Back from a pleasant conference in Hildesheim, Germany. Good to see Stephen Krashen perform. Today I went to Gyor in Hungary and was sunbathing outside! What a change.

I'm back from a week travelling around the Czech Republic in stupidly cold temperatures. Cesky Krumlov and Prague were wonderful.

My latest ebook is ready! For all Chinese speakers...

Back from three days in Eastern Germany. Erfurt, Leipzig and Dresden. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the cities were.

My bag finally got back to me - via Istanbul!

Back from 3 days of skiing in the French Alps. Swiss(air) managed to lose my bag on the way back.

I have new page of my ten favourite books ever. My ten worst books ever will folllow shortly.

My Spanish e.book - Learn Spanish with Jokes, is now available for download! In its first week it reached number 7 in the e.book download charts! Read more about it here, or you can download it from here.

Some websites are written in the third person, others in the first person. This one started in the first person, changed to the third person but, roll on the drums, I have decided to go back to the first person. It will take a while so please be patient.

Back from a very pleasant week working in Barnstaple. Lovely teachers - and the weather wasn't too bad.

I had a wet yet wonderful week in Slovakia. It was even wetter in the Czech Republic where 14 people drowned in floods.

Lots of new work on e.books. Yes, the world isn't quite ready for them - but when it is, I am ready.

I have just returned from a second visit to Cyprus. This time the island was green following some very welcome showers. Pictures will follow shortly.

I resigned from TEFL Training after five years. I'm looking forward to an exciting 2009 with new challenges and adventures.

December 15th 2006: The time has come. I have been in France for five years and have decided it is time to move on. There are plenty of good things about France and there are certain aspects of life in France that I will miss. But I'm looking forward to working on my new house in a country far away...

June 6th 2006: I have just returned from doing 2 training courses. A short break for me before I set off for Lithuania. The first course I ran was in Bristol. I got to the station in Pau to find the following

'Supprimé' means cancelled. Why this train? Because there was a strike. (No mention of a strike when I bought the ticket about 16 hours before). A taxi from Pau to Bordeaux costs 'more than 250 euros' said a taxi driver. I paid 70 euros to get as far as Aire sur l'Adour and then hitchhiked to the airport. A very big thank you to Andry Rasidimanana, a Madagascan doctor, who took me to the airport.

The flight to Bristol was on time and things went well until over Bristol, the captain announced that there was too much fog at the airport and the plane couldn't land until it cleared - the alternative being diverted to Exeter. The plane circled for about 20 minutes before getting the green light to land. The plane descended, wheels came out, then went back in and the plane rose back up into the air. The fog had cleared but it was too windy to land in the little Fokker. (Insert your own joke here). Arriving in Exeter, I jumped on a bus to town and took a train to Bristol. The journey took one hour, was two minutes early and the man who sold me the ticket was wonderfully polite!

I'm putting together a collection of 'alternative English'. Have a look here at how both foreigners and native speakers can murder the English language.

* More French! I have put up a page of text called 'Quand je suis arrivé en France...'. If your French is good, or if you are French, you might enjoy the humour. Even French people might not know the word 'amict', it's the scarf thing priests wear around their neck and shoulders (thanks bjd). The pronunciation is the same as 'ami' according to a book on French homophones. Like to take a look? Click here.

* I did some work for Catherine Murphy's excellent website for learners of French. In her move towards taking over the world, she now has versions in French, German, Spanish and Welsh! Check out my work for Cath - an exercise on the subjunctive is here and one on whether to use etre or avoir in the past tense is here. If you think your French is not very good then try some simple reading in French here.