas are barely worth a damn, it’s Jayne you should be listening to):

• the blurry lines between fact and fiction, and the blending of the two

• a Substack newsletter writer swap - I write your post, you write mine. So many possibilities here: we copy each other’s style; we have to write a post that fits the theme or niche of the other newsletter; it can be satirical or a parody; it can be randomly generated, or you can swap with a writer with a completely different style/niche from you - as Jayne put it, it’s a writing version of the film Freaky Friday (about body swapping)

• we discussed the Hit Submit in 3 Hours (And a Bit!) workshop, useful limits, and how this can both benefit writers stuck for ideas, and writers like me overwhelmed with ideas

• I mentioned some of the creative writing ideas I use in the classroom to get students thinking in more unique ways, which all writers might benefit from

• I ask inchoate/rhetorical questions about why we write, the purpose of experimentation, who are we writing for, wanting to be read, etc

• is there a point to experimentation? (if we challenge ourselves, it adds to our craft)

• I bring up a bold idea for Substack Live chats, where I seek guests I may or may not know and surprise them with a topic on the spot

• Jayne introduces her fun Live writing idea, where participants collaborate in real time and write a story and possibly perform it for the audience

• Jayne’s cats were meowing, and I suspected they might be hungry; it turns out that one of them badly needed to use the toilet and then left a smelly turd; cats are such considerate, caring creatures, aren’t they?

• we return to the writer/newsletter swap idea and think of more possibilities and how this would work; we also talk about more live chat ideas

Great news! Jayne is running that same workshop very soon - this is the perfect opportunity to challenge yourself and experiment with your creativity:

Hit Submit in 3 Hours (And a Bit)!

​It does what it says on the tin: start with zero words and leave with a short story submitted to a literary magazine!

​We’ll kick off with a quick revision of the short story form, two focused writing exercises to lock in structure, followed by a 50-minute writing sprint. After that, we’ll give the words and ourselves a breather, then come back to polish, edit, and peer review before finishing by writing a snappy cover letter and hitting submit! All you need is your laptop and the want, need or urge to write.

​This workshop is also for:

​✔️Those struggling to make time to write (and/or edit and submit).

​✔️Those who have a WIP that they just can’t find the time or motivation to finish.

​✔️Those wanting to write and learn about the submission process in a supportive, creative and fun atmosphere.

Click here for more details: Jayne's Super Useful and Stimulating Workshop

An example of (bold?) experimentation

A writerly acquaintance of mine, , recently had a chat with about a variety of topics, mainly revolving around whingeing about the sorry state of the world. But it was amusing and even enlightening and I encourage you to check it out. I do believe Groucho is eager to ‘interview’ more guests, and more than anything he’s after snark and banter.

The Cantankerous Curmudgeon

“The Fashion Universe is Stacked Against My Tits”

Wendy McWaffle and I try to get to the bottom of her woes and disgruntledness with society, Substack, supermarkets, and H&M…

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5 months ago · 8 likes · 3 comments · Groucho Marks

You might be looking at the length of this video - well over 2 hours - and thinking, “What the…do they really expect us to watch all that? Who has that much free time these days?”

I admit, it’s long, but that’s because Liza and I got carried away and had too much of a good time. As my wine bottle slowly emptied and Liza quaffed* her Catalan vermut, the time just flew by. Thank you to those who popped in and asked questions and added comments, we’re very grateful, and we shan’t ask just how long you stuck around for, though gets an award for sticking it out until the very end.

(*good language learners can guess the meaning of unknown words from context)

We covered a lot of ground and so here’s a rough outline of the points that came up, in a loose running order:

• What we were drinking

• Does Daniel really not want to learn other languages or is he just being provocative when he says nonsense like this?

• Priorities, laziness, a need for the language, native speakers’ “privileged” status

• Liza’s experience in Francophone West Africa

• Fossilised language errors

• The importance of wide exposure to other languages, the evils of dubbing

• Accents in a foreign language

• Liza’s hereditary talent for language

• Using apps and tech to communicate and get by

• Liza’s motivation in coming from a small country and learning French

• Mangling grammar, making mistakes, the importance of “mutual intelligibility”

• Daniel’s story about trying to buy a fly swatter in a Ukrainian market

• Accuracy v fluency - depending on needs and priorities

• Daniel shares, in a nutshell, his life story as it relates to language learning (spoiler: he’s not as bad with language as he makes people think)

• How Daniel’s motivation and need waned once he returned to Ukraine

• Speaking your partner’s language v English

• Eavesdropping on conversations

• The “convenience” of not understanding the local language (one of Daniel’s favourite excuses)

• A funny travel story about a Dutch couple insulting Daniel and his friend over their language

• Differentiating between English accents and having an accent

• Language mistakes - saying “we” when you mean “I” and misunderstanding

• Correcting errors in a constructive way

• Daniel’s hot controversial take on not needing to know the local language to fit or culturally integrate (to be developed further at a later date)

• Getting by without knowing the language

• Liza shares a story about a Mexican not speaking Slovene, yet culturally adapting well

• asks Daniel a question about how he survives in Vienna without German

• Liza asks Daniel about committing to perfecting a language at his decrepit old age

• Why Daniel is reluctant to learn German

• The possibility of Daniel returning to Ukraine and whether he’d commit to learning Ukrainian

• Whether it’s important to read local literature in the native language to understand the culture better

• Reading in translation v the original

• Reading to learn a language v reading for the pleasure of it

• Misunderstandings based on a tiny mistake - buy the farm v buy a farm

• Liza answers a question from about her experience learning Quechua

• Language learning software (Pimsleur, Michel Thomas) and the bizarre examples they use

• Daniel tells a naughty Russian joke

• Liza and Daniel share their funny language mixups with rude words

• Understanding humour in another language

• How linguistic misunderstandings can bring people closer together

• Whether locals get annoyed when you don’t speak the language

• Grading your speech when talking to someone at a lower language level

• Cross-cultural misunderstandings when using the wrong word

• Colloquial and idiomatic English and the confusion this causes

• Having multiple passports and citizenships

• Liza expresses concern that her phone battery is about to die

• Melania Trump’s English and how she paints Slovenes in a bad light

• Daniel’s English was once corrected by an 8-year-old

• There’s nothing wrong with mispronouncing words in English (it’s often the sign of a well-read person)

• Inconsistencies in pronouncing foreign words, especially from French: croissant, fillet, joie de vivre, laissez-faire, etc

• As the chat stretches past two hours, Daniel and Liza question whether anyone is still watching (it appears not - can’t blame you)

• Daniel’s issues with local bureaucracy

• Daniel shares experiences of working in Nigeria, Liza in Ethiopia

• Making complaining and bureaucracy stories interesting

• Daniel and Liza’s prolonged goodbye, and a competition is announced

Our previous posts on language learning

Love to Lingo

Learning Languages the Long Way Around

This is a guest post in the series, How I Learn Languages, where other learners and teachers share how they approach language learning…

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7 months ago · 60 likes · 8 comments · Liza Debevec

We’d love to hear more comments, thoughts, opinions, etc below - let us know what we missed, what we got wrong, what you agree and disagree with, and whether you know any good jokes from another language you can share.

In the chaos that followed, I also managed to smash my phone and shout several words that no teacher should ever shout in a classroom full of 12-year-olds.

All names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty.

Except for these first three.

Dear Amelie, Emilia, and Philena

You broke my glasses and inadvertently, my phone, but I won’t break my promise to write a story about this – girls, this is what I meant by silver linings. I doubt you three are reading – if you were listening in between your tears I told you where you could find me – but just in case you are, I hope you’re still not worried, I do forgive you even though that phone was only a couple of months old and glasses are expensive to fix.

Friday, 6 March: a microcosm of a two-decade-plus teaching career

This time 20 years ago, I was in the homestretch of my first full-time teaching job in western Ukraine. It was supposed to be temporary – year one of a two-year plan before finding a ‘proper’ job.

We know how those plans usually turn out.

One year became two, then three, then a summer school in Canterbury with rambunctious Spanish and Italian teenagers. My final day there felt like a disaster, which at the time seemed like the perfect ending to a career I hadn’t intended to pursue anyway.

But life is unpredictable, as is teaching, especially for an inconsistent classroom manager like me.

People hear ‘teacher’ and assume children and teenagers. But as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher I’ve taught plenty of adults too – and they can be just as challenging, though in different ways.

Most classes follow a familiar pattern: one or two superstars, one or two troublemakers, and everyone else somewhere in between. You can usually spot the miscreants within minutes of the first class.

These rascals can make your lives hell. They occupy way too much of your time, energy and patience, the rest of the class often want to strangle them as much as I do.

Despite appearances, most teachers genuinely like their students. We want you to learn something – and ideally enjoy the process. I’m not sure I’m a great teacher, but I do endeaour to entertain, occasionally tricking people into learning without realising it.

Students have changed over the years and I’m not sure whether to blame technology or my exponentially compounding cynicism and grumpiness, who knows, but it has got harder.

Let’s talk classroom management

Teaching advice – like parenting advice or writing advice – tends to focus on routines, discipline, expectations, structure.

But as George Saunders puts it in A Swim in the Pond in the Rain: “When I’m writing well, there’s almost no intellectual/analytical thinking going on.”

That’s more or less my teaching philosophy too: act naturally and hope for the best.

You can read a million parenting books stressing the importance of set routines and firm expectations. But if this isn’t how you operate in your own life – why should you impose it on others? I don’t deal well with routines and predictability, I want to have fun, see where the mood takes me. Don’t let your kids snack in between meals – but if I do, why can’t they? Make sure the students know what to expect – but I don’t even know what to expect, I hate predictability, it’s boring, it’s dull. What if I want to write a post-modern book that defies all the rules of writing? It might fail, it probably will, but it’s the book I want to write.

My classroom management, by the standards of what is expected of teachers, leaves a lot to be desired. And sometimes it backfires. But more often than not, it works out great, and I can bring my authentic personality into the classroom, and if I’m having fun, my students are having fun.

By authentic personality, and this might surprise some, I can seamlessly switch from being a misanthropic introvert in real life into an overly excitable clownish kid in the classroom. It’s an effortless, almost unconscious transformation.

(It’s called acting, dummy.)

What do most students want to see in their EFL teachers? Enthusiasm, passion and knowledge, all of which I possess, though the third point is debatable.

It goes without saying that there is a difference between having a class of students 2-3 times a week over an entire academic school year. Things are a little bit more serious and regimented – there’s a syllabus after all.

But when it comes to summer schools, or what I’ve been doing for the past year or so in Austria, teaching drama via English to primary, middle and secondary school students, it’s more about making learning a fun and enjoyable experience.

This is where we find ourselves in trouble.

Day 1 of a 5-day course: feeling each other out, cracking jokes, seeing what’s understood, can they handle my snark, are they laughing at my jokes, is anyone being cheeky. Day 1 is almost always fine.

Day 2 is where the proper ‘fun’ begins: they start to test the boundaries, the first hints of rebellion, the scallywags ramp things up a notch, the quieter and/or more studious and/or more motivated learners start showing their first signs of impatience with the rabblerousers.

Day 3 is a critical day. When there’s a play to rehearse for Friday’s performance, and a video to make, this is the day to get things moving along swiftly, there’s no time for messing about. But they’ll continue testing you, and I continue trying to be myself as much as I can, wheeling out the jokes, the stories, mildly berating them for not taking things seriously enough (oh what hypocrites we teachers can be).

Day 4 is make or break. They might like you just fine, but they have funny ways of showing it. In some schools it’s full-on chaos, all hell breaking loose. In other schools the week continues along swimmingly from Monday till now – this happens often enough where you think you can continue getting away with being yourself and not forcing yourself to adhere to strict(er) routines. You might feel your temper fraying along the edges, and you’re close to snapping, perhaps tempted to drop an f-bomb to get them in order.

I can be hot-tempered, it’s probably my dramatic, theatrical nature. I’ve done my fair share of amateur drama, and I love acting (mainly like a fool or clown). I throw myself into these classes and it’s emotionally and physically draining, but that’s who I am and at the end of the day, I am trying to inspire them to great theatrical heights, or at least entertain them. It’s only fair, I tell them – if I’m asking you to put your passion into it and to try acting, then I’ll do the same.

Shamefully, I have on more than one occasion used inappropriate classroom language, but I tend to save the really bad stuff for adults who act like children. Readers of A Classroom in Kyiv will recall the story of ‘Dasha’ who I told to “chill the fuck out”, prompting her to walk out and the rest of the class to applaud (no one liked her, students and teachers). She was an irritating lawyer in her late 20s – presumably she could handle this and anyway, she was a nuisance and always disrupting the class.

Inexcusable for an adult.

For kids? Par for the course.

Though I have a daughter I love dearly, I’m not sure I’m a fan of children. They can be nasty little cretins, but I don’t let this cloud my classroom judgement. Even the most troublesome of 8-year-olds are, deep down, kind of cute. You’d expect this age group to be cheeky and so you’re more forgiving.

Teenagers, now that’s where things get fun. Some of them are ghastly creatures and it takes all your willpower to bite your tongue and remain calm and steadfast in the face of their tomfoolery. “Jesus Christ, Florian, will you please sit down and be quiet.” “Filip, cut the bullshit, come on man, practise your lines.”

And occasionally something stronger slips out – which, when delivered by a teacher, tends to produce the desired deer-in-the-headlights effect.

For a few minutes, anyway, and then it’s back to the usual shenanigans.

Friday, 6 March: there was an odd dynamic with my classes of 12- and 13-year-olds (not an age you want to swear at, unless…). For these projects, we team teach, alternating classes, and there’s a group of teachers, all of us with varying styles and personalities. My co-teacher was an Irishman half my age who, outside of the classroom, has the sharp trademark Irish wit and is an aspiring filmmaker – in short, he’s great craic. I have serious tech limitations so when it comes to making videos, one half of our project, I can provide plenty of input with stories, ideas and characters, but not with the different camera shots and angles, the intricacies of CapCut or Leonardo DaVinci Visual Suite (or whatever the hell it’s called). Padraig, on the other hand – that’s his expertise.

Last week’s kids were tremendous fun, some of the nicest and most enjoyable I’ve ever taught, and this was an inner-city (Vienna) school in a rundown condition with excessively graffitied desks and almost no technology – for the first time in years I was faced with no classroom internet and an old-fashioned chalkboard which was heavenly. Good old back to basics teaching.

A few weeks prior, I’d been in a high-tech rural school that clearly had lots of money with a very homogenous student body and some of the kids were total nightmares. My co-teachers also struggled. I was shattered by the end of the week and our theatre performance – Ghostbusters set in a high school – was a shambles.

For whatever reason, the kids didn’t like poor Padraig at all, which they made clear by audibly groaning when he came into the classroom and cheering when I did. A consummate professional, Padraig wasn’t fazed, and nor should we be – our job is to teach, not be liked by our students. I’m glad when they like me, but I am, believe it or not, still a professional with a job to do, and I want them to learn some damn English and put on a damn good show. (Their parents and much of the school come to watch, after all, so part of this is my reputation on the line)

These kids were no angels, oh no – on the contrary, they were devilish wee rapscallions and they were trying it on with me. But I wouldn’t budge and I was forgiving because they were, for the most part, putting in effort, using lots of English and best of all, laughing at my jokes and listening to my stories. And there were a few characters.

Friday morning, our final rehearsals, finishing up the videos (which were meant to be done the day before). Cue chaos among both classes – videos not working, corrupted files, missing USB sticks, file errors, etc, etc. Were these genuine screwups? Hard to say. One group of boys – one Turkish, two Ukrainian and one Polish – slacked off most of the week and swore to me they were shooting their video while playing football in the park, but then suddenly “lost” all their footage.

As we got closer to video showtime, it was clear they weren’t all going to have a final product to share. I was mildly perturbed, shall we say, but Padraig was exasperated, talking in sarcastic asides to me, not always out of earshot of the students (“It’s true, Padraig, you are fed up with teaching?” and “Really, Padraig, today is your last day?”).

Eventually we watched their chaotic collection of videos. One group made a meta-film about not knowing what to film (my idea). Philena attempted a horror spoof involving hot dogs and ketchup (that’s her pictured at the top, the accomplice, trying to procure props). Another produced something about domestic abuse that appeared whimsical on the surface but was meant as a serious social message, and it delivered. Another group made a video about the evils of big pharma.

These kids weren’t hopeless – just chaotic.

All week long, during their breaks, I had to tell them off for playing with their volleyball in the classroom. “Just 2 more minutes, Daniel, please!” “No, put the ball away, come on now.” “Please, Daniel, just 1 more minute.” “Fine, 1 more minute, that’s all.”

This is not good classroom management.

That damn volleyball was bound to cause trouble eventually.

The videos were finished, it was noon, break time, and the parents were starting to arrive to watch the plays in the performance hall, stage and all.

Padraig and I were chatting to ourselves, he really was threatening to quit, he’d had a seriously trying week in contrast to mine. A few of the kids were playing with that wretched volleyball yet again, when-

WHACK!

Before they fell off my head, the frame shattering on the ground, the bridge of my glasses was rammed into my head, compounding my headache, accompanied by Padraig uttering a “Jesus, guys, what did we tell you?”

The next few seconds are a blur. I sprung out of my seat, the phone on my lap went flying, the screen landing on the leg of a desk as I accidentally stepped on it, smashing the screen to bits, and out of my mouth flew a torrent of foul language along the lines of “what did I tell you about that fucking ball, you just broke my fucking glasses.”

“Daniel, calm down, go outside, I’ll take care of this,” said Padraig.

As I stumbled out of the school, nearly blind (my vision is -8.00) parents arriving past me, I stewed and festered and tried to replay events in my mind, while panicking over my broken glasses and phone.

I eventually made my way to the theatre, halfway through another class’s show. When it came time to my class’s performance, I was unable to properly guide and prompt them, as promised – I couldn’t see a damn thing. The students were deeply concerned, asking if I was okay, and “what happened?” for those who didn’t witness it. Word got round to my colleagues, who probably didn’t know whether to console or chastise me.

Halfway through the show the kids’ regular classroom teacher asked to speak to me outside – uh oh – and she couldn’t have been any nicer. She was so apologetic and she told me how upset the girls were. I too was apologetic and ashamed of my appalling language. “You’re human, it’s fine,” the teacher said. “They’ve heard this language before, they’re just so shocked you reacted like that, they like you so much, said you were so chill and funny all week, and then…” I offered feeble excuses: “I can’t help it, I’m an actor at heart, I have a flair for the dramatic.” This seemed to appease her. I didn’t want to push my luck and share some of the other (real) excuses: chronic sleep deprivation, my headache, anxiety, raging misophonia, general cantankerousness. I was also under the weather and generally feeling poorly.

There weren’t any nasty kids in these classes, but this couldn’t have happened to a sweeter group of students. Amelie, Emilia and Philena were perhaps the nicest students in the class, and they were the unfortunate culprits – Amelie in particular, the quietest one – responsible for my broken glasses.

The funniest irony is that in our play, Amelie was the quiet one who turned out to play a critical role in the final twist, with her classmate uttering the line “sometimes it’s the quiet ones who speak the loudest.”

How prescient.

When I spoke to the girls afterwards, awkwardly squinting so I could make out their faces, apologizing, they looked shell-shocked, tears in their eyes. Emilia profusely apologised at least 20 times, Amelie looked dazed, and Philena looked she’d just been given a terminal diagnosis.

“Girls, don’t worry about it, please, I’m sorry for my outburst, listen, these things happen, it’ll make a good story, you can laugh about it later, you’ll remember this more, right? Focus on the silver linings, it’ll be a valuable learning experience.”

“So you’ll write about it?” Emilia asked.

“Yes, I will, I have to now. I’ll write about it for my next Substack post, how’s that? You can even read it if you like, if you can find it.”

That’s the strange thing about teaching.

The disasters are the moments everyone remembers.

My guest on this episode of Drinkglish, from This Writing Life, spent fifteen years navigating the publishing world’s obstacle course before her novel The Shape of Guilt finally saw the light of day. Rejections piled up, doubts crept in, and there was the occasional temptation to walk away entirely and throw in the towel.

Thankfully, she didn’t.

In our conversation we talk about that long journey: the setbacks, the small victories, where inspiration comes from, writing while raising children, literary influences, the challenge of promoting your own work, her Swedish background, and plenty more besides.

Below is an outline of our chat, and following that, I share a few words about my podcasting journey so far.

Our chat

• Lisa’s 15-year publishing journey, the ups and downs and everything in between

• Rejections and whether rejection is the norm

• Why can’t a book about ‘nothing’ get published, or could it?

• Conflicting advice in craft books - can we break the traditional craft writing rules?

• Intriguing tidbits about her “dark and funny” novel

• Writing for yourself versus writing to the market

• Where she got inspiration from - a highly influential book

• What’s more important, plot or characters? (a plot-driven v character-driven book)

• Do children ‘get in the way’ of writing?

• Getting inspiration from the unlikeliest of places

• The temptation to throw in the towel

• Are Swedes morbid and do they have a dark outlook on life?

• Growing up in Sweden and moving to the UK

• Promoting outside Substack, social media, being timid, having a platform

• The future of Substack, is it becoming more like Twitter/X and Instagram?

• What authors can do to increase their sales and profile

• Published books in Swedish, can they be translated into English, is there a market for that?

• Writers having way too many ideas and not being able to implement them

At this point in the chat, it might have been wise to say ‘thank you, Lisa, that’s enough,’ but I couldn’t resist asking more questions, even as some of them got dafter, but I wanted to know more.

• Are Swedish kids more psychologically resilient than British kids?

• Do kids read these days? Is reading amongst youth in decline?

• Do we need to change the way we write to cater to the younger generation and their shorter attention spans?

• Swedish book recommendations? And Finnish writers?

• Final words of advice and struggling to get an agent

Slight spoiler alert (well, not really) - immediately after we stopped recording I did in fact buy The Shape of Guilt and within a couple of days I’d flown through half of it. Then I got sucked into a busy week of teaching and lost momentum - sadly little reading or writing gets done during my teaching weeks. I’m about to pick it back up shortly but that first half was indeed, dark, intriguing and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

I also got Jerusalem, by Selma Lagerlöf, who Lisa mentions as one of her favourite writers.

Read all about Lisa on her excellent newsletter, This Writing Life.

Get her wonderful book here: The Shape of Guilt

And now, a few words about this podcast and podcasting in general

When I recorded my first Drinkglish podcast in December 2024, it was with a Substacker I’d got to know, and we had a clear idea of what we were going to talk about. In the months that followed, when I reached out to other Substackers, it was always because I had a specific theme in mind. I was an inexperienced podcaster, still finding my feet, battling technical issues, and clinging to shakily scripted questions.

Now, with a few episodes under my belt, I can confidently say that… I’m still finding my feet and battling technical issues. But I have mastered the art of avoiding shakily scripted questions with one obvious, previously overlooked solution:

Don’t script any.

Off-air during my previous episode with , we talked about why I hadn’t been uploading the podcast to my Drinkglish YouTube channel. One of my early motivations for starting the podcast – which I’m somewhat ashamed to admit (though why should I be?) – was to build a more visible social media presence. You know, marketing myself. Establishing a “brand” (still not entirely sure what that means), and, ultimately, making more of a living from writing books.

Try as I might, I can’t quite get my head around the marketing and branding side of things – not to mention the dull technicalities of making everything look visually appealing, with bells and whistles and crisp, movie-studio sound. I felt very meh about it all.

What I didn’t feel meh about was talking to people – especially the generous and lovely writers I’ve met on Substack over the past two and a half years. I’ve loved these conversations. The hard part is staying disciplined: not going off topic (whatever the topic is, or whether there even is one) and not rambling past the unofficial time limit. We’re all busy, and I’m trying to keep these episodes short and digestible.

With Francesca before, and Lisa now, I knew they were both keen to do a podcast in general, not necessarily with me. So I invited them onto mine for a very simple reason: they’re wonderful people I’ve genuinely enjoyed interacting with, and they’re both terrific writers.

In my usual roundabout way, I suppose what I’m saying is this: I just wanted to talk to them. The topic almost didn’t matter.

Instead of pitching a theme, I found myself writing, “What would you like to talk about?” I’ve no idea if that’s how it’s meant to be done. I used to send messages like, “Hi , let’s talk about Anglophilia!” or “Hi , let’s talk about moving abroad and integrating into a new culture!”

But perhaps this way is better?

What I’m saying is, if you want to chat, get in touch, I’m highly unlikely to say no.

Find all my previous podcasts here:

Drinkglish podcasts

Thank you for reading, listening and/or watching, likes and comments are always nice. If you’re new to my writing, I cover a wide range of topics, there are no limits when it comes to niche or genre.

It can’t come soon enough for so many.

It’s been a bitter winter worldwide and though I don’t mind the gloom, I know many are struggling.

Just over four years ago Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and it has been fourteen years since it first invaded Ukraine, in Crimea.

I left Kyiv on 14 February 2022 but it’s never far from my mind. This year has been an even tougher winter than usual because of the relentless attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Millions are without heat and electricity for much or all of the day.

We’ll start off with what I hope is a light-hearted tale about my life in Lviv, western Ukraine, 20 years ago.

I’ll then turn it over to two guest contributors, who will share their first-hand, on-the-ground impressions of the cold, harsh reality of a Ukrainian winter.

This time 20 years ago I was having a blast in the cold – literally and metaphorically.

It wasn’t much fun, but in a strange way, it was. I knew it would make a good story one day and here we are, two decades later and I’m telling it.

It was fun because it wasn’t life or death – it was an adventure.

At that age, adventure disguises itself as hardship. There’s a certain romance to survival when you know it’s temporary.

The scene: my first winter in Ukraine, Lviv. It was, if memory serves, the coldest winter Europe had seen in half a century. The temperature, at its lowest, plummeted all the way to -37C.

My home in Lviv was truly something else – a massive, spacious, Soviet-era flat with creaky wooden floors, box after box of old war medals, and copious jars of preserved vegetables dated from the late 1970s, and it was large enough to host multiple gatherings. The flat was provided by the school, I had no idea what the rent was and I never once met the landlady. I hope she wasn’t too upset with me for the pickled vegetables a friend and I cracked open late one night after a bit of boozing (a story for another time).

What the flat did not have was heat. Well, almost.

In one corner of one of the living rooms was an ancient ceramic heater called a pichka in Ukrainian. It took ages to heat up and was hardly worth it by the time I got home every evening.

If I sat as close to the pichka as possible, as you can see in the photo, I was able to stay warm. But taking a shower in ice cold water, if there was any water, wasn’t fun, nor was spending time in the kitchen (and even more so when, after one raucous party, the kitchen window was broken – there’s no better motivation for improving one’s language skills than potentially freezing to death. I had to quickly learn the lingo for getting a new pane of glass and miraculously I not only did it, but despite my limited technical know-how managed to replace the window without losing a finger or having a major tantrum).

The water situation – now that was interesting. At the time in western Ukraine, most houses and establishments only had running water for 6 hours a day: from 6-9am and pm. I taught most days till close to 9pm and by the time I rushed home after my final class, I was lucky if there were a few trickles of water left. And because I finished so late, I went to bed late. Which meant getting up late.

Which often meant no water in the morning either.

(If you’re squeamish, skip this part – not having any water all day at the school meant that by 5-6pm, the uh, toilet situation was…not very pleasant. I mean, there were a lot of kids in there doing their, uh, business and…well, you can imagine how ghastly the toilets were later in the day.)

(One more interesting thing, nothing disgusting at all – a woman once cancelled a date on me for Saturday night with the excuse that she had to wash her hair, and let me tell you, this was 100% true, a totally genuine excuse.)

I could have used a match to light the ancient gas heater in the bathroom, as I had to do with the pichka, but it was liable to blow up with the condition it was in, most of the apparatus completely exposed. It wasn’t worth the risk. Doing laundry in ice cold water was one thing, but I’m a baby when it comes to frigid showers.

The upside was that I was in the best shape of my life during my nine months there. So desperate was I for hot water that my only recourse was to join the gym, one of the only establishments with hot water throughout the day and while I was there for the showers, I figured I might as well get in a few workouts. The kickboxing aerobics classes were intense and I was enjoying Pilates until I was politely asked to leave by the instructor after one class because apparently I was making the other participants uncomfortable as the only man in the class. I can assure you I was being a good boy and not flirting with anyone. The issue was that at that time in Ukraine, as I was informed by the kind receptionist in half English/half Ukrainian, it wasn’t “normal” for men to take Pilates classes. I really digress here, this is a topic for another time, where were we…(?)

This is my favourite story – the kitchen was an ice block, and I swear there were penguins inhabiting a corner of it. Friends told me to put a brick in the oven for heat, which barely helped. One morning I poured myself a glass of orange juice and then left it on the counter for a few minutes while I performed my ablutions. Upon returning, I discovered a thin layer of ice on the top.

You read that right – I could OPEN my FRIDGE to HEAT the KITCHEN.

From that point on, I didn’t bother putting things in the fridge – I just left stuff on the table and counters. After one party, there was a ton of leftover food which I left out for well over a week. My (sort of) girlfriend at the time, who’d come for the party, came one week later, saw the food still lying around, laughed, sighed, and shook her head. (That relationship didn’t last much longer, but I don’t know if it was because of my slovenly habits or not.)

That was a hell of a winter, and it was amusing. But what Ukraine has been facing is not funny or adventurous in any way.

You see, I had a choice, and I didn’t fear for my life. There was no threat of attacks, of drones, of ballistic missiles. My life was nowhere near in danger and there were ways of getting warm.

Today, millions of Ukrainians have been living through winter not as an anecdote, but as a test of endurance: power outages, intermittent heating, air raid sirens, the constant uncertainty of whether the lights or heat will stay on.

Twenty years ago, I could romanticise the cold because I knew it would end and because I was choosing it.

I’M NO CITIZEN of Lviv, and 20 years ago I was practically five years old, unaware of how the wonderful invention of electricity worked or the less wonderful concept of heating bills, running around somewhere in our family apartment in Mykolaiv, a city in the south of Ukraine. I remember using sledges to rush down the big hill from our central square all the way down to the river, making snowmen and snow angels – all the normal things a kid would do in those circumstances.

But I also remember coming back home to an almost scorching apartment. The air was so hot, we kept our windows open. Yes, boiling apartments seemed to me to be a universal Ukrainian value – if you can’t walk around in your tank top and boxers, why use heating at all? Not like you can adjust it anyways, the central heating system decides your temperature for you. Much different from Daniel’s old-school Lviv experience.

The last winters in Ukraine have been nothing like that. This winter is our fourth with constant missile attacks, endangering our critical infrastructure – water, electricity, heating, gas. And so far, the most brutal. See, the last few winters have been tough on electricity, but having no heating is a new one for many. Arguably, the toughest one to live without, considering keeping our apartments hot is integral to our winter experience.

This winter, I’ve been visiting my hometown for two months, which was more than enough to survive a few apocalyptic situations. Our house (or dacha in Ukrainian, a type of summerhouse in the village) is located just outside of the city, about a 30-minute drive. Here’s the catch: when my parents were renovating it, they failed to account for a full-scale war starting in a few years. So, as she always dreamed, my mom opted for heated floors as our main source of heat. Bad, bad idea in retrospect. The moment electricity went off (and it did, up to 20 hours at a time), the floors lost heat quickly.

Our water from a well couldn’t be pumped either. If it got really bad, we used the portable power generator for a few hours. And when it got even worse, we used our pichka too – which added a few degrees of warmth, but also a petrol-woody smell to the whole house and a few headaches.

Foreseen consequences: you have to outsmart the lack of electricity. You only eat whatever’s fastest to cook. You layer. You never take off your thermal wear (or socks). You layer some more.

Unforeseen consequences: your hygiene standards drop really fast; one shower every 5 days seems like a blessing. You get used to piles of unwashed dishes and clothes. You stop looking in the mirror – there’s no point, really. The only gym accessible to you is making circles around the house, trying to heat up (it’s even colder outside). Your life becomes a constant equation of heat efficiency you’re trying to solve.

Only two months of such living conditions reminded me of a forgotten truth – unlike many Ukrainians, I am not resilient. At all. I crack under the easiest pressure, I depend on comfort, I crave all the benefits civilisation can provide. And I feel really out of order when those things are taken away from me.

Ukrainians would say: “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.” But I have a better word – absurd. The experience Daniel had 20 years ago is repeated in the most bizarre, out-of-control of circumstances, where we are forced to roll back down the Maslow pyramid, forced to walk back down the steps of civilisation we thought we’d already climbed.

Read more of ’s excellent writing on her Substack: A Personal War. starting with the cost of living (during the war) or for something uplifting, Good news from Ukraine! #3, where you can find lots of useful and interesting links, including videos from frozen river dance parties in Kyiv.

I HAVE NOT LEFT Ukraine since 2022, and I can say quite openly that this has been the most difficult winter of the war. Living in Kyiv now, amid the energy crisis, means waking up each morning and anxiously checking which basic comforts of modern life are still available – electricity, water or heating. On average, the temperature in our flat is currently between 10 and 16 degrees Celsius, while outside it can drop to minus 20.

We go to bed wearing several layers of clothing, sometimes even hats, under two or three blankets. We worry constantly about losing heating and water, as is already happening to residents on the left bank of the city. In such severe cold, pipes burst, and this almost inevitably means that a building becomes uninhabitable for several months.

People improvise in whatever ways they can – pitching tents inside their flats, using sleeping bags like those taken by hikers into the mountains, charging power banks whenever possible. We bought a camping stove, which means we are at least guaranteed hot food. That alone is a great relief.

The hardest situation, however, is faced by elderly people living alone, who have nowhere else to go and no money to buy even something as basic as a blanket. For them, thankfully, so-called “Points of Invincibility” have been set up, where people can eat and drink, warm up, charge their devices and even sleep.

To be honest, staying at home without electricity is deeply oppressive. We try to spend time in places that have generators. In Kyiv, people even organise dance parties on the frozen River Dnipro. From the outside, particularly to foreigners, it may look as though we are having fun and that things are not really so bad. In reality, this is a psychological coping mechanism – without it, it would be easy to sink into depression. Ukrainians have developed this resilience over the past few years and now even joke about potential nuclear strikes.

What helps most is the thought that spring is coming soon, and that the worst and hardest part of winter is already behind us. We simply need to hold on a little longer, and things will improve. And there is always the awareness that many people in the country are far worse off, especially those at the front, which makes it hard to allow oneself to fall into despair. That is exactly what the other side hopes for. They will not succeed.

Oksana Tkachenko is a journalist for TSN and 1+1 Media Group. She is also one of my former (superstar) students. Follow her on Instagram (@tkachenko_ksenia) and read an interview with Oksana on her work as a correspondent: Work in War

Happy times - one of my favourite classes from Lviv, spring 2006:

Thank you for reading, and do please like, share, comment, tell us what’s on your mind. 💙💛

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I love origin stories, family histories, hearing about the tough experiences that shape us, growing up abroad, identity, language, and of course, writing and what makes a writer. At one point Francesca wondered whether we should cut parts of her backstory, about her parents, her upbringing, the roots of it all but there was no way I could – I found it compelling. She has one helluva story.

Francesca is a writer based between Switzerland and Spain, with English and Italian roots. She’s an equestrian and dressage rider, and I’m intentionally using the present tense here – though she is no longer able to ride, I like to think of this as a permanent part of her character and how it’s shaped her writing and reinvention.

She once wanted to live in Ibiza, she survived a serious riding accident, she lives with autoimmune illness and IBD, and she writes rom-com and poetry. Her poetry collection is called Illicit Croissants At Dawn (what a title, and what a cover!) and her rom-com set in Ibiza is called Just Like a Movie: Wish Upon a Superstar, currently serialised on The Empress’ Substack.

An outline of some of our chat:

• what it means to grow up between countries and languages

• having English and Italian parents

• living in Switzerland and drifting between Spain and elsewhere

• identity and citizenship

• we treaded (carefully) around Swiss stereotypes

• illness, the kind that interrupts your life, your plans, and your writing

• the loneliness of not being able to do what you want

• the vulnerability of sharing and opening up, the stuff that some might call it TMI, and others ‘letting it all out’

• toilet humour, inevitably (and obviously)

We both come from families where bodily functions are considered prime comedic material. They may be embarrassing in the moment, but they make hilarious stories later, if that’s your kind of thing.

We spoke about how illness can stall creativity, and how writing can also become a way through it. I confessed my true feelings about horses, and my own equestrian mishaps, including two dreadful experiences and the time I thought my sister was a goner in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan.

Though Francesca describes herself as “fluent in whimsy,” she’s fluent in so much else. She doesn’t worry about rambling or making mistakes when speaking other languages; for her, the point is being understood. Language learners, take note – this is the perfect attitude to mastering fluency.

There were more confessions (from me) about shameful mispronunciations, mainly in French and the inconsistency between ‘croissants’ and ‘restaurants’, part of any native English speaker’s ongoing conflict with the French language.

You can find Francesca’s books here: Francesca Bossert

Her Substack here: For Fun and Then Some

Her serialised novel, Just Like a Movie, here: The Empress’ Substack

And a wonderful poem titled ‘A Poem About Me’ which captures her whimsy at its most fluent and mellifluous, here: A Poem About Me

About Francesca:

I am a poet and writer with chronic illnesses living between Switzerland and Spain whose work blends humour and honesty. Whether I am writing about birds singing Vivaldi, amorous frogs, old crushes, snarky so-called friends, or the emotional landscape of illness and aging, I try to capture what it means to live in-between: between languages, between identities, and between laughter and healing.

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