The Adventure of English

 

It's an almost frosty morning - whatever happened to Global Warming? - and we are off for an hour's swim (well, float!) in the warm-water pool, after which we'll drive to the Moruya Markets followed by a roast beef lunch at the Moruya Bowling Club.

However, I don't want to leave you wondering what to do, so I suggest you entertain yourselves with Melvyn Bragg's "The Adventure of English" - and what an adventure it has been! English is what happens when Vikings learn Latin and use it to shout at Germans.

 

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I almost did what these days every waitress does as she brings your meal and, with a sweet smile, says, "Enjoy!", but I won't because I know that "enjoy" is a transitive not an intransitive verb, and I should say, "Enjoy it!"

(And how often will you need to know the difference? Hardly ever, or not at all, but the odd thing is that those who do know fiddly bits about grammar take great satisfaction from that knowledge. Pedants of the world, unite!)

 

"Your post goes against our Community Standards"

 

 

I"t was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen ..." Actually, it was a bright cool morning in October when I felt like Winston Smith because facebook had just told me "Your post goes against our Community Standards" and took down this real photograph taken on a real Singapore Airlines flight.

I wanted to share it with others in the PNG Expatriates facebook group but Mr "Sugar Mountain" Zuckerberg's Thought Police thought otherwise, and not only took it down but also banned me from posting anything else. What a relief! I've finally got my previous facebook-free life back!

With a name like Zuckerberg, this may be a regrettable throwback to Mr Zuckerberg's humourless Teutonic past, but it still doesn't explain why members of the facebook groups NGI Historical Society and TAIM BIPO, PHOTO HISTORY, PNG, PAPUA & NEW GUINEA with a decidedly learned anthropological leaning are not allowed to publish authentic photos of barebreasted native women or, indeed, native men with penic gourds.

I've just returned from my early-morning walk and found an enormous face gazing down at me from the wall of my house. It's one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it runs.

 

You made me do it; I didn't want to do it

 

 

Everybody claims to be a patsy these days, but not a Patsy Cline: "I played the poker machines until I was broke. I didn't want to do it; they should've stopped me do it." "I maxed out all my credit cards. I didn't want to do it; they should've stopped me do it." "I made some shithouse investments. I didn't want to do it; they should've stopped me do it." "I'm a useless drug addict. I didn't want to become one; they should've stopped me from becoming one."

Ignorance has never been a defence before the law, but stupidity some-how has. I am tired of hearing people blaming them, "the government" or some other Big Brother, anybody except themselves, for being stupid.

They claim to fall to pieces and have their debts written off and their contracts annulled, with some of them then becoming 'counsellors' to similarly stupid people. Government- nay, taxpayer-funded, of course!

I'm tired of people who refuse to take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of them blaming them, the government, or imagined discrimination, or big-whatever, for their self-inflicted problems.

Yes, I'm bloody tired. But I'm also glad I am in my late 70s. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in.

Time for a cup of tea. It's still coolish outside. I wonder who I can blame for that? Isn't there a support group for shivering tea-drinking retirees on the South Coast of New South Wales? If not, why not? I want to know! I paid my taxes!