I read in the Observer today that film and media stars at the Golden Globe ceremony are being served with a very riche dessert. This fantastic pudding, slaved over for an equally fantastic six months by the chef who crated it, consists of chocolate, almonds, berries, honey and … wait for it … edible gold flakes!!!! Yes, that was EDIBLE GOLD FLAKES!!! And they cost $135 a gram!!! Apart from a sneaky curiosity as to what edible gold flakes taste like, I’m not really sure I could stomach it.
Apparently adding gold to food goes way back to the Romans: a nicely ostentatious way of making people realise how wealthy you are.
Back in today’s world, there is some speculation about whether the more politically aware and even politically active of the stars will be happy to be fed such rich fare. An American “food poverty campaigner”, Joel Berg, has already commented on the uncomfortable contrast between rich people who enjoy eating very well indeed and the 50 million American citizens living in households that he calls “food insecure”.
Don’t you just love the terminology used there? First of all, I am astounded that someone can be described as a “food poverty campaigner” but then to go on and talk about people being “food insecure” is something else again. What is wrong with saying that people are going hungry or don’t known where their next meal is coming from? I am almost tempted to say that it takes the biscuit.
Meanwhile, other aspects of life in the US of A have also been coming to my notice in the Guardian newspaper. People of my generation will probably remember being threatened that if they didn’t behave a policeman would come and deal with them. I have even recently heard a mother on the bus telling her child that if he didn’t sit still, the driver would come and tell him off. Well, in some schools in Texas children are being arrested for disruptive behaviour in class!
The schools employ a police officer to patrol the corridors. Not only does he intervene if there are fights in the canteen or if something occurs involving weapons or drugs. Oh, no! If a child answers back in class the teacher can pick up the phone and send for the police. The officer then arrests the child on the spot or issues a ticket and the offending pupil then has to appear in court. Fines are issued which must be paid, quite a difficult thing for families who might already be “food insecure”.
If fines are not paid, when the offender reaches 17 s/he will probably face a prison sentence. And then, there’s the small matter of having a police record. This means that the offender will probably not be able to get a college place on leaving school and certainly can’t expect to qualify for any kind of scholarship to help pay for their studies. So, as a result of throwing a paper aeroplane when you are 11 or 12 or retaliating in kind when another pupil pushes you, you may never be able to escape from the spiral of poverty and crime that your family lives in. Now, I suppose such people are “education insecure”.
And this is not just happening to secondary school age youngsters. Children as young as six have been arrested for disruptive behaviour in class. It’s a good job such a system doesn’t operate here or my youngest grandchild, who is going through a rather bad patch at the moment, would have quite a substantial record already.
But still, our government looks to the USA for ideas on how to deal with the supposed gangs who caused last summer’s riots. American ways of coping are held up as models to us. Maybe our government is “ideas insecure”.
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Words, words, words!
At some point in the Christmas holiday season someone, quite probably my Phil, was heard to say, “Humbug! Humbug!” One of the grandchildren then remarked that she thought a humbug was a kind of sweet. Yes, indeed. Why, she went on to ponder, is it called a humbug. It did spring to mind that maybe, humbugs being striped, they were so called because of similarity to bees, a bug that hums, well, after a fashion. OK, so it’s a little farfetched but there you go.
The upshot of this discussion was that eventually I got around to googling “humbug”. This is the kind of anorak-inspired thing you do if you’ve spent just about the whole of your life learning and teaching foreign languages. It may well be a form of madness but, if so, it’s a fairly harmless one.
Anyway, it seems that “humbug” first appeared in student slang in 1751, originally meaning “hoax” or “jest”. It also came to mean “nonsense” or “gibberish” and can be used to indicate a fraud or imposter. Charles Dickens helped to spread the use of the word by putting it into the mouth of Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”, of course.
According to one source the word also exists in German, Swedish, Hungarian, Finn and French, but the online dictionary only confirms this for German and Dutch, giving me “fumiste” for the French translation.
So where does it come from? In Old Norse, “hum” meant night or shadow, while “bugge” was a kind of bogeyman. In Old English, to “hum” meant to deceive. So that’s one possibility.
There was a suggestion that it was derived from “Hamburg” as false coins were minted there and shipped to England during the Napoleonic wars, presumably to destabilise the economy. However, this etymology is dismissed as inaccurate because the word had already appeared in print fifty years before the aforementioned wars occurred.
I think my favourite is the idea that it came from the Italian “uomo bugiardo” which means “lying man”. Apparently there was a good deal of Italian influence on medieval English; after all a fair few of Shakespeare’s plays were based on Italian stories.
There was even on source that said it refers to a small humming insect: something small and unimportant that makes a lot of noise. So maybe the granddaughter and I were not so far out.
I also liked the Google source that simply said, “1751, student slang, “trick, jest, hoax”, also as a verb of unknown origin. A vogue word in the early 1750s, its origin was a subject of much whimsical speculation even then.”
There we are: “whimsical speculation”!!!
Words seem to have been in the news quite a lot recently, with footballers being reprimanded for insulting each other and football fans upsetting players by calling them insulting names and politicians getting into trouble for tweeting stuff that they really should have thought twice about.
In the Observer at the weekend, journalist Miranda Sawyer spoke to young people about language that they see or don’t see as insulting. One young man had to have the term “mong” explained to him as he couldn’t see why it was upsetting. This is because an earlier stage of political correctness stopped people referring to Down’s Syndrome children as “Mongols” or “mongoloid”.
And then some of the young people interviewed found it difficult to see why it might be wrong to use “gay” as a generally derogatory term if you thought something was no good.
The general consensus though was that it doesn’t really matter if you use insulting terns among your friends provided, of course, you don’t mean them in an insulting way. So one young man declared he would tell his friends, both black and white, “You are my nigger”, but in no way could he accept anyone from outside his circle referring to him in that way. Everything comes down to perceptions in the end.
It doesn’t stop me, though, from being offended when I hear loud young women on the train liberally spattering their conversation with “f***ing”, as if that were the only adjective that could be used. It sounds like a lack of imagination on their part.
Mind you, it’s beginning to sound as though I am turning into a grumpy old person. Heaven forbid that!!!
The upshot of this discussion was that eventually I got around to googling “humbug”. This is the kind of anorak-inspired thing you do if you’ve spent just about the whole of your life learning and teaching foreign languages. It may well be a form of madness but, if so, it’s a fairly harmless one.
Anyway, it seems that “humbug” first appeared in student slang in 1751, originally meaning “hoax” or “jest”. It also came to mean “nonsense” or “gibberish” and can be used to indicate a fraud or imposter. Charles Dickens helped to spread the use of the word by putting it into the mouth of Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”, of course.
According to one source the word also exists in German, Swedish, Hungarian, Finn and French, but the online dictionary only confirms this for German and Dutch, giving me “fumiste” for the French translation.
So where does it come from? In Old Norse, “hum” meant night or shadow, while “bugge” was a kind of bogeyman. In Old English, to “hum” meant to deceive. So that’s one possibility.
There was a suggestion that it was derived from “Hamburg” as false coins were minted there and shipped to England during the Napoleonic wars, presumably to destabilise the economy. However, this etymology is dismissed as inaccurate because the word had already appeared in print fifty years before the aforementioned wars occurred.
I think my favourite is the idea that it came from the Italian “uomo bugiardo” which means “lying man”. Apparently there was a good deal of Italian influence on medieval English; after all a fair few of Shakespeare’s plays were based on Italian stories.
There was even on source that said it refers to a small humming insect: something small and unimportant that makes a lot of noise. So maybe the granddaughter and I were not so far out.
I also liked the Google source that simply said, “1751, student slang, “trick, jest, hoax”, also as a verb of unknown origin. A vogue word in the early 1750s, its origin was a subject of much whimsical speculation even then.”
There we are: “whimsical speculation”!!!
Words seem to have been in the news quite a lot recently, with footballers being reprimanded for insulting each other and football fans upsetting players by calling them insulting names and politicians getting into trouble for tweeting stuff that they really should have thought twice about.
In the Observer at the weekend, journalist Miranda Sawyer spoke to young people about language that they see or don’t see as insulting. One young man had to have the term “mong” explained to him as he couldn’t see why it was upsetting. This is because an earlier stage of political correctness stopped people referring to Down’s Syndrome children as “Mongols” or “mongoloid”.
And then some of the young people interviewed found it difficult to see why it might be wrong to use “gay” as a generally derogatory term if you thought something was no good.
The general consensus though was that it doesn’t really matter if you use insulting terns among your friends provided, of course, you don’t mean them in an insulting way. So one young man declared he would tell his friends, both black and white, “You are my nigger”, but in no way could he accept anyone from outside his circle referring to him in that way. Everything comes down to perceptions in the end.
It doesn’t stop me, though, from being offended when I hear loud young women on the train liberally spattering their conversation with “f***ing”, as if that were the only adjective that could be used. It sounds like a lack of imagination on their part.
Mind you, it’s beginning to sound as though I am turning into a grumpy old person. Heaven forbid that!!!
Sunday, 8 January 2012
The real world and a small world once again.
We switched on the radio this morning to find the Sunday omnibus edition of the Archers coming to an end. As the dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum faded away, the radio announcer informed us that if we went onto The Archers’ website we could see photos of Will’s and Nick’s “going away” outfits. Hmmm?!
Now, I seem to have listened to The Archers on and off for most of my life. I remember listening to it with my mother back when it was described as “an everyday story of country folk”. Like all good soap operas, once you know who the main characters are you can go years without listening (or watching if it’s a TV soap) and still slot back into the story line without major difficulty. But we must not lose track of the fact that these are “soap operas”, a made up story, not real life, no matter whether they keep to a real life timeline or not. They may be slightly more real than so-called “reality TV” (now that’s a rant for another day) but they are, in fact, totally invented.
So why on earth would anyone want to go online to look up The Archers’ website and look at the “going away” outfits of two invented characters. Even though I seem to recall that Will was named after another William who has also recently got married, I still don’t quite get it. It’s bad enough that we are frequently reminded of how elegant the Duchess of Cambridge is and how well that young lady dresses. But who said that a gamekeeper from a fictional estate in a fictional bit of England in an "everyday story of country folk" and his wife were style icons?
And then, surely the whole point of radio is that you LISTEN to it. Each listener, like each reader of a book, can have their own idea of what the characters look like. A character could be played by an actor with two heads and it would make no difference whatsoever. In fact, I understand that two of the actors from The Archers are married to each other in real life although only vaguely related in-laws in the soap opera. What on earth does that do to the people who insist on doing things like sending presents when a new baby is born?
OK, rant over!
Back in the real world I have been working my way through a list of jobs that have needed doing for years. The kitchen has been repainted. Various piles of old rubbish have been taken to the tip. My grandmother’s old rocking chair has been repaired; an overweight friend sat down on it too vigorously years ago and went through it. I even persuaded my son during his recent visit to go through piles of old computer games, university notes, boxes of photos and other memorabilia and throw out unwanted stuff and take away with him anything left over. I still have to go through the wardrobe once more and get rid of clothes I am never again going to wear. We still have to do a major cull of books, of which we have far too many. But I am managing to tick items off the list.
One such item is mending a display cabinet given to us long ago by my husband’s grandfather. This rather fine piece of furniture had two of its glass panels broken when my Phil sat down on a dining chair which collapsed, catapulting him into the door of the cabinet.
It begins to sound as though we have a whole collection decrepit furniture which falls apart when sat on. This is not the case. The collapse of my grandmother’s rocking chair and the aforementioned dining chair are isolated and unrelated incidents.
When the cabinet door was broken I was too busy (and my Phil admits to being too idle) to do anything about repairs. And then we took ourselves off to Spain for a while, putting possible repairs and other such jobs on hold for a while.
Finally, the other day I got my act together, made templates of the sections needing new glass, parcelled up the door and took everything off to a local glaziers’ shop. My plan was to have them cut me some glass according to my templates and then with the help of a friend have a go at mending the door. The glaziers, however, had other ideas. I was, they said, naively misinformed and overly optimistic about my skills a furniture restorer. No way were they going to cut me any glass but they did give me the name of a retired cabinet maker who would almost certainly have a go at fixing it for me.
So, I phoned him and left a message on his answering machine. And then I phoned him again because I had neglected to leave my phone number. Over the next few days Mr Fogg, the retired cabinet maker, and I kept phoning when the other was unavailable and leaving messages. Eventually, though, we managed to speak to each other and arranged for him to call in on his way back from Huddersfield or some such place.
When he arrived yesterday morning he told me, in tones of some surprise, that he had been here before but hadn’t realised that was the case until he pulled up outside our door. It turns out that he has brought his grandson here for chess lessons on a number of occasions. Small world syndrome strikes again!!!
Anyway, Mr Fogg took a look at the cabinet door, ummed and aahed a little and eventually said that he had not yet come across a repair he had been unable to complete and declared that he was looking forward to the challenge of this one. Excellent!!
We now wait to hear from him, hopefully with a successful outcome.
Now, I seem to have listened to The Archers on and off for most of my life. I remember listening to it with my mother back when it was described as “an everyday story of country folk”. Like all good soap operas, once you know who the main characters are you can go years without listening (or watching if it’s a TV soap) and still slot back into the story line without major difficulty. But we must not lose track of the fact that these are “soap operas”, a made up story, not real life, no matter whether they keep to a real life timeline or not. They may be slightly more real than so-called “reality TV” (now that’s a rant for another day) but they are, in fact, totally invented.
So why on earth would anyone want to go online to look up The Archers’ website and look at the “going away” outfits of two invented characters. Even though I seem to recall that Will was named after another William who has also recently got married, I still don’t quite get it. It’s bad enough that we are frequently reminded of how elegant the Duchess of Cambridge is and how well that young lady dresses. But who said that a gamekeeper from a fictional estate in a fictional bit of England in an "everyday story of country folk" and his wife were style icons?
And then, surely the whole point of radio is that you LISTEN to it. Each listener, like each reader of a book, can have their own idea of what the characters look like. A character could be played by an actor with two heads and it would make no difference whatsoever. In fact, I understand that two of the actors from The Archers are married to each other in real life although only vaguely related in-laws in the soap opera. What on earth does that do to the people who insist on doing things like sending presents when a new baby is born?
OK, rant over!
Back in the real world I have been working my way through a list of jobs that have needed doing for years. The kitchen has been repainted. Various piles of old rubbish have been taken to the tip. My grandmother’s old rocking chair has been repaired; an overweight friend sat down on it too vigorously years ago and went through it. I even persuaded my son during his recent visit to go through piles of old computer games, university notes, boxes of photos and other memorabilia and throw out unwanted stuff and take away with him anything left over. I still have to go through the wardrobe once more and get rid of clothes I am never again going to wear. We still have to do a major cull of books, of which we have far too many. But I am managing to tick items off the list.
One such item is mending a display cabinet given to us long ago by my husband’s grandfather. This rather fine piece of furniture had two of its glass panels broken when my Phil sat down on a dining chair which collapsed, catapulting him into the door of the cabinet.
It begins to sound as though we have a whole collection decrepit furniture which falls apart when sat on. This is not the case. The collapse of my grandmother’s rocking chair and the aforementioned dining chair are isolated and unrelated incidents.
When the cabinet door was broken I was too busy (and my Phil admits to being too idle) to do anything about repairs. And then we took ourselves off to Spain for a while, putting possible repairs and other such jobs on hold for a while.
Finally, the other day I got my act together, made templates of the sections needing new glass, parcelled up the door and took everything off to a local glaziers’ shop. My plan was to have them cut me some glass according to my templates and then with the help of a friend have a go at mending the door. The glaziers, however, had other ideas. I was, they said, naively misinformed and overly optimistic about my skills a furniture restorer. No way were they going to cut me any glass but they did give me the name of a retired cabinet maker who would almost certainly have a go at fixing it for me.
So, I phoned him and left a message on his answering machine. And then I phoned him again because I had neglected to leave my phone number. Over the next few days Mr Fogg, the retired cabinet maker, and I kept phoning when the other was unavailable and leaving messages. Eventually, though, we managed to speak to each other and arranged for him to call in on his way back from Huddersfield or some such place.
When he arrived yesterday morning he told me, in tones of some surprise, that he had been here before but hadn’t realised that was the case until he pulled up outside our door. It turns out that he has brought his grandson here for chess lessons on a number of occasions. Small world syndrome strikes again!!!
Anyway, Mr Fogg took a look at the cabinet door, ummed and aahed a little and eventually said that he had not yet come across a repair he had been unable to complete and declared that he was looking forward to the challenge of this one. Excellent!!
We now wait to hear from him, hopefully with a successful outcome.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Here we go again.
Today is the birthday of King Juan Carlos I of Spain. He spent his 74th birthday going about his kingly duties, reviewing military parades and so on.
It’s also the feast of the Three Kings. Today the Wise Men are supposed to bring presents to all the good girls and boys, leaving them for the most part on the balcony. Like good old Father Christmas they have magical powers and can fly through the air and get through locked doors. And, according to this cartoon, Spanish children expect excessive amounts of presents from the kings, just as British children do from Father Christmas.
Mama says, "Don't you think t=our little boy is a it over-optinistic about the Kings this year?"
It’s another excuse for a bit of a fiesta as the Kings lead a parade through the streets, distributing sweets to all the children. The latter go equipped with plastic carrier bags so that they can collect in one night enough sweets for the coming year. So much for a healthy diet. Here’s the route of the parade through the streets of Vigo.
While the festivities continue in Spain, it's all over and done with here. I have taken down the tree, vacuumed up the pine needles, put the decorations away for another year and deposited the Christmas cards in the paper recycling. So that's it for another year. The boy and his girls have visited and gone back to London. The small people have gone back to school and everything is getting back to normal.
2012 has begun with storms and high winds here. Time to start planning some more travelling, I think.
Meanwhile, I have just found that Spain continues to have problems with paperwork and documents. According to an article I found in La Voz de Galicia a young woman of Gallego family but born in Venezuela is having difficulties dealing with the bureaucracy necessary to give her Spanish nationality.
It’s rather reassuring to discover that things don’t change.
It’s also the feast of the Three Kings. Today the Wise Men are supposed to bring presents to all the good girls and boys, leaving them for the most part on the balcony. Like good old Father Christmas they have magical powers and can fly through the air and get through locked doors. And, according to this cartoon, Spanish children expect excessive amounts of presents from the kings, just as British children do from Father Christmas.
Mama says, "Don't you think t=our little boy is a it over-optinistic about the Kings this year?"
It’s another excuse for a bit of a fiesta as the Kings lead a parade through the streets, distributing sweets to all the children. The latter go equipped with plastic carrier bags so that they can collect in one night enough sweets for the coming year. So much for a healthy diet. Here’s the route of the parade through the streets of Vigo.
While the festivities continue in Spain, it's all over and done with here. I have taken down the tree, vacuumed up the pine needles, put the decorations away for another year and deposited the Christmas cards in the paper recycling. So that's it for another year. The boy and his girls have visited and gone back to London. The small people have gone back to school and everything is getting back to normal. 2012 has begun with storms and high winds here. Time to start planning some more travelling, I think.
Meanwhile, I have just found that Spain continues to have problems with paperwork and documents. According to an article I found in La Voz de Galicia a young woman of Gallego family but born in Venezuela is having difficulties dealing with the bureaucracy necessary to give her Spanish nationality.
It’s rather reassuring to discover that things don’t change.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Let it snow, let snow, let it snow.
This morning I had every intention getting up reasonably early, running the long way into the village to buy the paper, then returning home for to shower and read the paper over a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. And then I looked out of the window to discover that White Christmas had come a week early. Around two and a half inches of snow lay on the pavements, the road, the shed roof, everywhere. So a radical re-think was called for. Earlier in the week I had read an article about running in the rain and snow and although it was full of good ideas somehow this did not seem like the moment to put the advice into practice.
Instead I did the indoor exercise routine, had my shower and read my book over a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. Sometime later in the morning I put on an extra pair of socks inside my boots, wrapped myself up in coat, scarf, hat and gloves (two pairs) and ventured out, camera in hand, to walk the long way into the village to buy the paper. It was well worth all the wrapping up as the sky was a wonderful clear winter blue and the views were rather fine. Here is a selection. I was particularly impressed by the group of walkers in Santa hats.
On Friday I listened to Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4 going on at length, and in quite an interesting manner, about Christmas carols. Part of his thesis was that we should be accepting of new arrangements of old Christmas carols and he played some pleasant variations on old themes. I am all in favour of such ideas but I had to disagree with a part of Mr Lawson’s reasoning.
One of his arguments was that we should welcome these new, fresh versions because everyone knows the old traditional ones as they are taught in schools. This was where I had to part company with him. The old traditional carols are no longer automatically taught in schools. Over the last few years I have been to a number of school Nativity Plays.
In fact I went to one on Friday morning and saw my small grandson play th
e part of an innkeeper who, on being asked by a small Joseph if he and the small Mary could stay the night, had to say, “No, we’re full!” He did it quite well, as well as you might expect from such a limited role, but I really felt that he would have been better cast as the shepherd who declared, as they sat around the campfire, “I’m BORED!” Now, this would have been the perfect part for our young chap as this is one of his favourite complaints. In fact, he has been banned from saying it in our house and has to resort to saying, “I’m B-word.”
Getting back to the rant in hand: traditional Christmas carols. In the various Nativity Plays I have seen over the last few years the only traditional carol I have heard is “Away in a Manger”.
In Friday’s performance, as Mary and Joseph and a small boy with an Eeyore head-dress walked to and fro across the stage, did they sing “Little Donkey”? Oh no, they sang something called “Plodding towards Bethlehem”.
While shepherds sat on the pretend hillside, the children sang a song about shepherds warming their toes and having a little doze by the campfire which went reassuringly, “Crackle, crackle, crackle”. What’s wrong with “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”? I ask you!
The reception class children were all appealingly dressed as stars. So, of course, they had to sing “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”. Now I seem to remember that “Little Donkey” has a chorus that goes something like,
Ring out those bells tonight
Bethlehem, Bethlehem
Follow that star tonight
Bethlehem, Bethlehem.
So if they had sung “Little Donkey” the stars could have had their day and the children who jingled the sleigh bells in yet another new and unknown song could have done their bit too.
No, I haven’t got anything against new Christmas songs but they didn’t even manage “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem”. And you can’t even tell me that small children can’t learn the words to the old songs. I remember being an angel (what else?) in a Nativity Play and singing “Oh. Little Town of Bethlehem”. It’s mainly that the new songs the children sang all seemed a little bland and anodyne.
Now, our grandchildren go to a Church of England primary school where they are taught a fair bit about religion. My Phil has been heard to mutter about them "ramming religion down their throats". Even as a non-believer, however, I think they should learn the Bible stories. They are part of our heritage after all. But the old traditional Christmas carols are also part of our heritage.
And besides, if they don’t know the original versions of “While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night” and “We three Kings of Orient are” how on earth are they going to appreciate these variations on old themes?
While shepherds washed their socks by night,
All seated round the tub,
The Angel of the lord came down
And gave them all a scrub.
and
We three kings of Orient are,
One in a taxi, one in a car,
One on a scooter,
Blowing his hooter
And smoking a fat cigar.
These too form apart of our rich heritage!!
Instead I did the indoor exercise routine, had my shower and read my book over a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. Sometime later in the morning I put on an extra pair of socks inside my boots, wrapped myself up in coat, scarf, hat and gloves (two pairs) and ventured out, camera in hand, to walk the long way into the village to buy the paper. It was well worth all the wrapping up as the sky was a wonderful clear winter blue and the views were rather fine. Here is a selection. I was particularly impressed by the group of walkers in Santa hats.
On Friday I listened to Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4 going on at length, and in quite an interesting manner, about Christmas carols. Part of his thesis was that we should be accepting of new arrangements of old Christmas carols and he played some pleasant variations on old themes. I am all in favour of such ideas but I had to disagree with a part of Mr Lawson’s reasoning.
One of his arguments was that we should welcome these new, fresh versions because everyone knows the old traditional ones as they are taught in schools. This was where I had to part company with him. The old traditional carols are no longer automatically taught in schools. Over the last few years I have been to a number of school Nativity Plays.
In fact I went to one on Friday morning and saw my small grandson play th
e part of an innkeeper who, on being asked by a small Joseph if he and the small Mary could stay the night, had to say, “No, we’re full!” He did it quite well, as well as you might expect from such a limited role, but I really felt that he would have been better cast as the shepherd who declared, as they sat around the campfire, “I’m BORED!” Now, this would have been the perfect part for our young chap as this is one of his favourite complaints. In fact, he has been banned from saying it in our house and has to resort to saying, “I’m B-word.” Getting back to the rant in hand: traditional Christmas carols. In the various Nativity Plays I have seen over the last few years the only traditional carol I have heard is “Away in a Manger”.
In Friday’s performance, as Mary and Joseph and a small boy with an Eeyore head-dress walked to and fro across the stage, did they sing “Little Donkey”? Oh no, they sang something called “Plodding towards Bethlehem”.
While shepherds sat on the pretend hillside, the children sang a song about shepherds warming their toes and having a little doze by the campfire which went reassuringly, “Crackle, crackle, crackle”. What’s wrong with “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”? I ask you!
The reception class children were all appealingly dressed as stars. So, of course, they had to sing “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”. Now I seem to remember that “Little Donkey” has a chorus that goes something like,
Ring out those bells tonight
Bethlehem, Bethlehem
Follow that star tonight
Bethlehem, Bethlehem.
So if they had sung “Little Donkey” the stars could have had their day and the children who jingled the sleigh bells in yet another new and unknown song could have done their bit too.
No, I haven’t got anything against new Christmas songs but they didn’t even manage “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem”. And you can’t even tell me that small children can’t learn the words to the old songs. I remember being an angel (what else?) in a Nativity Play and singing “Oh. Little Town of Bethlehem”. It’s mainly that the new songs the children sang all seemed a little bland and anodyne.
Now, our grandchildren go to a Church of England primary school where they are taught a fair bit about religion. My Phil has been heard to mutter about them "ramming religion down their throats". Even as a non-believer, however, I think they should learn the Bible stories. They are part of our heritage after all. But the old traditional Christmas carols are also part of our heritage.
And besides, if they don’t know the original versions of “While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night” and “We three Kings of Orient are” how on earth are they going to appreciate these variations on old themes?
While shepherds washed their socks by night,
All seated round the tub,
The Angel of the lord came down
And gave them all a scrub.
and
We three kings of Orient are,
One in a taxi, one in a car,
One on a scooter,
Blowing his hooter
And smoking a fat cigar.
These too form apart of our rich heritage!!
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Where DOES the time go and do you know where your liver is?
Retired ladies are supposed to have loads of time for everything. So why have I found it hard to snatch a moment to post a blog recently? Between grandchildcare, doing the ladies-who-lunch thing with various different groups, running errands for my daughter who assumes that as a retired lady I have loads of time available and knitting small garments for babies recently arrived or about to arrive – to my daughter’s friend and to my friends daughter in law respectively – there just doesn’t seem to have been a moment.
And then, the weather has continued cold and wintry. I know I should expect such stuff in December but even so ... And yesterday I came across my Phil getting all nostalgic looking at a website which lists property available to rent in Vigo. On the list was the flat we used to rent in Vista Alegre with its beautiful view over the bay of Vigo. Very tempting! Maybe he just wanted to cheer himself up as he is suffering from his second cold in as many weeks.
Which brings me to an item featured on the BBC’s “From Our Own Correspondent”. This time it wasn’t from some war-torn part of the world but from Italy, not quite war-torn but suffering from economic stress and strain. My Italian teacher told us a friend of hers, also Italian, plans to take food parcels when she goes to visit her family for Christmas as four of the supermarkets in their small town have been forced to close recently.
Anyway, Dany Mitzman commented on the fact that she was cycling around Bologna in a lightweight jacket while all the Italians have got their fur coats on and about a million thick scarves and glove and mufflers. But then the Italians apparently have to protect themselves from something called “cervicale”.
She went on to explain, “ "Soffro di cervicale (I suffer from cervicale)," they tell me, making it sound particularly serious.
Most people over the age of 30 seem to have the condition, but I am still at a loss as to what exactly it is and how to translate it.
I have looked it up in the dictionary and found "cervical" - an adjective referring to the cervical vertebrae, those little bones in the back of your neck - but as an ailment, there is simply no English translation. We do not have it!”
That sounds about right, not just a stiff neck from being in a draft but a full-blown malady with a fancy name.
She went on to marvel at the way Italians have an amazing anatomical knowledge, knowing the whereabouts of parts of the body the rest of us have never heard of. I found myself nodding in agreement because in my experience the Spanish and the French are just the same. Loli, my yoga teacher in Vigo, used to refer to bits of the anatomy that I had only the vaguest idea about but everyone else in the class appeared to know exactly what she meant. This included, interestingly enough, “los cervicales” – as the BBC’s Italian correspondent discovered, some part of the neck where it joins onto the spine.
According to my Italian teacher this is not taught at school; you just kind of absorb it from your mother. (My mother never taught me stuff like that!) But even Adalgisa, my Italian teacher, expresses surprise now when she goes back to Italy and everyone knows a whole range of medicines and tablets you should take for every ailment under the sun.
On the other hand, maybe this reference to obscure bits of the anatomy is just another ploy to confuse the foreigners, or maybe just the English. It’s another version of the fish menus (and fish counters in supermarkets, for that matter) with species of marine life we didn’t know existed let alone have any idea of what they might taste like (or how to cook them). It’s a kind of Europe-wide conspiracy: “These English, some of them think they can speak our language but we’ll show them by talking about internal organs they’ve never heard of and serving them food which is completely strange to them.”
Or maybe the ailment thing is just part of the Europeans’ hypochondria. (We can call them just
"Europeans" now that David Cameron has effectively isolated the UK from the mainland!) I remember a French friend of mine many years ago warning me of the dangers of drinking too much tea and coffee. Apparently she did this one day and her stomach turned inside out. I didn’t know stomachs could do that!!!
Meanwhile, back here in the (non-European) UK Christmas advances on us at a furious rate of knots and I still have no idea what
buy my six year old grandson. What do you buy for a child who seems to have room full of stuff he doesn’t play with and then declares he is bored?
But am I downhearted? Not at all.
I have co
mpleted the home-made Christmas wreath and bought a very small Christmas tree (“Don’t you want a bigger one, Grandma?”) which has now been decorated.
I was
tempted to leave it at stage one of decorating when it just had the lights on. However, the oldest grandchild insisted that it needed more.
So there it is. Christmas has officially started in my house.
And then, the weather has continued cold and wintry. I know I should expect such stuff in December but even so ... And yesterday I came across my Phil getting all nostalgic looking at a website which lists property available to rent in Vigo. On the list was the flat we used to rent in Vista Alegre with its beautiful view over the bay of Vigo. Very tempting! Maybe he just wanted to cheer himself up as he is suffering from his second cold in as many weeks.
Which brings me to an item featured on the BBC’s “From Our Own Correspondent”. This time it wasn’t from some war-torn part of the world but from Italy, not quite war-torn but suffering from economic stress and strain. My Italian teacher told us a friend of hers, also Italian, plans to take food parcels when she goes to visit her family for Christmas as four of the supermarkets in their small town have been forced to close recently.
Anyway, Dany Mitzman commented on the fact that she was cycling around Bologna in a lightweight jacket while all the Italians have got their fur coats on and about a million thick scarves and glove and mufflers. But then the Italians apparently have to protect themselves from something called “cervicale”.
She went on to explain, “ "Soffro di cervicale (I suffer from cervicale)," they tell me, making it sound particularly serious.
Most people over the age of 30 seem to have the condition, but I am still at a loss as to what exactly it is and how to translate it.
I have looked it up in the dictionary and found "cervical" - an adjective referring to the cervical vertebrae, those little bones in the back of your neck - but as an ailment, there is simply no English translation. We do not have it!”
That sounds about right, not just a stiff neck from being in a draft but a full-blown malady with a fancy name.
She went on to marvel at the way Italians have an amazing anatomical knowledge, knowing the whereabouts of parts of the body the rest of us have never heard of. I found myself nodding in agreement because in my experience the Spanish and the French are just the same. Loli, my yoga teacher in Vigo, used to refer to bits of the anatomy that I had only the vaguest idea about but everyone else in the class appeared to know exactly what she meant. This included, interestingly enough, “los cervicales” – as the BBC’s Italian correspondent discovered, some part of the neck where it joins onto the spine.
According to my Italian teacher this is not taught at school; you just kind of absorb it from your mother. (My mother never taught me stuff like that!) But even Adalgisa, my Italian teacher, expresses surprise now when she goes back to Italy and everyone knows a whole range of medicines and tablets you should take for every ailment under the sun.
On the other hand, maybe this reference to obscure bits of the anatomy is just another ploy to confuse the foreigners, or maybe just the English. It’s another version of the fish menus (and fish counters in supermarkets, for that matter) with species of marine life we didn’t know existed let alone have any idea of what they might taste like (or how to cook them). It’s a kind of Europe-wide conspiracy: “These English, some of them think they can speak our language but we’ll show them by talking about internal organs they’ve never heard of and serving them food which is completely strange to them.”
Or maybe the ailment thing is just part of the Europeans’ hypochondria. (We can call them just
"Europeans" now that David Cameron has effectively isolated the UK from the mainland!) I remember a French friend of mine many years ago warning me of the dangers of drinking too much tea and coffee. Apparently she did this one day and her stomach turned inside out. I didn’t know stomachs could do that!!!
Meanwhile, back here in the (non-European) UK Christmas advances on us at a furious rate of knots and I still have no idea what
buy my six year old grandson. What do you buy for a child who seems to have room full of stuff he doesn’t play with and then declares he is bored? But am I downhearted? Not at all.
I have co
mpleted the home-made Christmas wreath and bought a very small Christmas tree (“Don’t you want a bigger one, Grandma?”) which has now been decorated.I was
tempted to leave it at stage one of decorating when it just had the lights on. However, the oldest grandchild insisted that it needed more.So there it is. Christmas has officially started in my house.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Running up to Christmas.
This morning I joined the ranks of the crazy people who run in the rain and snow. This was not deliberate on my part. Oh, no! My plan was to run to Uppermill, the biggest of the Saddleworth villages, visit the excellent baker’s shop for a loaf, pick up some milk from the coop and then catch a bus home. It was a kind of “carpe diem” exercise: run while the weather is fine for tomorrow it may be snowing.
The important bit is “run while the weather is fine” for when I set off the sky was actually blue. OK, the wind was a little chilly but I planned to keep moving so staying warm was not a problem. Five minutes down the road and onto the Donkey Line, a local bridle path cum nature trail, and the clouds moved over and the hail started to come down, followed by the rain. So, as I said, I became one of the mad women who run in the rain and snow.
Fortunately most of my route goes through a lightly wooded area so I was protected from the worst of it and by the time I reached Uppermill it had largely blown over. So I made my planned purchases, got to the bus stop and was just wondering whether my bus had gone or was running late as usual when it arrived at the stop. Such a masterpiece of timing is very unusual!
The cold winds and snow and such are the result of December coming in with a blast of weather to remind us that it is in fact winter. November may have lulled us into a false sense of security by giving us some delightfully clear and sunny days but December so far is getting its own back on us. There was snow on top of the car on Monday when I got up to drive to my daughter’s in the early morning. And, yes, there were still some mad runners out and about.
But December has arrived and while everyone appears to be rushing round buying stuff, I just seem to be eating out. The various groups of people I meet occasionally for lunch are all arranging a pre-Christmas get-together. Am I complaining? Not at all.
A certain Miss Pippa Middleton has apparently had her Christmas present early. She has reportedly received a £400,000 advance on a book about party planning. Now I know that her parents are in the party planning business so she probably has festivities in her genetic make-up but even so I am a little suspicious. I really can’t help wondering if being the sister-in-law of the second in line to the throne of the United Kingdom might not have something to do with it. Or am I just getting old and cynical?
The important bit is “run while the weather is fine” for when I set off the sky was actually blue. OK, the wind was a little chilly but I planned to keep moving so staying warm was not a problem. Five minutes down the road and onto the Donkey Line, a local bridle path cum nature trail, and the clouds moved over and the hail started to come down, followed by the rain. So, as I said, I became one of the mad women who run in the rain and snow.
Fortunately most of my route goes through a lightly wooded area so I was protected from the worst of it and by the time I reached Uppermill it had largely blown over. So I made my planned purchases, got to the bus stop and was just wondering whether my bus had gone or was running late as usual when it arrived at the stop. Such a masterpiece of timing is very unusual!
The cold winds and snow and such are the result of December coming in with a blast of weather to remind us that it is in fact winter. November may have lulled us into a false sense of security by giving us some delightfully clear and sunny days but December so far is getting its own back on us. There was snow on top of the car on Monday when I got up to drive to my daughter’s in the early morning. And, yes, there were still some mad runners out and about.
But December has arrived and while everyone appears to be rushing round buying stuff, I just seem to be eating out. The various groups of people I meet occasionally for lunch are all arranging a pre-Christmas get-together. Am I complaining? Not at all.
A certain Miss Pippa Middleton has apparently had her Christmas present early. She has reportedly received a £400,000 advance on a book about party planning. Now I know that her parents are in the party planning business so she probably has festivities in her genetic make-up but even so I am a little suspicious. I really can’t help wondering if being the sister-in-law of the second in line to the throne of the United Kingdom might not have something to do with it. Or am I just getting old and cynical?
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