Back to Babel?

I've just finished reading David Bellos's recent book on translation, 'Is That a Fish in your Ear?' (Penguin, 2011). It verged between an entertaining read and a frustrating one. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found the book to be at its least entertaining and convincing when it touched on subjects in my own area of expertise, linguistics. On the other hand, aspects of the book – such as the story of the dragomans of the Ottoman Empire (chapter 11), and the paradoxical language policies of the European Union (chapter 21) – were fascinating, and well narrated.

This isn't meant to be a full review, but since I feel that ITaFiyE misinterprets linguistics and/or sells it short at more than a few points throughout the book, I decided to set the record straight on the open web, especially with regard to three particular chapters.

Chapter 6: Native Command: Is Your Language Really Yours?

This chapter, on what it means to be a L1 or L2 speaker of a language, starts off promisingly enough. Bellos correctly observes that the traditional term 'mother tongue' is misleading, since we learn our L1 just as much from our peers as from our parents. He then goes on to claim that 'communicative competence' is acquired 'between the ages of one and three' – but that the language learned during this period is not always the one that adult speakers feel most comfortable using. The example he cites for this is Latin 700–1700, which uncontroversially had no native speakers during this period, but which was used as a vehicular language for various purposes. Then comes an astonishing leap (p59):

But if a clear distinction can be made between the language learned from your mother and the language in which you operate most effectively for high-born males in Western Europe between 700 and 1700 CE, the very concepts of 'mother tongue' and 'native speaker' need to be looked at again.

Um, really? The distinction seems pretty clear to me. The muddying of the waters in Bellos's book starts with use of the nebulous term 'communicative competence', which does not enter into mainstream definitions of native speaker status, for which grammatical competence is far more crucial. This is a minor quibble. But the claim that high-born males operated most effectively in Latin for a millennium is an incredible one. It may well be the case that for 'formal speech and writing', as well as for 'diplomacy, philosophy, mathematics, science and religion', Latin was the language of choice. However, these high-faluting academic purposes constitute a tiny minority of our total language use. Is the claim really that these people spoke (as adults) to their parents and peers in Latin in everyday situations? The suggestion that they 'thought' in Latin is even more absurd. There's a long literature on the 'language of thought' and how closely it approximates the languages we hear spoken, but the idea that a 15th-century Dutch nobleman, say, would wake up and think Sum esurientem ('I'm hungry') does not enter into it. The evidence from vernacular written traditions in Western Europe also speaks against this assertion. From the very beginning of the period 700–1700, writing – even for academic and ecclesiastical purposes – began to be carried out not in Latin but in the local languages of the area. Alfred's great program of translation into West Saxon English (not mentioned in this book), or the monastery translations of Boethius and other such texts in the Old High German-speaking area, are prime examples. These do not indicate that Latin was a language of thought, or even an effective operating language. Instead they indicate that the Latin of the period was a language on life-support, for which cribs had to be devised so that keen young men could get their heads round it. The worst part of this little paragraph is that even if it were true that a distinction could be drawn between 'the language learned from your mother' (read: first language) and 'the language in which you operate most effectively' in this instance, it wouldn't follow that this somehow invalidates the concept of a 'native speaker'.

This distinction continues to be made throughout the chapter, with the implication that languages learned during the early years of life are of little importance. There is, no doubt, a difference between 'first learned language', in Bellos's terms, and 'operative language'. Bellos then adduces two examples – his father, whose mother spoke to him in Yiddish but who learned English at school age, and his wife, who initially acquired Hungarian but who began to learn French at the age of five. The aim seems to be to deny the significance of the 'first learned language' or 'mother tongue'; and in these terms, it's a reasonable aim. But it misses the point that linguists and specialists in acquisition are trying to make when they talk about something called the 'critical period' or 'critical threshold', a term dating back to Lenneberg (1967). Very simply, in Trudgill's (2011) terms:

Lenneberg’s term refers to the well-known fact, obvious to anyone who has been alive and present in normal human societies for a couple of decades or so, that while small children learn languages perfectly, the vast majority of adults do not, especially in untutored situations.

To be sure, there is disagreement about what the relevant age is, or whether the term 'critical threshold' is really appropriate as opposed to a gradual tailing-off of language learning abilities. Meisel (2011) provides a recent summary. But what is uncontroversial is that adults do not learn languages as well as children. If, indeed, it is possible to isolate a specific age at which language learning ceases to be a cake-walk, that age is more like 7 (Meisel 2011: 134) rather than 3 as proposed by Bellos. Both of the examples that Bellos gives, then, may be evidence that 'first learned language' or 'mother tongue' is not what is important. But neither is problematic for the idea that languages learned during the critical period are learned better than languages learned after.

This misrepresentation colours the rest of the chapter, including Bellos's conclusion (pp65–66), to the effect that it is not important for translations to be into the translator's L1:

[I]t would be futile to insist that the iron rule of L1 translation be imposed on all intercultural relations in the world without also insisting on its inescapable corollary: that every educational system in the world's eighty vehicular languages devote significant resources to producing seventy-nine groups of competent L1 translators in each cohort of graduating students. The only alternative to that still utopian solution would be for speakers of the target languages to become more tolerant and more welcoming of the variants introduced into English, French, German and so forth by L2 translators working very hard indeed to make themselves understood.

There are a few things wrong with this. First, there's a straw man hiding amidst the prose. If we don't accept L1 translators, do we really have to devote huge amounts of money to training enormous numbers of language professionals? (Not that that would be a bad thing, in my opinion.) Not at all, because of something that Bellos himself mentions later in the book: translations can perfectly well be carried out via other languages. To find a translator from Welsh into Cantonese may be tricky, but when the translation passes via English it's a piece of cake. Of course there's a loss of fidelity involved in this two-step process – but one of the most convincing parts of Bellos's overall thesis (see chapter 10) is that the very notion of 'fidelity' is suspect when applied to translation anyhow.

More problematically, it seems no less 'utopian' to believe that L2 translators 'trying very hard' is the right solution. I'm not a translator, but I've worked in the industry, and my father's been in it for thirty years, so I feel I know enough to comment. 'Trying very hard' may be good enough when it comes to translation on a hypothetical academic-philosophical level, or literary translation (addressed in chapter 27 of Bellos's book but assumed tacitly throughout in the examples used, but in the real world of translation mistakes can be deadly. When I was working in Aachen, translating patient information leaflets from German into English, I was acutely aware that if I made a mistake people could be killed. With that in mind, it seems daft to insist that well-meaning L2 translators are as good as the real deal.

(There's also at least one factual error in this chapter. It is stated that 'all babies are languageless at the start of life'. That's not quite true: in fact, the process of language acquisition begins well before birth, as shown in experimental work by Kisilevsky et al. 2003 among others.)

Chapter 14: How Many Words Do We Have For Coffee?

Unlike chapter 6, this chapter sets out to argue for something reasonable. Its aim is to assess the evidence for linguistic relativity – the idea that language shapes thought – and its conclusion (in stark contrast to the gushing quasi-religious masturbatory rhetoric we so often see in the popular press surrounding the issue, for instance Boroditsky 2010) is sensible (p170).

If you go into a Starbuck's and ask for 'coffee' the barista most likely will give you a blank stare. To him the word means absolutely nothing. There are at least thirty-seven words for coffee in my local dialect of Coffeeshop Talk ... You should point this out next time anyone tells you that Eskimo has a hundred words for snow.

This is in general a strong and interesting chapter, even though the more recent work of 'neo-Whorfians' like Boroditsky and Levinson in the last decade is rather unaccountably left out of consideration.

My problem with it is only in how it begins: Bellos trots out a well-worn passage from Sir William Jones's 1786 Discourse, commenting (p161) that this 'is generally reckoned to be the starter's gun' in the development of comparative linguistics. The idea that Jones had this pivotal role is part of the origin mythology of historical linguistics, to be sure – but his significance has almost certainly been massively overestimated, as shown in detail by Campbell & Poser (2008: chapter 3). You can read their chapter if you want the real story, but the gist of it is this:

Firstly, Jones was not particularly original in his contributions. Commonalities between Indo-European languages had frequently been observed before his time, and even the relationship of Sanskrit to these languages was not a new idea.

Secondly, Jones made a lot of mistakes. He considered Peruvian, Chinese and Japanese languages to be part of the same family as the more familiar Indo-European languages, for instance, while leaving out others he should have included, such as Pahlavi, which he classed as Semitic (Campbell & Poser 2008: 37–38).

Thirdly, Jones was working within a biblical framework and viewed his own work as having 'confirmed the Mosaic accounts of the primitive world'; specifically, all the languages of the world could be traced back, according to him, to one of Noah's three sons Ham, Shem and Japhet (Campbell & Poser 2008: 40) – in stark contrast to the backbone of comparative linguistics of the day.

There's more to say, but the point should be clear enough. The idea that Jones was the founder of comparative linguistics is just as much of a myth as the idea that Eskimo has one hundred words for snow. The repetition of the myth is frustrating within the narrow confines of linguistics, and the situation can only get worse if books like this one, intended for a popular audience, perpetuate it further.

Afterbabble: In Lieu of an Epilogue

Epilogues are typically unambitious: summaries of the content and main argument of the book, perhaps, or suggestions for future research. Not so for the ITaFiyE epilogue, which tries – in 34 short pages – to solve the problem of language, the universe, and everything.

Well, perhaps that's overstating the case. But it does attempt to address the problem of the evolution of language, which is almost as thorny an issue. As modern theorists are fond of observing, in 1866 the Linguistic Society of Paris banned debates on the subject. Those same modern theorists often then argue that we have come far enough, nowadays, to lift the ban and talk about the origins of language with impunity. I disagree – though even among linguists I feel like I'm still in the minority here. We're barely any closer to understanding the genetic basis of our language capacity than we were a century ago, and there is still substantial debate as to what language even IS. The concrete proposals made by Noam Chomsky to that effect, as for example in Chomsky (1986), are very often rejected on the basis that they don't tally with our hazy pretheoretical intuitions about language – such as the idea that it is a social phenomenon, whatever that means; see e.g. Enfield (2010). We don't know nearly enough about human prehistory to say when language emerged, and that situation is unlikely to change. Most painfully, very often theorists still fail to distinguish between 'glossogeny', i.e. change in 'languages' (as we pretheoretically know them), and 'phylogeny', the emergence of the human biological capacity for language (whatever form that takes). (On this distinction, see Hurford 1990.)

In historical linguistics, meanwhile, it is quite normal to suggest that standard comparative methods typically can't take us more than 8–12,000 years into the past (Campbell & Poser 2008 have a discussion of this); this is not due to any flaw in the methods themselves, but rather to the build-up of confounding factors and the paucity of relevant data the further back one goes. Any claim about what was going on 40,000 years ago or more is likely to meet with extreme scepticism from any sensible historical linguist. Nevertheless, this is what specialists in the evolution of language get up to constantly. Perhaps not surprising that I can't shake the feeling that the whole field is a waste of time, then. Until someone has something more evidence-based to say, I'm inclined to take the simple route proposed by Berwick & Chomsky (2011): a tiny mutation emerged at some point, in one fell swoop, giving us the ability to put words together like we know we can; that mutation was (unsurprisingly) selectionally advantageous in the long run; and that's all there is to be said. (Curiously, critics of this 'saltationist' viewpoint are often the same people who rake Chomskyan linguistic theory over the coals for its apparent baroque complexity...)

But back to Bellos. He attacks the assumption that 'all languages are, at bottom, the same kind of thing, because, at the start, they were the same thing' (p341). Whether or not we believe the 'because' clause (and there's certainly no linguistic evidence that would lead us to; see again Campbell & Poser 2008), Bellos gives us no reason to doubt the underlying sameness of languages. The fact of linguistic diversity has very little bearing on this; the very fact that we have a concept of language at all, on the other hand, even a pretheoretical one, is evidence for sameness. At some level, we can judge whether something is linguistic or non-linguistic. That alone suggests unity in diversity.

Beyond that, though, there are linguistic arguments for sameness, many of which have been controversial over the years. Bellos groups these together as the argument that languages have 'a grammar', and disposes of it quickly and unconvincingly: rather than being an empirical matter, 'the "grammaticality hypothesis" is an axiom, a circular foundation stone' (p342). Why? Because...

Since traffic lights and the barking of dogs seem to have no discernible rules of combination or no ability to create new combinations, they have no grammar, and because all languages have a grammar in order to count as languages, dog barking and traffic lights are not languages. QED.

One might legitimately argue that this is hardly circular reasoning. Rather, we're attempting to understand the defining characteristics of language in terms of concrete properties, in order to establish what exactly it is that we're doing when we describe something as linguistic or non-linguistic. If these properties turn out to be a poor mapping to what our intuitive conception of language is, or not sharp enough to distinguish language from other things, we can reject them, refine them, retain them on the understanding that no better model has yet been proposed, OR decide that our concrete properties in fact tell us that our intuitive conception is wrong or not clear enough. This is what has happened over the last fifty years with Hockett's (1960) 'design features' of language (which seems to be what Bellos is bashing here, though he doesn't cite it), and with purported universals both in the Chomskyan tradition and the Greenbergian (e.g. Greenberg 1963). It seems to me to be normal scientific practice. For example, we now know that spiders are not insects, despite all our intuitions telling us otherwise, and this is a natural consequence of adopting a particular model of taxonomic classification that is superior to our vague intuitions. We now know that whiteness isn't necessarily a property of swans. Likewise, by the botanical definition of tomatoes that we adopt, they are classed as fruit rather than vegetables. This isn't just axiomatics: we're learning something that we didn't already know. This is scientific progress.

But Bellos, like many authors in and around linguistics, refuses to give up on the intuitive definition. He proceeds as follows (p342):

In a similarly circular way, the axiom of grammaticality pushes to the edge of language study all those uses of human vocal noises – ums, hums, screams, giggles ... and so forth – that don't decompose neatly into nouns, verbs and full stops.

Quite apart from the disingenuousness of this comment (no one ever seriously proposed that full stops were a property of human language, axiomatically or otherwise, as Bellos must well know), I fail to see the problem. Describing these types of noise as 'non-linguistic' seems to me to be entirely fair and reasonable. (Note that this is very different from saying that they don't constitute a worthy object of study in their own right, a claim that no linguist I know would want to be associated with.) What we discover by doing this kind of scientific work is that our intuitive conception of language is so fuzzy and all-encompassing as to be effectively unusable, a point that Chomsky has been making for years (see again Chomsky 1986). If, like Bellos, you find definitions in the Chomskyan mould unpalatable, then the onus is on you to come up with a better operational definition if you want to be thought of as doing serious work on language.

After listing various ways in which languages can be odd (evidentials always seem to come up whenever anyone puts together a list like this!), Bellos somewhat uncharitably (but perhaps not unfairly) states that the attempt to discern what all grammars share 'has got about as far as the search for the Holy Grail'. He then builds another straw man which he proceeds to rip apart: 'all grammars regulate the ways in which free items may be combined to make an acceptable sentence' (p344). The obvious problem is the word 'sentence' here – what does it mean? Nothing (either inside or outside a theory of grammar, as far as I'm aware), and of course we don't speak in sentences, as Bellos points out.

Nor is it really a problem that 'no living language has yet been given a grammar that accounts for absolutely all of the expressions' (p344). Even if this goal were a reasonable one for linguistic theory (Chomsky 1986 argues that it isn't), and even if a living language like 'English' were a coherent object of study (see virtually any work by Chomsky for a brief but irrefutable demonstration that it isn't), does this stymie any attempt? In physics, our best theories of reality can't account for phenomena like dark matter; all this shows is that science (any science) is a work in progress. So it's an absolute nonsense to claim, as Bellos does (p344), that:

Flaws of this magnitude in aerodynamics or the theory of probability would not have allowed the Wright Brothers to get off the ground or the National Lottery to finance the arts.

First off, there's no reason that our scientific theory has to be practically applicable in order to be worth something (look at string theory, for instance). But, in any case, Bellos should look at state-of-the-art work in computational linguistics, where parsers based on handwritten grammars in combination with a simple statistical learning algorithm can robustly parse up to 92.4% of an average corpus of English (see Fossum & Knight 2009). That doesn't seem like crash-and-burn to me.

The afterbabble goes on to compare dialectal variation to primate grooming, and to propose this as a potential evolutionary origin for language, following work by Robin Dunbar. I won't discuss this in any detail, but suffice it to say that the conclusion – that 'The most likely original use of human speech was to be different, not the same' (p351) – presupposes precisely what has been argued so vigorously against earlier in the same chapter, namely a definable object that is 'human speech' (which, since animals fairly intuitively don't have it, must have evolved somehow).

In short, this chapter (and the book as a whole) overreaches itself. Though issues of translation are inevitably bound up with deep questions about the nature of language, ITaFiyE would have been a better book if it had chosen to stick closely to the former and leave the latter to specialists.

References

Berwick, Robert C., & Noam Chomsky. 2011. The biolinguistic program: the current state of its evolution and development. In Ana Maria di Sciullo & Cedric Boeckx (eds.), The biolinguistic enterprise: new perspectives on the evolution and nature of the human language faculty, 19–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boroditsky, Lera. 2010. Lost in translation. Wall Street Journal, 23 July.
Campbell, Lyle, & William J. Poser. 2008. Language classification: history and method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language. New York: Praeger.
Enfield, Nicholas J. 2010. Without social context? Science 329, 1600–1601.
Fossum, Victoria, & Kevin Knight. 2009. Combining constituent parsers. Proceedings of NAACL HLT 2009: Short Papers, 253–256.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of grammar, 73–113. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hockett, Charles F. 1960. The origin of speech. Scientific American 203, 89–97.
Hurford, James R. 1990. Nativist and functional explanations in language acquisition. In I. M. Roca (ed.), Logical issues in language acquisition, 85–136.
Kisilevsky, Barbara, Sylvia Hains, Kang Lee, Xing Xie, Hefeng Huang, Hai Hui Ye, Ke Zhang, & Zengping Wang. 2003. Effects of experience on fetal voice recognition. Psychological Science 14, 220–224. Lenneberg, Eric. 1967. Biological foundations of language. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Meisel, Jürgen M. 2011. Bilingual acquisition and theories of diachronic change: bilingualism as cause and effect of grammatical change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14, 121–145. Trudgill, Peter. 2011. Sociolinguistic typology: social determinants of linguistic complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Why I don't give a f**k about an Oxford Comma

Schokoladenfreude

So, I arrived in Berlin yesterday and made my way immediately to a rather special place: the Ritter Sport Bunte Schokowelt ('colourful choco-world'). What an amazing place. It's not very big, but there's a lovely exhibition where you can learn all about the history of Ritter Sport and how they are made. In the process, I finally found out what the 'Sport' is all about. Apparently, in 1932 chocolate bars were too long to fit into the recalcitrantly quadratic jacket pockets of football fans, so Clara Ritter suggested to her husband Alfred that they do something about this, and the Ritter Sport was born. (And in case you're inclined to dismiss this as just the kind of nonsense that I routinely make up, here's a link to prove it).

The best thing about the Schokowelt, however, is that you can CREATE YOUR OWN RITTER SPORT. And so I did!

Cherry & Mini Smarties: 10/10
Let's be honest: I would have given this one full marks even if it had tasted terrible. But even so I felt that this combination was inspired. The sour-sweet cherry pieces, a little chewy, contrast perfectly with the zippy crunch of the mini Smarties, all, of course, surrounded by creamy milk chocolate. Mmm. (There's also the option of white chocolate or half-dark chocolate.) Fortunately I had the prescience to order two of these, and will take the other one back to the UK with me - definitely something to look forward to. Ritter, you are a wonderful, wonderful company for giving me this opportunity. I won't forget this!

There was other awesome stuff, too. A polo-shirt, for instance, which I almost bought. Also more varieties than I knew existed: Olympia, chocolate mousse, all sorts of Bio varieties, and more. It was a toss-up between buying all of them and thinking of my health; in the end, I opted for only one, in addition to the variety I created myself.

Mixed Fine Nuts: 8.5/10
It's kind of difficult to distinguish between all the different types of nut (macadamia, cashew, almond) when they're encased in chocolate, but I've found that they get stuck in your teeth during the process, and then you can taste them individually. That warrants an extra half point over the excellent hazelnut varieties. That and it's the special limited-edition jubilee variety celebrating 100 years of Ritter (though not quite 70 years of Ritter Sport), so I was favourably inclined towards it.

As you can imagine, I'm a pretty happy bunny right now!

Li-fi (linguistic science fiction)? Embassytown, by China Miéville

A while back (actually a couple of decades), Geoffrey Pullum published a piece called 'Some lists of things about books'. You can find it in his essay collection The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax..., if you're interested. One of the lists includes Heffers, in Cambridge, as one of 'five bookstores where you can find a really serious stock of linguistics books. How things change. Nowadays, Heffers has one measly case of linguistics books, and it's hidden away quite cunningly, not to mention being populated mostly by Crystal, Pinker and Bryson. But I digress.

Another of the lists presented six science fiction books for linguists. Now it's never been clear to me that linguistics and fiction mix particularly well. Science fiction in particular has a bad rep with regard to linguistic accuracy. In Stargate SG1, for example, it's revealed that the reason the Ancient Egyptians spoke the language that they did was that they were visited by aliens who also spoke that language. Fine, so far, perhaps... but we're then led to assume that the Norse got their language from the grey-skinned Asgard aliens, and that the Romans learned Latin from the mysterious 'Ancients'. All these alien races are completely unrelated, of course. Enough to make a comparative linguist's brain overheat (though fortunately Asgard technology is capable of curing that). Worse still, almost all the myriad human societies they encounter on other worlds speak... English. I love SG1 dearly, but still.

Then Doctor Who and Star Trek cheat by employing a universal translator. (Oh hai computational linguists, could you build me one of those?) And even when alien races are given a foreign language to speak, assuming it isn't a code, or, worse, a cypher like Gnommish in the Artemis Fowl books (why would fairies speak an enciphered version of English?), it's usually constructed broadly as a human language, like the Na'vi language created for Avatar. (OMG ejectives!) In some ways, this is worse; it shows something of a lack of imagination, in any case. There are any number of ways that the different conceptual-intentional and sensorimotor systems of different alien life forms could be hooked up to one another. Why would they all behave like human languages?

In fairness, the works I'm criticizing really aren't science fiction in the purest sense of the term. They all fit much better into a category of 'space fantasy' or 'space adventure' that's far removed from the works of Wells, Clarke, Dick, Capek, Lem and the real pioneers of concept science fiction. Fun though the former may be, I'm always on the lookout for a work of the latter kind that takes language seriously. China Miéville's Embassytown may be such a book.

The Ariekei, or 'Hosts', have two mouths each, and can vocalize only using both simultaneously. More interestingly, their 'language' (known as 'Language') has no deixis, and they are unable to lie (and, by extension, to use metaphor; simile is a grey area). They are also incapable of comprehending Language unless it is spoken by an entity that they recognize as having a single mind, so two ordinary people can't fake it, nor can speech synthesis.

I'm not entirely convinced that all of Miéville's setup actually makes sense, especially the dénouement. But it's really refreshing to read someone who's actually attempted to play with the boundaries of what language is all about. More to the point, the book is a very enjoyable read. And it even has a linguist as a prominent character:

"I got almost all of it," Scile told me afterwards. He was very excited. "They shift tenses," he said. "When they mentioned the negotiations they - the Ariekei, I mean - were in present discontinuous, but then they shifted into the elided past-present. That's for, uh..." I knew what it was for, I assured him. He'd told me already. How could you not smile at him? I'd listened to him with affection, if not always with interest, over hundreds of hours. "Does it ever occur to you that this language is impossible, Avice?" he said. "Im, poss, ih, bul. They don't have polysemy. Words don't signify: they are their referents. How can they be sentient and not have symbolic language? ...

So yeah, go away and read this book. It may not be as page-turningly thrilling as Miéville's other work The City & The City, but it makes up for that with soaring imagination. And to my non-linguist friends: if I ever start going on like Scile, slap me upside the head and remind me of this.

The race to be king

The nominations are in, and it's official: there will be four candidates for the position of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. They're illustrated above, in anticlockwise order from the top right. (No one can accuse me of being biased, hahahahaha.)

The establishment's choice is David, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who I've discussed in a previous post. Mary Beard suggests that this nomination reflects 'relative meritocracy'; the implication is that this is because he's donated more than £82 million to the university. I don't quite understand this, I have to say. I'd love to be in a position to donate £83 million to the university and become the new Chancellor. Fact is, I don't have that kind of money. But I don't see why being rich (and hence able to donate vast sums of money while still living in a manor house) means that Sainsbury is the best man for the job. Sadly, to be rich, at least in this country, you usually have to either be born into it or step on the little people's toes. Neither, in my opinion, qualifies one to be the titular head of the world's best university.

A group of disaffected alumni (and me) have nominated actor, author and mountaineer Brian Blessed. There are various reasons to vote for him, some of which, again, I feel have been misunderstood. 'What happened to radical politics eh?' asks Mary Beard. Well, let's get one thing clear: voting for a supposedly apolitical choice over a radically political choice is a political decision in itself. And in my previous post I argued that Sainsbury would be a radically political choice simply by virtue of the message his election would send.

However, for those of you who want a more political choice, there's Michael Mansfield QC. A lawyer famous for representing the little guy in famous court cases, he's made no secret of his left-wing leanings. His nomination originates from some of the academics involved in the Cambridge Defend Education campaign. He welcomes the 'opportunity to defend the principles of Higher Education and critical thinking in particular, which have been steadily eroded by successive governments wedded to market forces'. I'm probably going to vote for him on that basis alone, since he fits the criteria laid out in my previous post perfectly: 'a public figure who's shown support for the general principles of the Defend Education campaign, and in particular opposes the marketization of higher education and research'.

Last but not least we have Abdul Arain, owner of Al Amin grocery store on Mill Road. A one-issue candidate, perhaps, since he's standing in protest at the plans for a new Sainsbury's in the vicinity. Still, I'll be clear that I'm in complete support of independent businesses in Cambridge, and welcome his candidacy on that basis alone. Also, his being elected would add plausibility to his website's claim that Al Amin is 'much more than simply a place to shop'. The Guardian has an interesting piece on his motives and support. Though I find it weird that he claims that 'Most people know me at Cambridge, both town and gown'. I for one had never heard of him before his nomination, and I suspect I'm not alone in that.

So the elections themselves will take place at the end of October, according to this Wikipedia article, by Single Transferable Vote. We'll have to rock up to the Senate House in person. Perhaps wearing gowns (lol). Hopefully there'll be no disgraceful electioneering on the part of the University administration this time, as there was with the ballot on Grace 1 of 23 February 2011, when the head of the English Faculty sent an email to all Faculty staff asserting, without any argument, that "a 'non placet' vote would institutionally be near suicidal".

Let the best man win! (Where best =/= richest...)

Choose the new Chancellor of the University of Cambridge!

This is an important one! If you have a Cambridge masters degree or higher, or know someone who does, be sure to read on.

According to an inconspicuous notice posted outside the Senate House, backed up by this link, Lord Sainsbury has been nominated to serve as the new Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (its honorary top man, in other words). Presumably this is because our beloved Prince Philip is getting on a bit, and it'd be embarrassing to have him die on the job. More interesting, however, is the following:

"This nomination is now before the University's Senate for approval. Fifty members of the Senate may nominate an alternative candidate."

What exactly is the Senate, then? When I looked into this I was surprised to find that it's us, or at least those of us in possession of the rather silly Cambridge MA or another masters degree or doctorate. Yes, that's right: if fifty of us can get together by 17th June to nominate an alternative candidate, there will, as I understand it, be an actual election to determine the new Chancellor.

Now obviously for practical purposes it doesn't matter a jot who's the Chancellor; it's not as if Prince Philip actually does anything in the role, despite the website's insistence that he has "important statutory duties". But the selection of billionaire David, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, sends a clear political message: by choosing a lifelong money-man and politician, who joined the family firm after failing to get the grades to become a scientist, the University would be aligning itself with government and industry, and with the 'new market', rather than with the interests of its constituents in education and academia. Through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation, Sainsbury (former chairman of Sainsbury's) has donated vast amounts of money to various causes. And he seems to be a nicer guy than his dictatorial cousin JD Sainsbury. But his appointment would be a statement to the effect that a culture of philanthropy, where the super-rich give to the poor, is a sustainable and appropriate model for higher education funding. It isn't. As Jeremy Prynne puts it (in the context of a slightly different cause),

All aspects considered, it seems to me now a critical moment to raise a voice, along with Oxford, against this constantly sliding and destructive tendency degrading a coherent policy for Higher Education; university funding cuts, massively increased student fees, major invasion of university self-government (admission policies, etc), together with the ever more proclaimed ‘market model’ for the whole sector. Are we also to end up with a new market-style Chancellor? These things are massively confused and massively wrong, and in default of any more intelligent and joined-up planning they are current government policy.

So an alternative candidate is needed, one who sends the opposite message. Moreover, it would be relatively easy to nominate such a candidate. The question is: who should it be? As I see it, it should be a public figure who's shown support for the general principles of the Defend Education campaign, and in particular opposes the marketization of higher education and research. Any ideas?

Ritter Sport ratings - the state of the art

New varieties. Even though I was in Germany for less than a day, I still managed to pick up four new flavours, all for the sake of you, my beloved readership. Brief notes this time.

Alpine Cream & Praline: 6.5/10
Another fairly unremarkable creamy variety, with a hint of crunchiness. It went down easily enough.

Bourbon & Vanilla: 7.5/10
As liqueur varieties go, this one is great - the vanilla is genuinely flavoursome and not too sweet.

Hazelnut & Almond Crumble: 6.5/10
Crunchier than the first one, but otherwise mostly indistinguishable. A bit too sweet, as I recall.

Corn Flakes & White Chocolate: 8.5/10
Really good! The extreme crunchiness works well for me, especially with the white chocolate which can otherwise be a bit cloying.

So for reference, the overall ratings at this stage are:

Rhubarb, strawberry and yoghurt: 9/10
Milk Chocolate: 9/10
Alpine Milk Chocolate: 9/10
Crunchy Biscuit (Knusperkeks): 9/10
Caramel & Nut: 9/10
Corn Flakes & White Chocolate: 7.5/10
Nougat: 8/10
Cappucino: 8/10
Hazelnut (milk chocolate): 8/10
Hazelnut (dark chocolate): 8/10
Fine Dark Chocolate (Edel-Bitter): 8/10
Rum, Raisin & Nut: 8/10
Orange & Marzipan: 8/10
Fruits of the Forest & Yoghurt: 7.5/10
Peach & Passionfruit: 7.5/10
Bourbon & Vanilla: 7.5/10
Marzipan: 7/10
Blood Orange: 7/10
Raisin & Nut: 7/10
Coconut Batida Liqueur Truffle: 7/10
Vanilla Liqueur Truffle: 7/10
Knusperflakes (Crunchy Flakes): 7/10
Stracciatella: 7/10
Vanilla Cookie: 7/10
Milk & White Chocolate: 6.5/10
Alpine Cream & Praline: 6.5/10
Hazelnut & Almond Crumble: 6.5/10
Sunny Crisp (sunflower seeds): 6/10
Espresso Crunch: 6/10
Half Dark Chocolate: 6/10
Marc de Champagne Truffle: 6/10
Amaretto Truffle: 6/10
Whole Peanut: 6/10
Hazelnut (white chocolate): 6/10
Raisin & Cashew: 6/10
Nut in Nougat Cream: 5.5/10
Dark chocolate with Creme a la chocolate mousse: 5/10
Jamaica Rum: 5/10
Kakaocreme (Cocoa cream?): 5/10
Peppermint: 5/10
Whole Almond: 4/10
Golden Peanut: 4/10
Yoghurt: 4/10
Lemon: 3/10
Egg Liqueur Truffle: 3/10
Coconut: 2/10
Diet Half Dark Chocolate: 1/10

On the Big Society

My sole remaining grandparent is 89 years old. Her husband has been dead for nearly a decade. She's entirely blind in one eye and half-blind in the other, is unable to hear without a hearing-aid, has skin as thin as tissue paper, suffers from crippling arthritis and cannot walk unaided. She hasa special alarm buzzer to press if she falls, which happens frequently. Yet she's generous, and happy (helped by large quantities of morphine), and upstairs she's sharp as a tack.

For the last 8 or 9 years she's had regular visits from the social services to help her with various things, in particular the preparation of meals, since she's very shaky. Earlier this year she suffered a bad fall, dislocating her hip. For a few weeks they moved her from hospital to hospital, and for six weeks after that they helped her rehabilitate to life on her own again.

Now she's been told that they've reassessed her situation and determined that she doesn't need help from the social services, and that they therefore won't be supporting her at all any more. When this decision was questioned by one of my aunts, she was patronizingly told that my grandmother should try to look for some randomer in the village to look after her. Because of course looking after old people requires no skill or training at all.

There's more to it than her situation changing, of course; old people don't suddenly recover from arthritis and regain their hearing and sight. As far as I can tell, this development is a direct consequence of the Carers Strategy, a recent government initiative, which contains such gems of euphemistic Tory bullshittery as 'Our Big Society reforms will see public services opened to challenge'. More worrying in these documents is the complete lack of any distinction drawn between trained professional carers and those who have no training and carry out the role through necessity. But of course the Big Society is all about people with no training taking on roles at which they will epically fail.

Philip Pullman has put it better than I could with respect to the similar situation facing librarians: 'Does [the government] think the job of a librarian is so simple, so empty of content, that anyone can step up and do it for a thank-you and a cup of tea? Does he think that all a librarian does is to tidy the shelves?' Pullman is 100% right, and his point is an important one even if you don't personally care about libraries, if only to forestall the chilling reductio ad absurdum that our beloved coalition government is currently pursuing. To put it bluntly: few people are going to die because of a lack of trained librarians. With carers, on the other hand...

And soon the NHS is going to be 'liberated', as well. Apparently this new approach 'puts people in the driving seat' - what, as opposed to the monkeys/robots/nodding dogs/aliens/vampires/cheese graters that were there before? This isn't just empty rhetoric; it's empty rhetoric that will kill thousands of people. Please sign the petition to save the NHS if you haven't already.

As for me, I'm tired of trying to phrase my criticisms of this government's abhorrent disregard for society in a witty, urbane, disinterested way. FUCK YOU, David Cameron, you ignorant, slimy, self-satisfied rich kid. FUCK YOU, Conservatives. And to anyone who reads this and voted Tory in the last election: I hope you're fucking ashamed of yourself. You've helped to elect a government that's tearing down our society brick by brick, and putting our country on the road to self-disintegration.

I love my life as a Linguist (a gentle autobiographical sketch)

Got on the train from Derbyshire
Moooved down to a Cambridge home
Got a moustache and an ill-kept beard
Some research papers and a syntax tome
Marking work with a ballpoint pen
There is just one thing in my FLN
I like Merge
We all like Merge

Teaching Middle English for an insufficient fee
Acting like a prof although I have no PhD
I remember when the kids at school would laugh at me
Now I'm analysing their CP
woah o o...

(chorus)
I love my life as a Linguist
All my friends are Linguists too
Come with me let's be Linguists
Haven't you heard? Being a Linguist's cool
Being a Linguist's cool
Being a Linguist's cool
Being a Linguist's cool cool cooool

CorpusSearch app on my laptop
Running queries on Old Norse prose
Present the results at a workshop
Yawning faces in ordered rows
Coolest kids at the training day
Attendance list, look there's my name
I turned up
You didn't turn up

Never take a plastic bag, I always use my own
Plugging in my laptop at the library down the road
Say I'm getting funding but it's really pretty low
I'm the coolest guy you'll ever know
woah o o...

(chorus)
I love my life as a Linguist
All my friends are Linguists too
Come with me let's be Linguists
Haven't you heard? Being a Linguist's cool
Being a Linguist's cool
Being a Linguist's cool
Being a Linguist's cool cool cooool

Ale with pub ice cream
Cartography meets DM vP
Indeterminate theoretical preference
Something retro in my analysis

"Basically I'm a part-time webmaster; I also help design a magazine where all the articles are in different languages."

"I go to syntax pub nights."

"Er, yeah, I once stage-managed a Shakespeare play in a converted bread-oven in Switzerland?"

If that lot doesn't make me a dickhead (in the traditional sense of the word), I don't know what would. Apologies to TheGrandSpectacular, whose original version is superior in every way.

Return of the Ritter Sport ratings

Ah, it's a great excuse to go to Germany at least twice a year. Ritter religiously bring out summer and winter varieties; so here they are, in all their glory. (The summer varieties, along with another three new ones, were evaluated while I was on my way back from Romania, and I transcribe here from my travel journal; the three winter varieties were sampled when I was in Berlin giving a talk.)

Raisin & Cashew: 6/10
Given my current cashew-nut obsession, it pains me to give this one a low-ish mark. The problem's not that there's anything wrong with it - just that it pales in comparison to what it could have been. Ritter have gone for a fairly traditional fruit & nut combo, which goes down easily enough; too easily, really. Cashews aren't the crunchiest of nut, and here they're chopped extremely finely, with the risk that they are overwhelmed entirely by the fairly rich Ritter milk chocolate and raisins in some mouthfuls. I'd have preferred larger chunks and, for that mater, a more adventurous recipe: cashews and caramel, for example, or cashews and some sort of liqueur/liquor. Still, this one was a pleasant enough eating experience and left a fine taste in the back of my mouth. Never going to be a favourite, but this was definitely worth a try.

Caramel & Nut: 9/10
My goodness, Ritter, you really can pull it off. This one was magnificent - the flavours and textures of the standard milk chocolate, the dry caramel and the crispy nuts all blend together like magic upon contact with your tongue. It's a long time since I did the bulk of the ratings, but I'd be hard pressed to say that this isn't the best variety I've ever tasted. Then again, I have been subsisting on dried bread and cashew nuts for the last few days. Whatever the case, this is a top-class variety that I couldn't bring myself to take my time over. Not too sweet - a bit salty.

Milk & White Chocolate: 6.5/10
I expected this one to taste like a Kinder egg, and for once with a Ritter Sport I got exactly what I was expecting. Very sweet and cloying; dark mixed with white would have produced a more interesting contrast, even visually, and the look of this one from above is its biggest selling point. Problem is, I'm just not that much of a fan of white chocolate given the choice. Oh well - at least it doesn't kill me like it does David. Overall, not terrible, but nor is it a real pleasure to eat like so many other varieties.

Stracciatella: 7/10
As a massive stracciatella ice cream fan I couldn't turn this one down - it's one of their three summer varieties for 2010. They've done a good job of recreating the refreshing taste, but it didn't quite have the bite of the ice cream version, of course. The contrast between dark and light, between the freezing, melting cream and the rich, unyielding shards of chocolate, just can't be translated. The vanilla cream eventually becomes tiresome, too. Yet for all that, it's worth it just to get the initial shock of recognition. A success, even if not destined to take off as a chocolate variety.

Fruits of the Forest & Yoghurt: 7.5/10
Ate this one while wandering around the grounds of Osborne House, Queen Victoria's favourite house. Very acidic, flavoursome fruit filling, and the yoghurt is well done, although I've long since forgiven Ritter for having a yoghurt filling that doesn't taste like yoghurt, since it's basically impossible. The fruit goes well with the chocolate; dark chocolate may have made this one even better, though, just for the contrast factor. That thought prevents me from giving this a top rating, but it scores highly nonetheless.

Peach & Passionfruit: 7.5/10
Coated in white chocolate and with a crunch that presumably has nothing to do with peach or passionfruit, this was a surprisingly enjoyable eat. The fruity flavours were sharp enough to offset the more mellow sweetness of the white chocolate, and the passionfruit was very genuine and dominant (called 'Maracuja' in German). Not really a complaint to be made against this variety; it's not my favourite of flavours, but the execution of the concept is perfect.

Orange & Marzipan: 8/10
Not 'delicious', but close enough to warrant an 8. Certainly there's not much to criticise in this intriguing balance of flavours: the sharp, insubstantial orange flavour contrasts deliciously with the weightier taste (and texture) of the marzipan. Oops, did I say 'deliciously'? I meant 'almost-deliciously'. In this battle of the big hitters it's the chocolate that loses out, if anything, but its creamy texture still provides the frame for the whole experience.

Nut in Nougat Cream: 5.5/10
Boring. I feel like I've eaten this one before. Not bad, just boring.

Vanilla Cookie: 7/10
Tasty. Crunchy bits of cookie with a vanilla flavour in milk chocolate. Went down a treat - the pieces of cookie were large enough to give one pause for thought, so texturally a success as well as in terms of taste. Perhaps not a particularly adventurous variety, but it beats all those variants with different types of nut in them, and I certainly wasn't expecting it. Bring back the legendary Baileys flavour or the Smarties, though - the possibilities are endless!

Another thing that's beneficial to society despite being inherently unprofitable

I'm talking about education, innit?

Lest anyone get the wrong idea: we've been here before. The Browne Review recommends cutting public funding for university teaching by 80%. That sounds remarkably similar to the 1982 Serpell Report mentioned in my post of last year, which would have cut UK rail network mileage by 84%. Both reports were motivated by the same concern: the desire to make a publicly-funded entity economically self-sustaining.

Perhaps the similarity ends there. Sir David Serpell was a well-respected senior civil servant, tasked by his government to find a stupid answer to a stupid question. As a relative of his, Nick Serpell, pointed out on my blog, I shouldn't have given the impression in my last post that the report represented Serpell's own opinion. I'm sorry I did so.

Lest it be said that I shy away from ad hominem attacks, though, let's talk about Browne. A member of an institution well known for its transparency and accountability, the House of Lords, Browne is a distinctly oily figure - even putting aside the fact that he used to be Chief Executive of BP. This is a man who has admitted to lying in court. He's never had any serious involvement in academia himself - in fact, it's even been speculated that one of his motivations in proposing cuts may be to get back at the Cambridge establishment for being slighted by one of his professors during his own university days. He's also been accused of making fierce cuts during his time at the helm of BP - although that's in the Daily Mail, so should be taken with a pinch of salt. In any case, it's clear that this isn't the sort of man we'd expect to be appointed to chair an impartial review of spending on academia; unless, of course, the outcome was essentially predetermined, the game rigged.

Various people have pointed out, not particularly perspicuously, that the way UK universities currently fund themselves is not economically self-sustaining. As I've argued in my previous post, however, to argue that everything can, and should, be profitable reveals a serious misunderstanding of how human society works. The question that Browne (like Serpell) was tasked with answering isn't even one that it makes sense to ask. Education (like the rail network) isn't profitable, and shouldn't need to be. Funding it publicly shows that we're better than animals: we can actively choose to improve the way the world works, to make sacrifices for the greater good, rather than engage in a narrow-minded orgy of self-interest as the capitalism apparently espoused by the last two governments would have us do, blindly trusting/hoping that the invisible hand will level it all out. But that's enough naively idealistic vitriol.

Jessica pointed out in a comment on (the Facebook version of) my previous post the value of education. I didn't give it much thought at the time. Now, of course, I am doing, for the simple reason that it threatens something I hold very dear indeed: the availability of education, and the pursuit of broadening the sum of human knowledge. I should point out that I'm not personally threatened: I have funding for the rest of my PhD, and when that's over I should have the qualifications to do pretty much anything I want short of becoming an astronaut or brain surgeon. But future generations will have to bear the brunt of this - which is another reason I think the proposed cuts are abhorrent. Future generations suffer from the notable disadvantage of not being able to defend themselves: they can't vote, and they're mostly very small if alive at all. In fact, why doesn't Browne just cut out the middleman and set about punching babies of poor families in the face? It would have the same net effect. (Incidentally, the same argument applies to global warming deniers and other such head-in-sand-buriers; passing on a problem to the next generation while ignoring it and allowing it to grow in the meantime is Not Ka-Blamo!)

Nor does pointing to America provide a solution. American universities are largely able to stay afloat and provide scholarships, insofar as they can, because of a culture of philanthropy on the part of those who have struck it rich in the real world. Such an attitude is totally alien to the UK, and I find it hard to believe that the situation would change suddenly if fees were increased and public spending slashed. The American model isn't going to be transferred over here overnight. It would take time, and, as is well known, time is money. Money is something British universities will lack if Browne's proposals go through; by the time the "philanthropic mindset" sets in, if it does so at all, many smaller departments and institutions will have sunk without a trace.

Oh, and of course in the above I've taken it as given that broadening the sum of human knowledge is a good thing. Please don't disagree with me on that, as it would make me sad.

There's a demonstration on 10th November. If you agree with any part of the above*, I'd strongly encourage you to attend. It's hard to imagine an issue with more potential impact on the way our society currently works.

*Except the part about punching babies. Again, Not Ka-Blamo.

WOOD

Another look at the blockbuster show that's currently taking the US by storm.

ABC's new hit drama, WOOD, is a live-action remake of the classic British animated series Animals of Farthing Wood, based on the novels by Colin Dann. A plucky ensemble cast of animal friends, scorned and threatened by the society that surrounds them, are forced to 'go rogue' and fight their way to the safety of White Deer Park, taking no prisoners along the way. Here we take a look at the main cast and characters of this high-octane drama.

Matthew Fox as Fox

Fox is well known from the blockbuster show LOST, in which he played a passionate natural leader determined to get his people to safety by any means necessary. Fox's character in WOOD, Fox, is a passionate natural leader determined to get his people to safety by any means necessary (surely 'animals'? - Ed). Prepare to be blown away by this TV stalwart's intensity and his astounding range of ridiculous facial expressions.

Tony J. Badger as Badger

An experienced veteran, Badger is currently Paul Mellon Professor of American History and Master of Clare College, Cambridge. In the hit show Real Life, Badger played a sagacious and benevolent but slow-moving elder statesman. Badger's character in WOOD, Badger, is a sagacious and benevolent but slow-moving elder statesman. (He's not an actor. - Ed.)

Donald Pleasence as Pheasant

Specially returned from the dead to appear as special guest star in WOOD, the British character actor Pleasence is perhaps best known for his role in the hit movie The Great Escape, in which he played an endearingly vulnerable character whose tragic death leaves a mark on the hearts of viewers everywhere. Pleasence's character in WOOD, Pleasence (surely 'Pheasant'? - Ed), is an endearingly vulnerable character whose tragic death leaves a mark on the hearts of viewers everywhere.

Zeljko Ivanek as Some Creepy, Incredibly Untrustworthy-Looking Bad Guy

The Slovenian-American Ivanek is familiar to audiences worldwide for his appearances in 24, Oz, Heroes and every American drama ever made, in which he played a creepy, incredibly untrustworthy-looking bad guy. Ivanek's character in WOOD, Ivanek, is a creepy, incredibly untrustworthy-looking bad guy. Prepare to be blown away by his creepiness, his untrustworthy-lookingness and his bad-guyness.

Three things that are beneficial to society despite being inherently unprofitable

I recently (actually, round about this time last year) came across an obituary for Sir David Serpell in the Times, and it got me thinking. Y'see, Serpell was essentially a government suit like any other, but, if the skein of fate had been woven a little differently, the anniversary of his death (28th July 2008) would now be a major day of celebration for public transport fans worldwide.

Serpell's main claim to fame was the Serpell Report, a set of recommendations on the future of the UK rail network which, if implemented, would have made the infamous Beeching Axe look like a blunt teaspoon by comparison. According to Wikipedia, the UK's rail network in 1950 stretched to 21,000 miles. After Beeching, in 1975, only 12,000 miles were left - but Serpell's 1982 report (commissioned by Thatcher) wanted to take it further. Option A of the report proposed cutting the route miles of the UK network to only 1,630, and included the insane proposal to close the East Coast main line north of Newcastle. Fortunately, Serpell's recommendations were never implemented.

Both Beeching and Serpell were economically minded, seeing the railways as a business that should be able to pay its own way. But Christian Wolmar, in his book Fire and Steam, has argued (convincingly, in my view) that there's more to it than that:

"Outside the densely populated areas of the Far East, railways are rarely able to pay their own running costs, let alone the investment needed to build them. They require subsidy for construction and often to keep running. They sit unhappily in the private sector because of this need for government support. But that does not mean they are a waste of money. They generate economic growth, enable people to travel comfortably, and cause much less environmental damage than the alternative. Those benefits cannot be captured by the fare box but they help make societies viable." (pp314-5)

It's certainly true (and read Wolmar, or many other critics, if you don't believe me) that privatisation of the railways in the UK has been a hilarious failure. Well... it would be hilarious if it weren't so painful. The railways - and especially Network Rail - are really only nominally in the private sector (according to the National Audit Office, Network Rail is a state-owned company, and most of the others receive massive subsidies). In light of what's happened to our railways over the last decade and a half, one can easily make the argument that rail networks in general cannot be profitable enterprises.

But Wolmar has a point. Railways improve quality of life - a notion that's massively important in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, but is usually discussed in the capitalist literature only through hand-waving (when not dismissed out of hand). They allow people like me, who choose for environmental and financial reasons not to drive a car, to travel medium distances comfortably and safely. In fact, were it not for the railways I would essentially be unable to travel between Cambridge and my home in the Peak District. (It should be mentioned that the train I take, which runs from Norwich to Liverpool, can't possibly be profitable, except perhaps when Norwich City are playing Liverpool in the FA Cup.) In short, railways are a good thing for society.

So, the first thing I'd suggest is beneficial to society despite being inherently unprofitable is:

1. The railways

C'mon, it makes sense.

It's not just the railways, though. In fact, I can think of at least two other things.

2. The health system

How is a system that patches people up ever supposed to be profitable? (That is, as long as you believe that people who don't have enough money should be left to die. I take this to be uncontroversial.

I think the NHS is great, and that its failings, such as they are, are largely due to it not receiving enough money to do its job properly. I'm not completely convinced that it needs to be nationalised; I've recently been very impressed by the German system. In Germany, it is compulsory for anyone in paid work to pay a proportion of their income to a privately owned health insurance company, which then shells out to cover your medical needs with private surgeries without you having to lift a finger. It's actually very similar to the NHS, in essence - and the system is still vouchsafed by the government, who make it mandatory to pay into one of these companies. I've only ever used it for (relatively) minor ailments, though, so I don't know what would happen if I needed some vast operation like a heart transplant or some shit like that. But I'm open to arguments either way.

3. The postal system

The postal system in the UK, unlike the railways and the NHS, is not receiving increasing use. The advent of the Internet obviates the need for a lot of toing-and-froing with letters. But the post is still necessary when you want to actually physically send something somewhere, which happens relatively often to me at least. It may never again be profitable - but why should it be profitable? We need it. This is why, for the moment at least, I'm in favour of keeping the Post public.

Feedback much appreciated! Especially if you're one of those scummy libertarian free-marketeers who really believes that Smithian invisible-hand crap. ;)

Toujours Tingo?

"Randomness" is fashionable these days. You can't get away from it. It's very trendy to be just a little bit crazy, and to sprinkle your utterances liberally with llamas, badgers, armadillos and cheese. It's the cultural legacy of Monty Python's Flying Circus, ultimately, and so it can't be an entirely bad thing. I can't pretend to be immune to the lure of the random myself. Just look at the labels I've given my posts, and the story I started writing at the very start of my blogging days. Randomness is fun, in moderation, and as an added bonus it is very easy to achieve.

The problem with randomness, though, is that it constantly has to redefine itself so that it doesn't become mundane and therefore oxymoronic. What's random isn't set in stone; conventionalised randomness isn't random at all. Random humour is only funny once; the next time it's uttered, it is in no sense random. If one is trying to be avant-garde and popular, then, the worst thing one can do is to be random in the same way twice.

Tell that to Adam Jacot de Boinod. His first book, The Meaning of Tingo, was a bestseller. It consisted of a list of vaguely amusing-sounding random foreign words and their vaguely amusing English translations. Even with the first book he was treading a fine line; in its gentle, utterly useless information-purveying nature it was dangerously close to other works of the "random genre" such as Schott's Miscellany. Now, however, he's brought out a sequel, Toujours Tingo: More Extraordinary Words To Change The Way We See The World.

Even the most light-hearted reader of random literature ought to be wary of this. With sequels it's easy to suspect a callous cash-in, and authors often (perhaps unfairly) have to work extra hard to make their sequel something special. Anything new in here, then? Nope - it's just another list of vaguely amusing-sounding foreign words and their vaguely amusing English translations. All the more pathetic considering that presumably A. J. de B. has been deluged with fan emails since he published the first book, all itching to tell him about the latest amusing-sounding foreign word they've come across on their travels. And A. J. de B. does nothing to assuage our suspicions that he's just churning out an easy money-spinner. On the back sleeve of the book he claims that "[h]e is now intending lezarder (French - to lie around basking in the sun like a lizard)."

In the previous paragraph I used the word "author", and indeed the book itself refers to A. J. de B. in this way. However, the term isn't really appropriate here. "Compiler", perhaps? I would venture to call him an "editor", except that a cursory read of the book shows that no editing of any kind has in fact been done. The German phrase da lichen die Hühner is used to mean "you must be joking" - except that the German is spelt wrong. It should be lachen. And German is one of the less obscure languages in this book. Would it have been so hard to get that checked?

Furthermore, the translations are often exaggerated for comic effect, and in some cases are just plain wrong. The previous example is followed by "literally, 'this makes the chickens laugh'". Um... actually, A. J., its literal translation is more like "there the chickens are laughing". Not a big difference, but if you're going to throw in the word "literally" you have to make sure that your translation is actually literal and faithful. A worse example can be found over the page, where another German word, ad-hoc-Bildungen, is translated as "making up a new word on the spot in a moment of need". This translation gives the impression that the German word is a verb denoting an action, or a noun describing the process of that action. Wrong - it's a noun (in the plural) meaning "made-up words" - literally "ad hoc formations". There's nothing in there about the action of making up, or indeed about a moment of need. Clearly A. J. de B. had a moment of need and decided to make the translation more vaguely humorous than it actually was. I could give you more examples, but I've already wasted enough time on this book.

Which brings me on to my next point. What on earth is this book actually for? From the above it emerges that it can in no way be used as a reliable guide to saying anything in any language. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that if you're knowledgeable enough about a language to be able to speak it at all you'll be able to spot the errors in the book's examples. Furthermore, it's ordered by (loose) topic, so you can't use it as any kind of reference work. Finally, it's not even funny. It really isn't. Most of my evening reading is linguistics textbooks these days, but even so it's been a long time since I read anything as soporific as this.

Of course, one could argue that the whole point of this sort of book is to be pointless. It's part of the "randomness" of it. But if you were thinking of saying that, look deep inside yourself and realise the truth. Nothing is funny by virtue of being pointless. "Random" humour is only ever funny because of the absurdity of the juxtaposition of the randomness and the situation, and most of these words just aren't random enough. The German phrase "war dein Vater ein Dieb? Weil er die Sterne vom Himmel gestohlen hat um sie dir in die Augen zu setzen" - "Was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes" is quite charming as a ridiculous chat-up line, but... couldn't we say that in English? Yes, we could, because we just did in the translation. It's simply a metaphor, and the glory of metaphor is that it allows for creativity in language. ANY language. To put a metaphor like the above in a list of foreign words is to miss the point. It won't "change the way we see the world", and neither will any word. The view that language shapes thought is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This hypothesis has been comprehensively discredited, at least in its strong form, and the prevailing view is that thought shapes language to at least as great a degree.

So the only remaining purpose for this book is to provide witty anecdotes that one can recite to one's friends down at the pub or at a dinner party, if one spends enough time remembering them. Except, as mentioned above, that they're not actually that witty or profound or anything else. The book's recommended price is £10.99 in hardback. For God's sake don't buy it. You'll only be giving the filthy lizard A. J. de B. more cash to wallow in.

Apologies if this book has made me into something of a mouton enragé (French - someone usually calm who loses their temper: literally, a maddened sheep). But I would recommend this book only to a slavishly mundane, predictable follower of the cult of randomness. No true free thinker would have the determination to plough through all three hundred pages of it without losing the will to live. For my part, I'm calling it a day at page 76, and won't be getting it out again in a hurry.

Act 2 Interlude (Walking in Belgium)

My contract was coming to an end, and I had far too much holiday allowance left over, so I decided to spend four days of it to take all of a bank holiday week off. Three of these days I used for a little excursion into the borderland between Germany and Belgium, south of Aachen. Once again I've made a page of photos to illustrate the trip.

The week was beautiful, weatherwise. I started off on a cool but sunny Wednesday morning from Monschau (see posts passim). My intent was to follow the old Vennbahn railway line further south to its ultimate destination in St. Vith, about 50km away, on foot. After a bracing climb up to a rocky viewpoint, the Ehrensteinley, the path descended into the upper Rur valley. I was now walking the other way along the river that in October had accompanied me to Heimbach. This valley was simply fantastic, and possibly the high point of the whole walk. It was narrow, and green, and there was no road in the bottom, just a track suitable perhaps for cyclists or horses and a footpath. In fact, for those of you to whom this might mean something, it reminded me a bit of the Wye valley between Millers Dale and Blackwell Mill.

The valley soon widened out and came to an old monastery, Gut Reichenstein. Just before this I caught my first glimpse of the railway line as it crossed over a tributary on a small viaduct. soon after, the path joined the track and both met a road which crossed the valley. Here there was a tiny chapel, the Norbertuskapelle, with a little water fountain outside it. On the road next to it, just before the bridge, was a sign warning of "toads crossing" and advising drivers to proceed slowly.

Soon the railway descended into the valley and accompanied me to Kalterherberg, on the border with Belgium. This quiet village was pretty and very rural, and here I looped away from the railway before returning to cross it where it ran along the border. From Kalterherberg station you can hire a railbike, a cunning contraption that runs along standard gauge tracks and is pedal-powered. I'd been yearning to try this out, but sadly it requires at least two people to propel it. I sighed and moved on, rising up a hill and entering a deep swathe of forest. Somewhere within the forest I had my lunch and then progressed across an area of the Venn itself to Sourbrodt.

Sourbrodt had clearly been quite an important interchange for rail, with a large station and goods yard. Sadly the whole setup had fallen into disrepair. I could immediately tell I'd entered a Francophone area, because every yard had a snarling dog, the people regarded me with a surly nonchalance and there was a general air of uncaring decrepitude about the place. From Sourbrodt it was mostly road-walking as far as Waimes/Weismes, with a brief stop for an expensive ice cream and a lemonade and another to munch an apple and gaze over the Lac de Robertville.

In Weismes I stopped to orientate myself (and also to drink a beer). It was an interesting village. The area had belonged to various different countries (France and Germany, mostly) and had only been part of Belgium since the Treaty of Versailles. It also had a history of being sacked and burnt by almost everyone in Europe: the Lothringians, the Burgundians, the French, the Germans... the list goes on. By this point I was knackered, having walked about 28km, and so was not happy to be informed that the place I was staying in was in fact another 3km to the east.

I will not recount my dismal failure to find said place in any reasonable manner. Suffice it to say that I wandered back and forth across the French/German language border, enlisting the help of various locals, before I finally located it. One of them took me for a native speaker, though, so it wasn't all lose. Furthermore, the place itself was gorgeous. A cosy farmhouse in open countryside with incredibly friendly hosts. If you're ever in East Belgium, make sure to go out of your way to stop over there. The food was tasty and filling, the bedroom was welcoming and the prices were refreshingly low. http://www.ferienfreizeithof.com for more info.

The next morning was less interesting, being shorter and mostly road walking, although there was a brief forest interlude. At about noon I rejoined the railway at a place called Montenau. The section of track south from Weismes to St. Vith has been taken up, and is now a footpath/cycleway, although it wasn't shown on my map, so I joined it and followed it south... all the way to St. Vith. I took a stop for lunch and a shorter gawking stop to observe the viaduct at Born, which was built in less than eight months in 1912 for a war railway linking the Vennbahn to the railway running from Luxembourg to Liège. It, too, is disused now, and is in a poor state of repair, but is still a fine sight. That afternoon I took it slow and visited a museum in the old station building in St. Vith, including a magnificent exhibition all about the Vennbahn itself, which was wonderfully illuminating.

I'd been planning to go further the next day, but decided against it, because I didn't have the map, the weather was changing, my foot was jiggered and I'd been sunburnt to a crisp. Instead I had a slow morning sitting and reading in St. Vith and then got the bus to Malmedy. This city, including its cathedral and treasury, was quite impressive, and I spet a pleasant afternoon there before getting another bus to Trois Ponts. Trois Ponts is in the Ardennes, and has many more than three bridges. It is also on the line linking Luxembourg and Liège, so I was able to catch the train I had originally been planning to catch, which turned out to be a loco-pulled compartment train. A waffle, a Thalys, a döner kebab and another bus later I was home.

No rest for the wicked, though, as the next day I had to be outside the company gates at 8:15am to get on the "KulTour" bus which was to take me around Belgian Limburg. (Yes, I know, it's a hard life.) We visited the castle complex at Alden Biesen, former seat of the Teutonic Order. Next up were the wine-makers at Genoels-Elderen, then we stopped for lunch at a restaurant. Our final stop-off was in the "white town" of Thorn, a lot further north. Here the church had been closed for the evening, there were no public toilets to be found, and the centre of the town had been cordoned off because there was an arty-crafty market going on. Visitors had to pay € 4 to enter. I was unimpressed.

All in all, however, it was a nice day out, and I returned tired but satisfied having made a couple of new acquaintances in the company.

Only four full days left at work, now... and I'm returning to England on the 22nd, so my next post is likely to round off Act 2. Yep, Act 2 consisted entirely of interludes. But remember: all work and no interludes makes George a dull blogger.

Act 2 Interlude (Family Visit)

So! Much, much later, I finally get around to blogging about the family coming to visit. Instead of posting the photos here and clogging up your connection, I'll just link you to this page, which contains some of the best photos of the week.

All in all, I think Germany did itself proud. I'm recovering from a massive excess of food intake during the whole holiday period - but it was good food. Big up to the restaurant of the Haus Press and indeed to many other restaurants. My swollen gut is now having to content itself with shrinking to its normal modest size.

The holiday in itself wasn't much. We went on a few walks and trips to nice local towns, saw what Aachen had to offer (its cathedral and Schatzkammer), and spent one day scooting round three countries on trains, visiting Maastricht and Liège, mainly because we could. But it was all well planned, relaxed and leisurely, and we ate well. The weather didn't disappoint, either. It was sunny, breezy and clear almost all the time they were here - just perfect, really. Thanks to the family for being so nice and accommodating, and also for buying me an immense quantity of food.

Nothing much else is happening here. Fourth interlude - and in about five weeks' time I'll likely be heading back to the good ol' U. K. of, erm, E. But the quiet, repetitive life over here still makes a break from the hectic Cambridge term, so I'm happy to live it out philosophically and return with renewed vigour in October.

Act 2 Interlude (Munich)

Another interlude: this one a visit to the lovely city of Munich, where I spent three months during my gap year (over three years ago now - shocking). This time was different, however, as I was staying in a youth hostel and meeting up with Fi, Munich being a sensible midpoint between Aachen and Kapfenberg. I set off early on Saturday morning, and was hoping that the four-and-a-half-hour train journey would provide me with beautiful panoramas of the German countryside. Sadly it was not to be, as the weather was persistently white all day. No rain, no sun, not even any noticeable clouds. Boring.

The ICE trains provide their own in-train entertainment, though, in the form of a little monitor at the end of carriages which shows you how fast the train is going. I was suitably impressed when it reached the 200kph mark, then my jaw dropped as it powered its way up to and beyond 300kph without even breaking a sweat. (Metaphorically speaking.)

Seeing Munich again on the approach to the station hit my memory like a double decker bus. I think the brain must work in different ways when observing things that it expects to see and when observing things that it expects not to have seen before. I must have travelled the stretch of track between Pasing and Munich Hbf at least 100 times, so it was firmly imprinted somewhere deep in my memory... and when I looked out of the window, expecting to be surprised, I felt the recognition wash through me in an instant. It's a strange feeling.

That evening me and Fi went and explored the town a bit.


This is the view into town from a rather weird building with a rather weird name: the Maximilaneum.


"It's a golden angel on a stick," as I so elegantly put it. Quite, George.

The next day we got on the S-Bahn and travelled out to the south, where there was a lake, the Starnberger See. We walked along it for a while in a leisurely fashion. Luckily the sun was out that day. In fact, it was generally lovely. On this journey Fi showed up my ignorance by asking what the S in S-Bahn stood for. I didn't know (I do now). Do YOU?


Me in a gate in front of the Schloss Possenhofen, next to the lake, where the Empress Elisabeth ("Sisi"), a much-loved figure in Bavaria, Austria and Hungary, spent her childhood.


View along the gangway to a house on stilts on the edge of the lake.

On Monday we tried and failed to visit the Pinakothek der Moderne art gallery. It's closed on Mondays. :( So we went and climbed a church tower instead, the "Alter Peter", in between flurries of snow.


The Frauenkirche and the town hall tower, viewed from the Alter Peter.


Fi on the top of the tower, with the Rathaus in the background.

Ritter Sport Ratings

Thanks to Fi for spotting this one, at the station as we were about to go our separate ways. It's the last of the new spring varieties.

Marc de Champagne Truffle: 6/10
Between Half Dark Chocolate and Amaretto Truffle. It was tasty, and particularly flavoursome compared to the other liqueur varieties, but I don't think champagne has the right texture to sit well with chocolate. I've tried this at several New Year parties with a tub of Quality Street and a few glasses of real champagne, and have always regretted it a short while later. Champagne is a light, uplifting drink, whereas chocolate is deliciously heavy and clogging. The combination of the two is trying to reconcile irreconcilable opposites, in my opinion.

So another wonderful weekend, all told. Thanks to Fi for being excellent company, and to all of you: join me next time for (probably) Act 2 Interlude (Family Visit) (if I don't get round to blogging earlier, that is) (and I almost certainly won't)!