Some years ago I was learning Portuguese in anticipation of a holiday to Madeira. I was using an app based system where you repeat and write phrases. Husband had been in the room with me most of the time while I was repeating sentences like Their elephant orders a beer or The sauce has no… Continue reading Eggplant-Aubergine
Tag: Language
Mongering
Why do only certain types of things get mongered? Why is it that scandal, gossip, scare and rumour can be mongered but truth, bravery and facts are not mongered? You can be a Warmonger but not a peacemonger. And of course you can also be a whoremonger. But before you think it’s only negative things… Continue reading Mongering
Mad, motivation, music (48.2021)
Birthday week! A shorter working week and a trip out of London (which I'll write up separately). But this week's observations: World's Gone Crazy: At a time when we should be very concerned about melting polar ice caps and global warming all contributing to climate change, I find myself slapping my head at the stupidity… Continue reading Mad, motivation, music (48.2021)
Four twenties ten (19.2021)
Anyone who has ever learned a foreign language will find certain aspects of the learned language amusing. Perhaps it's the concept of gender applied to inanimate objects - why is a table feminine? But one of the weirdest things I've seen is that the French words for 70, 80 and 90 are sixty-ten, four-twenties and… Continue reading Four twenties ten (19.2021)
The week that was (11/2020)
This week my mood was ruined by: Covid19. I know, I seem like a whingy child to be upset about my holiday being cancelled when people are dying, and all of Italy is in lockdown, I know. But I was really looking forward to that trip to India next month. We had been planning this… Continue reading The week that was (11/2020)
Sunday night
I’m in a dark, crowded room on a Sunday night, jumping up and down with hundreds of other people, singing “Devushka proskovya, iz podMoskovya.” No, it’s not a political rally; it’s a concert by Russian band Uma 2rman, and it’s taken almost 14 years for me to get here. In 2005, I was in Moscow… Continue reading Sunday night
Apples
I’ve often thought the reason I have never really successfully taken on board another language is because I love my own language too much. That’s not to say I am not interested in learning another language – I have tried, over the years, French, German, Spanish and Russian. And I also speak a little bit… Continue reading Apples
Tales from Tobhamhor 