Like many adolescents, I spent part of my childhood staring out of classroom windows, wishing I were somewhere else. While teachers handed out homework, I daydreamed about travelling to faraway shores, discovering nomadic tribes and trekking to the Seven Wonders of the World. Depending on the subject matter and the personality of the teachers, my level of concentration wavered each lesson. Geography fascinated me, arithmetic challenged me, religion confused me and German lessons terrified me.

Nothing fazed my classmate Michael Wallace. He was going to be a pop star and everyone in school knew it. Trivial matters like German lessons were just a minor distraction on his path to stardom. By the time we were sixteen, he’d changed his name to Mik Scarlet, dyed his hair and become an influential New Romantic.

After struggling with German, I gave up learning new languages, hoping that laminated menus with pictures would get me through a lifetime of international travel. But fate had other plans and twenty years after failing my German exams I found myself on a plane, heading to Ecuador for lessons in Spanish. Maybe this time it would be different, and I wouldn’t gaze out of the classroom windows, wishing I were somewhere else.