Panicky in the UK

Originally published on AngloINFO Blogs on 25/03/11
With consumer confidence crashing to record lows in the UK in February 2011, it is fair to say that the UK is edging towards something of a tipping point.

That tipping point could be reached this Saturday, when the Trades Union Congress’s (TUC) March for the Alternative – a protest against the damage that the government’s “deep and rapid spending cuts” is doing to the UK – descends on central London.

Numbers for the march are not definite – most estimates say “several hundred thousand people” are expected – so if you’re not planning on joining the march, it might be a good idea to avoid central London tomorrow.

However, the wiser among you may wish to get involved, and if so you’ll need to get yourself to Victoria Embankment – between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges – by about 11:00.

The full route of the march will take it west along the Thames, past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, along Whitehall, past 10 Downing Street, along Piccadilly and in to Hyde Park, where Labour leader Ed Miliband will be speaking.

Cutting confidence

As for consumer confidence, that is measured by the Nationwide Consumer Confidence Index, which was started by the Nationwide Building Society in May 2004.

According to Nationwide, it “measures the population’s view of the current position and future prospects of the UK.”

It does so by asking people:

• what they think of the current economic situation
• what they think the economic situation will be like in six months’ time
• what they think of the current employment situation
• what they think the employment situation will be like in six months’ time
• their expectations for their household income in six months’ time

The drop to an all-time low at the end of last month was driven mostly by a crash in people’s expectations, with only 14% of people saying they thought the UK’s economic situation would be “good” in six months’ time (compare to 39% in February 2010), and 42% saying they thought it would be “bad” (compared to 15% in February 2010).

Meanwhile 63% of people said they thought there would be “not many/few jobs available” in six months’ time – treble the proportion that felt the same way when the Index began in May 2004.

Don’t cut culture

When capitalism lets us down we can always turn to culture to enrich our lives, and while London may have some of the world’s steepest ticket prices, it also has plenty of free museums and exhibitions.

So if you’re feeling the pinch as much as the rest of us, why not try one of the following free events in the capital.

Oh, and by the way, the March for the Alternative is free to attend as well.

Free events in London

This is Whitechapel at Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX

Photography by Ian Berry documenting the changing face of Whitechapel in the 1970s as the established Jewish community moved away and a south Asian population took their place.

Beat the Champ at The Barbicam, Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS

Cory Angel’s latest art installation, featureing 14 bowling video games from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Cafechurch at Caffe Nero, 31-33 Warwick Way, SW1V 1QS

Churchgoers and non-churchgoers discuss issues such as fair trade, the environment, stress, adoption, parenting, debt and divorce over coffee. Fourth Wednesday of the month.

Beatrix Potter: An Awkward Education at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL

Still life drawings by the author of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”.

The English

Originally published on 1001 Words and Counting in February 2009

Kolik jazyků znáš, tolikrát jsi člověkem.
You live a new life for every new language you speak.
If you know only one language, you live only once.
(Czech proverb)

For many people around the world, their quest to learn English is one of the main things that spurs them on in life. Be it to get a better job, to be able to communicate when abroad, to be able to read more sites on the internet or just to pass the time, English is without doubt a worldwide phenomenon.

Yet foreigners’ passion for English is far from reflected in the fat, lazy, drunken mouths of the English themselves. Not only are English people who can speak a foreign language in the minority, but the number of English people who can speak their own language properly is also declining.

First and foremost is definitely spelling, or as most English people would write “definately” spelling. In reality, the situation is much worse than the odd mistake with a vowel here and there. Just take a look at this 11-year old’s exam answer, published in The Times newspaper:
“If he wasent doing enthing els heel help his uncle Herry at the funfair during the day. And had stoody at nigh on other thing he did was invent new rides.”

Furthermore this problem is not just confined to youngsters. Ken Smith, senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University, is confronted by so many spelling mistakes that he thinks we should “simply give everyone a break and accept these variant spellings”.

Yet it’s this kind of defeatist attitude that leaves England (and Britain as a whole) lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of uptake of foreign languages. As George Orwell wrote in his landmark essay “Politics and the English Language”:

“An effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.”

Shockingly, Britain is the only place in Europe where it is not compulsory to study a foreign language in school. And while in most countries students learn foreign languages from the age of seven to 18, in Britain they only study from 11 to 16, if at all.

The European Commission sees foreign language skills as being “among the key competences for lifelong learning”, and its Barcelona objective has set out the aim of enabling European citizens to communicate in two languages in addition to their mother tongue.

While the Czech Republic and Italy have introduced reforms and now comply with this goal, Britain shows no sign of following suit. Recent figures from Eurydice, the information network on education in Europe, show that British students spend by far the least amount of time spent on learning foreign languages in Europe. The network’s “Key Data on Teaching Languages at school in Europe” shows that Britain is also one of the few places where figures haven’t increased on 1994 levels.

In Portugal, where compulsory language learning begins in the first or second year of primary education, British music and subtitled British TV abound. This kind of exposure breeds an enthusiasm for English that the English themselves are incapable of developing, at least en masse, for another language or culture.

Foreign language films and music are virtual non-entities on British TV and radio, where the only dishes on the menu are British or American. The BBC do still air some foreign films and music, but these are on non-mainstream TV channels and radio stations at times when most people are in bed.

This lack of access to foreign languages only augments the problem the British have with learning foreign tongues. As a recent EU report on multilingualism stated: “The media can…be a great source of informal language learning through ‘edutainment’ and subtitled films.”

But why should the English care about learning foreign languages? 90% of all European pupils study English at some point, so if everyone else can speak English, why not let them?

To be brazenly practical, according to a report published by the Commission of the European Communities earlier this year a shortage of foreign language skills can drastically affect a country’s economy:
“11% of exporting EU SMEs [small and medium enterprises] may be losing business because of language barriers. Although English has a leading role as the business language of the world, it is other languages that will provide EU companies with a competitive edge and allow them to conquer new markets.”

So England is digging itself further into the economic hole that it current finds itself in, with the Euro and the Pound rapidly approaching an equal value.

To be less practical, I have only to refer to the proverb at the start of this article.

“If you know only one language, you live only once.”

Until three years ago I spoke only English and a smattering of French. Since then I have lived in Poland, Russia and now Portugal and learnt to speak the languages of these countries to varying degrees.

As a result I have discovered that the ability to speak another language, even if cack-handedly, can open doors both literal and mental. Languages have made me new friends, taken me to places I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to get to (most memorably the site of a former Gulag) and allowed me to read things in other languages and, to some extent, experience that culture’s way of thinking.

Yet this is not just a personal experience, as there exists a phenomenon known as “frame shifting”, according to which people are said to switch between different ways of interpreting events and feelings according to the language it is spoken in. New Scientist magazine recently reported on a US study of bilingual Hispanic women which found that women who were actively involved in both English and Spanish speaking cultures interpreted the same TV advertisements differently, depending on whether they were shown in English or Spanish.

Joanna Moszczynska, a University of Warsaw student currently studying in Lisbon as part of the ERASMUS programme, speaks five languages and agrees with the theory of frame shifting: “Some languages are richer in expressing certain feelings, others have more words to describe certain objects or phenomena. Thus we can develop to a certain point a different personality. Languages like Portuguese, Spanish or Italian are very melodic and vivid, and foreigners who learn those languages often copy the native speakers in their behaviour and modes of expression.”

Nelson Mandela expressed another aspect of frame-shifting when he said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

But translator and English teacher Annabel Browne says that knowing another language isn’t enough. According to her it’s essential to have an insight into a country’s culture in order to fully understand its language: “Lots of things are lost in translation. It isn't just what they say it is how they say it and why. Lots of things are cultural and not just words.

“When you speak a foreign language, rather than everything being translated back into your own language, which means making things English or viewing things from an English point of view, you can see directly into their way of thinking through their words and expressions and cultural references.”

A concrete example she gives is that while for English people “jealousy” is a negative word and concept, Italians view it otherwise. For them, being jealous of friends or family is a way of expressing how proud they are of them.

So is the Czech proverb true? If you know only one language do you really only live once?

According to Browne the answer is yes: “When I speak Italian I am much more assertive and aggressive, much more outspoken and blunt. I feel when I speak Italian I don't have to be polite and British.”

So why don’t the English grab this chance of a second life? Well, the good news is that maybe they are slowly realising that they should…with the help of Polish women.

Moszczynka, herself a Pole, says: “Knowledge of foreign languages has exposed me to experiences I may never otherwise have had and has helped me to explore things unavailable in my native language.” It seems that many British men, as is their wont, are taking this to a very literal level, using the Polish language to expose themselves to and explore Polish women!

At least this is something that the organisers of a new Polish language course in Cardiff, Wales found out when they experienced a huge demand for their course from men who wanted to learn the language of their new Polish girlfriends.

Around a million Polish citizens have arrived in the UK since 2004 and maybe they have shed light on something that the British Government should consider before the European Commission carries out its review of multilingualism in member states in 2012. The only way to a fat, lazy, drunken English man’s head is through his pants.

Political Websites: Labour

As the shadow of the general election looms the political parties are manoeuvring themselves into position, both in the real world and online. Fingertips’ Ian Shine takes a look at what the different parties’ websites tell us about them. This week, Labour fall under the microscope

The Labour Party’s website hits us on entry with the “A future fair for all” slogan as it attempts to set out its election campaign stall from the off.

In this respect it’s streets ahead of the Tories’ sprawling homepage, which scrolls down for an eternity and features little to tell us about the defining features of the party.

The Labour homepage is short, graphically professional and displays a good use of the colour wheel to draw in browsers’ clicks.

Blue: NHS staff for Labour.

Dark green: Parents for Labour.

Weird pink: Teachers for Labour.

Yellow: Pensioners for Labour.

Light green: Students for Labour.

Claret: Business for Labour.

It’s all very coherent and easy to navigate, and all serves to back up their slogan that a fair future exists for all of us.

A touch of genius

Once you click on one of these coloured options the main body of the homepage scrolls across to give a preview of what Labour does in these areas, in the words of a Labour supporter. The touch of genius is that it keeps you on the homepage, rather than making you impatient and getting you lost by leading you to another part of it.

Even when you click on the “Hear more from teachers/students, etc…” link, you remain on the homepage as the text comes to you, rather than you having to go to it.

There’s a big emphasis on people on the site, with quotes from the general public plastered all over the place. It might seem a little bit self-serving and repetitive, but: i) if you don’t serve yourself in politics, no one else will; ii) this repetition hammers home the fact that Labour has a guiding aim that it is following and genuinely believes in.

Just compare it with a click on the Conservatives' site. It’s hard to even tell at first glance that this is the site of a political party. It could as easily be a news website as it gives prominence to stories (today at least) on Charlie Whelan’s “new militant tendency” and “Boosting the Economy with Technology”.

If the Tory site says one thing about the party it is that it has no overriding vision or direction.
If the Labour site says one thing about the party it is that it knows what it wants (or at least what its campaign will focus on) and it is going after it, with public support.

What else?

The only other things on the homepage are a “Donate” button, links to Facebook and Twitter, and five arrows that effectively use the same colours as before: claret; blue; weird pink; dark green; light green.

These lead to the other key areas of Labour’s upcoming campaign: economic recovery; health; education; “standing up for the many” and jobs.

These arrows again lead to nice, brief, focused pages that get across Labour’s message in around 250 words, while keeping the aforementioned arrows down the left of the page to allow for easy navigation around the site.

Each section also invites comments from readers, thus furthering the image that this is a party for all, and one that is interested in what we all have to say.

Flawless?

Yes, this is a political party’s website, so you can’t believe everything that you see on it, but in terms of the image it presents it is a rounded one that is much more accessible and understandable to most people than the one pushed by the Tory’s website.

It’s about as close to flawless as I could imagine a party’s website to be, but maybe next week’s visit to the Liberal Democrats’ site will prove me wrong.

Political Websites: The Conservatives

Originally published on General Election Blog on 08/03/10

As the shadow of the general election looms the political parties are jockeying for position, both in the real world and online. Fingertips’ Ian Shine takes a look at what the different parties’ websites tell us about them, beginning with the Conservatives…

When you log on to the Conservatives’ website you’re met with a raft of boxes floating in a sea of blue.

Not the dark blue that the Conservative party was associated with in the 80s, when they had some kind of stance on things and some concrete policies, but rather a washy light blue, the kind of blue that might be found on a child’s bedroom walls.

You’ll also see the Tories’ new logo, that little scribbly tree which looks a bit like something a child, maybe the one from the bedroom with the light blue walls, might have knocked up in art class.

It’s very friendly, a lot less aggressive than their old torch with blue and red flames, and reminds us that the Tories are a friendly bunch who likes trees.

After all that it’s time to explore some of the Tories’ boxes. The top part is quite newsy, with a big box on the left that changes to illustrate the latest Tory news headlines, which appear on the right.

Most of the time David Cameron is the man in the picture, although geeky Michael Gove gets a look in for a story on raising school standards, while a crimson Ken Clarke is the cover model for a story about Labour’s economic incompetence.

Trying to be simple

Scrolling down there are flashes of green to accompany the pale blue and underline the Tories’ environmental edge, but it all looks very amateur, like a GCSE student’s coursework project.

The Tories are clearly trying to be simple in order to get across to simple people, the kind of people who sit yelling in standard class trains while other people are trying to work according to Nicholas Winterton – the kind of people who don’t normally vote Tory.

They are also the kind of people who probably don’t have iPhones and thus won’t be able to take advantage of the Tories’ new iPhone application. And they probably don’t have the inclination to spend their hard-earned money in the site’s Online Shop: hard-earned money that according to the Tories they probably don’t have much of under Labour.

The shop plays on the party’s campaign slogan of “Vote for Change” and has the banner “Shop for Change”, although you won’t be getting much of that from a £20 note if you dare to venture inside.

There is a “Bye Bye Bureaucracy” poster for £10 and a mug emblazoned with “Tea For Change” – yes, we get it – for £6, and even a £14 Baby-grow (for all those teenage mums) with “Future Prime Minister” on the front.

Policy

The policy section is picture-heavy, probably to help those simple people who can’t read to click on the right section.

The countryside section has a picture of some fields, the transport section has a picture of a train. All very clear, although some confusion might arise from choosing a picture of the Houses of Parliament for the democracy section.

I plump for the potentially election-deciding economy section and am met with some unbearably small type alongside some pictures and videos of George Osbourne, none of which show him catching some rays on a Russian billionaire’s yacht.

This look at policy seems somewhat at odds with the rest of the site as it sprawls over almost 1,500 words, isn’t very colourful and is boring even to someone interested in politics.

What they should have done

A few weeks ago the Tories came up with six election pledges – more than a little like Tony Blair’s election-winning five pledges in 1997 – that were supposed to encapsulate what they were about in six short sentences:

• Act now on debt to get the economy moving
• Get Britain working by boosting enterprise
• Make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe
• Back the NHS
• Raise standards in schools
• Change politics

However, I can’t find them on their website.

If the Tories want to convey a simple image to connect with simple people and get people voting for them who have never voted for them before, this should be their homepage.

It would enable anyone logging on even for a moment to see that they stand for something and to understand why they should consider voting Tory.

As it is their website projects an image of a party still under construction, far from 100% sure what it actually stands for and who it is trying to appeal to.

The homepage doesn’t really feel coherent, let alone the site as a whole, and it is not immediately striking even after an hour browsing the site what one would be voting for if one were to vote Conservative.
The Tories need to grasp the firm edges of their former torch and burn their vague scribbly tree of a website to the ground.

Ethical travel for 2010

Originally published on Fingertips on 15/01/09

The Haiti earthquake should make us all consider spending our cash in ways that can help others and ourselves at the same time

I recently received a gratis copy of Lonely Planet’s “Best in Travel 2010”, and thank God it was gratis. It is a truly mind-numbingly generic book that does nothing to set the peripatetic juices flowing.

Its suggestions for the top ten places to visit – or rather the top ten places to say you’ve visited in order to improve your hip credentials – include Germany, Greece, Nepal, Portugal and the USA.

Forget globetrotting self-congratulation

But instead of indulging the kind of travel that Lonely Planet specialises in, the recent earthquake in Haiti should encourage us all to be more philanthropic. Why not spend our travel cash in a way that can benefit others, rather than just using it to boost our own sense of globetrotting self-congratulation?

A recent Travelnomics report by Cheapflights.co.uk points in a direction that can help us to do just that, listing the 10 destinations that need tourist money the most in 2010.

It is based on the Forbes list of hardest-hit economies in the wake of the global recession, and its contents strike a harsh juxtaposition to those of Lonely Planet’s selections for the year ahead.

It runs as follows:

1. Latvia
2. Estonia
3. Lithuania
4. Iceland
5. Singapore
6. Venezuela
7. Jamaica
8. Ireland
9. Ukraine
10. Seychelles

The Baltic states that make up the top three arguably hit their fashionable peak three or four years ago when the stag parties started flowing in, while the likes of the Ukraine have never been fashionable.

But one destination sticks out amidst the eastern European getaways and the sun of the Seychelles and Jamaica, and that is Iceland.

The collapse of Iceland’s banks has been well documented, but so has its quirkiness as a location. It’s one of the few truly unique places in the world, offering a raft of natural experiences unavailable elsewhere, including dips in the Blue Lagoon and the Northern Lights.

Combine this with the fact that the exchange rate has tipped well in the traveller’s favour – from around 125 kronur to the pound six months ago to just over 200 to the pound now – and there has been no better time to visit.

And while few of us will be pumping our tourist cash into Haiti, we can all at least make a donation through the Oxfam website.

Our generosity at the beginning of this decade should overshadow the bankers’ bonuses and parliamentary expenses scandals that showed selfishness and materialism to be the defining traits of the end of the last one.

Gdańsk – A Culture Capital

Originally published on Fingertips on 07/12/09

Perched in the north of Poland on the Baltic coast, Gdańsk is arguably Poland’s most politically and historically resonant city.
It is where the communist dictatorship over Europe began to topple, firstly with the strikes in the Lenin Shipyard and the creation of Solidarność (Solidarity) in August 1980, and then with the re-legalisation of Solidarność in April 1989 after its banning under martial law in December 1981. This was followed by the first semi-free elections since World War II in communist Europe in June 1989, when Solidarność took 99 of the 100 seats it competed for in the Senate.
Gdańsk is also where World War II began on 1st September 1939, when the Germans bombarded the Westerplatte peninsula – as documented in Günter Grass’ “The Tin Drum”. Back then the city was called Danzig by its mostly German-speaking population and was annexed by Nazi Germany.
It only became known as Gdańsk again after its liberation in March 1945 and return to Poland as part of the post-war Potsdam Agreement.
All of these upheavals make Gdańsk something of an epitome of the trials Poland suffered in the 20th century, and it is therefore somewhat appropriate that the city also stands out as the embodiment of everything good that is happening to the country in the 21st century.
It blends its history – the tall and narrow merchants’ houses – with the capitalism that is prospering in Poland in the face of the global financial crisis. A recent survey by CB Richard Ellis ranked Poland as the fourth best place for retail expansion in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2010, and Gdańsk is very much at the heart of that, with a glut of shopping complexes spreading from its centre down the coastline to its Tricity partners Sopot and Gdynia.
It is one of Poland’s host cities for the Euro 2012 football championships, and its top drawer transport infrastructure – trams, multi-lane roads (a rarity in Poland), ferries, and a train station throbbing with national and international connections – is what Poland’s other major cities all aspire to.
The city is also a candidate for the 2016 European Capital of Culture, is saturated in art – both in its museums and in its streets – and its Open’er music festival offers four days of live music for the bargain price of €76. The last few years have seen performances from the Arctic Monkeys, Björk, Sonic Youth, Erykah Badu and Kanye West to name but a few, and this year it made the final of the UK Festival Awards in the Best Overseas Festival category.
It is also one of Poland’s greenest cities, boasting 250 square metres of greenery per inhabitant and has a thorough cycling route reaching the other parts of the Tricity. The city’s eco-credentials are further boosted by its participation in the European Week of Balanced Transport, European Car Free Day and the Clean up the World campaign.
As Poland strides confidently into the next decade, the boots with which it strides are strapped firmly onto the feet of Gdańsk.
What makes these boots so remarkable is that they were once the boots that Orwell immortalised in “1984”, the boots “stamping on a human face – forever.”
Gdańsk pushed those boots from its face in 1989, squashed the final word in Orwell’s sentence with them, and now moves forward with a swagger in its step.