TOWER OF BABBLE

I saw a rather tedious film last week by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inárritu. Like his previous effort “21 grams”, “Babel” pulls together a number of seemingly unrelated stories which turn out to be linked by one small anodine event. It starred Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and the delicious young Gael Garcia Bernal, the action took place in Morocco, Mexico and Japan, and was about 45 minutes too long. I think the underlying theme was about breakdown in communication. A theme which merits further study.

My German refresher course will be over at the end of this month, Gott sei Dank. Having to get up early on Saturday mornings is a killer. And does Bert appear the remotest bit grateful? Überhaupt nicht. I have been spending every Saturday morning for the past couple of months at the Goethe Institut in an attempt to brush up my German to impress him. I asked him the other day whether I had made any progress. “Schatzi,” he smiled teutonically, “I loff your Britisch akzent”. Gott in Himmel, I wonder why I bother.

In my class we are about 15 students of various nationalities. About half are Belgian – a fairly straight mix of Walloon and Flemish. The Flems have better mastery of German than most of us, as Flemish has similar construction, vocabulary and sounds. The French-speaking Walloons make everyone snigger when they attempt to speak, they must sound to a German like Crabtree from ‘Allo ‘Allo. The other half of the class is a mixed bag of assorted Eastern Europeans, a Swede, a Spaniard and moi. We communicate with each other in very poor German. I don’t think anyone is making much progress, despite the stalwart efforts of our teacher, the formidable Frau Doktor Klampwangler.

Here in The Big Sprout almost everyone speaks at least two languages, and many people speak three or more. Not necessarily well, but we all manage to communicate. However, when you have heard an Estonian and a Greek chatting in appalling English, it makes you worry about the future lingua franca of the melting-pot which is Brussels. I can see a day when Eurocrats will communicate with each other across the language barrier in a jumble of bad English, bad French, bad Spanish, with smatterings of bad Romanian, bad Polish, bad Portuguese, etc., but which everyone (here at least) will understand. Is this something to be welcomed or prevented?

The three official languages of the European Union for documents and meetings are English, French and German, although German has taken a back seat, and following the accession of the “new” European countries, English has usurped French as the favoured official language. The French are in high dudgeon about this, having held linguistic pride of place ever since the inception of the EEC. President Chirac famously swept out of a meeting in a huff last year because the French head of the employers’ federation chose to speak in English.

Artificial languages such as Esperanto and Interlingua have never caught on, as there are no native speakers to teach them competently. Following the last Eurovision Song Contest a study was commissioned comparing Finnish to Klingon and finding some uncanny similarities. What is being spoken in Brussels today is a naturally developing form of communication based on existing languages, evolving every day, quite informal and with no rules. But the important thing is, everybody seems to understand it. And, in the words of the immortal Mr Ian Dury, das ist gut, c’est magnifique.

SEVEN .... EIGHT ... NINE ...

YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

Ten thousand hits. I can die happy now. The 10,000th visitor, a Mr M. Qadafi of Tripoli, will receive a signed photograph of Moiself as well as two platform tickets for Eurostar.

TEN GRAND

Since switching to Blogger Beta, which is now simply Blogger again, I am unable to post YouTube clips on this weblog. Which is a shame, because in the next 12 hours or so my hit counter is about to pass into five figures. To celebrate, I invite you all for a splash of a sparkling non-alcoholic beverage. Cheers!

PASSIVE RESISTANCE

Yesterday I went to see “Happy Feet”, a jolly, happy holiday film about a tap-dancing penguin, which definitely had the feelgood factor, and can best be described as a cross between "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Strictly Come Dancing". The photography was marvellous, and how they managed to get all those penguins to dance in a synchronized rhythm was remarkable. They’ll do anything for that David Attenborough. There were no humans in the film but thousands on the credits list at the end. What does a “render wrangler” do, I wonder? I’d only just got my head around dolly grip, key grip, best boy, etc. Perhaps it was a misprint for reindeer wrangler, as it was filmed in the frozen wastes of the south pole.

Meanwhile, Scrumpy, my Tech Guru (a new badge he has added to his growing collection, alongside “International Tree Hugger”, “Lapsed Vegetarian”, “Itinerant Eco Warrior”, “Part-time Buddhist” and “Health Warning: Soap Kills”) has been giving my laptop a good seeing to. He has validated my windows, upgraded my browser, and cleaned out my cookies (as well as biscuits and tea bags). He also tried to teach me how to roll my own cigarettes but I’m afraid I don’t have the patience. And they won't fit in my cigarette holder.

As a reward for his help I took him out for a few beers. We were amused to see that pubs in Brussels are paying lip service to the No Smoking rule introduced on 1^st January. Every establishment seems to have their own interpretation of the rule, which, according to my research, requires bars serving food to have a separate, enclosed, area for smokers where nothing is served (to protect the serving staff). A waiter we spoke to explained knowledgeably that the total ban only concerns establishments where the amount of food served represents more than 51% of turnover. Where the ratio is less, the establishment must clearly designate a non-smoking area and install a smoke extractor. In this particular bar the non-smoking area concerned three tables that were not separated from the smoking area and nowhere near a smoke extractor. In another bar the non-smoking area is a separate room, presumably to protect the bar staff from breathing in clean air. The new law is enforced by a team of government inspectors who will impose an on-the-spot fine on the customer. If the customer refuses to pay, then the police will be called. They may or may not turn up. We had a light dinner in a small restaurant where food obviously represented far more than 50% of the turnover. The patron was happily puffing away at a table. The Belgians are specialists in passive resistance.

We visited La Bécasse, one of the oldest pubs in Brussels (125 years old) to sample the famous Timmermans Lambic, which is brewed from an ancient (some say Roman) recipe. This ale is only made between October and March to avoid harmful bacteria in the air-borne micro-organisms. It is served in a pottery jug by a waiter in a silly apron, and is flat and rather sweet, like Scrumpy. The cider, I mean. It is not as strong as you might think, at 5% alc. vol. But has a degree of acidity which did not suit me. After a strenuous walk uphill to Wayne-Bough Towers, I had to make a dash for the Rennies. I think I’ll stick to Sudden Death in future.

SINGALONGAMAX

God, I’m glad that’s over. There’s a limit to how much enjoying yourself you can take at one sitting. Being sparkling and witty really takes it out of me. Not to mention the eating and drinking. And eating. And drinking. And drinking. I have partaken of beers Belgian and English, wines white, red, sparkling, fortified, chilled, hot, spiced and at room temperature, vodka martinis shaken and stirred, banjos, genever, juniper, bloody Marys, muscle Marys, Hairy Canaries, Christmas Fairies. My liver feels like it’s gone three rounds with Mike Tyson.

I’m now having a sober evening in with a glass of Madeira on the rocks and a Jools Holland “Later” DVD. I don’t normally watch “Later” as it’s on even later over here, with the hour time difference, and by the time it comes on I’m usually in the land of Nod, curled up in bed with my tartan comforter. I now realize what I’ve been missing, and a big thank you to whoever had the presence of mind to put it all on a series of DVD’s.

I knew of young Jools, of course, in fact I used to be great friends with his Aunty Miriam in Golders Green. But he has opened my ears to a whole new world. There was me thinking there was no decent music any more, only silly boys in baggy jeans and anoraks “rapping” or techno trance rubbish, and found myself drifting towards strange sounds from exotic lands due to lack of intelligent contemporary western music. Now I find it was there all the time, only on the box late enough to stay hidden from old fogeys like me who go to bed early.

Jools has filled the gap left by John Peel and Whispering Bob Harris as a showcase for new talent. "Later" is a sort of Old Grey Whistle Test for the new millennium. But it caters to all ages, which is nice and inclusive, and mixes new blood with old jazz-club-nice favourites such as Richie Havens, Bryan Ferry , David Sanborn and Dr John, who keep me company in my dotage. Some of the young singers seemed strangely familiar, then I realized I was a fan of their dad, as in the case of Rufus Wainwright or Norah Jones. That’s a bit depressing.

I’ve always been a bit behind the latest trends. I remember back in 1986 (twenty years ago! Ye gods) getting quite excited about a band with two very good looking young front men, only to find I had been watching the Wham! farewell concert. I usually wake up to talent shortly after they’ve broken up or died. That’s why I tend to stick to old favourites like the Rolling Stones. I know they’re pensioners now, but they’re not going to spring any surprises on us like changing style or anything. In my opinion that’s where it all went wrong for David Bowie. If he’s stuck with Space Oddity he’d still be popular.

Now I shall be a regular watcher of "Later" (unless of course the series has just been axed, which would be par for the course). I am quite taken with Antony and the Johnsons. And Amy Winehouse. And The Blue Nile. And the Zutons. Gosh! It’s like coming out of suspended animation. Except, sadly, unlike Austin Powers, I don’t have a body twenty years younger than my memory. As was proved recently when attempting to dance to Rod Stewart and nearly suffering organ failure.

I have a theory that as we get older, our musical tastes draw us inexorably towards our parents’ and then our grandparents’ musical tastes, and eventually Max Bygraves. It starts when you catch yourself smiling at a Jim Reeves song as you’re driving on the motorway and thinking “He did have a beautiful voice, didn’t he?” and the next thing you know you’re dancing round the ironing board to Tijuana Taxi, going into a hypnotic trance when Strictly Come Dancing is on, and reaching for the Sanatogen. My old flame Lancelot Coot is a case in point. I have a vivid memory of the UV lights picking up the flying dandruff as he played vigorous air guitar to Smoke on the Water at the school disco. Now he goes to Jamie Cullum concerts.

It’s a funny thing, but even though some people in old people’s homes are the same age as Bill Wyman, and would have only been in their early 30's at Woodstock, and in their 20’s when The King was doing Jailhouse Rock, you never hear Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd or even Elvis played in pensioners’ homes, do you? It’s always Mantovani, Rolf Harris or … Max Bygraves. Songs from the war years are always popular, even though most of the residents were babes in arms at the time. The ladies all favour the same grey curly pensioner's special shampoo-and-set and the men wear their beige cardigans like a uniform. Is it a precondition for a state pension? Or is it some kind of audiovisual Ritalin, so they don’t get overexcited? I think I’d rather be a stylish bag lady and dance to reggae in the street. I might take up smoking dope in my declining years. I think skinning up at the pensioners' lunch club might liven things up a bit.

If anyone ever catches me singing “I’m a pink toothbrush” and looking like I’m enjoying it, you have my permission to shoot me.