Luke: A very interesting 1-1 lesson on Saturday.

Vlad works in the airline business and was frantically trying to arrange from his home office a humanitarian flight from Germany to India, post-earthquake.

He was very apologetic as he fielded calls from Pakistan and elsewhere, but I assured him it made it a much better lesson, and sat making notes as he spoke on the phone.

I asked him when he'd become aware of the crisis, and he said it had been the previous night at about 11.30: 'I haven't slept', he explained. I asked if he meant he hadn't slept at all since then, but he said no, he just hadn't yet gone to bed when his contact called him.

It transpired that he'd been watching a film on DVD. Just as I'd encouraged him to take the calls, I asked if he could show me how the DVD worked. He set it up on his laptop and as he took a call he explained to me the plot and background of the leading actor in the film. So there we were, watching a Russian gangster film on DVD while he tried to organise a humanitarian flight on a plane with 15 seats for 30 people. Dogme or what? Both scenarios were fascinating. Both generated plenty of language which we analysed when we had the chance. I left him, as I always do, the notes, and took copies for my own reference.

I was sort of hidden in his life for an hour, present and not present, moving around from seat to seat, or standing, helping him say what he wanted to say more clearly.

* Yesterday when I returned for a second lesson, he told me: 'I haven't slept.' And this time he meant it. He'd been on the phone all night. He'd had to land a plane on a broken runway. And we postponed the lesson.