Bulgaria with Noodles

I have had a lot of teachers contacting me through the TES, asking me what it is like to teach in Qatar. This is the "standard reply" that I have sent to many, many teachers around the world. Thank you for your e-mail. Welcome to the exciting world of international education! The first thing that I would like to say is that I am not an employment agency – some people seem to think that I am – and therefore my advice, help and opinions are free of charge. They are, however, not always reliable and up-to-date. I was just a Year 5 Class Teacher! I try to give accurate and honest information to people, but of course I am not infallible. Now I want to tell you a bit about who I am and what I did. My wife and I were both teaching for two years at Newton International School (West Bay) in Doha, Qatar. Next I was at Newton British School for two years and then I was at Newton Lagoon. We do not have any children. I was the KS2 coordinator at West Bay and so I had a mont...

Here is another reply to a message on the TES . It gives me an excuse for including a few of the excellent photos that were taken by my friend Peter when he came to stay with us in Shenzhen.  In a nutshell, DON'T take the kitchen sink with you. Try to find out as much as you can about what will (and what will not) be provided by the school. Think very carefully about what you really need to take with you and what you could actually do without.  Are you going to get an apartment provided by the school? Or will the school's HR people put you in contact with some letting agencies, so that you might get some choice about your accommodation? Or will there be some other arrangement? It really would be silly to bring with you all kinds of bits and pieces, only to find that those things have already been provided!  Of course you could ask the school's HR people, but an even better strategy is to ask for the e-mail addresses of a couple of the present staff. Most pr...

Lunch for a hard-working blogger At lunchtime yesterday, Irena and I were sitting on our balcony (the one next to her music room). It was a wonderfully sunny day with lots of trees in blossom and not a cloud was in the deep blue sky. We were having a good glass or two of white wine (in case you were wondering, it wasTargowischter Eselsmilch, about 2 leva a bottle) with some cold chicken, humus and salad. It was a bit bizarre and you might say that in some ways it was almost obscene, having such a good scoff and listening to Irena’s Clavinova quietly tinkling in the background, playing some old piano tunes, while all over Europe this dreadful Coronavirus disaster goes on and on. I felt a bit like Vincent Prince, playing Prince Prospero in The Masque of the Red Death.   A View from a Balcony (not a Bridge) As for the U.S. of A., my guess is that it is going to be much, much worse. They have an idiot in charge of the country, President Chump, and their health system only ...

Dear Mina, First of all, yes, I had the misfortune to teach at Newton and in fact I was in Qatar for five years altogether. Before I go on (and on!) about the negatives, here are a few positives. Firstly, my wife and I both had some fairly serious surgery while we were in Doha. The care we received was excellent and it did not cost us anything.  Secondly, we did save a bunch of cash. I have to be honest and say I do not know how much exactly, but we did manage to build up some fairly good savings (not something that most teachers in the UK can do, alas). We had some nice holidays (Sri Lanka and Malaysia) and we were running TWO cars as well.   Thirdly, the accommodation was, on the whole, not too bad and the school picked up the tab for the utilities (electricity and water).  Fourthly, there are some fun things to do in Qatar, although not that many (it is quite a small place, after all). Now onto the negatives. The Newton Empire was founded...

I don’t like racism. Whatever you think of people from other countries, even those whose skin colour is not the same as yours, you still do not have to be rude and unkind to them, even if they do eat some weird or disgusting things. (I often wonder what my Chinese friends would think of haggis, that highlight of  Scottish cuisine, or my special favourite, black pudding.) Yes, it is true that the Chinese have some pretty racist attitudes, especially towards black people, as I made clear in my blog. (See my posts Blackface, Red faces and Hell’s Holidaymakers ). On the other hand, I have I have been absolutely disgusted by some of the appalling and racist comments I have read about China recently. Irena and I were very happy during our five years in China because so many Chinese people were kind and friendly to us. I particularly enjoyed teaching my students at Green Oasis. Blaming China (or individual Chinese people) for the Coronavirus pandemic is outrageous, esp...

I do not want to write about the situation with the Coronavirus. It is just awful. The evening news reminds me of the concert parties or entertainment troupes that were supposed to keep up morale during the Second World War. The initials were "ENSA", so the soldiers joked that it stood for "Every Night Something Awful". The snow has all gone now and maybe the Spring is thinking about coming back. It has not quite made up its mind, as the weather, though sunny, is still quite chilly and perhaps we are going to have another big freeze next week. Typical blooming boring Brit, always going on about the silly weather. You probably do not want to read about that, so let us get on with the much more important matter of sirniki. What are they? Well, sirniki are little cakes, made with lots of izvara , a sort of Bulgarian cottage cheese.  We had some of these yummy little cheesey things (well, quite a few, actually) for breakfast this morning, with some good ...

Okay, so we are in the middle of the most terrible pandemic since the Black Death, with stock markets crashing all around the world and the health services struggling to cope with more and more cases. There is, quite obviously, only one thing to be done: make homemade marmalade. First you need a lot of oranges and sugar. My dear Irena says that it is more or less one kilo of sugar to a kilo of fruit. Then you need to “top and tail” the oranges and start the long, laborious process of peeling. Now don’t go breaking my heart, as Elton John and Kikki Dee used to sing, by throwing away any of that peel. When the outer, orangey peel has been peeled, then you need to peel it again (yes, I know it is not so exciting) in order to get rid of the white stuff. Then all of the orange peel and then all of the oranges go into the splendid Bosch mincer. This Bosch mincer is the real deal. (Yes, I do hope that a kind and generous Bosch executive is reading this blog and then maybe we c...