Saturday 24^th August, 2019 2100

Wow! There's another first for me in China – BHG now has self service checkouts! Not that I will ever be able to use them of course. One, I don't understand the screens, two there don't appear to be any carrier bags available (where am I supposed to put my rubbish at home?) and three, most important of all, I wouldn't get my BOGOF deals on wine!

Actually I think this latest development is rather sad. We are used to it in the west but it does take jobs away from people and there's no discount on offer for doing it yourself so the shop rakes in all the benefit.

Summer seems to be over here. I still haven't had my head cropped due to rain and low temperatures but I really do need to do it in the next couple of days. It will give it time to grow back a little before I start work again – don't want to terrify the freshmen too much!

Can't recall if I mentioned finding a restaurant opposite the jing jo shop by accident but we went there tonight. Alice brought Annie's replacement. I had already been told her name but had to ask if she spelt it the Kardashian way or the proper way. She is Khloe and looked horrified at my comment, being at pains to assure me she was named long before that lot became famous for......well, having huge surgically enhanced backsides.

Dinner wasn't a long affair, it rarely is in China but we had a huge platter of prawns (we only just finished it), sweet pork and what the picture suggested was tempura prawns but which turned out to be whitebait. They say the camera never lies but my experience of Chinese menus suggests otherwise!

Khloe is twenty-one and from Dallas and get this – she will be teaching reading, writing and listening to sophomores, juniors and seniors! For those who haven't twigged, it means most of her students will be older than her! I'm not sure that's particularly fair. She is a volunteer with no teacher training and she has never taught before. The saving grace is that it's not the west, the students here will not chew her up and spit her out. I do feel for her nonetheless.

And she starts work this coming Tuesday, yet I have another fortnight to scratch my buttocks. I suppose she will learn quickly.

I'm now binge watching “Life On Mars” both series. They passed me by when they came out (the title would hardly have tempted me) and I love it. 1973 was the year I joined my first ship and while many say the seventies were dreadful I have no such recollections. I was having the time of my life! In fact the latter half of the eighties right up until the twenty-tens were dreadful for me in various different ways. I really hope a century on I have a roaring twenties!