Aye, aye, fishy pie!!

I know, I know, haven't been here for yonks. Sorry. I still love you.I really have been meaning to come back for ages, but I'm lazy. And busy. Paradoxical, innit.I had to post because I was getting really miserable back then, and it has been pointed out

Disappointing, dad

There’s an exercise I do with new students based on a Kelly Osbourne Q&A I lifted from the Guardian Weekend magazine. They have to match her answers to the appropriate question, then give their own responses whilst interviewing me. Whenever we get

Three years

So it’s three years since we arrived in Argentina. I suppose I could’ve started this blog with the words, “So it’s three years since we left England,” but that would be too retrospective. Onwards and upwards.So it’s three years since we arrived in Argentina,

Touch

Well, I'm glad to see I haven't entirely lost my touch.I dropped my old pals at the EDP a line last night to ask if there was any truth in the Norfolk connection to this story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/21/ukcrime2Got an email in my inbox

Soledad

Soledad is 18 years old, funny, beautiful, bright and paraplegic. She’s been bed-bound for more than three months, since the car she was travelling in was involved in a head-on collision at a black spot outside Buenos Aires shortly before Christmas. I

Drugs

I’m totally zonked out because I’ve just started a course of antidepressants, the first time I’ve done so in my life. I finally caved in last week to the depressing (he he) reality of my state of mind – shouting, angry, swearing, borderline violent (I

Sponsored nose blow

I’m sitting in front of a growing mound of sloppy tissue paper, and I’ve got a wad of it stuffed up my left nostril. There’s an unbearable itch high in my right sinus sphenoidalis, and in all, my olfactory organ is producing around a quart a minute of

How to unblock drains, Patagonia style.

I can’t believe how many people have read the “Carlos Soria ate my hamster” blog. Literally countless many of them.  I only hope they are not all the legal representatives of litigious South American politicos. It does make me wonder what makes the

Sweaty craic

Good God, it’s hot. It’s so hot I am discovering previously unknown crevices thanks entirely to unpleasant trickles of sweat. Species of parasitic worm which normally only flourish beside oceanic hydrothermal vents have established complex civilisations

Accident

I feel as though a milestone has been reached in terms of belonging to my new home. Sadly it’s not an agreeable one: a local tragedy has touched me deeply.I have a lovely colleague, Mercedes. She’s been a mentor to me these past two years, doing at primary

Carlos Soria ate my hamster

It’s been a long time since I genuinely upset anyone with my writing. At least, with my English writing. I genuinely upset someone with my Spanish writing not so long ago. I would go into details, but it would involve translating tedious amounts of bile,

President

As I write, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a new president. Not that that is surprising in itself – the incumbent, Néstor Kirchner, had stood down to allow his wife, Cristina, to run. So one way or another, today's election was only ever going to result

Gob

Another evening, another balmy drive through some of my favourite motoring streets. My, how my pulse calms with every second spent behind the wheel. In fact, such was my rapture tonight, I was transported back in time to one of my happiest experiences

Vegetables

Yesterday evening I went to the green grocer’s on one of the main streets which run perpendicular to the railway, and spent 15 pesos on two light bags of unremarkable veg. Almost two-thirds of that price tag went on 2.4kg of potatoes.Ahead of me in the

Greetings, pop pickers

Hello All! And especially hello, Pat and Minnie - thanks for the messages.Sorry, I kind of spontaneously combusted there. Disappeared in a self-generated pyroclastic flow. Never a pretty sight, and never particularly gratifying for readers who are not