Akemashite Omedeto!

Happy New Year. It feels a long time since Christmas and a bit pointless to send out any overly festive greetings. I'll just assume everyone enjoyed themselves as best they could. I doubt few could beat Bek spending it on a yacht in Sydney Harbour, although Rachel's Malaysian beach might just tie. I spent mine in Olde Guildford Towne, not a bad place, if you've got a penny or two to spend.





Much the same can be said of New York, where my mother, sister and I went for some Christmas shopping. In accordance with tradition, I mainly spent on myself (though not anywhere near enough) and we generally just trouped around baby shops cooing over the smallest babygrows we could get hold of (not so small in the U. S. of A, as you'd imagine). We did also have a helicopter tour of the city, dine in a revolving restaurant and watched the Producers (even non-musical fans should see it, honestly Angus!). I briefly lamented over Matthew Broderick's absence, but just couldn't picture him skipping around the stage with the same gusto as his replacement.

New York was fantastic: the sort of place you could live for a few years. I didn't see anywhere near as much as I'd have liked, although I flukily managed to take advantage of Target Fridays, when MOMA is free, and whizzed around there in twenty minutes, most of which were spent choosing postcards in the giftshop. I can't afford to collect fine art so gobble up photo album-sized replicas. Sad, ne?


I met my old student, Yuka, and got way too drunk as she snubbed Japanese food, but stayed true to her national identity by avoiding as much of the wine as she could, despite it being a hard-won prize. We were asked for ID, mainly because she's only just 21 and looks younger and I had to fight to convince the waitress I'm old enough to drink.




The encounter may have put me off New Yorkers. They seem to need to tell you off or teach you things. As I expected to get drunk with Yuka, I didn't take out my passport in case I lost it (sensible, you'd think) but the waitress at the restaurant patronisingly chided, 'this is New York, honey, you should always carry ID'. I told her I was almost 30 and hadn't imagined it would be a problem, but she had annoyingly stopped listening by then.

Yesterday I started at the prison. The was a shutdown, so no prisoners were allowed out and I missed my first class. It would have been great, had I not missed out on almost a whole night's sleep hoping it would go well. I taught the same lesson to the afternoon group, who didn't warm to me quite so well once they knew I wasn't hanging around to be their regular teacher. One still asked to switch to my morning class, but the others just grumbled that it was 'shit' and 'boring' and tried to shirk the work. Once I'd agreed, but said they had to do it anyway, they got on with it.

This morning I taught my real class. Only one has changed, so I knew what I was dealing with and they were all pleased to see me (except one who hadn't been released). They loved the lesson and I had to rein myself and them in when I was trying to demonstrate how to hold a balloon debate and they used me as an example. As nice as it would have been to stand and listen to men who haven't seen a woman for years say I'm good-looking, I really couldn't let it go on. The guy who should have been released also said I was a good, interesting teacher: this made the others balk far more than the other compliments, but mainly because they don't see it as flattering to be good at such a thing. Right, I'm off to find a suitable article in Viz for proof-reading.

It's a London thing

Jo had one of her fleeting visits from Athens this weekend, so I popped to London to meet her . An expensive, but worthwhile exercise. On the bus into Cambridge, I had to listen to some locals berating all the 'Chinks' slowing the bus by requesting every stop. Only one Chinese student had used the bus. Their racism is hugely outdated, the Chinese in Cambridge are by now probably third- or fourth-generation and are quietly muttering about immigrants from the Caucasus.

Jo and I met in Oxford Circus, our biggest mistake, and the pedestrian undercurrent hauled us into a heaving Top Shop. One look at the Soviet-style queue forced us back out and towards the V&A's fashion exhibition, where we laughed at how tiring it would have been to been an original mod, fighting your way through the trouser-suited idiots of Carnaby Street. Fearing a two-hour transport-enduced famine, I sought out a very cheap Japanese bento shop in South Kensington and I stuffed myself full of over-spicy yakisoba while lamenting the loss of izakayas from my life. It was strange spending the day in London as a tourist: you're constantly jostled by shoppers ramming shoe boxes in your ribs and have to really hunt out sensibly priced eateries. I am also slowly becoming disorientated on the Tube, like a real outsider.

It was lovely seeing Jo, but I really didn't want to come back. As we strolled through Soho to meet up with her boyfriend, we passed loads of little bars and restaurants whose windows I wanted to press my nose onto. I was quite sad on the train leaving it all behind - more so when I missed the Haverhill bus by ten minutes and had to pass the time in a pub by Cambridge train station. Cash-free, I was forced to try the Osborne, next to the much more savoury Flying Pig, to see if they would accept cards. Fortunately not, as I had to watch an alcoholic barman swaying and squaring up to a 24-year-old he suspected of underage drinking, all while a gaggle of 15-year-olds drank pints and played pool unmolested.

The green green grass of home

So, having left my Japan-based Brit employers and their odd little ways behind me, I'm seeking employment in Suffolk at Her Majesty's secure estate, no less.

As part of my interview, I have to observe a lesson to see if I can cope with the inmates and the general surrounds (apparently the bars freak people out, I didn't notice, but I'm sure I would if I lived there). The other teacher is extremely lazy, so it was quite an involved obversation. It was fine though. I managed to show the prisoners I wouldn't be a pushover, despite being a young woman and they showed me that they hadn't had a sniff of a woman for an age and it would be fine whatever. My class were quite laid back, but other inmates were pushing their noses up to the glass of the classroom door to check me out, some trying to make me shake their hands or give them some contact and others asking if they could switch to my class. I feel it was a very modern take on Daniel in the lion's den: my explaining to use a colon was much like removing the prisoners' metaphorical thorns.

It's nice to know I'm still holding my own, even though I'm back to British portions. I've caused quite a stir at the factory I'm temping at and am getting sexually harassed by the local scout leader at least once a day and the warehouse supervisor put a card through the door with his phone number and an invitation to keep me company. Fortunately, I already had plans. I wouldn't want to get in the way of him seeing either of his kids.

I'm practically destitute as I'm being paid in village pounds, but spending as many weekends as possible in London. Last week I visited my beloved Vidal Sassoon and had my haircut by a yuong Osakan who nearly wet herself when I spoke in garbled Japanese. Each of the hairdressers had gifts for their 'models', but as I tried to return the Japanese hospitality I have so often dined out on and invited them to the pub, they were fighting to find me extra gifts. One girl eventually gave me a vacuum packed pack of teabags her mother had obviously stuffed into her luggage. Fortunately, they didn't have time to meet so I treated myself to some dry sushi from Wasabi and watched TV all night.

I did make it out to a houseparty the following night, but after having a small nap among the coats, I lost the rest of the night searching for my friend's handbag, which was under the sofa, but my dress was too short for my to check myself so it stayed there until around 6am when I finally planted the idea it was there in someone else's head.

Next week, my mum, sister and I are off to New York where I'm going to have to make my mum pay for her own Christmas presents. A helicoptor tour around the city will be also involved and sitting through the Producers. Fortunately, Guys and Dolls wasn't showing.

I will soon start charting the culinary conversations I have to sit through at work ("Do you like rice?" "I like rice, but Brian doesn't like rice," "Yeah, I like rice, but Dave doesn't, Anne, do you like rice?"). Have you ever heard of an office with a constant running buffet?! This might be why I'm thickening up around the middle, but it will all drop off when I'm at the prison, where I can only eat at five hour intervals, so I will soon be sporting the jutting hips of a catwalk anorexic, minus the purging vommy smell.

Love and Mr Kipling mince pies.