what would you miss?

a friend and former colleague is British, is married to a Frenchman and lives in Finland.  She and her family are currently in Ecuador for a study visit.  Read her blog here.  Anyway, she says what they will miss when they go back to Finland and what they won't, and what they do miss from Finland.  I am not going back to the UK, but it set me thinking.  Things I miss: a quiet pub on a Saturday afternoon; pork pies; English summer days; the sea; polite and friendly service; Sunday shopping in Reading.  Things I don't miss: crap public transport; the NHS; rubbish housing, especially in cities.  Things I would miss if I left France: most of the food, especially bakery; the public transport, especially trams; the fantastic health service; sustainable high-density urban life; French pop music; Plus Belle La Vie (though I thought I would miss The Archers when I left the UK and I don't).  Things I wouldn't miss: bureaucracy; rudeness and xenophobia; the opening hours of everything except bakeries and florist shops; the country shutting down for the whole of July and August; the subjunctive.

Bishop of Reading

no he isn't.  Jeffrey John, pictured.  But he nearly was.  And now he has been shortlisted for the bishopric of Southwark.  The Prime Minister is said to be supportive of this appointment.  And the Archbishop of Canterbury has not blocked it.  So I hope it happens.  It will draw the line under a very nasty episode in the history of theChurch of England if it does.  Some most unattractive elements claiming to be Christians managed to get his appointment as Bishop of Reading blocked because of his sexuality.  As if that is anyone's business.  I remember the whole thing well.  When I heard about it in 2003 I wanted to table an Early Day Motion, but I knew it would look a little strange if only one Reading MP's name was there.  I also knew that Mr Salter would be reluctant, because of his own homophobia (why is he so worried?) and because taking a clear position on an issue without first ensuring a supportive headline and letters page in His Master's Voice was not his way.  So I buttonholed  him in front of a number of other MPs after a vote, and he signed.  He said nothing publicly on the issue, in Reading or elsewhere, leaving me to take any media flak there might be.  Which there was not.  Some "evangelicals" had a go at me, but they were not exactly my, or the Labour Party's, strongest supporters anyway.  And I thought if they were having a pop I must be doing something right.  I raised the matter at Business Question, beginning my question to the Leader of the House with "Will he join me in condemning the militant tendency in the Church of England?"  The then leader of the House, John Reid, a Catholic, looked mystified at first, but fortunately his deputy, Ben Bradshaw, who is gay and a high Anglican, knew exactly what I was talking about and whispered in his boss's ear.  In the end Jeffrey was forced to withdraw.  I found out later that Mr Salter had invited Jeffrey to dinner at the House of Commons, in order to be seen there with him, but said nothing about it in Reading.  I've nothing against the present Bishop of Reading, but I wish it hadn't happened that way.  The Telegraph, reporting these matters, says Jeffrey's appointment could split the Church, but offers no evidence for that supposition,  So, shadowy group of men who will vote this week on the appointment of the Bishop of Southwark, vote as you know you should.  And Jeffrey, come and see us again in Strasbourg.

those pesky foreigners

DO take good British fish!  It's official!  The Mail says it, so it must be true! So all foreigners must be drummed out of UK pdq!  Save the British Fishery!  I loved the Environment Agency spokesman in the article who said that fish for the pot should come from the fishmonger not from a lake.  Excellent.  So where do fish, er, start their lives?  In, er, water?

talking foreign

I am a lifelong language learner, just because I like it.  I am currently having a pop for half an hour or so each day (a different one each day, natch) at the following: Alsatian - probably will never speak it but it is widely spoken around here and I like to understand what I hear; Japanese - formerly interpreter standard now slipped back to intermediate level and it is my favourite language to speak; Russian - that was my degree, a long time ago, I can still speak and understand but want to pick up fluency and vocabulary again as I have Russian colleagues and friends; German - was a beginner when I came here but am slowly picking it up, we are 5K from the border and go shopping in Germany and the grammar is fab; Latvian - still at elementary level but I want to progress for the day when I realise my dream of a summer cottage on the Baltic coast in Latvia; Korean - I used to be a slow speaker and a good reader and would like to get back there for the sake of my ageing brain; Greek - total beginner but it is for my dream of living in Cyprus.  All of these I do on my own, either with my ancient Linguaphone tapes (the Linguaphone method is excellent but cassette tapes are really annoying) or with Eurotalk, which is highly recommended by me, you can get them either as CDs (nice games and visuals) or MP3.  Oh and French, in which until now I was never fluent apart from one summer long ago when I worked as an au pair in Brittany age 19.  That I do once a week in a class kindly provided by my employers and once a week with a private teacher hired by me.  I am at advanced level now but I doubt I will ever stop, because French is HARD.  This is not to say how fab or clever I am - most English people are over-impressed by fluency in another language - just to say that everyone can learn a language, because we all have.  And it is not true that children learn more quickly.  They learn more slowly in fact.  Almost all children take at least two years from birth to acquire reasonably fluent speech with a vocabulary which will meet their needs, and another ten years or more to acquire the vocabulary they will need for the rest of their lives.  And they do not have much else to do for the first few years.  And most of them have adults around them who spend time, often hours and hours a day, helping them to learn.  If they don't they will be seen as dysfunctional by the time they start school at five.  But an anglophone adult who comes to live in France with no French can become fluent enough for everyday life, social occasions, the TV, dealing with bureaucracy (I promise you this is necessary) cultural awareness and so on, in about six months, if they spend about an hour a day making an effort at it and if they have some kind of teacher (which can be a CD).  And that is apart from the time they spend at work or doing whatever else they do.  Some do not learn the language because they are too lazy or too scared.  But never because they cannot.  So you CAN.  Try it, you might like it.  And it is as good a brain gym as sudoku or puzzles.

Georgia on my mind

Let's not be mealy-mouthed about this.  Very nearly two years ago, in August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, the "issue" being South Ossetia.  I posted about this last year, and was nearly submerged by a flood of comments supporting Russia's action, none of them so far as I could tell from Russians but a great many of them from self-confessed Guardian readers.  You can read a very interesting report by the International Crisis Group on the South Ossetia situation since then.  It should be noted that there are only four countries which do not recognise South Ossetia as part of Georgia.  But I do not hear any protest about the foul abuse of human rights which has been going on in South Ossetia for some considerable time.  Anyone?  Thought not.  Anyway, those who care might like to read this extract from the report here and now:

South Ossetia is no closer to genuine independence now than in August 2008, when Russia went to war with Georgia and extended recognition. The small, rural territory lacks even true political, economic or military autonomy. Moscow staffs over half the government, donates 99 per cent of the budget and provides security. South Ossetians themselves often urge integration into the Russian Federation, and their entity’s situation closely mirrors that of Russia’s North Caucasus republics. Regardless of the slow pace of post-conflict reconstruction, extensive high-level corruption and dire socio-economic indicators, there is little interest in closer ties with Georgia. Moscow has not kept important ceasefire commitments, and some 20,000 ethnic Georgians from the region remain forcibly displaced. At a minimum, Russians, Ossetians and Georgians need to begin addressing the local population’s basic needs by focusing on creating freedom of movement and economic and humanitarian links without status preconditions.




The war dealt a heavy physical, economic, demographic and political blow to South Ossetia. The permanent population had been shrinking since the early 1990s and now is unlikely to be much more than 30,000. The $840 million Russia has contributed in rehabilitation assistance and budgetary support has not significantly improved local conditions. With its traditional trading routes to the rest of Georgia closed, the small Ossetian economy has been reduced to little more than a service provider for the Russian military and construction personnel. Other than the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), no international humanitarian, development or monitoring organisation operates in the region; dependent on a single unreliable road to Russia, the inhabitants are isolated.

Dangerous Pictures Act

a man from Lower Earley on the edge of Reading has been convicted under the Dangerous Pictures Act - you know, the one which arguably would make possessing a DVD of Basic Instinct punishable by a jail term because in it people apparently do horrid things to each other.  The story is badly put together even by the standards of the Reading Evening Post - it confuses "extreme porn" with child porn (the latter is mainstream and possession of it was illegal long before Dangerous Pictures) and necrophilia is confused with violent porn (er, dead people can't fight back, that is the point - oh and anyone remember the film "10 Rillington Place" about the murderer Christie?  that was a mainstream film and there are several scenes of necrophilia in it, I remember being a little taken aback by it when I was in my teens).  From what I can piece together from the appalling farrago of nonsense that purports to pass for journalism in that organ, the man convicted has an unhealthy interest in very young girls.  He isn't going to prison, possibly because he says he is impotent.  Someone should tell the judge that the penis is not the most dangerous part of the body.  In the comments it is pointed out that this law is in existence because Mr Salter wanted it to be.  Well, possibly.  He had his own reasons for this particularly sickening piece of ambulance-chasing, and has always refused to debate the issue, even though he referred to the urban myth of snuff movies in the House of Commons.  Why do readers think this might be?

hooray for London!

on an impulse (and a bargain from Eurostar) I am going to be in London from 14th-18th July, avoiding the Jour de Fete Nationale (which is what the French call Bastille Day), mainly seeing my children and grandchild, but also for the first time in my life being a tourist in London - so what places and people should I see?  There is talk of a festival in Stoke Newington and of the Tate Modern among other things.  Suggestions please.