An Englishman in Verona

Having finished the year with a week full of Christmas lessons and thus discovered that Italians don’t have crackers, I bought some back with me to show them. In a class on Thursday I gave one of them to a pair of students to pull. The thing broke open without the bang; I had to find the – wha'd'yer'call'it? – cracking bit and pull each end myself. Inside was a poxy little mirror. I swiftly grabbed the joke before the students could as I knew it would be rubbish. The whole thing suddenly felt rather pathetic.

Sometimes I thing my students look at me with a certain sympathy, coming from a strange land with crap weather and bad food. Christmas crackers don’t, apparantly, help.