May 21, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: rule of thumb My mother turned 70 last month and to celebrate we took her to Majorca for a week-long break. We rented a villa in Puerto Pollensa up on the north coast. It was just about large enough for my mum and her partner, John; my brother, his wife and their adopted kid, Jamie; John’s daughter from […]
May 16, 2017 Chunks, Phrase of the day Phrase of the day: go pear-shaped Last night I was at our local pub quiz. For anyone who hasn’t experienced this, basically it’s an excuse for people to get together and drink, but at the same time it allows ourselves to feel that we are not drunks or layabouts because we are actually proving our great intelligence and knowledge. Never mind […]
May 14, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: ransom Over the last few days, the news here in the UK has been dominated by the hackers currently holding the country to ransom! It all began last Friday afternoon, when computers in several hospitals around the country suddenly stopped working normally and instead started showing a pop-up message which demanded a $300 (£233) ransom per […]
May 9, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: landslide As you’ve probably noticed, France has elected a new president. From a British point of view, the French system is quite peculiar in that not only do the people directly elect the President, but there are also are two rounds of voting – unless one candidate wins an outright majority (more than 50%) in the […]
May 7, 2017 Chunks, Word of the day Word of the day: professional When I was in Norilsk, in the far north of Russia earlier this year, I was lucky enough to have a free day at the end of the teacher development course I’d been running there. We decided we were going to head off to Dudinka, a town on the mighty Yenisei river that serves as […]
