Tony Blair’s post-political career is to be theatre, the Observer reports today.

He’ll be appearing in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible as the Reverend John Hale.

Which is the character I played when we did The Crucible at school in 1992.

I spent most of the time of my German exchange (when not playing Civ on my exchange mate’s computer.) I can remember the play, and some of the other people who were in it.

I can remember one strange rehearsal of one of the acts, in which Hale is supposed to ask a married couple to recite the ten commandments and the husband forgets Thou shalt not commit adultery. In the rehearsal, I forgot my lines, and missed out the question. Which made the act go a little quicker than planned and skipped rather a lot of important material.

I can’t now remember any of my lines – or indeed any of the lines from the other shows I’ve been in (there’s a list here). But I can remember the name of my German exchange partner. Googling his name, it looks like he’s just published his PhD. I can’t remember his return visit at all, but there are several things from my stay in Nuremberg that stay with me. In my first hour in Germany, after my first plane trip, with my ears hurting like hell and a headache, it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to flush the toilet and how to turn the tap on to wash my hands. It was one of those lift and turn mixer taps. I can’t remember why the loo puzzled me, but I can remember it had one of those strange platforms.

The other strong memory is of a dinner we had one night where they gave me grated cheese and raw meat and pickles, and we took it in turns to load a mini-saucepan and then put it under a mini electric grill on the table to cook/melt.

I haven’t been in Germany for years now, and my language skills are failing fast. Must go back! But in my mental, unbooked, holiday plans for this year, it looks like Geneva and Brussels are on the list, and possibly Normandy again. Geneva to visit friends variously in the Alps and Geneva itself; Brussels to show P the Atomium and the European Parliament, and the chocolate, and the Tintin murals and and and…, and as an excuse to use the Eurostar once the St Pancras terminal opens this autumn.