Save Our Foreign Languages!

Tomorrow is European Languages Day. Let's hope the event raises awareness of the importance of protecting minority languages: 50% of some 6700 languages spoken in the world are in danger of disappearing.

More alarming though is that foreign languages are in danger of disappearing right on our doorstep. Foreign language learning has been marginalised to such an extent that secondary school pupils are no longer required to speak a foreign language. Written course work alone now earns them a pass grade in the language of choice.

When I taught German in the UK, kids told me it was far easier for foreigners to learn English, because they were more exposed to English-language music and films.

From what I see here in Germany though, most kids seem far happier watching programmes dubbed than in the original language. And when quizzed, few of my students appear to understand the lyrics of their "faves". A popular radio show in Bavaria even encourages listeners to phone in and suggest what they think they hear English artists are singing in German. This morning a pupil amused us all, swearing she heard "Wir wollen Socken" (we want socks) in a song by The Clash.

Of course lack of exposure to foreign tongues is no longer an excuse for British learners either. Thank God for You Tube and satellite TV!

Many schools in the UK are planning their own European Languages Day. A primary school is mounting its answer to the Eurovision Song Contest. And CILT, the National Centre for Languages, is challenging teenagers to create a 2-minute clip to highlight the benefits of language skills. See my favourite clip about a lad who would certainly have found a girlfriend if only he'd learnt a foreign language or two!

The results are encouraging and show that at least some Brits are taking language learning seriously.

8-8-8 or no such luck?

It's a field day for numerologists. A once-in-a-century century occurrence, pinballing towards its orgasmic climax at 8.08 PM, as all eyes focus on Bejiing.
Forget the Olympics for a moment though. The Chinese are celebrating today for another reason. Their pronunciation of "8" sounds very much like the word "fah" or "fat" - an expression for fortune, wealth, and good luck. Convinced today's date will guarantee eternal love and romance, 9,000 Chinese couples will have been
herded through registary rooms in the time it takes you to read this blog.

What is it about certain dates and numbers that make people try to etch them into their life, in the belief that they will bring good fortune? Asians pay large fortunes for lucky telephone numbers, household addresses and license plates.

Alarmingly, thousands of women closer to home have been fine-tuning their pregnancy calendar, to ensure their child is born with the trendy 8-8-8 tag. Many have even been trying to delay childbirth till this hour, and maternity wards are inundated with caesarean bookings.

Can we influence are lives positively by scheduling key activities on specific days, or is it simply an atheist cop-out; a substitute, if you like, for prayer and the belief that we can achieve happiness and success only if we work hard for it?
Later today I'll be signing a contract for a new job starting next month. Seriously, I've not been putting it off all week. But it's lovely to think the date on the dotted line might just put my career under a lucky star.

Good lucky today, whatever you're planning!

Coffee mad

Coffee is my passion. I simply can’t start the day without an espresso, rapidly followed by a café au lait. I love my coffee machine.

Caffeine gets me going, revving me up as I contemplate the challenges of the day ahead.

Mostly I enjoy my early-morn fix online. I also love it when travelling – especially on the train or at the airport, listening to last-minute calls for far-flung destinations. Would Mr. Howe please make his way to Air Tropical’s flight to Madagascar? Certainly, just let me finish my latte please. Best of all though is the first cup sipped from a flask, and at one with nature; ideally after a morning swim at a local woodside lake.

So imagine my excitement on hearing about the world’s very first portable espresso machine. Coffee to go – not just any old high-street skinny-latte a la Starbucks, but fresh, aromatic – and anywhere you like. With “handspresso” just slip the coffee pod into the slot, pump up to 16 bar and you’re away.

Well almost. This pistol-like gadget – Retail price 79 quid – doesn’t make hot water. That you have to boil yourself and carry around in the same old battered flask.

So the price of about 20 cups of Starbucks froth buys you coffee wherever you wish to sip, but you still have to faff around the kitchen heating up water before taking off.

Funny. Man has the technology to split the atom or fly to Mars, but he can’t stitch together a simple hand-held coffee maker with built-in water boiler.

Personally, I’m just going to keep taking my fix the way I’ve always done. Pass the battered flask please….

Strawberry fields not forever

The all-you-can-eat buffet has long given way to the all-you-can-eat strawberry field. A Britsih farmer has had to close his 40-year old pick-you-own business, because dishonest families were gorging themselves through the rows and turning up at the weighing scales with more fruit smeared over their faces than in their punets.

How could it come to this? Strawberry lovers normally munch as they pick. I certainly do. It’s all part of the experience –as farmers also cheerfully acknowledge. But bulging up to 15 quid's worth of fruit without paying is a totally different kettle of fish – or punnet of fruit, rather. One family, it seems, had the cheek to turn up at the victim’s farm with a can of water to wash the fruit (aha, at least they were pesticide conscious) and fresh clotted cream to dunk the goodies in. Perhaps they’d even brought a picnic rug along too.

Families trampling roughshod over fruit and even throwing it at each other also led to the poor farmer finally having to throw in the punnet.

Would this sort of thing happen in other countries, or is it just a British bane? Here in Germany strawberry pickers fill their mouths on the fields too. But at least they have the decency to weigh in a bucket or two at the scales.

Money and Happiness

The Daily Telegraph asks today what makes us happiest. According to YouGov it's 'feel good' moments like having a romantic dinner, gardening on a sunny day and finding money you thought you'd lost. Intestingly though, there's no mention of actually making money.

Does money empassion you? Next time you walk through the City, take a look at bankers and brokers rushing to work. Do they look happy? I can't honestly say I ever get worked up about my bank balance - either when it's well in credit or otherwise. A cursory glance and into the filer. No great emotions.

What do I enjoy though is praise! The other day a student told me I was the best teacher she'd ever had. I guess that made by happy.

Admittedly, praise doesn't pay the bills - a pay rise for all that overtime wouldn't have gone amiss either.

The F word - is it OK?

Have you noticed the almost unbridled use of the F word on the telly these days? I counted three in under a minute last night on The Apprentice.

Am I out of touch or aren't they supposed to bleep out the F word? They still do on some programmes like "Have I got news for you". Or is that just for the ha-ha effect?
More and more we're hearing the sort of language on prime-time TV shows, which up to about 10 years ago would have been more befitting of a builders' yard.

I was brought up to believe we didn't say the F word because it was offensive. So if it's no longer offensive and henceforth free-to-air (obvously the BBC thinks so) does that make it an acceptable word?

One of the things I love most about the English language is its richness in colourful expressions and idioms. No F or C word can ever replace this.

But if the beeb and many grown-ups now condone the F word who can blame young people for parotting them?

Irritating Britain?

So we're an irritating country, obsessed with celebrity chit chat, eh? According to the new Rough Guide to Britain, yes. Do a spot check on any British high street . You'll probably have to swerve off the pavement into an oncoming car to avoid bumping into crowds of shabbily-dressed, mobile-phone-toting crowds - rushing from one Starbucks to the other. And then there's the glass and litter-strewn streets terrorised by tipsy teens and twens on a Saturday night.

Rough Guide goes on to call Brits overweight, binge-drinking reality TV addicts. But are they talking about the 2.7 million benefit scroungers or those that work for a living?

Whilst the trend in Europe is towards working ever shorter hours, Britain is the hardest working nation, putting in an average 60-hour week. Even the celebrity-obsessed Sun calls us "Work-mad Brits" (09.06.07).

According to the Life Balance Survey, 97% of Brits are living their lives out of kilter, with millions spending less than 6 hours a week with their loved ones. Blimey. No wonder they need to let there hair down during that precious time off.

Many Germans I speak to frown at our behaviour, seeing us as a nation of extremes. Either overdressed at work or underdressed at leisure, either overeating or undereating. But when it comes to British TV reality and quiz shows, fashion, music and culture they are passionate copy cats.

Don't read too much into the Vague (sic) Guide to Britain. At 16.99 quid it's a joke.

Jazz, Bier and a day off

Whilst it's a normal working day in the UK, many other countries today are celebrating May Day rolled into Ascension Day.

May Day is a joyous occassion in Gemany. Ever since 1919 it's been a public holiday here, with the largest trade unions holding marches up and down the country. By far the greatest crowd puller, however, is the "Maibaum", which almost every community puts up. The trees are festively decorated with wreathes and ribbons, there's dancing and, because this is Bavaria, large quantities of Bier are cheerfully consumed. The local brew, I should add, is the best you'll ever sip. We live in the Hallertau, which is the largest intact hop-growing area in the world.

Beata and I spent the morning at a "Frhschoppen", literally "early mug" - of beer, of course. Sitting on long communal beergarden benches, we tucked into american-size portions of sausage and sauerkraut, and , my favourites "Reibedatschi" - potato pancakes laced with apple puree. The liter jug of Bier was more than I could manage. But no Bavarian would dare order anything smaller. Playing in the background was a band valled "d'Vahunackldn", a jazz act which jumped effortlessly between traditional Bavarian beer-drinking tunes and traditional Dixieland. Just the right thing for a lovely sunny day off.

The nice thing about this month is there are two more Public Holidays to look forward to: Whit Monday and The Feast of Corpus Christi.

What schools need

The Daily Telegraph has asked how we can reduce bullying and peer pressure in schools today. Here's the mail I sent them at "Have Your Say":

Yes - school should be every bit as much about learning for life as learning Pythagorous' Theory and who won the Wars of the Roses.

In my schooldays (1970/80s) it was still sadly more about the latter. I also suffered terrible bullying. I loved learning but I hated going to school. I always knew I wanted to become a teacher. Yet few of my own teachers saw it in their job description to help us manage our teenage emotions. We were left to fight it out ourselves. And that was at an all-white, very middle-class private school in one of the loveliest cities in Britain!

No, we need neither experts nor pyschologists, nor meddlingy nanny-state study groups, commissioned to work out what’s ”wrong” with today's youth, who suffer, I believe, more from peer pressure than public-school-style bullying. We just need a bit more commonsense. From everyone.

Happy St George's Day - let the youngsters speak!

Happy St George's Day. The DT marks the occassion with all the predictability of a wet Bank Holiday: Asking Vox Populi how to celebrate the occassion. But read on please....

We're told today three times more people celebrate Guy Fawkes than St George. How nice then to read this comment under "Have your Say":

"We should get all the English people together and have a march. Don't even ask for permission. It's OUR country. Come on English people don't do it for the sake of it. Do it for the generation behind us who'd always have celebrated their National Day.

It's signed "13-year old boy who loves his country".

Now don't you wish there were more British teenagers around like that?

On the day a third of UK schools are hit teacher strike action, certain newspapers observe ever rising peer pressure and bullying, asking readers how to "rescue childhood."
I agree that academic study is not the be-and-end all of schooling. It's more about learning how to get on with other people. And if people are different, then graciously accepting them for what they are. Get it right at school and chances are you'll keep getting it right as an adult too.

I suffered terrible bullying at school. I loved learning (English, foreign languages and history were my sanctuary) and always knew I wanted to become a teacher but I HATED being in school. I received little support or sympathy from teachers. Their job description was just to teach, of course. As pupils we were left to fight it out ourselves. And that was at a middle-class, fee-paying school in one of the most desirable cities in Britain!
So I think I can understand some of the problems of youngsters today. Mounting peer pressure is not going to be solved by tax-payer-funded commissions and psychoanalysts. Let's just learn to accept - and appreciate - individual differences, whether it's speaking differently or wearing "unfashionable" clothing . Then schooldays really could be the happiest days in life.

Raw weather or just a raw deal?

Mark Twain said it was always best to read the weather forecast before praying for "good" weather.

I wonder though what he'd have made of BBC radio newsreaders telling us today to expect "raw" weather.

No wonder Aled Jones did a double take: "Raw??!?".

Consult your dictionaries, please, Aled and everybody. It means inclement, or just plain bloody awful.

Office (non-) workers

So we're told today that the average office worker puts in only 4 hours a day. The other 4 go on surfing, private emails, unnecessary phone calls and idle gossip.

I can believe all that. The translation department where I worked in-house was a hotbed for much more time-wasting besides.

Best were the 2 colleagues next door, who'd lock themselves in at midday and ask to be left undisturbed for an hour. 40 winks it was, apparently. They were probably lucky to clock up even 3 hours of service a day.

After 5 years I quit in disgust. I'm just glad I'm not paying anyone to work for me in my office.

Learning from The Apprentice

Watching The Apprentice last night I learnt 4 useful things:

There’d be only half as much congestion in London if the beeb stopped ferrying its dozen apprentices around town in twice as many limos.

Sell a punter a picture of them with a Beckham lookalike for 16 quid and you can sell ‘em anything.

David Beckham’s lookalike is in fact Beckham himself posing as his lookalike. Didn’t fool us last night though, Becks!

There is indeed a hell on earth. It’s called Saturday Afternoon at Bluewater Shopping Centre.

Lonely planet armchair travellers

Thomas Kohnstamm isn't the only travel writer to never visit countries they write on.

I once went to an interview with a travel book publishing co. in Munich. When asked about the travel expense budget they looked at me aghast. "Travel?! Our authors don't travel! They get everything they need off the Internet!"

Slightly bemused, I googled some of LP's less well-known guides on inviting places like Afghanistan and Myanmar . Quite obviously these guides were written with the sole purpose of putting readers off going there so they couldn't check out the authenticity anyway.

LP on Myanmar - "Big ethical decision - should you go there?"

LP on Afghanistan "Warning - dangerous landmines" (when was a landmine not dangerous?)

and, best of all, on Chechnya: "Travel warning - dangerous territory!".

That's it. All my LPs are going in the bin.

So it's official - "Not tonight, dear" is uttered these days more by men than women.

What always amuses me about these "Surveys" is not the results but who they interview. I won't go into the finer points of the Sex Drive study, but if you little further into "Men's sex-drive - there goes his" in today's DT and you discover the only people they quizzed on the issue were couples in therapy! So of course they got the skewed result they wanted!

Send someone out on the streets to quiz Joe Public and you'll get totally different results.

People with a clipboard stopping you on the street or phoning you at home with "just a few quick questions" are a pain even at the best of times. But this is one is so typical of how unreliable "surveys" are anyway. The more "private" the question, the less likely you'll get an honest response. Particularly if you're interviewing some stressed dad minding a rabble of kids out on the pavement whilst missus is inside Tescos buying groceries. If you were that chap quizzed by some stranger about your sex drive would you seriously give an honest answer or lie through your teeth?

Awful Americanisms

Just spent a lovely week in the Austrian Alps!

In our group were 2 lads from Scotland. I couldn't help notice every mealtime how they requested their food: "I'll get a schnitzel, I'll get a pancake..."and so on.

So how about this: "I'll get mad if I hear any more of that!"

What happened to the "old-fashioned" polite requests "I'd like.......(please)" or "I'll have.......".?

I'm not against Americanisms per se, and I can even tolerate their ghastly use of "guy" for women too. But this "I'll get" business is just downright impolite and smacks of indfference!

Blog reactions

www.knowhowe.wetpaint.com

Yes, it's up and running but, according to the site meter I set up the other day, the total number of visitors to date is ....... o. Yeppp. Zero, zilch, null-komma-nix!! Hmmm. Have to work a bit more on that.

Telegraph Blog attracting a bit more response. Today I posted one on Heather McCartney Mills. Given her solid negotiations skills - 25 million quid's not bad for just a few hours' in court - I mused what she might be worth on the international after-dinner circuit. One chap replied suggesting two farthings. Another, answering to the nom de plume of frozenhand, called me a "Crazy old Russian monk" and decided I'd finally got it right. Ah well, at least he'd been following my blog regularly. This has got me thinking though - could there possibly be people out there who have nothing better to do all day than read and comment on strangers' blogs?

My Polish wife and I watched with interest the BBC 2 documentary “The Poles are coming”. As the programme inferred, there’s no such thing as unemployment in Britain. If you’re not fussy about what you do – and clearly, unlike young Brits, Poles have no problem picking butternut squash oranges 10 hours a day at just above the minimum wage – there’s plenty work available.

Sure the “yuuufs” quizzed on the street quickly turned on their heels when offerded this type of work. Why bother getting up at the crack of dawn and labouring all day in the Fenns. State handouts are far more attractive.

My spouse tells me that in Poland you either work or go hungry. State benefits are negligible. Little wonder so many Poles are attracted to Britain. Loads of jobs (that Brits won’t do) three-times better paid than back home. Who can blame them?

Rather than fetching the mayor of Danzig over to Peterboro’ to lure his countryfolk back home, perhaps the BBC should be sending British DHSS officers over to Danzig.

Bluewaterisation

"Inside the Wintergarden, the first thing I see is a statue. Rising perhaps 20 feet high, dominating all around it. It is a statue of a Coke bottle. Affixed to its sides are four telescreens, silver and rounded, beaming out Coke adverts and Sky news. Behind the statue rise six imposing white stone pillars, holding up a high atrium of glass and steel. On top of every pillar is a brace of CCTV cameras. Everything I am doing is being monitored."

What actually sounds like the stuff of sci-fic is an actually an extract from Paul Kingsworth's latest book "Real England", in which he talks about the "bluewaterising" Britain. I wonder just how long we'll have to wait to see that lovely creation enter the dictionary, or, more worrying, until disneyesque malls, Starbucks and and Tesco Expresses on every street corner are regarded as the norm.