A constructive use of time – learning German, pt 4

Time for another instalment in this extremely unpopular series!

Not only does it document ever-more desperate attempts to justify to an uncaring universe my lack of progress in achieving a personal goal, but – even worse – but this time I have also managed to force in yet another black and white photograph of a man with a big moustache.

As if you don't already know, this particular old moustachioed man is none other than Mark Twain – the inventor of Huckleberry Hound and writer of Martin Lawrence's career-high hit "Black Knight".

Anyway, back in the 1870s and 1880s, old Twainy was a kind of globe-trotting Michael Palin figure and at one point he wrote a book called "A Tramp Abroad" about a rather half-hearted attempt to walk across Germany, Switzerland and the top bit of Italy. Yes, I got it for free on my Kindle off of the internet. 

The book is quite amusing and has lots of pictures in it (download the version with illustrations!) – consisting as it does in large part of the narrator declaring that he will do various excitingly German things - fight a duel, climb an Alp etc – and then worming his way out of actually doing it.

Appendix D of the book, however, is entitled "The Awful German Language" and in this, Twain elaborates on some of the enormous difficulties he had in learning it.  

Bits of it are hilarious and so, in the true spirit of the internet, I repeat extracts from it here for your amusement – on the understanding that I am doing something of real value (ie not ripping it off) in "curating" other people's work as my own.

"Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them.

"Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six -- and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. 

"This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger."

HA HA – true dat, Mark Twain!

Later, he goes to town on the whole noun-gender thing, which I have mercifully as yet avoided by using the Michel Thomas teaching method – which largely omits nouns altogether.

"In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife is not -- which is unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is he, his scales are she, but a fishwife is neither.

"To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description; that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse.

"A German speaks of an Englishman as the Engländer; to change the sex, he adds inn, and that stands for Englishwoman -- Engländerinn. That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: "die Engländerinn," -- which means 'the she-Englishwoman.' 

"I consider that that person is over-described."

Then, pointing out the seemingly endless possible meanings of the words "Schlag" and "Zug" and the meaningless but ubiquitous word "also":

"Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of the situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a Schlag into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a plug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a Zug after it; the two together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they should fail, let him simply say also! and this will give him a moment's chance to think of the needful word.

"In Germany, when you load your conversational gun it is always best to throw in a Schlag or two and a Zug or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of the charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with them. Then you blandly say also, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air of grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English conversation as to scatter it full of 'Also's' or 'You knows'."

This is all very good advice as far as I can see. 

Adventures in moustachismo

It was not an idle threat. I really have grown a handlebar moustache – albeit a fairly discrete one, which I can just about go around in public unremarked on when it's unwaxed and downward pointing.

Here are some of my reflections on it:

1. Moustache wax, when applied without the aid of a mirror, does have the appearance of semi-dried-in mucus. No one likes a careless sneezer.

2. Victorian men must have drunk exclusively using straws, because it is impossible to drink – say – a pint without absorbing a lot of beer into the moustache through capillary action. I have been unable to find pictorial confirmation of this (on Google), and therefore assume there is a conspiracy to suppress this information.  

3. I can now quite easily pass myself off as Belgian. If I have a dog in a coat with me, the disguise is impenetrable.

4. Trimming a large moustache is hard work, particularly if you are not 100% ambidextrous. Careless topiary results in a disagreeable asymmetry. Failure to trim leads quickly to the sort of regrettable display depicted above.

5. Women – specifically but not limited to my wife – are generally not appreciative of the delights of the moustache. 

I can't handle the truth

So, Blogger has a new interface which includes something resembling a child's version of Google Analytics.

Oh, I know I said I was never going to talk about SEO on here, but this is too interesting – by which I mean disheartening – to ignore.

Turns out round about one third of the traffic that has EVER come here has come in from people looking for pictures of Peppa Pig.

Back in March, I wrote a post about said pig, which was well-received and even got randomly linked to from a site promoting "real breast feeding" or something.

Ever since, I have been thinking that if I really want to give up work and write this nonsense for a living, I was going to have to sit and analyse a lot more episodes of Peppa Pig and think of something amusing to say about them. I've got quite a long way with this project so far and – even in the light of this setback - may well return to it in future.

Anyway, the goddam new interface has shown me (from a list of top URLs for incoming traffic) that it's not my ingenious interpretation of the Mummy Rabbit/Miss Rabbit dichotomy that has drawn in the readers. No, it's the fact that Google Images indexed the bloody picture.

So...LOOK! IT'S GEORGE! DINE-SAW!!!!!! LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Rotten boroughs for everyone

Electoral reform may be dead, MPs' expenses may be buried, but a good old fashioned boundary change can still send our political class wee-wee-weeing all the way home.

Behold the astonishing words of "one senior Tory" who is perhaps unaware that the Guardian is something that gets published to the outside world:

"We are not happy about this...There are MPs who gave up a lot to come here and now it looks like they face real fights."

Hilarious innit? Absorb it - I'm coming back to it. 

Broadly, the plans would see the number of MPs cut from 650 to 600 – although the Sicilys' own region would see just four go. Disappointing, I'd been hoping to see more ex-MPs on the scrapheap.

With our house on the market, I am delighted that we're looking at being shifted from hopelessly down-market Bradford East to aspirational Guiseley and Yeadon. We'll be whacking up the price accordingly.

So we might be happy, but Conservatives are not – apparently because the sinecures that they "gave up a lot" for might not be quite as guaranteed a route to a fat lifetime at the public teat after all.What a thoroughly disgusting attitude. If you're happy to share your arse-witted opinion, "senior Tory", why don't you share your name with us as well?

Nor are Labour happy though. Before he considerately deigned to examine the plans in advance of responding formally, Ed Miliband said:

"We have serious concerns about the government's decision to change the boundaries, which we believe was an act of gerrymandering by the Conservative party."

Boo hoo. Life just isn't fair, is it?

While most 19th century cartoons are generally made even less funny by knowing what the words say, I'm going to help you out with the preposterously small text in the picture above. 

Fat man says: "Here they are all good votes - ready to vote for my coach horse if I order them. Give me the money and I'll secure you the seat."

Rich man: "Well here's the cash. As for the votes, I'll leave them to you."

HA HA HA. See those peasants in the background? Politicians think that's you, that is. 

Things we did on our holidays - pt 2

Why can't air travel be more like rail travel?

By that, I don't mean "please double the prices, delay more aircraft and cram them so full of standing passengers that you can hardly breathe, let alone move, and god help you all if there's an accident".   

No. What I mean is, why is it beyond the wit of man to make air travel a walk-on affair?

Obviously, there are a few good security reasons that slow things down unavoidably. Then on top of those, there are the ludicrous post 9/11 overcompensations introduced for the sake of being seen to do something, regardless of any actual effect on security.

You know what I'm talking about. On going through Leeds/Bradford airport on our holiday:

1. Three-year-old Roger Junior was frisked down and made to take his shoes off, because he was the nth passenger through the security scanner. I was not subjected to any kind of search. Now, while Roger Jr can be a handful, I'm fairly sure it's beyond his capabilities to hijack or bring down a passenger jet.
2. We had to hand over some unopened cartons of juice – presumably to be destroyed in a secure environment where there would be no danger of hazardous spillage.

All of which begs the question why it's perfectly acceptable to carry anything you like onto a train without being checked. Many a train I have been on has seen the passengers all shut in and unable to get away for longer than a lot of long haul flights...

OK, you've also got to allow some time from bags being handed over to get them onto the plane. And clearly separating all the bags that obviously belong to the same family and making sure they go into different compartments of the hold - so as to ensure the maximum gap between the first and last piece coming out on the luggage carousel - doesn't just happen by itself. It requires careful planning as well as a powerful throwing arm.

So that's two sets of quasi-legitimate reasons.

I suppose part of this is our own fault. Check in usually opens around two hours before departure for European flights – but they close 40 minutes or so beforehand. Guess which timescale I have worked on EVERY SINGLE TIME I've been on an aeroplane? Correct. We always get there for the opening of check in, guaranteeing ourselves:

1. As many queuing experiences as can be crammed into a day.
2. Maximum waiting time – relieved only by the opportunity to buy things we did not feel the need to pack when considering what to take with us or which we were not allowed to bring through security.  

As long as you've got seats reserved, it doesn't matter when you check in, does it? How I wish I could be one of those people whose names are announced over the tannoy, warning them that the plane is waiting for them.

But I can't. I am too English, too middle class and – let's just admit it – still too in awe of the fact of air travel to treat it casually.

Airlines and airports want you to still believe that air travel today is like air travel in the 1950s. It's luxurious! It's exclusive! Cabin crew are there to feed you grapes and champagne, not to hard sell you wilted sandwiches and high street perfume at astronomical prices! Fly on a plane and be part of the jet set, queue for 20 minutes every time you want a piss and then get dumped on a wind-blasted airstrip miles from your final destination! I don't know about you, but I fall for it every time. 

Things we did on our holidays – pt 1

Roger Jr, Elvira and I went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea earlier last week – having survived our flight into terror, which in turn followed our airport wait into terror.

However Tancred refused to enter the water, which was perhaps unsurprising given the difficulties he has in remaining on his feet in the face of moderate air currents, let alone those offered up by the sea. He would be repeatedly led to the water's edge, apparently fascinated by the spectacle of the waves – only to turn away in horror as the creeping waters approached within six inches or so of his feet.

It was our last day in Plascassier, near Grasse, near Nice, in France. And it was a delightful end to a very pleasant week – marred only by:

1. Tancred spurting blood out of his eyebrow after falling face first (do one year olds fall any other way?) into the handle on a chest;
2. Roger Jr being staggeringly obnoxious around 90 per cent of the time that he was awake;
3. Receiving mosquito bites of such virulence that at one point I thought I had inadvertently broken my ankle.

I have for many years now been a little ambivalent about swimming. When I was a boy, I was really good at it. But much like the life cycle of the toad sees it go from fully aquatic tadpole to ungainly, crawling leathery blob, I too have become less of a swimmer and more of a puddle lurking fly gobbler as the years have passed. That's a METAPHOR, by the way.   

While Elvira swims effortlessly, I always seem to exert myself twice as much to cover half the distance. I put this down to being insufficiently buoyant, lacking a pair of front airbags (an excuse it is becoming ever harder to avail myself of).

Secondly, I am hopelessly susceptible to water-borne complaints of every kind. If my left ear lets in more water than it is exposed to in – say – a shower, I go deaf in it for as long as it takes for a foul-smelling lump of dark brown wax to work its way out. Just like in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.

As such, I only get my head under the water – and given my "eccentric centre of gravity", this is a necessity if I am not to be overtaken by people who are swimming for reasons of physical therapy – if I have ear plugs in.

Plus, I need goggles. Because when I went swimming at Centre Parcs in May, I got a sty on my eye which is still not properly healed.

Oh, and I got athletes foot from the floor at the gym a couple of years ago. Which is kind of related.

Basically, going into water exposes your delicate openings  to other people's filth. And so if a swimming pool full of chlorine dedicated to killing off that sort of shit is risky, going into a "natural" environment that lacks the benefits of disinfectants is positively a matter of taking one's life into one's own hands.  

It was thus with trepidation that I approached going into the Med.

Indeed, the last time I went full-bodily into the sea, I had fallen out of a canoe some six feet from the shore of Hayling Island, while Elvira and our canoeist friends conversed in a leisurely manner on the beach, oblivious of the fact that I had vanished in waters of some two feet of depth. Fortunately, my two star BCU training came back to me in an instant and I expertly disentangled myself from the stricken vessel and staggered gasping up the beach gabbling about how I had cheated certain death before anyone had even noticed I was gone.

Plus, swimming pools – for all their faults – rarely play host to fish. Be they living or be they dead, I have a lingering irrational fear of touching them. But of that more another time...suffice to say, when I put on Roger Jr's goggles, it turned out we were not alone down there.

I know what you're thinking: the sea at Cannes beach can hardly be considered a natural environment, consisting as much of yacht oil, Ambre Solaire and human urine as sea water.

And given the Mediterranean's well-deserved reputation for stinking of drain and being freezing cold (rarely mentioned, I find, in the Baedeker), it was pleasantly warm and odour-free.

Indeed and in conclusion, we had a lovely day out at the seaside – and I have yet to manifest any symptoms of my inevitable bout of amoebic dysentery.