I really should have said this three weeks ago. Sorry.

Yes, I'm back in England at the moment, after a safe and uneventful blah blah blah. I'll be returning to Russia some time in the second week of September, all being well with visas and flights and so on.

I probably won't write much on here during the summer, unless something really interesting happens. But then, this is England.

Old friends: feel free to get in touch with me if you want to. Usual address, phone number etc.


James

Also, if anyone wants a copy of my new poetry pamphlet, 'Together and Elsewhere', which is split 50:50 with an American poet called Adam Mahiques, then let me know. I'll stick one in the post for you.

OH NO! I'VE LOST MY VISA!!!

Only kidding...

Today I accompanied a sick friend of mine, another teacher, to the doctor here. Luckily we have private medical insurance as part of our contract but she's a bit doctor-phobic and has spent the past month denying she is ill, despite a hacking cough, feeling faint, temperatures, all that sort of stuff. Anyway, I finally got her to see the doctor only for us to be told that she has bronchitis!

So then it took me a good two more hours to persuade her to take some time off work.... added to that, I had to help her pick up her prescription, take her to physio, and stop her passing out on the metro after too many drugs. So I've been a right regular boy scout today. Well, I've got nothing else to do. Apart from spend time in the internet cafe, natch.

Only six more days to go before I'm back in England...

Just spent most of the past week in Obninsk, not doing much really, getting bitten by mosquitos and blood-sucking flies, drinking vodka, sleeping. So that was all very pleasant. Kostya is still working on his album in the recording studio - four songs nearly completed now.

Actually outside Kiev Station in Moscow, just before I left for Obninsk, I got jumped on by about twenty five gypsy women. Well, when I say 'jumped on', I mean that I started to run when I saw what was happening, as a couple of friends of mine have had things stolen in the past by groups of gypsies.

So if you can, picture me legging it about 200 yards down a bus rank in crowded central Moscow, being chased by a small army of head-scarved, floral-dress wearing h\gypsy ladies, all crying out to me in several languages! It was like something from Benny Hill. I managed to outrun them, probably the first time I have ever outrun anybody in my whole life.

CAMP

Still slacking off, not doing much, not earning much.

I was offered so work, though - at the dreaded GULAG, I mean summer camp. Worse still, it was a 'Lord of the Rings' themed summer camp - lots of poncing about in tights waving swords while trying to teach the third conditional. Not even Solzhenitsyn had to go through that. So I turned it down. I only have two weeks left here anyway.

Helpfully, though, I did volunteer my flatmate for the camp. I think the Black Maria is coming for him any time now. Goodbye Anthony, have fun...

I might escape to Obninsk in the next day or two. There's rumour going round of a 'Harry Potter' themed gulag and I want to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible.

Incidentally, talking of Obninsk. The girl who has been sent to the summer camp at Dubravushka has now decided that she hates it so much she is going to commute from Moscow every day! That's 100km there, another 100km back, on the pootling little electric train.

*

In the teachers' room today, under duress, I took some stupid personality test on a website called Thespark.com which told me that I was 34 per cent gay. I wouldn't mind but this makes me officially the gayest man in Language Link (including one staff member who is actually gay). The second test, just to add insult to injury, told me I was a woman.

I have, however, grown back my beard, which is both heterosexual and very masculine. It is not as ginger as last time. This is not saying much.

IT'S A HARD LIFE

I'm not really working at the moment, as all my regular classes have finished and Language Link haven't found anything else to give me yet. I'm sure they will. But then, I only have three more weeks until I fly back to England.

I do have a few private lessons which are tiding me over, keeping me busy. Thirty dollars an hour, that's not too shoddy. Sorry, I'm not boasting, I was just very surprised. I was thinking of asking for fifteen... I should set up business on my own really... well, I would probably need Russian citizenship... well, I guess I have to find a wife...

The weather here is quite poor. It's not cold, but it is rather wet. I think it's nicer in England at the moment. I don't know where the sun has got to this summer.

THERE IS NO ESCAPE

I'm coming back to Russia next year, by the way. I have signed a new contract for the next academic year starting in September. I'll be based solely in Schodnenskaya, so no more trips up to the wind tunnel that is Mitino.

Getting a contract involved me meeting the head honcho, our number one, the great leader, for the very first time... he's a hyperactive, sarcastic Jewish American, a sort of portly Quentin Tarantino figure, if you can imagine that. He said I looked Scottish.

Incidentally, a girl serving in a kiosk started speaking to me in French when she heard my foreign accent! That's a lot better than being mistaken for a German or an American...

Other plans. I'm taking a CELTA course over the summer in London, so I'll be a proper fully-qualified teacher. Well, it'll keep me out of trouble while I'm home anyway....

SUITS YOU

The latest development in Russian sartorial style: handbags for men.

Seriously. Every metro carriage seems to be filled with little leather-bag wielding mincers, straps strung jauntily over one shoulder. They go well with the pointy shoes though. And the denim waistcoats.

NIKITA ANECDOTE

I remembered an old anecdote about my 8-year-old student, Nikita, that is worth recording. If you recall, this is the student who brought a knife to class, as well as a scooter, lazer pens, and so on...

We had been studying 'The Village' - I had a big picture of a village and we were trying to name the buildings:

Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a church.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: Er, it's a graveyard.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a grave.

Ten minutes passed, and the group was in the middle of another activity - some grammar exercises I think. Suddenly Nikita starts intoning, in a very sinister Shining-type voice: "One grave... eleven graves.... fifty four graves..." He went up and up and up. Pretty soon he had reached a total of around nine hundred graves. Well, that freaked me out, I can tell you.

Everyone here is talking about the stupid American who was due to start working here at Language Link last week. He flew out to Moscow from the States only to be sent straight back home again at the airport - because he hadn't bothered getting a visa!

All he had was a plane ticket, as, and I quote, 'it's still Europe isn't it.' Now he is demanding that Language Link reimburse him for the money he wasted. Personally I don't think he'll get a cent.

*

More interestingly, a couple of Language Link employees showed up in the staff room at the central school the other day - having come to Moscow straight from finishing their contracts teaching engineers in a Siberian mine! That sounds like an interesting thing to do. And my contract is nearly up for renegotiation....

Don't worry, mum! I'm only joking.

But I've heard Belarus is nice.

Well, we have hot water in the flat again.

Sadly the weather has gone manky - the temperature for Moscow today is 5 - 8C. Of course, the heating is off for the summer in our block so it's freezing at night. Wish I hadn't taken all the insulation of the windows now.

I'm on probably my last week of teaching in Mitino now. I still don't know what I'll be doing after that. Probably not summer camp, as we have too many staff finishing regular teaching and not enough places at camp for them all. Well, that's good as I'd rather stick around in Moscow.

My friend Jamie has been sent to camp though - to Obninsk for two weeks! I gave her the lowdown before she went.

Forgot to say. Terrible news.

The kebab shop near my house has shut down.

Also, we are now on our 15th day without hot water in the flat.

So I haven't eaten or washed for over two weeks.

Found a great, if very strange, restaurant on Sunday night. Went there with three other teachers.

It's called the Simple Cafe (Or 'Simply a Cafe' it can also be translated as), in the China Town part of the city. It's under the ground, like everywhere decent in Moscow, through a seedy little doorway. From the outside it looks shut, or possibly shut down.

It's not simply a cafe, though. It's not even a cafe. It's a restaurant. Also (I hear you groaning), it's a karaoke restaurant. This made me laugh because the only two groups of people in the restaurant were a) me and my friends, who aren't that hot at singing in Russian, and b) a group of deaf people!

One of our party was a vegetarian, and wanted to know what she could safely eat on the menu. This led to a great conversation (all in Russian) with our waitress, reassuring me that this was indeed an authentic Russian restaurant:
Liz: I'm a vegetarian.
Waitress: What?
Liz: I'm a ve-ge-tar-ian.
Waitress: What?
Me (trying to be helpful, with my marginally better language skills): She doesn't eat meat.
Waitress: She doesn't eat meat?
Me: Right.
Waitress: What about fish?
Liz: No, no fish.
Waitress (pointing to page on menu): This, this is all meat. (Turns page) This is all meat. (Turns page) This is all meat. (Long pause) You can have a salad. You will have this salad.

Needless to say, the salad came a good twenty minutes before the other three (meat) dishes. I had pork with cheese, surprisingly tasty.

Oh. The other great thing about the restaurant was the special weekend beer prices: 18 roubles. Now, that's the same price as a bottle of beer from a kiosk, and 52 roubles cheaper than a beer from the club next door to Simply a Cafe.

BLEURGH

A horrible little anecdote for you.

I stepped onto a metro train last Thursday evening, heading into the centre to meet some friends for a drink. The middle third of the otherwise-busy carriage was empty, and for good reason - there was a big pool of greeny-yellow vomit spreading across the floor. Luckily, I managed to grab almost the last remaining seat in the 'clean' part of the carriage, although the stench of the sick still carried.

A couple of stops later, a little old lady with a younger man, probably her son, stepped onto the carriage. The old lady, seeing vacant seats, barged her way through to the middle in the typical manner of violent Russian grannies. Unfortunately, she didn't see the vomit. She stepped onto the vomit, slipped, and fell backwards *into* the vomit. Splash. Her son tried to catch her but failed, and nearly ended up on the floor as well. He did get hit by some of the splashback, though.

The carriage was in uproar - everyone trying not to laugh, or gag, as the old woman pulled herself up and tried to wipe the vomit from herself with the one little tissue she happened to have.

The term is drawing to an end and many of my classes have finished, or about to finish. Still don't know what I'll be doing after the end of next week.

I had my final lesson with my group of little kids last week. Nikita, the eight-year-old who has been tormenting me with kitchen implements and laser-pens all year, brought me a present - a hardback book of Winnie the Pooh stories in Russian! All is forgiven. He even signed it, in big scrawling capitals: "IT'S FOR YOU! TO JAMES! FROM NIKITA!"

And although he had promised to bring his new hamster in for the final lesson, that never happened.

So, my amusing anecdotes are out the way. Time for some general news.

Had a crazy week this week. I was phoned at midnight on Sunday by my administrator who was panicking because a teacher who had left on a short trip to the States before the holidays hadn't come back when she was supposed to. So I have been covering some of her classes this week. My timetable has been a mess, but this teacher is allegedly due back today so hopefully next week will be slightly calmer. Some of my own groups are coming to an end about now so my timetable is naturally easing off anyway. With any luck, I'll be down to 25 or 26 academic hours next week.

In other good news, we gave the insane cat back on Thursday. Finally. Incidentally, the teachers who had gone down to Sochi near the Turkish border for the holidays - a mixed party of English, Americans and Russians, including the girl who foisted the cat on us - had all, almost to a man, been arrested on the train on the way back for 'indecency'. Basically, the police pulled them from their beds and arrested them for not wearing trousers. Genius, eh? Who wears trousers when the sleeper trains are superheated? Anyway, the police refused to accept any bribes and one Russian girl, Marina, was forced into signing a confession - so it's probably not the last that they have heard of this incident. Though the police did threaten Ian the stereotypical northerner with writing to Bridlington Council about his behaviour! I bet he's quaking in his DMs.

Some of the teachers are starting to reach the end of their contracts and drift off now. I have my second leaving do to go to tonight, an Australian friend called Emma. Personally I am contracted to work through June and the start of July but I don't know what I'll be doing as the academic year will have finished. Luckily one of my groups want to continue studying throughout this period so it's unlikely that I'll be shipped off to summer camp. Mind you, even that could be interesting (as long as I don't end up back at Dubravushka!).

Remember my eight-year old student, Nikita, who likes to bring things - toys, weapons - to the classroom?

My administrator told me of the following short conversation that occurred between Nikita and his mum (his mum must have told my administrator).

Mum: So, Nikita. You've had four English teachers now. Wendy, Katie, David and James. Do you remember them all?
Nikita: Yes.
Mum: Which ones did you like the best?
Nikita: David... and James.
Mum: James? Why do you like James?
Nikita: He's not normal.

So there you have it. Even knife-toting eight-year olds think I'm strange.

REMONT

Remont. What is remont? Remont is the bane of my life here in Russia.

Let me explain. 'Remont' is a Russian word with no exact English equivalent - a dictionary will tell you that it translates as 'repairs' or 'reconstruction' or 'refurbishment' or something along these lines, but that's not quite accurate.

Remont can apply to shops, flats, amenities, services - anything really. Remont is when a Russian takes something that is working perfectly well, then pulls it to pieces just to make sure. Having reassured himself that it was in working order before he broke it, he will then spend the next couple of weeks putting it back together. With any luck, it will then work nearly as well as it did originally.

At the moment, I have no hot water in my flat. Neither have several thousand other people in my district. When I asked how long this will go on for, I was told - for May. The whole month! So what calamity has caused this situation? One word - remont. Apparently this happens every year. The water board stop the hot water, just to check that the hot water system, the pipes etc, are working properly. After all, they wouldn't want people to have problems with their hot water now would they?

Incidentally, remont can also apply to cities. St Petersburg is currently undergoing remont, which goes some way to explaining why we could get into some of the places we didn't get in to.

WEATHER

It's now +24 in Moscow! Yes, really scorching. All the trees are in full bloom as well. I'm not looking forward to going back to work next week if the heat keeps up. In some ways I prefer the cold. But it means I'll probably come back to England in the summer with a tan and confuse everyone who thinks that Russia is always cold and snowy.

St. Petersburg wasn't quite so warm but we still had a lot of sun. The trees haven't really started to bud there because it's so much farther north, but to make up for it we were getting sun-set at around midnight (and, disconcertingly, getting noticeably later each night). It's only a few weeks till the 'White Nights' phenomenon starts and the city has practically 24-hours of sunlight.

PIE SHOPS

Last night I discovered a great place in Moscow. It is called Proekt O.G.I. - 'The OGI Project', though in Russian it is a sort of pun on the word for 'pie'. It's a small basement bar-stroke-venue-stroke-bookshop-stroke-restaurant-stroke-gallery. It didn't really have much to do with pies. Even the restuarant bit didn't sell them.

We saw, or rather heard from behind a sea of heads, a Moldovan funk-punk band called WK? play. The beer was sooo cheap, and it wasn't crawling with ex-pats (only us, he-he). It's also in a nice part of the city (Chistiye Prudy, or 'Clean Ponds'), and right near a metro station - but well-hidden in a courtyard, so no passing trade. A really nice, friendly, enthusiastic crowd too.

I sometimes feel that all the really nice places in Moscow are in basements. In fact, I don't know a single decent place at street level or above. There's another place I like run by the Proekt OGI people, called Pirogi ('pies'), and that's also mostly underground. It does sell pies, though, among other things. It also has a bookshop. Bizarre. But I would recommend either of these places, should you ever be in Moscow (Pirogi is near Teatralnaya metro station).