This place of almost unequalled beauty used to be the smallest of the constituent republics of the former Yugoslavia. It borders on Serbia in the north/east, Abania to the south, and Bosnia-Herzegovina to the north/west. There is a long coastline, one of its chief contributions to aesthetic pleasure, lying on the Adriatic. (more…)
We see on the daily news programmes that ‘Los Indignados’ have returned to the Puerta del Sol and the Plaza de Cataluña in Spain, and various other municipal hot points in Europe, to celebrate an anniversary. It was in May last year that European city-dwellers learned to put up with their plazas and places filled to saturation with the young and the old, of every sex, of every class, of every profession, setting up camp, breaking out the same tired old political cant on badly spelled, cheaply printed placards. These are the ‘Indignants’. (more…)
The good Count Z. in the original Chitty / commons.wikimedia.org
The suave inventor of James Bond had already suffered a heart attack at the age of 52 when he began writing about a magic motor car with rather a long name. His son Caspar was 8, and dearly loved tales about myth, pretence and mechanical objects. Fleming went to a seaside hotel to recover and write for his son. He remembered a certain Count Sborowski who used to race an auto with an impossibly long bonnet called ‘Chitty’ at Brooklands. (more…)
Many students are accustomed to using the terms Prime Minister and The Cabinet and even The Cabinet Rooms in their studies and essays, but do not know much more about what these words represent. The term prime minister was first used when it was invented for the first of them, Sir Robert Walpole. He became PM in 1762.
The phrase did not start as much more than a term of abuse. Cartoonists in the eighteenth century loved it, and got a lot of cynical humour out of it. The position was officially called First Lord of the Treasury, and the British had to wait until 1905 for the term ‘prime minister’ to be used on a Royal Warrant. Funnily enough, it was first employed in the Chequers Estate Act, by which a rich man donated his mansion and its park to the nation, with the nice idea that prime ministers could relax in the country during weekends, not at all a bad idea when you realise that Number 10, Downing Street is little more than a small town house with just enough room to swing a cat. It is quite likely that Chequers has seen more important politicking than Downing Street, as many PMs have preferred to do their world-shaking manoevering in the comfortable and more private atmosphere of an English country house. (more…)
Very shortly you will watch the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. Each country competing in the Games sends its athletes into the grand arena wearing blazers and waving national flags. As is customary, the hugest nations have the hugest number of athletes, while the smallest can only offer a few. It is all up to the economy, size of territory and population and whether or not young people have been fed enough good food to become athletic and not suffer from rickets and malnutrition. The countries are listed alphabetically; the first number shows the size of territory in square kilometres, the second figure shows it in square miles. Bet you haven’t heard of some of these countries; many change their name periodically (and nonsensically), or you don’t know where they are. So I am telling you. Best wishes, especially if YOU are one of the athletes who might . . . (more…)
This is the second largest country in the world, and yet there is little mention of her in the media. Unless one of Canada’s great cities holds an Olympic Games, as did Montreal, you never hear about Canada. The same situation abounds with the two great islands of New Zealand. The reason for this lack of newsworthyness is probably that Canada (and New Zealand) are very well governed, exceedingly rich, and both are willing members of the Commonwealth of Nations. (more…)
Though more people travel regularly by air than ever before; while international airports spring up at vast cost though not required (Spain has recently built two particularly pungent examples of this kind of wastage – the new airports at Ciudad Real and on the island of La Gomera – both airports entertaining virtually no air traffic at all); although air travel is considered probably rightly as the safest form of travel; though London/New York (6000 miles) can be achieved effortlessly (it’s the aircraft I’m talking about, not the passengers) in not much more than 6½ hours . . . why the Devil does air travel have to be so uncomfortable, so inefficient (at the airports), so people-unfriendly, so disgustingly unhygienic, so time-wasting (at the airports), so unpredictable, and above all so DISHONEST? (more…)
The admiral standing erect near the double entrance doors of the Connaught Hotel in Carlos Place is dressed as a doorman. No-one dares think of him as a doorman, for his majestic presence. Even his unbeatable calm is disturbed when a taxi stops outside the old-fashioned hotel and out step two gentlemen in their eighties. The admiral stares. One old man has bushy beard, moustache and white whiskers. The other, paying the taxi, has no facial hair but a massive double chin. He makes an affable “Good morning!” to the admiral and passes into the hotel followed by the six-footer who says, “Fine day my dear mun,” to him. It is an Edinburgh accent. (more…)
Now in 2012, they would be called ‘jalopies’, or ‘old crocks’, but in their epoch, some of the motorcars I have met driven were notoriously expensive, fast and comfortable. Some of the companies that made these treasures have gone bankrupt; two were swallowed by German groups which have maintained name and quality and even added some. BMW and Mercedes-Benz have full order books. Jaguar went through a shaky period owned by the Ford Motor Company, but has recovered its Englishness. The order book is full there too.
My first fabulous car was a Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn (1952) owned by Kenneth Horne, a member of the governing board at my school. (more…)
What is plain English? What it is not is only too obvious, and can be read in all British bureaucratic communication, business letters, government departments, and sadly, much of modern English journalism – anywhere where there is linguistic contact with the public. Applications, safety instructions, official letters, licences, applications for licences or passports, insurance policies, hire-purchase documents, guarantees, instruction booklets for use of electric or other machinery etc. should be presented clearly, using language that people are certain to understand. With few exceptions, they are not:
Take, for instance, this real letter about house rents:- (more…)