Goodbye from Sydney

G’day Leila and all you fantastic people!

I can’t believe it – it’s the end of November and it’s time to say goodbye! Can you believe this is the first time I’ve sat down to write a post and had no idea what to say? Crikey!

Leila, my possum bosom friend – thank you so much for taking the time to make such an effort to write your blog so regularly! It’s been a pleasure to work with you and find out so much about your life and your country. Thank you also for all the amazing photos; we’ve loved looking at them! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your family and I wish you all the best for 2008.

Everyone else – keep reading and there’ll be a message for you somewhere!

Marian from China – thanks for the dumpling recipes! I think it’s interesting that dumplings are a common food across several cultures (I loved the Czech ones when I was living in Prague), and I’m on a mission to try as many different kinds as possible!

Pary from Iran – Owen says hello to Hooman from one cheeky monkey to another! Thank you so much for saying that it was his own fault that Chris lost his shoes – it really made me feel better! (And Chris wasn’t offended at all, so don’t worry!) Your description of charshanbeh soory was fascinating; I really enjoyed reading it and wasn’t bored at all. How cold does it get in your area in winter? It must be pretty chilly if you live in the mountains. And a huge thank you for those two delicious recipes – I’ve printed them out and stuck them in my book (I have a big notebook that I use for pasting recipes that I find in magazines, on the web etc); I am keen to have a go at both of them. The story of my emigration is the most basic of all – I came over to be with Prince Chris! As I think I’ve mentioned, we met at university in Durham where we were studying for a year. It was hard for him to find work in the UK so he came back to Sydney and I went to Prague for a year to get some teaching experience in preparation for coming here. I originally came over on a working holiday visa as I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, or how easy it would be to find work, but as you know I ended up staying! And that’s about it, really! You have absolutely no reason to feel bad about only just having read The Thorn Birds – it’s hard enough to manage working and bringing up a family without keeping up-to-date with the latest books! I’ve found that I’ve done a lot less reading since having Owen, although I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences to replace those I’ve read in books! Yes, I think lorikeets are related to parrots, although they’re a lot smaller. The ones in the photos are Rainbow Lorikeets (I think there are a few varieties). Persepolis sounds like an amazing place – I’d love to see it for myself one day. As for expressing sympathy to your teacher, you could say “I’m sorry to hear about your uncle”, or something similar.

Ares from Vietnam – Thanks for your comments! Please keep participating; it’s great to hear from you.

Sara from Bahrain – What a great idea to learn vocab from the news! And also to listen whilst you’re driving to work; thank you for sharing that with us.

Mansour from Casablanca – Thank you for your all comments; I was especially interested to read about the Green March, as I’d never heard of it before. Your corrections (5th Nov) were good; let me draw your attention to one little point. “It hasn’t reached nearly the popularity …” We can use not …nearly or nowhere near to emphasise the gap between two things in a comparative sentence, usually with as. e.g. Sydney isn’t nearly as cold as Oulu. (= Oulu is much colder than Sydney)

James from Taiwan – Learning English from songs and music is also a great idea; what sort of music do you like listening to?

Antonio from Belguim – Glad you found the pavlova recipe interesting! Let us know how you go when you try to make it (you’re absolutely right, it tastes great with fresh strawberries). And well done for having a go at all the homework!

Hyoshil from Lincoln – I’d guessed you might be Korean, but I wasn’t 100% sure; thanks for satisfying my curiosity! Your son sounds like a real scallywag (this is Owen’s favourite word – it means the same as cheeky monkey!); he must really make you laugh (your stories about him make me laugh, anyway!). Thank you for sharing your story about the silver trophy – it made me feel a lot better to know that I’m not the only one who chucks away prized possessions! (We do have a lot in common, don’t we?! When was your wedding? Ours was a spring wedding – held in October.) I saw Girl With A Pearl Earring (after reading the book) and wasn’t disappointed at all; if you enjoyed the book, try some of the others she’s written – I especially liked The Virgin Blue. After your comment about magpies in Korea, I intend to spend the whole of New Year’s Day looking out for one! Or do I have to go to Korea? (!)

Doug from Brazil – Welcome to the blog! Hope you keep coming back for more! Glad you liked the story of Waltzing Matilda: I’ve just realised I didn’t talk properly about the end of the story, which is that if you pass by the billabong you can still hear the swagman singing “Who’ll come a’Waltzing Matilda with me?”

Praveen Raj from India – What a fascinating story about the Murugan temple; thank you for sharing that with us. It was also good to hear your experiences of the Gold Coast – I’ve been once, to Seaworld, and had a great time there. Hampi sounds like just the kind of place I would enjoy visiting; I love historical and archaeological sites (that’s one downside to living in Sydney – there aren’t as many as in other places!) Thanks for your comments about the blog – I hope you keep coming back to practise your English and share your experiences with us.

Nazakat Hussein from Pakistan – Welcome to the blog! How’s it going?

Silwal Kishor from Nepal – It was interesting to hear how many celebrations and rituals are held in Nepal, and thank you for describing some of them for us. Also, well done on being so diligent with the homework - great work! Does your brother-in-law like living in Oz? As far as the Vegemite and the true Aussie goes, I think if you mix Vegemite and cricket in equal proportions, you’re pretty much there! (I have a long way to go yet, if that really is the case, as I don’t really like either!)

Ana Paula from Brazil – Thank you for making such an effort to check in with us so regularly! I love your descriptions of celebrations and places; you really make them come alive. I can just picture you as a small girl pestering your neighbourhood grocers for sweets (for example)! Itapety mountain sounds beautiful – maybe one day I might even be able to see it for myself! As you correctly noticed, the flowers in my parents’ garden are indeed tulips; my mum has very green fingers (which I didn’t inherit, unfortunately!) and their garden is lovely (my dad always complains about the amount of time it takes to make it look so nice, though!) Thanks for telling me about the Brazilian musicians – I’m going to try and get hold of some of their music (can you recommend a particular song or album?). And have you read Mark Haddon’s second book, A Spot of Bother? If not, you should definitely try it! I really enjoyed it. Like you, I also like ancient myths and legends. (On a completely different subject – a purple wig???????? Crikey!) The open air cinema is fantastic, as long as it doesn’t rain!!

Adriana from Brazil – I’d never heard of the film Vendetta that you mentioned; as soon as I get chance (which will probably be when I’m 80!) I’m going to try and rent it. I love the sound of the chocolate factory - I think that would be a very dangerous place for me to visit!! Actually, I was out last night with a friend in Glebe and we stopped for a drink at the Spanish chocolateria – fantastic!! (Actually, I’d intended to have a hot chocolate but when I saw all the cakes at the counter I ended up with a steamed chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce – hurray!) The bedtime rhyme is very cute – I said it to Owen a couple of nights ago and he really liked it. Aren’t name meanings interesting? Did you just choose Iago’s name because you liked it? That was how we chose Owen’s name, and I’ve since done some Googling myself and found out that it’s a Welsh name (which I knew) and it means “well-born”.

Naheed from Pakistan – Big thanks to you as well for all your contributions! Yes, Owen takes ice-cream very seriously! I’m not as tall as I look in the picture with Owen – I just have a great pair of jeans!! Seriously!! I hope your parents had a lovely wedding anniversary, and I think pineapple will work well with the Pavlova recipe. Doesn’t your name have a lovely meaning? I’m quite jealous actually; Venus is so much more romantic than “like a sheep!” The mango recipe worked well, and was very easy (actually, I made it again tonight). It’s a wrap, so you need some flat bread, then the filling is cooked chicken (the recipe says to use a barbecue for the flavour, but we don’t have one so I just stir-fried it), sliced fresh mango and grated cheese (the recipe says Mozzarella is best, but I think you could use any mild cheese). Put the chicken pieces, mango slices and grated cheese in the middle of the bread, then roll it up to make a wrap and bake in the oven (moderate temperature) for 10 minutes. Easy! I’m actually wondering about adding something; maybe a bit of chilli or black pepper or something, but it tastes fine as it is. Anyway, have a go and let me know what you think! What you said about owls was interesting; I think in some places they do have a reputation for bringing bad luck. When we took Owen to the wildlife park there were lots of owls there and he really liked them. The Mohatta Palace sounds wonderful; you have described it really clearly (I can almost picture it).

Carolina from Argentina – It’s nice to know someone besides me throws away important possessions! Your sentence about the beggar (5th Nov) was absolutely fine, except I would use “it” rather than “that”. How’s the weather doing now? Has it stopped raining? It’s still raining on and off here, but unfortunately it’s also really humid, which is very uncomfortable (and the mosquitos love it!). How great that you listen to the radio as you’re writing your comments, and even better that you could understand it (even if the content was a bit depressing).

Gaetano from Italy – I’m glad you found the tragedy of my poor husband’s shoes amusing!! You’re right, I am a bit of a cleaning addict, which very often drives him mad, poor bloke!

Aniko from Hungary - I was interested in what you said about Hungarian not having articles, as it’s not a language I’m very familiar with (I did spend a fantastic weekend in Budapest several years ago, though!). Thank you for your explanation about the relationship between Hungarian and Finnish – I was very interested to find out the answer to my question! I’m glad you found the work on articles helpful.

Filippo from Italy – Chris bought the shoes in Rome (I had to ask him specially as I didn’t know, and I think it brought all the memories back!!), but fortunately not in the Via Condotti! I’ve never heard of Banana Yoshimoto, but now that you’ve mentioned her I’m on the lookout! Wouldn’t it be great if Pulp did reunite? Common People was such a fantastic song (and so was Disco 2000 for that matter). Here’s a bit of trivia for you – Pulp are actually from Sheffield, which is the nearest city to where I’m from. Glad you like the lorikeets! Prate delle Valle sounds very imposing – the market must be fantastic if it’s held in such a huge space. Wow!

Paulraj from India – Thanks also to you for making such an effort to contribute regularly; I’ve enjoyed reading your comments! It was interesting to hear about Pongal and what the festival signifies; I don’t think we celebrate anything like it over here. You might be interested to know that because of the large Indian population in Sydney, Deevali is quite well-known over here; I remember seeing posters advertising special events that were held during the festival. You asked about marriage venues; well, as I mentioned, you can get married anywhere, but you usually have to pay a fee and obviously some places are more expensive than others. A very popular wedding venue is the Royal Botanical Gardens on the Harbour, and I imagine that costs quite a lot of money. Our park was relatively cheap, I seem to remember. Do you do a lot of walking? Chris goes for a walk every lunchtime if he can, just to stretch his legs and get a bit of fresh air, and often has another one later at night too. Although I enjoy walking as well, it’s something I really have to make myself do at the moment! Something else you both have in common – there’s sometimes quite a lot of nagging (and maybe a war or words too!) for certain things to get done. I must be fair, though, Chris does help a lot around the house. To answer your question about the elections, voting here in Oz is compulsory and if you don’t vote you get fined. For this reason the turnout is usually very high (I can’t tell you exactly what it was for this election – they might not even have the figures yet.). Of course, if you don’t like any of the candidates you just don’t fill in the form, or write something else and these votes don’t count, but you still have to turn up. I’ve just reread your post on Chettiar houses – 1000 windows! Crikey!
And a BIG thank you for your summary of all my posts – I’m really pleased that you’ve been able to learn such a lot! Fantastic!

Tuong Van from Vietnam – Your description of the 5th May festival was really interesting; does the herb mixture work? Well done on having a go at the homework questions, and goodonya for returning to the blog!

Tiasha from Sri Lanka – Thank you for all your comments, and well done on having a go at writing sentences using the vocab; great work! Does your daughter like curry? Owen still finds it a bit spicy, although I keep trying the milder ones with him so he gets used to it. I’m really glad you were interested enough to do a bit more research on Waltzing Matilda, and thank you very much for sharing it with us – I didn’t know what the origins of the words were.

Niaz Ali from Aryana – Glad you enjoyed the stories of Chris’ shoes and Bonfire Night; please keep coming back and posting comments!

Adek from Poland – A message from Chris; thanks for your sympathy about the shoes! Actually, he did go crazy, but fortunately he went out for a long walk so he could be crazy by himself until he’d calmed down! As for the monster in the kitchen, it was definitely a monster and not a fairy – if it had been a fairy we would have rescued it! (Actually, I suspect it was a moth – we get some pretty big ones in Sydney at this time of year, although I still can’t figure out how it got into the bin …) Your comment about fairies reminded me of the movie Finding Neverland, about the author of Peter Pan – have any of you seen it? Talking of movies, I agree with you about Schindler’s List being a good movie that made a lot of money (well put!). Did you know that when the movie was released the title of the book was changed to Schindler’s List to match (presumably to make more money, I guess!). In fact, Thomas Keneally has just had a new book published called “Searching for Schindler”, which is about all the people he talked to and the research he did whilst writing Schindler’s List. I liked your legend about the witches and the rocks – it’s really very similar to the Aboriginal one, isn’t it? How interesting! I totally agree with you about the Botanical Gardens – it would really have been terrible if they’d been turned into a car park.

Habooba from Ahwaz – Thank you for your comments! As well as marvellous or cool, you can say fantastic, brilliant, great, tops (Aussie slang) or magic (also informal). I can give you a quick overview of schooling in England (I don’t think it’s changed too much since I was a student, although it was a long time ago!) Basically, we start school at the age of five and it’s compulsory to stay at school until you’re 16. We have exams in year 11 (age 16) called GCSEs (General Certificate in Secondary Education), and it’s common to do 9 or 10 subjects. Some of these are compulsory (such as Maths, English, Science) and some are optional; I did history, Latin and home economics (cooking) as three of my optional ones. After that, some people leave school to study at college or to find work, and some continue to do A levels (these are required to go to university). It’s usual to do 3 or 4 A levels, and you can choose which subjects you want to do; I did English language, Latin and history. Depending on what grades you get, you will be offered a place at Uni – when I was at high school, we chose 8 universities, and then after visiting them and looking round, we chose 2, a first choice and a back-up option. That’s a pretty brief overview, but that’s how it works (unless it’s changed, which it may well have!). What was your speciality when you worked as a teacher? You don’t need to apologise for your story – I quite liked your version! Your description of the Karun river and its bridges was absolutely magical; I’d love to see it for myself.

Kakafung from Hong Kong – Owen says hello! Well done on those gerund/participle sentences – you’ve got them all correct! Great stuff!

Marianna from Slovakia – I can’t believe you missed your concert! What sort of concert was it? Your father sounds like mine in his attitude to walking and the countryside – we always used to go camping for our family holidays and we’d do a lot of hiking, visiting ancient monuments, and of course a day at the beach complete with fish and chips (with vinegar!!). I still enjoy going out for a walk in the countryside; in fact when we were in the UK earlier in the year I managed to go for some of my favourite walks. We used to spend a lot of time in the North York Moors – if you do a search for that on the net I’m sure there’ll be lots of great sites that will give you an idea of the kind of countryside I like. How often do you paint and draw? It sounds like you’re talented in this area, unlike me! Great idea to look everyone up in an atlas – I should do that as well. Isn’t it wonderful to have such a global “classroom”? I haven’t read the book you mentioned about Scotland, but I think I’d enjoy it. I’m glad you liked the pictures of our trip to the mountains; it was a lovely day out. Owen really did love that stick! (by the end of the day he was dragging entire trees around – it was hilarious!) I loved your description of the castle – you must have been very fit after working there as a tour guide! I had a similar job once when I was sixteen in a castle close to where my parents live, only as I was there on work experience I didn’t get paid!

Lam Tran from Vietnam – Chao em! (Is that right? Vietnamese sounds like a very complicated language!) Congratulations on getting the job; how’s it going? It was very interesting to read about Kitchen God Day and the milk flower (it sounds beautiful!); I’d never heard of them before (I’m learning so much from this blog – it’s great!). About the grammar you asked me to check; your sentence was fine and I could understand what you were saying, it was just a bit long with a couple of articles missing. I’d rewrite it like this: Because it's the end of the Lunar Year, it's always dark and very cool. We go together to the riverside with a flash-light to breed fish in the water and wish everything that was unlucky in the old year will pass and propitious things will come in the New Year.

Benka from Serbia – How’s your computer? I think computer problems and unreliable service are pretty much international, not just limited to Serbia! (What do the rest of you think?) Anyway, I hope it’s sorted out now! A lot of English beaches are pebbly rather than sandy; I used to love collecting interesting pebbles when I was little (my second career ambition was to be an archaeologist!) (The first? I wanted to be a ballerina!). Yes, sharks are a problem around Australia’s beaches, although lots of the beaches around Sydney are protected by shark nets. You asked a very interesting question about get; there are several verbs in English (such as make, do, have, get, take) that can take their meaning from the noun or adverb that they are used with. (These are known as delexicalised verbs – isn’t that a great word!) I think a good way to deal with verbs like this is to have a section in your vocab books where you can note down different uses and common collocations as you come across them; that way you have a record that you can come back to. There’s no easy solution, unfortunately! By the way, I’ve never come across Adamstown, and couldn’t find it in my atlas! I guess a web search might be a better idea! Yes, I do know how to cook Yorkshire pudding (the real star in my family was my grandma, who made the best Yorkshire puds ever!) – I like the sound of the Serbian version too – yum!

Hualan from Melbourne – So you had a good Melbourne Cup Day, even if you didn’t get to go shopping! A walk on the beach and dinner in a Japanese restaurant sound perfect! I’m keen to introduce Owen to Japanese food; he loves fish and chicken, so I think he’ll really like teriyaki salmon and chicken katsu (which also happen to be two of my favourites!!) Like you, I think that Nicole Kidman has made some good movies – I think one of my favourite is Cold Mountain, although it makes me cry! (So does the book – have you read it?)

Kirsti from France – Thanks for recommending the book by Linda Olssen; it sounds great, and I’m trying to find out if it’s available here. And one final word on publish vs appear; I guess a book could be made available without being officially published – for example if I wrote a novel, printed it out myself and handed out copies to my friends (who would of course be so amazed at its brilliance they would send it off to publishing companies and insist it be published officially for sale in bookshops worldwide!! Isn’t dreaming fun??!!) You’ve correctly noticed the similarities between Marmite and Vegemite, and I have to admit I don’t like Marmite either! Also, thanks for doing a bit of extra research on the Vouivre – it really sounds like there’s no escape, doesn’t it?

Rocio from Mexico – How’s work going? Still busy? Thanks for telling us about the origins of Mazatlán – it was very interesting to read. It’s a shame the deer are all gone, though.

Anastasia from Russia – Welcome, and well done on making the resolution to start posting comments; I hope you’re enjoying it! I know exactly how you feel about your grandparents’ village – the combination of fond memories and lovely countryside is the same for me. My sister & I went back there a few months ago, but as you say, things change and people move on – it’s just not the same, is it? As you say, English wildlife is wonderful – Chris & I used to go for walks really late at night when we were at Durham and often saw badgers, which he thought were fantastic. Did you happen to see any while you were in the UK? There are lots and lots of gumtrees here in Oz; I’m not sure what I’d do to find Owen perched in one chomping on seeds – probably take a photo and post it on the web!!! Watch this space!!!! I can’t quite believe that someone is actually planning to create the hotel that you describe – it sounds too strange to be true (and if it’s as bad as you say it is, I hope it doesn’t happen!)

Noora from Iran – Well done for having a go at the homework (I have to say I’m a bit curious about watching horror movies with a cup of tea or coffee – does the drink make it any less scary? If so, maybe I should try it!). I have a small confession to make; I’ve never actually read the Thorn Birds, so goodonya for reading it, even if you didn’t like it! And I hope you enjoy some of the other authors we’ve talked about.

Laila from Saudi Arabia – Thank you for telling us about the lullaby (the warm song for sleeping – what a lovely way to describe it); it sounds very soothing and restful. I don’t know why people create legends, or why so many are the same – I suspect a lot of research has been done into it, and I’d be very interested to know the answer! Thank you for your wonderful description of the Holy Mosque; you mentioned lots of things that I wasn’t aware of.

Myen from Vietnam – Yes, Owen loved the hedgehog; unfortunately so did my parents’ cat, so we had to make sure that he didn’t catch it! When my sister and I were little there was a whole family of hedgehogs living at the bottom of the garden and we used to leave saucers of milk out for them; they’re such lovely creatures! Mum and Dad also have a squirrel (maybe more than one, actually), but Dad gets cranky with them because they eat all the food that my parents leave out for the birds. I think it would be different if they were red squirrels, which are native to Britain, but these are grey ones. What colour was your neighbourhood squirrel? And are they native to Vietnam? Thank you very much for your Happy Teacher’s Day wishes! What a wonderful story you told us about the brother/sister – what’s the name of the mountain? In our pictures of the mountains, Owen was doing what he loves best – moving sticks (the bigger the better!). Lorikeets is pronounced pretty much as it’s written, and the stress is on the last syllable.

David from Peru – Welcome! The answer to your question is that after “help sb” we can use an infinitive with or without to, so either of your sentences would be correct.

Waqar Ali Roghani from Dubai – Yes, your homework answers were correct! Well done! If you want to enter the competition, click on “The Blog Competition” at the top right of the page for details. I would use “catch up with sb” to talk about a planned meeting – perhaps you bumped into an old friend in the street but didn’t have time to talk, so you arrange to catch up properly another day. With “listen”, you need to use “to” – listen to music. I’m sorry I couldn’t post a photo of the opera house – I don’t have one! If you do a search for Sydney Opera House, I’m sure you’ll get lots of results with some great pictures. Thank you for giving us such a detailed description of the Faisal Mosque – it sounds wonderful.

Beatriz from Montevideo – I had no idea jacarandas were Spanish! You learn something new everyday, don’t you! I also had no idea that the Uruguayan flag had once flown from the Harbour Bridge! Did they raise a lot of money? Although I did know that there’s a Uruguayan population here, I haven’t met anyone from your country yet. In the area where I live, the main nationalities are Greek, Vietnamese and Chinese.

Anastasia Rakow – Problem noted; I’m on it!

Sayaka from Japan – Thank you!! Please keep coming back to the site and posting comments – it’s great to hear from you. I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed the experience.

Shirly from Sydney – So magpies are lucky in China? I didn’t know that! You’re right – what a cultural gap!

Eric from Taiwan – Welcome! Hope you keep coming back!

Tanya from Ireland – Hello, and well done on writing such a long post for your first comment; it was great to read it! I wish you all the best with the FCE – check out the flo-joe website I mentioned if you want some extra practice. I enjoyed your story about your parrots and the cat – very funny! Poor cat!

Arianna from Italy – Thanks for you comments! And yes, I think you can feel homesick for a country that isn’t your own.

Kate from China – Welcome to the blog, and well done on the homework (the hotpot restaurant sounds great!) I’m sorry to hear you’re thinking of sending your dog away. I don’t know whether your doctors’ warnings are true or not, so I’m sorry I can’t really help you with that.

Rosa from Merida – Welcome to you too! Merida sounds wonderful – have you ever been to see one of the plays? And do they perform ancient plays or more modern ones?

Kakarym from South Korea – Thank you very much! I hope you come back to the site again!

Elena – Wow! What a question! Keep reading and I’ll answer it below.

For those of you who haven’t read Elena’s comments, she asked me how this experience has influenced my personal development and what my most valuable online teaching experience was. I think those are the hardest questions I’ve been asked since I started blogging in October!

Well, in terms of my personal development, you have all taught me things not only about your countries and you lives but also that the world is full of fantastic people who I would never have had the chance to meet otherwise. Thank you all so much for sharing your stories, opinions and experiences, and an equally big thanks to the BBC for letting me have a go at being the teacher blogger! (Crikey, this is starting to sound like an Oscars acceptance speech! Do you think music will start playing in a minute to tell me to shut up?!)

Teaching-wise, I’ve never done anything like this (remember how two months ago I said I was a technophobe?) so it’s been a huge learning experience for me! I think having such a global classroom has been really valuable – wouldn’t it be great if we could all get together and turn our virtual classroom into a real one?

Well, it’s nearly midnight, and I promised myself I’d get this posted before the end of the month, so I’ll stop now before the computer turns into a pumpkin!!

Thanks again for all you’ve done to make the last two months such a great experience – I’ve had a ball! And here are some more expressions (informal ones) you can use to say you’ve had a great time – feel free to add any that I’ve forgotten!
• I’ve had a ball
• I’ve had a blast
• I’ve had a whale of a time

For those of you about to celebrate Christmas or other festivities, I hope you have a wonderful time, and I wish you all the very best for 2008.

Rachel (and Chris and Owen!)

Did you think I’d forgotten? Here are the vocab definitions from my last post …
iconic (adj) very famous, representing a way of life
spectacular (adj) very exciting or beautiful to look at
demolish (vb) to completely destroy
fatten up (phr vb) to give an animal lots of food to make it fatter
given the heat (expr) given here means considering, or taking into account
wary (adj) not totally certain or trusting sb or sth

By the way - apologies if I've misspelt anyone's name; my spell check was going mad, so I'm sure there are a couplt of typos in there somewhere!

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