So I have a couple of weeks before I head off to Frankfurt, but thought I'd share a few thoughts in the meantime:
Firstly, I have extraordinarily mixed feelings about this whole wedding shenanigens thing happening tomorrow. A large chunk of me wishes everyone (by which I mainly mean the press) would just shut up about it - it's banal, completely irrelevant and and wholly unnecessary. However, given the nature of the world we live in at the moment, with pockets of violence erupting throughout the Middle East and Africa and a West that can't seem to sort its ideals out, this event seems to have brought people together somewhat. Apparently over 2 billion people are going to be watching this union of 2 people as part of an outdated institution in a ex-colonial backwater, thus proving that people of all nations, shapes, sizes, races and creeds appear to quite like our Royal Family. The thing is, I have no idea why.
There have been increasingly loud mutterings and rumours that Donald Trump is planning to run for President of the USA; while this is by no means a bad thing for the Left, given that they can present themselves (once again) as the voice of sanity, it does present a not-so-slight problem for the world. This is the USA - they're actually quite powerful. Admittedly Trump isn't as bad as someone like Ron Paul, he's still anti-abortion, anti-vac, thinks Obama wasn't born in the USA and is generally just a few sausages short. While it would be vaguely amusing and patronising to look at a country like Tuvalu if they elected a cartoon character to the highest office, America is actually rather powerful. We don't need another 4-8 years of craziness, please. No no no.
No.
Peace x
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Monday, 18 April 2011
Return
So I appear to be finished in France - the Caen-Portsmouth ferry dropped me off at some unpleasant hour this morning and I arrived home bleary-eyed at about 8am.
I'm not going to do a massive spiel about what an amazing, eye-opening experience it was, and how I'll treasure the memory of everything I did and everyone I met. It's boring - no-one wants to hear it, and I'm not prone to hyperbole anyway. France was fine, the people were pretty friendly on the whole, and I didn't die or anything, so I'll consider the whole experience as a success.
Some final thoughts on France then, in no particular order:
- The majority of French boys have no shame whatsoever and will attempt to fuck anything with a pulse. Quite how this is an attractive quality is beyond me, but such is life.
- The notion of being "fashionably late" is taken to the extreme. Indeed, if anyone I'm supposed to be meeting turns up in the same week me, I consider that to be a relative success.
- There is nothing to do on Sundays. Anywhere.
- People drink considerably less over here, though pretend they drink just as much. Machismo?
- French keyboards are confusing; returning to a QWERTY keyboard is a rather strange experience.
Next stop: Frankfurt.
See you all then, folks.
Charlie x
I'm not going to do a massive spiel about what an amazing, eye-opening experience it was, and how I'll treasure the memory of everything I did and everyone I met. It's boring - no-one wants to hear it, and I'm not prone to hyperbole anyway. France was fine, the people were pretty friendly on the whole, and I didn't die or anything, so I'll consider the whole experience as a success.
Some final thoughts on France then, in no particular order:
- The majority of French boys have no shame whatsoever and will attempt to fuck anything with a pulse. Quite how this is an attractive quality is beyond me, but such is life.
- The notion of being "fashionably late" is taken to the extreme. Indeed, if anyone I'm supposed to be meeting turns up in the same week me, I consider that to be a relative success.
- There is nothing to do on Sundays. Anywhere.
- People drink considerably less over here, though pretend they drink just as much. Machismo?
- French keyboards are confusing; returning to a QWERTY keyboard is a rather strange experience.
Next stop: Frankfurt.
See you all then, folks.
Charlie x
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Cake - The True Way To A Man's Heart
I was considering putting "If he likes cake" in brackets at the end of the title, but that would have been unnecessary to say the least.
So yes, one of my BTS classes this morning baked me a cake for our final ever lesson, which was a rather wonderful surprise. It had chocolatey bits in and was generally pretty wonderful, even at 9am. There was also a note attached, written by the strongest student in the class, describing the sequence of events that led to the chocolatey bits being added to the cake (spoiler: it involved a rabbit...). So yeah, they're high on my good list at the moment. To quote Dylan Moran:
- "I love you, I love you, I love y-"
- "BAKE ME A CAKE OR GO AWAY."
'Nuff said.
Less than two weeks now before I have to head back to Blighty, and it appears that time has passed rather more quickly than I had expected; indeed, this is probably fortunate as I'm definitely starting to run out of ideas for what to teach people, especially the brats that I have once a week instead of once a fortnight. My solution to this problem this week has been to show the classes I like (by which I mean the older ones) an episode of Peep Show of my choosing, while hoping it's not too inappopriate. Happy days.
Peace x
So yes, one of my BTS classes this morning baked me a cake for our final ever lesson, which was a rather wonderful surprise. It had chocolatey bits in and was generally pretty wonderful, even at 9am. There was also a note attached, written by the strongest student in the class, describing the sequence of events that led to the chocolatey bits being added to the cake (spoiler: it involved a rabbit...). So yeah, they're high on my good list at the moment. To quote Dylan Moran:
- "I love you, I love you, I love y-"
- "BAKE ME A CAKE OR GO AWAY."
'Nuff said.
Less than two weeks now before I have to head back to Blighty, and it appears that time has passed rather more quickly than I had expected; indeed, this is probably fortunate as I'm definitely starting to run out of ideas for what to teach people, especially the brats that I have once a week instead of once a fortnight. My solution to this problem this week has been to show the classes I like (by which I mean the older ones) an episode of Peep Show of my choosing, while hoping it's not too inappopriate. Happy days.
Peace x
Monday, 28 March 2011
Tanzania, U-Turns and RC
It is not exactly uncommon knowledge that superstition and irrational beliefs are rife throughout certains parts of Africa, where the combination of local shamanism and the insurgence of Islamic and Christian missionaries has resulted in a bastardised form of religion and pagan beliefs. It should therefore come as no surprise that a so-called pastor in Tanzania has been flogging his "miracle cure for all ailments" for the price of 500 Tanzanian shillings to the gullible (and tragically desperate) Tanzanian public. And what, I hear you ask, is the magical concoction that he uses? Herbs and water. Herbs and fucking water. Congratulations, you despicable little charlatan - you have succeeded in killing hundreds of people by convincing them that your own brand of homeopathic holy water is somehow superior to modern medicine. Yes, the medical services in Tanzania are rudimentary at best in certain places, but encouraging superstition and peddling your own moonshine horseshit is not exactly the way forward: the Tanzanian medical authorities have been involved to actually test the stuff he's selling, but one doubts whether their verdict will have any bearing on actions of such a man.
I have just downloaded the long-awaited AETV show with Ray Comfort as their special guest - I am sincerely looking forward to the bloodbath that will be Matt and Russell disintegrating this man's pathetic and dishonest PRATT arguments.
Slightly angry peace,
Charlie x
I have just downloaded the long-awaited AETV show with Ray Comfort as their special guest - I am sincerely looking forward to the bloodbath that will be Matt and Russell disintegrating this man's pathetic and dishonest PRATT arguments.
Slightly angry peace,
Charlie x
Monday, 21 March 2011
Attitudes To Race in France and Guardian Commentators
It would appear that the French section of my blog has been somewhat underused lately, mainly due to the fact that nothing much has changed: the majority of my students/pupils still mildly irritate me, there is a tad more sun than there was a month ago and some of my French friends got treated to a flurry abuse from a drunken Scotsman. So far so good, oder? However, there has been this vague nagging at the back of my head regarding the French attitudes towards ethnic minorities in what is essentially a relatively old-fashioned provincial town. A student of mine remarked a while ago that he "hated Arabs" for no particular reason, a Vietnamese girl was subjected to a volley of supposedly "Chinese-sounding" noises by her French peers, and one of the teachers at my school had to suspend one of her pupils for saying something along the lines of, "not bad for a black guy". Now, this is no indictment of France and the French as a whole, and I accept that these are isolated incidents, but it does make one wonder about the levels of tolerance afforded to young people about the acceptability of race-related conduct.
Speaking of which, I come to my second point of today: the Guardian. Being the one-man manifestation of coalition politics, I tend to read both the Times and the Guardian, though with a slight leaning towards the former. However, it has come to my attention that two of the more mainstream opinion writers, David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker (both of whom I hold in high regard), often talk about exactly the same subjects on the same weeks. This week it was the Midsomer Murders furore (of which I am thankfully blissfully ignorant), and in past weeks they have each talked about Nick Clegg's "Alarm Clock Britain" idea and the fact that football pundits are (unsurprisingly to my mind) complete bigots, in the same week as each other. Ok, so these were possibly some of the more high-profile cultural stories of the week, but surely they could come to some agreement to take it in turns? Otherwise it becomes rather tedious listening to two sarcastic people being sarcastic about things I really don't care about.
Peace x
Speaking of which, I come to my second point of today: the Guardian. Being the one-man manifestation of coalition politics, I tend to read both the Times and the Guardian, though with a slight leaning towards the former. However, it has come to my attention that two of the more mainstream opinion writers, David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker (both of whom I hold in high regard), often talk about exactly the same subjects on the same weeks. This week it was the Midsomer Murders furore (of which I am thankfully blissfully ignorant), and in past weeks they have each talked about Nick Clegg's "Alarm Clock Britain" idea and the fact that football pundits are (unsurprisingly to my mind) complete bigots, in the same week as each other. Ok, so these were possibly some of the more high-profile cultural stories of the week, but surely they could come to some agreement to take it in turns? Otherwise it becomes rather tedious listening to two sarcastic people being sarcastic about things I really don't care about.
Peace x
Monday, 14 March 2011
American Conservatism
Having been catching up on PZ's blog over the last few minutes, my attention was drawn to a collection of responses to the catastrophic recent events in Japan by some illiterate American facebook users, some of which I shall quote here; see the link below for the full compilation. The mind truly boggles...
"ya know Japan, this earthquake is just gods way of getting you back for that Pearl Harbour deal"
"Eat a dick Japan! That's what you get for pearl harbour, karma son! Hahaha!"
"Hell yeah that's right japan 3-1 you may have had pearl harbour but we got Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and, since God is on our side, we have this. SCOOOREEEBOOOAARRDDD."
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2011/03/i_hope_these_people_arent_your/GodBlessAmerica.php
Yes, I concede that these views are (hopefully) in the minority, and that there are people who hold views of equal bigotry in the UK, but one is currently seeing a wave of right-wing activity across the Atlantic, given the recent rise of the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party and various ultra-conservative legislation being passed by Republican-run states (see the anti-choice law in Nebraska for a dangerous, inhumane example of right-wing politics at its most illiberal). Add to that the lack of acceptance of global warming, a frighteningly self-righteous attitude towards sectarian Christianity, the antipathy towards scientific education and the apparent spinelessness of the Democrats to stand up to these troglodytes, and the USA has a serious intellectual crisis on its hands. Since the change of government in the UK, the "special relationship" between the UK and USA has cooled somewhat, a change about which I am in two minds. Yes, we want to support a progressive, liberal president in Obama, but his liberalism certainly appears to have its limits when it comes to his attempts to appease the right-wing lobby.
There are about 100 other things I could say about this, but I don't want to be accused of ranting.
Yours sincerely and with love,
Charlie x
"ya know Japan, this earthquake is just gods way of getting you back for that Pearl Harbour deal"
"Eat a dick Japan! That's what you get for pearl harbour, karma son! Hahaha!"
"Hell yeah that's right japan 3-1 you may have had pearl harbour but we got Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and, since God is on our side, we have this. SCOOOREEEBOOOAARRDDD."
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2011/03/i_hope_these_people_arent_your/GodBlessAmerica.php
Yes, I concede that these views are (hopefully) in the minority, and that there are people who hold views of equal bigotry in the UK, but one is currently seeing a wave of right-wing activity across the Atlantic, given the recent rise of the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party and various ultra-conservative legislation being passed by Republican-run states (see the anti-choice law in Nebraska for a dangerous, inhumane example of right-wing politics at its most illiberal). Add to that the lack of acceptance of global warming, a frighteningly self-righteous attitude towards sectarian Christianity, the antipathy towards scientific education and the apparent spinelessness of the Democrats to stand up to these troglodytes, and the USA has a serious intellectual crisis on its hands. Since the change of government in the UK, the "special relationship" between the UK and USA has cooled somewhat, a change about which I am in two minds. Yes, we want to support a progressive, liberal president in Obama, but his liberalism certainly appears to have its limits when it comes to his attempts to appease the right-wing lobby.
There are about 100 other things I could say about this, but I don't want to be accused of ranting.
Yours sincerely and with love,
Charlie x
Monday, 7 March 2011
How Offensive Are Words?
Yes, yes, I'm back from my unnecessary holiday and can start blogging again so all 3 of you can relax now. Anywho, enough of that - I have something I actually want to talk about today.
There are 7 countries whose names end in "stan": Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. So far so good. Now, for 4, arguably 5 of those counties, it is acceptable to call a native of that country 1 of 2 things - either take the full name of the country and add "i" (Afghanistani), or drop the "stan" or "istan" (Afghan). This also works for Tajikistan (Tajik), Kazakhstan (Kazakh), Uzbekistan (Uzbek) and arguably Turkmenistan (Turkmen), though not for Kyrgyzstan, since the chronic lack of consonants would make even a Welshman struggle. You will notice, however, that I've left the most obvious one off, for equally obvious reasons, namely that it is offensive to Pakistanis. I would still argue though that the term itself is not intrinsically offensive: had it not been adopted by xenophobic bigots throughout the history of Pakistani immigration into the UK, the word would be, I'm sure, perfectly socially acceptable. So as a result of a minority of racists who elected to use the term pejoritavely, we have been robbed of a timesaving and otherwise innocuous word, despite the word carrying no inherent offence. I'm not advocating that that word be somehow reinstated - that would be extremely tasteless given the current climate - but I find the development of language fascinating and wonder whether what should be an insignificant word will find itself in the mainstream within 100 years or so.
On another note, I saw a man on a bicycle overtake a man on one of those disgusting motorbikes (about which I've complained before) going up a hill - I found myself most amused.
Peace,
Charlie x
There are 7 countries whose names end in "stan": Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. So far so good. Now, for 4, arguably 5 of those counties, it is acceptable to call a native of that country 1 of 2 things - either take the full name of the country and add "i" (Afghanistani), or drop the "stan" or "istan" (Afghan). This also works for Tajikistan (Tajik), Kazakhstan (Kazakh), Uzbekistan (Uzbek) and arguably Turkmenistan (Turkmen), though not for Kyrgyzstan, since the chronic lack of consonants would make even a Welshman struggle. You will notice, however, that I've left the most obvious one off, for equally obvious reasons, namely that it is offensive to Pakistanis. I would still argue though that the term itself is not intrinsically offensive: had it not been adopted by xenophobic bigots throughout the history of Pakistani immigration into the UK, the word would be, I'm sure, perfectly socially acceptable. So as a result of a minority of racists who elected to use the term pejoritavely, we have been robbed of a timesaving and otherwise innocuous word, despite the word carrying no inherent offence. I'm not advocating that that word be somehow reinstated - that would be extremely tasteless given the current climate - but I find the development of language fascinating and wonder whether what should be an insignificant word will find itself in the mainstream within 100 years or so.
On another note, I saw a man on a bicycle overtake a man on one of those disgusting motorbikes (about which I've complained before) going up a hill - I found myself most amused.
Peace,
Charlie x
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