of all the things i thought i'd experience...

…out here – going mano-a-mano with a wild bear, a sabre fight with an enraged cossack, or a troika-ride with julie christie – being a two-day z-list celebrity was not one of them. however, this week i managed to add it to the list. i was at a trade fair dealing with education abroad. i had my own little cubicle with a table and a couple of chairs and a sign saying ‘test your english – ask questions about england’. it seemed innocuous enough and my boss seemed to think it would help her cause, so i was happy to do it. what neither of us banked on though was quite how exotic an englishman is out here. to begin with, people walked by singly and in twos, then they would go and get more people and they would point and laugh, and then, finally, one of them would get the courage up to come and talk to me, at which point as many people as possible would gather around the little table to hear the strange words spoken with the strange accent.

the conversation was pretty basic but very engaging. if i gave a particularly good answer (‘what is your favourite colour?’ ‘green’ ‘ooooooh!’) it sent the whole crowd into raptures. where it got a bit freaky was when people started asking for my autograph and to have their photo taken with me. i kept asking за чем? – what for? i have a deeply unimpressive signature, built for speed not art, but still they seemed to think it was worth something so i was happy to oblige. however, as monroe and lennon knew – fame is not the ride on easy street they would have you believe – it has a terrible cost too. in my case, by the end of each day my voice was reduced to a little gusty noise at the back of my throat and i was compelled to take another in a long line of folk remedies – honey and vodka. awful.