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Choose Your Own Adventure Retrospective: The Curse of Batterslea Hall by Richard Brightfield

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The Curse of Batterslea Hall  was always my favourite CYOA book – it was also, for reasons I'll get into, one of the more unusual ones. It sparked my later love of adventure games and inspired some of my sketchy early attempts at creative writing (including a thinly veiled recreation on 90s 'edutainment' program Storybook Weaver ). It also deepened my devastation when I returned home one fateful school night to discover my mum had donated my extensive CYOA collection – precious gems tremblingly unearthed from the dusty Mills and Boon-straining shelves of my local Scope – back to charity. Around twenty years later, and I took the obvious next step for a mildly lockdown-crazed 90s kid squinting down the barrel of their thirties: sourced a copy inflated by just four times the original cover price through eBay. But was it worth it, and does it still hold up? Dust off your bootcut jeans and fire up your Walkman – it's adventurin' time, 90s* style... The premise Battersl...
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A Case of the Muzzled Muse

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Entering the working world can be riddled with paradoxes for the creative type. Since you have an artistic temperament, it makes sense that you should gravitate towards more creative careers. But herein lies the dilemma. Once you transfer your creativity to the workplace, others start putting sanctions on it. Regulating it, directing it. Compressing it into a cramped and clinical office cubicle. Because when you're working for the man, man , it's all about the profit  –  which can sometimes mean muzzling your muse.
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"You Must Be Brazilian!" and Other Snapshots of Summer Teaching

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The sudden strains of my ringtone pierced through my sleep, and my grogginess evaporated as I realized who was calling. It was my supervisor. "I'm sorry to disturb you," he said. "I know you're not supposed to be working today, but  can  you teach today? One of our teachers is in A&E." During the summer, I teach English to groups of Brazilian students who come through our schools near London, and this morning I had just one hour from leaping out of bed until I had to be in the classroom. My brain scrambled to think of what I could do with the classes. Flexibility, I've been told, is the first rule of teaching.
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There's a First Time for Everything...

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...and I'd given up hoping that my first time driving a car would come any time before my 25th birthday, after which I might finally have the time and money to learn. However, I got my first taste of driving a couple of weeks ago. I watched from the safety of a picnic rug as my brother and two of his friends raced around a field in my brother's black Vauxhall Corsa SRi.  "That looks like so much fun," I thought. "Such a shame I don't know how to drive." I looked back down at my book and determined to content myself, but somehow the pages had lost a little of their charm.
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