In "The Town I Loved So Well," Phil Coulter sings:

and when times got rough,
there was just about enough,
and we saw it through without complaining" .

In recent weeks I've met plenty of people who see it through without complaining. I've been teaching kids a language spoken in countries that few will ever visit, helping them to a certificate in one of the world's least meritocratic societies.

Throughout my formal education, I was taught that cliches are a bad thing, but it's only meeting people who are incapable of defying cliche on any level that I have begun to understand the importance.

The cliche of hard-work being the only key and cause that success has is the particularly grating one at the moment.

I can't sum up the time I've had since my last post briefly, but one thing this (until recently, peasent) society has to its advantage is that people are aware that hard-work is just a fact of existence and doesn't guarantee or entitle one to anything.

This is by no means a perfect place to be, I ordered a milk-tea three times this morning, the first time it came with beans in it, the second time with a cocktail stick and a cherry and the third time with ice. And the etiquette is simply abysmal, more than can be corrected in the one year before the Olympics, but knowing how little there is for me in the UK, I haven't once itched to be home.