You know, being a TEFL teacher is the closest thing I've ever got to being a rock and roll star.
True, I've done other jobs with plenty of sex appeal. There was that stint as a pizza delivery rider straight out of university - the open road, the roar of the moped between my legs. It was a job which could take you anywhere - literally anywhere that you could get to within the time it takes for a pizza to get cold. Sexy stuff.
Then there was telesales. A quiet office, a hot phone and a long list of housewives' names and numbers to go through before the clock struck midnight. Some men would go ape for that kind of opportunity. Not me, though. Let's face it, Sean Riley is a bit of a Renaissance man, an adventurer, and that kind of scene was just too one-paced to hold me for long.
So I took to TEFL. Like a duck takes to water. Like a panda takes to bamboo. Like an Eskimo takes to snow. And just as well really, because there's plenty of snow in this part of the world, let me tell you.
Seriously, though, TEFL is rock and roll through and through. The girls, the adulation, the occasional free ride in a Merc when I'm taken to teach English to the boss of the local tractor-parts factory. It's like the Stones playing Hyde Park in the Sixties.
Sometimes, as I open a crackly new copy of Headway Intermediate and start rapping with the kids in the kind of way I know they're going to dig, the atmosphere's electric.
I see them, looking up at me, fiddling with their pencil sharpeners in that adulatory way, and I just know they're thinking: Wow - Sean Riley! Step back! Cool teacher alert factor 10! Around about then, I feel like Clapton himself, cranking out the first, electrifying chords of Layla.
Talking of great music, I suppose another reason why the women here find me irresistible is I'm a bit of a singer. Sure, I'm not afraid to stand up in a crowded bar and bring the house down with a Karaoke session: Addicted to Love, Hot in the City, and then the My Way to end all My Way's.
But I'm ready to lay on the romantic treatment, too. A quiet little drinkery, soft lights, a warm hand on the thigh of the lady of my choice. Around about then, as she playfully withdraws her leg, I'll often croon a little al capella rendition of Wonderful Tonight. The Lady in Red is another winner.
Last girl I tried the magic of de Burgh on was Anna. Dark-haired chick I picked up at the tram stop. And I'd just got on to the bit about "dancing with me, cheek to cheek" when she stood up, clutching her head, and said she had to go outside for some air. Poor thing, she was obviously overcome with emotion.
I would have waited for that woman for ever. But about 20 minutes later I spied this hot little blonde at the bar, and from the looks she was giving me (kind of cold and haughty mixed with not looking at all - Lithuanian girls love to play hard to get) I felt it would only be charitable to cruise over and weave my magic.
Funny thing is, Anna never came back. The mystery that is a woman, eh?