Goings-on in Manchester ... and elsewhere!

In the late afternoon yesterday, I set off for Manchester. There was a plan; there usually is. I was going to meet our eldest granddaughter when she finished work, have a bite to eat with her and then see if I could find a friend who was headed for the anti-Trump-Muslim-ban protest, before going to a book club meeting. Quite a schedule, in fact! Of course, the plan quickly went wrong; they often do. My granddaughter changed her mind; she decided to go straight home and do some sorting out and tidying up, maybe because her boyfriend was not around. So we had a chat on the platform of the tram stop and I sent her on her way and went and found myself a sandwich in a cafe. 

Then I found my protesting friend earlier than expected and we made our way to Albert Square, collecting other friends of hers along the way. Albert Square was very full. Passionate speeches were being made and people were cheering them. Unfortunately we could not make out more than an odd word of what was being said. If there was a public address system in place, it was not working well. We were at the edge of the crowd, partly because we arrived after the crowd was already established and also because my friend has some mobility problems and needs to sit down from time to time. I did worm my way into the crowd at one point but I still could not make out what the speakers were saying. I think you needed to be in the front five rows to hear properly.

This was rather a pity. Not just because it would have been good to hear all the speakers but because I later found out that one of them was a young friend of mine. I would have particularly liked to hear what he had to say. So it goes.

When the protest gathering turned itself into a protest march, setting off along Deansgate, I think, I went in the opposite direction to meet another friend at The Briton's Protection, the pub where the (aptly name for the times we seem to be living in) Winston Smith Reading Group meets. We were a small group; our organiser has been having difficulty finding a time to suit all the interested parties. It was probably just as well we were not more numerous as one of the back rooms of the pub was booked for a private party, incidentally providing us with free left-over sandwiches later in the evening. 

So we settled into a corner and had a good chinwag about "Diary of a Nobody". My nicely illustrated version of the book was much admired. We all agreed that the book was very funny, in a very British way, or perhaps a European way but certainly not an American way. Reviews from the time of the book's first publication show that our transatlantic friends could not really grasp what we found so amusing about it. We may speak the same language (well, sort of) but that does not mean we are exactly the same. Which is probably just as well really.

Today has dawned wet and gloomy. The paper and cardboard collection I put out for recycling will be papier-maché by the time the binmen come! Modern recycling problems! I suppose I should request a blue bin (specially provided by the council for paper and cardboard) instead of the old-fashioned blue bag (also provided long ago by the council) but it would mean another unsightly bin in my garden. There is already a grey bin (general rubbish) and a brown bin (glass and plastic) which have to sit in the front garden, and in fact have to be put by the gate, as the binmen will not go and retrieve them from the back garden - not in their job spec, apparently! It's all because time management and efficiency stuff!

The news is as gloomy as the day. President Trump has sacked the acting Attorney General for telling justice department lawyers not to defend his executive order banning entry for people from seven Muslim-majority countries. She is accused of being unpatriotic, betraying her country. It begins to seem that if you do not agree totally with the new president you risk losing your job. So long as it is only your job you risk losing, then I suppose that is something to be grateful for.   Here is a link to the estimable Paul Mason's view of the UK's situation vis-a-vis the Trump rule of law.

And finally, on a lighter note, I have a new phobia definition to add to my collection. Bathmophobia is a (presumably irrational) fear of stairs or slopes. This apparently explains Theresa May's willingness to hold Donald Trump's hand during her visit to the White House?  The new POTUS, unafraid to fire off executive orders and to fire people from public office is afraid of walking down stairs. Who knew? 

Some more about opinions and invitations!

Taking up something I mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, we should be wary of putting people into categories. We've seen suggestions that some people's opinions are perhaps less important because they are "only actors". Now I've been reading about a young journalist, Lauren Duca, who writes for Teen Vogue. Be careful not to dismiss her as fluffy and frivolous because she gives advice on make-up and boyfriends.

She has been explaining how people are being "gaslighted" by the mass of stuff coming out of the White House. She says all the "alternative facts" have a purpose: “The goal is not even to convince the public of their ‘alternative facts’ so much as it to sow doubt on any account. That way, they can convince the public to throw their hands up, and say ‘well, I can’t get any of this straight’. So then there’s no accountability.”

The term “gaslighting” takes its name from the 1944 Ingrid Bergman film Gaslight, which has gained currency as a metaphor for shifting blame for dishonest behaviour onto victims. “Suddenly, I’m beginning not to trust my memory at all,” Bergman says in the film as her husband’s deceitfulness causes her to question her sanity.

Lauren Duca has argued that Trump's contradictory claims during his election campaign are responsible for undermining democracy. “Trump won the presidency by gaslight,” she wrote. “His rise to power has awakened a force of bigotry by condoning and encouraging hatred, but also by normalising deception.”

On Fox news an interviewer tried to dismiss her as young and frivolous and said she should stick to fashion commentary about thigh boots. To this she replied, "A woman can love Ariana Grande and her thigh-high boots and still discuss politics,” and went on to dismiss her host: “You’re actually just being a partisan hack who’s just attacking me ad nauseam and not even allowing me to speak.”

Good for her!

At a time when mosques go up in flames - in a place called Victoria, in Texas - and gunmen attack people going to pray - in Quebec - we all need to speak out.

Maybe people would rather read what more established journalists have to say. This is journalist Jon Snow's post on Facebook:

"Facebook asks me 'what's on your mind'! I hardly dare say what is on my mind. Trump's ban on Muslims from seven countries, which effects many hundreds of thousands of dual citizens...including Israelis who have dual citizenship with Syria and other Muslim countries. So I suppose we have to say that Trump has now decided to ban Israelis. Britain's abject failure to condemn the ban immediately is also on my mind.

I'm thinking too about the reporting of 'truth'...as I have already Tweeted...some of Trump's behaviour is so far-fetched that one fears that, in reporting it, one will be damned for editorial bias!

These are the most dangerous of times - for those of us born since the Second World War. It behoves us all to speak the truth and to call out the prejudice, the hatred, and the bigotry that beset the world.

As we seem to be so fond of referenda...how about a referendum to ask which Head of State we should subject the Monarch to inviting!"

On a much lighter note, here's someone who should be turning down an invitation, according to Stuart Heritage, writing in the Guardian about Bradley Wiggins, indeed SIR Bradley Wiggins, who is seemingly about to take part in a reality TV show called The Jump. As I understand it, those who agree to take part go through some kind of ski lessons and training and are then filmed going down a ski-jump. Most are minor celebrities, escapees from other reality shows, who maybe don't realise what they are letting themselves in for. Proper athletes, like Sir Brad, should know better, especially as several people have sustained quite serious injuries.

Read all about it in this article.

Having our say!

In today's Onserver magazine, the writer Stephen Poliakoff is the subject of the "This much I know" feature. With a name like that of course he is from an immigrant family. That does not of itself guarantee tolerance and liberal thinking but it often helps. In his case I suspect it did. Anyway he appears to have been a Remain voter in the EU referendum. Here is what he wrote about Brexit in the magazine:

 "I watched Brexit through a fog of rubble mixed with tears. Just before the polls closed, my wife and I were by the telly and part of our ceiling fell down, like an extraordinary metaphor. We watched David Dimbleby, the air thick with dust, along with the disintegration of the Remain cause."

I wonder what he thinks about the continuing madness of our world.

There's our PM running round the world buttering up bullies. What exactly is she doing selling weapons to a country which has been refused entry to the EU for so many years because of its poor record on prisons and human rights? Does diplomacy demand that you express "delight" in the, OK elected but not necessarily very compassionate, president of Turkey overcoming his difficulties? Does diplomacy force her to congratulate President Trump on his sweeping victory? Was it really so great? And why did she not ask him about the women's rights issue, among other things?

Maybe she will soon start to agree with the Russian decision that domestic violence is not so much of a crime as previously thought! But then, she hasn't started buttering up Putin yet!

And then there's that immigration ban and the Prime Minister's refusal to say any more than that the USA's immigration policy is their business! Not ours at all! But I'm pretty sure we have the right to comment on it.

Here's Mo Farah's reaction to the ban on certain people entering the USA:

"On 1st January this year, Her Majesty The Queen made me a Knight of the Realm. On 27th January, President Donald Trump seems to have made me an alien.

I am a British citizen who has lived in America for the past six years - working hard, contributing to society, paying my taxes and bringing up our four children in the place they now call home. Now, me and many others like me are being told that we may not be welcome. It’s deeply troubling that I will have to tell my children that Daddy might not be able to come home - to explain why the President has introduced a policy that comes from a place of ignorance and prejudice.

I was welcomed into Britain from Somalia at eight years old and given the chance to succeed and realise my dreams. I have been proud to represent my country, win medals for the British people and receive the greatest honour of a knighthood. My story is an example of what can happen when you follow polices of compassion and understanding, not hate and isolation."

Perhaps Mr Trump can discuss all that with the queen when (or perhaps if) his state visit comes off. After all, he doesn't want to talk to Prince Charles about climate change. I have a sneaky feeling though that Her Majesty doesn't like being dictated to about how state visits should go.

And dictating is what Mr Trump seems to be about at the moment. I am having trouble getting my head around the executive orders business. I saw one explanation that said that all presidents have used them. It's a way for them to circumvent laws they don't agree with and to hurry legislation through. But somehow it seems to me that Trump is issuing an awful lot of them, as if ideas occur to him and in his head he is an absolute monarch who can just issue an order - Off with his head! - and it will be done.

Will we see a fight back from Congress?

Meanwhile, protests and demonstrations continue. Here's a link to an article where Carole King talks about her part in the women's protests on January 21st and her release of an old song of hers all about the power of one small voice. The song is worth listening to as well.

Mind you, there are some who would say that we don't need to listen to her. After all, she is just a singer/songwriter! Mo Farah is just an athlete! We are all just people!

Cutural differences - cultural values!

A couple of months ago, the 16 year old daughter of a friend of mine defined middle-aged for us as 35 to 40! Suddenly my children were middle-aged. Presumably that makes me ancient! Now I hear people talking about the possible swan song of either Rafa Nadal or Roger Federer as they face each other in the final of the Australian Open. After all, both players have been around for a while and are over thirty. In fact, I think Federer might even fit into my young friend's definition of middle-aged. Everything is relative.

Remembering that I used to use Nadal as part of introductory activity in an AS Spanish course I taught ( biographical details of the then up and coming teenage tennis player), I checked up on his details: born in 1986! So at the most he is 31 now and he seems to have been around forever. So he must have been only 22 when he won Wimbledon in 2008. The television coverage showed him climbing up through the spectators to reach the private box where King Juan Carlos was watching. He and his monarch exchanged a huge hug! At the time I wondered how our queen would have reacted to a young sports star climbing up and hugging her. Cultural differences! Spanish values and British values!

Buying the newspaper this morning in the local shop, I ran into an old friend. Our daughters (now middle-aged, remember) have been best friends for almost thirty years. My friend, despite being my age, is still working. She teaches jewellery making in community education and each time she considers retiring, they ask her to do one more course ... and one more course ... and one more course. At that rate she could still be going when she is eighty!


She is growing a little tired, however, not of the teaching per se but of all the peripheral stuff, the evidence-gathering, the form-filling that goes along with it. Most people on her courses are there because they enjoy it; it's a hobby and a way to meet people with the same interests as themselves. So why, she wonders, do they have to produce evidence of meeting certain targets as if they were on a degree course? And then there's the small matter of funding: she receives a pittance per student to buy the materials needed for the course. And so it goes on!

More importantly, she wonders, why does each course have to start with a session on British Values? She understands that this is partly another funding issue. Some of the people on the course are asylum seekers and have poor English. The college has to show that they are following government directives. And so she does a session on British Values, discussing things that the home-grown, native-British members of her class have no idea about! But another box is ticked! And some people are put off the whole idea and don't bother coming back for the next class!

Out in the wider educational world, teachers in schools are asked to report un-british activity. So when a little boy, one of a pair of brothers aged five and seven, told his teacher that he had been given a toy gun as a present, his teacher wondered if she needed to report it. The boys were of mixed Indian and Middle Easter heritage. Goodness me, did a toy gun indicate the beginning of radicalisation? The police were called in and the boys were questioned after school, a process involving keeping them away from their mother for two hours! In the end it was decided that the toy gun did not constitute a threat.

The boys' mother was understandably upset. They are being brought up with no religion and at home they speak English They have picked up a few words of their father's language but now feel afraid to use it outside of the home. Their mother overheard one say to his brother, "You can’t say foreign words at school, because you don’t know who you can trust". How very sad to have to feel so aware of the need to be careful at such a young age.

Significantly, the boys are in a minority of non-white children in the school. Would the teacher have reacted in the same way to a similar story from a white child? Would the teacher have reacted in the same way if s/he had greater experience of experiencing other cultures? The local authority concerned has agreed that this was a case of racial discrimination and will pay damages. The mother will not be taking the case any firther as she cannot get legal aid!

Personally, I would not have given my five or seven year old a toy gun in the first place but that's a different question. Presumably the primary school teacher involved is supposed to be teaching her class British Values! That's clearly a bit of a struggle!

 What a crazy world we live in! More hugging is obviously needed.

Understanding stuff!

Sitting in the cafe of Rochdale infirmary while Phil sees a consultant about an eye operation, I've been watching the day open up. And what a nice day it is - lots of blue sky, a few pastel coloured clouds in the sky - so I shall try not to worry about Theresa May possibly selling our NHS to the USA and think about other things instead.

I asked in the cafe if they have wifi. "Oh, I don't think so," came the reply. "Is that where you need a password? I can never make it work." Great, I thought but I had a go anyway. Free WIFI, it popped up. Just log in. So I did and there I was, surfing the net! Well, checking my email, anyway.

I came across a site about the ten ways learning a language can ruin your life. As I have spent going on for sixty years learning and teaching languages, I was just a little intrigued. Here's a selection:

"You have to decide between sounding pretentious or pronouncing it wrong when you order foreign food:
You refuse to pronounce it ‘choriTSo’ but your beautifully pronounced ‘chorizo’ with a rolled ‘R’ will leave the waiter silently judging you."


Their example - the Spanish chorizo - is one that drives me crazy. I have to bite my tongue in restaurants and at supermarket delicatessen counters when I hear people ask for "choritzo'. It's Spanish, not Italian for goodness sake. But I don't hold back with family members. They all know how to pronounce it properly Spanish style.

Mind you, Ibiza annoys me even more so. For a while there was a song around, sung in English but by a German group, I think, all about a holiday in a place called Eye-bits-a! At the time I was teaching AS and A-Level Spanish. One of my students, despite numerous corrections, spoke in his oral test about visiting, yes, you've guessed it, Eye-bits-a! I was more than a little furious. And I suspect it lost him points for pronunciation. Serves him right.

"You become a habitual eavesdropper:
It can happen anywhere. You’re just casually grabbing a coffee and then BAM; someone speaking the language you’ve learnt sweeps by, and you freeze, listening in. Whoever is having a coffee with you will be confused by your blank expression and coffee mug hovering halfway towards your face."

I started earwigging when I was about 12, desperately trying to understand any French I heard on the bus and then, a year later, I added Spanish to the nosy-parker group. I even stayed on the bus beyond my stop. I followed people through the town centre. It happens less now. Experience has made me blasé (or should I, as a linguist, make the agreement and say "blasée"?).

"Friends and family use you as a translation resource:
 “Could you just have a read through my CV in English?” “I want this part to be in French as well, can you just quickly translate it?” PEOPLE. This stuff takes time and effort!"

I have translated utility bills, threatening letters, and all sorts of stuff. Once I translated instructions about the use of an epi-pen into French, Spanish and Italian. I did not object to that as the friend who asks me has three children who ALL have serious allergy problems - nightmare scenario!

If you are interested in the rest of the stuff, here's a link. But on the whole, langauge learning is more fun than this site suggests. I would recommend it to anyone.

Now, here's an odd story. Barcelona is complaining that it has too many tourists and is passing a law limiting the number of beds on offer. Under the slogan “Barcelona isn’t for sale”, protesters are calling for an end to property speculation, which is pricing residents out of the city, and to low-wage jobs in tourist service industries. Those who work in hotels and restaurants in the city apparently receive less than half the minimum wage so, although it sounds a bit like biting the hand that feeds you, I suppose the move is understandable.

Too much of a good thing perhaps! They want their city back.

That sounds like a refrain I have heard before!

Escaping!

Various friends of mine are posting on Facebook lists of things that Donald Trump has been up to. I did think about copying and pasting but the lists made such nasty reading that I gave up on the idea.

I think I was most shocked by his saying that he doesn't really think that waterboarding is so very unacceptable. He believes torture works. And besides, ISIS use torture and so we should fight fire with fire. There is nothing quite like getting down to the lowest possible level, is there?

And as the new president sets out to reduce rights all over the place, other people in lesser positions of power, but still positions of poer, folow suit. And so we have the Mississippi governer signing laws to allow businesses to refuse servises to gay people

And our Prime Minister is pleased, indeed seems to feel privileged to be the first, to be going to meet Peesidnet Trump. Will she protest about any of his extreme policies? According to Polly Toynbee, "As his thin-skinned narcissism takes instant offence at the smallest slight, at the end of their talk if there is no obvious chill, no outburst from him, we shall know she never said what she should about that long list of near-criminal policies he is signing into law."

It's all rather disheartening.

So instead of printing lists of the horrid things POTUS has done, I decided to print this instead:

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY WEEPS AS PRESIDENT TRUMP TARGETS MEXICANS AND MUSLIMS

Statement of Steven Goldstein, Executive Director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, the U.S. civil and human rights organization among Anne Frank organizations worldwide:

"As President Trump prepares orders to wall out Mexicans and shut out refugees from America, today marks one of the most hateful days in our nation’s history. Donald Trump is retracting the promise of American freedom to an extent we have not seen from a President since Franklin Roosevelt forced Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II. Today the Statue of Liberty weeps over President Trump’s discrimination.
President Trump is beyond the wrong side of history. He is driving our nation off a moral cliff.
When President Trump uses national security as a guise for racism, he doesn’t strengthen our national security. He compromises our national security by engendering disrespect for America by people around the world.
Make no mistake, suspending visas for citizens of Middle Eastern and African countries is not called national security. It’s called prejudice.
President Trump is now exacerbating the largest global refugee crisis in history. His slamming America’s doors on the starving, the wounded and the abused is a grotesque blot on our nation’s history of freedom. The President’s actions are an embarrassment to the timeless vision of America as inscribed by Emma Lazarus to “give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Demonizing refugees and immigrants, and spending billions of taxpayer dollars to keep them out of our nation, will go down in American history as one of the most tragic deviations from our national conscience."

And I think that says it all!

 I shall just be thankful that I have this sort of thing to wake up to in the morning: -

Some birthday thoughts

I like the Instituto Cervantes. We have a branch (is that the right word or does it make the Instituto sound too much like a bank?) in Manchester. A number of my friends have done or are, indeed, still doing Spanish courses there and I have been to some of the cultural events organised by the Instituto. Years ago I went there to hear one of my favourite Spanish women writers, Ana María Matute speak about her work. Great stuff! Will their status, I wonder, be affected by Brexit? Who knows? Well, none of us because we still don't know what Brexit is really going to be like.

Now, the Instituto has produced a new study based on statistics they have compiled about Spanish speakers around the world. According to this study, there are now more Spanish speakers in the USA than in Spain itself, where we know that some people regard themselves as Catalán/Gallego/Basque speakers first and Castilian speakers second. (But, of course, we should not make the mistake of forgetting that those minority languages are also Spanish.) The United States is now the world’s second largest Spanish-speaking country. Mexixo is the largest. Anyway, there are 41 million native Spanish speakers in the USA and a further 11.6 million who are bilingual: the children of Spanish speaking immigrants.

Some of their statistics come from the US Census Office itself so they should be reliable. Unless, that is, the Census Office deals in Alternative Facts! The US Census Office estimates that by 2050 one third of their citizens will have Spanish as their mother tongue. Most of the Spanish speakers are, as you might expect, in the former Spanish colonies in the south and southwest of the USA. 47% of people in New Mexico are Spanish speakers, as are 38% of Texans and Arizonans. 18% of New Yorkers speak Spanish - I wonder what percentage of Londoners and Mancunians do so. Surprisingly 6% of Alaskans are Spanish speakers. Interesting stuff!

I thought for a long time that the USA would have a hispanic president before a black one (and certainly before an orange one) but perhaps I have hust seen too much of The West Wing!

Maybe, however, it's time to think about making Spanish an official language of the USA. I think I know of someone who won't like that idea. Indeed, I have read is morning that he plans to start work on THAT WALL today! Trump tweeted last night: "Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!" Is this also part of his plan to make sure there is work for every US citizen. If he kept the construction work as little mechanised as possible, then there could be manual work for ages and ages. It is, after all, quite a long border!

Okay, that's enough of that. Today is my birthday. I have a fine card selected by my three year old granddaughter. According to my son she said, "Grandma will like that one. It's Hello Kitty and it's pink!" The wonderful logic of children.

The sun is shining and I am about to go out to lunch with an old friend.