And another riveting English lesson gets under way … I was rather disappointed that my new pupil, Gladys, didn’t turn up for class on Saturday.  I pictured her with her hair in rollers and a mop in her hand, looking rather out of place amongst the eight-year-olds in the class. And then she didn’t even… Continue reading Updates from the chalkface

Mahathir, Malaysia’s new prime minister, turned 93 this week, while his wife is a sprightly 92. But his impending century has not lessened his determination to expose the corruption of his predecessor, Najib, and Najib’s extremely unpopular wife, Rosmah. The whole country has been agog at the details emerging during the search of their home.… Continue reading A handbag?

Shopping in Malaysia can be a frustrating experience; customer service is an unknown concept, and it’s not unusual to be ignored in a shop while the many, many assistants all stand around glued to their phones.  I’m afraid that this attitude brings out the Mem Sahib in me, and I march up to one of… Continue reading Shopping … Malaysian-style

How about this for the entrance to a national park? We arrived by boat, and waded from the shallows up to the beach in gloriously warm water I couldn’t understand why nobody was swimming, until our guide explained that the waters here are home to crocodiles – and the saltwater crocodile is the largest living… Continue reading On the trail of the headhunters in Sarawak

I’ve always seen myself as an urban creature; like the town mouse I prefer a life of feasting and uncertainty to dull simplicity.  Whilst a brisk walk in the countryside is lovely on a sunny day, I’ve never been one for nature-spotting – I’m quite happy to leave that to twitchers, whale watchers and David… Continue reading Sarawak: the David Beckham monkey

Ramadan is here again.  If you hadn’t realised, you’d soon find out when you tried to get anywhere on the roads from 5 – 7 pm and found them all jammed solid, as people dash home to get ready to break their fast at the appointed time – 7.21 pm today in KL, after an… Continue reading It’s that time of year again… Ramadan

I had a jolly spiffing birthday yesterday – Although there was one rather strange moment at work where we all sang Happy Birthday and had cake. What’s so strange about that? Well, it wasn’t for me, it was for some other people at work … whose birthdays were four weeks ago – So I found… Continue reading Happy Birthday to me …

Yesterday was an extraordinary day in Malaysia; the ruling party was finally toppled after running the country for 61 years, ever since it became an independent country.  The corrupt Prime Minister, who recently rejigged all the electoral boundaries to try to ensure another victory, has been ousted. I woke to a text from our head… Continue reading Showers of Owls

Elections in Malaysia are positively biblical – you have to return to your home town to vote; you can’t vote in the town where you currently live.  I don’t think you actually have to travel there on the back of a donkey, but it’s still a pretty archaic system for the 21st Century. The General… Continue reading Cakes and Holidays

This week I learned that the words for ‘late’ and ‘sodomy’ in Bahasa are practically indistinguishable to the non-native speaker.  So, it’s a good idea for all foreigners to be extremely punctual, thus  avoiding the danger of accidentally confessing to a crime and ending up with a twenty-year prison sentence. And then I had an… Continue reading The perils of mispronunication

I’ve learnt that when chums visit you have to stop lolling around on the sofa and go off and do a bit of sightseeing.  So when Caroline came to stay, once we’d exhausted the possibilities KL has to offer, we popped up to Penang for a couple of days. We found the most wonderful cake… Continue reading Popping up to Penang

Malaysians are outraged. Why? You might ask – they’re pretty placid people on the whole. Well, there’s a general election coming up, and the ruling party has been busy changing the electoral boundaries to ensure that there’s a majority of Muslims in every catchment area, so that the National Party gets back into power. The… Continue reading We are not amused …

I do love being unkind to children … I think that must be why I decided to go into teaching in the first place.  This was my April Fools’ Day prank – I stuck this notice on the door and then hid, along with the first three children who’d arrived to class.  They hid under… Continue reading Releasing my inner Miss Trunchbull

I was surprised when a child asked me this the other day.  What on earth is she writing about, I wondered, given that the title of the story was supposed to be ‘My First Day at Pirate School’. I obviously looked puzzled, so she elaborated, ‘I can spell first and second but I don’t know… Continue reading Teacher, how do you spell ‘turd’?