Season's greetings

“Nobody wants to read about grumpy old people ranting about the British government”, said Oliver. Though from the feedback I get, it seems that the avid readers of this annual letter are more interested in politics than family mishaps. Let me disappoint everyone: the 2022 edition of our annual letter contains both. Learn how to avoid vacuum cleaning, how to use search-and-rescue services, why you should learn Malayalam but not Ukrainian or German, where to place your beach towel in Italy without having to shell out €40, how the Welsh government makes your life more comfortable, and the subject of our granddaughter’s PhD.

Paul Evelyn

Here is our annual letter. In it, there’s poetry and polemics, polyglotism and pushchairs. You will learn why you should never move the soap, how to start a cricket club in a country that thinks the cricket is a game that you play while riding a horse, how to kiss a camel, what the opposite of “good” is, and how to turn a disaster into a win–win situation.