May Contain Traces of Dodo

Book Review: Kir Bulichev, Secrets of Rus

2011-09-14T02:14:00.001-07:00

Tainy Rusi by Mozheiko Igor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm reading this book to improve my Russian reading. I've imported it, chapter by chapter, into LingQ (lingq.com) and studying all the new words. In total about 20% of all the words in it are new to me, which is about right.

As well as learning the Russian language, I'm learning about Russian history. This book is good for me because it's directed at Russian school children, middle-schoolers I should imagine. That keeps the language fairly simple, with often-repeated words and phrases and the use of extended metaphors kept to a minimum.

For a Russian learner this book is a little trickier than his other books on history aimed at teenagers. That's because he does assume that the reader has a middle-school knowledge of Russian history, as well as a fair grasp of Russian geography (and I couldn't point to Novgorod on a map) There's also quite a lot of social comment (comparisons of Stalin with Ivan the Terrible, for instance).

All in all a splendid book, highly recommended for Russian learners at middle B2 or Russian natives of about 12 - 16 years of age.

Эта книга о русском истории, то есть, о истории Руси и истории Российской империи, написанная для русских отрокоб. Это очень интересно для иностранниих читателей, но надо иметь хорошую карту России! Её мне очень нравился. Поразительно видеть, как протяжении всей истории Россия короли, цары и императоры действовали как шестилетними детьми под влиянием слишком много сахара.

View all my reviews

My bio from ELF English

2011-05-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

Helen is an experienced university lecturer and English teacher from the UK. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and a Master’s degree in Business Administration. She has a post-graduate certificate in Teaching from Derby University. Her industry background is in the Information Technology and Telecommunications sector.

Helen has been teaching English for more than 15 years. She is particularly experienced at helping people who need English for their business or study. She encourages them to practice difficult situations such as interviews and examinations through role-play.

Helen’s TOEFL, IELTS and EIKEN students have a 100% pass rate and even report enjoying the examination. Helen uses the internet widely to find real learning materials that are relevant to the student’s needs, level and interests.

Helen encourages students to listen to real natives speaking in natural situations, as soon as they can, using radio podcasts, blog articles, news sites, YouTube clips and so on. Her gentle, calm approach makes her a very supportive and friendly teacher for those new to study, out of practice with English, and those who are downright scared of speaking with foreigners.

Helen knows Russian, German, French and a little Japanese. She also writes humorous stories about time travel, the post-living community and dodo-keeping. These stories are fictional.

The Great Undercover Semantics Operation

2010-08-29T02:30:00.001-07:00

Security cleared and spell-checked: to be read with your eyes only

I have finally been given permission, by Her Majesty's Semantics Office, to reveal that I have been taking part in an undercover language operation for the British Intelligence Services.

The language which I have kept under observation for the last two years cannot be named for security reasons, nor can the nationalities of its masters or the political powers which it serves. It can only be referred to as the “target language”.

Most of my surveillance work has been done at a known meeting place for semantics agents and words of all nationalities, known to the Grammar Squad as “Steve's Speak-Easy”.

Initially I sought out the most common words, the small fry, the ones to be seen hanging out in every paragraph. I made notes on them as I encountered them.

To begin with my notes looked something like this:

“[man]: noun, masculine: an adult male.”

(Note: for security reasons all words under surveillance must be referred to using English code names in square brackets.)

My handler (who I may only refer to as Inspector S****x from the Grammar Squad) said this was a good start, but they needed more.

“We need to know the company these words keep,” he said, ”The disguises they adopt and the different roles they are known to play. We need to get enough intelligence to convict at least a thousand of the most active operators.”

Holy infinitive! To get a full dossier on the known activities of a thousand words at large in society would take a lot of work. I put the kettle on and sent out for emergency rations of biscuits.

Fortunately I could rely on informants. These were people who, while in the service of foreign powers, were prepared for a price (500 points per 15 minutes) to pass on their information about the 'target language' to our agents.

After several months of gruelling tea-drinking, meetings with informants, reading dossiers and listening to surveillance recordings, I had more to report.

“I've seen the word [man] in several disguises, playing a variety of roles within different sentences,” I told my 'handler'.

“Such as?” asked Inspector S****x, stirring two sugars into his tea.

“Nominative, accusative and genitive,” I answered. “Plus one sighting as a prepositional. I have photographs and example phrases for each one. I've seen [man] in the singular, and also hanging around in the plural.”

Inspector S****x nodded in approval. “That's the kind of information we need,” he said. “But it goes deeper than that. Does a woman refer to the person she is married to as a [man]? What about the person your mother is married to? We need to know if [man] works alone or with synonyms."

More long hours of undercover work. I stiffened my upper lip and set the line of my jaw more firmly as I refilled the tea caddy.

A few more months later I had more to report.

“[man] doesn't work alone,” I said. “I've observed him swapping places with [husband], [father], [uncle], [son], [person], lad and even [hunk]. He also keeps company with [woman], [wife], [mother], [daughter], [girl] and [babe].”

“You have examples?” asked my handler.

“Oh yes!” I said smugly. “In all his various guises, playing all his favourite roles in sentences, in different settings, formal and informal registers. There's no doubt about it. We have our [man] just where we want him!”

“Excellent work!” beamed the Inspector. “Now all we have to do is to lure him out into the open. I want you to use him in conversation with enemy agents, as much as you can. We need hard evidence of his operations in daily conversation so that we can secure a conviction and make it stick. Get him nailed down in writing too. Our informants will check your work.”

The operation was moving fast. From the passive to the active phase so soon! My heart was beating at 150 words per minute.

“I won't fail you!” I promised my handler. “I shall submit 150 words every week for checking. We will soon get this “target language” just where we want it!”

“On the tip of our tongues,” nodded Inspector S****x in approval. “Soon we will be in a position to make any demands we want to in our 'target language'.

When in doubt, call out the Grammar Squad.

2010-08-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me recently to explain the nature of doubt. It sounded like a job for a priest rather than an English teacher. I asked her what she meant.

"Doubt can be an uncountable noun, as in 'doubt'", she said. "It can also be used in the singular, as in 'a doubt' or 'the doubt'. It can be used in the plural, as 'doubts', as well as in the negative as 'no doubt', 'without a doubt', 'without doubts' or 'without doubt'. How do you know which form to use?"

I saw her point. It's a tricky question. I considered consulting a priest, but decided instead to call the police.

Inspector Syntax of the Grammar Squad answered my call and was round my house before the kettle had boiled.

"Evening!" he said. "What seems to be the problem?"

"There's been an incident involving nouns. Can you help?"

Inspector Syntax looked thoughtful. "It all depends on getting a positive identification. If you can identify the noun in question and pick it out of a line-up then we can arrest it and charge it with Disturbing the Piece. If you can give us a general description then we can give it a warning, maybe even apply for an Anti-Semantic Behaviour Order. But if you can't provide us with any description at all, there is nothing the police can do. All we can do with the uncountable nouns like Truth and Life is give them a capital letter and keep them under observation."

"I've had a complaint about Society," I answered.

"Which society would that be, Madam? he asked. "Did you get its name and address?"

"No," I said regretfully. "I think it was just Society in general, the tendency of human people to live in organised groups."

"These uncountable nouns are slippery customers," mused the Inspector. "We know they're out there causing no end of trouble, but no-one ever gets a good enough look at them to make a positive identification. The undercover boys keep them under surveillance, but it's hard to get enough on them to get an arrest."

I nodded, and reflected.

"We've been having trouble with computers," I said. "Apparently they are a necessary evil in modern Society".

PC Syntax took out his notebook and pencil (a 2B).

"Could you identify these computers if you saw them again, Madam?"

"I think they must be the computers owned by individual, schools, businesses and organisations," I answered. "I'm afraid I can't be more specific because I didn't get a very close look at them."

"Computers, several of them, definitely existing, but with no clear description," said Inspector Syntax, writing."That's enough information for us to go round their house and give them a warning. We can't charge them without a clearer description."

"Then there's all the trouble I've been having with doubt," I said, watching him write.

"Which doubt was it, Madam? Did you get its number?"

"Well," I said. "I have some doubts about English grammar."

"Sounds more promising", said Inspector Syntax, making notes. "Doubts about grammar. Can you be more specific? What did they look like?"

"Most of them are just doubts in general," I answered. "Although I do have one particular doubt."

"Now we're getting somewhere! Can you describe your doubt for me, Madam? What was it wearing?"

"The doubt that I'm talking about concerns whether doubt, when used as an uncountable noun should be spelled with a capital letter, like Truth, Beauty, Life, Death, Man, Woman and God."

"We should be able to take steps against your doubt about uncountable nouns", said PC Syntax. "Your description of that particular doubt is quite clear. We should be able to take it into custody, set up an identity parade, make a positive identification and charge it. Once charged, we can refer to it as 'the doubt' or even 'that doubt', as in 'that nasty-looking little doubt we've got locked up in cell number four'."

"But what if it turns out that there is no doubt?" I asked.

"Well, we can't arrest a doubt that doesn't exist, Madam!" said PC Syntax in his best Dealing with the Stupid manner. "Whether it's no doubt, no doubts or not a doubt, it's all the same to me. If it's not there I can't charge it with anything."

"So doubt doesn't get a capital 'D' if it doesn't exist?" I asked.

"Not much point really, Madam", he answered.

I nodded. No sense in wasting police time with unnecessary paperwork.

"Well, I must be off," said the Inspector, pocketing his notebook and standing up. "We've had a complaint about loose word order over in the LingQ forum. We need to get it all safely fixed down before someone trips over a dangling participle and hurts themselves."

"A grammar policeman's work is never done," I nodded sympathetically as I opened the door for him.

"Mind how you conjugate 'to go'", were his parting words.

Submission for The Polyglot Project

2010-08-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

This is my draft for Claude (see http://www.youtube.com/user/syzygycc):

My language learning journey; or: How I learned Russian despite the cultural handicap of being British

skyblueteapot, United Kingdom.

I went to school in England in the 1970s and 1980s and therefore have am handicapped with foreign language learning. It was taught very badly, you see. French, German and Latin were taught using the Classical Method, which mainly consists of writing irregular verbs up on the board and making everyone learn them for homework. I was startled, on visiting France at the age of eleven, to discover French children speaking French, easily and naturally and without even having to look words up in textbooks. The idea that it was anyone's mother tongue simply hadn't occurred to me.

The turning point for me was an exchange programme with a German school. I was shy and nerdy and therefore had no friends among the English kids who went over with me; I was, therefore, forced to hang out with the German kids. It was a revelation! I learned that for them, language learning was a much easier, natural and pleasant process than it had been for me. They listened to English pop music, watched English films and wore jeans with English labels on them. I came home exhilarated and determined to learn to speak proper German, song lyrics, swear words and all.

I didn't have much time left. The unnecessarily restrictive English school system mean that, at the age of 16, I had to stop studying all languages to concentrate on physics, my university subject. And that was that. I was branded a scientist, an asocial computer-botherer, an art and culture-free zone. It was a life sentence Or so I thought.

At the age of....erm...well, I was married and had two kids anyway.....I found myself suddenly out of a job. I had been a computer programmer, and as it turned out, a bad one. Why? I was hard working and I loved learning and using languages. It ought to have been the ideal job. Perhaps talking to computers in their language simply isn't as rewarding as talking to people in theirs. I resolved to restart my language learning, focussing on communicating with real people this time. Maybe failing as a technical person gave me a second chance to try out at being an arts person.

But where to start? The local adult education courses weren't much help. I was already overqualified for beginners' French and German classess, and nothing else was available. I tried local universities, libraries, and schools. None of them included helping mature learners to learn a foreign language within their remit. Even amazon.co.uk wasn't expecially forthcoming on language learning books and CDs beyond the very basics. Maybe I could find some learning materials on the internet?

After a lot of searching and frustration (and grumbling about it to penfriends in slowly-improving German ), I found a site called www.lingq.com. It claimed to offer Russian , which caught my attention straight away. Russian had been on offer at my school, but sadly not to those studying science. (Perhaps they were afraid we would defect to the Soviet Union and take the secrets of the Trident missile programme with us). Was this at last my chance to learn it? The danger of me defecting now and taking with me the secrets of really poor programming really shouldn't keep the Intelligence Services awake at nights.

I studied the so-called “natural language learning method” carefully. It looked too easy to be effective. You sign up for an account, help yourself to free lessons (mp3 + transcript), and study them. There is software to keep track of the words you have learned, the lessons you have studied, the time you have spent on listening, etc. You can learn new words using flashcards. Ah, but what happens when you have studied all the lessons in the library?

I studied the contents of the library. There were, as it turned out, a LOT of lessons, some of them really quite tricky. It didn't look as though I would run out of material any time soon.

I still suspected a catch. I lurked in the forum. It seemed to consist of a lot of clever, funny, people, people who were well aware of the value of a dollar and very clear that they were getting value for money. Some of them were even learning Russian, including, it appeared. the founder of the site.

I decided to Skype him to find out what the catch was. We had a very pleasant conversation. It turned out that LingQ is the brainchild and baby of a former Canadian diplomat, who loves learning languages and is learning Russian as his tenth or eleventh one. Making money does not seem to be a major goal for him: spreading the word that learning languages can be fun does.

“But you DO want my money, don't you?” I asked. “You won't get much out of me. I'm unemployed!”

Steve shrugged. “I'm sure you can find a Russian who's keen to learn English,” he said. “You can do a language exchange”.

“What happens if I run out of lessons?” I asked.

“You use your own material,” he answered. “Have you seen the size of the internet? Anything you can download in mp3 format you can put on your mp3 player and listen to; any text you can copy and paste you can import and use as a lesson.”

“What about Dracula?” I asked. “I've got that as an e-book.”

“Dracula's be fine,” he answered. “You can write pieces in Russian about vampires and have conversations with Russians about vampire-staking.”

This was an intriguing idea.

“How about hobbits?” I asked.

“If you must!” he answered.

“Heavy metal song lyrics?”

“Fine!” he said.

Well, this just had to be tried. Learning what you want, when you want,, where and how you want, and asking for help only as and when you want to. That's flexible enough even for a stressed out housewife and mother of three to cope with.

Two years on and I have to say, the “natural”, “input-based” learning methods certainly work for me. I listen to audiobooks, podcasts and radio programmes in Russian, I read articles harvested from all corners of the web and, when I feel like it, I discuss my progress with a native Russian. I keep a diary in Russian and get feedback on bits of it when I want it. In two years I have reached about A level standard. Also I have found the time to learn a bit of Japanese and brush up on my French and German.

So encouraged have I been by my progress that I have signed my children up. The eldest is 12 and is learning French, without noticeable enthusiasm, at school. The youngest is 9 and has been taught to count up to ten in French. Once shown how to download lessons and play mp3s, operate the online dictionary and work the flashcard system, I set them a competition. Whoever learns the most in 3 weeks wins ten shiny new British pounds and the respect of all. The betting stands at evens: ten more days to go!

The sad fact is that English schools still make learning languages boring. Not only that, but the number of language teachers and the number of languages available in state schools has dropped since my day. Now it is only compulsory to learn 3 years of French, and impossible to learn any other language, in my son's comprehensive school.

I am determined to show my children how to become independent language learners; to show them that, no matter how poor the language teaching provision in their schools is, no matter how restrictive the timetables or dismissive our society may be of the value of speaking a second language, nevertheless the process of learning a second language can be fun, rewarding and useful. Even for scientists. After all, Einstein could speak English well enough to work in America as a university professor. I bet no-one ever told him that scientists couldn't learn foreign languages!

Do you get British humour?

2010-08-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

I was told a joke last night and I didn't laugh. (Sorry about that!). The joke was:

"What's the difference between a wife and a mistress? - About 30 pounds!"

"That's an American joke", I said.

"How can you tell?" I was asked.

"Because you can predict the answer from the question," I answered. "Assuming that a middle-aged man, with a middle-aged wife, takes a younger mistress, you can list all the probable differences between the two women. A British person wouldn't laugh, because British jokes typically depend on the question leading you to predict a certain answer, and then the answer is a surprise twist."

To illustrate I told The Chicken Joke:

Qu: "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

The teller of this joke often makes up their own answer, which must be a) original and b) slightly absurd. For instance:

"Because it was the hedgehog's day off"
(ie, that it is the JOB of a particular animal to cross that road each day, and the job happened to fall to the chicken that day)

"Because the pheasant wanted too much money"
(Pheasants, being luxury meat, probably demand higher wages than chickens)

"Because the peacock was too busy posing for photographers"
Peacocks, being beautiful, are probably the celebrities of the bird world)

"Because the kangaroo couldn't get a Green card"
(here the animal who was first offered the job was a foreigner, who then wasn't allowed into the country)

"Because the jellyfish couldn't"
(jellyfish don't have legs, so would be an unsuitable candidate for the job)

"Because the dodo had died"
(they gave the job to an animal from an extinct species)

Because the unicorn.....oh, I expect you get the idea.

This ancient British joke is one of my son's favourites:

"What's black and white and red all over?"
The original answer was a newspaper: printed in black and white (this is an OLD joke) and read (sounds like red) all over. Everyone expects to hear the original answer, so nobody gives it. Unexpected answers include:

a sunburned penguin
an embarrassed panda
A nun swimming in a pot of red paint
A newspaper wrapped round a pound of liver

etc.

The classic British joke, which many foreigners have heard but few see the humour of, can be found in Lewis Carroll's classic children's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice is asked:

"Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"

She can't guess, so she asks what the answer is. But the questioner hasn't got one! Even British people expect a riddle (a joke in the form of a question and "surprise" answer) to actually HAVE an answer. As always, Carroll is a step ahead of his readers.

More examples of British humour would be very welcome! I will add some more when I think of them.

LingQ Grudge match kicks off!

2010-08-17T06:22:00.000-07:00

I have challenged my eldest two children to a contest: to see who can get the highest LingQ activity score by the end of the summer holidays (September 6th or thereabouts). Emma is learning French, James is learning French, German or whatever his Voices are currently telling him to learn.

To make it interesting I am offering ten whole new British pounds to the winner, plus the satisfaction of knowing they have royally kicked the other one's butt.

I am starting the betting at even odds: James is older and a computer whizz, he has been learning French at Big School and has been to France on a school trip. On the other hand, he gets bored very easily and thinks that LingQ doesn't look hard enough to be a real challenge. Emma has poor computer skills, spells badly but has the kind of determination that moves mountains. She has to endure a lot of James being smug about his achievements and would dearly love to beat him in a fair fight.

Their LingQ user names are flowersuccess and whoaholic. Any support from other LingQers would be much welcomed.

Lord, give me the strength to endure all this fun!

2010-07-28T02:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a question to introduce you to today's topic. What kind of twisted mind would, on breaking into a shed and discovering a store of paint, decide to spray-paint his genitals black? I'll give you a clue: the hand-prints on the wall were only about a metre off the ground.

Seasoned parents amongst you will need no further help; of course, the answer is: a four year-old, three days into his summer holiday and already bored. We only found him when we were getting ready to go to the park. He was naked and covered in black paint from midriff-to knees, and from finger-nails up to his elbows. When questioned, he pointed to himself with considerable pride and answered: "I a-painted my willy!"

He was quickly rushed to the bathroom ("Don't touch ANYTHING!") and dumped in the bath. After a hasty conference about solvents we decided to use heavy-duty hand-cleaner. We instructed him to rub this all over the black bits, then, using a sponge (and on the more resilient parts, a pan-scourer) we scrubbed it off.

Under the black layer we found a blue layer. This enabled us to pin the authorship of the new blue shed mural on him. Not that we were in any real doubt about that one. The base layer appeared to be of beeswax furniture polish. Fortunately, this had prevented the paint from getting a really solid grip and the paint had all come off after the third bath.

James, by contrast, has been remarkably calm this far into the holiday. He has spend most of it sitting at his keyboard learning to play a succession of film scores. Admittedly, yesterday he said, apropos of nothing in this reality: "Don't speak to me like that, Veronica, or I'll mention your carrot! AHAHAHAHAH!" Still this is pretty mild by his standards. The worst destruction he has actually wreaked is to untidy his bedroom so comprehensively that neither he nor anyone else can get into it. He has been sleeping in a tent in the garden for the last three months, avoiding all plaintive pleas to tidy his room.

Emma has been playing a surreal selection of computer games. Her favourite is one where a group of hamsters are trying to launch one of their number into space. Whenever I protest at this waste of time (why spend your time staring at a computer screen when you could be.....er...writing up your blog?) she smugly points out that they are EDUCATIONAL computer games. She has in fact gone up two maths sets since she has started playing maths games. Well, that's all right then.

I can't wait until we go camping and the fun can begin in earnest! I may have to take some sedatives with me. Either I can take them or slip them in Robin's nutella sandwiches.

How many LingQs must a man create, before you call him Intermediate 2?

2010-07-21T03:02:00.000-07:00

I love the statistics secion on my profile page. I love being able to watch my numbers going up every day, like the milometer of a car, to show me how far I have travelled on the road to language fluency. I believe that there is some magic number of LingQs created, or LingQs learned, or hours of listening, and when I reach it I will be able to speak perfect Russian.

But what is it? Steve Kaufman's answers to my questions are profound yet unspecific. Like reaching the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he believes that I know it when I get to it.

Mark is more pragmatic. He points out that the statistics section on the profile page clearly shows your targets for each level. When you have reached your targets, you have reached the top of your level and are ready to move up to the next one. What's hard to understand about that?

Aren't your targets a bit too low? I ask him. I reached my targets for Intermediate 2 many months ago, but my abilities still don't match the description of an intermediate 2 speaker.

It seems to me that the problem of determining your targets at each level are, like all those tricky problems in my old physics textbooks, "left as an exercise for the reader". I can see why this should be the case, it depends on the student's personality and learning style, as well as the structure of the language they are learning and its similarity to their native language.

These then, are the numbers that I have come up with for me, a native English speaker with a logical mind and a visual memory, learning Russian. This is based on NO SCIENCE WHATSOEVER, but it might provoke someone else out there to work out their own estimates and then share them with the rest of us.

To get to Beginner 1:
Known words: 3000
LingQs created: 2000
LingQs learned: 1000
Hours of listening: 50
Words read: 4000
Hours of speaking: 0
Words written: 0

To get from Beginner 1 to Beginner 2 needs an additional:

Known words: 5000
LingQs created: 1000
LingQs learned: 1000
Hours of listening: 100
Words read: 50 000
Hours of speaking: 0
Words written: 0

To get from Beginner 2 to Intermediate 1 needs an additional:
Known words: 7000
LingQs created: 3000
LingQs learned: 2000
Hours of listening: 200
Words read: 150 000
Hours of speaking: 20
Words written: 0

To get from Intermediate 1 to Intermediate 2 needs an additional:
Known words: 10 000
LingQs created: 5 000
LingQs learned: 3 000
Hours of listening: 200
Words read: 300 000
Hours of speaking: 25
Words written: 6000

You can see from these figures that I am not a big fan of speaking before I feel good and ready, and that I am a keen reader.

I also figure that it takes me, on average, a year to progress a level. Obviously, if I were prepared to work full-time at it, progress would be a lot faster. This is as fast as I can go and still have a life outside of LingQ. Er. In theory, anyway.

What to say when words fail you part 6

2010-06-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

Sounding well-read

So. You are in that all-important oral examination, job interview or (possibly even) first date. You have just told the story about the time when you got drunk and fell asleep on an aeroplane and when you woke up you couldn't remember what country you were in or why**. Suddenly you are gripped by doubt. Have you made yourself sound stupid, shallow or mentally unstable? Do you imagine a look of agitation on the face of your examiner / interviewer / hot date? Don't panic! You can make yourself sound smart and well-read at any time, by the use of a quotation.

When I was little nearly every family owned a Bible. Not for reading you understand. Most people in England would rather clear out their garage than read the Bible. No, it was there as a source book for impressive-sounding quotes. You were guaranteed an extra couple of marks in any essay, on any subject, if you threw in a quote from the Bible or Shakespeare. My brother's party trick was to dispute the existence of God using quotations from the Bible (he must have gone to some really dull parties).

Nowadays you no longer need to own books to quote from them. If you are speaking in English, go to http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/, pick six impressive-sounding quotes and memorise them. I can virtually guarantee that at some point in your conversation the opportunity will arise to say one of them. It may not actually be relevant to what is being discussed, but it will be grammatically correct and win you a few seconds of thinking time (see "Getting a moment to think").

If you want to sound cool and witty rather than well-read and deep, try this site: http://www.great-quotes.com/. You can learn some quotes from Frank Zappa (ask your parents who this is) or Nelson Mandela. If you want to sound educated and witty in a different language, translate "famous quotes" into your target language and Google it. Or you can ask your tutor for some of their favourite quotes and who said them.

Poetry (if you can remember any) and song lyrics can be used too. Pretty much any line from any Bob Dylan song sounds profound if you say it seriously enough. You can search on his song lyrics on this site:http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs. Or any folk singer you like: all folk song lyrics sound like they mean more than they actually do.

An expert at the quotations game will have a quote to hand for every essay question they are likely to encounter. Favourite language examination topics include: isn't society in a shocking state, the planet's a bit dirty, politicians are evil, war is nasty. It doesn't take long to choose a profound quote for each of these topics. If you aim to end your essay with a preprepared quote the the essay is much easier to write. For example:

Question:

"Isn't War nasty?"

Answer:

"Bloody human history .......the suffering of innocent children.....waste of scarce resources....large-scale atrocities....power-grabbing politics.......slaughter...human greed...not in my name....

"To conclude with the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "War is not an adventure. It is a disease."

I think I could write 500 words on that even if I was half asleep. Come to think of it, I probably HAVE written it while half asleep at some point in school. Being profound doesn't actually take a lot of thought.

I'll let Albert Einstein sum it up for us: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." ****

-------------------

** Yes, I have done this. And told the story in an inappropriate situation afterwards.

**** Tchja! I'd have written this article much quicker if I'd thought of that quote before I started writing!

What to say when words fail you part 5

2010-06-21T03:21:00.000-07:00

Using Humour

I am a very shy person and examinations, meetings and interviews are difficult for me. I have had to struggle with anxiety attacks in interviews, and it is not easy showing yourself in a good light when you feel as if you are about to have a heart attack. I have worried so hard about examinations that I have had a migraine and been unable to sit the exam.

I am not, therefore, an expert in being confident. I am, however, very good at sounding confident, which is not quite the same thing. I can give lectures and attend interviews and chat happily with strangers over Skype, and if I mention my jangling nerves, people assume I'm joking and laugh politely. That's because I use humour. It takes practice to use jokes when you are sweating and feeling light-headed, but it is an excellent way to seem relaxed, to make other people more relaxed and even to make yourself relaxed.

This seems a particularly unlikely strategy for university graduates because, surprise surprise, we've been told not to do it. We've been told that it makes us seem shallow, superficial and it looks like we are not taking things seriously. Hands up all those who told a joke in the presentation of their doctoral thesis! No-one? I didn't think so.

I'm not suggesting you dress like Beano the Clown and squirt the examiners with water from a trick flower. However, you might consider one or more of these strategies, to put yourself and your examiner (who is probably a shy person too) at ease.

1) Smile! Try looking happy to meet the person who holds your fate in their hands.

2) Make some jolly remark about the loveliness of the weather, the dazzling smile of the receptionist, the fact that you are wearing your nicest brooch today. In short, try not to act like a person being led to the electric chair.

3) Tell a personal anecdote, eg:
"I started learning Spanish because I fell in love with Antonio Banderas! I wanted to be able to ask him out in his own language if I ever happened to meet him."

Or:
"I went to France on a school trip when I was ten and on the bus I was sick on the teacher's shoes! It didn't affect my love for the country though."

4)Throw in a blatantly untrue fact:
"In my country everyone has the words of the National Anthem sewn into their underwear. If you forget the words while you are singing you are allowed to drop your trousers to read them."

5) Slip in some unexpected words
When I was at business school we used to play the Aardark game. In every essay, business report and examination script we dropped in the word "aardvark". Eg in economics:

"...so should the world demand for, eg, aardvarks increase while the supply (eg the wild aardvark population) decrease, the result will be an increase in the price of aardvarks."

When proceedings are getting dull I like to slip in a word like:
garden gnomes
dormice
roasted elk
My Grandma's Chilli Pickle

If you do this right you should see a puzzled frown flit over your examiner's face as his brain registers the unexpected word, then a smile as he recognises it as intentional humour. If the puzzled frown stays there, then he hasn't got the joke.

6) Make a self-depreciating remark
eg: I am 40 years old and therefore don't understand iTunes
I am British and therefore don't know much about sex
I am a woman and therefore know nothing about cars.

7) Get excited about something
The examiner's cool laptop, the curtains in the exam room which are EXACTLY the material you've been hunting for, the fact that your examiner is from Vancouver (it's the city of the GODS!) Chinese food is wonderful, Italian men are very sexy. It instantly turns you in the eyes of the examiner from just another examination candidate into a real, warm, flesh and blood person. It also helps you to speak more naturally and fluently. Try it sometime. Record yourself reciting facts and figures. Then record yourself describing the best meal you ever ate. See the difference? The examiner will.

Next article: sounding well-read.

What to say when words fail you part 4

2010-06-11T02:36:00.000-07:00

Examination tricks

Many clever, thoughtful people, with an excellent grasp of the language they are studying, get very nervous about speaking in examinations. You can hardly blame them. The idea of answering questions from a total stranger, on complex topics that you get no advanced notice of, and demonstrating your full command of a foreign language, is a scary one. It is all the more scary if you we never taught to express your opinions during your education, but to memorise phrases and grammar rules from out of a book. What if I really have nothing sensible to say about global warming or the American economy? Just how stupid am I going to look?

Take heart. They are not expecting you to be a very clever person. If you are indeed clever, you can use this as your secret weapon.

First you need to recognise that a lot of the questions that examiners set students are actually quite silly.

Here's an example. The student must speak on this subject for two minutes, then answer questions for a further five:

"Has society become too dependent on modern technology?"

There are three problems with this question:

1) It is a closed question. You could answer it with "Yes!" "No!" or "Maybe", sit back and smile. The examiner now has to find an additional two minutes of questions.

2) The words "too dependent" tell you that it is a value judgement question. You can't properly answer it without considering how much, in your opinion, society should be dependent on technology, then consider how much society is dependent on technology, before you can say whether society is too dependent on technology. A fully-considered answer could take you 40 minutes, which you don't have.

3) It is a leading question, in that it directs you towards the answer "Yes". Many examination questions are worded so that either "Yes" or "No" sound like the 'right' answer. Graduates have been trained to argue both sides of an argument, so they prefer to answer "Well, it depends on your definition of....." which will take too long. You need to start your answer "Yes, because...." or "No, because...." and stop talking two minutes later.

If you think that the question is stupid, try to rephrase the question and then answer your question not theirs.

eg:

"Yes, we ARE dependent on technology, because....." You have lost the word 'too' from the question which changes it to a factual question. The examiner, if he is paying attention, will notice this and will ask you a question later, with the word "too" in it. That's OK. Knowing in advance what the next question will be will help you to control the question and answer session.

It would be useful to know some facts. Did you research world dependence on technology before the exam? No? Then you can make them up.

Learn these useful phrases:

"Statistics indicate that the number of people who regularly use [pick a technology] is increasing by ...% year-on-year"

"Government experts predict that by the year 2020. ...% of school-age children will own a [pick a device]".

"Some scientists believe that [pick a technology] will play a vital part in addressing the issues of global warming".

My Chinese student had assumed that she was supposed to memorise official facts and figures, and that she would lose marks if she got them wrong. She also thought that one side of the argument would be the "correct" one and that she would lose marks for not knowing which side she should be on.

Possibly this was realistic for her, given how the Chinese educational system works. Nevertheless, you will have a much better opportunity to demonstrate your language proficiency if you say something definite and controversial. Fortunately neither you nor the examiner needs to believe what you say. What's important is that you keep him awake and listening to you.

Eg:

"Yes we ARE too dependent on technology. The gods intended us to live in caves and hunt bears. We should all return to this lifestyle immediately or we are DAMNED!!!"

"No! Technology is vital to enable the worlds' governments to spy more effectively on other countries and their own citizens!"

"No! Our only hope of surviving climate change is to become MORE dependent on technology. Genetically modified foods are our future!"

"Ever since the invention of the stone axe man has been dependent on technology. Whether you approve of it or not, Homo Sapiens has always been and will always be a geek."

"Well, I'm definitely dependent on technology. If you tried to take my iPad away from me I might try to kill you!"

Next time:

Using humour.

What to say when words fail you part 3

2010-06-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

Getting a moment to think

A lot of people, answering a question in their native language, will get about five words into the answer before they decide what the answer actually is. It's called "putting the mouth in gear while the brain is still in neutral". People who have been to university, as well as people speaking in a foreign language, usually tend to wait until they have thought of their answer before they start to speak. If the speaker is shy or feeling anxious, they will then take an extra second to double-check their words before voicing them. Shy, clever, educated people speaking in a foreign language may need several seconds of processing time before answering a question even as simple as: "Do people in your country like dogs?" A silent period before answering may make your conversational partner think that you are stupid, ignorant of the language, drunk, falling asleep or in some kind of hypnotic trance. It may be a good idea to make some noise while revving up your brain.

Here are some suggestions for making the right kinds of noise:

1) Pretend you didn't hear the question.
"Did you say dogs or frogs?"

2) Repeat the question in a thoughtful voice:
"Do people in my country like dogs?"

3) Say "Mmm....."

4) Say: "That's a VERY interesting question! Let me think....."

5) Say: "Well, I'm not ENTIRELY sure, but I would say....."

6) Ask for clarification of the question.
"Do you mean that they like dogs in the sense of keeping them as pets?"

7) Turn the question back onto the questioner.
"Mmm....I'm not really sure.....how popular are they in YOUR country?"

8) Answer "No!" in a confident tone of voice.
The chances are that the questioner wasn't expecting that (people tend to ask questions expecting the answer yes). They will then ask "WHY don't people in your country like dogs?" Now you may have to.....

9) Invent an outrageous lie.
"Dogs were banned in my country about twenty years ago. We keep ferrets or very large hamsters as house pets instead." This sounds so unlikely that you know the questioner will ask you more about it. This is useful for controlling a question-and-answer session in an examination.

10)Tell a personal or family story.
"My grandfather was a famous dog breeder. He once sold a cocker spaniel to Stalin's aunt." It doesn't matter if it is only slightly relevant to the question, if the story is interesting you can get a couple of minutes of conversation out of it - again useful in examinations.

Failing that:

11) Admit your ignorance and move on.
"I have absolutely no idea I'm afraid. Have you another question you could ask me instead?"

This works best if the questioner doesn't know you:

12) State an opinion.
"Dogs? I hate dogs! They carry fleas and people spend money on them that they could spend feeding the homeless!" You don't really have to think this, just state something the other person is likely to disagree with and, again, you control the conversation for the next couple of minutes.

If absolutely desperate, you can always try:

13) The wildly unexpected conversation change.
"I don't know much about dogs. Incidentally, did you know that my country is world famous for producing a kind of cheese made from mouse's milk? Pavarotti wouldn't perform anywhere without a crate of it in his dressing room."

Next article: more examination tips.

What to say when words fail you part 2

2010-05-28T03:07:00.000-07:00

Understanding the Question

I used to talk to a lady from China who, despite many years of instruction couldn't speak English fluently. No matter how slowly and carefully I spoke, no matter how simple the question, two out of every three of my questions were met with silence. I then had to work through a list of possibilities: Can you hear me? Is there noise on the line? Do you want me to rephrase the question?

After a couple of conversations she had a very good idea. She read out to me a piece of English she had prepared earlier and it was excellent. Clearly she understood English very well, at least when it was written down. I recommended extra listening practice.

A few conversations later and she got braver. She admitted that when she didn't understand a question, she had no idea what to do about it. I suggested she LingQ and learn the following phrases:

“This Skype connection's terrible!”
“Can you repeat that please?”
“I'm sorry, I have trouble understanding your accent!”
“Could you say that more slowly please?”
“Could you please rephrase the question?”
“I don't know this word:....”
“What do you mean by the phrase......?”
“Let me check that I have understood you. Are you asking me.....?”

I said that, even in an English examination, there should be no penalty for asking to have the question repeated, and if the examiner has an unfamilar accent you may need them to slow down and maybe even use different words. I also thought that, even if you DID understand the question, you could ask to have it repeated to give you a few seconds extra thinking time.

“What if I need more thinking time?” she asked.

Well, I'll save that question for next time. For homework, please practise the phrase “This Skype connection's terrible!”

What to say when words fail you

2010-05-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

Several students of English have said to me lately: “I'm not very good at English because I can't speak fluently”. In vain I protest that their English is excellent. They don't believe me. “Oh, I can talk about my research into creating superintelligent woodlice,” they answer modestly, “But ask me about how to eliminate world poverty and I can think of nothing to say!” Well, I'm hardly suprised. The Pope, Barrack Obama and Bob Geldoff between them couldn't solve that one. The difference between them and you is, they could talk fluently, even passionately, on the subject despite having no really clever ideas.

Natives have strategies for continuing to talk when words fail them. Starting from the age of two, when a child points to an object and calls it a “bah-bah!”, rising through teenage years of using a restricted set of idiomatic vocabulary (innit, yeah?), to a career as a politician or a TV rent-a-gob. We learn how to keep our mouths working until ours brains catch up.

The main problem for intelligent people is that they tend to go to university where they are taught not to make a statement unless they can back it up with evidence. Collecting data, sifting out useful information and reasoning your way to a conclusion takes time. In England, when someone says “Lovely weather!” to you, by the time you have looked at the sky, estimated the air temperature, wind speed and the possibility of rain later, not only has your conversational partner walked away but the weather will have changed too. Sometimes all that is expected of you is to open your mouth and make some noise.

This problem gets worse when intelligent people decide to learn a second language. Teachers tell you how to communicate information correctly. To a smart person that means even more processing, even slower responses. To a listener this sounds like you haven't understood the question, or you are too stupid to answer.

Recently I asked someone whether there were a lot of trees in his country. It was a stupid question, I was just checking that he was still on the line and hadn't fallen asleep over his laptop. The answer was a long, puzzled silence. “Did you hear the question?” I asked finally. “I heard it and I understood it,” he admitted, bashfully, “but I'm afraid I don't know the answer!” Clearly he is an extremely intelligent person, because if he wasn't he would have said “Oh, yes!” 'Yes' is a nice, bright, shiny word, it trips off the tongue and makes people happy. Who cares if it is the right answer? It takes a lot of intelligence to make you afraid of making an ill-judged remark about forests.

I intend to write a series of pieces, aimed at the smart but tongue-tied student, explaining what you can say when you can't think what to say. My suggestions will not make you sound cleverer: you already know how to speak like an intelligent person. They will hopefully, however, make you sound more confident and comfortable in a conversation in English, which will make the process of speaking intelligently a less stressful experience. Who knows, they might even come in useful when you speak in your own language!

Robin can sing (a beginner 1 story)

2010-05-24T04:31:00.000-07:00

Robin sings songs at school. He sings them with the other children in the nursery class. They sing “Twinkle twinkle little star”. It goes like this:

Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are.

Robin likes this song because it makes him think of space and rockets and the Doctor in his Tardis. Mum likes the song too and she sings it with Robin. Robin does not know how Mum knows all the words when she does not go to nursery class.

Mum knows another song. It goes like this:

London's burning
London's burning
Fetch the engines!
Fetch the engines!
Fire! Fire!
Fire! Fire!
Pour on water!
Pour on water!

Mum and Emma like to sing it together. When Robin knows all the words he will sing it with them.

Robin loves Daleks (a beginner 1 story)

2010-05-23T06:20:00.000-07:00

Robin's big brother loves Doctor Who. Doctor Who is on TV on Saturdays after tea-time. Everyone sits down to watch Doctor Who. If anyone talks when Doctor Who is on James says “Shh!”

Robin likes Doctor Who too. He likes the Tardis when it flies through space like a space rocket. Robin likes all the aliens. The Cybermen are good and so are the Daleks and the Sea Devils and the Sontarans. The aliens all want to kill the Doctor so the Doctor has to stop them.

Robin does not understand all the words because the people are big and they use big words. He only understands some words like “You are the enemy of the Daleks” and “Kill the Doctor!” When Doctor Who is finished and the TV is turned off Robin runs around shouting “You are the enemy of the Daleks!” He runs around shouting until Emma runs him a lovely bath and makes him get into it.

Mum likes tea (a beginner 1 story)

2010-05-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

Mum likes to drink tea. She boils water in the kettle and makes tea in her teapot. Then she pours tea into her cup and pours in milk and drinks it. Sometimes Robin pours the tea out for Mum. Robin is clever because he can pour tea from the teapot into the cup.

Mum shouts “Arrgh!”

Then she says: “Thank you, that's enough dear! Step away from the teapot!”

Mum thinks Robin's pouring is clever too.

Mum drinks a lot of tea. She drinks tea all day. She drinks tea with breakfast. She drinks tea with snacks. She drinks tea at the shops. She drinks tea in bed.

Robin does not drink tea because it is hot and he does not like hot drinks. Robin drinks cold drinks like water and milk and juice and lemonade and ginger beer. Ginger beer tastes hot although it is really cold. Robin thinks that is funny.

Emma drinks hot chocolate. That is too hot for Robin too. Dad does not drink hot drinks. Dad drinks water and lemonade and ginger beer. Robin thinks that Dad is clever because he does not drink hot drinks.

Mum has a cold (a beginner 1 story)

2010-05-23T04:24:00.000-07:00

Mum does not feel well. She has a cold. She is in bed and Dad is looking after the children. Dad is cooking lunch. When Dad cooks lunch it is pizza. Dad likes to cook pizza. Robin likes pizza. Pizzas have cheese and tomato on them. James eats pizza with his fingers. Robin eats pizza with a knife and fork. Robin knows how to use a knife and fork. James knows how to use a knife and fork too. Robin does not know why James eats pizza with his fingers.

Mum gets up. She says “Eerrgh!”

Dad says: “You look horrible!”

Mum says: “Eergh eergh!”.

Dad says “Go back to bed because you look horrible!”

Mum says “Want tea now!”

Dad says: “Go back to bed you silly sick woman and I will bring you some tea!”

Mum goes back to bed.

When Mum's cold has gone she will cook lunch. Mum cooks noodles with vegetables or egg and beans on toast. These are nice too.

Dad likes chocolate (a beginner 1 story)

2010-05-23T02:22:00.000-07:00

Dad likes to eat chocolate. He buys it from the shop. He keeps it in a cupboard in the kitchen. Robin knows which cupboard it is in. It is in a high cupboard but that is OK because Robin can climb up on a chair. When he is on the chair Robin can climb up onto the table. When he is on the table Robin can reach the cupboard. Sometimes the cupboard door is locked but that is OK too because Robin knows how to take the lock off.

The chocolate is wrapped but that is OK. Robin can take the wrapper off. He knows which drawer the scissors are in. He does not climb to reach the drawer. He stands on the floor and reaches up. The scissors are big and sharp and they can cut through the wrapper. Then Robin can eat chocolate. Robin likes chocolate a lot.

Making snacks (a beginner 1 story)

2010-05-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

Robin likes making snacks. He likes to make himself a snack in the kitchen. The biscuits are in a tin in a cupboard. He can stand on a chair to open the cupboard and get the biscuit tin. Then he can eat lots of biscuits.

If he is thirsty he opens the fridge to get out the milk. He can pour out a cup of milk if the carton is not heavy. If it is heavy he drops the carton and the milk makes a mess on the floor. Mum clears it up.

Robin likes bananas. He knows you have to take the skin off because the skins taste bad. He leaves the skins on the table or on his chair. Mum and Dad always know how many bananas Robin has eaten. That is because they count all the banana skins. Sometimes they count all the way up to six. Six is more than Robin can count up to.

Robin's story (a series of beginner 1 lessons)

2010-05-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

Your comments are welcomed! I shall record them and put them in the LingQ library when my cough goes away.

1.
Robin is a little boy. He has a brother called James. James is twelve years old. Robin's sister is called Emma. She is nine. Robin is three. Robin is little because he is only three. Robin knows that when he is twelve years old he will be big.

Robin and his brother and sister live with their mum and dad in a house with a lot of rooms. Mum and Dad have a bedroom and Robin and Emma have a bedroom. James has a bedroom too. One room has a bath and a toilet in it. This is the bathroom. One room has a cooker in it. This is the kitchen. One room has a table and chairs. One room has a sofa and a TV in it. Robin likes this room the best.

2.
Robin doesn't talk much. That's OK because the others talk a lot. Someone is always talking. James talks to Emma, Emma talks to Mum, Mum talks to her computer and Dad tells everyone to be quiet.

Robin doesn't like to talk. He likes to play with toys. The TV is a good toy. So is Mum's computer. Robin likes things with buttons, and he likes things that make a noise. The TV makes a lot of noise. Robin knows which buttons make the most noise. Then everyone tells Robin to be quiet.

3.
Robin goes to school. When he goes to school he wears a blue shirt and a red sweatshirt and pants and trousers and socks and shoes. He has to keep all his clothes on while he is at school, even the pants.

The teachers tell you what to do. If you want to have a wee you have to put your hand up and ask to go to the toilet. Robin doesn't like that. Sometimes he does a wee in his pants. Then he has to take off his pants and put on other pants. You have to have pants on all the time at school.

4.
Robin is in the nursery class. In nursery you can do a lot of things. You can draw and paint and play in sand and water. There are also toys to play with. The toys don't have buttons so Robin doesn't like the toys much. He doesn't talk to the other children in nursey much because they are very little and he doesn't talk to the teachers because they tell him what to do. Robin likes to paint pictures of toys with buttons.

On Fridays Emma comes to nursery to help the little children. Robin talks to Emma because she is big and he knows how to talk to big people. Emma tells Robin what to do. Emma likes telling people what to do. Robin and Emma like Fridays when Emma comes to nursery.

5.
At home Robin likes to play with James' toys. James has lots of good toys because James is big. James has Daleks and Cybermen and TARDISes. He keeps them in his bedroom when he is at school. That's OK because Robin knows how to open James' bedroom door. Robin likes to go into James' bedroom to play with James' toys.

Robin can switch James' computer on and he can play James' piano too. He likes to play with James' magic lantern. James' magic lantern is very old. It is even older than Dad. James loves his magic lantern. Robin loves it too. He can nearly make it work.

How to be offensive: a guide for the polite

2010-05-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

A lovely Japanese lady, who must rank among politest people on the planet, has asked me to scrutinise her forums posts and let her know if any of them are offensive. Now, I doubt that she has ever written or said anything deliberately offensive in her life, certainly not to strangers on the internet. I said as much to her (tact is not my strong point).

She said of course not, not intentionally. But how can she tell if, writing in a foreign language, she unintentionally makes an offensive remark? How can she tell what is considered unacceptable in Britain, in North America, indeed to anyone, in any part of the world? Nothing that I have said about the general reasonableness of people or the unimportance of offending people who don't know where you live has satisfied her. She wants a clear action plan for avoiding doing something she has never done and would never dream of doing.

This is tricky. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, it is a three-teapot problem. I have thought very hard over a lot of tea and come up with this idea: to teach her how to be deliberately offensive, so that she can recognise when she is doing it and so satisfy herself that she is not doing it.

I'm not an expert on offensive behaviour myself (it's not a compulsory subject in British schools), so I can only offer the following simple suggestions.

Consistently spell the person's name wrong.

If you quote their words, get them wrong. Make sure you give the impression that you did not read their words carefully.

If you like what they write, steal it. Put their comments on your web site without permission. Retell their best jokes and pretend you thought them up.

Tell them that they are ignorant of some common knowledge, like rules of good behaviour, grammar or punctuation. Telling them that they don't understand the history of their own country is a good move.

Question their mental state, also that of their political and religious leaders.

Make public any personal information you may have about them, in an unflattering way.

Make condescending remarks about their age, sex, race and religion. If possible, get at least one of these wrong. Say things like "I don't expect a kid like you to understand this, but...." to someone who a 27 year-old, call a Canadian an American, etc.

Deliberately misunderstand at least one point that they make every time you respond to them.

Either misspell your post to them (to show that you couldn't be bothered to check your words before posting them) or correct their spelling (to imply that they are too lazy to check their words before posting them). Be sure to correct their spelling if they are writing in their native language.

Express all your opinions as facts and say that anyone who disputes them is an idiot/bigot/heathen. Naturally, you should at the same time dispute every opinion expressed by your opponent.

Throw in very extremely unecessarily EMPHATIC language, such as &*$%ing OBSCENTITIES, CAPITALS and lots of EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!! This makes you look like an UNREASONABLE and VERY ANGRY person!

you could also try typing everything in lower case very long sentences with no punctuation at all which makes you look very mad and also unreasonable but not very angry.

I shall be setting all my politest and most charming students the task of writing me an offensive post. There may be a prize for the best entry. Watch this space.....

Talk like a three-year old

2010-05-18T01:36:00.000-07:00

As both the readers of my blog will be aware, my smallest son has been getting into trouble at school. The teachers have reported very seriously that he has not been meeting his targets. Those are National Performance Targets, set by the Government. It's practically treason not to meet them.

"But he's only three!" I protested. "What can you possibly expect a three-year-old to be doing that he isn't doing?"

"He doesn't Interact Socially With Others. He doesn't Put His Hand Up to Ask to Go To The Toilet. In short, he doesn't talk."

Ah. This was difficult to refute. Birdy had by the age of three mastered the Old Homo Erectus dialect (point, grunt, point, SCREAM!) and decided that that was sufficient to meed his communication needs. Since he is a World Champion at opening closed cupboards, finding the biscuit tin, switching the TV on and switching Mum's computer off, he didn't really have any needs that he couldn't satisfy by himself. If the purpose of language is to satisfy our communication needs, then Birdy's language skills were impeccable.

I admit I was starting to get worried about him. Listening to all the other little children in his nursery class happily chattering away as they played Mummies and Daddies, I did wonder if Birdy might be missing a couple of cogs.

This term he has started playing with Big Brother's Doctor Who figures. (They are kept in a locked bedroom but that doesn't stop him.) He has been talking as part of his games, first repeating lines from the TV show, then riffing on them to create his own improvisations. I heartily approve. It's the LingQ Way.

First he amassed a collection of "all-purpose nouns". Anything with batteries in it is a deet-deet. Anything even remotely cylindrical and man-sized is a Dalek. Any tool is a screwdriver.

He also improvises new nouns. Shown a picture of a lawn mower he called it a "garden hoover". He explained to me how he wees out of his "willy button" (a part of his anatomy that I don't even know the proper name for). By putting two nouns together he can come up with a wonderfully descriptive, new name for something.

James at Birdy's age was good at making words up from scratch. He coined the verb "to spadge", as in "if you spadge together yellow and blue paint you get green". Emma would sing her remarks, and hum in the bits where she couldn't think up words.

It is interesting to think that, by the age of four, a child has amassed powerful coping strategies for talking about unfamilar objects or situations, whereas some advanced English students refuse to speak on "new" topics, for fear that their active vocabulary will fall short. I believe if they could learn to improvise, to "riff" on the language, they would be more confident speakers and also learn the "proper" vocabulary faster than they would by just avoiding tricky new topics.

Can we, as adult learners, learn to improvise like a three year old? Can teachers support learners in learning to improvise?

More on this topic later....

A funny story

2010-03-25T06:43:00.001-07:00

"Can you read minds?" my daughter asked a small girl in the playground.

"No, I'm only on the blue books!" replied her little friend.

I want to be a teacher when I grow up!

2010-03-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

[This is true]

I have applied for a teacher training course at my local college. I want to qualify to teach people, who don't speak English, to speak English. There ought to be a shorter phrase for that. In fact there are several. "English as a foreign language" implies that you are going to teach only foreigners, i.e. people who live abroad. "English as a second language" implies that you are going to teach only people who already speak only one other language, which discriminates against polyglots. "English for speakers of other languages" is wordy but inclusive, as it includes immigrants, the Welsh, sign language users, polyglots and extraterrestrials. But not, presumably, the mute. "English for thinkers in other languages" might be the ideal phrase, although I suppose that would discriminate against the very stupid.

My application form had no spelling mistakes and so I was offered an interview with aptitude test. I carefully dressed like a teacher (corduroy trousers and dangly silver earrings) and went along.

Only two of the other five applicants appeared to be native English speakers. In fact we seemed quite a multi-ethnic bunch. Reflecting on the wording of the application criteria I realised that being an English native, or a native speaker of English, weren't actually requirements. Fair enough, I thought. People who have learned English as a speaker of another language ought to be well qualified to teach English to speakers of other languages. As long as they know their subjunctives from their semicolons, and the students don't mind learning English with an Indian or a Portugese accent.

In her introductory statements our interviewer explained that knowing English grammar was actually quite important and we would have to have lessons to make sure we understood it. She also explained that there would be homework and it would really be a terrific idea if we did it all and handed it in. She said she had to make that very clear at the interview because people often drop out of the course because that they had failed to realise they might have to write an essay or two. I nodded thoughfully and doodled a cup of tea.

We were then handed our aptitude tests. I had to read the questions several times. Were they trick questions cunningly disguised to look like they had been written by an eight year old? There was one spelling question, one punctuation question, one singular vs plural verb question, and one reported speech question. Surely it couldn't be that easy? I put a perfect subjunctive and a semicolon into my answers just for devilment. I hadn't come all that way not to show off a bit.

Then there was an essay on "Why I want to be a teacher" (200 words).

While we were sucking our pens and looking thoughtful, or in my case fantasising about pots of tea, we were called in for our interviews.

I had explained about my LingQ experiences at some length on my application form, which had clearly amazed and possibly dismayed my interviewer. She read out with obvious disbelief the list of languages I claimed to speak.

"What is the commonest problem you have encountered with people learning English?" she asked.

"Perfectionism!" I replied without hesitation. "Many of my students are professional people who have invested years of their free time in learning English, and they still aren't satisfied with their achievements. They set themselves unattainably high goals and it affects their self-confidence."

There followed a short silence.

"You won't get students like that here," responded my stunned interviewer. "Our students are the kind who don't do any work and they wonder why they find it hard. How will you get them to do their homework?"

I thought about this. "I think I will explain to them that they should do their homework if they want to be able to speak English," I ventured at last.

The interviewer nodded. This seemed to be the expected answer.

After a few more questions (clearly she was using the same questions for each interview) the interviewer asked me the Time Management Question.

"How much time do you spend on your studies?" she asked.

"About three hours a day," I answered.

Another thoughtful pause, with more reading of my application form.

"You have three small children....yet you find THREE HOURS A DAY for study?"

I shrugged. I pulled my mp3 player out of my pocket and my ebook reader out of my shoulder bag.

"Here are my learning materials," I said. "I have little quality time, but I'm good at making the most of odd minutes. I listened to 10 minutes of Harry Potter in Russian just waiting for this interview to start."

I have no idea whether I passed the selection proceedure. I may have been too cocky, and I think the jokes I put in my essay went a step too far. I think, however, I made an impression on my interviewer. She was looking pretty shell-shocked when I left. She's not going to forget the Woman From LingQ in a hurry.

I've got a note from my kids excusing me from Parents Evening

2010-03-12T04:52:00.000-08:00

[This is true]

I hate Parents Evening and I get out of going to it whenever I can. In theory, having three children in full-time education, I should attend three Parents Evenings per term. In practice James doesn’t seem to have them regularly and I suspect he has perfected the art of losing his letter on the walk home. That suits me just fine. Anything that spares me from hearing a teacher’s opinion on one of my kids is a bonus as far as I am concerned.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for teachers. It’s just that, after nine years of having school age kids, I have come to realise that anything a teacher says about your child, another teacher will say the exact opposite based on exactly the same observations, and neither one is going to listen to what Mum has to say about it.

James’ teachers have always divided evenly between those whose think he is gifted and those who think he is psychologically disturbed, and they only need to answer the simple question: “Will he get a Nobel prize or an ASBO?” to give me all the benefit of their professional opinion that I need.

Mim’s teachers split into those that think she is dim and lazy and those that think she is clever and hard-working. Presumably it depends on whether they like her, or whether she likes them. In any case, whichever I hear at Parents Evening, next term or next year I will hear the exact opposite.

Birdy’s teachers worry that he doesn’t talk very much. There are no two ways about it: he doesn’t talk very much. They can’t fix it; I can’t fix it. Either he will catch up with the others or he will remain silent. He’s not dim, he’s just not chatty. I can’t see any point in spending another 10 minutes discussing it when we could all be drinking a cup of tea and eating a chocolate biscuit instead. Which goes to show: whatever the cause of his taciturnity may be, it runs in the family.

Let’s be honest: any teacher who needs to sit the parent down for 10 minutes once a term to say “Little Jimmy stills chews gums in class and can’t do long division” is a teacher with poor communication skills. Anything that the parents really need to know should have already been communicated to them, via letter or e-mail or a “Could we have a word in the corridor?” meeting.

A really experienced teacher can convey to me all I need to know about my kids’ progress with a shrug and knowing smile. In James’ case, often glancing up towards Heaven and crossing themselves as well.

James needs his head examining - again

2010-02-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

[This is true]

What is it with my kids? No sooner have I soothed the ruffled feathers of one of their teachers when another of the kids gets into trouble.

On the positive side, the Health Visitor (otherwise known as Government Snoop) came round and talked to Birdy. She pronounced him as very bright, probably bored out of his little mind at nursery school, giving his teachers the silent treatment just to annoy them. That's a worry off my mind, I had been imagining a language disorder or Autistic Spectrum.

Onto the next problem child. James is in trouble (again) for poor timekeeping, disorganisation, forgetting his own name and generally being odder than his teachers feel they can cope with on a daily basis. He claims to see dead people, and although this is probably a joke, with him it is very difficult to tell. His teachers think he may be taking drugs.

I have grown accustomed to his ways, so I went to explain the notion of "schizotypy" to them. His teachers were clearly unnerved by the idea of a year seven boy having hallucinations, paranoid ideas or delusions of super powers. Although they seemed to believe what I was saying (which was a pleasant change from being treated as a fantasist), they weren't really happy about taking my word for it. If he is to be excused from Reality on a regular basis a note from Mum isn't really adequate documentation. A note from the doctor would carry much more weight in his permanent record, or better yet, a psychologist's report.

"There's not much point in referring him to an educational psychologist," I said, wearily. Been there, done that, got the psychologist's report. "They only look for evidence of learning difficulties. They aren't interested in his odd ideas."

"Nooooooo...." said the Special Needs Manager. "That sounds more like a job for mental health professionals."

"He's not ill!" I said quickly, deciding not to mention the telekinesis, visitations from the dead and UFO sightings.

"No, no, of course not!" said Mr Special Needs very soothingly and slightly too quickly. "But they are trained to assess these things, and they know all the terminology for hallucinatory experiences. His GP can refer him to CAMHS and they can assess him and write us a report for his file."

Ho hum. I suppose I'd better make him a doctor's appointment then. "Please can you arrange to have my son's head examined because he is acting so strangely that it's attracting attention even in a state school". I think, on balance, it might be better not to mention it to Grandma. She'll blame me for bringing him up mentally unstable.

Birdy won't talk

2010-01-27T02:55:00.000-08:00

{A serious piece}

Birdy is in his second term of nursery school and his teachers are concerned because he doesn't play with the other children. Rather, he watches them play and then copies them. More worryingly, he doesn't respond to the sound of his name. If you want to grab his attention, the surest way is to go up and touch him on the shoulder.

The teachers asked me to have his hearing checked. "Oh, he can hear you just fine!" I responded with all my customary charm. "He's just not interested in listening to you." They didn't seem satisfied with that.

Next they asked if he talks at home. "Oh yes!" I responded brightly. "He's a little chatterbox. He talks about Doctor Who, Thomas the Tank Engine and space. Lives in his own little world."

They didn't seem very reassured and responded by asking me to sign an Individual Education Plan for him. I sat down on a dinky chair at a dinky little table and read it. In brief it said:

The Problem: Birdy doesn't talk very much
Desired Outcome: Make Birdy talk more
Action required to achieve this outcome: Talk to Birdy and get him to talk back.

As I sat, grumpily contemplating the near-idiotic superficiality of this problem solving process, two little boys came and sat next to me at the dinky little table. Exhibit A was Birdy, who sat and watched me in silence. Exhibit B was a little boy I had never noticed or spoken to before.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm reading this piece of paper," I answered.

"What's it about?" he asked.

"It's about Birdy not talking," I answered.

"Why doesn't Birdy talk?" he asked.

"I don't know," I answered.

I looked at Exhibit B. Exhibit B looked back at me. Exhibit A practiced burping. I sighed.

"Well, if talking to strangers and asking questions all the time is normal for a three year old," I said to Exhibit B, "then you're normal and Birdy isn't. It's a fair cop," and I signed the piece of paper.

At home I googled language learning disorders. That led me to autistic spectrum disorders, which gave me somthing to ponder. Might Birdy be autistic? He doesn't call me "Mummy", in fact he rarely uses names for anyone or anything, including himself. Although he does talk, if you listen carefully you realise he is saying things like: "Michael Bentine's Potty Time take 1!" This is not only a straight copy from one of his favourite programmes, he even copies exactly Michael Bentine's voice. He's no different from a parrot who has learned to say "Polly wants a cracker!" and who then is puzzled when it gets given a cracker.

I went and asked the Special Needs teacher about autism. She was reassuring. She says it can't be ruled out (well, very little can at this early age) but there's no need to jump to conclusions. After all, our gifted little mimic copies our facial expressions, and seems to do so with the sole purpose of making us laugh. He seems rather to be a clown who doesn't understand the point of language, than a child who can't understand other people.

An alternative to autism is something which is sometimes called Semantic Pragmatic Disorder. This looks like autism but isn't necessarily accompanied by autism. These kids fail to grasp the working of language or to pick up on social clues about behaviour until they are much older, although they do finally catch up and become just like other kids.

Mrs Special Needs Teacher also reminded me that Birdy has two very smart, very much older siblings. If he has only them to play with then his behaviour is going to be unusual. He doesn't play with three-year old toys because he would rather play with (and break) twelve-year old toys. He watches Doctor Who (which he can't understand much of) because his big brother is a Doctor Who obsessive.

Hopefully, whatever Birdy has that is holding him back from talking and playing with other kids of his own age, is something that he will grow out of. Perhaps all he really needs, like his Mummy, is to get out more and meet people.

Charlie has musical motoring trouble

2010-01-16T02:00:00.000-08:00

The further adventures of the Dunwich Family.

E-mail from Charlie to Mary:

Hello Dear!

I think that I need to get Harry to take a look at the CD player on the car, as it seems to be censoring the music I can listen to on the way to work.

It will only play Todd Rundgren’s “A Wizard, A True Star”, the first two Captain Beefheart albums (but nothing after his output became more challenging), and “Sir Henry at Rawlinson End”.

There must be a sensor built in to prevent steady rhythms, or anything working in 4/4, or anything sung by a woman.

As a result my driving is becoming prone to erratic jazz rhythms in 19/16 and 5/4 time which is getting a bit exciting on the icy roads between here and work.

Don't forget we need more bananas. Ben ate six for supper yesterday. I really don't know where he puts them all.

Love xxxxx

Schizotypy and Old schoolmates

2010-01-08T02:40:00.000-08:00

(A serious piece)

“Facebook is for sad people” my son informs me . I have just joined Facebook, which has confirmed all his suspicions. I reply that it’s a socially acceptable form of stalking which doesn’t require me to find my shoes.

On joining I was asked to give my school details, and in an uncharacteristic moment of candour, I told the truth. This resulted in me finding several old classmates, triggering a series of flashbacks so vivid and so painful that I had to go and have a lie down in a darkened room.

I wonder what my classmates remember about me? I was painfully shy, with such low self-esteem that I was desperate to avoid attracting any attention. Being a schizotype, I was on a loser there. We tend to attract attention whether we want it or not. I struggled to remember where I was supposed to be and when, what I was meant to do and what clothes I was suppposed to be wearing to do it in. My teachers thought I was doing it to annoy them. I was extremely good (as schizotypes are) at grasping ideas and linking facts together, so I got top marks a lot. My classmates probably thought I was doing that to annoy them.

I hadn’t been diagnosed yet, back in the Eighties the psychologists hadn’t even invented schizotypy. Some are still arguing about whether the condition can present in school-age children. Well, I have some news for them. YES IT DAMN WELL CAN! I was showing all the typical characteristics of a benign schizotype by the time I was eleven. Dreams seemed real, reality seemed dream-like and some days I thought I was dead. Schizotypy isn’t a mental illness, but it predisposes you to anxiety, paranoia and depression, which you can do without in your teenage years. I didn’t have a social life and hadn’t learned social skills; if your parents are anxious, paranoid and depressed you tend not to.

My teachers, like my parents, were more concerned with the state of my socks than my mental health. As long as I did my homework (and frankly it was easier to spend my evenings studying than to sit with with my parents) then the teachers left me alone. I missed a lot of school in the Sixth Form due to depression and stress-related illnessed. I tried to leave but wasn’t allowed to because it would have upset the timetable or something.

If I were in that environment nowadays I would study languages and write witty, satirical pieces about what it is like being misunderstood. In those days I didn’t have the words to express the muddle in my mind and didn’t have the courage to keep trying to explain it to people who weren’t listening. I avoided all subjects which require you to speak, stuck my head in my books and kept it there until I was finally through the system and allowed to get away.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing this to feel sorry for myself. Life is good and it keeps getting better. I’ve travelled places and met people and done stuff. I've had treatment and I am no longer stalked by the demons of Anxiety and Despair. These days, when I talk about my experiences of mental illness, people assume I am joking and politely wait for the punch line.

What concerns me now is that my children have a better time of school than I did. My son is a schizotype, lower on anxiety but with a double order of hallucinations. He was acting noticeably oddly by the time he was nine. I went to the school and Had a Quiet Word with his teachers. Although puzzled, they were sensible enough to realise I wasn’t going to go away and so agreed to give him the support he needed. Mostly this involves helping him not to get overstimulated, as the hallucinations start when his brain overloads on data. Even a loud carpet can make him hear things.

He started at upper school last September. I went to the school and Had Another Word. I put it to his teachers that they had two choices: they can support him and watch him soar through school, picking up awards and inspiring others; alternatively they can crush his spirit with unthinking conformity and institutionalised bullying, which is likely to push him into a series of depressive episodes and ultimately screw up his academic career. It’s gratifying how readily his teachers come round to my point of view when it is expressed in those terms. Obviously, he is expected to work hard and do his best to be a credit to his school. Sometimes, however, teachers need reminding that being an individual is not in itself against the School Rules.

Imagination is a powerful and life-enhancing gift, and forgetfulness, poor timekeeping, a tendency to see and hear things that are not entirely real, and an ability to misunderstand simple instructions are not things that we should need to feel ashamed of or apologise for. The most important lesson I ever learned from my time at school is that you don't have to pull your socks up, shut up and copy everyone else just because that makes life easier for the grown-ups. I just wish I hadn’t left until now to learn it. It is knowledge that would have done me more good than everything I learned all the Double Maths lessons that I ever tried to turn myself invisible in.

[The characteristics of schizotypy are explained here if you can stand the long words: http://schizotypy.totallyexplained.com/].

In Which Ben has a Bath

2010-01-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

It was Christmas evening and we were giving Ben his first bath.

Charlie was stumbling around in the loft, looking for some of James' (or, at a pinch, Minnie's) old clothes. Minnie was clearing up the mess downstairs with very bad grace.

Ben had had an envigorating first day. He had met people for the first time, got named, encountered various parts of his body and explored his living space. He had laughed for the first time, cried for the first time, and taken his first ever sip of water. He had also pulled the Christmas tree over on top of himself, dribbled on the TV remote control and poked Dodgson in the beak (earning himself a nipped finger). Clearly he was enjoying life outside his growing tank.

"Why does Ben have blue eyes when yours are brown?" I asked James. Ben was showing great interest in the bathing process. Àfter giving the soap an exploratory nibble, he weed in the water (another new and exciting experience) and then began to chew the rubber ducky. We wrestled the soap off him and put it to its usual use.

James shrugged. "Data errors," he said. "Clones are never exact copies. They have to check each one to make sure it's in proper working order. Some of the early ones had bits in the wrong places."

I shuddered. "I hope Ben's got all his bits in the right places!" I said fervently.

"Kate checked him over," answered James. "She said his heart and lungs were working properly, She wants to be a doctor when she grows up."

"Maybe we should get him checked over by a real doctor," I mused. I wondered how our family GP would react. "Here's our brand new three year-old, Doctor Proctor, I wonder if you could check him to see if he's correctly assembled?" She'd review my medication quicker than you can say Prozac.

We lifted Ben out of the bath (to the accompaniment of a howl of protest), and towelled him dry. Ben was not impressed and tried to free himself by biting his way through the towel.

Of all the things I find disconcerting about my newly-born son, the fact that he doesn't talk is possibly the strangest. He has the body of a three year-old, and he seems to have the mind of one, but he has no understanding of language and doesn't even go "goo-goo".

"I suppose he'll learn to talk in time," I mused aloud.

James nodded. "Virus says they soon pick it up," he assured me.

I sighed. "I don't put much store in Virus' parenting skills!" I grumbled. "I thought he was decidedly cold towards Ben."

James grinned. "Well, he is supercool!" he joked.

I grunted. I don't usually take an instant dislike to people, but I must admit I hadn't found my great-grandson at all appealing.

"Covered in permafrost would be more like it! He didn't treat Ben with the least warmth or kindness. What kind of person can hear a child cry and not try to calm it down?"

James shrugged. "I don't think Virus considers Ben to be a real person. He's just a home-made bendy to him. A science project, not a kid you want to keep."

I took a deep breath. I could feel a Moral Stand coming on.

"I want you listen to this very carefully, James Dunwich," I said flatly. "Ben is alive, he's human and - even more to the point - he's one of us. He is every bit as important and special as me, Dad, you or Minnie. He's not going to be disassembled, fiddled with, examined or experimented on. I hope I make myself clear?"

James looked affronted. "Of course, Mum!" he protested. "I don't think like that about Ben. I said that's what Virus thinks. Virus is soooo twenty-second century. He even eats meat! And he's really old."

James thinks his grandson is old. I decided not to think too hard about that in case my brain melted.

A crash, a muffled expletive and a dull thudding sound reminded me of my husband. I went out to the landing to find a black sack full of slightly musty children's clothes.

"Guess what, Ben!" I said brightly. "I've got a whole new sensory experience for you. These are called pyjamas, and you are going to wear them!"

A spirited but brief struggle later, Ben was thoughtfully contemplating a set of My Little Pony pyjamas from the inside. I lead him to the big bed (since he doesn't have a bed he'll have to sleep between me and Charlie) and read him, to his immense puzzlement, "Wibbly Pig can build a Spaceship".

He snuggled into the crook of my arm and drifted off to sleep, while I wondered how to explain his existence to the Authorities. No-one was going to believe that he was really our son, even though a DNA test would proves that we are his parents. Would Social Services accuse us of stealing him and take him into care?

He was going to need some proper documentation. A birth certificate at least. How many computer records does it take to be legally born in this country?

"I think I'm going to need the services of a mad computer genius and a time machine," I whispered to the sleeping child beside me. "I'd better bake a cake!"

Fragrance sensitivity

2010-01-04T02:17:00.000-08:00

I've found out what I'm allergic to! Unfortunately, it's everywhere.

It's perfume, or more accurately, one or more of the many chemicals that manufacturers are permitted to put in large quantities in toiletries, cleaning products, even paint and glue. They don't have to state the ingredients on the label. Even products marketed as "unscented" can be perfumed. "Unscented" in this business just means "not as strongly perfumed as some of our other products".

I've suffered from general allergy symptoms for years, but because these "fragrance" chemicals are everywhere, I only found out by chance what was causing it. This weekend, while
queueing in the chemist, I got bored and sprayed myself with a perfume tester. It was like being hit with mustard gas. My eyes stung, I started to cough and gasp and retch. My daughter, similarly sprayed, was unaffected.

The next day we went to the supermarket, and my daughter accidentally smashed a bottle of hand wash. Again the "gas attack" reaction, again the nausea. This time the stuff hadn't even touched my skin. Airbourne particles were enough to trigger a reaction.

The products that made me sick contained linalool, limonene, benzo-something, hexa-something else and "parfum", which is code for "we're not telling you what gunk we put in this to make it smell nice". A quick search of the kitchen and bathroom turned up about twenty products containing some or all of these, many of which I put on my skin every day. I have bathed babies in this stuff! Is this twenty-first century child abuse?

I did a google search and found out about "fragrance sensitivity". The North Americans are ahead of the British on this one (when are they ever not ahead of us?) Second-hand fragrance is starting to be condidered as antisocial and unhealthy as second-hand tobacco smoke. Some workplaces in America are even starting to ban perfumes. I'd love to know how effective such a ban is in practice.

A perfume ban, even if it could be imagined on these "it's not polite to make a fuss" shores wouldn't be nearly enough though. I felt sick this morning after my husband used deodorant while I was in the same room. Last night he used too much conditioner on my little boy's hair, which made my eyes smart all evening. A deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, soap, shower gel and handwash ban would never catch on here. Especially when it's so difficult to find products that actually are fragrance free.

You have to love the irony though. I have been in contact with every unpleasant organic substance a small child can produce.You can roll me in vomit, half-rotted compost and hamster poo, and unpleasant as the experience will be, it won't make me sick. If I have a nice bath to wash it off and use the wrong type of bubble bath, I'll feel sick and itch for days. Someone up there certainly has a sense of humour.

Ben the Bioclone

2009-12-29T02:36:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day Part 3

2009-12-28T07:20:00.000-08:00

Virus accepted a cup of tea, reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something that looked like a cross between a digital thermometer and a drinking straw. He sucked the end for a moment, stirred his tea until the device went "beep!", glanced at the display, nodded, and then began to drink his tea through a hole in the end of his device. I tried not to stare.

"Call me ViRus," he said at last. "That's how it works. Vincent Russell, yah? Like, you're Mary Dunwich, so that makes you, like, MaD."

"I think I must be!" I muttered. "But please call me Mary, er, ViRus. Humour your great-grandma."

He rolled his eyes again. I noticed the way the glowing green irises rotated clockwise a quarter turn.

"Are you going to look at your present now?" asked James, who had been fidgeting with impatience. "It took ages! We had to recalibrate the machine for a Bendy. We had to do all sorts of sums. Good job ViRus has a quantum computer or it would have taken years!"

I looked at the bag. What could it contain? I could imagine a lot of things. What could it contain that could possibly be worse than what I could imagine?

Whatever we Dunwiches may be, we aren't cowards. I put down my cup of tea and advanced towards the bag.

I was rather proud that I managed not to scream. Inside the bag was what had to be either a dead three year-old or an extremely convincing dummy. It (he) was naked, with eyes closed and a peaceful expression on its (his?) round little face.

"Wh.....at is it?" I managed at last.

James looked affronted. "It's a Bendy!" he said. "A completely organic bioclone. No synthetic parts at all. All carbon-based, silicon-free. That's why they call them Bendys."

I looked again at the Bendy. It did, indeed, bear more than a passing resemblance to James. It could almost be a replica of him at three years old.

"You cloned yourself and made a three year-old?" I asked. "Why in the name of C'thul'hu would you do that?"

"Nappies," answered James. "This way we get one already potty-trained. And it's easy enough to keep them in the tank until they're any age you want. It just meant I had to go back for him a couple of years later."

"Can I start him up?" asked Minnie, jigging up and down with excitement. "Please, please, please?"

I nodded. I didn't think I could take much more excitement.

Minnie rummaged in the bag, pulled out what looked like a tin key, inserted it in the dummy's belly button, and rotated clockwise a quarter turn. Then she pulled the key out and beamed with self-satisfaction.

The Bendy's eyes opened. So did his mouth. He started to scream.

"Yah, they do that!" said ViRus, indifferently. "It's always a bit of a shock, taking the first breath."

What I don't know about bioclones could fill the British Library. Crying children I understand. I scooped the little boy up in my arms and rocked him, holding him close to me and making shooshing noises.

"He's our baby brother!" announced Minnie with pride. "I always wanted a little brother. You said we couldn't have one. So James made one for us. He's your Christmas present from us!"

"I was going to clone Dodgson," confessed James. "I thought a second dodo would make a brilliant Christmas present. I could have made a girl and you could have bred them. But it's illegal to clone animals where ViRus comes from. We had to clone me instead."

ViRus continued: "Bendies were all the rage a couple of years ago," he said. "Everyone wanted one. Sili-clones are sooo Eighties. And no-one gives birth any more. That went out in the mid twenty-first century. Practically mediaeval."

"I don't think we can keep him," I said. The screams had subsided into sobs, the sobs into sniffs. After another a minute he had stopped crying altogether. He wiped his nose on my shoulder.

"It's a lovely thought, children, and Virus, but what would we do with another child? We can't afford him. We don't have room for him. I don't think it's even legal to clone your own children yet. We could get into trouble."

ViRus nodded cheerfully. "Fair enough!" he said. "I can take him back with me. Bendies are fully recyclable."

I looked down and saw a pair of blue eyes gazing up at me.

"Recyclable?" I asked.

"Yah! They re-use the bits," answered ViRus, picking up a mince pie and examining it carefully.

"No-one recycles a Dunwich!" I said, hugging the bioclone a little tighter. The bioclone grimaced, burped and started to pick his nose.

ViRus shrugged. "Well, he comes with a three year guarantee," he said, prizing the top off his pie to examine the filling. If you change your mind, you can always return him. He's fully ....."

"Recyclable! I get it!" I snapped back. The bioclone grinned at me and waggled his eyebrows. I remembered James doing exactly the same eyebrow-waggle at his age. I felt my eyes starting to fill with a nostalgic tear.

When Charlie came in with a crash and a muffled "Damn those wellies!" I was still holding the bioclone. Charlie looked at me, then at the little boy, then at ViRus. Then he looked at me again.

"Have you biochecked your great-grandad, ViRus?" I asked brightly. "Charlie, this is your great-grandson!" Charlie grinned, grasped the outstretched hand and shook it. "And this is your youngest son, Bendy. Er.... Ben D. Ben. Er. He's a clone of James. You can tell them apart though. Ben's got blue eyes!" I was starting to gabble. I stopped and took a deep, calming breath.

"Well, I'll be jiggery-pokered!" said Charlie.

Christmas Day Part 2

2009-12-28T05:43:00.000-08:00

I was woken by a crash and a colourful expression from the kitchen. I assumed at first it was Charlie, tripping over the pile of children's wellies by the back door. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to see a tall, slim man wearing leather drainpipe trousers, a purple shirt and mirrored sunglasses staggering through the door carrying what looked like a cross between a guitar case and a body bag.

I glanced at Minnie. She was busy headbanging with her eyes fixed on her drum kit and so hadn't noticed a thing. No clues there as to how to respond to this intruder.

I looked at the man more closely. Purple, black and white stripey hair. Diamond nose stud. Age....difficult to tell. I felt I should know who he was. There was a tantalising sense of familiarity about him.

"Hey, Great-Grandma!" he said. "Biocheck!"

He extended his left hand. I looked at it dubiously. The fingertips were a matt, metallic blue.

"How do you do?" replied my mouth on autopilot. My right hand extended by its own volition towards my unexpected visitor.

The man rolled his eyes. "Biocheck, Great-aunt Minnie!" he yelled. Minnie nodded, extended her left hand, and they performed a well-practised finger dance together. I inferred that James has already taken her to visit her family in the twenty-second century.

"You must be Virus," I said, suddenly feeling old.

James appeared from behind his grandson. "Virus helped me bring your present in," he said, nodding towards the guitar case / body bag.

"How lovely!" I said. "Would you like a cup of tea, Virus? I'll just put the kettle on." I disappeared into the kitchen, locked the door and sat down on the pile of wellies to regain my composure.

When I had recovered enough to set a tray with teapot, cups, milk and a large plate of mince pies, I found Virus, sitting in my armchair, chatting aimiably with Minnie. I noticed that he had taken his shoes and socks off, and placed them neatly by his chair. I also noticed that he had taken his sunglasses off. His eyes glowed green in the gloom of the darkening sitting room.

"Tea, Virus?" I asked, in a surprisingly calm voice. "Er. Vincent. Vincent Russell Dunwich. Mr Dunwich?" How was I supposed to address him, I wondered. He's my great-grandson, is over seventy years old, yet he looks my age, dresses like a teenager and talks like nothing I have ever heard even in my most cheese-inspired dreams.

[To be continued]

Christmas Day Part 1

2009-12-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

Well, THAT was a Christmas that we won't forget in a hurry!

The children had set up a trip-wire to catch Father Christmas. Charlie used some very expressive language when he fell over it, which fortunately failed to wake the children.

On Christmas morning we were woken at 7:00 am to the strains of Slade’s "Merry Christmas" played at top volume through a loudspeaker system that James had rigged up. As it happens I am an early riser by nature. Charlie isn’t, so the children learned a few more colourful expressions. I got up and made the breakfast.

After breakfast we all sat down and opened our presents around the tree. James had a new webcam, which he was very pleased with and he spent much of the morning installing it on his computer. It appears to be compatible with both Skype and Ouija for Windows.

Minnie had an electronic drum kit. I noted with satisfaction that it has both a volume control and an earphone socket. She can be loud without disturbing the neighbours.

Charlie got a variable speed jiggery-poker. This is apparently a very useful bit of kit when one is building a dalek. You need it for getting the eyestalks aligned properly or something. He tried to explain but I made an excuse and went to prod the Brussels Sprouts.

I got a new hard-drive (I had filled up the old one with all audio books from librivox.org) and a Geek’s Kitchen Apron. It has twenty-seven pockets for different utensils, and a built-in jam thermometer, timer and calorie counter. James claims that Steven Hawking has one. I doubt that, but I’m prepared to believe that Professor Hawking’s mother has one.

Harry the Geek came round, played with all the children’s presents, ate Christmas lunch with us and then disappeared with Charlie to discuss eyestalks and try out the jiggery-poker. James, who had been watching the snow with gloom all week, observed with delight that it had melted, and disappeared in the direction of his workshop. Minnie settled down to bang and crash silently along with "Queen’s Greatest Hits".

I settled down on the sofa to listen to some LingQ Japanese lessons.

(Continued tomorrow)

Dunwich Family Christmas pics

2009-12-25T04:48:00.000-08:00

Pictures from Christmas morning in the Dunwich household.

The Dunwich Family Christmas Letter

2009-12-17T03:41:00.001-08:00

The Dunwich Digest: or What We Did in 2009

by Charlie Dunwich

2009 was a great year for the Dunwich family. No-one was arrested, sectioned or served with an ASBO which was quite an achievement for us!

New Year was a sad event, marked as it was by Grandpa's passing. He is still in regular contact with us, however, and seems to be enjoying his "retirement" from the world. We hear that he has enrolled on a degree course with the Open University! Nice to hear they have changed their policies on admitting post-living students.

Mary is keeping herself busy with all her LingQ activities. As well as studying German and Russian, she tells me she has started on Japanese, Celtic and Whale. One of these is probably a joke but I'm not sure which.

She also keeps busy chatting with all her students over the internet. She seems to get a lot of fun out of helping people learn English, and either she is a good tutor or people enjoy her tall stories, because they keep coming back for more.

James turned 12 this year and is now enjoying "Big School". Apart from a detention which he got for walking in circles round a dustbin (this contravenes Health and Safety regulations, we were told), he has been working hard and keeping out of trouble. He has also been keeping busy in his spare time this year, although since he built himself a working space-time machine "time" has become a very flexible concept for us. I don't suppose he tells us about a quarter of the places he visits and the people he meets! We do know that he met Alexander Graham Bell in Boston in 1876, as he recorded the first words uttered into a telephone, and gave them to Mary for a ringtone. He's as thoughtful as ever.

James has also made several trips into the twenty-second century this autumn, and has met his grandson. "Virus" (short for Vincent Rufus 812372-MD-@#Y Dunwich) is a very interesting character and he and James are like twin souls. James has learned a lot about Britain in the twenty-second century, which is sure to come in useful in his school work this year! Virus is helping him with his science project, but James refuses to give us any details because it's a "surprise". If James' former science projects are anything to go by, it won't be home-made bath salts!

Minnie turned eight this year. She has been doing very well at school and received only one suspension and a formal written warning, due to her home-made gunpowder. Fortunately she didn't get the mixture right and it didn't explode so much as hiss and fizzle and make a very nasty smell in the music room. As Minnie is one of the school's keenest guitar students, she was most affected by the fumes and ended up being sick in the school piano. That should teach her to weigh ingredients out more carefully!

I have been very productive this year too. I have continued my work on Badger Protection in the County (I've been shortlisted for the national "Badger Minder" Award, which is quite a feather in my cap!) In my spare time I have been making a Dalek. My friend and colleague Harry the Geek, who has made good progress with his mental health issues since was sectioned early in the year, has been very helpful. Harry is an electronics genius, and I am getting the hang of moulding plaster, fibre glass and (where necessary) cheese, so the work is coming along very well. We hope to have it finished in time for the Dusty Mouldings Summer Festival.

Finally, no Christmas letter would be complete without a word about our pets. Dodgson is very well. He is very fit, thanks to the regular walks the children take him on! I was worried that the sight of a dodo on a lead might cause comment in the neighbourhood, but Mary has managed to convince the neighbours that he in a Madagascan Racing Turkey. Besides, the children mostly exercise him in the grounds of the local psychiatric hospital, where the residents are used to such sights.

For his birthday James was given a hamster. Bytes is a Syrian cream female and very tame. I haven't seen her for a while, I believe she is living free range under James' bed. He assures me he cleans her out regularly every week, straight after cleaning out the dodo pen.

Hoping you and your family are all well, sane and happy,

Wishing you all the very best for 2010,

Charlie, Mary, James, Minnie, Dodgson and Bytes (wherever she is).

A new addition to the family

2009-12-15T05:59:00.000-08:00

It was one o'clock sharp when my son and his girlfriend came arrived at the back door. As I was busy scolding Charlie for showing up covered in plaster dust, I didn't pay much attention to James and Kate until I had sat down and started to eat. James and Kate tucked into their pizzas like kids who haven't eaten a square meal in hours.

"Didn't you have your picnic?" I asked.

"That was HOURS ago," answered James through a mouthful of Seven Cheeses Hot 'n Greasy.

I looked more closely at the pair. They looked tired, flushed and smug. Ah, first love, I thought. Then I looked more closely. They weren't so much flushed as....

"Sunburn?" I wondered aloud. "And your hair....it's not wet! That's odd...."

"It was summer where we went," answered James, helping himself to potato salad.

"Where did you go?" I asked, wondering if I would like the answer.

"2130," answered James after a hurried consultation with Kate.

"21:30?" I asked, glancing at the kitchen clock.

"No, the YEAR 2130," replied James with patronising calm. "It turns out the Dunwiches are still living in Dusty Mouldings. We met my grandson."

I gaped. Charlie helped himself to the tomato salad.

"He's really nice!" contributed Kate, handing me her mobile phone. I stared, bewildered, at the picture of a man. He could have been in his early forties and led an exciting youth, or in his fifties and taking good care of himself. It was hard to tell, especially with the wrap-around sunglasses, the purple, black and white striped spiky hair and the diamond nose-stud.

"Virus!" said Kate.

"Really?" I asked, still staring. James rolled his eyes. Kate smirked.

"That's his NAME," replied James in a still more patronising tone. I sighed and handed the mobile to Charlie.

It takes a lot to surprise my husband. He didn't even pause in his chewing as he studied his great-grandson's image.

"How old is he?" asked Charlie, while my brain tried to reboot.

James shrugged.

"74," answered Kate.

"He looks good on it!" said Charlie.

"He's had most of his organs replaced," said Kate with the authority of one who is top of her year in science. "Eyes, heart, liver, spleen and fingertips. He said he should live to about 300 if he avoids celery and hamsters."

"Is that your family tree project sorted out?" asked Charlie. James nodded. "And the science project too!" ha replied smugly. "Virus is going to help us with it. He's got some really cool tools. We spent all evening in his workshop."

Kate yawned. I glanced at her watch. It said "10:00".

"Why don't you two have an afternoon nap?" I suggested, my brain finally coming back online. "Kate can crash out on Minnie's bed. You'll never make it through to bedtime otherwise. Oh, and there's some aftersun cream in the bathroom cupboard. I should put some on on that sunburn if I were you."

James and Kate nodded, both yawning now, stood up rather unsteadily and made their way upstairs.

I looked at Charlie. Charlie looked at me, shrugged, and went to fetch the ice cream.

Learning kanji

2009-12-13T10:55:00.000-08:00

As both the regular readers of this blog will be aware, I have been learning Japanese and finding it hard. After much careful analysis, I have reached the conclusion that it is hard to learn because it is written all funny.

Specifically, beginners' lessons are written very funny indeed, in romaji (i.e. in latin characters). That makes the words moderately easy to pronounce but hard to look up in the dictionary, because their are so many homophones that you are bound to choose the wrong meaning half the time. Lessons written in kana are easier to pronounce but you still have the homophone problem, and you have the additional problem that Japanese people don't put spaces in between words.

But we aren't MEANT to read Japanese in kana, anymore than we are meant to read knitting patterns. Japanese people use about 2,000 kanji, which are sort of pictorial clues to what the word means. Pepper your writing with kanji, and it becomes easy to read, understand and look up in dictionaries. It doesn't matter anymore that there are not spaces between words, because the hiragana that's left in acts as a skeleton to show you where the words start and end. You just need to learn how to recognise, pronounce and translate 2,000 assorted squiggles. Not my idea of fun, but if other language obsessives can do it, so can I.

The advice I have had from other Japanese learners is: buy a book, make some flashcards, download a trainer program. I'm not going to do any of those. I use LingQ, you see. It's not that I love LingQ and can't bear to be unfaithful to it (I'm sure LingQ is broadminded enough to understand if I visit other websites from time to time), it's just that other websites have a nasty habit of not being fully compatible with LingQ. And this is irritating, because I really do love LingQ.

So this is what I'm doing. I have found a list of the most common kanji at http://nihongo.isc.chubu.ac.jp/wwkanji2k/frequencyTable.html. I am importing them, ten at a time, into LingQ using the "add a list of terms" function on the vocabulary page. Then I edit each new lingQ, adding the most common pronunciation (and, if I feel like it, a mnemonic) as the hint, the most common meaning as the meaning, and tagging as "kanji". It's a slow job, admittedly. If only we could import a data file then it would save editing 2,000 individual LingQs. Still, I wouldn't call it difficult. I can do it while watching Basil Brush, drinking a cup of tea and avoiding doing the washing up. I spend a lot of time avoiding the washing up.

Now I can do my own kanji flashcard drills, and LingQ keeps track of what I'm learning and what I've learned. I can drill English -> Japanese or Japanese -> English, shuffle the cards, use the pronunciation as a hint to the meaning or not. It's as good as any online kanji drill I've found and it also has the nice bonus that the kanji I'm learning will show up in yellow in the lessons I study, while the kanji I've learned will show up with an underline. If I want to be reminded of the meaning I can do a mouseover on the kanji in the lesson.

Now I'm just wondering, why do other people make learning kanji so hard?

Easy conversations (Japanese): Where are you from?

2009-12-11T02:28:00.001-08:00

Hanna

Kyou wa tenki ga ii desu ne.

きょうはてんきがいいですね。

今日は天気 がいいですね。

Sachiko

Chotto samui desu kedo, yoku hareteite, ii o-tenki desu ne.

ちょっとさむいですけど、よくはれていて、いいおてんきですね。

ちょっと寒いですけど、よく晴れていて、いいお天気ですね。

Amerika no fuyu mo samui desu ka？

アメリカのふゆもさむいですか？

アメリカの冬も寒いですか？

Hanna

Ee, samui desu.

えぇ、さむいです。

えぇ、寒いです。

Soreni, yoku ame ga furimasu.

それに、よくあめがふります。

それに、よく雨が降ります。

Sachiko

Hanna-san no shusshin wa amerika no dochira desu ka？

Hanna さんのしゅっしんはアメリカのどちらですか？

Hannaさんの出身はアメリカのどちらですか？

Hanna

Watashi wa Washinton-shuu no Takoma shusshin desu.

わたしはワシントンしゅうのタコマしゅっしんです。

私はワシントン州のタコマ出身です。

Sachiko

Washinton-shuu wa higashi-kaigan desu ka？

ワシントンしゅうはひがしかいがんですか？

ワシントン州は東海岸ですか？

Hanna

Iie, nishi-kaigan desu.

いいえ、にしかいがんです。

いいえ、西海岸です。

Nishi-kaigan no kita no hou ni arimasu.

にしかいがんのきたのほうにあります。

西海岸の北のほうにあります。

Sachiko

Takoma wa doko ni arimasu ka？

タコマはどこにありますか？

Hanna

Takoma wa Shiatoru no minami ni arimasu.

タコマはシアトルのみなみにあります。

タコマはシアトルの南にあります。

Shiatoru kara kuruma de 40-pun kurai desu.

シアトルからくるまで 40ぷんくらいです。

シアトルから車で 40分くらいです。

Reading Japanese:

2009-12-11T02:02:00.001-08:00

I've tried taking one of the lessons from the "Easy conversation" collection in the LingQ Japanese library, putting the romaji, hiragana and kanji versions together and adding some formatting. I've found this, although time-consuming, really takes the strain out of reading the lesson.

Get to know each other »

Hanna
Sachiko-san wa kono daigaku no gakusei desu ka？

さちこさんはこのだいがくのがくせいですか？
さちこさんはこの大学 の学生ですか？

Sachiko
Hai, sou desu.
はい、そうです。
はい、そうです。

Hanna-san wa？
Hannaさんは？

Hannaさんは？

Hanna
Watashi mo desu.
わたしもです。

私もです。

1-nen-kan, kono daigaku de Nihongo no benkyou o shimasu.
1ねんかん、このだいがくでにほんごのべんきょうをします。
1年間、この大学 で日本語の勉強 をします。

Sachiko
Sou desu ka.
そうですか。

そうですか。

Nihon no koto de wakaranai koto ga attara nandemo kiite kudasai ne.
にほんのことでわからないことがあったらなんでもきいてくださいね。

日本のことでわからないことがあったら何でも聞いてくださいね。

Hanna
Doumo arigatou gozaimasu.
どうもありがとうございます。

どうもありがとうございます。

Sachiko-san wa nan-nen-sei desu ka？
さちこさんはなんねんせいですか？

さちこさんは何年生ですか？

Sachiko
Watashi wa 3-nen-sei desu.
わたしは 3ねんせいです。
わたしは 3年生です。

Hanna
Jaa, issho desu ne.

じゃぁ、いっしょですね。

じゃぁ、一緒 ですね。

Watashi mo 3-nen-sei desu.

わたしも 3ねんせいです。

私も 3年生です。

Why is Japanese so hard?

2009-12-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

Japanese is God's way of telling me I don't know everything.

I've been struggling to learn it all year, and still haven't got through "Who is She?" A lesser woman would have given up. A greater woman would, admittedly, have made more headway. Six months of study and I can only just read the words "I don't speak Japanese".

Why has it been so hard? I can only suggest the following reasons:

1) I have little free time and many distractions
2) It is written all funny
3) The grammar is odd
4) I have been taught all my life that the Japanese are very strange indeed, impossible to understand and that it is safer not to try.

I have discovered that number 4, at least, is wrong. The Japanese are no stranger than the English, WHO ARE NOT STRANGE AT ALL (I'm glad we've cleared that up).

It IS written all funny and that alone nearly scuppered me. I would have liked to have spent the first 6 months just studying romaji, but I didn't have enough beginner texts and couldn't find a good dictionary keyed on romaji. I had to start with unspaced hiragana, which did my head in. I couldn't work out where one word stopped and another word started, so I couldn't even look words up sensibly. The funny thing about Japanese is, if you take a random two or three syllables out of a sentence and look them up, you get a definition like "The Prime Minister's favourite earwig". Probably this is also true for English. I must try it some time.

Anyway, LingQ has now included a function to add spaces to hiragana. It's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better. Also the "mouse over to see hints" function helps a lot. You don't have to be able to read a text any more, just run your mouse over it until you find a definition you like the look of, and then you can save it as a LingQ. You can flashcard and learn LingQs before you learn to read hiragana, and it's not a bad way of learning to read hiragana.

The grammar IS very different from English. There isn't a lot anyone can do about that, except to stop trying to understand the meaning of sentences when they first encounter them. And that, in my opinion, is the problem with the beginner story "Who is She?" Namely, it has a plot. This implies that you should understand it. Personally I would have done a lot better with beginner material equivalent to baby talk, like this (but in Japanese, obviously):

Hello Mr Cat!
cat
a cat
This is a cat.
Is this a cat?
Yes it is a cat!
It is my cat.
Hello Mr. cat!

That has 9 unique words, which is enough for a flashcard session for a beginner in an unknown script. There is little difficulty in working out where one word finishes and the next starts, or which is the verb. It only needs to be combined with a picture of a cat and the general meaning is instantly clear.

I know that there are some LingQers who would be patronised by such "baby content", but no-one is forcing them to study "Hello Mr. Cat!"

A regular topic of conversation on the LingQ forum is "why doesn't LingQ attract professional linguists and scare off Joe Average?" I suggest that it's because we expect Joe Average to be Joe "I'm not going to be put off by not being able to decipher a single word of lesson 1".

Enough ranting. I'm off to look the word "cat" up in Japanese. Six months and I still haven't learned it. Tchah!

James plans a picnic

2009-12-07T06:34:00.000-08:00

As both the regular readers of my blog should already know, my daughter is a Hedgehog Rampant. The Hedgehogs Rampant are the youngest section of the Knights Hospitalier, an ancient order of warrior healers who in mediaeval times sliced up their enemies and bandaged up their allies. The uniform is a tunic of knitted chain mail and a shirt with a cross on it. Accessories include a wooden sword and a first aid kit.

Minnie's latest badge was for Helping an Elderly person. I am not very pleased about this one. To earn it Minnie spent two afternoons in Grandad's shed, making illegal and suicidally dangerous fireworks with him. Grandad always likes to slip a few fireworks in the Boys Brigade guy before it goes on the bonfire. He says the guy should be given the chance to fight back. I suppose the ability to make gunpowder is a skill that Minnie could find useful later in life. She certainly will have a headstart in chemistry lessons when she gets to Big School.

On Sunday morning I sewing her badge onto her Hedgehogs' Rampant uniform while listening to LingQ lessons. Suddenly the doorbell played a startling rendition of "Jake the Peg".

It turned out to be Kate, James' girlfriend. She had brought with her a bottle of ginger beer and an enormous bag of crisps. James appeared with a sandwich box.

"We're going on a picnic," James announced, blushing beneath his freckles.

"But I'm making you pizzas for lunch!" I wailed.

"Oh, we'll be back by then!" he reassured me.

I looked at Kate and noticed that she was dripping wet. I looked out of the window.

"In that rain?" I asked. "Are you mad? Let me rephrase that. Are YOU mad, Kate?" James and Kate shrugged in unison.

"We're taking Dodgson for a walk," James said, as though that was a good enough reason for a picnic in freezing rain. "I've got his lead and his coat!" He waved a brown dog lead and a little tartan coat at me.

"If that dodo catches a cold, YOU can nurse him!" I scolded. "And if Kate catches a cold, YOU can explain it to her parents."

James nodded absent-mindedly, wriggled his feet into his trainers and led Kate out of the back door. Later I realised he hadn't taken his jacket. If he catches cold, I shall make Minnie nurse him. That'll teach him a lesson, and maybe earn her another badge at the same time.

Family matters

2009-12-04T02:40:00.000-08:00

James has a girlfriend! He has been keeping very quiet about this. I only found out because his friend Stanley told his little sister, who told mum, who told me. I decided that this was something I ought to know about, and as I haven't seen James much lately I set an ambush (using a signed photograph of David Tennant for bait) and interrogated him about her.

It turns out that he has been "going steady" with Kate from his science class, for four weeks now. Kate is Cool. Kate has ginger hair and freckles. Kate has three older brothers. Kate has "got" Facebook. Kate's favourite subject is biology. Kate knows six different ways to disable an opponent (seven if the opponent is male). Clearly, James is very taken with Kate.

Kate is, apparently, also very taken with James. As the strangest boy in school James has a certain cult status, and the girls are apparently fighting over him. He takes her out with him on walkies with Dodgson in the grounds of the psychiatric hospital. Kate thinks that James is Cool because he owns the twenty-first century's only dodo. Presumably he has told her about his space-time travel module. I really hope he hasn't told her that he has got OuiJa, and an address book full post-living etherbuddies. I don't want him to frighten her off. It makes such a nice change to see him hanging out people his own age - and living ones at that.

I also asked him how his homework was going. He said he was working on his family tree. I made him show it to me. On a piece of A4 paper he had drawn a diagram showing himself, his little sister and his parents.

"Is that it?" I asked. James shrugged. "What about your grandparents?"

"Okay," he conceded. "I suppose I could add them in too."

"What about your great-grandparents?" I continued. "What about great-aunt Fanny?"

"Great-aunt who?" asked James.

I tried to think of a way to describe my aunt that didn't sound callous or cynical. I didn't manage it.

"Never mind," I answered at last. "You won't remember her, and she's not a direct relative. I should leave her out if I were you. And I don't, I really don't want you OuiJa'ing her. Stick to the Dunwich side of the family. Your father's family are all dotty, but they're rather sweet."

At least the Dunwiches haven't done anything that would look disturbing in a school project, I thought to myself. I want so badly to keep my children's hearts wrapped up warm and snug and kept well away from the cold spot that still lurks inside me. Sometimes family memories are best left unshared.

Study Opportunities for the Post-living Learner

2009-12-03T02:07:00.000-08:00

It is time for me to take an interest in James' homework. Last week's Parents' Evening had been humiliating even by my standards. Under pressure from James' form teacher (who is no fool, unfortunately for me) I had been forced to admit that I had no idea if James had started any of his project work yet. Mr Al Khali had suggested very politely that, in the interests of Health and Safety, James might need adult supervision. As there is no appeal against Health and Safety regulation, I went on a hunt for James.

I found him lying under his bed reading “This Was Your Life: biographies of 1,000 really interesting Dead People”.

"Have you started your project work yet?" I asked him.

"Mmmph," he answered. "I've picked a famous historical person to research."

He handed me the book. I looked at the open page.

"Francis Harry Compton Crick," I read. "1916 - 2004. Co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule."

"He found the Secret of Life," replied James smugly.

"Men say a lot of daft things in the pub," I countered. I looked more closely at the pencil notes in the margin. I read a OuiJa for Windows user name. Oh dear.

"I hope you haven't been bothering Doctor Crick," I said sternly.

"He's really nice!" answered James defensively. "He's answered all my questions and told me a lot of things I didn't know. I think he gets a bit bored Over There."

"Well, show a bit of respect," I fretted. "Just because he's d... er, retired, it doesn't mean his time isn't valuable. He may be very busy." Doing what, I didn't know and didn't like to think about. I've never been very comfortable with the idea of death, and the fact that my son has provided me with compelling evidence of an Afterlife hasn't made me feel a lot better about it.

James nodded absent-mindedly. "Grandpa says hello!" he added as an afterthought.

My stomach lurched. I'd had an uncomfortable relationship with my father when he was alive. I wasn't sure how to handle post-mortem communications from him.

"H-how's he doing?" I managed finally. "Is he keeping busy?" I've heard the worst part of life after death is dealing with all the unaccustomed leisure time.

"He's taking a course in Philosophy," James answered.

"How?" I wondered.

"Distance Learning with the Open University," my son replied.

Blimey, the O.U. are getting really inclusive these days. I suppose even adacemics have to move with the times and embrace the Information Era.

"How's he paying for it?" I asked. As far as I knew, there was no provision in his will for post-mortem expenditure. Once you are buried, you tradionally stopped incurring expenses. That's why they cancel your credit cards when you die.

"Dunno," shruggged James. The world of finances, beyond saving up for his next Doctor Who figure or piece of modelling cheese, are still a mystery to James.

I shrugged back, and said "yeah, whatever!" for good measure (I like to think I can communicate with the young) and went to put the kettle on.

Yet More Slogans for LingQ

2009-12-01T03:41:00.000-08:00

LingQ: for language nuts!
LingQ: it's not for softies!
A LingQ account is for life, not just til your next holiday in Majorca!
LingQ: because there is life beyond GCSE French!
LingQ: it's like a university course you can study in your pyjamas.
LingQ: for people who seriously love learning languages.
LingQ: for people who are serious about language learning
LingQ: serious about language learning.
LingQ: natural language learning
LingQ: We Love Languages, or
LingQ: We Live Languages
LingQ: Language Learning is Child's Play!
LingQ: Passionate about Languages
LingQ: Love Learning Languages Natuarally
LingQ: Love Learning Languages on-Line

Take a look at this Video Podcast for British English Learners: Luke's English Podcast

James acts oddly

2009-11-25T08:47:00.000-08:00

I had a phone call from the Welfare Officer at James' school. I had been expecting it. After all, it was only a matter of time.

"We are very concerned about James' odd behaviour," she said.

"Oh really?" I answered innocently. "What's he been doing?"

"The Headteacher found him in the playgroup yesterday walking round a dustbin," she said. "Just walking round and round. He was making himself really dizzy. A whole crowd of boys had gathered to watch him. The Head was concerned that a fight might break out, so she went out to ask him what he was doing. He answered that he was trying to set a new world record for walking around a dustbin. She took him into her office and had Stern Words with him. It contravenes Health and Safety you know."

That Health and Safety legislation must be really comprehensive. It was hard to think of a suitable answer. I did my best however.

I explained that James was a benign schizotype, which means that he has a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. I explained that, when his brain is overloaded with tiredness, stress, noise or excitement he loses "situational awareness" and enters a sort of dream state. If he has lost the plot enough to be trying to lose consciousness then he is presumably very worried about something. The Head then giving him a telling off could make him hallucinate, forget where he is or imagine that she is a demon or a bowl of tulips. Far better, in my opinion, to sit him down somewhere quiet, give him a glass of water and then calmly and quietly ask him what is the matter.

I regretted not having mentioned James' weird tendencies before to the school, but explained that I am fed up of teachers, support staff and even doctors thinking that I have delusional tendencies. It tends to work out better if people realise that James is odd, and then come to me for help puzzling him out.

His last teacher at Primary School understood him very well. She used to send him on imaginary errands around the school at about 2pm, which woke him up a bit. She realised that otherwise he started seeing fairies and ghosts at around 2:30. Even so she didn't get it right every time. She didn't realise that, once his brain overloaded, he lost the power of speech and so couldn't tell her he was losing his grip on reality. When he was compelled to go to a school disco he ended up crouched in the boys' toilets with his eyes screwed shut and his fingers in his ears. His teacher had no idea that anything was wrong at the time and afterwards he felt too ashamed to tell her.

Despite my lack of faith (we schizotypes are mildly paranoid) the Welfare Officer at Big School showed a great deal of concern. She would like to get James recognised as requiring extra support (I think it means extra funding for the Welfare Office) and so suggested that they refer him to a psychologist. I answered that if they could find a psychologist that was up to speed with schizotypy I would eat James' shorts, but I would be very happy to be proved wrong. Even if he can't get on the Officially Odd list, it would help him a lot if his teachers could be educated in ways to deal with an overloading schizotype. They don't get training in dealing with hallucinating students.

Project time is here again!

2009-11-23T02:22:00.000-08:00

James seems to have settled into Big School very well, to my immense relief. Being now twelve years old and in Year 7, he has started in the local Secondary School. This is now called "The Dusty Mouldings Science and Technology Business Enterprise Centre", which is a fancy way of saying it has got industry sponsorship. The upside is that the school has been given a lot of money to spend on science equipment and trips to industrial processing plants. The downside is that the teachers all use business jargon and act like junior management.

Still, they are very well organised. James has brought home a booklet detailing all the homework he should be doing this year. I don't really understand much of it. He has to learn about brainstorming, project planning, milestone setting and quality assurance. For someone who struggles to remember to eat his sandwiches each day they may be expecting too much in the way of task management from him.

Some of the assignments I can understand. By the end of the school year he must:

research his family tree;
observe the growth of a seed;
use the internet to communicate with someone who does not live in our town;
research the life of a famous historical person;
demonstrate that he can use a library;
study some theoretical aspect of reproduction;
observe and record the play of young children;
consider and resolve an ethical dilemma;
learn 250 words in a new language;
draw pictures of himself as an baby, an adult and an old man;
describe a place far from his home town;
design and make a set of clothes;
write a play with a non-linear plot;
design and build a device that can move about by itself and make simple decisions;
demonstrate that he can manage a complex project.

"That'll keep you busy for the rest of the year!" I remarked.

"Not necessarily!" answered James smugly, his eyes never leaving the TV screen.

"But you're supposed to spend at least 20 hours on each project," I reminded him. "15 projects means 300 hours work. That's about an hour a day."

"Not if I make one project do for all subjects," answered James.

"I'm not having you cutting corners on your homework!" I scowled. "Promise me you'll really make an effort. I want to to make a real impression on your new teachers."

"I think you can count on that!" muttered James. "They won't have seen anything like this, I promise you!"

I'm afraid he may be right. It might be simpler if I lose the homework leaflet and forget I ever saw it.

The Littlest Doctor

2009-11-22T02:24:00.000-08:00

Minnie played her guitar for Charlie. The piece she is learning appears to consist only of the note E played several times over. Charlie was unimpressed.

"It's teaching her to read music," I told him.

This impressed him even less. To Charlie, music is something that flows from your fingers, through your ears, into the depths of your very soul. Ink and paper have nothing to do with it.

He disappeared up into the loft. I hoped he might be having a tidy-up, or getting a head-start on finding the Christmas decorations, but no. He came back down holding his old guitar, a black and silver electric Cumulonimbus with customised pick-ups.

Charlie used to play lead guitar in a band in his youth. He called himself The Doctor. All the members of the band called themselves The Doctor, with the result that the name of the band varied from "The Three Doctors", "The Five Doctors" and even "The Ten Doctors" as members came and went. I never heard them, but apparently they were very loud. Simon Cowell went to one of their earliest gigs, and had to be taken home and put to bed in a dark room.

Charlie spent the afternoon teaching Minnie to go ChungaChungaCunga ChungaChungaChunga ChungaChungaChunga ChungaChungaChunga to Led Zeppelin with the pickups turned up to eleven. I had one of my headaches and had to lie in a dark room until tea-time.

It seems to have fired Minnie's enthusiasm for the guitar. And although it's hard on my nerves, I must admit it's the LingQ way. Minnie will have a lot of fun playing the guitar badly while she learns, almost unconsciously, to play well. I just can't imagine what Mrs. Sponge will have to say at Minnie's next lesson, when instead of "Fairy Footsteps on the E-string" Minnie is going ChungaChungaChunga along with Led Zep.

With any luck Mrs Sponge won't notice the writing on the back of the Cumulonimbus either. It seems that Charlie got every musician he ever met to sign his guitar, and some of the language they used are way beyond Key Stage 2 vocabulary. Some of them were even people I've heard of. If those Sex Pistols autographs are genuine, it could be worth a fortune. Charlie would be furious if his old guitar got confiscated and put up for sale on eBay.

Give me the moonlight, give me the monster....

2009-11-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

I'm a great fan of H. P. Lovecraft. Libraries don't stock his books these days, either because they are out of fashion or because they give the librarians the willies. Fortunately I now have an ebook reader, so I can read creepy horror stories anywhere, anytime, in any language. As long as I can find the ebooks, that is. Thank the Old Ones for the internet!

As Lovecraft died in the thirties his works are in the public domain, so I can download his ebooks freely and legally onto my ebook reader. The original English versions at least. In other languages it is more tricky. The French translator was longer-lived than the luckless Lovecraft himself, so the French versions are still in copyright. Unless you find a public-domain fan translation.

As to the German translations, who knows when the translator died? And what of? German public-domain ebooks seem to be hard to find in general, I suspect the spelling reforms are to blame. Any book more than about thirty years old is difficult to read because a lot of words are now spelled wrong. It's easier to read something modern.

And then there is the problem of finding audio books. These are copyrighted and so shouldn't be in the public domain. Unless they are read by volunteers in a public-domain project, like Librivox (www.librivox.org). You can find any number of free audio books in French and English, if you know where to look.

You can also find any number of Russian ebooks and audio books on the internet. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to buy them. Direct download websites are usually region restricted. If you don't have a Russian IP then you can't buy a file download from a Russian website. You have to stick to free downloads, which are not restricted, although I doubt if most of them are legal.

The Russians just don't seem to differentiate between legal and illegal uses of the internet. When I search for free reading I keep ending up on torrent sites, which show me adverts for services I don't want and would rather my kids don't see. The last time I looked for Anna Karenina in PDF I nearly ordered a 23-year old medical student from Moscow State University by mistake. She turned out to be surprisingly cheap. I wonder if I could hire her to read me Russian literature?

I take an interest in my children's education

2009-11-20T00:59:00.000-08:00

Minnie has started learning the guitar. I don't quite know how it happened. Apparently she passed an audition or something. The first I knew or it was when she came home with a form for me to sign and a demand for £30. Then she mentioned that she would need a guitar.

I have lent her my old Spanish guitar. As I never got very far learning to play it myself, it would be lovely to see my daughter playing it. She has a book, "Simple Tunes for Tiny Fingers". I will watch her progress with interest.

I have reached a negotiated settlement with James about French. French is acceptable, apparently, as long as it is about science fiction. A quick search on YouTube came up with several clips of his favourite TV show, "Doctor Who", dubbed into French. I also found a French "Doctor Who" fan site. James spent half an hour watching all the clips. Result!

I was peeved, however, to hear him reading out the French subtitles. He had been taught that French is a written language rather than a spoken one, so he only thinks he is learning it if he reads it out loud. As he has not grasped the principles of pronunciation yet, he reads it as though it were badly-misspelled English. I will have words with his French teacher when I see her. And I won't mispronounce them either.

I am shocked by my son's bad language learning

2009-11-19T00:59:00.000-08:00

I heard the most unpleasant piece of French I've heard in a long time the other day. What was worse, it came out of James' mouth. He has been learning French for an indeterminate amount of time (they just played at in in junior school, as far as I can tell) and he is two years behind where the government say he should be. Along with the rest of his class, I presume.

His French teacher is clearly of the old school. She started in lesson 1 on the gender of nouns. Then they progressed to topic-based learning, with written exercises and written homework.

The sentence that offended me so strongly was "Jay unn hamsteuh ett derks pwassonz."

"French doesn't sound anything like that!" I howled in protest.

"Whatever!" shrugged James.

I'm not standing for this. I stood over him until he logged onto LingQ and downloaded the first part of "Who is She?"

"Listen to it!" I commanded. "You don't have to understand it, you don't have to repeat it. Just listen to it. Over and over until you can hear the patterns. You wouldn't try and learn a piece of music from reading the notes and humming, would you?"

James protested about this cruel and unusual punishment (listening to French is soooo gay!) but he did it, at least while I was watching. Whether he'll do anything when I'm not there with that "I'm on a mission to stamp out bad language learning" look on my face is doubtful. I'm swimming against the tide of centuries of bad French teaching here.

Being cheeky to Sir

2009-11-18T01:43:00.000-08:00

A new school year, a new set of teachers to break in.

Minnie is now in Mr Custardcream's class. Mr Custardcream is my age and is surprisingly cool. He went on Tiswas as a kid (ask a middle-aged person what this was) and used to know Ozzy Osbourne (ask an old person who this is).

Minnie is very taken with Mr Custardcream. She has started answering the register in Japanese, which he takes with good humour. She cheeks him in French, and has also tried a bit of German out on him.

Minnie seems to have more aptitude for foreign languages than James, even though I can't altogether approve of her motivation. Still, it's the LingQ way and I don't want to discourage her. This could be the start of a life-long love affair - hopefully with language learning rather than with Mr Custardcream.

Does anyone know where I can find a source of beginner-level sassiness in French, German and Japanese suitable for an eight-year old?

LingQ inspires the young

2009-11-18T01:34:00.000-08:00

The other night I watched James working at his computer with a very determined look on his face.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"It's for keyboard club," he answered. "I've found the sheet music for the Doctor Who theme music and I'm going to learn to play it."

"I didn't know you could read music!" I said, impressed.

"That's what we learn at keyboard club," he answered. "They want us to play really dull, easy stuff. I'm not having that. I want to learn to play the Doctor Who music, so that's what I'm going to do. It looks a bit hard, but if I keep at it, I'll keep getting better."

"Wow!" I said. "That's showing real motivation. Well done!"

"It's the LingQ way!" he answered, blushing with pride.

If only I could get him to show the same interest in learning languages. Still, it's a start. He has internalised the notion that if he learns what he wants to learn, as hard as he can, then he will excel in school and impress his teachers without having made any effort to do so.

Since he started in Big School he has had a detention every week (for disorganisation, failing to hand in his homework and generally not doing what the teachers expect him to do) and is performing in his favourite subjects at a level several years ahead of his class.

His teachers don't know what to make of him. I do. He is learning the LingQ way.

Some LingQ tag lines

2009-11-15T01:25:00.000-08:00

In the time it took me to fall asleep last night my brain went a bit crazy and came up with a load more LingQ tag lines. Maybe we could organise a marketing campaign with billboard hoardings and T-shirts?

LingQ: Because the French are even sexier when you understand what they're saying.
LingQ: Because Germans DO have a sense of humour.
LingQ: Because the British AREN'T living in the past.
LingQ: Because Americans DO understand irony.
LingQ: Because the Canadians ARE smart.
LingQ: Because the Russians AREN'T always gloomy.
LingQ: Because you might want to watch TV abroad.
LingQ: Because politics is more interesting when you understand what the other guys say about you.
LingQ: Because Manga is cooler in the original.
LingQ: Because you've got to be hooked on something.
LingQ: Because it's not illegal, immoral or fattening.
LingQ: Because your high school teachers were WRONG about you!
LingQ: Because it impresses your kids' teachers.
LingQ: Because your parents don't understand you.
LingQ: Because it makes your neighbours think you're a spy.
LingQ: Because if a baby can do it, then so can you!
LingQ: Because it increases your chances of asking a millionaire to marry you.
LingQ: Because your DVD user manual is in Chinese.
LingQ: Because foreign TV commercials are really stupid!
LingQ: Because your Granny speaks more languages than you.
LingQ: Because THEY don't want you to know THE TRUTH!

Learning Chinese with LingQ: No knowledge

2009-11-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

Well....ok. I haven't actually started on Chinese yet. In LingQ terminology I'm a "no-knowledger". I'm thinking about it. I bookmarked some web sites recommended by Chinese learners, I've had a look at the LingQ Chinese library and listened to a couple of lessons. I've been lurking in the LingQ Chinese forum, listening to what the other students have to say. One day I will be sitting at my computer, feeling a little bit bored, and I'll think "Hey! I'm going to learn Chinese!" And I'll know where to start, and what to do.

I'm confident that, when I do start, it will look like "squigglesquigglesquiggle" and sound like "blurblurblurblur" for (pick a number from 1 to 10) weeks, and then it will, gradually, start to make sense. I imagine that Chinese grammar will seem utterly insane to me, but I won't spend time trying to work it out, and after a while, the sentence patterns will work their way into my brain the way the patterns in a piece of music do. And if I have any questions, I know a bunch of very sensible people who can help me out. Some speak Chinese. Some are Chinese. I'm in good hands.

LingQ: Because Eurovision is better when you understand the words.

Learning multiple languages on LingQ

2009-11-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

People sometimes ask me how I manage to learn several languages at once on LingQ. The questions puzzle me. I don't do anything special. It's more about what I don't do.

I don't spend time learning to conjugate verbs or decline nouns. If you hear enough of a language, you get the hang of how it goes. The common patterns anyway. If a pattern isn't common enough for you to encounter regularly, it isn't important enough to spend time learning.

I don't spend time learning the keyboard layout for each language. It's too confusing. I use the extended UK keyboard, which gives me my usual QWERTY layout, plus French and German special characters if you press several keys at once. For Russian I have a ЯШЕРТЫ phonetic mapping, which means if I type a word how it sounds it comes out near enough. The spell checker will pick up the odd typo as well as all my spelling mistakes! For typing Japanese in Windows you can type romaji with your usual Latin keyboard layout, then it does some sort of computer magic and turns it into hiragana or kanji. For typing Chinese.....well, I'll worry about that later.

I don't spend time working on my pronunciation. I just try and copy what I have heard and the result is usually close enough. I really don't care if I speak Japanese with a southern English accent. In fact, I might do it on purpose just for fun!

I don't spend time learning vocabulary. I must have ten thousand unlearned LingQs, and I'll never have time to flashcard them all. I just flick through my vocabulary lists, upping the status of the words which I can remember from all my listening.

I don't spend time searching for the meanings of words. Too many words: too little time. The most common words I already know. The next most common words are known by other LingQ students, which means I can just select one of the hints which show up on a mouse-over. Slightly uncommon words I have to look up on the connected online dictionaries. And if Babylon or Google Dictionary don't have the translation, then the word is too obscure and I lose interest.

I don't spend time writing assignments. Maybe I should but I'm kind of lazy and definitely pressed for time. I know my speaking is improving because my various tutors tell me so. If my spelling is poor, well I can worry about that further down the line. I at least know how to use a spell-checker.

I don't have regular tutorial sessions. I did try but it made my life too complicated, what with all the tutors I talk to. Now I book up a whole month at a time, one-on-one sessions with tutors I fancy talking to, or joining interesting looking conversations. Often I run out of points and can't talk to anyone for a fortnight. Taking a break doesn't seem to harm the learning process.

I don't worry about the fact that I'm not perfect. I haven't time. Let's face it, there are always going to be a billion people who speak Chinese better than me. Better to accept that I speak bad Chinese and listen to a lesson instead.

I don't worry about what level I am at. I used to, I admit. I have spent hours studying the different levels and tests and vocabulary lists. If I had spent that time listening to Russian.....well, you get the idea. Unless you need to pass a certain exam to get a job, you might just as well call yourself an intermediate and stop bothering your head about it. Your tutor will be able to tell how good you are after 5 minutes of talking to you, and for everyone else, it doesn't really matter.

So there you are. Embrace your natural laziness, use it constructively and you will find yourself going further than you ever thought possible.

LingQ: because film subtitles mistranslate all the best bits!

Learning Japanese with LingQ: Beginner level

2009-11-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

I started learning Japanese with LingQ this year, mainly to see if it could be done. It's supposed to be awfully hard, what with all those Chinese characters. I just couldn't believe that the "relax and have fun!" methodology of LingQ was sufficiently rigourous to enable you to learn Japanese with no initial knowledge.

The first few weeks were a bit baffling. I couldn't read a word of it. I had to save words that looked like "squiggle" to me. In the definition box I had to write how to pronounce it as well as what it meant. Which meant that, when reviewing the words I was learning, I largely ignored the "word" box and just read the "meaning" box. I kept telling myself I should sit down and learn the hiragana and katakana writing systems, but in the end I never got round to it.

Meanwhile I was listening to audio clips which, being spoken at more-or-less normal speaking speed, sounded like "blurblurblurblurblur" to me. I couldn't see what I was supposed to get out of the exercise.

I was making progress though. I could tell by my LingQ activity score. I gained points for every word I saved, along with its meaning, even though the word was just an unreadable squiggle to me. I kept reviewing the "squiggles", and found that every time, I remembered a couple of them. I put their status up every time I recognised them, and my activity score kept climbing.

Six months later, I can read most Japanese words in hiragana. I can read a few of the simpler kanji too, though I can't always remember how to say them. I know a few hundred words, can recognise them when spoken (it doesn't sound like "blurblurblurblur" anymore) and some of them I can even spell. In hiragana.

In fact, after six months of what seems like just messing about, I can understand Japanese as well as I could understand Russian when I joined LingQ. Without attempting to learn the writing system. Without learning how to conjugate the verbs. Without studying flashcards. I spent two years with Russian trying to understand how the language "worked", and now it turns out, you don't need to!

LingQ: spelled wrong on purpose.

Learning Russian with LingQ: Lower Intermediate

2009-11-14T05:39:00.001-08:00

I joined LingQ last year in order to learn Russian. I had spent two years trying to teach myself, using a textbook and whatever lessons I could find on the internet. I learned about grammar, and could read (but not pronounce)a few hundred words. I couldn't understand any spoken Russian, and struggled to read it.

The lessons in the LingQ library have been brilliant. I've worked my way through about 100 of them so far, created thousands of LingQs, and learned about a third of them. I've worked hard on it. Now I can get the general idea of what a lesson or a podcast is about on the first hearing, although I need to chew my way through it with a dictionary to understand it properly. I still read Russian only slowly, although I can pronounce it quite well.

I do have conversations with the Russian tutors from time to time. The time I spent learning grammar rules have had very little impact on my ability to speak. If I had spent that time on listening to LingQ lessons instead, I would probably be fluent by now. As it is, I keep having to drop back into English to say "how do I say....?"

I hope that, in another six months and 50 more LingQ lessons, I'll be able to listen to audio books. Then I will create my own lessons from the ebook versions and work through them. Until then, there's plenty in the LingQ library to choose from. And strangely enough, I find that you pick up grammar rules without really trying if you hear enough examples.

LingQ: because foreigners DON'T understand you if you shout!

Learning French with LingQ: Upper Intermediate level

2009-11-13T04:45:00.000-08:00

I'll be the first to admit my French isn't brilliant. I did five years in high school, in the days when it was compulsory in the UK, and it was neither taught nor learned with any great enthusiasm. Since then I haven't used it in twenty-five years. I did once try a French evening class, but nearly died of boredom while conjugating a type 2 verb.

So I don't do French classes. I do read thrillers, and listen to simple podcasts. When I read a book I import it into LingQ and use it to create my own lessons. I go through the story carefully, looking up all the words I don't know, and adding them to my vocabulary list. Every week or so I read through my the list of words and find that, without conscious effort, I now know some of them.

I like to have discussions with the friendly and charming French tutors, and it amazes me to find I can actually speak quite fluently. I get muddled up with verb tenses, and sometimes I have to have three tries at a word before I pronounce it right.

In the last year I have improved from understanding only simple, slowly spoken French to understanding real French in podcasts and audio books. I can read Verne or Dumas, although I have to read some sentences over and over. In another year I hope to be able to listen to most French in "real time" (like the radio, where you can't pause and rewind) and understand most of it. I hope to improve my pronunciation. I might even get the hang of the subjunctive.

I really never thought I would be able to improve my French to the level where I could actually use it, and to do it without having to conjugate any more type 2 verbs is fantastic!

LingQ: because talking to foreigners is fun!

Learning German with LingQ: Advanced level

2009-11-13T01:33:00.000-08:00

My German's already pretty good. I've been working on it for years. I can usually understand what natives are saying to me and each other, only needing to ask them to explain the odd phrase. I speak with an English accent and may get the word order wrong, but as I'm not a diplomat, teacher or spy I can live with that.

So I'm not going to take German lessons. My pride wouldn't stand it. Instead I listen to German podcasts, read stories in German, follow German blogs. Now and then I take a few web articles or a few chapters of a book and create my own LingQ articles from them. I skim through them using an on-line dictionary. LingQ tells me which words are new (in this case it is words which are new to me on LingQ, the chances are I have met them elsewhere). Some words and phrases I decide to learn, because they really are new, or I have only a rough idea of their meaning, or it's a good phrase that I want to remember (Ein Ring, sie zu knechten! Ahem.) All the other words I mark as known, so my LingQ Known words score goes up pretty rapidly, with little effort from me.

Now and then I look through my list of created LingQs. I don't put much effort into learning new words. On the contrary, I usually keep the word "on the back burner" until I have met it two ot three times, in different situations. By then it will usually have worked its way into my memory all by itself, and I just have to mark it as known.

When I feel like it, I spend 1000 points on a chat with a German tutor. We talk about anything we feel like, books we're read, films we like. Sometimes we talk in German about another language we are both studying, say French. And I get a conversation report at the end, which I may (or may not, I'm pretty lazy) study to learn some new words and phrases.

You really can't call it work. It's just bookkeeping, keeping track of words I have learned, and the words that are, without me trying, working their way into my brain. It also means hanging out with some very nice German-speaking people.

And the results? A year ago I could only understand spoken German pieces if they were read clearly and carefully. Now I can listen to the radio, watch TV, listen to podcasts on history and science, even get the jokes on comedy podcasts. And I now speak, still with an English accent and the odd bit of dodgy word order, on a much wider range of subjects. It's like having taken a year's university course without actually having the bother of attending any lessons or doing any homework.

LingQ helps bad language users to speak it better.

LingQ: setting goals, meeting targets

2009-11-12T01:28:00.000-08:00

When I first joined LingQ my goal was simple but vague: I just wanted to be able to speak Russian. I wasn't sure if I could, so setting that goal was a big deal for me. I wasn't sure whether I was smart enough, how long it would take, how much it would cost, how hard it would be, whether my somewhat chaotic lifestyle could accommodate a long-term learning plan.

A year later, I know better.

Sure I'm smart enough! If you can switch on a computer then you have the brains to learn a language. My little boy can do both and he's still in nappies.

It needn't cost anything. LingQ is about people helping each other to learn. You don't even have to buy Steve Kaufmann's book.

It takes (give or take) 1 000 hours to become fluent in a language.

It's actually pretty easy, unless you try and make it hard. You just listen to stuff and read stuff and then you realise you have learned some new words.

As for my freeform lifestyle, I have a computer in my living room, an MP3 player in my pocket and an eBook reader in my handbag. Whenever I have a spare 10 minutes when my ears, eyeballs or fingers aren't being used for something else, I can do some reading or some listening or some vocabulary reviewing. Although I have very little quality time to spare, I have two or three hours a day of spare odd minutes, on the bus, at the school gate, eating breakfast or having a bath. It doesn't matter whether you do more listening than reading, or more reading than reviewing vocabulary. It all goes into your brain, and your brain joins it all together while you are thinking about something quite different. (I've started dreaming in Kanji, now that's weird!)

If you cast your eyeballs to the column on the right you will see that I'm now working on 5 languages at once. My goal is to become proficient enough at each that I can read a newspaper, listen to a radio show, watch a TV documentary. I figure that's about 40 000 known words and 1 000 hours study per language, and as you can see I'm getting there. It might take a couple of years, it might take a bit longer (I quite fancy Arabic and Spanish too). But I know I can do it, I can afford to do it, and it's fun. I also know a lot of people who have done it before me.

LingQ: because we can't ALL be crazy!

Why I use LingQ to learn languages

2009-11-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

Steve suggests we create some videos for LingQ's YouTube group LingQ Plaza http://www.youtube.com/group/lingqplaza. I have never done a video before, so I'll write some words here and use the best ones for a script.

I joined LingQ in July 2008. I had been trying to learn Russian and was getting frustrated. I had spent a lot of time reading books, but none of it helped me to actually understand a piece of Russian! I found I was spending more and more time trawling the internet, looking for sites which could help me.

But I'm a tricky customer to please. I don't want to pay any money, for anything. I want well-thought out guidance from people who really understand about language learning. I don't want to be bored, at all, ever. So I don't like sites which tell me to read dull news articles or the classics. I don't do poetry. I do vampire stories, rock music (DDT rule!) and articles about the paranormal. I don't like sites that try to sell me sex in any form (I really can't use any more Russian mail-order brides) and I don't want to be encouraged to download illegal files.

I happened upon LingQ. It was exactly what I was looking for, audio files with transcripts, a lot of them, with on-line dictionaries so you can look up the words you don't understand and save them in your own on-line vocabulary list. I also really liked the fact that the system kept track of how many words you had learned and how many words you knew, so for the first time I had some indicator of my progress. Best of all, I liked that I could use my own material (Dracula!) to create my own LingQ lessons.

I like the people too. I was impressed right from the start that a lot of LingQ members are linguists. These are people who seriously love language learning, and have put a lot of thought into how best to do it. I have learned more about the learning process from hanging out in the forum than I ever learned in a class.

I hate spending money. But I do have a paying account on LingQ now, it's worth it because I get feedback on my progess from a lot of friendly and helpful tutors. It's a lot of fun. And I haven't been bored, not ever. And I haven't read any poetry either.

LingQ: because it keeps you off the streets and out in the big wide world.

New gadget helps me study languages

2009-09-05T07:20:00.000-07:00

I have got a fantastic new toy! Did I say toy? I meant study aid. (My husband might be reading this.) It's an ebook reader. With it you can download free books from the internet, or create your own content from news feeds, e-mails, drafts of your own work. Anything you can copy and paste into Word can go onto your ereader in just a few seconds. If you get stuck you can even buy e-books from an e-book website.

My husband doesn't see what's so great about this. He says: what's so hard about reading a book made out of paper? You can read them for free in the library. Perfectly true, however this being England we are restricted to reading in English. And that's a problem for me, because I am a member of LingQ, an internet-based group of passionate language lovers. Some of us like to read in three or more foreign languages. Those living in big, multicultural cities can get lots of stuff to read in foreign languages. Lucky old them!

I enjoy reading novels in French and German and Russian, but they are hard to find in an average town inEngland. I get German books mail-order from Germany, French books mail-order from France and have given up on buying from Russia because of all the currency complications. When I get a new novel it's very exciting, when I get to the last chapter I start worrying if I'll have anything to read once I've finished it.

That's why the ereader makes such a difference. With a computer, an internet connection and a bit of cable I can have pretty much anything I like in electronic form. It can handle a wide range of file formats, and can display about twenty different languages, even Chinese. Since it's made by a Chinese company perhaps that's not surprising, but Japanese products sold here rarely support Japanese.

My reader has a six-inch screen and is about the size of a DVD case, so it fits in my handbag just fine. There is a choice of fonts and font sizes (towards the end of the day I like to switch to larger print). The battery is replaceable and a charge can last for weeks. I haven't filled up the internal memory yet, not by a long way, but when I do I can add a 4 Gigabyte SD card. That should hold a few thousand more books.

It even plays mp3s. This is particularly useful if you aren't so good at reading. I can have the audiobook and the type version of the same book in Russian, and can switch between listening to and reading the same material. (LingQ students will see the appeal of this.)

My ereader is called the Hanlin V3 and is sold around the world under various names, including BeBook, Pixelar and Aztak. I got it on eBay from Pixelar, the (only?) UK distributors. I hear that my favourite bookshop, Blackwells (http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/welcome.jsp), have started selling it too, so if you want you can go to an actual shop to buy one.

This is the Wikipedia article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlin_eReader

and this is what those useful people at MobileRead have to say about it:

http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/HanLin_eBook

Another nice point for LingQers, it's really easy to copy and paste my lessons, my "LingQs of the Day" and even my entire vocabulary lists into .RTF files and put them on my e-book reader. Now I can do my LingQ studying off-line almost as well as online!

Keeping in Contact

2009-01-21T02:32:00.000-08:00

I didn’t sleep well last night, for the usual reason.

I was in my Mother’s sitting room. She was sitting eating mince pies and discussing Russian cinema with her neighbours. Here we go again, I thought. Without lucid dreaming my nightlife would be dull.

I excused myself politely and slipped out of the house. It was a dark, starry night. I could hear the sea rather than see it. A cold wind was blowing and I wondered why I could never remember to wrap up warmly in my dreams.

I dream this dream every week. I know the way by now.

I crossed the sands to the island. At high tide it’s cut off by the sea so it’s pretty foolish to walk to it at night without even a torch. I wouldn’t like to get stuck here and have to wait until I have this dream again to get back to shore.

From the shore the island is a good quarter of a mile across wet sand. I frowned. Now it was a short walk on a sunny day, my bare toes warmed by the sand between them. What happened to the night and the wind? Who moved my island?

I reached the island and continued with caution. Those ruins have been in my dreams for sixteen years, I know every inch of their gloomy, foreboding shape. Grey masonry falling apart, the mortar crumbling, the whole structure seems to be rotting like a bad tooth.

Tonight, however, was different. I saw that the castle had been painstakingly, even lovingly restored. Now a warm biscuit colour, the stonework had been carefully repointed and new walls and roofs added. The castle looked habitable now, cosy even. I walked round to the back, to the part you can’t see from the shore. Now it looked like a house, with a path of pink granite, through a neatly laid-out front garden with hardy shrubs in pots on either side of the door. It looked like the National Trust had ganged up with Ground Force to give my dream a thorough going-over.

Further around the back of the island is a little beach with rock pools. As a child I could stare into them for hours and watch the crabs and the anemones. Someone was sitting on an a granite boulder, his trousers rolled up to his knees, dabbling his toes in the water and watching a little wooden boat bobbing up and down on the end of its string. He looked tired and slightly faded, but content, as if he had come home at last after a long journey.

“Hello, Father!” I greeted him brightly. “How are you getting on over there? Feeding you all right, are they?”

He showed no sign of hearing me. Fair enough, I thought. You haven’t come all this way to break into my dream just to engage in idle banter. I sat on the rock beside him, watched the boat and waited.

Finally he spoke, in a quiet, measured voice. It sounded as though it had been filtered of all emotions and only quiet resignation was left.

“You have no idea how hard it can be to bring up three lively children,” he said. “No idea at all. You have so much to learn, Sweetie.”

“We all have things to learn,” I retorted. “You never learned how to take care of a dodo. Anyway,” I continued, picking up a shell and turning it over between my fingers, “We’ve only got two children.”

“So much left to learn,” sighed my Father, starting to fade.

“Wait!” I said. “I just wanted to say…well…don’t get bored over there! Join a club or something! I’ll make sure you’ve got plenty to read and….don’t go….!”

It was too late. Laurence Llewellyn Bowen, accompanied by a National Trust volunteer with a chintz pinny and a huge alarm clock, bore down on me. They asked me to leave as I was causing a disturbance.

“I’ll get you for this, Bowen!” I shouted, as the alarm clock rang and I woke up.

“If you say so, dear,” mumbled Charlie into his pillow.

New Year's Resolutions and how to survive them

2009-01-19T02:42:00.000-08:00

This term’s story is dedicated to my Father, who encouraged my love of stories from an early age. I shall upload a text-only version of this story to the “OuiJa” veil site, so he can read it, because I think he might like it and I don’t suppose there’s much to read over there.

The Christmas holidays were lively as usual. The children get so excited about Christmas, and what with the stress of losing Dodgson and finding him again only at the start of the holidays, I didn’t do half the shopping and baking I had planned.

I delegated decorating the house to the kids, as a result of which we had more bloody zombies and daleks than is traditional over the festive season. James decorated the Christmas cake. He made lovely little marzipan models of all of us, including a little marzipan dodo who left little footprints all across the icing. Minnie decorated a gingerbread house, complete with a little boy in a cage and a witch roasting in the oven.

Charlie bought the presents. He got James a big thick book called “This Was Your Life: biographies of 1,000 really interesting Dead People”. James has been studying it with interest. I’m afraid he is picking out potential new etherbuddies to write to. Minne was easy, we gave her a sword, shield, mace and first-aid kit for her Hedgehogs Rampant uniform.

Charlie bought me a new mobile phone. It’s rather simpler to use than my old one, which I could never work and wasn’t really sorry when James traded it in the seventeenth century. This new one has a built-in mp3 player, which is very handy for LingQ. I can listen to German and Russian material while I’m on the school run.

Minnie bought me a furry mobile phone case. It makes the phone look exactly like a squashed hedgehog. It is part of a series of roadkill-themed accessories, apparently the latest craze amongst the under-twenties. How thoughtful.

I was more excited by James’ present. Having got his space-time travel module working again, he travelled back to the 10th of March, 1876, to record the first electronic transmission of speech in Boston. I now have Alexander Graham Bell saying “Mr Watson, come here. I need you!” as my ring tone.

All in all, it was a great Christmas. Harry came round for Christmas dinner, one of Charlie’s nut roasts with all the trimmings. There was a nasty moment when Minnie laughed so hard at the joke in her cracker that she nearly choked on her gravy. I thumped her on the back and told her she should chew it more carefully. She responded by showing me the proper way to deal with a choking victim, then explained a couple of ways to make your victim choke in the first place.

Harry was in on grand form and told us a lot of geek jokes. I was the only one who laughed at most of them. The one about the programmer who thought that COFFEE was written in hexadecimal….I really should get out more.

It is a grand tradition in our family that we get a really nasty lurg after New Year, and this year we got a festive bout of flu that kept us all in bed for a week. Charlie, usually the Man of Steel, even had to have three days off work, groaning, getting off his head on Lemsip and watching the Artex patterns spin on the ceiling.

Unfortunately Harry chose that time to start on his New Year’s Resolution and give up drugs. As Harry’s drugs are antipsychotics this is not a good idea. Usually Charlie keeps an eye on Harry at work and checks he’s taken his pills, but without Charlie nobody noticed until Harry was wearing a tin-foil hat and complaining that the binmen were trying to recruit him to spy on the Prussians. He had to have a short holiday on the secure ward in Sir Isaac’s until the Devil stopped talking to him through the electrical sockets.

I’ve been hearing a lot of disembodied voices lately myself. In my case they are mostly my LingQ students talking to me through Skype. My New Year's resolution is to help more people learn English, and already I have doubled my number of students.

My first student was TibetanChick, an eighty year old Tibetan expatriate, whose views on politics are forcefully and colourfully expressed. I have spent the last couple of months not so much increasing her vocabulary as cleaning it up. Still, I am learning all about a part of the world I could never have found on a map three months ago.

My second student is Yuri, a mining engineer from Uzbekistan. He seems to have taken a shine to me, and books an hour-long private session with me each week. He goes into great detail about various aspects of the mining industry, but so far has resisted all attempts to turn the conversation to more general topics. At this rate I will qualify as a mining engineer before he is comfortable discussing his plans for the weekend in English.

A welcome new face is Cees, a fifty-something Dutchman, a witty and charming conversationalist. His command of English may even be better than my own. I can’t fault him, which is unfortunate, as that’s exactly what I’m being paid to do. Either he’s attracted to my Estuary English accent or he just finds my discussions really interesting. In an effort to stretch his vocabulary I have turned to the “Interesting Thing of the Day” website. Cees has really enjoyed discussing lucid dreaming and the possibility of an English spelling reform.

The newest kid on the block is Lucy Chiang, a Chinese computer programmer living in Pittsberg. This is puzzling. Surely Pittsberg is in the US, which is in America, which is English-speaking? Can’t she walk into her local bar and act friendly if she wants to speak English? I’ve seen her photo, and men would flock to talk to her. I suggested this. She explained that men generally are less interested in correcting her use of tenses and more interested in making other suggestions. At least I don’t hit on her. What with a husband, two kids and a dodo to clear up after, plus all the LingQ stuff I've been doing, I haven’t got the energy to flirt anymore.

The best Christmas ever!

2008-12-23T04:19:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

Oh, I do like Magdalen College! I'm so glad I have finally had a chance to look round it. I tried to pretend I wasn't really that impressed, saying that it all looked a bit antiquated compared to my old Alma Mater, the University of Harrogate. But I have to admit I envy the students who get to spend time in those lovely old buildings. You can just stand there and feel yourself getting smarter.

The staff are lovely too, though not as old. Doctor Roisin Brack is really very pretty, tall and slim with auburn hair and freckles. I can see why Harry is so taken with her. He was even talking to her over lunch, and although the phrase "chatting her up" might be going a bit far, he was definitely responding to her questions and even volunteering bits of information about himself (mostly about his student days at Cambridge).

After lunch we went for a walk around the grounds. Lucy, Briony, Sam and Calvin all showed us around, and we had a good look at the earth around the fritillaries and in the rose beds. The painty footprints had washed away and we couldn't find any more clues, but it was still nice to be poking about in the park. We gave the kids a Fruit Shoot and a bag of chocolate coins each for their help in hunting for Dodgson, and Charlie presented them each with a jar of his Christmas Cranberry pickle for their parents.

To round off the afternoon we were invited to afternoon tea in the psychology department. Charlie, who doesn't really do small talk, excused himself and took Minnie off for a Museum crawl. Harry, having made a date with Roisin to go to a New Year's Eve party in the College, disappeared in the direction of the Computing Department. I was left with James to meet the members of the Psychology Department. Mrs Brith, who is the wife of one of the senior lecturers and also Briony and Sam's mum, had baked a big plum cake, so we all sat down and had a slice with a cup of tea in Dr Brack's office.

Over tea I got to meet the Great Man himself, the Professor. To tell the truth I was so overstimulated by that point that I don't remember much about him, although he seemed very nice. He even lent me a copy of his book, "Schizotypy: implications for illness and health". He said there was a test for schizotypy in it, and it wasn't designed to work on children, but I could go through it and measure how schizotypal I am.

The department use the term "healthy schizotype" for people with schizotypal characteristics but no signs of actual insanity. It's not a very apt name, sounding as it does like a contradiction in terms, like calling someone a "healthy cancer patient". I suggested an alternative term. I was told that, sadly, the term "madder than a bucket full of frogs" is unlikely to be accepted by the wider academic community unless sufficient experiments were performed on frogs to determine exactly how mad they are. The university wouldn't like to be seen to be performing unorthodox and possibly cruel frog research. I suggested "madder than a box full of hair" as an alternative (even the Animal Rights Movement don't fight for the rights of hair), but the Prof. said it would really be very difficult to establish empirically the madness level of even James' hair. So I told him that in that case he would jolly well have to think up his own terminology and he said he'd keep thinking about it.

We were joined by a fascinating little lady who didn't seem to belong to the psychology department at all, but who had expressed a desire to meet us. No taller than James, she spoke English perfectly but with an accent. She introduced herself as Catherine D'Urbanville, a language student from the Universiteit van Amsterdam. D'Urbanville? Sounds a bit Thomas Hardy to me. Maybe her real name is unpronouncable unless you're Dutch.

Catherine declined the cake and tea. "What I would really like," she said, "is a Fruit Shoot and a Mars Bar. Do you have any?" Puzzled, I opened the goody bag and handed her a drink and a chocolate bar. She smiled. "My great-great- (and a few more greats) grandfather Jan de Banweel used to love these!" she said. "He wrote about them in his log. I'll keep these as souvenirs if you don't mind."

I thought about this for a while. Catherine was older than your average student, late twenties maybe. She looked arty, and madder than a...I mean like a healthy schizotype. Was she actually insane? In Oxford University it would be difficult to tell. What would you use for a basis of comparison?

"Was Jan de Banweel a sailor?" I asked at last.

She smiled again. "That's right!" she said. "He was a Commandeur in the Dutch Navy. He sailed all over the Dutch East Indies. There was no-one in the Dutch fleet that could match his navigational skills throughout the seventeenth century."

I nodded thoughtfully. "He must have had a really accurate timepiece," I said.

She nodded. "It bacame an heirloom, passed down from father to son in my family for over a century. I would show it to you now but it leaked acid in the mid eighteenth-century and so my great-grandfather threw it away. We only have a picture of it left. It looked like a modern-day boys' watch, like the one your son is wearing!"

We all looked at James' Swatch. Then we all looked at Catherine. "Wow!" I said at last. "Any chance of having my mobile phone back?"

"Sorry," she replied. "I have no idea what happened to that. Jan didn't have much use for it, so he didn't keep it."

"Ah well," I sighed. "You can't win them all. Did you know Jan gave James a dodo in exchange for the watch and the snacks?"

Catherine laughed. "Of course! Jan wrote about that in his journal too. It's one reason I wanted to come to Oxford. I wanted to paint a dodo and I thought it would be a good place to get some inspiration."

She explained that she has an assignment to paint a series of murals inspired by British children's fantasy stories, so she jumped at the chance to spend a term on an exchange to Oxford for the Carroll, Tolkien and Lewis vibe.

"And did you find inspiration here?" I asked. Catherine gazed out of the window and smiled dreamily.

We had finished our tea and cake by this point and it was getting late. "Well, I suppose we'd better be making a move. It was a pleasure to meet James' sailor friend's descendant, " I said.

"Before you go I have a present for you," said Catherine. "It's in the porter's lodge. You can pick it up from there on your way out to your car."

We gathered together our coats and bags, said our goodbyes and wandered over to the porter's lodge to claim our present. It turned out to be a wooden crate with holes in the lid and a large envelope attached to the box with string.

I opened the envelope. Inside was a pencil sketch of a dodo, beautifully drawn, and a card with name and address in Amsterdam. I examined the picture very carefully. The dodo was wearing a collar.

I prodded at the box cautiously. It stirred.

"Doo-doo!" said the box.

"Dodgson!" we cried.

Carefully, ready to grab him if he made another dash for it, we opened the box. We looked at the dodo. He looked in excellent shape, although an hour or so spent in a tea chest had done nothing for his temper. He glared at us with an injured expression. Tears welled up in my eyes.

"Our birdy's back!" shouted James. "This is going to be the best Christmas ever!"

I nodded, too happy to speak. This was the best present I could have asked for. The whole family, together again for Christmas.

"Gods bless us every one!" said (not-so-tiny) Jim.

Mary Dunwich is on holiday now until the New Year.

An interesting invitation

2008-12-16T04:08:00.001-08:00

E-mail from Dr Brack, Department of Psychology, Magdalen College. Monday.

Dear Mrs Dunwich and family.

Thank you for your e-mail, and also for the cheque for £2.50 and for the jars of home-made "Death Pickle". It caused quite a stir at the Departmental Christmas dinner!

You clearly have taken the subject of schizotypy to heart and you have many interesting questions about it. What a pity you were not able to come up to Oxford to visit the college with your husband and son on the day of the study.

Would you like to come up to look around the college and meet some of the staff? We can answer your questions and perhaps give you some further reading material on our schizotypy research. You can also look around the grounds and the Deer Park for traces of Dodgson yourself, and satisfy yourself that everything possible is being done to find him. Would you, your husband and your children all be free for 12pm on Monday 22nd? Your husband should remember where to find us. Perhaps you could invite Harry too?

Your sincerely,

Dr Roisin Brack.

E-mail to Oxford

2008-12-16T03:56:00.000-08:00

E-mail from Mary Dunwich to Dr Roisin Brack, Department of Psychology, Magdalen College, Thursday.

Dear Dr Brack, Professor C. and anyone else who understands this schizotypy malarkey,

Thank you very much for your kind and noble efforts to find Dodgson. It sounds from your findings that he has been captured and is at this moment being held, possibly against his will, for purposes unknown but possibly related to Art. I can only hope that his captor is looking after him properly and will release him unharmed. Christmas morning won't be the same without his expectant little face at the patio doors.

I am sending you a cheque to cover your expenses with the dodo-hunt, plus four jars of Death Pickle for the grown-ups. Don't ask what's in it, but it's very good in cheese sandwiches.

Please could you tell me how one measures schizotypy to determine where one is on the spectrum. Also, have you done any work on schizotypy in children?

By the way, Harry is very fond of Chinese food, in case you might need that information for your files.

With festive greetings,

Mary Dunwich and family.

Traces of Dodo

2008-12-16T03:31:00.000-08:00

E-mail from Doctor Brack, Department of Psychology, Magdalen College.
Monday.

Dear Dunwich family,

Rest assured the search for your family pet carries on into the holidays.

This weekend we brought out our secret weapon in the hunt for Dodgson. The academic staff brought their children in for a Dodo-hunt. Lucy (age 7 and a half), Briony (age 9), Sam (age 10) and Calvin (aged 11) were all heavily bribed with Mars Bars (which I trust will come out of the reward offered) and set to hunting. The results were very promising, and demonstrated that motivated primary-school children can outperform Oxford undergraduates who've been celebrating Christmas early.

The findings of the team may be summarised as follows:

One feather, large and grey, similar to a pigeon but larger. We have sent it to the Biology Department who has said that they are currently busy, but they will look at it after their Christmas dinner.

One bed of hardy perennials, trampled and pecked, with the surrounding soil much scratched and disturbed. Possible evidence of roosting by a large bird.

One of the art studios reported by cleaning staff to be "messy, with a funny smell".

Footprints, as of a largish bird, on the path leading from this art studio. Traces of paint, possibly guache, on the prints.

We have accordingly put up some of your "Wanted!" notices around the art department and rewarded the intrepid hunters with four Fruit Shoots.

Thank you for sending me Harry's full name, address, phone number, mobile phone number, e-mail address, star sign and favourite topics of conversation.

Wishing you all the best in the festive season,

Dr Roisin Brack.

Mary writes a song

2008-12-09T05:13:00.000-08:00

Sunday.
Mary Dunwich writes:

I have spent most of the weekend sitting by the phone and worrying about Dodgson. It's very nice of the psychology department at Magdalen College to be putting so much effort into looking for our dodo, or rather compelling their students to spend their last days of term looking for him, but term ended on Friday and he has not reappeared. If he is still roaming wild in the deer park in this weather then I fear for his health. On the other hand, the porter who followed his tracks is convinced that he has been captured by person or persons unknown. Doctor Brack is sanguine that no undergraduate would harm him (other than feeding him on the normal undergraduate diet of beer and kebabs). As the undergraduates have now presumably all packed their bags and gone home for Christmas, I am worried that whoever has him may have more in mind than a mere undergraduate prank.

To take my mind off my poor little kidnapped dodo I bought a copy of Professor Claridge's book, "Personality and Psychological Disorders" and have started reading it. What I think I have understood so far is the following:

- All of us have a particular personality type;

- Our personality type predisposes us, under certain circumstances (like stress), to a particular form of mental illness.

In other words, we are all on a spectrum, with normality at one end and the insanity of our choice at the other. As to which personality type we are, that seems to be a matter of genetics. Whether we ever become insane ("personality disordered" or even "mentally ill"), that seems to depend on the kind of upbringing that we have experienced.

I studied the list of personality disorders with interest. I could think of at least one member of my family who seemed to personify each one. "Schizotypal" sounds the best fit for James and me. It's a bit worrying to see this described as being "on the schizophrenia spectrum", as I'm pretty sure that schizophrenia isn't a very pleasant thing to have. I really don't fancy a stretch as an inpatient in St Isaac's psychiatric hospital. I therefore read the next bit of the book with great attention.

It said: "in moderate amount the underlying traits predisposing to schizophrenia are perfectly adaptive features of personality; in the same way that mild anxiety traits can be beneficial."

Ooh! So you can be madder than a bucket of frogs (I don't think the good professor uses this actual phrase, but it is clearly what he is driving at) and yet, at the same time, perfectly normal. Have I got this right?

Further on I read: "...fully dimensional theorists have made considerable use of the notion of 'healthy schizotypy' to denote (perhaps the majority of) individuals who are high on the dimension but who show no evidence of illness...".

I considered briefly the idea that fully dimensional theorists meant fat academics. Then I wondered how you knew if you were high on the schizotypy dimension. It sounds like a line from a Hawkwind song.

"I'm ridin' on the schizotypy dimension, (boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-boom)
My eccentricity is manifest
My magic powers are worth special mention
And the Men In Black want me for tests.

I don't get out to parties, cos I have social anxieties,
I hang with the ghosts and the ghouls and the goblins
And I can even talk to my dead gran.
Though she can't get down like the Devil can.

I look like a freak, people call me a geek
They tell me that my head is in the middle of next week
But who needs the sane when I've got the voices in my brain
And my old gran can party like it's 1949

So bring your voices round to my place,
Summon the pixies and the Devil and the elves
We'll all ride high on our schizotypy
Cos these freaky traits are all a healthy part of ourselves

Oh yeah".

News from Oxford

2008-12-08T05:50:00.000-08:00

Wednesday.

E-mail from the Department of Abnormal Psychology, Magdelen College:

Dear Dunwich family,

Thank you for your kind e-mails. Professor Claridge is tied up in a conference all this week, so he has asked me to reply to you.

Rest assured we are mustering the forces of Magdalen College to find Dodgson. We have had all the first-year psychology students searching the grounds. We called it a teamworking exercise. The second-year psychology students observed their behaviour and are writing it up as coursework. We are hopeful that there might be some results worth publishing!

We have been careful to keep the first-years away from the area where Dodgson was last seen, as they cannot track for toffee. One of the porters is Akela of a local scout pack, and is considered to be a pretty mean hand at orienteering. He has examined the soil around the fritilliary beds and says that the bird tracks meet some boot-prints and then disappear. He believes that Dodgson may have been caught and carried away. If students have him they will almost certainly return the bird by the end of this week, it being the end of the Michaelmas term, the students will be going back home and will find it hard to take him home and feed him over Christmas. If he was taken by our students he should be well cared for, as they are not in general unkind to animals. He will mostly be in danger from junk food poisoning and intoxication, especially if the first-years have got him!

We will put up your posters and will let you know as soon as we have any news. If we catch Dodgson ourselves we have agreed to share the reward equally among the academic staff of the department, although several of us fancy the plastic dog poo so it could turn nasty!

We are pleased that you find our work on schizotypy interesting. The Professor's book: "Personality and Psychological Disorders" is perhaps the best starting point for the lay person, followed, if you can find it, by "Schizotypy: Implications for illness and health."

Do you perhaps have contact details for your friend Harry? We seem to have mislaid his application form.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Roisin Brack.

James offers a reward

2008-12-08T05:18:00.000-08:00

Tuesday
Mary Dunwich writes:

The boy's science project was due in today, so Charlie and Harry loaded their space-time travel module into the back of the our and drove it for them to Bouncing Bunnies Primary School. They also took in their written work (mostly designs for the modification of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, thought up by the ever-inventive mind of the late Professor Albert Einstein, whose spirit my son has been channelling all through this school term).

The boys are not in a happy mood since their key piece of evidence for time-travel, the dodo which they brought back from the seventeeth century, had it away on his little toes and was last seen in the spacious and historic grounds of Magdalen College, Oxford. They took the rather less convincing seventeenth century dead black rat (from the Great Fire of London, you could see the singe marks on his fur if you looked really hard), and some very wobbly footage of Granny Dunwich's sitting room from the nineteen sixties, taken using Jay's mobile phone.

Miss Bannock was not entirely impressed with the boys' efforts. She admired the aesthetics of the travel module (the Christmas fairy lights do really look very good on it), but as they couldn't get it to work she didn't really get the full-on time machine experience. Harry thinks the wireless LAN installed in the classrooms was emitting a damping standing wave field. I suspect that the panel of switches that got knocked off the contraption as they heaved it into the boot may have had some critical function. Either way, once in the classroom under the bemused gaze of Miss Bannock, it refused to budge so much as an inch (or a second). It was all very disappointing for Stanley, Jay and James. Miss Bannock liked the write-up however, and gave them a C+. That's not bad for a project that shows no sign of working, ever having worked, or ever becoming capable of working in the future. It's better than James got for his frog-stretching machine, and that even worked!

James came home in a bad mood and wrote out a reward notice for Dodgson. I sneaked a peak at it before he e-mailed it off to the psychology department at Magdalen College. It said:

"Missing: one Dodo! (Raphus cucullatus)

Height: one metre
Weight: 20 Kg (podgy)
Colour: light grey
Feet: Yellow
Beak: Long and curved
Tail: White and fluffy
Wearing: tartan dog-collar

Answers to the name of Dodgson. If you find him, please keep him warm, give him some pigeon food and a bowl of water and ring us on the number on the collar. Or you can contact the Psychology Department at Magdalen College because they know who we are.

He also likes Maltesers.

Reward for information leading to return: 10 Mars Bars, 3 Fruit Shoots, 32p, a champion conker and a plastic dog poo."

Mary writes an e-mail

2008-12-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

I see that James has been writing e-mails from my account again. At least this time he's not channelling dead scientists who then pretend they are me. Still, I suppose I should write myself. I can't have Professor Claridge and this lady doctor thinking we're all a bunch of loonies.

E-mail from Mary Dunwich to the Psychology Department, Oxford University. Monday.

Dear Professor Claridge and Dr Brack,

Thank you for showing such kindness to my son and his friends on Saturday. I do apologise if they were any bother. Caffeine, sugar and Oxford's dreaming spires are a heady combination for my son's brain and I fear his imagination may have become a little overheated.

Of course our family pet is not a dodo, they are extinct as we all know. Dodgson is a Madagascan Racing Turkey, a breed much admired in the turkey fancy as they are extremely fast on their toes. They have to be in Madagascar to avoid being eaten. Racing turkeys are not often seen in this country, however they not at all wild, endangered or extinct. Far from it. We are all very fond of him and the children miss him terribly.

By the way, I have been reading up with great interest on your work on healthy or sane schizotypy. I had never before realised that it was possible for a person to be as mad as pants without actually being mad. Unfortunately there is very little material available to the layperson. Have you written any books on the subject? In particular I would like to know how you can tell if a person is a healthy schizotype. Is there some sort of test you can do? Does it involve needles or electricity? Our friend Harry, who took part in your study on Saturday, says that you just asked him to fill in a questionnaire. I don't hold with science that uses questionnaires to measure things. I studied proper science and we used lasers and thermometers and such like. But I suppose it's a bit harder with brains.

If you do find Dodgson, please give us a ring (the number is on his collar) and my husband will come up to collect him. He can be fed pigeon food or most kinds of cereals but I really don't approve of him having chocolate because I'm sure all that sugar must be bad for his beak.

Thank you once again,

Yours sincerely,

Mary Dunwich.

James writes an e-mail

2008-12-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

E-mail from James Dunwich to the Department of Psychology, University of Oxford, Sunday.

Dear Mr. Professor Claridge and Lady Doctor Brack (my mate Harry fancies you!)

Thank you for giving me and my friends tea and plum cake it was very nice. I'm sorry I couldn't show you my dodo because he escaped and is in the wild in your shrubbery near the fritillaries. Thank you for promising to send your students out searching for him. Please tell them his name is Dodgson he is wearing a tartan collar with his name on it you can't miss him. He likes to eat pigeon food and Maltesers. When you find him please keep him warm because he is from Mauritius it is a hot place and his little feet feel the cold.

Yours respectfully James "The Ghost Whisperer" Dunwich.

PS I thought you were an Abnormal Professor because you aren't dead yet but Dad says that's not true. I thought you had to be dead to be a professor because all the professors I know died years ago. Albert says he has done his best work post-mortem because he doesn't get students coming up and asking him silly questions any more.

Dodgson unbound

2008-12-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

Saturday.
Charlie and James set off bright and early for Oxford, with Dodgson sulking in his dodo carry-box in the car boot. Minne went to the Higgs-Bosons to bake mince pies with Olivia. I was left on my own to explore LingQ's Russian library and fill my mp3 player with files of beginners' Russian.

It was tea-time when the travellers returned. Charlie looked exhausted and James was gibbering quietly.

""Did Harry get to Magdalen all right?"" I asked, pouring Charlie a cup of tea.

"Oh, Harry was fine," answered my husband, coming to the table. "We dropped him off for 10 a.m. and went off to the Science Museum to check on Albert's blackboard. He found he'd got his equations right so he was happy. We went back for Harry at 1p.m. and it looked like he'd had a great time. There was this pretty psychologist talking to him and he was staring at her feet. He looked pretty keen on her."

Wow, sounds like my boy's finally discovered girls. What am I saying? I've gone from fancying Harry to thinking I'm his mother. I hastily changed the subject.

"Who was in charge? Did you meet them?" I asked, sitting James down and handing him a scone.

"It was one of their professors. Claridge I think," answered Charlie, sitting down and taking a sip of tea. "He and the boys really hit it off. He spent ages talking to them."

"He's an Abnormal Professor. I suppose it's because he's a professor and he's not dead, " said James, his eyes slightly unfocussed. He was really interesting! He gave us tea. I had three cups with sugar and two slices of cake!"

"No, he's a normal professor of Abnormal Psychology", responded Charlie with the air of a man who has explained this several times already on the drive home.

"Yeah. We told him all about Albert, and building the time machine, and going back to the seventeenth century and trying to meet Guy Fawkes. He was really interested! He said he wanted to see a dodo, so I went to get Dodgson out of the car."

"Good Lord!" I spluttered through a mouthful of tea. "What did he say when he saw him?"

"He didn't get to see him," said James sadly. "I had just got Dodgson out of his box and was putting his lead on when he ran away from me. He scooted down the path and hid in a lot of shrubs. I ran after him, but this man ran up and started shouting at me for treading on the fritillaries. I told him I was looking for my dodo but he wouldn't listen. He said I was a yob with no respect for nature or history. By the time he went away Dodgson was nowhere to be found. I left trails of Maltesers over the paths but he wasn't coming for them. I'm never going to see him again!"

His eyes filled with tears. I could feel mine starting to prickle too. Over the last few weeks I've really grown fond of that pudgy little fellow. But I wasn't going to let James see that, and Charlie didn't look like he could handle any more waterworks. I coughed.

"Do you realise what you've done, young man?" I asked sternly. "You have released an extinct wild animal into the grounds of the oldest and most historic university in the world!" (Memo to self, must look Oxford up on Wikipedia some time. I don't know much about Oxford, I'm a Harrogatian myself). "I hope we don't get into trouble for this."

"I hope Dodgson will be alright," muttered Charlie gloomily. "It's getting cold at nights and he's not used to sleeping outdoors."

"I asked the angry man if fritillaries were poisonous to dodos but he didn't answer," added James plaintively.

"Was he wearing his collar?" I asked them. "If anyone finds him they are bound to ring us and let us know." If they don't stuff him, eat him or keep him for themselves, I thought glumly.

"Oh yes," James answered. "And I gave Professor Claridge a full description. He promised to organise a search."

Hunting for a dodo in the grounds of Magdalen College must count as unusual behaviour even by the standards of an Oxford don. Perhaps he is the Abnormal Professor of Psycology after all.

I consider learning Russian.

2008-11-27T02:19:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

My daughter informs me that Uzbekistan is "nearly in Russia". I wonder if my student Uri speaks Russian? Maybe he could help me learn it. I rather fancy learning Russian.

I have wanted to learn Russian ever since I realised that my parents distrusted and disliked the Russians. Perversely, this fostered a fascination in me, a desire to learn all I could about this mysterious and devious foreign types. I loved spy films. Foreigners being devious and exotic (and generally rather sexy), wonderful. I've loved learning foreign languages ever since watching the "Ipcress File". My only regret is that no-one's ever tried to brainwash me. Maybe they already have. How would I know?

Mind you, my parents also had little time for the Germans, the French or the Americans. In fact I think they distrusted pretty much everyone, except the the Canadians, the New Zealanders and the Swiss. What the Swiss have ever done to deserve my parents' approval is anyone's guess. It was a Swiss scientist who proved the great Englishman Newton wrong about the way gravity works. Yes Albert, I am looking at you! I suppose you think it's clever.

Oh dear, I've started talking to my son's incorporeal friends now. I hope I'm not coming down with schizotypy. Perhaps I should go and see those psychologists too.

I'm still sulking about missing out on this Oxford trip, so I'm pretending not to be interested in the research study Harry's taking part in. On the quiet I've been thinking about it quite a lot.
I've looked "schizotypy" up on Wikipedia, the fount and source of all knowledge. It has a lot to say, although in quite long words so I shall have to think about it over a pot of tea and a custard cream.

Mmm....

'Claridge' (who's he then?) says that schizotypy isn't 'psychoticism' (that means being mad, I assume), it's being a person who experiences 'unusual experiences', 'cognitive disorganisation', 'introverted anhedonia' and 'impulsive nonconformity'. What's that all about?

I thoughtfully picked at a blob of dodo-poo which had stuck to my trousers. I'd put my clean pair on but I've forgotten where I put them. No-one's going to see what I'm wearing today anyway, apart from the school run I'm not going anywhere and I don't talk to the other parents when I get there.

I wonder if this 'Claridge' is the person in charge of the Oxford research study?

I shall have to ask Harry all about it when he gets back. As long as the Devil doesn't get overexcited and talk to him all the way through his tests. If he's having a one-sock day I'd get more sense talking to James.

Too much Poe and too much poo

2008-11-26T02:08:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich quoth:

Once upon a teatime dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over a creepy audiobook from Librivox's online store,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my patio door.
"Aargh!" I shouted, jumping sharply, "What the Hell's that? Tapping, tapping,
Tapping at my patio door!"

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a podgy dodo of the rancid days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, stood and pooed upon my floor.
"Damn!" I swore, "that will take scrubbing! Stoop I must to clean my floor,"
"Lest that stains it evermore."

I've really got to stop listening to all these horror audiobooks, I think they're starting to have an effect on me. Scooping Dodgson up in my arms, I stepped over the pile of dodo-poo and went to tuck him up in his coop for the night.

In which I learn a new word, and fear for James' safety

2008-11-25T05:36:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

Question: Why did the dodo cross the road?

Answer: Because my muppet husband forgot to shut the garden gate!

I let Dodgson out to roam about the garden as usual. When I went out to check on him, the gate was open and he was gone. A frantic search later found him over the road in old Mrs Battenburg's front garden. He was roosting in her hardy perennials, trying half-heartedly now and then to reach the crusts on the bird-table (which isn't designed to feed flightless birds).

It took me ten minutes and a lot of bad language to round him up and get him home. Whoever spread the rumour that the dodo was an ungainly bird is a big, fat fibber. They are really surprisingly fast on their toes. Once I flushed him out of the flower bed, he raced around the garden several times at top speed, then zipped back across the road, narrowly avoiding being flattened by a very startled number 27 bus.

All of this put me into a very grumpy mood. I decided to wait until Charlie got home and take it out on him. Some of my troubles were definitely his fault. I was already feeling sorry for myself about missing out on an all-too-rare trip to Oxford, thanks to my son's deceased friend Albert's insistance on a trip to the Oxford Science Museum to check the sums he left on a blackboard on a visit over half a century ago. I really feel that the dead should slow down and get some perspective on their lives. You can't take it with you. Albert seems to be treating death as an extended "Working from Home" day.

"What do you mean by taking the boys to Oxford and leaving me behind?" I demanded as soon as Charlie's foot came through the front door that evening.

"I'm taking Harry to Magdalen College to see the psychology professor," answered Charlie, wearily sitting on the stairs to take off his boots. "They are doing a study on schizotypy, and Harry volunteered to take some tests. You know he won't drive because the Devil keeps telling him to watch his speed and it puts him off."

"Schizotypy? Is that a new word for schizophrenia?" I asked. It's political correctness gone mad, I thought.

"No, schizotypy is a whole range of eccentric behaviours. Schizophrenia just sits on the far end of the spectrum," answered my husband, taking his Dalek lunchbox out of his council briefcase. "We're all schizotypes to some extent or another. Harry's just more extreme than most."

"Are you saying I'm mad?" I asked indignantly. Sometimes you have to work quite hard to pick a fight with Charlie.

Charlie looked at my uncombed hair (I've lost my brush and Minnie's stolen my comb), my unmatched socks and my trousers grass-stained from the dodo-hunt, raised an eyebrow but refused to comment.

I pondered this new idea. Me, a little bit schizophrenic? Surely not. Great-Aunt Fanny, maybe. She was convinced that her neighbour Mr Figgin was a KGB agent sent to spy on her, and that all his junk mail was coded messages from Moscow. Cousin Bertie refuses to wear underpants and talks to the wallpaper. And James.....James is just really creative, okay?

Didn't Albert Einstein's son have schizophrenia? Perhaps there's a fine line between creativity, genius and madness.

"Mmm.....There's still no need to take the boys with you," I grumbled, still reluctant to give up the idea of a fight.

"I thought I might introduce James to the psychologists and see if they want him to sit the schizotypy test," answered Charlie. "You've got to admit, dear, he's not exactly normal. I'd like to know what the professor makes of him."

"I resent that! My boy is completely normal! He's just been misunderstood by people who don't understand how intelligent he really is!" I thundered. "Besides, I wouldn't trust him not to let Albert take the test for him. Having a dead genius sit the test might skew the statistics. Er."

My ears stopped to listen to what my mouth was saying. Maybe channelling the spirit of a dead scientist and travelling back in time is a bit bizarre, even by the standards of an Oxford don. I just hope James doesn't show the professor his dodo. They might want to keep him for further study and not let him come home again. Or the dodo either.

I miss out on an outing

2008-11-24T01:56:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

It snowed yesterday. What was that about? It's not supposed to snow in England in November. It must be global warming. Maybe the Gulf Stream has changed course and is plunging Britain into another ice age.

I was cleaning out the dodo and worrying about the weather when my son shambled out to join me. He looked excited and unusually focussed for a Sunday morning.

"We're going to Oxford next Saturday!" He announced. "Harry is taking part in a research study at the University. Dad's going to drive him there. We're all having a day out in Oxford."

"Ah, good!" I answered, emptying my bucket of dodo poo onto the compost heap. It makes a fantastic activator, I'm thinking about selling it on eBay. "I want to go back to that fantastic bookshop that's bigger on the inside than the outside".

I'm a big fan of Blackwells' bookshop. They order Tolkien books in German for me without getting flustered or telling me I should get out more.

"Erm....I don't think there'll be room for you as well," answered James, thoughtfully poking at a worm with my compost-poking stick.

"Why not? Who's going?" I asked, as I started to spread the straw around the floor of Dodgson's coop. Why is it, when the kids get a pet, it's always Mum who ends up cleaning it out?

"Erm....Dad offered to take us to the Oxford Natural History museum with Dodgson," said James. "Dad thinks a real, live dodo is too important to keep to ourselves. He says we should share him with the wider scientific community."

Hmm. I suspect the Werewolf's just got tired of buying bales of straw and economy-size packs of pigeon food. Either that or he's got the wind up about the Endangered Species legislation and doesn't want to risk going to gaol for keeping a proverbially endangered wild animal as a pet. Chicken!

"You can't trust that lot at the Natural History museum!" I objected. "They had a dodo once and look what they did with it! The last known stuffed dodo in history, and those philistines chucked it on the fire just because it looked a bit manky. I wouldn't let them near our little Dodgson." (I've cleaned him out seven times now, I consider I have a part share in him).

"It's got to be done, Mum!" answered James calmly. I hate it when he gets reasonable at me. "We don't know how to care of Dodgson, if he gets sick the vet's bills could be dreadful. Besides, I want to take a picture of the looks on their faces when they see him!"

"Mmmm....." I conceded the point as I refilled Dodgson's food bowl. Still, I wasn't going to give up on a shopping trip without a fight. "So, that's Dad, you, Harry, me and Minnie. We should all fit in the car. Dodgson can go in a dodo box in the boot."

"Stanley and Jay want to come too!" replied James. "It's their school project too! We want to go to the science museum and take pictures of ourselves next to Einstein's blackboard. Albert says he wants to see it again. He has a feeling he made a mistake in the equations and he won't rest easy till he's checked them again."

Great. I have to forego a much-needed outing just because the greatest scientist since Newton is worried he's got his sums wrong. If he has, no-one's noticed it in the last half a century. I really feel that now Albert is.....retired, he should be putting his feet up and not still worrying about his work. You won't catch me tutoring students and cleaning out family pets once I'm dead.

We broaden our minds and reduce our vocabulary

2008-11-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

James and his friends have set up a small business! I know this because I have found one of their business cards in James' trouser pocket. It says:

"Bouncing Bunnies Computer Support: all your computer problems fixed. 1 House Point per 15 minutes. Contact James, Jay and Stanley in 6B."

If they are being paid in house points then they must be selling their services to the teaching staff, and raising their popularity with the other kids in their house into the bargain. I'm impressed at their entrepreneurialism. What busy little bees they are!

I have also been a busy bee. I have a second LingQ student now. His name is Uri and he comes from Uzbekistan. He has an impeccable command of the English language, provided he is talking about mining and mineral resources. On any other subject he stammers and dries up. In extreme cases he blames a dodgy Skype connection and hangs up. As my knowledge of mining is even sketchier than my knowledge of cricket, all I can manage to say in our conversations is "Mmm" or "Well, I didn't know that!" It's like listening to James explaining the plot of Doctor Who.

Still, I haven't spent the last four years flirting with Harry the Geek without learning a trick or two for dealing with the socially hesitant. I'll get round Uri, see if I don't. I'll have to think of some interesting questions to ask about Uzbekistan. At present I can think of only one, which is: "Is Uzbekistan a real place?" It sounds exotic and imaginary, like Shangri-La or The Isle of Avalon. If it is real, I have no idea where it can be.

I shall have to set Minnie on the task of finding out about Uzbekistan. Mrs Krumball has been forcing extra geography on my daughter as part of her punishment for her Bonfire Night prank. Astonishingly, Minnie is really enjoying it and has been looking forward to her detentions. She's learned all sorts of things with Mrs Krumball. She has explained to me how it is possible to provide the whole world with electricity by linking the existing power stations to create a world-wide energy grid. That's pretty impressive coming from a seven-year-old.

My ignorance of any event happening beyond my native shores is becoming something of an embarrassment. I know that the world expects the British to be insular, but really, it seems that we are living on a totally different planet from the rest of the world. Even little old ladies living halfway up mountains have more of a grasp of world politics than I do. Well, one little old lady at least. TibetanChick was telling me with great gusto about the impact the new American president was likely to have on Tibetan-Chinese relationships. Considering her limited vocabulary she really can express herself quite graphically. Too graphically for my tastes, I daren't use the speakers during our Skype conversations in case the children are listening.

I'm pleased to say that under my guidance TibetanChick has made some progress with her English. I have convinced her that the "M" word is not acceptable in polite conversation. Or the "N" word. The "B" word is usually used only by working men in moments of great stress. The "V" word I had to look up, the "C" word wasn't even in the dictionary and I think the "Z" word must be in Tibetan. As that's six words she can no longer use in English, I must be the only LingQ tutor to have decreased a student's active vocabulary! I wonder what that's done to her LingQ scores?

Another visit to the Head

2008-11-07T01:32:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

I got called into the Head's office again.

It turns out that Minnie had tried to set off some very loud firecrackers at the school's Bonfire Night festivities. Her plot was foiled (much as the original one was) so she then switched the water for the cocoa with the wee collected by the smallest children for use as compost activator. She was spotted by her teacher, Mrs Krumball, and sentenced to two weeks' detention.

"But she didn't actually set the fireworks off," I protested, somewhat feebly. "She put them in a compost heap. That's practically recycling."

Mrs Lunn, who has had all too much experience in dealing with me, picked up her copy of the School's Health and Safety Policy. "On page 32 it states that explosives are not to be brought onto the school premises for any purpose," she pointed out. "On page 52 it states that urine is to be kept in suitably marked containers and used for educational purposes only. Minnie contravened the Policy when she poured a bucket full into the hot water urn. Incidentally, we will be sending you the bill for having the urn decontaminated."

Curses. This woman is too good. "I suppose I have to attend the course on Managing Positive Behaviour again," I said wearily. "I assure you, I already know how to manage positive behaviour. If I ever see my kids behaving positively, I shall deal with it immediately!"

Mrs Lunn sighed. "With Minnie's record I would be quite justified in suspending her from school," she said. "I'd rather not do that. Mrs Krumball believes that Minnie is actually quite a gifted child."

"Gifted at causing trouble, certainly," I countered. "I've never known a child like her."

"Mrs Krumball thinks Minnie is acting up because she is not sufficiently challenged," said Mrs Lunn. "She thinks that she would benefit from extra school activities. Minnie's a very bright girl."

Mmmm.....I suppose it runs it the family. My son has managed to alter the fabric of reality to make time-travel a possibility, built the world's first time machine and travelled backwards in time.

"I suppose she's James's sister," I answered thoughtfully. "I expect she is pretty bright."

Mrs Lunn coughed. "About James," she said. "Miss Bannock asked me to have a word with you. She wanted me to show you some of his recent work."

She handed me an essay entitled "Why we should not be prejudiced". I read it. "The cheeky little...!" I exclaimed. "He's calling me a Vital Supremacist!"

"Er...quite," said Mrs Lunn. "It seems that he's mixing up fact and fiction again. Mrs Bannock says that in an essay entitled "My Family" he claimed to have a pet dodo. That's all very well for creative writing, but James needs to be made to understand that some pieces of work need to be strictly factual."

"Er..yes..." I said, thinking fast. "Creative writing, quite. I think he's using .....erm, satire....to make a point about respecting diversity. And the dodo represents....er....our need to respect the environment or lose important biodiversity. He's quite good at rhetoric, you know."

"Does he still have imaginary friends?" asked Mrs Lunn, putting on her "I'm hear if you need to talk" look.

"Noooo...." I answered. "I believe his friends are all real at the moment."

"Miss Bannock heard him talking to himself at break. She couldn't be sure, but she thought it sounded like German."

"Practising his lines for a play," I said firmly. "In German. Er."

This sounded feeble even to me. Mrs Lunn leaned forward and turned the "concerned and caring" look up a notch.

"You look tired, Mrs Dunwich," she said. "Is everything all right at home?"

"You wouldn't believe the half of what I have to put up with," I answered with perfect sincerity. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go. I have to talk to a Tibetan about her yak."

I made a speedy exit before Mrs Lunn could put me down for the "Meditation: Getting in Touch with the Real You" course as well. What with having to contend with a dodo, TibetanChick, Albert Einstein's ghost and a sock-stealing Embodiment of Evil, I really don't think I have time to talk to the Real Me as well.

An essay on respecting diversity by James

2008-11-06T05:08:00.000-08:00

Why we should not be prejudiced by James Dunwich, 6B

The Americans have elected a black man for president for the first time and everyone thinks this is really important because he is not white and so he knows what it is like to not be white. But he is still a man an he is still an American and he is still alive so he does not know what it is like to be not a man and not an American and not alive. I think this shows prejudice against all the people who are not alive American men.

I have a friend called Albert he is postliving and he is very clever. Mum likes men who are clever but only if they are alive. If they are vitally challenged like Albert she just calls them all ghosts and is not interested. I think it is because she does not know what it is like to be differently existing but she will find out one day and then we will see how she likes it! It isn't nice when everyone is prejudiced against you as Albert knows.

Albert says he knows some postliving Native Americans who want to be president but they aren't allowed even though they are American and they aren't nearly as black as the president but they are not alive.

I want to have some differently existing penfriends now I have a new computer and I can talk to them. Mum just wants me to have boring old living penfriends like Alice in Switzerland. I have told my Mum she is a Vital Supremacist and should be ashamed. She is a member of a place called LingQ and you have to be alive or they don't let you join I think it is shameful.

My Mum thinks she is not prejudiced because she likes men and women and black people and white people and all sorts of foreigners. But she is prejudiced because she does not like postliving people. She calls them dead or ghosts or deceased which is just as bad. She thinks they are creepy and they should go back where they came from and not try to talk with living people at all. She treats them worse than slaves although she does not want them to do anything she just wants them to go away and not bother her. Well if differently alive people started chaining themselves to railings and throwing themselves under the Queen's horse it would just serve everybody right.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

2008-11-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

Lizzie Higgs-Boson writes:

It is November 5th already! Autumn rolls around again so fast.

I took my children, Stanley and Olivia, to the Primary School for the festivities. (It was too late for little Ivor, so his Dad stayed at home, putting him to bed).

The schoolchildren had made a lovely Guy, very lifelike and completely biodegradeable. The Fire Service have refused to come out to any more school bonfires in Dusty Mouldings, so this year the school has an exciting new twist on the whole "Burning Guy Fawkes in effigy" thing. This year they are composting the Guy instead. They have built a huge compost heap in the corner of the school field and put the Guy on top. It will take about a year for him to rot down, even soaked as he is with wee (which the Reception class, with great gusto, have been collecting). It's not quite the spectacle of a huge bonfire, but the children will be learning important lessons about recycling from it.

We all ate baked potatoes and roasted chestnuts ("Warning! May contain nuts!") , drank hot chocolate and watched the firework display. I thought it was a magnificent show considering the budget the PTA had for it. They can't have paid full retail price for all those fireworks. Someone must have a Cash and Carry card.

Mary didn't come. She objects to Bonfire Night. She says we are celebrating the centuries-long oppression and persecution of members of minority faiths in our country, and that there's no reason to take pride in the memory of a failed regicide and mass-murderer, who the king had tortured and publicly hanged, drawn and quartered.

She did, however, let James and Minnie come with us. Her moral objections don't stand in the way of her children filling themselves with cheap baked potatoes. I made sure first that that rather unnerving young Scottish doctor wouldn't be coming with them. When he showed up on Hallowe'en for the Trick or Treating he hardly said a word, and when he did speak I found him completely incomprehensible. Such a broad Scottish accent, it's surprising the NHS employed him. I don't know how his patients get on with him.

Minnie got into trouble for hiding some rook-scarers in the big compost heap. She was under the impression that they were going to set fire to it. When she realised that all she had done was to get her fireworks all soggy, she tried to switch a bucket of Reception's wee for the water for the hot chocolate. She's going to have a fortnight's detentions for that. Mary won't be happy, she'll have to attend the course on "Managing Positive Behaviour" again.

Meeting interesting people on the internet

2008-11-04T08:27:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

My LingQ student has sent me a writing submission to mark! I think it is about yak herding, though it is a little hard to be sure. "TibetanChick" has an English vocabulary of about a hundred and fifty words, at least ten of which are very rude. I think she must have had some contact with the American military at some stage.

Still, her English is a lot more impressive than my Tibetan. Fair play to her for deciding to learn. It just goes to show, there is nothing in the world so dangerous or daunting that a granny somewhere isn't prepared to try it. Go TibetanChick!

James' new computer is certainly an interesting bit of kit. It sprawls over the workbench like an animatronic octopus. I've seen external sound cards, external DVD writers and external speakers before, but this is ridiculous. Most of the components of this computer are external. I'd be surprised if there's anything left inside the casing at all. Many of the components were designed by Harry the Geek, and as they are passive optical components they don't hum and they don't get warm. All they do is emit a faint, eery glow. If H.P. Lovecraft had ever owned a personal computer, it would look like this.

Harry says that his phase-shift photonic transmission system increases the speed of operation of the computer into the realms of Gigahertz, and increases the effective bandwidth of the internet connection to some Terabytes a second. Surely he can't be serious?

Harry also claims he's got Ouija for Windows 6.1 working on it. Apparently it works best with a tweaked version of Windows 98 (or Linux), and with the extra bandwidth you can increase the signal-to-noise ratio to quite reasonable levels. Oh goody. My son is already friendly with one deceased person, and I would prefer him to spend more time amongst the living. Some dead people weren't at all nice. Atilla the Hun, Napoleon, my great-aunt Fanny. I hope the security is sufficient to block out unsolicited messages. I must check the firewall settings before I let him use it.

Harry the Geek comes up with the goods

2008-11-03T01:45:00.000-08:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

I noticed this morning that we have a new LingQ member from Mauritius. I wonder if they want their dodo back?

I was pondering on who has the best claim to Dodgson the dodo. James bought him fair and square from a Dutch sailor in the seventeenth century, but unfortunately he didn't think to ask for a receipt.

The Werewolf thinks Dodgson comes under the Endangered Species legislation, which makes it highly illegal for us to be keeping a rare wild animal in a coop in our workshop.

I can't see that an animal that's been extinct for over three hundred years can be considered endangered. It's like putting the Loch Ness Monster on the "species at risk" list.

The Werewolf says that, as Dodgson is alive and well, clearly the Dodo is no longer extinct. There is now a total of one dodo in the world, and that makes him pretty blooming endangered.

I say you would first have to prove that he is a dodo, and as there is very little dodo around (just a dodo foot or something at the Oxford Museum of Natural History) it would be difficult to prove. The court case could drag on for years.

I was just about to look up the UK laws on keeping wild animals on Google when the Werewolf came in, closely followed by Harry the Geek and, by the looks of it, half the stock of Silicon Heaven.

"Did they have everything you wanted?" I asked with interest. Harry has offered to upgrade one of his old computers and give it to James to use for his school work. It's all a bit home-made, but does have the big advantage that he'll let us have it for £30, which is the grand total of my earnings as a LingQ tutor so far.

"Most of it," answered Charlie, putting the vintage computer he was carrying onto the floor. "The Head Anorak was well impressed by Harry. I think he realised he's met his match."

"The wee eijit dinna ken muckle o' phase-shift modulation," said Harry with self-satisfaction.

"Well, who does?" I asked. "Apart from you of course. That's what you did your Master's thesis on, isn't it?"

"Aye," he answered. "Ye can get an exponential increase in bandwidth if ye use passive optical components instead of electronic ones, and use synchronised photon streams. But that wee laddie in the shop had nivver e'en studied at Cambridge. He didna know the furrst thing about it!"

Well, quite. I peered into some of the bags.

"I'm not sure this lot will all fit in James' bedroom," I commented.

"I'm pretty sure it won't," countered Charlie. "It'll have to go in the workshop. I'll rig up an ethernet link while Harry's putting it all together."

"You're going to put out James' computer out in the workshop?" I asked. "Are you sure about this?"

"Do you want to pay £300 for a new computer that will fit in his bedroom?" answered my husband.

Mmm. I would have to work a lot harder at attracting students at LingQ to pay for that kind of technology. At present I only have one student, an elderly lady from Tibet, who chose me as her tutor because she thought that I was a minor member of the Royal family. To earn serious money I would have to act like a serious tutor.

"Well, if you're going to be making a lot of noise drilling I suggest you get started now," I said to Charlie. "Minnie and James have taken Dodgson for walkies in the woods at Sir Isaac's. I don't want a traumatised dodo on my hands. I've told them to be back for one o'clock. Are you staying for lunch, Harry? I'm doing Toad in the Hole and Spotted Dick with custard."

Harry brightened at the thought of a hot meal (I don't think he's at ease with cooker technology). He muttered something about neeps. I'm not comfortable with Scots, but I took this to be a remark about root vegetables. I said I'd see what I could do, and left them both to play.

Trick or Treat!

2008-10-31T00:30:00.000-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

Hallowe'en, half past seven. The Werewolf was upstairs posting on his increasingly popular music blog. I was in the sitting room having a chat with a German LingQ friend over Skype when the door opened and a strange and sinister group of people (well, mostly people) came in. The tallest one saw that the PC was on and stood mesmerised, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a lorry. The shortest one flapped his wings grumpily and cooed.

I hastily pulled a sock over the webcam. It was that or work out the German for "That weird bunch behind me are a psychiatric outpatient who I have a crush on, my free-thinking kids and a dodo rescued from the seventeenth-century." I didn't think that Reinhard was ready for that kind of information about my life.

I signed off as fast as I politely could and turned to face the shambling, flapping, vacantly staring group.

Minnie was wearing a floral dress, a pink cardigan, thick grey woolly tights, fluffy slippers, and a black leather jacket with "Hell's Grannies!" written over the back in studs. I hope the real Hell's Grannies don't get to hear about this. Relations between the Hell's Grannies and the Knights Hospitalier have been quiet of late, and I wouldn't like my daughter to be the one to break the fragile peace.

James was wearing his usual clothes, minus his socks but plus a baggy grey jumper. He was wearing a grey wig to which he had applied his industrial-strength hair gel, until the hair stuck up at odd angles. Under his arm I saw a small blackboard with curly equations scribbled over it. I guess that his invisible friend, the late Albert Einstein, doesn't mind James dressing up as him for a Hallowe'en joke.

Harry the Geek was wearing a white laboratory coat and glasses. His usually wild hair had been carefully slicked down. There was a stethoscope round his neck and he was carrying a clipboard. I suppose it's not surprising that Harry should have a horror of doctors, his experiences as a psychiatric inpatient at Sir Isaac's sound dreadful.

I glanced down at Harry's ankles. Harry was wearing matching grey socks. Thank the Gods for that! Despite it being his parents' wedding anniversary, with all the emotional stress that that usually implies, Harry was having a good day.

I have become very good at telling Harry's state of mind from his socks. Two odd socks is situation normal. Two matching socks is a sign of particularly good emotional stability. No socks means that the Devil has been giving Harry trouble again. Only one sock is a very bad sign and may cause me to give his care-worker a call.

Dodgson the dodo was wearing a tartan doggy jacket, a collar and a lead. In the dark he might pass for some breed of terrier.

"Get that animal out of my sitting room and into his coop before he ruins the carpet!" I said sternly to my son. James knelt down and started undressing the bird. "What on earth did you take him Trick or Treating for anyway?"

"He was the Trick," answered Minnie smugly. "We kept him behind us. When people chose Trick, we brought Dodgson out and shone a torch under his beak. Some people were really freaked out! We got lots of sweets!" She waved a bulging carrier bag at me.

Oh dear. I wonder what the Vicar's going to have to say about this.

"Weren't you supposed to be Trick or Treating with the Higgs-Bosons?" I asked, making a deft grab for the bags of sweeties. They looked quite sugared-up enough already.

"We started off with them. But there were too many of us so we split up," answered James, scooping the dodo up in his arms. "Besides, Lizzie kept giving Harry funny looks. I don't think she liked the look of him."

"I told her that Harry's a doctor at Sir Isaac's, and he came straight from work without changing," supplied Minnie helpfully. "I don't think she bought it."

Well, that's Lizzie's problem. As long as she considers the schizophrenic heart-throb to be a "responsible adult" then she can't object to my kids going round the neighbour's houses with him.

"Harry, just the man! I need to talk to you about computers," I said switching off the computer, and Harry woke from his trance and grunted in Scots. I was hopeful of geting whole sentences out of him by the end of tea.

"The Hallowe'en supper's ready," I said. "A cauldron full of hot Witches Brew stew with Devil's Dumplings, Dead Men's Finger Rolls, Bat Biscuits, Imp Cakes, Brain Jelly, and Eyeball Ice-cream. Wash your hands first please!"

And a splendidly creepy evening was had by all.

To: The Werewolf, Badger Crossing Planning Unit

2008-10-30T03:25:00.000-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes to the Werewolf:

Hello dear! Is your e-mail server down? Well, I figure you look at your blog several times a day, and as our blogs are linked in cyberspace, you'll probably see this message before 5pm.

Lizzie is taking the kids out Trick-or-Treating on Friday. I wondered about inviting Harry round. He could go out Trick-or-Treating with them, while I rustle up a Hallowe'en party tea. You know I don't like the idea of him being at home alone on 31st. It's his parents' wedding anniversary and his family always have a big fight, then ring up Harry and take it out on him. He's better off out terrorising our neighbours than staying in and having his family terrorising him.

Stanley is banned from coming round to our house to do his project. That leaves James short of a computer (I'm not letting him use mine, not after what he did to it last time!It took ages to clean the golden syrup out of the DVD drive.) Perhaps it's time he had a computer of his own? I can afford £30 from my English tutoring earnings. Are they getting rid of any old PCs at the Council that we could get for that? Perhaps Harry knows where we could get James a cheap computer.

Don't forget eggs, milk, yoghurt, a cabbage, bread flour, onions and Fair Trade leaf tea.

xxxx

Adult supervision is required

2008-10-30T02:47:00.000-07:00

Lizzie Higgs-Boson writes:

I must say, Mary, I'm getting a little bit concerned about the way Stanley and Jay come back from your house on a Saturday evening with dirt all over their clothes. Last week they came back smelling of wood and tobacco smoke, and the week before they smelled of manure!

I can't get a straight answer about where they have been. Stanley claims that he, Jay and James went to the allotments and were talking to a man who was spreading muck on his fruit bushes, while tending a bonfire and smoking his pipe. Honestly, Mary, do you think it's a good idea letting three eleven-year-old boys roam at will around Dusty Mouldings? The allotments are not a safe place for children, especially not if they start talking to strangers. And to be exposed to the dangers of passive smoking and manure! I only hope Jay keeps quiet about where he has been, because if Kay Bee hears they have been to the allotments she will have a fit. You know how she worries about Jay's safety.

Stanley admits he hasn't written a single word of his project yet, and it's due in on December 1st! What on earth have they been doing at your house all this time??? I think it would be sensible if the boys came round to our house to work on their project from now on. They can use Stanley's laptop to look up facts on the internet and write their project up. We can give them proper adult supervision.

It is Hallowe'en tomorrow and we are taking Stanley and Olivia out Trick-or-Treating after tea. We will be calling for Jay Bee on the way, and James and Minnie can come too if they behave. Please ask Minnie to tone her costume down a bit this year - her Bloody Zombie outfit last year was really very disturbing. The Vicar had a word with me at church the Sunday after. Several elderly parishioners had complained and one had asked for an exorcism.

I am not a Happy Bunny

2008-10-27T11:50:00.001-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

I am quite seriously cheesed off. There are three main reasons for my discontent. First, I am still feeling poorly thanks to the bug I caught at the "Parents' Whinge" meeting. Charlie calls it "24 hour flu", but I've had it for nearly three days now, and "the three-day sniffles" doesn't sound nearly as impressive. I'm all right as long as stay on the sofa and don't attempt anything more strenuous than making a pot of tea and watching "Young Dracula".

Second, I have lost my new and feature-packed mobile phone. Well, I didn't lose it. My son gave it to a seventeenth-century Dutch sailor with bad teeth and scurvy and a taste for heritage tobacco and rum. I don't suppose he'll have any more success in working out how to use it than I did.

I really miss that phone. Admittedly, I never managed to make a call on it, but that's not the point. It was a crucial weapon in my battle to chat up Harry the Geek. Harry is tall, dark, fiercely intelligent, and smoulderingly georgeous. He is also remarkably bashful in the presence of women. He will speak to us only in the company of some gadget or gizmo that he can hold and fiddle with and generally stay within his comfort zone of the technologically complex. I can hand him a gadget and say something like, "I still can't get it to work as a USB storage device, Harry!" Then I can lose myself in those deep, dark eyes while he talks about technical things I don't understand and don't really care about. Talking about bits and bytes calms and soothes Harry the way a well-made martini relaxes James Bond.

Poor Harry is ill at ease with himself and with other people. He lives in fear that he may be forced to engage in the baffling world of "small talk" and "social intercourse" and all his pychological shortcomings will be put on display. If only he realised, with his looks he doesn't have to say a word. He can just smile and perhaps raise an eyebrow slightly, and any red-blooded woman within smiting distance will fall straight into his arms. Who needs conversation?

Ahem. Well, anyway. As I was saying...

The third reason for my state of disgruntlement is that blooming great bird my son brought back from his latest foray into English History. I don't know what he intends to do with it. I've googled and googled, but I can't even find out how to look after it. Wikipedia was surprisingly reticent on the subject of dodo husbandry. Maybe I shall, in time, write them an article on the subject myself.

My husband, to his credit, took the news that his son had brought a dodo home with very good grace. After initial panic, we decided that the bird (hereafter to be known as Dodgson) should probably be kept warm. Mauritius is warm, isn't it? Geography is not our strong subject. Charlie has constructed a hasty dodo-coop in the workshop, and rigged up a little heater in there to keep Dodgson cozy. We also decided to feed Dodgson fruit, porridge and cornflakes, at least until we could get better advice on diet. Some people keep pigeons, don't they? Dodgson looks rather like a big pigeon. If we could get advice from a pigeon-fancier we could perhaps just multiply up the quantities a bit.

I hope we don't get into trouble with the Council, as we are forbidden to keep chickens in our area. It may be that a dodo would come under the rules for keeping pigeons or even geese. I've asked Charlie to check the Council's rules for poultry-keeping.

I am also worried about giving him exercise without the neighbours finding out. We don't have a very big garden, and a two-foot high bird scratching in our flower beds might attract attention.

The boys bring home a souvenir

2008-10-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

I wasn't feeling too well on Saturday. Some bug has been going round the school, and I must have picked it up at the "Parents' Whinge" meeting on Thursday. Honestly, if it weren't for the free tea and slices of Battenberg I wouldn't bother going. I didn't manage to get a word in edgeways. The whinges this term were: homework is hard, P.E. kits get dirty, the teachers are too strict. And this is just from the parents. Heavens knows what the kids find to complain about.

I was tucked up on the sofa with a pot of tea and a plate of buttered malt loaf, when the door opened and a selection of the Younger Generation slouched in. I noticed hazily that they were grubby, and smelled of soot, woodsmoke, tobacco smoke and....my nose signed off before it reported anything that might distress me.

"Mmmmfff!" I mumbled from beneath the duvet.

"Oh, cheers, Mum!" said James and grabbed my plate of malt loaf. "We're starving!"

"Where've you been?" I sat up and tried to focus.

"London," mumbled Stanley through a mouth of cake.

"Again?" I asked, pouring myself another cup of tea.

"Last week we did the Great Fire of 1666," Stanley answered. "Today we wanted to see Guy Fawkes blowing up the Houses of Parliament in 1605."

"But the thing about the Gunpowder Plot," I said, sipping tea and struggling to concentrate, "The important thing is...it failed. The Houses of Parliament didn't blow up, so there was nothing to see. Er...oh. You didn't make the plot succeed, did you? I think you could do some serious damage to history there."

"Oh, no!" said James cheerfully. "That would have been a bit naughty. We would have ended up killing lots of people. And if we changed history then Stanley's Scouts pack might not hold their bonfire and fireworks display this November 5th, which would be a shame. No, we went to warn Guy Fawkes so he would call off the plot and they wouldn't all get tortured and then hanged, drawn and quartered. That was really evil, what King James had done to them."

"Mmm," I responded. I don't hold with meddling with the fabric of recorded history, but you can't deny that my son's heart is in the right place. "So what did you do?"

"We went to London in March 1605," said Stanley, sitting on my duvet and getting some soot onto it. "I've read this cool book about the plot. Guy Fawkes rented a cellar beneath the House of Lords and by March he had hidden thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in it. They wanted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the Autumn and kill King James, but a member of their gang gave the game away when he warned his brother-in-law to stay away from parliament. We thought it would be easy to find Fawkes in London in the Spring and warn him off."

"But we couldn't get in," continued Jay, who had settled himself on the beanbag. "There were all these guards. We couldn't get anywhere near the Houses of Parliament. We went all round looking for a way in. We looked for ages, until I needed the toilet."

"We told him he could go in the street," chimed in James. "Other people were. There were poos everywhere. But he wouldn't go unless there was a proper toilet. So I thought of going into the nearest pub. Pubs always have toilets. And I thought we might find Guy there, or someone who knew him."

"And they let us in!" said Stanley with astonishment and wonder in his voice. "They let us into a pub, and we're only eleven. People were drinking beer and smoking and everything in there!"

"I don't think there were a lot of laws about taverns in those days," I murmered, trying very hard not to imagine the scene. Of all the places I could wish my boy not to see, a seventeenth-century tavern in London would be fairly high on the list. "What was it like?"

"Dark, smoky, smelly. The toilet was just a bucket in a shed. It didn't flush or anything!" complained Jay. "It was really hard to go."

"He was gone for ages," said Stanley. "While he was gone we got talking with these sailors."

"They were hard to understand," said James. "Funny accents. I think they were Dutch. Albert could understand them a bit. They were really friendly. They shared their dinner with us. Sausages and beer and rum. They let us have a smoke of their pipes too. It wasn't very nice."

"Their breath stank, and their teeth were really horrible, all brown and stumpy," said Stanley. "Maybe it was scurvy. They said they ate ships' biscuits most of the time when they were at sea. They weren't used to eating proper food."

"We gave them a Mars Bar and they got really excited!" said James. "They asked to see all the things we had on us. Luckily Stanley had his rucksack with our provisions in it. We did a trade."

"What did you give them?" I asked with fascination and some concern.

"Golden syrup sandwiches, three bottles of Fruit Shoot, three bananas, a bag of Fangtastics, half a packet of polos, a biro, my best Doctor Who rubber, my sports watch and a mobile phone," answered James promptly. "And the rucksack."

"My Mum's not going to be pleased about that," moaned Stanley. "It's my Scouts one, I need it for our camp-out next month."

"Jay's Mum won't be pleased about the mobile phone," I countered. "You've only just got it back from 1969."

"Oh, that's all right!" said James cheerfully. "It wasn't his mobile phone, it was yours."

"WHAT?" I shrieked.

"You told me to take it," he said innocently. "You told me to get pictures as evidence that we'd really been to the past."

"You have given my mobile phone to a seventeenth-century Dutch sailor," I said as calmly as possible under the provocation. "That's going to give archaeologists nightmares for years. It's not even going to be much use to him. The battery will run down in a couple of days and it will be useless."

"Yeah, he was more excited about the watch," admitted James. "I told him it was waterproof, never needed winding, and was accurate to within about a minute a year. He thought it was great!"

I thought about what I had read about the Dutch exploration of the East in search of spice routes. Anyone with a reliable time-piece would have an absolutely collosal advantage on the sea. They would be able to work out their longitude, and therefore their position, better than any of the explorers of their day. They would be space-time travellers of the seventeenth-century.

"That watch would be worth an absolute fortune in 1605," I mused. "I hope you got something good in exchange?"

"We left it in the kitchen, Mum!" answered James.

The doorbell suddenly started playing "I'm the Laughing Gnome!" and we all jumped.

"Quick Jay, Stanley, James, upstairs for a quick wash and brush-up before Stanley's mum sees you!" I commanded. "I can keep her talking for about five minutes. Come down looking respectable or you'll get grounded again!"

They thumped and crashed their way upstairs, and I opened the door to Lizzie Higgs-Boson. Luckily she was quite happy to grumble about the "Parent's Whinge" meeting, so I didn't have to delay her by forcing her to have some tea and cake while her son and Jay cleaned themselves up. A quarter of an hour later I was free to go into the kitchen, to wash up my tea things. That was when I discovered the grubby, maritime-looking (and smelling) hessian sack on the floor by the dishwasher.

I prodded it cautiously. The sack stirred. Remembering the rat that Stanley had brought back from 1666 I felt suddenly nervous. What living creature would my son and his friends consider to be a fair swap for their sandwiches and some twenty-first century technology?

Rather shakily I untied the top of the sack and opened it up. A beady yellow eye glared at me reproachfully. It was attached to an enormous bird, about the size of Stanley's little brother Ivor. It had pigeony grey feathers, a curved and pointed beak some nine inches long, absurd little stubby wings, short, fat yellow legs and a tuft of big curly feathers for a tail.

"Aargh!" I yelled and jumped smartly backwards, hitting my head on the extractor fan. "Oh my Gods! You're a....!"

"Doo-doo!" said the dodo.

Men in Black

2008-10-15T03:34:00.000-07:00

It was nearly tea-time and I was grabbing a quiet few minutes on the computer when the doorbell rang. It played "Tie me kangaroo down" and made me jump.

I went and opened the door. On the doorstep were two sinister-looking men, both tall and dark. They were wearing severely-cut dark suits, white shirts and sunglasses. One of them was inspecting my doorbell as though it had failed to live up to his expectations.

"Can I interest you gentlemen in the message of The Great Cthu'lu?" I asked brightly. (It's always a good idea to get the first word in with these religious types). "I have some leaflets right here!"

"I'm a Jedi Knight myself," said the more hairy man in black. "And my colleague here can always ask the Devil if he has any questions on religion."

"Och, I dinna talk to him, he talks tae me," said the one fiddling with the doorbell. "I dinna encourage him."

"Charlie! Harry! I'm so sorry, I didn't recognise you, you look like respectable people in those suits," I said and stood aside to let my husband and his colleague and fellow badger-champion inside.

Charlie and Harry own a grand total of two suits between them, which they bought at a funeral home's closing-down sale. They wear them for weddings, funerals, visits to the psychiatriast (in Harry's case) and Council planning meetings. They look quite scarily official in them, until you look down and see the Doc Martin boots on Charlie's feet and the lack of socks on Harry's.

"Happy Birthday, Harry!" I said, giving him a big hug. This was rather unkind of me, forcing unexpected physical intimacy with a member of the opposite sex on Harry. He flushed bright fuchsia and shambled off to look at our collection of Monkey DVDs.

"They agreed one badger crossing, but they're still arguing about the placing of the ones by the park," growled the Werewolf, taking his Dalek lunchbox out of his offical council briefcase. "We stressed the importance of the electronic eyes and the badger-tagging. Nobody really seems to care about the rights of badgers in Middlehamptonborough."

"That's terrible, dear," I said mechanically. "Minnie, James come downstairs and wish Harry a Happy Birthday!" There was a sound as though of a group of drunken baboons falling out of a tree, and my children appeared.

"Take Minnie's chainmail off and put some trousers on, James. Minnie, I need you to try the chainmail on for size. Hurry up because it's nearly time for tea," my mouth said while my brain wandered off somewhere else entirely. Men in black...official...scarey...James....Men In Black...tea...aha!

"AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" I yelled. Harry, who isn't good with loud noises, jumped and banged his head on the sideboard.

"Sorry, Harry," I said as he did some calming breathing exercises. "Charlie dear, I need you and Harry to run a quick errand and get Jay's mobile phone. James will take you to where they left it."

I'll say this for my husband, he may look like someone who howls at the full moon, but that hairy head is packed with brains. He had worked it out before James had finished putting his trousers on.

"Come with us, Harry, you'll like this," he said. "We'll have a ride in James' go-cart. James, we need you to drive. You two can sit on my lap if you like."

"Not that we're gay!" said James and Harry in chorus as they went out to the workshop. I smiled at a problem well solved and went out into the kitchen to finish icing Harry's birthday cake.

Baking a cake for Harry The Geek

2008-10-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

It is Harry the Geek's twenty-eighth birthday tomorrow and I'm baking him a cake.

I should like it known that it wasn't my idea to call him The Geek. He insists on it. He has considered the range of likely nicknames and decided that The Geek is probably the best he's likely to get. He is proud of being an electronics genius, and rightly so. Harry is tall, dark and Scottish, good-looking in a brooding sort of way, and fiendishly intelligent. He is quietly spoken, well-mannered and very good with children. He's just my type, although I daren't tell him how gorgeous he is because it would only embarrass him. He doesn't have much self-esteem. Ah, if only I were still single. If only I were younger. If only the Devil would stop stealing all his socks. Harry the Geek has schizophrenia.

We met him four years ago now, when we were up at St Isaac's scrumping for apples. He had been an inpatient there for some time, and had just escaped from the ward for a shopping trip. The orderlies searching the grounds for him saw the Werewolf up an apple tree, and were understandably confused. My husband refused to be coaxed down from his tree, and by the time a nurse had fetched a ladder Harry had returned from PC World and was offering to hold it steady for them.

It was the start of a beautiful friendship. We all took to Harry straight away. After all, hearing voices, seeing odd things or having peculiar ideas is hardly unusual in our house. Now that James is channelling the spirit of Albert Einstein, and the Devil now only talks to Harry on Father's Day, it's hard to say which of them is weirder. The medication they put Harry on at Sir Isaac's keeps him pretty stable, and he even managed to finish his master's degree while he was an inpatient there (that must have involved a lot of escaping). Charlie helped Harry to get his first proper job at the Council and they work in the same office planning road crossings for badgers. In return, Harry designed and built our doorbell out of an old Coke can and the insides of some musical greetings cards.

I have invited him round tomorrow for a proper birthday tea, with jelly and a cake and candles and everything. Minnie and James are very excited. So, I think, is Harry. He doesn't have a lot of friends or family (and certainly not family who are friendly) so he spends his birthday alone and gloomy unless forced to have a good time. He can't drink with his medication and anyway isn't a party animal, but he likes Doctor Who and stupid jokes and any toy with a battery in it. I might even ask James to take him for a ride in his space-time travel module. Hey, Harry's schizophrenic, he's not going to tell anyone he's travelled through time, is he? Not without getting his medication reviewed.

Stealing Newton's apples

2008-10-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

Sunday was a lovely, warm sunny day for a change, so the Dunwich family went out for the afternoon. We walked down to the psychiatric hospital, the Sir Isaac Newton Hospital for Long-Term Inpatients, known to us locals as Sir Isaac's. It is a lovely old place, with large, rambling grounds with a little orchard and some lovely old woods. The public are allowed in the grounds, and it is a favourite spot for dog-walking, blackberry-picking and frisbee practice.

There is a lovely old orchard, now sadly abandoned. I suppose it was once planted for occupational therapy, but it's been long neglected. The only people who pick the apples now are us locals, who turn up with rucksacks and wheelbarrows and shopping trolleys to take their scrumpings home. I know it's stealing, the apples must belong to the hospital trust or whoever manages hospitals for the NHS these days. But I've never seen anyone official looking out there in a stepladder, and we've never been chased off the premises yet.

I made sure the family were all looking respectable before we set off. The Werewolf was wearing his best jeans and a Glastonbury festival t-shirt ("Glastonbury: not just a load of old cow-pats!"). I wore my new LingQ t-shirt ("You don't have to be mad to learn foreign languages but it helps!"). James had even done his flies up. I didn't want us to get mistaken for in-patients trying to escape again.

It was great fun picking all the apples. Legend has it that some of the trees are grafted from old Isaac's own apple tree (the one that invented gravity) but I wouldn't know which. In any case the Werewolf is only interested in picking the cooking apples for making his chutney and pickle. I like the stripey sweet eating apples so I was busy picking those. Minnie ate six apples and then had a sword-fight with James using sticks.

I managed to get James to elaborate on his time-travelling adventures, while he was hanging upside down, half out of one of Sir Isaac's apple trees. It turns out that Jay has been grounded for leaving his mobile phone at Granny's in 1969. Surely this can't be right?

I walked over to the cooking apple trees to ask the Werewolf while he and Minnie were picking the cooking apples. Did he remember his Mum having a mysterious artifact when he was a little boy? He told me Granny Dunwich's story about the alien visitors and the subsequent visit from the Men In Black. This is all really very strange. While I, like all right-minded people, believe my government is capable of all sorts of dreadful things to cover up The Truth, it seems very odd that they should have got news of the alien visit so soon. Who did Granny tell? Or were the Men In Black who came and took the phone away merely a product of Granny's overheated imagination? But if James is right, the phone was left at her house. Either someone took it away or it must have still been there while the Werewolf was growing up. And he doesn't remember it.

I pondered on this all the way home while Minnie threatened to be sick. Did the British Government get hold of a twenty-first century mobile phone in the late sixties, and what did they do with it? Did Granny look at the pictures on it first? I hope there weren't any pictures of her on it. No-one likes to see pictures of themselves from thirty-nine years in the future.

Unpleasantness in the streets of London

2008-10-12T03:08:00.000-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

This Saturday I was determined not to be caught unawares by the Time Warp Trio. I sat down after tea and knitted Minnie's chain-mail for the Hedgehogs Rampant (a hoodie knitted in stocking stitch in grey wool on very big needles), while watching the adventures of Merlin on BBC1. I had even managed to record it. So I wasn't caught by surprise when my son and his friends slouched into the room.

"Yes, I recorded Merlin," I said while counting my stiches and hoping I hadn't recorded Timewatch on BBC2 by mistake. Then my brain read the report which my nose had just sent it. "What in the name of Harry Potter?" The three of them smelled of bonfires and cesspits.

I studied the young travellers. They were covered in soot, scorch marks, their hair was plastered to their heads, and they looked like they had been wading through mud. Well, something brown. "You look like chimney sweeps and smell worse than Ivor's nappy bucket. Where have you been? No, don't tell me. Lizzie's coming for Stanley and Jay in ten minutes. You need to run up and have a shower - a SHOWER, James, that's when the water falls on you from above, then find some clean clothes from James' drawers. Leave me your clothes, I'll wash them for you."

"I hate showers," grumbled James. "They ruin my hairstyle!"

"It looks like something's already done that," I countered. "What IS that in your hair?"

"It's Gardy Loo," supplied Jay. "This woman tipped some over us from an upstairs window."

"I think it was a chamber pot," admitted James. "It was full of wee and poo."

I shut my eyes and counted to ten. I got to two before my patience gave out. "UPSTAIRS NOW!" I yelled. They ran, leaving nothing but a few cinders and the rather distressing smell of history behind them.

Not a moment too soon, either. I saw Lizzie striding purposely up our garden path past the set of garden gnomes, which, thanks to my daughter, are now covered with sticking plasters. I opened the door just as Lizzie rang our bell. The doorbell played "Tiptoe through the Tulips" at her which caught us both by surprise. I opened the door.

"Hello, Mary!" she said, recovering her poise. "Are Stanley and Jay ready to go?"

"They're upstairs," I said, evasively. "Come and have a slice of apple pie while you're waiting. It's the most wonderful recipe from Switzerland!"

I herded her, protesting genteely, into the kitchen and forced a piece of Mrs Einstein's apple pie on her. When she politely called it "lovely", I insisted on writing her out the recipe. This killed a good ten minutes. When I judged that her patience was starting to wear thinner than her good manners I called the boys down, hoping they were now presentable. And, miracle of miracles, they were. Stanley was wearing jeans and a cyberman t-shirt, Jay was wearing jogging bottoms and a London Science Museum hoodie. James was in his underpants and socks. Clearly the strain of finding two clean outfits had proved too much for him.

"What are you doing here, Jay?" asked Lizzie in consternation. "I thought you were grounded!"

"Mumble mumble mumble so unfair mumble mumble," replied Jay.

"What have you done, Jay?" I asked with interest. I've never known him get in trouble before. I hope my children weren't involved.

"He lost his mobile," supplied Stanley helpfully. "He left it .....somewhere..... last weekend."

"And why are you wearing those clothes, Stanley?" asked Lizzie.

"We had....a water fight!" said James with a burst of inspiration. We got our clothes all wet."

"I'll wash them and bring them to school on Monday," I put in quickly.

When Lizzie had left with the boys, I looked sternly at my son. "Where did you go this time?" I asked.

"The Great Fire of London," he answered, smugly. "1666. We actually saw it, like, starting, in Pudding Lane."

"You didn't start it?" I asked suspiciously. I've got to stop watching Heroes.

"Of course not!" he replied indignantly. We sat on a bit of fence and ate our sandwiches and watched it. It was cool!" Funny way to describe the most famous fire in British history, but that's eleven-year-old boys for you. "Then we got spotted by a crowd of people. We tried pretending we were French tourists but they just got really angry so we ran away. They thought we'd started the fire or something."

Well, yes, it's always been risky being French in England. We've been at war with France for much of our history.

"Did you bring anything back with you this time?" I asked.

"We took some photos." And he handed me over his (my!) camera.

There were some fuzzy pictures of flames against a night sky which could have been a November 5th bonfire anywhere in the country. There were pictures of the boys, posing with what looked like a....

"Is that a dead cat?" I asked in bewilderment.

"Yeah! Right there in the middle of the street! It looked like it had been there for days!" James replied with relish. Mmm...who says history is dull? I slideshowed through the remaining pictures. There weren't many and they mostly seemed to be pictures of the boys pointing at...

"Poos! Right there in the street! Real people's poos, not just from dogs and cats!" James was almost beside himself with the thrill of discovery.

"Is that all the pictures you took?" I asked in some disbelief.

"Well, the memory was nearly full with the pictures of the Doctor Who exhibition at Earl's Court," said James. "I haven't uploaded them yet. I wasn't going to delete them."

"What about the 2 Gig memory card?" I asked. "Oh, hang on. It's in my mobile. Ah. You'd better take it next time. It's a terrible shame to time travel and not come back with any souvenirs."

"Oh, we did bring some things back," said James cheerfully. He fetched his jeans and rummaged in the pockets. "I got some bits of wood, they are bits of the buildings that burned down. I've got a bit of newspaper, except I dropped it and it's all covered in....er...mud, probably. And I got some maggots off the dead cat."

"Not really convincing," I said while my stomach heaved and my insides tried to become my outsides. "There's nothing special about the burned bits of wood. The newspaper's ruined and unreadable (and smelly, put it in the outside bin please!). And the maggots are just maggots."

James looked disappointed. "Stanley's got a rat," he said.

My imagination crashed at this point.

"Rats are no good," I said firmly. "You need an animal that's changed in 400 years. Changed or become extinct. And get rid of those maggots before I wash those jeans. In the garden, please. If I find them in your sock drawer there will be trouble."

I really must have another attempt at explaining the concept of hygiene to my son. I suppose I should be grateful he wasn't in London the year before. Oh Lordy, the rat! I went upstairs with some trepidation to look in the pockets of Jay and Stanley's jeans. They were all empty. Stanley must have taken the rat home with him. I do hope it wasn't carrying the Bubonic Plague. We haven't been vaccinated against it.

Granny Dunwich spins a yarn

2008-10-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

The Werewolf (I prefer "Caveman Charlie" actually) writes:

Hello dear, I just thought I'd stop by and see how your blog is doing. 35 hits already, not bad, eh? Who would have thought so many people wanted to read your diary?

My blog is well over the 2000 mark now, it seems my reminiscences of my days in the music industry are rather popular. That's Going Crazy With Caveman Charlie, at www.cavemancharlie.fruitcake.com, in case any of your readers are interested!

Since your blog consists of bits and bobs of our family life, I thought I'd write an entry for you. This is a Granny Dunwich story.

I went round to my parents' on Sunday, to help Dad spray DDT on next door's Leylandii hedge. Mum hadn't done her usual baking session on Saturday. The turf war between the Women's Institute and the Cross-stitch Circle has been hotting up and she spent most of Saturday out delivering threatening letters. So instead of the usual pile of buns she offered me a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich.

"I've always hated Branston pickle," I grumbled. "Have you eaten all that apple and rhubarb chutney I gave you?"

"The men from Alpha Centauri said it was great!" she retorted. This sounded like the start of one of my Mum's tall stories, so I settled back in her Parker Knoll chair and put my disbelief on hold.

"It was back in the summer of 1969, I remember it because your Dad had got you out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the first moon landing live on the telly," she said, smiling at the memory. "The next day you were so tired and grumpy, I was quite cross about it. Your Dad had you out in the workshop making a model. I was making some fairy cakes when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to these three funny-looking creatures. They said they were Jehovah's Witnesses from Alpha Centauri, but they didn't fool me. They were all under five feet tall, and dressed in strange grey material from head to toe, they even had hoods made from it. And they had the strangest shoes, with such thick, soft soles that you couldn't hear them when they walked. When they lowered their hoods I could see that they had short hair that stuck up at the oddest angles. Jehovah's Witnesses never look like that. Obviously they were Short Ugly Greys.

"Well, I was bored so I played along. I invited them in and made them a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches while they watched the Clangers. They got very excited about the Branston pickle (one said it was "better than the Werewolf's!") and when Trumpton came on the telly, they went wild. I suppose they can't receive it on Alpha Centauri.

"I went out to put the fairy cakes in the oven. When I came back one of the little grey people was holding up a small, matt-black device, like something out of Start Trek. He said it was a Mobile. He kept pointing it all round the room and pressing funny little buttons, while making sounds like "Cool!" "Phat!" and "L.O.L.!"

I watched him until the kitchen timer beeped and I went back out to to sort out the cakes. When I came back the sitting room to find the little people watching footage of the moon landing the night before. The one with the Mobile was pointing it at the telly and shouting "Oh wow! This is sick!" I suppose they weren't too happy about our first steps into space. Then another of them said that if they didn't run for it they'd "miss the end of Merlin" (whatever that meant) and they left in a hurry."

"Well, Mum, that's an interesting story," I said as calmly as I could. It doesn't do to get her over-excited. "Quite strange, don't you think?"

"Oh, you haven't heard the weird bit yet," she answered brightly. (Really? I unplugged my disbelief at the mains and waited.) "They left their Mobile behind when they ran out. I thought they might come back for it, so I put it in the china cabinet next to my Edward the Eighth coronation mug. The next day I had a visit from two strange Men In Black wearing serious suits and dark glasses. They warned me not to tell anyone what had happened and they took the Mobile away with them."

Mum finished her cup of tea, stood up and started to load the cups, saucers and plates back onto the tea tray. "No," she said reflectively, "the really weird part was this: one of the little people from Alpha Centauri looked an awful lot like your Dad when he was a boy."

The First Moon Landing...again.

2008-10-07T01:37:00.000-07:00

Mary Dunwich writes:

I was lying in the recovery position (Minnie was practising her First Aid on me) when James and his little gang of time-travelling hoodies stomped in.

"Did you record Merlin?" were his first words to me.

Capable of communication with the dead, altering the fabric of space and time and understanding how to use industrial-strength hair gel, yet some tasks still baffle my son. Finding a clean pair of trousers. Carrying his plate back into the kitchen after a Golden Syrup sandwich. And pressing the "Record" button on the DVD.

"Erm....no," I confessed, sitting up and starting to unwrap the bandages. "I forgot."

The resulting tantrum lasted until Lizzie Higgs-Boson turned up and took Stanley and Jay home. (She must think we live in a permanent state of chaos).

"Did you go anywhere...erm, nice?" I asked when he finally paused for breath.

"1969," he answered. "We watched the first moon landings."

"From Houston, or Cape Canaveral?" I asked, impressed.

"On Newsround," he answered. "On Granny Dunwich's telly."

Good thinking. The Werewolf's parents had a telly in 1969, possibly even a colour one. They were at the cutting edge of home entertainment technology in those days. And they were generally regarded as odd, even by the liberal standards of the sixties.

"Didn't they mind you turning up to watch their telly?" I asked.

"We said we were Jehovah's Witnesses," answered James.

My mother-in-law enjoys visits from door-to-door religious types. When they ask to explain to her the message of the Bible she invites them in for a cup of tea and an Eccles cake. She then turns the telly up and waits for them to get bored and go away. They don't call on her any more. She must be on some sort of blacklist.

"You don't look like Jehovah's Witnesses," I objected. Usually they are in their twenties and very neatly dressed, like undertakers out touting for business.

"We said we were Jehovah's witnesses from Alpha Centauri," he answered. Mm...cunning. Granny would definitely fall for that one. She's always enjoyed people who tell whopping great lies.

"Did you see your father?" I asked a little nervously. I had visions of some great time-travel paradox if he changed his father's nappy or something.

"He was out with Granddad in his workshop. They were building a model of Concorde", James answered. "We sat and ate red Leicester and Branston pickle sandwiches and watched Trumpton and the Clangers and then Newsround. Then we came home.

"I brought you a souvenir," he said handing me a 50p coin. I looked at it carefully. It did indeed say 1969, and certainly did look very new. "It's one of the first ones minted. Granny gave it to us. She hates them. She said they looked too much like half crowns."

"Well, er..well done," I said somewhat grudgingly. I had hoped the expedition would be a failure. "Pity you didn't bring back any more evidence than a coin."

"Next time we'll go prepared," he answered. "We'll take video footage and everything."

I'd like to see how he manages that. We don't have a camcorder.

A trip to the charity shop

2008-10-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Lizzie Higgs-Boson writes:

I gave Mary a lift into town, as her shaggy husband was building their new shed and she doesn't drive. She wanted to go around the charity shops looking for an armchair. When I asked her why she needed a new one she snorted and said it was a victim of mad science. Her sense of humour baffles me at times.

I love charity shops. I can't think how people ever managed before we had them. You can give them all your old junk, and you don't have to feel guilty about adding to landfill or throwing away Auntie's awful attempts at needlepoint, because you are Giving To The Needy. The volunteers in the shops sort through all your kind donations (presumably throwing Auntie's needlepoint straight into the skip at the back of the shop, but by then it's no longer your problem), and put the best of them out for sale in the shop. The proceeds then go to the starving in Africa or some other socially responsible and geographically distant cause.

I am mainly a donator of old junk....erm, I mean quality used clothing and household goods. Mary on the other hand is mainly a customer. She buys any amount of books, tea-pots and table-cloths. Judging from the state of her clothes they have mainly come from the less choosy charity shops. The only clothes she seems to buy new are her extraordinary t-shirts. Today she was wearing a white one with the slogan: "LingQ helps bad language users to use it better!!"

She even buys their furniture second-hand. She says there is no point saving up for a new armchair when Minnie will just use it for trampoline practice.

The best charity shop for furniture in Middlehamptonborough (pronouced by us locals as Millbruh) is the one run by the Knights Hospitalier on Long Eel Street. It contains a little tea shop run by the volunteers. This extended our shopping trip considerably, as I have never yet seen Mary manage to walk past a teapot.

Mary seemed usually grumpy over her tea. I asked her if anything was the matter. "My son is channelling the spirit of Albert Einstein, and he's likely to rip a hole in the fabric of reality with his frankly insane time-travel device!" she snapped. "Minnie is slightly more dangerous now she is having actual lessons in hurting people instead of just working it out for herself. I'm being impersonated by a dead Swiss person. And my LingQ stats are way below Steve's now." She moodily ordered another toasted muffin.

Oh dear. I do hope Mary's not heading for some kind of breakdown. She works herself much too hard with all these foreign languages she learns. I should ask the school counsellor to keep an eye on her.

It took her nearly the whole morning to choose a large, well-used arm-chair covered in eye-watering chintz for £8. Of course it wouldn't fit in my car, which meant that it needed to be delivered in the back of a van driven by a twitchy man called Sid. The charge for delivery is £15, but Mary did a complicated bartering deal with Sid involving lime pickle, tea cakes and mulberry jam, and he agreed to drop it off on his way home for free.

When we got back to the Dunwiches' house Minnie and her dad were sword-fighting armed with chisels. In the house my son Stanley, James and that nice little Jay Bee were sitting eating barley sugar and reading copies of the Beano from the 1950's "for research". "We're going at six!" said Stanley. "Merlin's on. That lot at CERN will all be watching the TV so they won't be paying too much attention to the instruments. It's our best chance of avoiding detection."

"Can we have marmite sandwiches and apple pie to take with us, Mum? asked James.

"If you tear a hole in the fabric of the universe I'll....make you join the scouts!" Mary snarled, and stomped out into the kitchen. I promised to fetch Stanley and Jay at 7pm and went off home.

I don't know how Mary manages to live among such chaos. These imaginative types really do seem to live in a different world from the rest of us.