An inspirational English teacher will stay with you forever, infuse your mind mind with a love of language and literature, and an appreciation of the beauty of the language.  I met Phil Riley when I was in my second year at Grammar School, and he almost put me off the subject for life.  He spent the first lesson talking about himself, and how wonderful we would find his class if we were refined enough to appreciate it.

Ah, no, that’s unfair, Jason.  He was a decent man trying to explain his expectations.  He would have preferred, I’m sure, to have been extolling the delights of Wordsworth: it’s just gobshites like you that made the talk necessary.