Erasmus restored. Learning foreign languages. Leaning towers. Blue zones. Serious stuff. Protests.

 So here’s a piece of good news: The UK will rejoin the Erasmus+ student exchange program in 2027, allowing British students to study in Europe and vice versa without extra fees. The agreement covers the 2027-28 academic year, with future participation dependent on new deals.

Hurrah for that. Back when I was a modern foreign languages teacher a fair few of my students benefitted from the Erasmus scheme. Then along came Brexit!

It’s rather a pity that there has been a decline in the study of modern foreign languages at A-Level and at university. Now, what could have caused such a decline? I wonder!!

I find it quite ironic that now that it is no longer obligatory to study a modern foreign language up to age 16, there has been an increase in the number of people studying a language via Duolingo. Of course, I have no actual statistical evidence to support that statement but it does seem that an awful lot of people I know are ‘on a learning streak’ in some language or other.

I was amused by this description: “Duolingo, Inc. is an American educational technology company that produces learning apps and provides language certification. Duolingo offers courses on 42 languages, ranging from English, French, and Spanish to less commonly studied languages such as Welsh, Irish, and Navajo, and even constructed languages such as Esperanto and Klingon.”

And a part of me finds it strange to put Esperanto and Klingon on the same level. More years ago that I care to admit to, my Spanish teacher tried to persuade us all to learn Esperanto. She spoke it but I’m afraid none of us to my knowledge followed her example. We were too busy getting qualifications in school subjects that would earn us a place at university!

When Phil and I visited Pisa, quite a long time ago now, I somehow managed to take photo of the famous leaning tower looking remarkably straight. Here is a photo of a church, a very old church, in a place called Dry Doddington in Lincolnshire. St James’ church has a tower which leans at a greater angle than the famous Italian tower. It was built in 12th century and is a Grade II listed building. 

The church was originally built as a “Chapel of Ease” for older residents to attend rather than walking to neighbouring Westborough. What a splendid idea! It later became its own parish church and its tower, dating from the 14th century, is estimated to have first moved in the late 19th century or early 20th century.

They’ve already spent a good deal of money stopping the tower from falling over and now they want to raise £100,000 more for general restoration. It’s an expensive business maintaining old buildings.

It seems that places which have the highest concentration of centenarians are called “Blue Zones”. Who knew? Not I! Sardinia and some parts of italy are Blue Zones. Someone called Dan Buettner has studied all over the world to find such zones.

So here is a link to an article Italian grandmothers and the secret of how to live a long life. It refers to this as “nonnamaxxing” (another …maxxing word!) and tells us how to live like an Italian grandmother (nonna). It may, of course, just be a matter of living in a friendly climate, having enough income to get by, and  ot stressing about how to get more money.

On a more serious note, here is something by Norman Finkelstein:

“Israel lobby funded a quarter of British MPs

 Yvette Cooper condemns Iran for shutting off the strait.

 She does not condemn the USA for starving Cuba.

 She does not condemn the USA for kidnapping the President of a country who have a lot of oil

 She does not condemn the unprovoked attack on Iran, who have a lot of oil, or the murder of schoolgirls.

 She has never once condemned the genocide.

 She is “concerned” about the murderous destruction of Lebanon but does not condemn it, as over 2000 are killed by Israel.

 It will be a surprise to no-one to discover that Yvette Cooper is one of approx 40 Labour MPs who are members of LFI. Labour Friends of Israel, a Parliamentary group which supports Israel’s interests in Britain.

To see how politicians continue to travel to Israel and engage with the genocide lobby explains why our government continues to defy international law by facilitating Israel’s war crimes. It explains why government policy and justice is heavily influenced by the Israel lobby. I wonder if someone whispered in Yvette’s ear with the suggestion to proscribe Palestine Action. Surely not. I wonder if, when their action was decreed unlawful, someone from the powerful Israeli lobby suggested Labour should appeal the decision so the police could arrest a few more vicious pensioners.

 Much of the British political elite remains in bed with the Zionist movement even as Israel perpetrates an ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

There you go! And here’s a photo of a protestor being arrested at a pro-Palestine demonstration. No comment! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

The strange hostility of the modern world. And doctors in the USA.

I think I have made it plain that I object to do-it-yourself checkouts in shops and supermarkets. Keep people in jobs! Give customers a little chat at the checkout! 

Yesterday I took a trip to IKEA (involving quite a long bus journey to nearby Ashton because our bus service has a long and convoluted route going round as many out of the way places as possible) and discovered that they no longer seem to have any manned tills. Fine! After all, they are masters at providing build-it-yourself furniture so check-it-out-yourself is quite logical. My grouse was that way the self-service tills were not obvious and there seemed to be no staff around to advise. With a little help from observing other customers, I worked it out.

Many supermarkets and presumably places like IKEA now go one better than self-service tills: with a handy device you can clock up each item you buy as you go round the store and just cough up the money as you leave. Not actual money, of course, but you present your credit/debit card. Or of course, you can just order everything online and have it delivered. If you work from home there will soon be no need to leave your house at all. You can even do your socialising online!

Or you can be an influencer and live your whole life online. Well, no, you live selected bits of your life in the public eye, trying desperately to give the impression that your life is perfect. And so you become a tradwife! Here is a link to an article about being a tradwife! Tradwives need the support of a wealthy husband unless they earn enough as influencers on the side. Other women are mostly just harassed working mothers! 

Modern life is strange! 

Here’s a link to an article about an 86 year old French woman being held by ICE in the United States. It’s the story of a youthful romance rekindled later in life via social media. In good romantic fashion she went out to marry her sweetheart. All good until he died in January of this year, his sons made life difficult for her and lawyers were involved, but she hadn’t yet got her green card and lo and behold, along come ICE to whisk her away to a detention centre. 

The world is not just strange but often hostile.

The question of expiry dates on passports is another example of that hostility. Here’s a little something about one of my heroes, Michael Rosen, who fell foul of modern rulings on passports:

“Author, Arsenal fan and former Beard of the Year Michael Rosen, was not allowed on a flight to Bologna on Monday. He was due to receive an award at a literary festival. The technical details related to the amount of time left on his passport which was some months from expiry/

However subsequently Rosen admitted that there might also have been another issue in that he had trimmed his beard before attempting to travel. Beards and passports have long been a contentious issue and it seems his follicle folly may have given passport control an additional reason to refuse boarding

BLF* Organiser Keith Flett said. its a warning about beards and passports but behind this lies the post-Brexit travel issue. Its indisputable that the key campaigners for Brexit were all clean shaven and may have secretly plotted to cause travel problems for the hirsute.”

*BLF - Beard Liberation Front - who knew such thing existed? 

We renewed our passports last year, well before they ran out, because of the expiry date question. Maybe the beard matter needs consideration too as Phil, who has a beard, sometimes has difficulty with the electronic passport control machines and has to seek official help, while I wait on the other side of the control, probably in an area where they don’t like you loitering! 

Despite his protestation that he was supposed to be portrayed as a doctor not a Christ figure at all, Mr Trump has taken down the Truth media AI photo of himself performing miracle cures.

Newsthump came up with this item today:

“ICYMI: Donald Trump has been defended by the US medical industry, with thousands of doctors insisting they all dress like a deity who dispenses medicine as if it’s all a magic trick...”

There you go!

Life goes ln. Stay safe and well, everyone!

A small difference in male and female parlance. And some stuff about nature.

Out and about today I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation of two gentlemen as we all waited for the bus. One of them was describing his plans to move away, to buy a house somewhere in the Northeast. Everyone was happy with the idea, he said. The wife was on board.

The wife!

I’ve heard that sort of thing before. A gentleman is asked if he intends to do some activity or other and responds, “I’ll ask the wife”.

THE WIFE.

I have never yet heard a woman in a similar situation talk about THE HUSBAND.  No, we tend to use a possessive adjective. It’s usually MY husband or YOUR husband.  No doubt, someone will correct me if I’m wrong. It’s just a small difference between men and women. That’s all.

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with an angler. He was fishing in the small pond adjacent to one of the millponds. I asked him were the fish biting, not wishing to express my surprise that he was not fishing in the much bigger millpond. He explained to me that he was catching fish in the small pond and transferring them to the larger millpond. There is a sort of tunnel or pipe which connects the smaller to the larger. The fish have a tendency to travel through and congregate in the small one.

I didn’t suggest (heaven forfend that I dare) that maybe this was a smart move on the part of the fish. Fishermen/anglers sit on specially constructed platforms at intervals round the larger pond, usually comfortably installed on folding chairs and with their equipment and a flask and maybe sandwiches alongside. No such facilities exist around the smaller pond my chatterbox angler had to stand on the footpath, which is how we got talking in the first place. Avoiding anglers is wise! 

Having explained his aim to move fish from one pond to the other, he went on to have a bit of tirade against the heron. If the small pond is overfull then the heron has a field day catching the fish.  It’s not so  much that he objects to the heron being fed but rather the fact that the heron doesn’t eat a whole fish, just the heart and other vital organs. 

I told him about the people who live by the bridge in the village, the people who feed the heron in the belief that doing so will prevent the heron from feeding on ducklings. The heron waits most afternoons where the water rushes down, occasionally perching on the fence outside his benefactor’s house.

A waste of time, declared my angler. He says the heron will attack the ducklings and the moorhens and anything else he can get his sharp beak into, despite someone feeding him sardines or mackerel. And, as with the fish, he’ll only eat their hearts! Well, yes, I’ve heard that before.

The mink are another problem, another set of predators. I didn’t know we had mink! And there are the cormorants, birds that should stay by the sea in his opinion. Now, I have seen the cormorants. Most impressive they are too. All in all, this was one disgruntled angler, but in the end nature is like that!

As I seem to be on a nature thing, here’s a link to an article about a viaduct in Derbyshire where renovation work has led to holes that swifts nest in being blocked up. Swifts like to return to the same nesting spot year after year and will just fail to nest if the holes are blocked up. They also make repeated attempts to get in and so they injure themselves. We are not kind to nature.

I have often ranted about the, in my opinion, foolishness of paving over gardens in order to have a parking space for two or more vehicles. Here’s a link to an article by Emma Beddington on the same subject. Sometimes it’s not even to provide parking space but simply to have a smooth surface for the garden furniture and the barbecue. Like Ms Beddington I am in favour of wild gardens, with dandelions providing sustenance for the bees and butterflies. Having said that, our back garden is suddenly looking more like a meadow than a lawn. We are going to have to get the mower out soon.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

April weather. Travel problems. Odds and ends of news.

There was frost on the shed roof this morning. In fact I should have expected it because the weather forecast on the TV last night had predicted as much. The vagaries of April weather in the Northwest of England. Despite the frost, however, it has turned out to be a beautiful day. 

We simply must remember not to plan picnics at this time of year. Not without a contingency plan anyway!

On our recent travels we went through the procedure of having our fingerprints taken and possibly a retina scan as well - I think that’s what the new regulations call for. It was a painless and speedy procedure which didn’t cause us any problems. And yet yesterday I heard that more than 100 passengers were left stranded in Milan after an easyJet flight to Manchester took off without them following huge passport control queues linked to new EU border checks. Surely someone must have foreseen that this could happen. Another Brexit benefit?

One of the stranded passengers interviewed on television news last night complained at the derisory amount of compensation offered by easyJet. I was reminded of the time we were stranded at Milan-Bergamo airport because of fog and a pilot who was not qualified to land in fog (!?). On that occasion the budget airline we flew with simply gave passengers a list of local hotels and left us to fend for ourselves. We were fortunate enough to get on a flight the very next day with no extra charge. I understand that those left behind in Milan on Saturday were counted as ‘no-shows’ and had to pay for new flights! Such are the joys of travel!

So Orbàn has been voted out of power in Hungary. Some wag on Facebook suggested that as J. D? Vance supporting him was so “successful” maybe Mr Vance could work the same magic by campaigning for Farage! 

In Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum has initiated a process to provide free health care to all citizens. Hurrah for Mexico.

In contrast, how about this for a headline about our NHS:

Private firms providing services to NHS made £1.6bn profit in two years, research finds 

Exclusive: MPs say profit-making levels in England are ‘scandalous’ and call for cap on amount private companies can make from NHS

There’s something wrong there! 

Here’s a link to an article about Cuban doctors, trained for free and going out to deal with crises in the world, but now being pushed out of places by the US.

And here’s a photo I forgot to post yesterday with information about protestors against the Palestine Action ban being arrested. Wonderful suffragette outfits!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Hail. Swans. Matches. And arresting protestors again. And gambling on war.

My Spanish sister just sent a message asking me what the weather is like here! It seems she has a friend who lives not far from here who had sent her a photo of hailstones raining down. Yes, indeed, we too had hailstones. At least we don’t have sandstorms blown in from the Sahara, which is what happens where she lives near Cádiz. Having said that, there was an occasion a few years ago when freak weather sent sand from the Sahara over a large part of England. Our skylight windows were filthy with it.

So far today we have had dull and cold and windy first thing, some blue sky and sunshine, hail and rain, and now cloudy sunshine again. Never a dull moment!

We have swans on the millpond again. Every year for the last few years they turn up at about this time. 

I have sometimes wondered if they come to nest here but we’ve never yet seen cygnets. They can be quite aggressive and a couple of years ago chased off a resident white duck, a long-term resident of the millpond, whose body was found some time later further up the valley, perhaps attacked by a fox. Maybe it’s because swans are “royal” birds that they think they can rule the pond!

In the kitchen, tucked into one section of the wine rack, there are some ancient boxes of matches, really ancient, daring back to a time when we had a coal-burning stove running the central hearing system. Whenever there is a family birthday I am commissioned to make a cake - some like chocolate cake, others prefer my lemon yoghurt sponge cake - decorated with butter cream icing and “sprinkles”. For the small people we add the appropriate number of candles; for the grown-ups only one candle is provided. The candles have to be lit at least twice, if not three times: once for the birthday person to blow them out and make a wish and relit again for the small people to have a turn at blowing out the candles. (I might consider the hygiene implications of so many people blowing across a cake but really tis is bot the time or place for that). Granddaughter Number Two likes to be the one who lights the candles, using the ancient matches.

Today I read that matchboxes have become collectors’ items. Probably not the ones we have as they are almost certainly too old and battered. As a rule collectors seem to prefer their trophies in pristine, mint condition. The matchbox , I have read, took off in the late 1800s when manufacturers realised that every box could be an advert and it became an unexpected art form, with colourful labels featuring everything from political messages to product marketing.

And now, apparently, matchboxes are the latest home accessory to get a luxury makeover.

“At the upmarket department store chain Selfridges, sales of posh matchboxes are up 121% year-on-year and it said they were “the must-have home accessory for 2026”. The store has more than doubled its range to meet demand, selling over 100 styles at prices ranging from £5 to more than £230.”

Here are Paddywax matches, at the cheaper end of the market, costing only £5 a box.

And here are Panthère de Cartier matches, a set of three matchboxes for the knockdown price of £235.

Oh, boy!

“Jo Laing, who designs and sells ceramic-topped matchboxes, has seen sales rise 60% year on year and her work is now stocked in Harrods. She said they “sell out so quickly we struggle to keep them in stock”. Her reusable limited edition boxes retail for £70.”

It appears that people might not have the budget for a posh candle, but can stretch to fancy matches instead. Bia Bezamat, cultural insights director at market research group Kantar, said: “There’s a sustained trend for ‘little treats’ … It’s a response to cost of living pressures: people want small, affordable pockets of joy to brighten their day.”

Maybe you could just not have candles, a home-fashion trend I have never got into. Some people clearly have more money than sense. But perhaps when we are constantly being reminded of how the cost of living is rising, some people need reminding that luxury of some kind still exists.

In more serious spheres, yesterday “hundreds of people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London and presented signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Hundreds of demonstrators sat on camping chairs and on the ground as they held up their placards on Saturday afternoon. The Metropolitan police said 212 people had been arrested by 4.50pm, with their ages ranging from 27 to 82.”

So much for rulings that the ban was illegal!

And here’s a link to an article about people betting on the outcome of the wars which are going on. Perhaps gamblers just have no shame! But these are gamblers betting huge amounts of money, another way of getting rich from the misfortunes of others.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!