Won!

And England won the Ashes!! Again! That's three times at least in my lifetime!!
I need a rest. Or tea at my Mum's.

Lapworth Stroll

Marylebone train from Snow Hill or Moor St [not all of them though]. Lapworth after Dorridge. Lovely countryside, nice pub with posh food and beer called the Boot Inn.
Stile-free walk with purple sign-arrows.
Try it!
No pics, didn't have my camera.

London or Bust?

2 great prom concerts at the Albert Hall - Labeque sisters on piano, Mozart, Saint Saens: National Youth Orchestra with Stephen Hough on piano for Tchaikovsky's first concerto for said keyboard instrument. See BBC Website. :)
British Library for the Henry VIII exhibition - see BL website. :)
Too much rush for the trains :( got it though. Virgin v. comfortable, cheap and on time! :)
Harrods isn't Fortnum & Mason though ... getting lost in London :(

Pic: Coffee by the King's Library stacks in the BL Cafe. A must!

Maddened by phone companies?

Currently maddened by a certain mobile phone/media company (run by a hairy guy from the 60s/70s, does something in trains and planes too): taking ages to get a replacement for a faulty phone.

Crazy systems. Turned out they'd given the delivery company an address I was last at in December 2005 ... but was still left on the computer...

And they still won't let me exchange at the shop: I only reported the fault more than 28 days after I bought the phone.

At one stage, phoning Customer Services, I had to find the shop details myself and give them to the hapless Virgin guy at the end of the phone, who couldn't apparently find it on his company's own website!!

Anyway, this is a much nicer scene, a wonderful apple pie baked by our kind friends Katherine and Dave. Thanks to both for a nice evening with them and Becky recently!

Burma Action Saturday

From Central Birmingham Amnesty group blog: [link at left of this blog].

"The Central Birmingham and Bournville Amnesty Groups have joined forces to hold a Burma action this coming Saturday (15th August) between 10am and 4pm.

The action will be held in Birmingham City Centre at Victoria Square, where we will be asking members of the public to have their photograph taken with a life size representation of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Please come along and say hello and show your support for the campaign."

Speak German! Jawohl!?

Octogenarian linguist Wolf Schneiders guide to the contemporary German language glutted by English loan words that aren't words or phrases but artificial constructs of the advertising industry and Deutsche Bahn, largely. Not as one-sided as I thought it'd be: and does respect many constructions adopted over the years from French and English. A kind of manifesto for thinking out natural German terms for Brainstorming, anti-ageing cream, 'Service Point' (customer service or information desk at the train station) and other such imports. Argument partly is that contemporary Germany denigrates its own linguistic culture, through a confused sense of identity and lack of pride in cultural achievements, stemming in part from obvious disasters of twentieth century history (interesting that he uses a loan word, Desaster, to describe the Nazi period).

A bit right wing (solid CDU/CSU feel to the work) for me at times - too much perhaps on Leitkultur and the dangers of multiculturalism. A treatment of bilingual Turkish Germans and their linguistic contributions would have been interesting.

On the whole, witty and some points well made and with almost English humour (sorry!:)). Ja, er hat Recht: man sollte mehr German speaken, soforth!

"Speak German - warum Deutsch manchmal besser ist" by Wolf Schneider, Rowohlt Taschenbuch.

Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah.

Definitely one to read. Recommend to anyone who wants or needs to know more about what refugees have been through before they arrive here - and what our authorities shamefully put them through to placate general ignorance and the press. Alem is taken and left by his father in London to escape persecution in Ethiopia and Eritrea for having parents on both sides of the divide. While his family story is ultimately desperately tragic, Alem shows real courage, and his friends at school in London, in his foster-family and the local community, stand up for him and his father as do many similar groups in this country when persecuted people are threatened with removal back to countries where their lives are in danger.
Zephaniah as ever tackles the subjects with realism - he dedicates this novel, aimed at the teen age range but there for all ages, to two boys he met, and he clearly has done his homework on this. The Refugee Council's work is also highlighted.
We don't have to give up - if we have any humanity, we should take note of these cases, and challenge the Home Office, the UK Borders Agency, and any such bodies as and when their policies and behaviour threaten and demean the well-being of the real-life equivalents of Alem and his father. Would you like to be beaten and escape with your life, only to be fingerprinted in a detention centre, would you want to queue with vouchers at a separate supermarket while locals with cash walk past you; to live in squalid housing where landlords only care about the money that comes through direct from authorities - and where you have no say because you fear the consquences if you do complain. Then your asylum application is turned down by a judge and system who seem to ignore at least half the evidence.
The tireless help of his foster family, the Fitzgeralds, the Refugee Council's Mariam and Sheila the social worker, the friends at Alem's school who organise the demonstration and petitions so impressively, show that there is hope.
Hope in life and in people - and the novel shows this, despite tragedy and offical coldness.

Published by Bloomsbury.