Words. What they mean. Who owns them.

"Happy birthday to you", the song, has been set free! Now we can all sing it without having to worry about breaching copyright and possibly having to pay royalties. Who knew that we had all been singing it illegally all these years? It's a bit like sayingthat nursery rhymes are copyrighted!

Apparently two sisters sort of composed it back in the 19th century. Some company or other copyrighted in the 1930s. They were bought out by the Warner Chappell music company in 1988 and that company have been collecting royalties every time the song has appeared in a film, a television or radio programme or indeed anywhere open to the public or where a large number of those present were not close friends or family of the birthday boy or girl. In 2008 they collected US$5,000 per day, US$2 million over the year! Now there has been a court case because someone protested about having to pay royalties because she was making a documentary about the song. And the final decision has been that the song is now free as a bird once more!! Huzzah!!! What more can one say? 

It's all words. 

Our Italian teacher was busy maintaining today that there are loads of words in English usage that have no equivalent in Italian but have to be sort of explained. This was because someone asked how you say "creepy". Answer: you talk round it and say something like "which makes you shudder". I wonder what they do with "dingy". 

Then we got onto "macché". An almost untranslatable Italian word. It can be as simple as "Oh, no!". It might be "Nonsense!". Or it can be "What the .... (insert expletive, as mild or as strong and disgusting as you like)!". 

Every language has such expressions. Sometimes they even need explaining to native speakers. Here's an example: 

Why do we call manual workers, men who dig up roads and such, navvies? Well, quite accidentally, reading about something else altogether, I found out. Canals were originally called navigations. The men who dug them, many of them Irish, were given the nickname navvies. Hence manual workers are called navvies. 

That's words for you!

Storms and fashions.

The rain keeps coming down. Storm Imogen has wrecked my umbrella, not just turning it inside out but breaking a couple of spokes. Another one bites the dust! Straight in the dustbin as I got home from Manchester. 

Before arriving home, I snapped this picture just outside the pub next door. It almost always bubbles away, unless we have had several weeks without rain, but this is pretty exceptional. Except that when I went past it earlier today, the water was spouting about eighteen inches high! Rome may have the Trevi fountain but we have this! 

I had been to Manchester to lunch with a couple of friends and to catch up on all our news. We went to the Côte Brasserie, just off Deansgate. Very nice and quite reasonably priced. Of course, UK restaurant lunchtime menu deals bear no comparison with Galician restaurant lunchtime menu deals, but this is the UK after all. It crossed my mind that they might need to redo all their signage now that the circumflex is disappearing from so many French words. I wonder if "côte" is one of them. It almost certainly will be! 

After lunch, my friends and I took a stroll around some of the shops, looking at sales good. This included the Russell and Bromley shoe shop, where shoes in the sale are reduced to £80 and non-sale goods get into triple figures! Amazing! 

I have often ranted about the craziness of high fashion. Usually it's just women's clothes but today I came across a piece by Tim Dowling with his comments on a number of men's fashion trends. In this case, it was not a matter of buying new clothes but wearing what you have in a new and fashionable way. Most of his judgement agree with mine. 

First of all, there was wearing your coat as if it were a cape, just draped elegantly across the shoulders. I can remember doing this with friends when I was a child in junior school. We would drape our school gabardines, not so elegantly, across our shoulders and run around with cloaks flowing behind us. Of course, what we did was fasten the top button so that we did not suffer as Tim Dowling did with the coat blowing away as he walked down the road. 

Then there was the "man clutch". Now I am all in favour of "man bags". I think they are really useful. If a bloke wants to carry his iPad, a load of papers, the newspaper and goodness knows what else, what better than a bag. There are some really nice one. But a "clutch" has always struck me as a singularly silly bag for either gender. They are never big enough to fit anything of any use in and you have to carry it "clutched", as the name implies, in your hand or under your arm. Just a nuisance. 

He moved on to wearing shoes without socks. My almost son-in-law must be really on trend as he seems to do this a lot. Sandals without socks I am quite in agreement with. In fact, I think they are a must. And maybe canvas shoes. But almost any other sort of footwear really should not be on bare feet, in my opinion. It's surely a recipe for sore feet, whether you are male or female. And if you have sore feet on a regular basis, you end up with lumpy, ugly feet. And then, when you want to go barefoot on the sand, for example, you have these embarrassing feet that you don't want to show off! 

Such is the world of modern fashion.

Taking the hat off.

So the French have decided to remove the circumflex, which my students used to refer to "that little hat", from some words, have they? And they have changed some spellings as well! We don't seem to do that sort of thing with English. From time to time we hear that some new words have been included in the Oxford English Dictionary but major spelling changes don't really happen. The Germans did it some years ago and it seems to have been all right. And the Spanish just formalise changes that have been happening willy-nilly. 

When I read about it yesterday, I wondered what the reaction of an old friend of ours would be. He studied French and Spanish at university with us and has frequently moaned about changes in both those languages. I don't think he ever quite got over the demise of the subjunctive in English usage, if we could ever truly be said to have used the subjunctive, apart from in expressions like "if I were you". 

But I am a little surprised (and amused) to hear about accusations that these changes, made apparently to simplify the words for schoolchildren, are an example of the Socialist government dumbing down the language. Obviously a left-wing plot! A student union group has criticised the education minister, Najat Vallaud- Belkacem, for "believing she was authorised to overturn the spelling rules of the French language". They should think themselves lucky to have spelling rules! And the wonderfully named Florian Philippot, vice-president of the far-right Front National, has declared "the French language is our soul". Maybe he is afraid that his surname will be changed to Filippot, giving him even more alliteration, visual as well as phonetic! 

Mind you, I must confess that the French for "onion", traditionally spelt "oignon", looks really odd and somehow wrong when you spell it the new way: "ognon". 

It's amazing how people leap to the defence of the traditional! Talking about the Sanremo music festival the other day, one of the ladies in the Italian class told us that the is something of a furore going on at present about Elton John. He has been invited to be a special judge or something at the festival and some people consider him unsuitable. Why? Well, for one thing he is openly gay. Not only is he gay but he is married to another gay man! Not only is he gay and married to another gay man but they have two adopted children! This goes against all ideals of the traditional family. And, of course, it would be far better for those two children, who seem perfectly happy with their two dads, to have remained in an orphanage! Much more traditional! Oh, come on!!!! 

Meanwhile, here it keeps on raining! I ran in the drizzle quite early this morning and later saw a hardier soul running in the truly pouring rain as I waited for the bus to take me to the supermarket. It was still raining when I came back. They forecast something like three inches of rain for today! 

I have consoled myself by reading odds and ends in the newspaper, bought when I jogged in the drizzle this morning. Having reached the Birthdays section, I learn that Rabbi Lionel Blue, whose dulcet tones and bad jokes used to amuse me when he did "Thought for the Day" on BBC Radio 4 as I drove to work, is 86 today. The actor with the unlikely name of Rip Torn is 85. Best of all is Zsa Zsa Gabor who has reached a magnificent 99! 

Hats off to all of them.

Stuff in the news.

Last night I watched Question Time on BBC2. Well, I half watched it and half read a book. There was some interesting discussion about the EU and Brexit among other things. The programme was being broadcast from Bradford which has a large Asian population. Maybe as a result of that a question came up about our prime minister's insistence that immigrants should all learn English and in particular that the "traditionally submissive" (his words, I believe) wives should learn English to prevent their isolation and maybe prevent their sons from being attracted to terrorist organisations. You can imagine the storm. A number of people pointed out that funding for English as a second language classes had been cut by a certain government ruling. A teacher of English told of the women of all ages, not just the young, on waiting lists for the now restricted numbers of classes available. And a quietly assertive young Asian woman listed the occupations and professional positions held by traditionally submissive Asian women. Almost all of the speakers, with the exception of the bloke who almost shamefacedly admitted to coming from Essex, spoke with a Yorkshire accent, including the Asians in the audience. 

One of the panel had a strong Scouse accent. He was the second in command of UKIP. I am afraid I found it hard to take his contributions very seriously. This was partly because he was from UKIP but also because he mostly looked as if he was doing an impression of the comedian Alexei Sayle. The gestures and the facial expressions were there; unfortunately the humour wasn't. I read this morning in the paper that Nigel Farage was supposed to be on the panel but got stuck in traffic, travelling from Wales, I think, to Bradford. Mind you, I might not have been able to take him seriously either. Unfortunately some people do. 

Other things. Joan Bakewell, or rather, Dame Joan Bakewell, is 82. And unless they published an old photo in the publicity for a book she has written, the "thinking man's crumpet" is looking very good. I was amused and rather horrified to read that when young Joan got a scholarship to Cambridge, the headmistress of her school announced the news to the assembled girls with the reminder that “however pleased we are for Joan, the true calling of a woman’s life is to be a wife and mother”. 

This is a little different to the headmistress of my girls' grammar school. She used to interview the girls who had chosen not to continue into the sixth form after completing O Levels. In our year, one of my best friends was leaving to get married to the boy she had been going out with since she was thirteen. We all knew she was having a baby. She could have left school at Easter but had stayed on to complete her O Levels. She returned from her interview in tears. The headmistress, who was very proud of the fact that so many of HER girls went on to university, had told my friend that she was letting herself down letting her parents down, letting the school down and, most importantly, letting the headmistress down! What a difference a decade and a half made in attitude to women's role in society. 

Mind you, I doubt that Dame Joan's head teacher would have approved of young "gals" having sex before marriage! 

Getting back to Dame Joan, when she worked at the BBC she once asked a senior executive what plans he had for a woman to read the news; the answer was, "He had none. And never would have.” End of conversation. Another change of attitude. But only partial. It appears to be obligatory for female news readers to be attractive and always well-dressed and coiffed! 

And finally, some good news stories. The hole in the pavement outside our house, made by the electricity men when restoring power to our row a week ago, has finally been filled in. The bad news is that the plastic barriers are still there. 

 The other story is about a teenager in Germany who found a half-kilogram gold bar in an alpine lake. Being a good, honest girl, she handed it in to the police. Six months down the line, nobody has claimed the ingot and so the young lady finds herself the owner of a lump of gold worth about $20,000. That should pay for a few more holidays by Alpine lakes!

Putting the world to rights.

Almost eight years ago, at the very last "Leavers Do" (a mix of "prom" and party for the students who were moving on to work or university the following year) I went to at the college where I worked, I witnessed an odd phenomenon. A girl from my tutor group - pretty, clad in a lovely and probably very expensive dress, hair beautifully styled, make-up carefully, indeed expertly, applied - spent the first hour of the evening taking pictures of herself and her best friend - equally well prepared for the evening - on her mobile phone. This was before the term "selfie" was common parlance. My own mobile phone at that time didn't even take photos, let alone allow me to post them anywhere! I was astounded, gob-smacked even! I knew these two girls weren't the most academic the college had ever had through its doors but they were not stupid by any means, just a bit more self-centred and vain than I had previously imagined. 

Today I read that a survey carried out last year claimed that the average 16-25-year-old woman spends more than five hours a week taking selfies. Wow! Somewhere along the way the feminist message about what you do being more important than how you look has gone astray. Do young men spend a similar amount of time taking selfies? Is there not something more useful to do with your time? 

Meanwhile, on Desert Island Discs the other day, they were talking to Bill Gates, the very rich Microsoft man. Clever chap with computers, that Bill Gates, he had the good fortune to be clever at just the right time and made a phenomenal amount of money out of it. And he has given a lot of it away. A couple of friends of mine were talking about it after the Italian class the other day. One of them had very definite views about what Mr Gates does with his money. Now, as of 2014, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have donated more than US$30 billion to charitable foundation they set up. And they still have lots to live on. 

My friend, however, was quite indignant about the work of the foundation. What, she wanted to know, gives Bill Gates, Brangelina and other such very rich philanthropists, the right to decide WHO gets financial assistance? Why do they get to play God? It's all very well for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to choose a place in Africa, for example, to receive a sum of money so that they can set up an industry of some kind. But what happens, she wondered, when the allotted time for that financial assistance runs out and perhaps the recipients haven't quite managed to become self-sufficient? Do the very rich philanthropists have the right to pull the rug out from under their feet at that point? All valid questions. 

Surely there is a better way to organise the world so that all that wealth sloshing around at the top gets distributed. It's great that there are rich people who realise that they can't actually spend it all themselves. (Even more so that some of them, like Mr Gates, recognise that just leaving it all to their children might not in the end do their children the biggest favour possible. Those children need to learn to make their own way.) But deciding who is helped by the charitable foundations is a tricky business and perhaps my friend is right to feel it should not just be left up to the very rich philanthropists, much as we appreciate their philanthropy! 

I forget which radio programme I was listening to where I heard someone suggest that monthly pay-checks should be arbitrary for everyone. Nobody would know exactly how much was going into their bank account from one month to the next, no matter whether they were road-sweepers or headteachers or nuclear physicists or prime ministers or whatever. One month they might receive a paltry amount, as if they were on benefits. The next month they could receive the top salary in the land. And, of course, sometimes they received amounts between those two. This would make everyone more circumspect and less rash in their spending. It would also make them more understanding and considerate of others who did not have as much as they did. It would even out the wealth of the world. That's the theory, anyway! 

Of course, it's all utopian! And we all know that utopias don't really exist. But sorting out a fairer world beats spending several hours a week taking pictures of yourself.

Weird and wonderful stuff!

In the Italian conversation class today we talked, among other things, about the kind of music we don't like. It's too easy if you do the question the other way around. So we had disgust at over-sentimental songs, a thorough dislike of modern classical dissonant music and, in the case of our lively teacher, a horror of what sounded like "jets" but turned out to be really just the Italian pronunciation of "jazz". Another lady and I shared the strong belief that rap should not be called music. I know all the arguments about the protest messages included in the best rap music (if it's not an oxymoron to talk about good rap music, let alone the best rap music!) but what I usually hear at top volume from stationary cars at traffic lights is NOT any kind of political or sociological protest; it's just noise. 

Looking up stuff to do with rap, I discovered that the word itself was used back in the 16th century to mean talk. It must have fallen out of use but reappeared among Afro-American youth in the 1960s, again the mean talk or communicate. So when they needed to communicate a message, they had a word: rap. I also learned the word "turntablism", which is the art of "scratching" records to produce that weird sound beloved of certain kinds of DJs. 

Phil and I decided to have a bottle of wine with our evening meal (coincidentally hearing reports in the radio about the Health Minister warning about cancer risks!). On the label I read this: 

"An intense full bodied Australian red wine with enticing flavours of cassis, mint and eucalyptus." 

I am afraid my reaction is probably not printable but it was something about that being a load of nonsense. If I wanted blackcurrant (cassis - even more pretentious that an Australian wine producer had to put it in French when there is a perfectly good English name for the fruit) I would open my jar of jam. Or possibly have some French liqueur. I'm blowed if I could taste it. It seems like good red grape stuff to me. As for mint and eucalyptus - I really don't want my wine to taste like cough sweets! 

The description went on: 

"A touch of oak has added texture to the tannin and refreshing acidity to this persistent and highly appealing wine." 

Why do they put this stuff on labels? 

It was a nice wine, very fruity and so on but really had none of the flavours claimed on the label. I wonder if I can take it back and ask for compensation! 

It was suggested that you should/could drink it with "a wide choice of dishes from sausage and mash to crispy aromatic duck". If I were to eat sausage and mash, even really good sausages like the Cumberland variety, I'm not sure I would be drinking wine. Too pretentious altogether! 

And then how pretentious is having your picture taken with celebrities? I "follow" Leonard Cohen on Facebook. Not a stalker, I simply see occasional posts relating to Mr Cohen, a singer I much admire. Today there was the story of a lady in Los Angeles who was driving along the road when she spotted an old chap in a cap and a suit strolling along: Leonard Cohen. She stopped her car, got out and approached him to confirm that it really was the singer/songwriter. "Are you Leonard Cohen?" she asked. "I used to be," he replied. Almost a line from a song. So she had her photo taken as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. How nice! 

In London it seems they have bicycle paramedics. Presumably they can weave through the traffic more easily to administer first aid. One of these was waiting for an ambulance to arrive to take her patient to hospital when they spotted David Beckham. He also spotted them, moved off and returned with hot drinks for the paramedic and her patient. So she took a selfie with her patient and David Beckham. 

Not all the rich and famous are bad. Some of them have a nicer side, if you are in the right place at the right time to discover it and take a selfie. 

And finally a man and his son took a selfie while out for a walk and found that a grinning horse had got in on the act. They entered the picture in a selfie competition and won a £2000 holiday. The owner of the horse is now claiming the right to a share in the prize, especially as no-one asked permission to,publish a photo of the horse! 

Sometimes people take things to a level of weird that is truly beyond me!

None of my business, anyway!

The papers are reporting that David and Samantha Cameron are considering sending their son Elwen to a top private school (£18,000 per year) which is a recognised feeder school for Eton. Someone or other has reported that David Cameron "wants to send Elwen to Eton but can't do it while he's still in Downing Street". I wonder why not? Anyway, by the time ten-year-old Elwen is old enough for Eton, his father will no longer be Prime Minister, according to his own declared plans. 

Now, his daughter goes to a very good state secondary school in Westminster, rated outstanding by OFSTED. I wonder why that is not good enough for his son. Perhaps it doesn't confer the same career privileges - oops, I mean opportunities - as Eton. But do girls not also need good career opportunities? What exactly is the equivalent to Eton for young ladies? And can young ladies who go to Oxford join the Bullingdon Club? And, apart from my instinctive dislike of seeing privilege perpetuated, what business is it of mine where the Cameron children go to school? 

A young woman called Tessa Cooper writing in the Guardian about her decision at 18 not to go university. Here is a link to her article. It's odd how things turn out and how opinions and requirements change. My younger brother began a degree course in the 1970s and dropped put, deciding it wasn't for him. He found employment in banking and throughout his career found himself overtaken by people with less experience but more paper qualifications. And yet now it seems that there are companies like Penguin who are no longer making a degree a necessary qualification for working with them. 

Through the 1990s and the 2000s, working in sixth Form colleges, I advised young people to go to university. I helped them write personal statements and choose the university course to suit them. Maybe it was a mistake to persuade so many young people to go and get a degree in whatever discipline would accept them, devaluing the degree to some extent in the process and leading to a glut on the market. The law of unforeseen consequences also led to employers demanding higher qualifications for all sorts of jobs. 

Tessa Cooper, now I imagine in her mid-twenties, says she has recently decided to study for a master's degree, not because she needs it but because she wants to study and feels ready. There it is, that important thing of going into study with passion. 

The easiest students to help, I always found, were those who had a burning desire to study a specific subject, not only because they realised it might help their future employment prospects but mainly because they loved that subject and wanted to continue learning more. Perhaps I was right when I advised student to do just that, apply for the subject they loved - even though my own son told me once that I should have advised him to study Business instead of History! 

In the end, however, it has to be the decision of the person filling in the application form! 

Then there is the pyjama debate. For some mothers it would seem that just getting their children fed, dressed and off to school every morning is a miracle. It's too much to ask them to get out of their own jimjams and into proper clothes before jumping into their four by four to take the kids to school! I wonder how my daughter does it. She doesn't turn up to work in her pyjamas, at least not unless it's a charity event when everyone wears nightwear to school or work. 

The debate has been taken to a higher fashion level, with famous people being photographed in very expensive pyjamas. And it's not just women. Some male television personalities have been seen leaving television studios in what are clearly pyjama bottoms. But then, I suppose that if you spend over a thousand pounds on pyjamas, you won't just wear them to sleep in! 

None of this has anything to do with me, of course. I simply remember my grandmother, who never stepped outside of the house unless she was immaculately dressed, and usually had at least her second-best hat on. Italian friends of mine tell me that their mothers live by the same philosophy, taking it a step farther: they are usually beautifully made up and have their killer heels on their feet!