Eurovision 2012: Report

Eurovision 2012 was a more disappointing one, I regret to report.

Let me first commend another year of generally high-quality songs and the theme of show - "Light your Fire" to tie in with Azerbaijan's nickname of the 'Land of Fire' - dominated by bright orange and yellow colours. The stage was modern and well designed, resembling a piece of abstract art, and had two 'arms' extending into the audience area.

However, the show was let down by the lack of charisma and personality of the presenters, who seemed to take long unnatural pauses in between sentences. The show is naturally scripted, but last year's hosts in Germany were picked for being popular with their home audience and partial to some improvisation.

The stage at Eurovision 2012 in Baku

This year's contest was also subject to controversy given Azerbaijan's poor record in human rights and undemocratic nature compared to European countries. Eurovision is intended to be apolitical, but that bring us on to the next point.

Is it really about politics?

There are large numbers of people, mainly those who don't watch it, who dismiss the Eurovision Song Contest as being a popularity contest and a matter of neighbour voting. But recent years have proven it is not as black and white as this. The UK's string of bad luck commenced in 2003 when we scored nul points for the first time ever. This was the same year as the war in Iraq commenced, but the song was atrocious. It was a monotonous pop song with little variation in the tune and sung off key.

Our luck picked up in 2009 when we came 5th with a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, followed by last place again in 2010 with another monotonous pop song with little variation in the tune, predictable lyrics and sung by nobody we had ever heard of. Then last year, we came a respectable 10th with Blue in a contemporary song that sounded like it could have been lifted straight out of the charts. So, can you see a relationship between the quality of the song and our final position?

Neighbour voting does exist of course. But this could easily be explained by the fact that neighbouring countries share similar cultures and languages. Greek/Cyprus, Scandinavia, Italy/Spain/France, Austria/Germany and so on... 

Nevertheless, some neighbour voting is simply down to politics and alliances when one country sends a song sung in English, completely unrelated to its culture, and receives 12 points from next door, and this especially happened this year, following a few years of absence.

The winners and losers

Sweden won with a contemporary club song. It was a very good song, beautifully sung, had interesting choreography and was very Eurovision, but there are a few problems with this. These kinds of song don't normally win. Moreover, this song was hyped up so much beforehand. All Eurovision media outlets were continuously reminding us that this song was the favourite, without telling us why. Now, if you plant the idea in someone's head that a certain song is the favourite, they're going to vote for it. So, thank you for psychologically fixing the contest this year. Then again, it could have been fixed more directly with intervention in the votes. In any case, it was very convenient that the country that won was one of the very few that can afford to host it next year.

Party for Everybody by Russian Grannies

As far as progress is concerned, we have also taken a step back in time this year with the Russian Grannies. Dress up 6 old woman in traditional costume with incoherent lyrics, minimal dancing and what do you get? 2nd place.

The remaining top 10 places were taken by deserving ballads, with non-English songs doing particularly well this year. Often at the bottom of the table, Spain especially did well in 10th place and has continually stuck to its guns by singing in Spanish and not deviating from its cultural roots, although the entrant Pastora Soler was allegedly asked not to win by her country to avoid the bill for next year.

Conversely, cheesy pop songs did badly, which is fine. Sadly, Engelbert Humperdinck for the UK came 25th out of 26. A true gent with a gentle ballad should have ended up towards the middle of the rankings, but as the first to perform, his song was simply too unmemorable.

Yes, Jedward were in it again

Language Man's favourite

As a fan of upbeat pop music in this contest (amongst more tasteful music), I had high hopes for France. However, her voice was too shaky on the night and slightly deeper for some reason, which didn't match the pitch of the melody. My ambitions turned to Italy for a jazz-pop song by a singer resembling Amy Winehouse in appearance and style, who came 9th.

Will I watch it next year?

Of course. Politics and voting aside, it's a good night of entertainment that produces at least half a dozen songs worthy of the iPod. As the show returns to Sweden next year, who won it the first time I watched Eurovision back in 1999, I think we can trust the reliable Swedes to put on a good show. I have always wanted to be there in person so perhaps that will be the year.

Des aventures toulousaines - Part 7: Une aventure genevoise

In February half term, I took the chance to pop home for a few days. The winter snow was over in Toulouse so I hadn’t anticipated any problems with the flights. But there was one other main factor that can affect air travel. As most of us know, the French are very keen on striking, and when going back to Toulouse the air traffic controllers in France had conveniently decided to use that day to show how underpaid their £50,000 salary was. This meant that no aircraft could fly anywhere over France. The problem was that this was a Friday, I was meant to be in work on Monday and the next available flight was Wednesday. There was one “convenient” solution, however, as the lady at the easyJet desk put it. Instead of flying straight to Toulouse, I could instead fly to Geneva in Switzerland and then make the 650 km onward journey to Toulouse myself.

Opportunity knocks! I had never been to Switzerland. This wasn’t how I’d imagined seeing the country for the first time, but I didn’t really have a choice. So, off I went to Geneva with no idea how (or if) I would get to Toulouse. I remember it being a fairly pleasant flight until landing. Geneva Airport is immediately surrounded by mountains, making anyone looking out the plane window cling on to the armrests for dear life.

After getting into Geneva itself – a 10 minute train journey...no problems there – it was time to join the two-hour queue at the main railway station to speak to the nice lady in the ticket office to see how the hell I would get back to Toulouse. It seems most people on my flight had the same idea. This being a weekday early evening in continental Western Europe, I imagined a high speed train, leaving fairly soon, taking about 3 or 4 hours. But no.  

It was now around 6pm and the next train left at midnight. It was a night train, which go extra slowly, and it was going to Barcelona, which meant changing trains twice in the early morning, and there was not even a chance of getting a decent night’s sleep as there were only chairs available. All of this for only...€200 one way – not that this mattered as I’d be sending easyJet the bill as soon as I got back. So I reluctantly bought the ticket and now I had 6 hours to kill in a dark city where I had never been before.

Geneva, allegedly an international centre of finance and politics, was remarkably small and not as modern-looking as I’d imagined. It could have been any generic small, quaint Romance city, with the exception of being situated on a vast lake that stretched for dozens of kilometres. I wandered the cobbled streets and ended up treating myself to an Italian meal with a couple of glasses of white wine, again courtesy of easyJet. I had only killed around two hours and it was starting to get dark. I honestly cannot remember how I spent the remaining hours in the city as it was now somewhere I just didn’t want to be anymore.

The time eventually came to hop on the train and I was glad to be leaving, but despite being absolutely knackered from being suddenly thrusted into a city I hadn’t envisaged of being in the day before, I didn’t manage to get any rest at all. With my eyes closed for most of the journey and iPod set to the euphoria of early 90s dance music, I was just in this state of oblivion.

After dawn had broke, I had to make my first change of train in Perpignan, near the Spanish border, to then double back towards Toulouse, before another change in Narbonne. I got to Toulouse late the following morning, 24 hours after setting off, and went straight to bed, but not before sending easyJet the bill for all of this.

Now I may have been naive in thinking that this refund would be dealt with promptly. It may well have been, were it not for a certain Icelandic volcano erupting the following week, cancelling flights for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people over the coming days. Not only did it actually take six months to get this €200 back, easyJet astonishingly thought that, rather than refunding me the full whack, they would just send €50 "for my inconvenience". But they got a fair mouthful off me and in the end I ended up with both the €200 back with the original €50, and another country ticked off my list.

< Part 6: The First Noël 

> Part 8: Adieu, la France

Top 5 myths of English grammar

Grammar fiends are everywhere! They are always quick to ‘correct’ our grammar, but when you find yourself ‘corrected’, ask yourself who they are to judge your grammar. Where does their knowledge of English originate from? More often than not, people who correct grammar make their judgements based on what they believe to be correct without actually having sufficiently studied the language. Here are the top five incorrect ‘corrections’ that you need to be aware of:

*A sentence cannot end in a preposition.

Was it not Winston Churchill who comically illustrated this point with “this is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put”? I think this ‘rule’ refers to using a preposition with a relative clause (‘with which’ in this case) rather than phrasal-prepositional verbs (‘to put up’ in the case). But putting the preposition at the end is a completely legitimate part of English syntax (even more so in its sister language, Dutch) and it is rather the style that governs its usage.

*A sentence cannot start with "and" or "but"

This practice has actually been around for centuries. Perhaps it is because they are classed as conjunctions that a misconception has arisen in the belief that they must join two (or more) independent clauses within one sentence. But no...(see what I did there?). They can join two or more ideas, not bound by full stops. Again, this boils down to style. I would do my utmost to avoid starting a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’ in a legal text, a technical manual or another situation requiring a formal style. Otherwise, if you want to personalise your text, or adopt a marketing approach, go for it!

*The passive voice is incorrect.

With its strictest spelling and grammar settings applied, Microsoft Word often puts a green squiggly line under any passive constructions.  However, they actually serve some very practical purposes. We may not know who the subject is in order to use the active voice, or we may want to place emphasis on the action rather than the agent.

*Contractions aren't appropriate in ‘proper’ English.

Humans have always sought ways to economise their spoken language. It’s particularly trendy amongst the youth nowadays to shrink adverbs, such as “totes” from totally. We have atrocious programmes like Made in Chelsea to thank for these. I don’t think this highly colloquial phenomenon will catch on to subsequent generations, in the same way that we don’t say ‘groovy’ anymore.

Nevertheless, contracted verbs did catch on in spoken language and we needed to reflect this change in writing. On the other hand, this grammar myth can ring true when it comes to style. We may write contractions, but only where the less formal context allows.

*‘Me and you’ is incorrect.

Ah, an interesting point. A few years ago, a friend of mine went to an Oxford University open day, where some of his peers ‘corrected’ his use of ‘me and you’ to ‘you and I’. Unfortunately for them, they were wrong:

We must look at the grammatical context in this case. Using two object pronouns (me/you) in the place of subject pronouns (I/you) is obviously incorrect, for example ‘me and him are going to the cinema’ instead of the grammatically correct ‘he and I are going to the cinema’, although the former is more acceptable in colloquial usage, but the linguists amongst us will continue to hold this contempt.

But there are those who hear ‘me and you’ without listening to the words that precede and follow it, automatically assuming that this set phrase (and similar ones involving her/him/them etc.) is incorrect.

Of course, these object pronouns are correctly used as...well...objects. And after prepositions too. So, phrases like ‘she is looking at you and me’ or ‘that present is for me and him’ are correct. Try replacing ‘me’ with ‘I’ in those sentences and you’ll see what I mean.

Let us remember that the English language, unfortunately, does not have a regulatory body unlike French and Spanish, so there is no single authority to tell us what is and is not ‘correct’. Most of these myths result from the disdain of one certain linguist towards a certain grammar point, who publishes his opinion and centuries later it is taken as the word of God. So, let’s take the time to analyse these so-called rules from now on, as we are in charge of our language, not the other way around.  

Des aventures toulousaines - Part 6: The First Noël

As the city was starting to prepare for Christmas, the historic buildings surrounding the city’s main square, Place du Capitole, were draped with net lights, enclosing the Christmas market, which consisted of homemade crafts, products and produce sold in small rustic-looking lodges, with the winter aromas of cinnamon, mulled wine and Nutella pancakes in the air. We can try to imitate “Continental” markets as much as we like in Britain, but nothing compares to the real thing.

There were some notable differences about Christmas preparations in France. One thing is that the city puts up Christmas lights all around its suburbs as well, whereas in the UK it’s usually only in the city centre, meaning that for people like me we get to enjoy them more than just the one time, when we do our Christmas shopping. Another thing is that Christmas doesn’t seem as commercial in France. The city streets weren’t notably busier with Christmas shoppers like they are back home and there were no adverts on TV in August trying to get us to buy the latest doll that can walk, talk and go to the toilet. What’s great about Toulouse, and indeed most big French cities, is that there is only one shopping centre in the city centre, and it’s not very big. British city centres are overshadowed by several massive glass and steel constructions filled only with chain shops. Toulouse therefore had more room for smaller, independent shops in ancient buildings with character. One has to venture very far out to the suburbs, right to the very end of the metro line, for the huge monotonous shopping malls.

The vast Gothic cathedral in Albi

No winter is complete without ice-skating. Toulouse, surprisingly, had no seasonal outdoor ice rink, but this meant a trip to another town called Albi with some friends where there was a rink. We spent the afternoon wandering around the medieval town, dominated by its piercingly high Gothic cathedral, allegedly the largest brick building in the world, before taking to the ice rink. No matter how many winters I had been ice-skating, I always seem to forget how to ice skate the following year, so I actually spent the evening crashing into the sides of the rink.

One December morning, I woke up to see the whole city covered in deep, lush show. I always loved this as a kid and still do to this day. Unfortunately, I still had to go to work. On Thursdays, I had to get up at 5.30 a.m. to take the metro into town and then get my bus to work for 8 a.m., a journey that takes around an hour and a half. Soon after the bus had left the city centre, the wonderful announcement came from the bus driver: Mesdames, Messieurs, nous regrettons que la circulation des bus et du métro soit annulée à cause de la neige. So, everyone was kicked off the bus as there was too much snow, and there was no other way to get to work. Quel dommage.

Oh dear, too much snow to go to work!

With the metro stopped too, it was too far to walk home so I undertook the challenge of hiring one the city bikes and piloting it through the shin-deep snow. This was actually quite exciting until I lost control on a downhill section and fell off, but I made it home in one piece and went back to bed.

The snow continued on and off for the rest of the month, but the transport system seemed to cope better further down the line, except when my flight home for Christmas was cancelled. Luckily, I managed to get a flight the next day, but another flight cancellation the following Easter led to a 24-hour journey back to Toulouse that took me across parts of Europe I had never seen...(see next week).

The Year Abroad is the year of opportunity. It is the making of every language student, allowing us to try out new things, see new places and to relive past adventures. Toulouse is ideally situated – set on the beautiful river Garonne, surrounded by lush green countryside, and close enough to the coast and the mountains. With the latter in mind, this was a great chance to go skiing. Having only been once, ten years earlier, I had always dreamt of going again. It’s not just the thrill of travelling downhill at 40 mph, it’s the spectacular scenery at the top of the mountains, being above clouds, and gliding over untouched mounds of snow that is truly breathtaking.

Breathtaking landscapes in the Pyrenees

What was great was that my friends and I were able to go skiing fairly cheaply. A combined rail-ski ticket was about €30 and equipment hire was barely €25. As for the clothing, I fashioned up a ski suit using waterproof trousers over jogging bottoms and just a rain jacket over a hoodie.

After a two hour train journey one February morning, we arrived in Ax-les-Thermes in the Pyrenees. We started off on the easiest slopes naturally, which actually turned out to be terrifying after I realised – on the middle of the slope - that I had forgotten how to stop when skiing. But I soon picked it up again and we took to more adventurous slopes throughout the day. We even went back for another day on the slopes the following month, but that time I had neglected to take sun cream – resulting in an extremely red face, with a nice big white patch where I’d been wearing ski goggles. Needless to say that my students found it hilarious.

< Part 5: La Vraie France 

> Part 7: Une Aventure Genevoise 

What kind of English does Europe learn?

Teaching English on the continent isn't as straightforward as, let's say, teaching French over here.

There is one dominant variation of the French language on this planet - the so-called "Standard French", as regulated by the Académie Française. Much like the British, Spanish, Dutch and Germans, the French set sail to conquer various parts of globe, leaving traces of their language in Canada, Morocco and Madagascar to name a few, which after mixing with the native languages formed different dialects of French; but none of these countries have gathered enough economic and political power to convince other nations that their version of French is worth learning over standard French. For those learning English, however, there is a choice: British English (BrEn) or American English (AmEn).

Whereas British English was undoubtedly the favoured version until the 20th century, political and cultural influences from the United States have started to alter foreign perceptions of the English language, providing a choice of dialect to learn. So, it's interesting to see what kind of people learn which version and why.

As an English language assistant in France, it was evident that British English was the norm there. The textbooks use our spellings and our vocabulary, and audio tapes featured UK accents. The French teachers of English generally had a southern British accent. 

American assistants doing the same job would often complain about this, insisting that their dialect should be taught, but to what end when France right is next door to the UK, is one of its largest trading partners and receives so many tourists from these isles? A Frenchman is incredibly more likely to encounter a Brit in his country (or a native English speaker with a dialect more similar to BrEn than AmEn, such as someone from Ireland or Australia) than a United Statesian, and is more likely to travel to the UK than the US. Equally, I wouldn't expect to hear much British English in Mexico.
Of course, outside of school, students are exposed to both British and American culture through television, film and music, meaning that they are often inconsistent in their language usage. In the same essay, they might use the world 'colour', but then use 'honor'. I've even seen the same word spelt differently in the same work, once ending in -ize and then in -ise. A mix of British and American vocabulary in the same piece of writing is not uncommon for students of English. This is not to be confused with Canadian English.

This seems to be the case for the Netherlands too, with British English being taught at school, and some cultural influences from American English. Again, it would make sense for the Dutch to speak BrEn. There are probably more Brits in the centre of Amsterdam than Dutch people on any given Saturday night.

When in Spain, it was clear to see why British English prevailed. Think of how many tourists we send to the Costas and their islands every year! There seemed to be the odd discrepancy about, such as -ize spelling rather than -ise, on translations, but in my opinion, we can put this down to both Spanish influence (e.g. realizar = realise) and maybe the fact that Oxford Dictionaries prefer the -ize ending to reflect its Greek etymology.

In Germany, it's more complicated. Deutschland seems to be split right down the middle on the issue. Areas that call for a higher register seem to favour BrEn, such as political situations due to matters concerning the European Union. BrEn also appears to dominate everyday society. When I was in Munich, I saw an example of the hated phenomenon known as Denglisch, that is English words adopted into German. Just after getting off the U-Bahn (the metro), I saw a sign for 'der Lift'. Not 'der Elevator' (or 'der Aufzug' - the correct German word).

That said, the world of technology in Germany has largely taken on AmEn. Siemens, bizarrely, even uses American spellings on its .co.uk website. Is this the result of American occupation of much of the country after WWII? After all, Germany was divided into four occupied zones in 1945, with the Russians, French and British each governing a zone as well. The Americans were in charge of southern Germany, where Siemens started up and still has its head office. This could well be a happy coincidence, and is more likely to be due to the American domination in the global technology domain.

But, this is where localisation comes in. Global companies trying to reach out to an English-speaking audience must treat these two varieties as separate languages and offer their website in both British and American English, and correspond with their clients and suppliers according to their native English. Otherwise, they are automatically alienating half of their English-speaking audience.

Des aventures toulousaines - Part 5: La vraie France

After an unanticipated but energetic start to the year, it was back to Toulouse in late November, and I continued to explore South West France with a visit to Carcassonne, a fortified town that resembled no other that I had ever seen. No photo can do justice to the massive Roman fort, which seemed like a town in its own right, set on a hill overlooking the town. It was so perfectly preserved (or restored) that from afar, it seemed like it could have been digitally imposed and could easily represent the French Hogwarts.  It was steeped in so much history and had known so many changes of hand between kingdoms.

Back in Toulouse, I got a taste of the real contemporary France with my first ever mass strike. As I was casually cycling along one of the main roads in the city centre, I saw a huge mass of grey and black smoke rising high above the low-rise buildings. As I got closer and closer to scene, I saw that it wasn’t a building on fire, but a huge pile of hay and rubber tyres that had been dumped to block one of the main avenue thoroughfares. Splattered across the road were tonnes of rotten fruit. It was a demonstration of agricultural workers against E.U. policy.

Dozens of tractors were driving incredibly slowly with people marching alongside. When they eventually came to a stop at one of the city’s main metro stations, the police were waiting for them. I stood well back expecting the farmers to charge at the police, but instead I saw them aiming enormous hosepipes connected to their trailers at police. In retrospect, it was naive of me to think that anything except water would be pumped out of this, but no. They turned on their hoses and what sprayed out was chunky, very thick manure, distributed evenly so as to cover as many officers as possible. What was most incredible is that the police weren’t doing anything to stop this. Nor were the fire brigade putting the fires out. If this happened back home, the demonstration would have been quashed promptly, which made me realise how we don’t live in as free a country as we think. France proved to be a model of free speech, even under Nicolas Sarkozy.

Ten weeks had passed since I arrived in Toulouse in late September, when temperatures were still in the twenties. Now winter was drawing in and temperatures plummeted. 8th December each year is when Lyon welcomes the famous Fête des Lumières, the festival of light. Six of my friends and I hired a car to make the five-hour journey to France’s second city to see the lights. When we arrived, not only did we spend an hour driving around Lyon looking for the hostel we booked, we found out that it was as far away from the city centre as possible, but it was only for one night.
 

Lyon was fantastic. I was born, raised and have always lived in a big city (until last year), and Lyon was the prime example of why I love cities. It had beautifully striking architecture set against the backdrop of the Alps to the east and a tall jagged hill to the west, at the top of which was Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, a vast cathedral only built in the 18^th century, and this point offered spectacular views across the city with the snow-topped mountains clearly in sight. This is a city that deserves its UNESCO World Heritage Site status.

The festival was equally stunning. Around two-dozen installations were dotted around the city centre, but getting to each one was easier said than done. Hundreds of thousands of people had descended on Lyon for the festival. The crowds even filled the widest avenues from side to side, travelling at less than 5 mph. That said, we had a long evening and managed to see most of the exhibitions that lit up the city.

After a beautiful evening, we went back to the hostel and I had forgotten that we had actually only booked one room between six of us...three in the room, three in the car. Guess where I was sleeping.

< Part 4: Des Petits Phoques 

> Part 6: The First Noël 

The Many Languages Of Twitter

Des aventures toulousaines - Part 4: Des petits phoques

The first evening in Poland was a little more sociable: bowling. Rather than stay in, which is what the teachers seemed to be doing, I tagged along with the students to the bowling alley for our first real bonding session. I was a bit apprehensive when I said to the teacher who I was staying with that I fancied going along. I think she was trying to tell me something when she said that, as a teacher, the kids wouldn’t want her to tag along. Well, I was only a couple of years older – why shouldn’t I go? Everyone seemed to have a great laugh, but I suppose it was a bit cruel of me to drink beer in front of them when they were all underage.

We had our fair share of excursions, first visiting Sandomierz. This was a small mediaeval town, where we spent the day wandering the cobbled streets and historical buildings, much like York. We were entertained in the evening with a visit to an armoury, where we got to dress up and try on majestic clothes and warfare materials, followed by a bountiful banquet and mediaeval dancing.

Another day was spent with the teachers at a similar town, the name of which escapes me, but it had the charming ruins of a fortified castle set atop a high mound, offering beautiful views of the surrounding town and river. Unfortunately, the weather in this corner of Poland in November was overcast and miserable, which spoiled things a bit.

It was back to business at the school, where it was time for more cultural learnings. The students had to research cultural aspects of Poland and then hold a presentation on their findings. This also included Polish lessons for the French kids and French lessons for the Polish kids taught through the medium of English. Needless to say, it wasn't how to count to ten in Polish that the students remembered, it was more colloquial and less polite phrases taught to them by their Polish peers. A hard day’s work merited some sport sessions later on, including a France vs. Poland football match, and I was quite happy to play for my adopted country, despite being overwhelmingly terrible at most sport.

There was one negative aspect to Poland – the food. I’m very fussy and Polish cuisine uses a lot of things that turn my stomach, including but not limited to cabbage, beetroot and mushrooms. Particularly off-putting was the thin pink soup. But sometimes the best thing to do is grin and bear it!

One evening, we were treated to traditional Polish dancing at the local arts centre. Although we were afforded authentic costumed dancers and a live band (including an accordion!), some kids didn’t seem too impressed...that is until they got to have a go themselves.

One of my favourite parts of the whole trip was a day out in Kraków. Relatively untouched by the war, the city was an architectural goldmine. It was dominated by mesmerising spires, much like Oxford, and the city had a particularly Polish feel that day as we were lucky enough to visit the day after Polish Independence Day. And because we went in the daytime, the trip wasn’t ruined by any stag parties from Britain spewing their guts out onto the street.

Towards the end of the visit, we had a few events to wrap things up. The French kids put on a show which involved a dance to French camp disco hit Alexandrie Alexandra and I remember taking part in some French karaoke, but I think I decided to blur that memory out.

The final night was spent at the local discotheque to let off some steam and, for us over 18s, to sample the local produce in the form of vodka. A perfect end to an unforgettable trip.

< Part 3: Des Aventures Polonaises

> Part 5: La Vraie France