Any English speaker who can justifiably call themselves ‘travelled’ knows that one of the key features of the ex-pat circuit is the immediate best-matery that springs up between two strangers who’ve not heard English spoken in some time.

In Croatia, we met and befriended English Mark. Predictably, English Mark hailed from England; ergo, we were instant buddies. We spent a week at his place in Rudine, a tiny village on Hvar Island that had been not just English speaker-free but also electricity-free, sewerage system-free and, not surprisingly, Mars Bar-free until very recently.

English Mark worked in property, making deals across the Balkans that may or may not have been legit; we never could really tell. His phone conversations, which we unashamedly eavesdropped on – and I openly took notes of – tended to go like this:

‘I’m sure it’s a beaut deal, Mr Tjyhgvgrybncjkvbic, and legal-ish, it’s just that I’ve never really known anyone before who owned a minefield…’ And later: ‘I know the church technically owns the land that the village people have been farming for centuries…but I just think that suing the Catholic Church is probably not that great for karma…’

English Mark has since married a ‘city’ girl (ie. form Split), which we were relieved to hear, because it always seemed more likely he’d be knocked off by a local father for tampering with their daughters than leave of his own accord.