How to make someone fall in love with you in 29 steps.

More old books have gone!

In the same breath: I can't believe anyone wants all 29 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia has more information than all 29 volumes and it doesn't take up all that space on your wall. The teacher who took it told me that he was tired of looking things up on wikipedia and then printing them out. "It's just not the same," he said.

I have literally no idea how to react to that. I realise that paper copies of anything still hold a certain fascination for people; the debate and extended metaphor I got into with a friend of mine over on tumblr speaks volumes as to how passionately people feel about it. All the same, those 29 volumes weigh a huge amount, and he takes the bus to work. I'm struggling to work out how he's going to engineer getting them home. Maybe he'll take them one at a time, puzzling his fellow travelers, until one of them - who's had a quiet crush on him for a while - asks him about it. They talk, they make plans for coffee, they fall in love and out of it and finally get married.

And I probably won't get invited to the wedding, but that's life for you.

I've run out of things to do in my mediatheque as things are decided high above me, and so I've started making an inventory of our DVDs for the students who want to borrow them while they're in storage. So far I've found a ton that I really want to borrow. Oh, the glorious power. In any case, that's how my afternoon has been spent, broken up by lecturers coming in to see if there's anything of interest left on the shelves. A few more books went today, including a study guide to the GRE and a book about British motor cars. Last thing on the agenda today was a call from the (at least) trilingual marketing co-ordinator who wanted a second opinion on a student-targeted press release.

An early blog means I'm focussed on supper, which tonight is salmon with a creamy spinach, parsley and lemon sauce. The parsley is by accident; persil is a kind of laundry detergent in English but means parsley in French and, rather than admitting my mistake, I took the parsley and found the laundry detergent myself.

In the words of my ever-charming American friend Paula - so British it hurts. See also: British problems, real and terrifying situations natives of my little isle find themselves in every day.

I leave you with a surreal look at the most obnoxiously handsome French man I've ever seen, promoted to me by another American - my friend +Helen Alexis Yonov. Take a look.

A shameful confession

Today has, as I had hoped, been a very interesting day. I was up by 8 and out of the flat by 9, on my way to teach a lesson. I confess I took the bus; I ran a couple of miles last night far too quickly and my legs were not slow to reprimand me. The lesson that I had expected to run for three hours ran only for two, and this is where the day started to get a bit wonky.

Now last night I planned my route around my students; they live about three miles from each other and three miles from me; thus, a path from my flat to the first to the second and home is a natural triangle. I had one hour between the first and the second student and was looking forward to a genteel stroll with some music to listen to.

Now, for some reason when I left my first student's house I thought it had been three hours, and not two, and so I made my way to the second student. It had started to snow lightly, but it wasn't settling - just melting and pouring past me in the gutter. I hunched myself into my nice warm coat and hustled a little; snow is lovely until you realise at 20 miles an hour the delicate little flakes become nature's own shuriken.

The extra turn of speed provided to me by the unbroken assault of snow shaved a quarter of an hour off my journey, and before I knew it I was buzzed through to the house. The students' mother looked surprised to see me and the family were just finished dinner; I felt a little embarrassed at having arrived fifteen minutes late but was assured it wasn't a problem.

As before, I had daughter and son for an hour each and daughter seemed exceedingly keen so, beneath her mother's disapproving eye, we headed through to the study. I'd set her a couple of short essay questions to expand her writing ability and it seems she has a similarly verbose style; I'm impressed with her ability but it really doesn't leave much for me to teach. Son came next and we talked about what he studied; I had him explain atoms, the free market, and David Beckham, so I'm pretty sure the poor guy'll be even more unwilling than usual to go back to school tomorrow. They both got new and exciting essay topics and I have to say I look forward to reading them next week.

Having concluded lessons I made my way back to the kitchen where students' mother asked if next time I could come closer to three, as it was very unfair on her to have come so early. I confess I was a little put out; I had been only 15 minutes early but, I thought to myself, she's the boss.

I was halfway down the road when I looked at my watch and saw, much to my surprise, that it was only four. I was not supposed to have finished teaching until five. Had my watch stopped? Had I only taught my students for half an hour? Had -

That was when it dawned on me. That was when I located my missing hour and re-viewed the past two in my head. Considered from the students' mother's point of view:

A relatively handsome man whom she has met only once turns up an hour and fifteen minutes early, gives weak platitudes in apology and then vanishes to the study for an hour with daughter.

I could not have been more mortified. A vampire in transit passed me by completely, thinking me by my complexion already dead. Utter, awful horror washed over me. She had not been impolite in her goodbyes, merely trying to reassure herself that the man whom she had invited into her house could tell the time and had more sense than to barge in when people were having lunch.

Were I not British the upper lip might have jolly well trembled. My visible composure could have shattered but, save for a certain clammy, pallid air around the face, I remained resolutely unshattered. It was only within that the storm broke, but broke it did with wailing and gnashing of the teeth.

In any case, I struggled home, the ice that had frosted my hair and crowned me the dark-haired prince of some winter realm now melting and running down my face like the manly tears I absolutely did not shed. The heat from internal shame boiled the water and before long I was steaming inside my own jacket like King Edward. Sorry, a King Edward.

Tonight is my last night of sketch writing (until I start again tomorrow) so I'm polishing and trying not to over-word-ify. A real thing and a real danger.

I've also got a very hot pan behind me and a well seasoned steak, so it looks like aside from the minor hiccup today has been a Good Day.

If you're interested in my sketches, and want to see what it looks like when I actually try to be funny, do please let me know. I'm always keen to get feedback.

Exponential views!

My blog will soon pass three thousand (!) hits, and I would like to thank everyone who reads regularly for making me feel like the most important person on the internet. I'm 99.9% sure I'm not, but it feels pretty good to believe so. Therefore - thank you.

I arrived back in France yesterday after a very odd Eurostar journey. We were well into France, perhaps an hour away from Paris, when the most awful din started up. It sounded like the noise that occurs when you drive your car over a newly gritted road, but since I was on a train I could not for the life of me work out what the noise was. It was seriously unsettling, and the baby seated on its father's lap evidently agreed and began bawling its lungs out.

I was struggling to get back into French mode and was hesitating a little at the ticket window when a chap stepped so close to me that I could feel his beard and asked in French if I was going to take much longer. In French, but with a British accent. A British person who had clearly been away for so long that he had forgotten common courtesies. I confess I was a little sharp with the man, who huffed and told me that he was in a hurry.

Had I then dawdled and passed the time conversing with the man behind the window about the unknowable nature of God I daresay karma would have forgiven me but I resisted. I completed my transaction with appropriate haste and made my way down to the station, standing to one side on the escalator for this be-whiskered oik pass at some speed. Despite his alacrity he was,
 sadly - so sadly! - just a little too late for the train. There was another along in three minutes, and he twitched and paced for 180 seconds. I would have liked to know what  the terrible hurry was, but like many of the mysteries we glance in the lives of others it shall always remain so - a mystery.

It is pleasant, in any case, to be back.

I'm on the road again

I have travelled back to the land of my fathers, where the place known as Hill Hill Hill can be found. Hill in Welsh is pen, and invaders who settled there called it Pen Hill, assuming pen to be the name of the hill. Before long, more invaders had arrived, and over time the hill in question had become Pendle. The same thing happened again, and Pendle Hill, or Hillhill Hill, can still be found in Lancashire.

I am back in these United Kingdoms until Monday and I'm really excited about the weekend ahead. Tonight my parents are making a lasagne, a treat without compare when you consider I have no access to oven facilities in my chic little studio apartment.

Before I left I finished all my work and actively sought out my supervisor to make sure she knew I was leaving - the last thing I need this weekend is a call about an urgent translation, especially as my phone is patchy at best here - and made some minor adjustments to the Student's Association's application for sponsorship to some local businesses.

We're off to a wedding tomorrow, and I've been requested to bring my camera - if I take any particularly good shots I'd love to share them here, but it means I shall have to avoid drinking myself under the table. Weddings strike me as an odd sort of affair, people being given away like presents and members of each party eying each other up in the hope of further strengthening ties between the two families - something that also apparently happens under the tables, so if I drink myself into a stupor at least I'll still have subjects.

I went into the local supermarket before I went home, as I've promised to bring my boss back some Marmite. At first she thought I said marmalade and turned her nose up; "Je n'aime pas des confitures," she said: I don't like jams. "Ah non", I said, "it's savoury, a British delicacy." So she agreed to try this spread, little suspecting that it is one of the foulest things we've ever invented. In any case, I went, I got in line, and after some light flirty banter with the cashier I made it home.

I like flirty banter, and I humbly suggest that more people do it in their day-to-day life.

I'm also going up to see an old school pal in Loughborough on Sunday, where I suspect I shall look entirely out of place amongst the über-fit and healthy students of the university. And then a swift journey back on Monday to London and then on to home and my oven-less studio apartment.

The scent of lasagne is calling me to the table, but before I leave, I ask:

Which character from the world of literature always smells like old, stinking tobacco?