Grey Pride

---

Yes, I am definitely getting grey hairs. Though I read somewhere that grey hairs are an optical illusion caused by white hairs next to dark ones.

So, yes, I am definitely getting white hairs.

---

My expensive mp3 player has died. My cheap mp3 player, bought around the same time, still works perfectly. Huh.

---

Did you know Korean has more native speakers than French? Portuguese has more than Russian, and Japanese more than German. And Wu Chinese, spoken only in Shanghai, is thirteenth in the list of native speaker numbers?

It seems no one can agree on how many varieties of Arabic there are.

---

I've got 100 ebooks by Stephen King. I've never read anything by Stephen King, I've read exactly one horror novel in my life ("Fluke" by James Herbert), I don't especially want to read horror stories and I don't have time to do it.

Nevertheless, after stumbling upon a site where I could download a hundred of them, I was seized with the desire to do so. If it had cost me one penny to do it, I wouldn't have bothered. Is everyone else like this?

---

Where should I go in a month? Ric says I shouldn't go to Poland, perhaps because of the lunatics in government and unstable economy, though others say I'd like the people, food and culture. Eastern Europe is poor, catholic, and reputedly welcoming.

South America - Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina etc? Poor, catholic, and politically complex.

Western Europe - France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany...er, Belgium. I've a feeling I'd have a lot of competition there, though it has the benefit of being culturally familiar.

India or Pakistan? Lots of entrepreneurs and office drones who need to know Business English, which is like English but without any of the flavour.

Southern Asia - South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan? Similar remark, but definite possibilities.

China! An enormous place about which I know absolutely nothing, with cities that make London look small and slow. Hyperactive and very, very foreign.

The former Soviet Union? The place that witnessed the failure of tsarism to against bolshevism 90 years ago, the failure of Bolshevism against effective capitalism 70 years ago, the failure of state capitalism against corporate capitalism 30 years ago...and the failure of capitalism now. Hence the famously melancholy Russian soul.

Some tell me the market for EFL teachers in the UK is overcrowded, but others have said the exact opposite. It would be ironic if I wound up in one of the five language schools of my home town. A possibility though.

The one thing everyone agrees on is...not Africa! Or most of the Middle East.

Basically, I don't know much about the outside world, and I'd like to see any bits of it that won't try to kill me. Sweden? Iceland, maybe?

---

I can also download the complete works of Ayn Rand. But I won't. I do have some standards.

---