living in a divided nation.

National politicians and people of influence around the world have now become enthusiastic about telling us everything there is to know of the perils of living in a divided nation. Apparently, this is happening around us.  I can understand the divisions of a few hundred years ago – Protestants and Catholics, Red Rose and White Rose, Jacobites and Williamites, monarchists and republicans, and so on. However, today's divisions can often seem to be more of an academic nature than a practical one. Have couples divorced in the UK when one spouse is a Brexit remainer and the other a leaver?  I think not.  Sunderland constituents were major Brexiters and Oxford constituents were not, but I don’t think there has been any violence in the lecture hall from students from Sunderland at Oxford University.

When there seems to be a divided nation then a lot of politicians think that the way to go is to "heal the divisions".  This means, I think, that everyone in a divided nation must be cured of divisive thoughts. Open-heart surgery, presumably.

Up to the age of 28, I lived in a divided East London. There were noticeable divisions into various sizeable communities - the racially-prejudiced bigots, the male chauvinists, the chronically violent, the criminally-minded, the disruptive jerks in schools, the bullies at work, and some other equally unpleasant communities. I don’t think I could have accepted their views in order to live in an undivided society. I am sure they wouldn’t have bought into mine.  Thankfully, for my sanity, that part of the nation was divided - from me - during the first thirty years of my life. 

However, those were the old days. Now, we are, for presumably good reasons, urged to live without divisions. As a paid-up member of the “complacency” community, I am quite prepared to acknowledge that some people think that there is nothing worse than living in a divided nation.

having a famous cricketer as Prime Minister

Unfortunately, of course, people will inevitably start using cricketing terms when discussing his behaviour in government.  Once this happens then any meaningful dialogue disappears. Here is a list of sentences that use some of my favourites.

He is not playing with a straight bat.

He has thrown down a googly.
Has he played his last innings?

When will the captain come to the crease?.

What he is doing is just not cricket!

Will he hit them for six?
He has been caught in the covers.

Will the voters be bowled over?

He stumped the opposition party.

He was caught out by his lack of political experience.

It was time to call stumps on his government.

He is definitely batting on a sticky wicket.

Throughout the term of his government, there have been too many dropped catches.

When it comes to foreign policy, he is an all-rounder.
He can play on both sides of the wicket.
He has got plenty of balls to spare.

The opposition has hit him with a bouncer.
His stumps were shattered.
He was out of his crease.

I don't think he will simply walk on this issue.
He was bowled through his legs by the opposition.
He has clean-bowled the opposition.
He had his middle stump knocked out of the ground.
He has hit a ton on the issue of the balance-of-payments deficit.
He was doing quite well until bad light stopped play.
He has overstepped the mark.  
He hasn't got off the mark yet.
When it comes to experience, he is low in the batting order.
He hit a century before lunch.
He can turn his arm to anything.
He is bowling wide of the stumps on this issue
He is batting on a sticky wicket.
His policies have been hit for six.

He lost his footing during the run-up.

being the last person into the office

Office timing is 9.00 am to 5.00pm – no problem.  So, of course, people start arriving at 8.45. By 8.55 everyone is at their desk waiting for Windows to load, except for that one person, let's call him Bob, who always just manages to get to work on time.  It is a natural phenomenon, so cannot be planned out of the system. The interesting aspect of this is why Bob, and not Sandra or Adrian? Bob obviously wishes that he was like Adrian and Sandra, and possibly Georgina, but he can never be one of them. Without needing to consider logic or common sense, the emergence of new technology is probably to blame. It must be the root of the problem as it micro-manages every micro-second of our life.

...going into work in your pygamas

I read the excellent Saudi Gazette regularly.  Having worked in the kingdom I feel some affinity with the events reported. Also, it is a very easy read, somewhat of an antidote to reading the Guardian, which has been my obsession for the past 35 years. There was an interesting article a week or so ago about an employee of  Madinah Municipality shown in the security video going into work in his pyjamas. 



The quote in the article from the municipality is 

The municipality said it was one of their employees, but so far no one was able to identify the man or why he came to the building in his pyjamas.

According to the report, employees of the municipality have got together and are offering a SR10,000 reward for the name of the employee. The security clip was widely circulated on the Internet in the kingdom, so the employees feel that this event is a slight on their character.   Also, the article suggests that this man can be fined quite a lot of money, SR500,000. 

Well, after a quick search, it seems that it happens quite regularly all over the world, except for KSA. However, it is more of a male rather than a female thing. Personally, I've never gone into work in my pyjamas, and never worked anywhere where anyone has. However, as everyone knows who reads my blog, I can rightly be accused of being out-of-touch with the world that is going on around me. Still, if I put myself back into the enjoyable time I spent in Saudi Arabia, I can safely say that there's nothing worse than going into work in your pyjamas.

.....having a blocked nose

You wake up with a headache - still tired, struggle through the bowl of porridge and get into work. When you speak, your words are misunderstood more than normal.  The problem is obvious - a blocked nose.  What is the cure - tiger balm, Vicks vapour rub, anti-histamine, steam bath? There are many. They all work, or not, depending on something - it is one of those medical mysteries of the universe. Once back home, the inevitable question is asked - how was work today? The answer - it was okay, but I couldn't breathe properly - is met by the equally inevitable - yes, there's nothing worse than having a blocked nose.

....being wobbly on your pins

Someone I feel I know quite well was recently walking to her car at midday and felt distinctly jittery. As I have been told, Washington can be a little hot and humid in mid-September, so walking long distances outside the comfort of a shopping mall is not advisable. Not that she was on a long-distance hike, far from it, in fact. With her car looming large, her brain must have said, okay go for it, but her body gave a contrary message. The brain won. She just managed to climb in. Driving away, she must have reflected on her health – was she getting to the age when she might start feeling wobbly on her pins?

.....having your fences taken

Luigi Canaloni was recently sitting outside the Cafe' de Italiano when he was overheard making the casual remark "I have the distinct impression that the British are somewhat remiss when it comes to cooking pasta. " Within hours this remark went viral. A web site went up - neveraskthebritishtocookpasta.com, an online petition was launched entitled "All Britishers should be banned from cooking pasta", a number of facebooks were created warning people about the dangers to health of eating pasta cooked by the British, the European Union was asked to revoke the passports of all UK nationals buying uncooked pasta, #brits-are-sh**t-at-italian-cooking had a million hits, the creator of the youtube video "One hundred best British pasta failures" became on overnight billionaire.

The following events are a cautionary tale. The next morning Luigi went to his downtown tomato farm to check on his produce, and found, to his horror, that all the fences had been taken and the local goats had happily eaten his prize crop of San Marzano tomatoes. "I had heard rumours of fences being taken, but I never imagined that anyone would take a fence from me. This is the worse thing that has ever happened," a tearful Luigi remarked. He is currently enrolled on a government course on how to build fences.

.....having an anxiety attack over a word

I'm not normally a follower of anything from Fox News, but I recently happened on the following web page: 

http://magazine.foxnews.com/style-beauty/jane-seymour-its-bangs-over-botox,  which had the title: For Jane Seymour, It's Bangs Over Botox.
 
This is a selection of the content of the article

When Jane Seymour decided it was a time for a whole new look, she opted for scissors to get the job done.
 
“I cut bangs,” the 62-year-old British actress told Us Weekly. “Since I’m not a Botox babe, you know, bangs work.”

Before rocking full bangs, Seymour has been a fan of the sideswept fringe for decades, making it her signature look. And while stylists insist that bangs can give women a more youthful appearance, it looks like the star was already in on the secret.

Being an ESL teacher, I'm meant to be able to understand the meaning of unknown words in text from the context, but I really was unable to work out what bangs could mean. Is it a body feature or a fashion accessory? How new is the word bangs, did it come from a Holywood film or TV series, etc, etc. I immediately thought it was a short version of a proper word, so bangle comes to mind, but then I had doubts, since you cannot cut a bangle without specialist equipment which Jane Seymour is unlikely to have.

Botox is the latest craze amongst the Dubai crowd, and clinics are putting in big money to take advantage of it. Will there now be places in Dubai which specialise in bangs, like Bangs'R'Us perhaps?
 

.....reproducing the lyrics of a popular song

The other evening it was raining for the first time for more than a year. Some related words from a song came to mind, and although I now sometimes forget more things than I admit to, I was able to remember all the words for "Rainy Night In Sharptown." This song was released on 06/06/1906 by the winner of Sharptowns Got Talent, Al Johnson. 

So here are the words

Hoverin' by my suitcase, tryin' to find a warm place to spend the night

Heavy rain fallin', seems I hear your voice callin' "It's all right."

(chorus)

A rainy night in Sharptown, a rainy night in Sharptown

It seems like it's rainin' all over the UGC

I feel like it's rainin' all over the UGC

No neon signs a-flashin', no taxi cabs and no possibility of any local buses passin' through the night

An extremely distant moanin', of a Metro tram in Downtown, seems to play a sad refrain to the night

A rainy night in Sharptown, such a rainy night in Sharptown

I believe it's rainin' all over the UGC

I feel like it's rainin' all over the UGC

How many times I wondered

It still comes out the same

No matter how you look at it or think of it

It's Sharptown and you just got to play the game

I find me a place in an uncompleted apartment building site, so I play my lute to pass some time

Late at night when it's hard to rest 

I hold my wallet to my chest 

and I feel fine

But it's a rainy night in Sharptown, baby, it's a rainy night in Sharptown

I feel it's rainin' all over the UGC, I'm kinda lonely now 

And it's rainin' all over the UGC

Oh, have you ever been lonely, people?

And you feel that it was rainin' all over your world

You're talking 'bout rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', in Sharptown

...... not knowing an acronym

I recently received a comment on one of my earlier posts about eyebrows that meet in the middle, declaring it to be BS. Unsure of what this meant, I looked on one of my recently discovered websites www.acronymfinder.com. Unfortunately, the site returned 199 entries for BS, so I was left wondering which one to choose. I originally thought that it could mean British Standards, however, that doesn't fit grammatically, as the BS must be adjectival. Therefore, bright and shiny seems to be the correct interpretation, although I might disagree about the blog entry being shiny. Talking of bright and shiny, this is quite funny. I have not seen or read anything about the source, but I assume it is irony.

.....thinking inside or outside a box.

In the 1990s I worked for a director who had seemed to have made a personal discovery of the relationship between boxes and thinking. Every monthly meeting he would find some pretext to tell us about at least two examples of thinking outside the box. The inside the box thinkers, including myself, then spent a harrowing three or four weeks trying to come up with some credible out of the box thinking that would come to his attention and be praised at the next meeting. As you have guessed, we were never too sure how far outside the box we could venture without being seen as foolish. Fortunately all mention of boxes at meetings disappeared within a year and a half and we no longer had to worry about whether we were thinking in or out of them. This was a trendy business idea that had made more than a few management gurus and motivational speakers a lot of money, but it could not sustain the test of time beyond a couple of years. So, I was really surprised when I heard it again on the radio.

As it happened, I was driving from the Metro station to my home this week listening to a careers program, where the theme was about making it big in business. A fellow from the electrical goods industry was telling how he came to the city with empty pockets and became a millionaire a year later. Of course, we understood that he had to mention at least five times about how he succeeded because of his great passion for what he was doing, selling toasters and coffee-makers. We also half-expected him to tell us that he had only been able to do this because he had such talented staff, and on this he didn't disappoint us. However, he then just went too far when he stated, in his own words, that all of his success was due to thinking out of the box. Unable to hold back any longer, I was forced to wind down my window and evacuate the contents of my lunch box. There's nothing worse than doing anything inside or outside a box.

...looking like a spiv.

Last weekend, while out with my wife Asha, I bought a pair of sunglasses. Obviously, to me anyway, I needed to start wearing them straight away.  Asha then questioned me, using rather overly-harsh terms I think, about why I was walking around a shopping mall in the middle of the afternoon wearing sunglasses. I pointed out that I was road testing them - making sure, whilst in the comfort and safety of Festival City mall, that I didn't walk into people and things, fall down stairs or trip over imaginary cracks in the floor. This didn't convince Asha, who declared that she wasn't going to walk with me if I continued wearing them. One glance into a convenient shop window mirror revealed the reason why she was right to say this - I looked like a spiv*.  On a beach, nobody bothers to look at men so it doesn't matter what they look like, but in town men and sunglasses form a difficult juxtaposition. Women, of course, always look good in sunglasses in any location, but at least 75% of men look definitely spiv-like, and I am, unfortunately, one of them. I will wear them on my daily ten-minute walk from Dubai Internet City Metro station to where I teach, Knowledge Village. Once safely out of the sun and inside Knowledge Village I can take them off and look like an English teacher again.


*spiv. English slang word, dating from the 1930's. 1. One who shirks work or responsibility; a slacker.  2. A person who makes a living by underhand and black market dealings.

... being lost for words.

In a recent English class the topic was favourite films. The learning objectives focused on the vocabulary and grammar required to discuss preferences. Towards the end of the lesson I asked the students what their favourite film was, and nobody had a favourite film. It also transpired that they also didn't have a favourite book, or song. I expected, at the very least, Titanic. I was completely lost for words, as were they. I wasn't sure what to do next as the last part of the lesson required them to describe their favourite film or book, or song.  I ended up finding a few words and talking about my favourite film, which took us to the end of the lesson, but rather pointlessly. My favourite film is Educating Rita, where the characters, like me, probably use too many words. Who is interested in me talking about my favourite anything?

... accidental use of alliteration.

There's nothing worse than accidental use of alliteration

I like alliteration, but I think it should be used with care and thought. In Celtic and 17th century poetry we cannot question its use, but everyday use is problematic.  It always seems to me that alliteration somehow or other reduces the seriousness of the implications of written and spoken English, which is okay if that is what you want to do, but not otherwise. An argument for using it is to make the alliterated words memorable. However, using motorway madness seems to mask the reality of people driving too quickly and killing or injuring other people.  Commuter chaos is miserable for people trying to get to and from work. An habitual party pooper is probably someone who could do with some serious psychotherapy, as does a moaning Minnie. Nobody wants to be in the middle of a family feud or a damaging dispute, which might lead one into the depths of despair. Quite obviously, he who laughs last might laugh the longest, but getting the last laugh often requires either quite a lot of good fortune or well-planned deviousness. 

...forgetting to eat your apple.

There's nothing worse than forgetting to eat your apple.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.  This may be true, and in a recent case in the USA a doctor in a nursing home refused to go into the room of a poorly patient to administer CPR because, so it was claimed, there were apples in the room. Whatever we think of the apple, it certainly keeps away the hunger pains you might have at midday if you left home early without eating a proper breakfast.  It is always my intention to eat my apple before entering the Metro station on my way home, as eating is not allowed in Metro stations and trains, but normally I realise, just as I enter the station concourse, that the apple is still in my bag. Invariably I end up putting it back onto the fruit tray in the living room when I get home. Accordingly, one apple may have taken three trips on the Metro before I actually eat it.  However, perhaps it's not my fault, and the apple is manipulating me to gain a better understanding of the Metro system.  It is a recently discovered fact that the apple has about 57,000 genes, which is the highest known number of any genome of a plant studied. This number is also about twice the number of genes in the human body, so in some sense, the apple is superior to the human being. This is worth pondering on whilst you are eating your apple strudel.

... wandering in the temple of immensity

Uncommon idioms are always lurking in the shadows and waiting to trip us up. A student on a course I was teaching last week asked me about the idiom "hunting the dog".  I hadn't heard it before and it was impossible to make anything more than a feeble guess at the meaning.  The idiom "not pulling a full load" used to trouble me, as did "holding your/my/his/her/our/their own". Anyway, it seems to me about time I started to make up my own idioms and try to get them introduced into regular use. From the vocabulary of playing cards "flush the aces" sounds goods. Marketing manager to sales manager. "I don't know what you think, but I think we need to flush the aces on this one." "Reverse the suits" is a bit weaker, but has inherent residual qualities. From sport, "up for a googly", "in sight of the boundary", "securing the blocks" and "swimming with one ear out of the water"  are usable  In politics, "voting with his left leg" and "preemptive presidential precision" could take seed.  Anyway, perhaps it is a waste of space, and I am just treading water whilst wandering in the temple of immensity, awaiting arrival of the flame of destiny or the march of the frozen wastelands.

... the only person unable to get into a commuter train.

There's nothing worse than being the only person unable to get into a commuter train.

The way into the main city From terminal 1 at Narita International Airport is by one of those really snazzy high speed railways.   You go down three levels by escalator, and up again two.  To take the train you naturally assume that you need to purchase a ticket.  Except in uber efficient Tokyo they've long since abandoned actual train tickets and phased over to universal smart cards, which are used everywhere from the train network to 7-11's.  After purchasing your Sunjiko smart card from a fortress-like enclosure, you spend a few long seconds figuring out how to wave it across a sensor on your way to the high speed train platform.  Then, when the train arrives, you are confronted with the problem of how to make the door open so you can get on the train. Seasoned Tokyo commuters line up behind you silently and politely seething until you've finally worked it out - you have to locate a cleverly disguised button and gently press it.

                  Contributed by Mickey Gidwani                             

....not having access to YouTube

Why is there's nothing worse than not having access to YouTube?

Is YouTube the most incredible phenomenon of the 21st Century?  Some politicians want to control it, after all, why would they want the world to see an event actually as it happened, and filmed by a person actually involved? Why can't everyone understand that in the 21st-century people can analyze situations themselves and come to their own conclusions? Why did we allow the political awareness of the 60's and early 70's to die?

Why is there no picture in this blog entry? Why am I constantly using rhetorical questions?

....a dog that won't go for a walk

There's nothing worse than a dog that won't go for a walk.

We have a King Charles Cavalier spaniel, called Charlie. He snores very loudly when he sleeps. This is manageable although troublesome, however the "I'm not that sort of dog that you can take for a long walk" attitude is not so easy to cope with. The dog we had previously, Sockie, before she became ill, could definitely be classified as a good walker. She knew Sharjah streets better than we did. Before Sockie, Duchess liked nothing more than a long but gentle stroll around the Green Valley housing compound in Dammam, often on her own. Charlie likes to go out, but regards 50 metres as being his limit, and will then stand still or turn back home. We have various ideas about how to develop him into a marathon walker, but are unlikely to implement then. We go for a walk, he stays at home, this is the new order. 

.....incorrect use of a defining clause

Mr Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London recently said in a speech announcing a project to help underachievers in government-funded schools 
“There is nothing worse than seeing pupils full of potential slowly drifting into apathy." 
We can understand from this that it is acceptable for the pupils that are not full of potential to drift into apathy. I don't think he meant this. I think he was just guilty of sloppy grammar. If he wanted to portray himself as the saver of potentially pathetic juvenile souls he should have used the non-defining clause “There is nothing worse than seeing pupils, who are all full of potential, slowly drifting into apathy."  (ps - I don't actually know what drifting into apathy means, but it sounds like something you don't want to happen to young people). Using a non-defining clause in a sentence when speaking is a bit tricky, but the British politician can generally pull it off. However, with right-wing politicians, even when they use simple and compound sentences, it's not always clear what they mean when they talk about publicly-funded education. Most of them, like Boris Johnson, went to private schools, so only have second-hand information about the state system, fed to them by assistants who themselves went to private school.  Still, Boris Johnson is regarded as a jolly decent fellow so lets hope that he can get all those slackers to shape up and learn how to conjugate their verbs.

......finding out that it's you that doesn't get the point.

I went to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and was surprised how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century.  I was then told it hadn't weathered well at all, and had been burned to the ground twice, quite recently.


"So this isn't the original building?"  I asked my Japanese guide.  
"Yes, of course it is," he insisted.
"But it's been burned down?"
"Yes."
"Twice."
"Many times."
"And rebuilt."

"Of course.  It is an important and historic building."

"With completely new materials."
"But of course.  It was burned down.  The latest technology was used to ensure it wouldn't burn down again."
"So how can it be the same building?"
"It is always the same building."

I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise.  The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building.  The intention of the original builders is what survives.  The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary.  To be overly concerned with original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.  It wasn't an entirely comfortable viewpoint for me because it fought against my basic Western assumptions, but I did finally see the point.  However, there's nothing worse than finding out that it's you that doesn't get the point.

Bloggers Note.                          This entry was written by Mickey Gidwani.

... a leather waistcoat.

There is nothing worse than a leather waistcoat.

Waistcoat belongs to a group of words like ankle sock, headscarf, ear muffler and eye glass that are strangely appealing - in a vocab sense. However, there can be nothing appealing about a man wearing a leather waistcoat.  British Prime Ministers that came before Harold Wilson often wore a waistcoat, normally under a tweedy kind of jacket, but these usually were also tweedy and matched the jacket. Unless I am mistaken, waiters at the Angus Steak House in London wore a natty tartan design waistcoat some years ago, but definitely not in leather. Imagine my surprise when I saw a man waiting on Union metro platform, on quite a warm day, wearing a black leather waistcoat and no jacket. Why? With those little pockets it's okay for the train ticket, but where did he keep his wallet and mobile phone? What possible benefit could be gained from wearing it? I tried not to let it worry me too much whilst waiting to board the next Green Line train. When the train came in I stood politely to one side to let the passengers off, when suddenly I was pushed aside by the very man in question, who then sat on the only free seat in the carriage. I could have got somewhat annoyed, but then what can you expect from a man wearing a black leather waistcoat.

...having a BBQ on the beach

My wife and I live in a very pleasant location within Sharjah. Sharjah is not the destination of choice for many people, even those that live here, but it does have some nicer areas, one of them being where we rent our apartment. We live on Khalid Lagoon, with Al Khan lagoon on the other side, and, compared to the rest of Sharjah, not so much traffic and human kind. In fact, there is a lot of sand and a large grassy area. However, this relative peace and quiet means that people with only one discernible aim in mind, to burn fresh meat to a cinder, come to the beaches in big numbers in the evening and the weekend. Obviously there are many signs on the beach saying that barbecuing is prohibited, but this is one of those local regulations that is never enforced. We like to walk there, but it is impossible to do so without a full face gas mask and night vision goggles due to the waves of impenetrable choking blue-black smoke and the acrid smell that clings to the atmosphere. I am amazed that barbecuers can even sit amongst it, let alone eat. When we do venture in that direction we are inevitably driven back into our apartment, which thankfully is 35 floors up. The smoke doesn't reach that height, yet.