Traduisez en français - I dare you!

I sent this letter to the Herald the other day, after reading that Carole Ford (one-time headteacher of Kilmarnock Academy and and highly respected writer of Maths textbooks) thinks academic standards in Scotland's schools are falling. The Herald didn't publish my letter but don't start me on the subject of the Herald's letter page or we'll be here all day, so here are my comments plus a wee bit more, not on Maths - I wouldn't dare - but on what she said about language learning.

I have the utmost respect for Carole Ford in her wish to defend standards in national exams. However, I don't accept her suggestion that translation into the foreign language ('the prose' as it was known in Scottish schools) was somehow a guarantee of excellence in language learning. I taught the prose for many years, routinely sending off to university excellent language learners who never achieved more than 12 out of 50 in that part of the exam and who emerged from academe after 4 or 5 years with good degrees, still unable to do prose translation. Even more tellingly, I worked with teachers with good degrees who every year did the prose under exam conditions at the same time as their students. And failed it. 

The experience of doing the prose was a pretty demoralising one for students and teachers alike. Dictionaries were not allowed. Who does any translation work without a dictionary on hand? You don't use it to translate but you do need it to check nuance of meaning, not to mention spelling. Every trick, piège and faux ami was in the prose. Teachers couldn't rely on what would appear from year to year, so we never felt we had prepared our students well, no matter how hard they and we worked. 

The trouble with translation of any kind is that it is a very high order skill. It requires a good knowledge of grammar and syntax, knowledge of cultural meanings and references, implicit and explicit understanding of language and how it works, knowledge and understanding of colloquialisms. There is more to it than simply word for word translation. 

These days school students just don't have the time or the maturity to develop such a skill. And in any case, frankly, translation is a waste of their time, which is better spent learning to manipulate a limited body of language suitable to their age and developing maturity; understand the spoken and written word; and develop their confidence in speaking and writing. 

These days, I do prose translation just for the hell of it: when I watch French movies, I put the subtitles on and check them for accuracy. You'd be amazed. Or maybe now you're read this, you wouldn't! 

Respect?

My friend wants to move house. Actually, she needs to move. She worked for a long time as a nurse and brought up four fine kids and then got ill. She now lives on benefits. Not her choice. Could happen to any of us. It's all a bit of a struggle for her. No, I don't mean living on benefits, though that's hard enough. Her flat, rented from a housing association, has two bedrooms and she's now having to pay bedroom tax. Getting a move to a smaller flat is proving to be the problem. There's a shortage of smaller flats and to stand a chance of getting one, you need to amass points to put you into the right category so you can 'bid for a house.' Read that again: you have to bid for a place to live. You can give medical and social reasons for wanting a move, all backed up by letters and reports from doctors and social workers. So in the end who will judge whether you have enough points to get you into the right category to bid for a house? A medical person? Social worker? Housing officer? Fraid not. It'll be an admin person from the office of the housing association.

Actually, I'm sympathetic to the admin person: you're hired, you think, to file papers, take phone calls and do the typing and you find yourself having to deal with unhappy people in terrible situations - and you're most likely untrained and unqualified.

This is, I'm sorry to say, a symptom of Tory World. It seems anyone can work in the public sector - no qualifications needed: the English Care Quality Commission that is getting so much stick at the moment over poor maternity care that killed mothers and babies has 1,000 people - mostly either unqualified or not qualified in the specialism they are working in - looking after the interests of hospital patients, residents of care homes, children in nurseries, etc in 40,000 establishments in all.

Down south, they're also publishing the data for surgery carried out by NHS consultants so that prospective patients can see their doctors' 'success' rates. Not that patients are in any position, most of us, to make a judgement about whether a surgeon is any good or not, since most of us are unable to interpret the data anyway. I suspect the surgeons at the Southern General Neurological Institute in Glasgow have some pretty poor results, but then they are looking after some of the sickest people in the country for whom an operation by one of these surgeons might be the last possible hope. It's the judgement of these consultants that counts and I'm afraid statistics don't show that. But the consultants down south don't dare argue - only 5 - yes, 5 - have dared refuse to sign up to this system.

I was in the early 00s referred to an NHS clinic for 'stress management'. I found myself waiting in a room filled with sometimes deeply distressed people: folk with mental health problems, addiction issues, women looking for abortions - and had my first interview with a woman who, on questioning, told me she was an occupational therapist with no training in any therapy that would help me deal with stress. I left and never went back. But I've often wondered what harm that woman did directing people to the wrong place, as she was bound to do with no training.

This lack of respect for professionals now is awful: degrees, years of study, experience - none of these count. Someone in a 'management' position will come in with a form and a clipboard and a set of criteria and judge you.

This all started with Thatcher and education in the 70s and 80s: she couldn't understand why people who worked with small children needed to be trained and qualified. The attitude persists: witness the current Tory minister who thinks one worker in a nursery can look after 6 small children. And they probably can - right up to the moment either the nursery worker or a child needs to go to the toilet.

The downgrading of qualifications is pernicious. It's how we've ended up with honours graduates at best working reception at the Premier Inn or at worst serving pizza in Di Maggio's, sometimes on minimum wage and working lousy unsocial shifts. The dignity of labour? Respect? Do me a favour.

History - it's all history

I like historical novels - I particularly like S J Sansom's Shardlake books and wish he'd write more - but I can't stand watching historical dramas on TV and in films. And not for the reasons you might expect. I can overlook the terrible dialogue, like this snippet from one of John Wayne's biblical epics:

- Truly this was the son of Gaad.
- Say it with awe, John.
- Aw, truly this was the son of Gaad.

I can even overlook the historical inaccuracy in almost all of the costumes: plunging necklines on women's dresses in ages that had women buttoned up to the neck or men wearing trousers centuries before they were invented. The absence of hats - yes, especially the absence of hats!

But it's the physical look of the characters that gets me. The latest extravaganza from the BBC is The White Queen.

Digression: what is this obsession at the BBC with the Tudors and now with the houses of Lancaster and York? Series upon series we get, all rehashing historical episodes we know never happened. It was all done much better by Shakespeare in his histories - why don't they show them?

Anyhow, The White Queen. Here are two photos:

This is a Lancaster or York woman painted at the time. Sorry, I don't know the difference between the two houses - and don't bother telling me - I'm working on a need-to-know basis these days. She definitely looks as if she lives an era when the life span of women was limited to about 40. 

And this is how a Lancaster or York woman looked according to the BBC. The lassie looks as if she's just off to do her shopping at Waitrose. Hair uncovered? I don't think so. V-front dress? Not likely. In the arms of a man? About 500 years too soon. And is she wearing blusher? O for heaven's sake!

It's not new, this inability to show people as they really looked in their own time.

Here's Greta Garbo in the movie Queen Christina in the 1930s:

And here's Queen Christina:

What do the original women have in common? They're wee, thin, pale - absence of sun being a way of showing you were noble-born and didn't have to work outdoors. They are well covered. And they definitely follow a different set of beauty rules from the ones that apply in the 21st century. 

Compared to them, modern actors frankly look too healthy. Not that I'm suggesting we starve the actors. But a token nod towards realism might be good. 

Poor Nigella

Nigella Lawson and her man got plenty of publicity last week: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22935683

Very little action followed, though. He got a caution - what's a caution to someone as rich as Charles Saatchi, I wonder? To add insult to injury for her, he was quoted in the newspapers as saying he'd accepted the caution on legal advice to get the whole business off the front pages of the papers. In other words, he shut the talk down because he could afford to hire a good lawyer.

Here's an interesting question: has Nigella Lawson decided she's had enough and left him? You can only hope so. 

A few quotes about domestic violence. One from a relative of mine: You don't know what happens in any family once they shut their front door. 

From a social worker with years of experience in this area: it happens in every walk of life, in leafy suburbs the same as in council houses, in gay as well as straight relationships. (You'll notice she didn't say the victims are always women.)

From a friend who admitted he had been guilty of domestic violence: There's no such thing as a person who only hits their partner - if there are kids, they'll attack them too. 

All good reasons for anyone who is in an abusive relationship to move out and move on. In the past, there were reasons to stay put and put up with it: family disapproval (you've made your bed...), lack of financial support, misplaced loyalty, the reluctance of the police to get involved, etc. It's less obvious why people would put up with this now. 

Maybe Nigella could lead the way by asserting her independence.

Neighbours, everybody needs...

By and large - as they say - I've always got on okay with my neighbours. Growing up in a tenement in Glasgow is a great educator: you have to get on with the neighbours or you would kill each other.

I did complain when I lived in a modern semi: one group of neighbours didn't seem to understand that their front garden was right opposite and on a level with my bedroom window and their midweek late night al fresco parties were shared with me. Another insisted on washing her car at 8am on a Sunday right under my window. For some reason it was easier for her to park her car outside my house rather than her own. Of course, I've been on the receiving end of complaints myself: a neighbour in Shawlands complained about me playing the piano at 9pm. Mind you, that was right after I complained her boyfriend had parked his lorry across my livingroom window, blocking out the light.

Here in our leafy suburban complex, it's a different ball game. We don't see each other that much for a start. The flats are big enough and well enough soundproofed so we don't hear each other. We do make an effort to keep in touch, with the occasional drinks party and an annual garden party. We discuss work that needs to be done and usually agree on how to keep the place up to scratch. We don't know each other well enough to fall out.

Except now the neighbours from hell have moved in. I don't mean they are anti-social and in need of an asbo, although we did have one of those in the next close for a few years. They are quiet and concerned to take their share of responsibility for maintaining the property. They are pleasant enough and make every effort to get on with the rest of us. But already they have managed to fall out with the new resident on their floor.

I thought it was the husband who was the problem but I've now decided from something that was said today it's the wife: you sound just like my husband, she said, always making allowances for people. I suspect this woman could start a fight in an empty house. She seems to go through life looking for trouble - and finding it. So I've decided I'll do the sensible thing: we'll have our garden party this weekend - which may end up in my house if it rains. And then I'll withdraw from communal life. I've given up the role of secretary of the residents' association and have refused to be the close rep. Now I'll have to leave it to someone else to take over the restructuring of the gardens, which is well in hand anyway.

I'm not looking for sympathy. But I didn't retire for this.

Welcome to Question Time...

...and you're welcome to it.

After its ridiculous outing to Edinburgh last week, QT was back to normal tonight. In London. Chaired by a relaxed and happy Dumbleby, pleased to be on his home ground and just generally pleased with himself. The panel was made up of the usual suspects: the mayor of London, a man with delusions of grandeur who fancies himself as a future prime minister; a comic who spent so much time grinning at the audience he couldn't possibly know what the other panellists were saying, and who addressed everyone as 'mate' although he now lives in Hollywood and hasn't lived or worked in the UK for a few years; a slightly mad journalist with nothing new to say; and a couple of politicians.

The female politician had to tolerate constant interruption, some of it from the chairman of the programme, as it took one of the audience to point out.

Every question led Boris Johnston to answer as if it referred only to London. There was a lengthy question about drug-taking in the UK, despite the fact that the politicians on the panel pointed out drug-taking is down and has been in decline for a decade, but that allowed Russell Brand to talk about his own drug experiences, which are quite far in the past now. This is what he usually does. Well, he's on this programme quite a lot and it's really all he can talk about. There was a question about bankers which allowed Johnston and the chair of the panel to repeat the usual accusation that the last Labour government was entirely responsible for the recession. Three years since the last election and still no action has been taken against the banksters, as no one on the programme pointed out.

At that point, I switched off. This used to be the BBC's flagship political programme. There is neither heat nor light here now. It's time Dumbleby was retired, along with his producer, and a new format devised that gives equal time to men and women and to politicians from all parties, to people with something new to say - say community activists - and that stops the chairman acting as if he was in some kind of stage show with himself as the star.

Somebody let me know when that happens. Meanwhile, I'll be reading reading the occasional political blog and reading my book.

The NHS and me

I had a review at my GP surgery today. You know the style: a meeting with the practice nurse when she checks my pulse and blood pressure, takes a blood test for cholesterol and diabetes and questions me closely about how much I eat and drink. This now seems to be all about her completing a form on line. She hardly has time to make eye contact with her patients these days so intent is she on following the form on the computer.

I've got used to the question: are you still an ex-smoker? After 30 years, I count myself as a non-smoker but I don't argue. In fact, I tend to go along with it all. I know it's a useful process but it's harmless. However, today there was an additional question: what target did I intend to set for my weight, my drinking - and exercise?

My review is scheduled annually because I've had a stroke and a fairly serious neurological illness (called Guillain-Barre Syndrome - Google it). The first was caused by a blood clot in a tangle of incomplete arteries in my brain. The second was caused by a virus. I have no control over either, but the two together have left me with what I can only call a neurological deficit. My right side is weaker than my left so sometimes I stumble and once in a while, I fall over. I also struggle going upstairs. My greatest wish is for all of my family to live either in ground floor flats or in houses with a toilet downstairs. So far: 2 out of 6 households have managed to oblige. Shows you how much they value visits from me.

But a more serious question is: when did the NHS stop treating people and start putting the responsibility for ill health onto the patients?

The fact is in every area of the UK where there is a serious health deficit - Scotland and the north-west of England are always quoted: deep fried Mars bars, chips with curry sauce, etc - there's a damn good reason for people being ill. Usually the population have been involved in heavy physical work, have endured generations of poverty and deprivation and the illnesses that go with them, like TB and diabetes, and - as in my case - it doesn't matter a bit how much we live a healthy lifestyle, the damage is done.

I worry about these reviews and their accompanying forms. Are we just going through the motions? Ticking the boxes? No part of this review will stop me having another stroke. Nor can anyone guarantee I won't have a recurrence of Guillain-Barre. But as for the money spent on funding our full time practice nurse, could it be better spent on frontline spending  in a hospital? Or are hospital staff all busy filling in forms too?

And equality for all?

There are two letters in today's Herald that I have taken exception to.

The first is by Bill Brown. Mr Brown is a retired quality improvement officer in Glasgow's education department and a regular letter-writer to the Herald. The subject under discussion is: why are more young people from outside the middle class not making their way to university? A report by Prof David Raffe of Edinburgh University this week suggests working class young people suffer due to finance problems and lack of access to the kind of academic education and the expectations middle class weans get from 'good' state schools and private schools.

Bill Brown describes young people I just don't recognise as typical students of Scottish schools: he says 'many' of the young people we want to target to send to university are anti-authority. They are agin 'teachers, government officials or police' to such an extent that they see all authority figures as 'alien and hostile', reject the education offered and embrace 'a parochial and non-compliant alliance to survive growing up with their local peers.'

This isn't the working class he's describing - this is some sort of feral underclass. I don't recognise from his description the young people and their parents that I worked with both as a teacher and a quality improvement officer. Yes, I encountered parents who had hated school and sadly passed on their negative views to their kids and I met kids who for lots of reasons (low expectations, social and mental health problems, family disruption, etc) could not take advantage of the education offered to them but they were relatively few in number. Most of the parents I met in schools were keen to see their kids do well. The younger the kids are, the more ambitious the parents are: the parents of nursery and primary age children have boundless hopes for their kids. It's in secondary school that things go wrong.

And that brings me to the second letter, by Robert Gibson, who wants Scotland to look at the educational reforms proposed for English secondary schools by Michael Gove: less 'coursework' (I'm guessing this means internal assessment) and more exams. Robert Gibson thinks more emphasis on exams would level the playing field for working class young people, who don't have access to 'a network of educated friends and family to advise them' and 'word processors' to help with their spelling and punctuation. He reckons if we move over to exams 'the socially and economically disadvantaged will be beneficiaries.' The naivety is touching. But I want to tell him he's talking mince, that schools have long been in the business of equipping young people with everything they can give them: not just word processors but before school classes, after school classes, holiday classes, study weekends away. Extra tuition at playtime and lunchtime is offered by many teachers as a matter of course.

If Robert Gibson had just read what Ian Bell wrote on page 13 of the Herald, he would realise the challenge that faces our society is a bit more complicated than shifting from coursework to exams in our schools. Middle class kids start out with an advantage whatever the assessment system. Their educated friends and family see their job as being to maintain their advantage in 'an era of rampart self-interest.' The challenge for our schools is to reduce the advantage of the middle class by equipping young people from less prosperous social backgrounds with the skills needed to compete. Of course, there's a limit to what schools can do and for 60 years we've been happily piling the responsibility onto schools and teachers for what is a societal problem.

Perhaps the most cynical comment in these letters is by Bill Brown: failure (my words) is 'part of the inevitable human condition in a mixed-class society.' I'm only glad nobody thought like that when I was at my scheme school and I'm damned if anybody is going to be allowed to think like that about the kids in my family.

I hate Facebook!

I'm really fed up with FB. All this footering about by the designers doesn't seem to make it work any better. In fact, sometimes it seems to be making the site worse.

Since the new timeline came in, I can't click the Like button on anyone's posts without FB leaping up to the top of my page. I don't mind that if I've just got started but if I've been scrolling down and have already read through several pages of comments, I then have to start scrolling down again.

Now I can't add a comment to anyone's page without the same thing happening.

And since last week, I can't edit or delete anything.

The photo upload remains a mystery: the only way I can get a picture onto someone's page is to create a new album on my own page and then tag the person I want to have see the photo.

All these faults are certainly a good way to shut me up! Right now, mostly what I post are jokes. Anything else on FB is too tricky.

On my home page, the entire left hand side is now permanently occupied by comments I wrote up to 4 years ago, photos of me (FFS! This is my page - and I know what I look like!) and invitations to me to 'improve' my profile by adding lists of TV programmes and films I've seen and books I've read. What is the point of these lists? Okay, the anally retentive among you may enjoy making lists but I already belong to groups that not only list books, films and TV programmes but tell me my FB friends' opinions of them. A bit more useful, right?

Meanwhile, my profile looks like I have lived a life of utter boredom: only one of the universities I attended appears on my page. The information about where I've lived and worked mentions only Glasgow so when I'm 'friended' by someone and they ask about my past, I have to go into a long rigmarole: born in Govan, brought up and educated in Pollok, taught in Pollok, then in Islay, then in Clarkston. Then worked in Argyll, travelling to aw the airts from a flat in Sandbank; then worked in Kilmarnock. Retired five years now. (And, of course, there's no way to mention of my volunteering activities on FB.) Oh, and I once lived for a year in France and also spent some time in Moscow learning Russian. These profiles are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I look at people's profiles when they ask to friend me and I've turned down quite a few potential friends because they have no photo on their page so no clue to their age (dates of birth are routinely not given nowadays), no sign of where they live or what they do/did for a living. If I see no link between them and me, I don't friend them.

So since FB seems to have a page for everything and everyone, where is the FB page that lets us make suggestions for improving the service? Yes, I know FB is 'free' but we have to sift through dozens of mostly crap adverts on the new timeline - and I reckon getting our time and attention should be payment enough.

Taps aff!

I've been quite scathing on Facebook about the need some Glaswegians feel to strip off as soon as the sun comes out and the Celsius thermometer goes into double figures. In truth, I've seen some horrible sights on our streets: socks and sandals, floaty floor-length dresses teamed with trainers; armpits that look like the hanging gardens of Babylon.

But what I should do is salute the brass neck of Glaswegians: these are the gals who get caught in a blizzard wearing 5 inch heels and what is basically a bikini and spend the rest of the year nursing frostbite and boasting about it. These are the guys who hang around the door of the Corinthian in a short-sleeved teeshirt in January, swinging their car keys. The message they are sending out? A don't need a jaiket - A've got a motor!

And now the intrepid entrepreneurial Glaswegian has turned Taps Aff! into a small industry.

You want a greetings card with Taps Aff! on it? Go to:http://thegreyearl.mysupadupa.com/collections/home/products/taps-aff

You want music for a Taps Aff! event? Here it is!
http://dalstonsuperstore.com/features/biceps-top-ten-taps-aff-tracks/

You want the 'heavily ironic' teeshirt? It's yours:
 http://www.dudebox.co.uk/products/taps-aff

As one of my Glaswegian friends put it so eloquently: A fkn luv this place!

No More Ms Nice Guy

See, this is why my efforts to be a nice person come to nothing.

I got an estimate from Scottish Gas for putting temperature valves on 6 radiators. I did a wee bit of research. Well, I asked a couple of pals and a heating engineer who lives across the road. Discovered if I did this, I could save some money on my heating bills and would only pay 5% vat because it's a home improvement. I also found out it's a good idea to hold on to old radiators rather than replace them: the older they are the better quality they are. So I phoned up, pledged £387 and made an appointment for today between 12 and 6.

I found at 2.00 and 2.01 I had missed calls on my mobile. I gave my mobile number to Scottish Gas under protest because the phone is on vibrate (I hate the ring tones available) and if I'm not right next to it, I don't hear it. I asked them to use my landline, which in fairness they have done up till now. I tried phoning the number I'd missed, got voicemail confirmation I'd had a call from Scottish Gas but it wasn't urgent and they would contact me another time.

So all through this lovely summer afternoon, I sit in the house by the phone. I have tubs to be filled outside, plants to split or move and coffee to drink sitting on the steps. At 4.20 I finally find the contact number, faff about with the Scottish Gas switchboard and finally get hold of someone in the call centre who passes me to someone in the appointments section.

The person who took the original booking had omitted to order the parts for my job. That was what the missed calls were about at 2pm. Why did nobody phone me again? They thought they'd left me an urgent message to phone them. Wrong - I was able to play them the message that had been left - hah! Why were they using my mobile number when I'd asked them four times in writing to use my landline? A mistake. I rebooked for the 18th of June having checked the person I was talking to had booked the parts.

At no time did anyone use the word sorry. You know, the word you use in business when you've f*ck*d a customer about, want to keep their custom and have been trained to understand sometimes that's all the customer needs to hear.

Why didn't I lose the rag and scream and shout? No point. The rest of my service from Scottish Gas has been fine for years. I even have my pal's daughter in the call centre in Hamilton keeping an eye on my account to make sure all goes well. Sadly, she was having a day off today. Really, Eirwen, it had to be today?

And anyway I lost the place completely last week when I got a cold call from someone called Jean (funny that) with a pronounced Indian accent, representing Virgin Media and promising me a new deal on my phone/broadband/TV set-up. But first Jean wanted me to give her my password. You know, the secret one you're meant to keep - well - secret. And she wanted me to think of it while I was standing over the cooker making a stir-fry. I threw a strop it took me hours to recover from. Not worth it. So today I did the zen thing: poured myself a glass of wine and went and sat on the steps, watched the butterflies and listened to the birdsong. And as soon as one of my neighbours appeared, I poured her a glass of wine too.....and then I let rip.

Resign! Why don't you?

One member of the UK Parliament and three members of the House of Lords have been caught up in a sting arranged by newspaper journalists to see if they could get people in public life to accept money for lobbying on behalf of private companies.

I'm not too impressed with the sting. It's been done before. It was sleazy before and it's sleazy now. I'm not at all impressed by the reaction of David Cameron who apparently warned before the last election that lobbying was the next scandal waiting to break but did nothing about it once he got into government.

But I'm most unhappy with the reaction of the guys caught in the trap. The MP (a Tory) has resigned the party whip. He plans to stay in Parliament till 2015. He'll continue to draw his wages and his expenses for two years and leave Parliament with his pension intact. Meanwhile he can vote any way he likes and doesn't have to worry about representing the people who elected him.

The peers involved are not hereditary peers but were all appointed by political parties: the Northern Ireland Unionist has resigned the Tory whip. The two peers appointed by Labour have been suspended from the party. Presumably the three of them can continue to turn up and claim their attendance allowance and expenses. Do these people also get pensions when they retire from the House of Lords? Nae idea!  But there seems to be no question of them resigning and I for one would like to know why.

An "honour" - and boy, do I loathe these - is not for life. People have been stripped of honours before now and, if it's proved that these peers have agreed to accept money to represent private companies, they should lose their honours. If the charge against the MP is proved, he should give up his seat now, lose his salary and his pension.

I'm afraid this is just another area where Westminster and the electorate seem to be living in different worlds: if you're caught with your fingers in the till in 'real' life (it's called accepting a bribe), you get the sack. You lose the lot: wages, pension, status. Your chances of getting another job are probably nil. If you do that in Parliament, there seem to be no repercussions.

Maybe if politicians weren't living in such a protected wee world, they might not be so despised. Remember this when MPs ask for their 10% (or is it 20%?) payrise.