Sorry, just say that again please.

For the next four weeks I'm recapturing the spirit of living abroad with a teaching English as a foreign language course (just in case!). What do I expect to learn? Oh, a few teaching skills and a smattering of English grammar. What have I learnt so far? Hungarian. En Rebecca vagyek, mi a neve?

And now for the weather forecast...

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain,
He stepped in a puddle,
Right up to his middle,
And never went there again.

Gypsy Caravan

Violins singing, skirts a-whirling, brass players calling and coach wheels turning.

One of the last films I saw in France was Gypsy Caravan, "le Buena Vista Social Club de la musique Gypsy." Offering a celebration of Romany musical culture -an umbrella larger than you might think and used here to cover flamenco, gyspsy violin, Indian folk music, jazz and brass bands - the film's gentle portraits of memorable characters and bursts of colourful music lodge themselves in the mind. Maybe this film won't change the world, but it warms the heart.

ilovegoodbooks.

It's a funny old world sometimes. On my journey back through France three weeks ago, mounds of luggage in tow, I wondered if England would have changed much since I had last lived there a year before. Would my home country have in fact metamorphosed into a foreign country? In poet Carol Ann Duffy's words: "The other country, is it anticipated or half-remembered?" As if in answer, when I turned on to Radio 4, filling the kitchen with the remembered soundtrack of family weekends, the first item I heard featured my friend's brother's band. Then I opened a discarded Sunday-newspaper magazine to find a picture of my soon-to-be-married friend's fiancee. How often does national media pick up and broadcast particles of your life? Stretcher of the imagination that I am, I like to think this was a funnny old world welcoming me home.
Oh, and yes, the "brother in a band" is a cliche, but this time the band is worth a listen. Even a few of your hard-earned pennies. Buy Passchendaele from today on itunes,a song by Kent based band GoodBooks,who were recently described in The Times as "easy to imagine in the Top 10" and "English eccentrics". And if there's one thing that makes the English English, it's being the world's best eccentrics. Details on the GoodBooks website.

A splash of colour and a dash of conversation.

 





















On a recent exploration-in-minature of England via its railways, taking in Exeter and Dartington, Penzance and Darlington, I was able to indulge in two favourite pastimes: people-watching, and looking at art. Any well-versed people watcher will know that trains offer rich pickings, that the pretty arbitrary seating arrangment juxtaposes people who might never normally talk in the street, and that whilst we are physically in transit, we are often also mentally in transit, creating possibilities for all sorts of unexpected meetings and conversations.Just ask Agatha Christie or Patricia Highsmith. Certainly some of the stranger discussions and encounters I've had in life have taken place whilst on a train: seeing a documentary about family breakdown and reunion being filmed on a train bound for Wales, encountering a mountain rescuer on a train between Grenoble and Lyon, talking to the enterprising teenage girl who taught herself japanese because she didn't want to learn French or German at school. Somehow, apart from those who hide away behind the protective shield of book, people seemed to be compelled to interact when on trains. Perhap it's because of this suspension of normal life that art in stations is such a good idea. Visitors to Penzance are welcomed by bold prints of works by one of Cornwall's shining successes, artist Kurt Jackson. Arguably Jackson's work is ideal for this sort of project: colourful, eye-catching and painted on a large scale, his isn't controversial art and even a cynic couldn't deny that a splash of colour brightens the brickwork up.

Translation gem

4 little wooden golems knoll the passing hours: Jacquemart and his wife Jacquette knock the full hours on the big bell, whereas their children, Jacquelin and Jacqueline knock the quarter of an hour on the two small bells (melted mechanical noise).

From the pen of a professional translator. Although maybe surreal poetry might be more up this wordsmith's street. Does anyone know what melted mechanical noises might sound like?

"Speaking two or more languages is the natural way of life for three-quarters of the human race". How Language works David Crystal