Duolingo (the language application) works for me on so many levels I would certainly miss it if I couldn’t access it and also the benefits to me of learning something new, making connections and the potential for endless permutations which on the most basic level help my memory skills and on a broader level introduces new cultures to me.
At the moment the romance languages are my goal. I have a Spanish Copy of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick which I want to read in Spanish, it colours my life to be able to do this. I stumble over actually speaking the language. This is not surprising as in my real life I don’t speak very often, so why indeed would I suddenly be able to speak any language fluently. I do however find, that the saying quite ordinary things in Spanish or Italian lifts my mood and makes light of the day when you find yourself translating some tedious chore. Even if it is just to myself.
So there you are, it’s a lifetime app for me, I can see me in the nursing home contemplating Chinese characters representing specific syllables or a whole word, how wonderful is that? Duolingo even offers Navajo, which I have tried, and will return to, suddenly life is full of things to do. Do I feel bad about it? Why when it colours my life?
Thanks to Koh Ewe and BBC Online News for the Headline
So no high falutin’ Booker Prize or Melvyn Bragg buttery praise and late night interview for literary achievements in working class China. The main prize approximately worth £11,000 ( about what a unemployed writer here would get in benefits for a year dedicating themselves to research and writing) is awarded each year and is named after Lu Xun who is referred in some quarters as the father of modern Chinese literature.
The winner this year works as a Chinese Delivery man, his name is Wang Jibing and his poem Low Flight is inspired by the everyday challenges delivery riders face. Wang has had a tough life but his love of reading and of using social media in China to post his poetry has resulted in him gaining this prestigious ( in China) prize.
Sensibly Wang has told the media that he does not want to quit his job as it keeps him fit and also he does not want his life to change which in China is probably a very sensible thing to say.
It is his writing that has won and considering the Western view on Chinese censorship, I love the fact that they are celebrating ordinary work and that perhaps that what Wang really is doing is what literature should do , gaining readers by talking about subjects that affect their daily life. No big talk about a book, a film or a T.V. series, just Poetry for the People,read by the people.
Thanks to Katharine Hay and the Scotsman for the Headline
Apparently this is a problem in Scotland , though I think it’s also a Welsh problem too. I’ve got to admit I don’t like seeing Rhododendron’s taking over roadsides or forests, much as their blooms and colours are very beautiful, they are like the bully of the plant world.
Thankfully, the Woodland Trust has taken the stem by the roots and has asked the general public who visit Garden Centres to play detective and to report if they are selling Rhododendron ponticum which is native to Asia and was introduced to Britain as an attractive ornamental plant, however, it’s spread throughout the countryside and out of domestic gardens has had a detrimental effect on the landscape of wildflowers and native species.
The Woodland Trust of Scotland is looking to bring in legislation to stop Garden Centres selling these plants , in the meantime they are trying to gather the information so that they can find out where the plants are coming from. Adds a bit of spice to an otherwise pretty uneventful garden centre visit.
A bit like a game of charades, it’s a book and a film. The book though wins the day, by the late great Ian Fleming, written in 1964.
Ian Fleming probably more well known for his 007 books, in truth Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has a sense of adventure about it , fun adventure and Ian Fleming obviously loved cars and probably was quite handy at fixing them or at least dabbling.
It’s a book that gives you a wanderlust and a sense of adventure. How to avoid traffic jams and how to not get stuck on Goodwin Sands when the tide comes in while you are having a nap. It also has a sense of continuing adventure, so it encourages you to have adventures.
I was intrigued by this headline as when I arrived back from holiday after three weeks away , all my lavender that I had grown in containers and pots had died, literally shrivelled to a woody mass. The main problem was the heat of the sun, and the fact that positioned where it was at the front of the patio that the heat and lack of water destroyed it. Except it is supposed to be a very hardy plant. Although I’ve got to admit mine was very old.
Nice to know that the French have a similar problem, there is a possiblity that the Instagrammers will no longer be able to picture the swathes of purple in acres of fields to the instantaneous delight of their viewers. French growers for many reasons are switching to growing almonds, pistachio and ponengranate. Some are moving to raising laying hens under new French agricultural emergency acts( a shortage of eggs).
There are climatic changes too, so an infinity pool of purple into the distance may no longer be an option while sipping your impeccable dry rosé, but at least you can nibble almonds and pistachios with it.
Chickens wander through blooming lavender rows near a table with rosé wine and nuts.
Humanity like Nature is messy. Much as we’d like progress to be some constant improvement graph , neatly representative of a World that improves every decade and that we can look back and say “My; how far we have come?”.
For many reasons History is not like that. There are times and places where “knowledge” which is for the greater good is ignored and forgotten , some would say erased because of someone else’s idea of their good , whether greater or not. Individual ego sometimes wins the day rightly or not.
Those protected by Ivory Towers can analyse this record, and those of us of us lucky enough to have the time and money can read and learn about how easily the lastest technology in marine development can be ignored by such great progenitors of progress as the Roman Empire, basically they were not good sailors. ( I regularly listen to The Great Sea by the late and great Historian David Abulafia on Audible, it is really a rather good adventure story). Others were better equipped to roam the seas, the Romans were better at conquering land. Just think what might have happened if they had chosen to learn good seafaring techniques.
We have forgotten more than we have learned in many instances. So erasing is not a good habit to practice and certainly not in an historical context.
A mystical blue light fills a ruined ancient library with scattered books and debris
Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?
The old pumpity,pump blood pressure sleeve with the mercury gauge indicator and the stethoscope to listen to the blood flowing again after the sleeve had cut off your circulation.
Electronic Blood pressure machines just don’t hack it. In fact, I’m sure they are responsible for the over prescription of pills to control blood pressure.
There was an art in the medical professional listening to the specific tapping sounds(Korotkoff sounds) with their stethoscope which let them know that as air was released from the cuff and the blood had begun to flow again through the artery at a pressure determined by the heart(the systolic pressure).
The diastolic(lower number), comes from the flow matching the resting rate of the heart as the cuff is deflating and blood is flowing freely.At that stage the tapping sounds stopped and a quick look at the gauge gave you the diastolic pressure.
Yes, medical professionals this is an art and a skill that we really don’t want to lose.
Not knowing anything about the German language I never really understood what Hitler was saying or how he managed to enthrall so many people with his speeches. I suppose he really was speaking nonsense, that appealed to generations of people who felt they had been unfairly treated, it did not need to make sense, but it did need to play on their reactions or fears. A soundbite and then a lot of rabble rousing cheering.
Is it possible that today’s politicians use the same technique? Polarising people into thinking or believing what they want and then mobilising them into actions which history will judge as shameful.
Let’s hope we have moved on, I really think we have.
So this claim by President Trump that China had used “the largest compromise of election data in history” contradicts the findings of a Senior Intelligence Expert who investigated the claim in 2020 and is now the CIA director no less. Yes Joe Biden beat Donald Trump fair and square.
Well, we may all laugh at his claim and the fact that President Trump is belittling even his own Security forces. The President took twenty five minutes to rant about it on a recording that some will believe because they want to believe.
I think I understand better how Hitler worked and how he mobilised those who wanted to believe him.
My experience, though is tempered by the people who made fun of Hitler, I was a child born in the 1960’s and there was some brilliant television programmes made by men and women who had lived through the war. One “Dad’s Army “has always stayed with me. The programme itself was genius but the opening credits stuck a chord.
” Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler?
If you think ol’ England’s done
We are the one’s who will stop your little game
We are the one’s who will make you think again.”
The tone was definitely Hitler was a clown, a clown who unfortunately resulted in a horrendous amount of innocent people getting killed. Even during the War though there were colloquial songs aimed at making fun at the Nazi Establishment ” Hitler Only has one ball” which was very funny. There were others too, I found this one You Tube it made me laugh . I do believe Spike was from California
The Chinese Embassy in Washington stated that China ” has never and will never interfere in the presidential elections of the US” and also wary of the need to fact-check the president’s claims first- several US networks chose not to broadcast it live on their main channels.
It’s funny what thoughts reading a headline generates, the article explained that the Republican’s are concerned that their mid term election results will be weak and perhaps this is the reason for the twenty five minute rant about the Chinese bogey man .
In the end though a sense of humour ridiculing the pompous and corrupt works wonders and I’m afraid the headline made me smile.
Torn newspaper fragments swirl dramatically against a dark red backdrop.
It’s very hard to grow Rosemary from seed and I had quite given up on this last plant,but the heatwave worked miracles.
Sometimes Rosemary seeds can morph into a plant that’s nothing like Rosemary and for a long time this looked like a couple of shiny leaves that wouldn’t amount to anything.
thenotsomightyom 