Well, that's it then. The tree has been taken down and put back in the garden to grow a bit more ready for next time. Christmas is officially over. All that remains is a rather straggly poinsettia and a pile of cards waiting to see if this year I manage to follow my cousin's example and cut off the bits I like in order to make my own cards for next Christmas.
As regards the poinsettia, I truly do not know why I bother. Every year I buy one. It looks fine. I follow the instructions. Then the leaves start to fall off. Have I underwatered it? Have I overwatered it. Absolutely no idea. It now has no green leaves at all although there are still some quite healthy-looking red ones. There also seem to be buds that are in the process of opening up. The poinsettia is one of life's mysteries!
And those cards. Well, they are sitting there in a pile. What usually happens is that eventually I get fed up of them and put them in the paper recycling bag. This Christmas just gone I managed to recycle a few into a scrapbook project for the three-year-old in the family: scrapbook, scissors, cards to chop up, glue-stick to stick them in - perfect crafty present. Goodness only knows what will happen this year.
Oh, and there is also a "Despicable Me" advent calendar that somebody gave us half way through December. Quite what strange yellow creatures (minions?) have to with Christmas escaped me. So far nobody has opened a single door. And there are two boxes of chocolates, one of them huge. Also gifts. I am waiting to see how long they remain unopened.
And so, as the Three Kings give presents to children in Spain today and La Befana flies over Italy doing the same job, Christmas therefore continuing a little longer, here we have put it away: done and dusted until next time. And the schoolchildren have been back at their desks for two, and in some case three! Days.
The folk across the road, first to put up massive decorations in their garden, removed everything on New Year's Day. Maybe they wanted to beat some kind of record. Or maybe they were afraid of forgetting to remove them. After all, there is a superstition that says that if you do not take them down by January 6th, then the decorations have to stay up all year. Otherwise, bad luck will ensue.
It seems to me, therefore, that an awful lot of people must have missed the luck deadline after Christmas 2015 because 2016 had more than its share of bad things going on! Fingers crossed for 2017!
Friday, 6 January 2017
Thursday, 5 January 2017
Some things that strike me as odd!
Dreams are strange things. Anxiety dreams are even stranger. Usually my anxiety dreams take me back to the classroom, usually a far worse classroom that I ever had the misfortune to teach in. Last night, however, it was my sister dumping her grandchildren, none of them their actual ages, all smaller, on Christmas Day for some unknown reason. The outcome was a mass of children all in the bath at once, getting more and more towels wet each time I turned my back or tried unsuccessfully to get Christmas dinner cooking. Eventually I recognised it all as a dream and clawed my way back up to a waking point surface, convinced that it must be almost time to get up. 2.15 am!!!
Why was I having anxiety dreams? No idea!
Here's another odd thing. If I leave a comment on my friend Colin's blog, the blogger system asks me to prove I am not a robot. This is achieved by ticking a box labelled "I am not a robot". Surely if I were a robot, I would have the nous to tick that box. Unless, as a robot, I had been programmed only ever to tell the truth. Or perhaps if I were robotist, A bit like being a feminist, and really wanted to assert my robotness! Too silly!
I came across a quotation from Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451. Farenheit 451 is the temperature atbwhich books burn in in that distopian society. Here'/ the quotation: "The problem with our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Very true in our media-driven age where almost all of us believe the stories that abound on social media.
So we were very relieved the other day when our thirteen-year-old granddaughter enthusiastically informed us that she had completed one of the books we bought her for Christmas and was halfway through another one. Which she spent the rest of her visit curled up on the sofa reading. She has an extensive collection of books. I know because I have regularly contributed to it. Her mother and, indeed, her schoolteachers comment on her being a "real bookworm" and yet in recent years whenever we have seen her she has been more interested in watching "shows" (usually American tv series involving high drama or vampires or both) on her iPad.
She's not the only child who spends a lot of time on social media stuff, of course. Here's a link to an article about the problems of children as young as eight signing away their rights on Instagram and Facebook and the like. I still find it quite frightening that children as young as eight have access to all this stuff and often unsupervised.
On that note, this being a fine, crisp winter's day, I am posting this and going out and about.
Why was I having anxiety dreams? No idea!
Here's another odd thing. If I leave a comment on my friend Colin's blog, the blogger system asks me to prove I am not a robot. This is achieved by ticking a box labelled "I am not a robot". Surely if I were a robot, I would have the nous to tick that box. Unless, as a robot, I had been programmed only ever to tell the truth. Or perhaps if I were robotist, A bit like being a feminist, and really wanted to assert my robotness! Too silly!
I came across a quotation from Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451. Farenheit 451 is the temperature atbwhich books burn in in that distopian society. Here'/ the quotation: "The problem with our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Very true in our media-driven age where almost all of us believe the stories that abound on social media.
So we were very relieved the other day when our thirteen-year-old granddaughter enthusiastically informed us that she had completed one of the books we bought her for Christmas and was halfway through another one. Which she spent the rest of her visit curled up on the sofa reading. She has an extensive collection of books. I know because I have regularly contributed to it. Her mother and, indeed, her schoolteachers comment on her being a "real bookworm" and yet in recent years whenever we have seen her she has been more interested in watching "shows" (usually American tv series involving high drama or vampires or both) on her iPad.
She's not the only child who spends a lot of time on social media stuff, of course. Here's a link to an article about the problems of children as young as eight signing away their rights on Instagram and Facebook and the like. I still find it quite frightening that children as young as eight have access to all this stuff and often unsupervised.
On that note, this being a fine, crisp winter's day, I am posting this and going out and about.
Wednesday, 4 January 2017
Where to live?
We got up early this morning so that Phil could phone the doctor's at 8.00 to try to get an emergency appointment. The ordinary appointment system told him the other day that there were no appointments with any of the doctors on the panel until January 18th. So, the receptionist told him, he could phone at 8.00 a.m. for an emergency appointment or go along to a walk-in centre in town. We considered that but as he is suffering from a wonky toe which makes walking difficult but is not really life-threatening (not yet anyway!), we decided that the triage system there might keep shunting him to the back of the queue.
And so we got up early and managed to get an appointment for early afternoon. At 8.00 the weather was dull and grey. As the weathermen predicted, however, by midmorning it was brighter and by early afternoon the sky was blue and clear. The gritters were out already at 2.30, expecting a hard frost tonight. But there are worse places to live!
Possibly central Manchester is one of them. Before Christmas my route through the city centre from my tram stop to the Manchester Deaf Institute, the surprising venue for our Italian clcass, was made problematical because of roadworks. It's a half hour walk. Buses are available but the roadworks meant that the journey by bus took almost an hour. On one occasion the buses just stood in line without moving! They calculated that that bit of roadworks would be over by early January but now they have announced further works, causing the local paper to warn about gridlock for folk returning to work after the Christmas break.
All of this is for long term improvement apparently. Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester council, said: “We’ve undertaken all this work now to allow the growth to happen to ensure the city is ready for a growing business base and population growth. January will see the start of work on the last segment of Oxford Road, improving bus journey time, creating a safe route into the city centre for cyclists, while making sure the area is pleasant for pedestrians.”
That's nice!
In the meantime they warn that general traffic will be affected throughout January and February - particularly during rush hours and especially in the evening. And commuters are advised to allow more time for their journey, try to travel at a different time, use a service which avoids the area or choose a different form of public transport. Easier said than done.
A friend of mine is already planning to hibernate until the end of February. Mind you, as she is is now a retired lady, like myself, she has no pressing need to be out and about in rush hour traffic. And since she hates cold weather, she would probably stay at home anyway!
I am surprised, however, that Manchester with all its traffic chaos did not make it onto the list of the worst places to live in England. I have been reading about this. Grimsby, top of the list in some years, is no longer considered the worst place to live in England but Scunthorpe has been voted as the fourth worst place for 2017 in some kind of survey which has taken place. One person who voted in the poll to decide the worst places to live in the UK, said: "One good thing about Scunthorpe? It takes about 5 minutes from the town centre to get out of the dump and go to a better place!".
Here are the top 10 worst places to live in England in 2017, according to "I Live Here UK".
1. Dover
2. Hull
3. Luton
4. Scunthorpe
5. Rochdale
6. Bradford
7. Gravesend
8. Sunderland
9. Oldham
10. Blackpool
I notice that Oldham, where our postcode says we live appears on the list. But we live on the edge, in Saddleworth, which is a good deal more pleasant!
Of course, all of this must depend on which questions the survey asks and, more importantly, WHO is surveyed. I know people who are quite happy with their place of residence one day but on the next day would cheerfully, or perhaps dismally, wipe it off the face of the map.
And I know at least one young man who is so permanently negative that wherever he is living would always be voted the worst place to live! So it goes!
And so we got up early and managed to get an appointment for early afternoon. At 8.00 the weather was dull and grey. As the weathermen predicted, however, by midmorning it was brighter and by early afternoon the sky was blue and clear. The gritters were out already at 2.30, expecting a hard frost tonight. But there are worse places to live!
Possibly central Manchester is one of them. Before Christmas my route through the city centre from my tram stop to the Manchester Deaf Institute, the surprising venue for our Italian clcass, was made problematical because of roadworks. It's a half hour walk. Buses are available but the roadworks meant that the journey by bus took almost an hour. On one occasion the buses just stood in line without moving! They calculated that that bit of roadworks would be over by early January but now they have announced further works, causing the local paper to warn about gridlock for folk returning to work after the Christmas break.
All of this is for long term improvement apparently. Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester council, said: “We’ve undertaken all this work now to allow the growth to happen to ensure the city is ready for a growing business base and population growth. January will see the start of work on the last segment of Oxford Road, improving bus journey time, creating a safe route into the city centre for cyclists, while making sure the area is pleasant for pedestrians.”
That's nice!
In the meantime they warn that general traffic will be affected throughout January and February - particularly during rush hours and especially in the evening. And commuters are advised to allow more time for their journey, try to travel at a different time, use a service which avoids the area or choose a different form of public transport. Easier said than done.
A friend of mine is already planning to hibernate until the end of February. Mind you, as she is is now a retired lady, like myself, she has no pressing need to be out and about in rush hour traffic. And since she hates cold weather, she would probably stay at home anyway!
I am surprised, however, that Manchester with all its traffic chaos did not make it onto the list of the worst places to live in England. I have been reading about this. Grimsby, top of the list in some years, is no longer considered the worst place to live in England but Scunthorpe has been voted as the fourth worst place for 2017 in some kind of survey which has taken place. One person who voted in the poll to decide the worst places to live in the UK, said: "One good thing about Scunthorpe? It takes about 5 minutes from the town centre to get out of the dump and go to a better place!".
Here are the top 10 worst places to live in England in 2017, according to "I Live Here UK".
1. Dover
2. Hull
3. Luton
4. Scunthorpe
5. Rochdale
6. Bradford
7. Gravesend
8. Sunderland
9. Oldham
10. Blackpool
I notice that Oldham, where our postcode says we live appears on the list. But we live on the edge, in Saddleworth, which is a good deal more pleasant!
Of course, all of this must depend on which questions the survey asks and, more importantly, WHO is surveyed. I know people who are quite happy with their place of residence one day but on the next day would cheerfully, or perhaps dismally, wipe it off the face of the map.
And I know at least one young man who is so permanently negative that wherever he is living would always be voted the worst place to live! So it goes!
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
Looking back - looking forward!
Apart from the horrid stories about night clubs attacked by gunmen and young girls being knocked down and killed by hit and run drivers - both of these reported over the last few days - now is is a time of non-news stories.
There have been reviews of the best books, films, music of the last year and suggestions for stuff we should not miss in the year just begun.
Today's Guardian has an article looking back at what Obama has and has not achieved in his eight years in office. Just looking at the photos is enough to cheer you up. The man has style. And then you remember that for the next four years we'll have to see pictures of a man with weird hair and oddly small, flappy hands. A man, what is more, capable of putting out this strangely contradictory tweet: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes". It's rather like a parent who says to a child, "I'm going to keep smacking you until you learn that smacking people is wrong."
That reminds me of a story my mother used to tell of an incident in the nursery school my older sister went to. (Unusually for that time, she was given a nursery place before age 3 because we were living with my grandparents. My grandfather was an invalid and found the noise of a toddler and a newish baby - me - too much of a strain.) One day one of the other children bit my sister, as some children do. The story was that the other child bit my sister's bottom. How true that is we do not know. The offending child was taken to see the headteacher. That good lady proceeded to bite the child, presumably also on his bottom, to show him what it felt like!
Those were the days! All the nostalgia-fest people will be saying that they knew how to deal with little bullies-in-the-making way back then. Just imagine the reaction today: social media #extreme punishment, tabloid headlines, "Headteacher's bite definitely worse than her bark" and Donald J. Trump tweeting "Lock her up!"
I think my favourite review/look forward is this one about gadgets that we should have in 2017. I could live without self-walking shoes. Fitness wrist bands that don't just measure how many steps you have taken but actually make you fit just by wearing them take me back to a gadget they had at a gym I went to in the late 1970s. You stood on a sort of mini-platform and put a vibrating band around the bit of you that needed "toning" - hips, thighs, etc. Without your having to exert yourself, the vibration was supposed to get rid of that horrid cellulite! Exercise without exercise! I also had a yoga teacher who told us that by clenching our fists, thus flexing our arm muscles, we had no need to lift weights. Which may have more truth than the vibrating belt to combat cellulite.
The idea of an instant-hangover-cure pill might solve some of the world's problems. I am pretty sure there is something like this already in existence, just not on the market. Some years ago a friend of mine accompanied students on an exchange holiday somewhere in the south of Spain. Two of the girls overindulged at a local fiesta and ended up being taken to the local hospital, somewhat the worse for wine and sangría.. By the time my friend went along to collect them, they had been given some kind of antidote to alcoholic poisoning and thus avoided a hangover. My friend was furious! She felt that they should have to suffer for their sins!
Of all the suggestions for gadgets we really, truly need, the one I personally would appreciate is the full-body Dyson airblade. The airblade hand-driers are the only hand-driers that really work, in my humble opinion. Your hands actually come out dry!
Imagine stepping out of your shower into a cabinet that blows warm air all over you. Even better than a warm towel off the heated towel-rail - my current showering luxury!
Today's Guardian has an article looking back at what Obama has and has not achieved in his eight years in office. Just looking at the photos is enough to cheer you up. The man has style. And then you remember that for the next four years we'll have to see pictures of a man with weird hair and oddly small, flappy hands. A man, what is more, capable of putting out this strangely contradictory tweet: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes". It's rather like a parent who says to a child, "I'm going to keep smacking you until you learn that smacking people is wrong."
That reminds me of a story my mother used to tell of an incident in the nursery school my older sister went to. (Unusually for that time, she was given a nursery place before age 3 because we were living with my grandparents. My grandfather was an invalid and found the noise of a toddler and a newish baby - me - too much of a strain.) One day one of the other children bit my sister, as some children do. The story was that the other child bit my sister's bottom. How true that is we do not know. The offending child was taken to see the headteacher. That good lady proceeded to bite the child, presumably also on his bottom, to show him what it felt like!
Those were the days! All the nostalgia-fest people will be saying that they knew how to deal with little bullies-in-the-making way back then. Just imagine the reaction today: social media #extreme punishment, tabloid headlines, "Headteacher's bite definitely worse than her bark" and Donald J. Trump tweeting "Lock her up!"
I think my favourite review/look forward is this one about gadgets that we should have in 2017. I could live without self-walking shoes. Fitness wrist bands that don't just measure how many steps you have taken but actually make you fit just by wearing them take me back to a gadget they had at a gym I went to in the late 1970s. You stood on a sort of mini-platform and put a vibrating band around the bit of you that needed "toning" - hips, thighs, etc. Without your having to exert yourself, the vibration was supposed to get rid of that horrid cellulite! Exercise without exercise! I also had a yoga teacher who told us that by clenching our fists, thus flexing our arm muscles, we had no need to lift weights. Which may have more truth than the vibrating belt to combat cellulite.
The idea of an instant-hangover-cure pill might solve some of the world's problems. I am pretty sure there is something like this already in existence, just not on the market. Some years ago a friend of mine accompanied students on an exchange holiday somewhere in the south of Spain. Two of the girls overindulged at a local fiesta and ended up being taken to the local hospital, somewhat the worse for wine and sangría.. By the time my friend went along to collect them, they had been given some kind of antidote to alcoholic poisoning and thus avoided a hangover. My friend was furious! She felt that they should have to suffer for their sins!
Of all the suggestions for gadgets we really, truly need, the one I personally would appreciate is the full-body Dyson airblade. The airblade hand-driers are the only hand-driers that really work, in my humble opinion. Your hands actually come out dry!
Imagine stepping out of your shower into a cabinet that blows warm air all over you. Even better than a warm towel off the heated towel-rail - my current showering luxury!
Monday, 2 January 2017
New Year's Day stuff.
After a soggy start, yesterday improved slightly, getting fine enough for a walkabout. Today though is one of those spectacularly cold, frosty days: blue sky, ice on the mill ponds and the mud puddles along the footpath frozen hard, making my morning run a whole lot less messy.
I spent part of yesterday listening to Jeremy Irons reading T.S. Eliot. Here and here are a couple of links. Well worth listening to.
Some people spent at least part of New Year's Day having a swim in icy water. Here is a link to photos of this event in various parts of the world, mostly northern Europe. Other more southerly nations are too sensible to indulge in such silliness. My father used to take part in a New Year's Day swim in Southport years ago, either in the sea or in the sea bathing lake, when that still existed. It must be a particular northern madness.
One bunch of people, about 200 of them, decided to see in the New Year in an old mine shaft in Newcastle. Their illegal rave did not last long as the police found out what was going on and cut their way in and ousted everyone! I have never quite understood the desire to go to a party where there are so many people that you can only ever know a few of them and, besides, you can't hear yourself think let alone speak. This is nothing to do with growing older and crankier; I have always felt this way!
There have been the expected protestations about the amount of money spent on fireworks for the New Year celebrations. We saw London's fine show on television but then yesterday I came across people saying the money would have been better spent on helping the homeless. Quite so! However it is also possible that there is a special budget for pyromania from which money cannot be transferred to other worthier causes.
Recently I read about Sephardic Jews applying for citizenship of Spain and Portugal. Both countries expelled Jews centuries ago. Some of the Spanish ones ended up in Turkey, where they continued to speak Spanish. A former colleague of mine, a Spanish speaker, accidentally came across some of them on a visit to Turkey - he was part of a team inspecting prisons in connection with Turkey's application to join the EU - and found that their medieval Spanish is little different from modern Spanish, still understandable at any rate. And so people from those communities can now apply for Spanish citizenship without having any problems meeting Spain's language requirement.
Portugal apparently does not impose a language requirement. Consequently quite a large number of British Sephardic Jews are applying for Portuguese passports. It is quite likely that many of them have no intention of ever going to live there, at least not on a permanent basis, but in the strangely unsettling post-Brexit era they feel reassure to have the right to a passport from an EU country.
The law of unforeseen consequences strikes again!
I spent part of yesterday listening to Jeremy Irons reading T.S. Eliot. Here and here are a couple of links. Well worth listening to.
Some people spent at least part of New Year's Day having a swim in icy water. Here is a link to photos of this event in various parts of the world, mostly northern Europe. Other more southerly nations are too sensible to indulge in such silliness. My father used to take part in a New Year's Day swim in Southport years ago, either in the sea or in the sea bathing lake, when that still existed. It must be a particular northern madness.
One bunch of people, about 200 of them, decided to see in the New Year in an old mine shaft in Newcastle. Their illegal rave did not last long as the police found out what was going on and cut their way in and ousted everyone! I have never quite understood the desire to go to a party where there are so many people that you can only ever know a few of them and, besides, you can't hear yourself think let alone speak. This is nothing to do with growing older and crankier; I have always felt this way!
There have been the expected protestations about the amount of money spent on fireworks for the New Year celebrations. We saw London's fine show on television but then yesterday I came across people saying the money would have been better spent on helping the homeless. Quite so! However it is also possible that there is a special budget for pyromania from which money cannot be transferred to other worthier causes.
Recently I read about Sephardic Jews applying for citizenship of Spain and Portugal. Both countries expelled Jews centuries ago. Some of the Spanish ones ended up in Turkey, where they continued to speak Spanish. A former colleague of mine, a Spanish speaker, accidentally came across some of them on a visit to Turkey - he was part of a team inspecting prisons in connection with Turkey's application to join the EU - and found that their medieval Spanish is little different from modern Spanish, still understandable at any rate. And so people from those communities can now apply for Spanish citizenship without having any problems meeting Spain's language requirement.
Portugal apparently does not impose a language requirement. Consequently quite a large number of British Sephardic Jews are applying for Portuguese passports. It is quite likely that many of them have no intention of ever going to live there, at least not on a permanent basis, but in the strangely unsettling post-Brexit era they feel reassure to have the right to a passport from an EU country.
The law of unforeseen consequences strikes again!
Sunday, 1 January 2017
Some words for 2017
2017 has got off to a rainy start. We spent New Year's Eve at a friend's house as usual, the same friend as usual, sharing good food and reminiscing. Above all toasting absent friends. At midnight we looked out over the town. Our friend's house is at one of the highest points in the town and we have often seen spectacular firework displays from there. This time we could hear a good deal of noise but could see very little. Too wet and cloudy.
It has become our tradition to walk home after the New Year's celebration. We have walked through crisp, cold nights, sometimes over lying snow, sometimes battling the wind but always walking. Last night we gave in and accepted a lift home. Too wet altogether. And this morning the rain continues.
A gloomy start but are we downhearted? Not at all! Here are some thoughts on words.
Someone called Gary Nunn was writing in the Guardian about how the meanings of certain words have changed, or perhaps not quite so much the meaning as the status of the word.
Experts, he tells us, used to be highly-regarded professionals at the top of their niche field. It was good to be an expert. "Now, the geek-bullying of the playground has festered into adulthood and “expert” is almost a pejorative, sneered at by the likes of Michael Gove and Donald Trump."
“Emotion” is no longer an important feeling to be taken into account but something to be dismissed because we should look only at "objective fact".
And then there is "disruptive": “Once, children might get told off for being loud or unruly or, as we called it then, “disruptive”... In 2016, it’s cool to be disruptive. It’s what every startup in Silicon Valley is straining to do.” "Disruption has happened on a grand scale: to politics, to democracy and to language itself. Disruption to the point of dystopia. Or, perhaps, to the point of melodrama. Depends on what you believe is true."
The Washington Post has a yearly competition where they ask for new definitions of already existing words. Here is a selection:
Coffee (n) - a person on whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj) - appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v) - to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Gargoyle (n) - gross olive-flavoured mouthwash.
Flatulance (n) - an emergency vehicle that picks you up after you have been run over by a steam roller.
Balderdash (n) - a rapidly receding hairline.
Frisbeetarianism (n) - the belief that when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
(I am pretty sure that last one is a totally invented word but I like it.)
Four five pound notes with a tiny picture of Jane Austen and a quotation from her work are a project by the Tony Huggins-Haig Gallery in Kelso. Graham Short, a micro-engraver from Birmingham had the idea. He engraved a 5mm portrait of Jane Austen on the transparent part of the new plastic fivers as next will be a celebration of the hundredth anniversary of her death. The gallery people said each note could be worth tens of thousands of pounds. Graham Short engraved a portrait of the queen on a pinhead and it sold for £100,000. Not bad!
Graham Short himself spent the first of the special fivers in Caerphilly in early December, choosing that town as his mother was born there. It was found about two weeks ago. Now a second one has turned up in a Christmas card in the Scottish Borders. Both the finders say they want to keep the notes and have them framed. Not me! I am pretty sure I would arrange to have it sold for large amounts of money. I could find a use for it and I have no great hankering for a portrait of Jane Austen. Her writing is more interesting.
Now all I need to do is examine carefully every new plastic fiver that comes into my hands. It's a bit like looking for Willy Wonka's golden tickets! Happy New Year!
It has become our tradition to walk home after the New Year's celebration. We have walked through crisp, cold nights, sometimes over lying snow, sometimes battling the wind but always walking. Last night we gave in and accepted a lift home. Too wet altogether. And this morning the rain continues.
A gloomy start but are we downhearted? Not at all! Here are some thoughts on words.
Someone called Gary Nunn was writing in the Guardian about how the meanings of certain words have changed, or perhaps not quite so much the meaning as the status of the word.
Experts, he tells us, used to be highly-regarded professionals at the top of their niche field. It was good to be an expert. "Now, the geek-bullying of the playground has festered into adulthood and “expert” is almost a pejorative, sneered at by the likes of Michael Gove and Donald Trump."
“Emotion” is no longer an important feeling to be taken into account but something to be dismissed because we should look only at "objective fact".
And then there is "disruptive": “Once, children might get told off for being loud or unruly or, as we called it then, “disruptive”... In 2016, it’s cool to be disruptive. It’s what every startup in Silicon Valley is straining to do.” "Disruption has happened on a grand scale: to politics, to democracy and to language itself. Disruption to the point of dystopia. Or, perhaps, to the point of melodrama. Depends on what you believe is true."
The Washington Post has a yearly competition where they ask for new definitions of already existing words. Here is a selection:
Coffee (n) - a person on whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj) - appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v) - to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Gargoyle (n) - gross olive-flavoured mouthwash.
Flatulance (n) - an emergency vehicle that picks you up after you have been run over by a steam roller.
Balderdash (n) - a rapidly receding hairline.
Frisbeetarianism (n) - the belief that when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
(I am pretty sure that last one is a totally invented word but I like it.)
Four five pound notes with a tiny picture of Jane Austen and a quotation from her work are a project by the Tony Huggins-Haig Gallery in Kelso. Graham Short, a micro-engraver from Birmingham had the idea. He engraved a 5mm portrait of Jane Austen on the transparent part of the new plastic fivers as next will be a celebration of the hundredth anniversary of her death. The gallery people said each note could be worth tens of thousands of pounds. Graham Short engraved a portrait of the queen on a pinhead and it sold for £100,000. Not bad!
Graham Short himself spent the first of the special fivers in Caerphilly in early December, choosing that town as his mother was born there. It was found about two weeks ago. Now a second one has turned up in a Christmas card in the Scottish Borders. Both the finders say they want to keep the notes and have them framed. Not me! I am pretty sure I would arrange to have it sold for large amounts of money. I could find a use for it and I have no great hankering for a portrait of Jane Austen. Her writing is more interesting.
Now all I need to do is examine carefully every new plastic fiver that comes into my hands. It's a bit like looking for Willy Wonka's golden tickets! Happy New Year!
Saturday, 31 December 2016
On death and glory!
A very grim-reaperish 2016 staggers to an end, waiting in its turn for the Grim Reaper to come and get it. Just think of all the famous folk holding their breath and crossing their fingers in the hope that they do not become last minute additions to list of those 2016 has seen off.
Out and about this morning, I ran into Mike and his grumpy rescue dog. Mike is one of the people who has gone from being a nodding acquaintance to someone with a name who stops and chats and we set the world to rights. His rescue dog is generally unaggressive, apart from when he comes across certain other canines, but seriously not friendly. Unlike Rosie (the little dog belonging to old Jack, another former nodding acquaintance who now has a name), a dog who always runs to meet me and demands attention, the last thing Mike's dog wants is someone to stroke him and make a fuss of him. Determined (no, bloody-minded!), Mike's dog demands to be walked miles and miles every day. Many times I have come across them at around 9.00 am as they return from a walk that began at 6.00 am, if not earlier.
So, I ran into Mike, who commented that every year for the last five or more he has predicted the demise of the annoying Liverpudlian comedian Ken Dodd. And, lo and behold, this year the old dodderer, still alive, has been given a knighthood! I saw him on the television news last night, face like a crumpled leaf (he is 89, after all) declaring himself "very tickled".
Yes, it's that time of the year when they announce the New Year's Honours. Mike and I spent a few minutes slagging off some of the people who have received honours and, indeed, the honours system in general.Someone I once worked with received an OBE, years ago now, for service to education. And now Victoria Beckham is receiving one, presumably for services to fashion. Or maybe for being married to David. How do these two nominations manage to be comparable?
La Beckham's nomination has apparently been criticised because her fashion label is threatened with closure afer failing to file accounts. And La Beckham herself is criticised for telling her family she would be receiving the award before the announcement was officially made , something the MP Peter Bone described as "a betrayal of etiquette". Shocking!
Then there are the knighthoods and damehoods (does that word even exist?). Somehow I imagine a knight or a dame to be venerable, to have done a great service to the country. And while it's great that Andy Murray has proved to be a great tennis player, number one in the world, winner of Wimbledon and of Olympic gold medals, does he need to be SIR Andy? As my friend Mike said, "He was just doing his job. And earning plenty of money at it too!" I felt the same about SIR Bradley Wiggins. And about all the athletes who won lots of gold medals for us at the Olympics. Although Katherine Grainger, the lady rower who has been made a dame, did manage to keep her nomination secret, even from her family. She clearly knows the etiquette!
Is it very snobbish of me the feel that perhaps Mark Rylance, actor, has more fully deserved his knighthood for services to the theatre? Probably! He too was just doing his job and getting paid for it, although I suspect not as much as Andy Murray. I suppose sport is as much a part of our culture as theatre. And maybe giving them honours makes them even more of a role model for young people. Hmmm!
Two people turned down their honours.
Lynn Faulds Wood, former presenter of the BBC's Watchdog programme said she would be a "hypocrite" to accept the award for her work on consumer safety. She was nominated for an MBE, Member of the British Empire, and it's the Empire that sticks in her throat. We no longer have an empire, she said, and feels that the honours system needs dragging into the 21st century.
She continued, "I think honours are really important and should be given to people who have done really good stuff.
"And I've changed laws and I've helped saved a lot of people's lives, so maybe I'm deserving of an honour, but I just wouldn't accept it while we still have party donors donating huge amounts of money and getting an honour.
"We're a very backward-looking country at the moment.
"We shouldn't have lords and ladies and sirs. We should give people honours, yes, because plenty of people deserve them, including, I hope, myself. But it's not a fair system."
Another refusenik was the Hillsborough campaigner Prof Phil Scraton. He refused to accept an OBE in protest "at those who remained unresponsive" to help families and survivors affected by the disaster. He said he was also unwilling to accept "an honour tied in name to the 'British Empire'.
Honourable people!
Out and about this morning, I ran into Mike and his grumpy rescue dog. Mike is one of the people who has gone from being a nodding acquaintance to someone with a name who stops and chats and we set the world to rights. His rescue dog is generally unaggressive, apart from when he comes across certain other canines, but seriously not friendly. Unlike Rosie (the little dog belonging to old Jack, another former nodding acquaintance who now has a name), a dog who always runs to meet me and demands attention, the last thing Mike's dog wants is someone to stroke him and make a fuss of him. Determined (no, bloody-minded!), Mike's dog demands to be walked miles and miles every day. Many times I have come across them at around 9.00 am as they return from a walk that began at 6.00 am, if not earlier.
So, I ran into Mike, who commented that every year for the last five or more he has predicted the demise of the annoying Liverpudlian comedian Ken Dodd. And, lo and behold, this year the old dodderer, still alive, has been given a knighthood! I saw him on the television news last night, face like a crumpled leaf (he is 89, after all) declaring himself "very tickled".
Yes, it's that time of the year when they announce the New Year's Honours. Mike and I spent a few minutes slagging off some of the people who have received honours and, indeed, the honours system in general.Someone I once worked with received an OBE, years ago now, for service to education. And now Victoria Beckham is receiving one, presumably for services to fashion. Or maybe for being married to David. How do these two nominations manage to be comparable?
La Beckham's nomination has apparently been criticised because her fashion label is threatened with closure afer failing to file accounts. And La Beckham herself is criticised for telling her family she would be receiving the award before the announcement was officially made , something the MP Peter Bone described as "a betrayal of etiquette". Shocking!
Then there are the knighthoods and damehoods (does that word even exist?). Somehow I imagine a knight or a dame to be venerable, to have done a great service to the country. And while it's great that Andy Murray has proved to be a great tennis player, number one in the world, winner of Wimbledon and of Olympic gold medals, does he need to be SIR Andy? As my friend Mike said, "He was just doing his job. And earning plenty of money at it too!" I felt the same about SIR Bradley Wiggins. And about all the athletes who won lots of gold medals for us at the Olympics. Although Katherine Grainger, the lady rower who has been made a dame, did manage to keep her nomination secret, even from her family. She clearly knows the etiquette!
Is it very snobbish of me the feel that perhaps Mark Rylance, actor, has more fully deserved his knighthood for services to the theatre? Probably! He too was just doing his job and getting paid for it, although I suspect not as much as Andy Murray. I suppose sport is as much a part of our culture as theatre. And maybe giving them honours makes them even more of a role model for young people. Hmmm!
Two people turned down their honours.
Lynn Faulds Wood, former presenter of the BBC's Watchdog programme said she would be a "hypocrite" to accept the award for her work on consumer safety. She was nominated for an MBE, Member of the British Empire, and it's the Empire that sticks in her throat. We no longer have an empire, she said, and feels that the honours system needs dragging into the 21st century.
She continued, "I think honours are really important and should be given to people who have done really good stuff.
"And I've changed laws and I've helped saved a lot of people's lives, so maybe I'm deserving of an honour, but I just wouldn't accept it while we still have party donors donating huge amounts of money and getting an honour.
"We're a very backward-looking country at the moment.
"We shouldn't have lords and ladies and sirs. We should give people honours, yes, because plenty of people deserve them, including, I hope, myself. But it's not a fair system."
Another refusenik was the Hillsborough campaigner Prof Phil Scraton. He refused to accept an OBE in protest "at those who remained unresponsive" to help families and survivors affected by the disaster. He said he was also unwilling to accept "an honour tied in name to the 'British Empire'.
Honourable people!
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