Language - good, bad and foreign

The bliss of a weekend and a change of routine.

Today - some offspring delivery, and an early visit to the gym (always amazes me that they don't have paramedics on standby for spin-classes - looks like a short-cut to Heart Attack City). Since then, some music, some snooker and a bit of reading. Maybe a little potter down to the town in a few minutes, and then dinner and either more of a book, or a film. Nice and relaxing.

I'm reading a rather odd, and in places downright filthy novel called Pompey, by Jonathan Meades. He of the arty shots, acerbic wit and architectural pronouncements. A man with a fabulous vocabulary (and I love to learn new words) - and if there isn't an appropriate word he invents it. Words for today - "kine" - an archaic for cows - and for a car creeping round a corner a new verb to "tiptyre". The vocabulary, and indeed the sentence structure means this is a book I have to concentrate to read, but it is repaying the effort right now.  I'm rather pleased that whilst I have needed a dictionary for quite a lot of the English, I am so far coping fine with the French.

Which leads me to today's thought - I want to do more with languages. We Brits tend to assume we don't need them (usually correctly) and I suspect within my lifetime that computers will provide translation of 95% of what we need on the fly. But the understanding of another culture relies on its language - A friend of mine who has more languages than -  well than I do anyway - says that when he thinks in English it works differently to thinking in German - and I'd like to experience that. I haven't really spoken French since O Level - German since a couple of years later. I can manage pretty reasonable Welsh (yes, really) and "two beers" level Spanish. So, I am going to see what I can get in the way of free learning stuff on the I-Pad, and see if this can be another thing to enliven train journeys.

I will let you know how I get on. Right - walk time!

How should we spend £50 billion?

I did the Building an Ark line a couple of weeks ago, which is a pity, because today would have worked just as well for it.

The flooding down towards Brighton really mucked my day up as two of my three London meetings this morning got pulled because people were staying towards the South Coast. (Kudos to the guy who still made it despite having the furthest to come - who found a route to London from Worthing via Horsham, and other odd places, like Timbuktu or something.)

I didn't know until today that there is a plan to build a second main rail line to Brighton – known imaginatively as BML2*. I don’t do the Brighton journey often, but it is usually – to coin one of my dad’s phrases “hoaching ”. This is a plan that would reopen track that Dr Beeching took away and looks quite sensible.

Like many people, I am struggling with the £50 billion cost of HS2 for getting to Birmingham twenty minutes quicker - whatever Kojak thought. [Inset your own joke about how much you would pay not to go to Birmingham at all here.] And I see why all possible governments want to spend money outside the South East where they can. But it does feel like there are some great opportunities like this – more local projects which would relieve congestion, or open up whole new public transport options.

For example, there have been plans for years to extend the Croydon Tramlink, which have been stalled due to money. And yet this is a system that works – come rain or snow. Not admittedly come wholesale arson in Croydon in the 2011 riots but nothing’s perfect. And it allows people to get to and from otherwise very disconnected places.

So, dear reader, let me know. We have £50bn to spend on transport. Let me have your bids.

* The BML2 website also has a page called “Why avoid East Croydon”. Hmmmm, how long have you got?

Marking Time

A couple of nearly blog free days - busy with work and some IT issues.

So just to let you know I en't dead, normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Routine

I may be starting to cope better with the 5:2 diet - sleep seems to be normalising and I haven't felt any more hungry today than I usually would. This is good as I'd been starting to feel this wouldn't work for me.

Overall, in fact, the year seems to be becoming normal - or in other words I'm getting back into a routine. So, I now need to get back and revisit what I want to do with my time this year. I can't say blogging is routine yet - I'm still having to force myself to find time. But I am determined to continue with it, even if certain blogs (this one) aren't going to be the most enlightening.

What isn't normal yet is that I am struggling to 'get into' work in the way I would like. I am having to force myself to do things. Luckily there is loads to do, but I've yet to build up any enthusiasm for doing it.

So what you might think? Why does that matter? Well, in part, I may be more likely to do things better if I am enjoying them - though this is arguable. But without doubt, I need to enjoy work - it takes too long out of my life to only be a slog. Seven days into the year, this doesn't worry me yet. It usually takes a couple of days to get into it. But I am hoping to see a shift by the end of this week.

That's it for know. Off to rehearse Mozart's Requiem.

How far has this society fallen, Mr Wonga?

So, back to the 5:2 diet today. And I managed to go to the gym. But, god, I'm tired now. Really wanted to watch the programme about the Bank of Dave guy and payday loans on C4, but I'll have to catch it up tomorrow.

I think the presence on these companies, and the glorified pawn shops on the high street show how far down this country is. Yes, I'm pleased people have an alternative to loan sharks, and that someone with no cooker can get a loan for a new one to feed their family. (We used to have something called the social fund that did that.) But not at two-fucking-thousand percent APR. I'm quite a small 'l' liberal; I don't like banning stuff. But I have to say, any loan that costs half as much again per year to pay off, let alone twenty times, should be prohibited as usurious. Easy as that.

Then we can get on with being a proper human society and getting rid of that kind of poverty.

I've yet to see a politician who admits that we are going to have to pay more tax in this country, but if we are ever to balance the books we will. But whilst we may differ over Trident, or the probably unaffordable triple-lock on pensions, lifting people out of poverty must be the easiest area for us to agree on.

Crying

No post yesterday - I was having too much fun on my vocal weekend away with Voxcetera, up near Milton Keynes. When we took a break from socialising at about midnight and went out for a walk, it was a change to be able to see the stars - it's easy to forget how much light pollution there is in London.

But I'm sort of back in the real word now - home to do ironing, accounts etc, before being back to work tomorrow. Oh well.

I have always found music a very strong emotional trigger. There are still tracks or albums that I associate with a specific period of my life, and I can't listen to that music without bring back all those feelings, good or bad. Picking one at random - I listened to the album "April Moon " by Sam Brown (now singer with Jool's Holland's big band) a lot while revising for my finals - and if I put it on now I know I would be back in  that room.

And creating music is even more emotional. So having spent time over three days with some beautiful music (Esenvalds' "Long Road" here being an example - this version is a little recorder-heavy for my taste but the piece still stands listening), I've certainly been emotionally fragile today. How do I know? Because I started crying whilst doing the ironing. I was listening to something slightly soppy (not saying specifically - a bit too Country to own up to)  and out came the tears.

Is this a normal thing? I've always done it - when I've been emotional or tired so I see it as perfectly ordinary. But you know how blokes are - we don't really discuss emotions. So do others of you do this? Or are you all now whistling and edging slowly away from me?

I'm not getting into the clichéd "men should be more in touch with their feelings rubbish". Most men I know would get emotional about the big things in life - births deaths and marriages etc. (And look how emotional some blokes at a London football match got last week when a player chose to remind them of the score.) I'm specifically talking about irrelevant stuff. When was the last time a film, or a picture, or a sunset, moved any of you to tears?

Welcome to Milton Keynes

.... Is what someone might say if I ever get there tonight. I am stuck on a train somewhere at the back of the monument to 21st century Mammon that is Westfield. The place where the trains go from third rail to overhead. And my train to MK is now only going as far as Watford Junction.

Piss ups and breweries come to mind. 

Anyway, all I am trying to do here is see if I can post a blog using the Blogger app. If so, some more relevant content may follow later or tomorrow.