In my zoom Italian class on Monday we presented our Italian teacher with a range of odd expressions and vocabulary in English: words for the same thing which vary from one part of the country to another. There was, of course, the inevitable collection of words for a bread roll: bun, barm, bap, to mention but three. Then there were the words for alleyway: ginnel, snicket, back, to mention three again.
Later in the week I came across this article about minority languages, well, about Slovene in particular. The writer had been invited by a German organisation to present her recently published book, also recently translated into German. They wanted her to speak in German, about which she was rather nervous. Some fellow writers persuaded her to stand up for herself, assert her identity and address the multitudes in Slovene, which she did. Identity is important. In Slovene they have some interesting idiomatic expressions. We grin like a Cheshire cat, but in Slovene, when pleased, they smile like “a roasted cat.” If you freeze to the spot, out of fear, anxiety, whatever, you “stand there like a linden god”. And if someone leaves in a great hurry they do so “as quickly as a lightning bolt”. Interesting stuff!
I have recently been dabbling in embroidery. It’s another was of creating pictures, drawing with thread instead of pencil or pen and ink or paints. Today I read about someone who is making her own copy of the Bayeux tapestry. This seems like a singularly ambitious project and makes my own representations of dried flowers or cats inspired by Gustav Klimt seem very small and insignificant. But what will she do with it once complete? And what will she move onto next?
There’s a bit of an anti-China thing going on in some of the mass media. The latest thing I’ve come across is a report about a Chinese threat to the seaside rock industry:
“Blackpool rock, a British seaside institution as traditional as donkey rides on the beach, amusement arcades and fair to middling weather, is facing an existential threat from cheap and inferior Chinese imports, manufacturers have said.
Ten rock makers have come together to sign a letter warning of a “grave and immediate challenge to our industry, jeopardising the lives of our employees and the sustainability of our business”.”
Goodness me! I would have thought that it you were determined to rot your teeth by chomping on a very sugary treat it really wouldn’t matter where it came from. But British rock producers are worried.
The article maintains that most British rock is made in Blackpool, which rather surprised me. Growing up in the rather more refined (according to the posher residents) resort of Southport, I was led to believe that that was where the noble art of sticking letters all the way through a stick of rock mostly took place. Things have clearly moved on since my childhood.
Looking into matters, I discovered this;
“The earliest form of rock is said to have been sold at fair grounds, namely ‘Fair Rock’ in the 19th Century when sugar was abundant and inexpensive. Although it was not brightly coloured, striped or lettered in those days, it was of similar shape and size as it is today.”
Then there is this;
“You may not have thought it, but it takes an incredible amount of skill for sticks of lettered rock to be created, skill that machines are still unable to master even in the 21st century. Practised craftsmen of seaside rock are called Sugar Boilers and, as the name suggests, they start the process by boiling sugar and glucose in a copper pan heated to 300 degrees centigrade.”
The flavour is added after this. Traditionally seaside rock is mint flavoured but it seems that nowadays you can get bubblegum flavour, which I suppose is acceptable, but chicken tikka and pizza flavour rock seem to me a step too far.
Not that I plan on buying rock any time soon.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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