Ulaanbaatar happenings

A student in one of my teaching classes looks the spitting image of Jennifer Anniston, the long, willowly body, the hair (late style) and the idealised, opaque face reminiscent of the statuary of the early Roman Imperial era. However, unlike Jennifer Anniston, I'll reckon her light brown skin hue is what nature intended. I gave that class an interesting tongue-twister to repeat - "I'm not the fig plucker...." I did not tell them its alternative meaning and I made sure they did not make a mistake.
Also yesterday something amusing occurred. Ducking and diving through the traffic is commonplace for me - the Mongolian driving is hazardous, that trying to do it straight is equally dangerous, so I look for gaps in the traffic matrix and go into them and so get to the other side. Yet on doing so yesterday while crossing a comparatively small road, upon reaching the other side I heard "Oh my [taking the Lord's name in vain]. Did you just see that," exclaimed by a young American woman to her male companion. They were waiting patiently by the kerb to cross. Maybe they think it's okay for Mongolians to do that, but when seeing a fellow westerner do it they may feel compelled to do the same. Tourists, ey?
Here in Mongolia, BBC World TV gets its transmission pulled for no fathomable reason at 9pm every night (radio World Service is unaffected). That means I come home late at night after work and tend to survive on Deutsche Welle TV which has English programmes and the Australia Channel, both of which broadcast non-stop. But on the rare occasions that I'm back early enough, the BBC sometimes, just sometimes, covers north Asia on its weather report and I am gratified to see they spell Ulaanbaatar the way it should be spelt.