1. A sample from a wondrous (and wondrously expensive) book by David B. Wilson, The Experience of Expatriate English Language Teaching https://cspcontents.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/master/samples/978-1-0364-4603-1-sample.pdf
Teaching English overseas is a funny old business. Funny-ha-ha in that it has been a rich source of humour from the very beginning. Funny-peculiar in that it is a very queer occupation which defies definitive designation: although for some it might be thought of as a profession with a career, for others it is little more than a series of precarious, ill-paid jobs in the international gig economy. Other designations consider expatriate TEFLing as a form of “mendicancy,” or of “failure on the move” or a mode of “existential cruising.” (In my own case it might be summed up, in a parody of the titles of two famous novels, as “East of Sweden and Legless in Jeddah”.) It is an undertaking that has attracted some of our greatest literary minds but also its fair share of scoundrels and ne’er-do-wells. And the motives for becoming an expatriate TEFLer are so many and various, sometimes absurd and highly improbable, that they almost defy any categorization.
Brought to my attention by Richard Smith, whose hopes for a cheaper paperback edition I share!
2. Prompted by the Geoff Mulgan piece I shared two Thursdays ago, ‘Learning for Long Lives in the age of AI’, Robin Skipsey kindly sent me a link to The Memory Paradox: Why Our Brains Need Knowledge in an Age of AI by Barbara Oakley et al. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5250447 PDF below.
In an era of generative AI and ubiquitous digital tools, human memory faces a paradox: the more we offload knowledge to external aids, the less we exercise and develop our own cognitive capacities. This chapter offers the first neuroscience-based explanation for the observed reversal of the Flynn Effect—the recent decline in IQ scores in developed countries—linking this downturn to shifts in educational practices and the rise of cognitive offloading via AI and digital tools. Drawing on insights from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and learning theory, we explain how underuse of the brain’s declarative and procedural memory systems undermines reasoning, impedes learning, and diminishes productivity. We critique contemporary pedagogical models that downplay memorization and basic knowledge, showing how these trends erode long-term fluency and mental flexibility. Finally, we outline policy implications for education, workforce development, and the responsible integration of AI, advocating strategies that harness technology as a complement to – rather than a replacement for – robust human knowledge.
3. A good piece from last Saturday’s Times by Fraser Nelson, Try this cure for the trainee doctor crisis https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/trainee-doctor-crisis-recruits-wes-streeting-6397cbbfb Samizdat PDF below just in case that ‘share’ link has strings attached.
This is a nerve-shredding time for sixth-formers. University offers and rejections are landing in inboxes at any hour and for those hoping to study medicine, it feels especially cruel. Stories are already circulating of straight-A candidates being rejected without interview or explanation. Demand for medicine surged this year: 25,800 applications for 8,130 places. Rising demand has hit the immovable object of government-capped places. At a time when the NHS is chronically short of doctors, it’s a tragic waste of potential. We are often told the NHS would collapse without immigrant doctors. That is true, but only because Britain has chosen to import roughly 20,000 doctors a year while rejecting about 16,000 med-school applicants. About one in six of Nigeria’s registered doctors now works in Britain, as do one in ten of Pakistan’s. The ethics of raiding the workforces of countries suffering doctor shortages is questionable but the arithmetic is not. Training a doctor costs the state about £160,000. Importing is cheaper.
4. Tech predictions for 2026 and beyond from Werner Vogels, who ought, as Amazon’s Chief Technology Officer, to know what he’s talking about (but may not be quite so hot on E M Forster) https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2025/11/tech-predictions-for-2026-and-beyond.html
For much of the world, technology has become so intertwined with our day-to-day lives that it influences everything. Our relationships, the care we seek, how we work, what we do to protect ourselves, even the things we choose to learn and when. It would be understandable to read this as a dystopian nightmare conjured up by E.M. Forster or Ernest Cline. Yet, we are on the verge of something fundamentally different. We’ve caught glimpses of a future that values autonomy, empathy, and individual expertise. Where interdisciplinary cooperation influences discovery and creation at an unrelenting pace. In the coming year, we will begin the transition into a new era of AI in the human loop, not the other way around. This cycle will create massive opportunities to solve problems that truly matter. And it starts by addressing one of the unintended consequences of our hyperconnected world—loneliness and a lack of companionship—by turning the very force that created the problem into the solution.
5. And, finally, another home-made PDF, this one of Olga Tokarczuk’s science fiction choices, as shared in The New Yorker’s books newsletter last week: books by Lem, Dick, Aldiss, Chiang and Liu are her choices. Read the PDF to find out which ones.
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