Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
Mate. Language learning is dead. If it’s not dead, AI is about to kill it. We will very soon have literal Babel fish that translate everything perfectly in real time into our AirPods, and likewise in reverse. We may even have lenses that lip synch the words so it looks like the person talking in French to you is talking in English but in their accent, this technology already exists
Who on earth is going to spend much of their youth learning something pointless, that brings no material advantage? Granted, some privileged kids still might, the way they learn the flute or the cello, but for 97% of children the time will be spent better on something useful and beneficial
So many on this site have no idea what AI is about to do to the world
Why are you obsessed with material advantage? Surely your degree was non-vocational iirc your past postings. Most people make no great use of what they study at A-level or beyond. In the words of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when in the real world am I going to need history, maths or the English language?
I’m not obsessed with material advantage because I am comfortable. I’ve got my career. And life was easier for the top 10% that went to uni in the 1980s
Things are very different now for young people: much harder and more competitive. Learning a language will seem like a decadent indulgence when everyone has a machine which can translate every single language instantly and perfectly in real time - and even make it look like people are speaking your language when they are not
If true it removes the advantage England has through so many speaking English, and makes all those kids currently learning Mandarin feel like they’re wasting their time.. unless people still like to talk to each other in this brave new world
Yes it absolutely removes much of our advantage - tho not all. The world will still adjust to anglophone ideas and concepts - perhaps even more so as AI wil be dominated by English speaking powers esp America. Europe is basically nowhere apart from a few companies in France. Macron totally gets this - he spoke about it this week - the EU must step up its AI effort. Won’t happen. Too late
Even now in the EU they can’t use Claude 3 because of anti AI laws. Madness
The UK is doing ok but could do better (in AI)
Yes I really feel for kids age 18 or 21 who’ve just spent their childhood mastering a really hard language like mandarin. Completely pointless in terms of future career. A waste of an education. Very soon everyone will speak perfect mandarin via a machine
We have a landmark lighthouse here which has just hit its 150th birthday and they’ve lit it beautifully to celebrate it. I wish it would be permanently like this but then it might lose its “noom”.
The lighthouse incidentally gave its name to the Grand National winner Corbiere to find some tendentious link to betting.
So here’s a lighthouse being lit for the people on land not the sea. (Not my photos.)
(Snip)
This is perhaps my favourite photo I've ever taken. Strumble Head lighthouse in Pemborkeshire, at dusk. A vertical red beam of light from the sun disappearing below the distant horizon, and a horizontal beam of light from the lighthouse.
I had only a few seconds to take the shot whilst the lighthouse's beam was visible at the same time as the sun's beam, and in the right direction. I took the photo hurriedly and at a slight slant. And I'm no photographer. It's an imperfect photo.
But I know I'll never experience those few moments again.
Nooooooom!
Very nice
Does anyone know what those vertical beams or light from the sun are called as it dips below the horizon? I've seen a couple since (including in my home village), but they seem to be blooming rare.
Can this appalling weather really continue? 8C in London with heavy rain. It is nearly May
FWIW they have had basically the same in Brittany. My guide today told me ‘it hasn’t stopped raining since last July’. I’ve lucked out with some of the first sunny days since last autumn, and even then there have been overcast days and it’s notably chilly
Have we broken the Gulf Stream?
Global warming i think is likely to lead to the uk becoming cloudier and wetter. A more miserable climate than before if thats possible.
Could be worse though. It could be Moscow. As I understand that place it's wet, cold, drab, dreary, and the regime is run by a nutter. I'm sure you'll agree.
Sounds like the uk under Liz Truss.
Nah, in this country we can mock the PM relentlessly and compare them to a lettuce, if in Moscow you did the same you'd be falling out of a window.
Putin is a fanny.
Whatever you think about Putin he aint no fanny. Ruthless and murderous maybe. He once killed a rat with his bare hands.
He's responsible for 400,000 dead Russians and the massacre of Russian influence around the world, but one miserable rat off sets that, does it? You Putin trolls apparently care more about rodents than about Russia.
Can this appalling weather really continue? 8C in London with heavy rain. It is nearly May
FWIW they have had basically the same in Brittany. My guide today told me ‘it hasn’t stopped raining since last July’. I’ve lucked out with some of the first sunny days since last autumn, and even then there have been overcast days and it’s notably chilly
Have we broken the Gulf Stream?
Global warming i think is likely to lead to the uk becoming cloudier and wetter. A more miserable climate than before if thats possible.
Could be worse though. It could be Moscow. As I understand that place it's wet, cold, drab, dreary, and the regime is run by a nutter. I'm sure you'll agree.
Sounds like the u k under Liz Truss.
Nah, in this country we can mock the PM relentlessly and compare them to a lettuce, if in Moscow you did the same you'd be falling out of a window.
Putin is a fanny.
Whatever you think about Putin he aint no fanny. Ruthless and murderous maybe. He once killed a rat with his bare hands.
Jolyon Maugham went one better and killed a squirrel in a fit of rage. But he's still a fanny. And so is Putin.
I always wondered why the Lib Dems didn't bring down the coalition just before the 2015 election. They had an electoral base that was a combination of protest vote and hyper local, which wasn't ready for the compromises of government. Becoming awkward and then resigning over some carefully chosen issue would have opened up space between them and the Conservatives, and restored a bit of the idea that they had some principles. Also, there was going to be an election anyway, and the idea that there would be the same coalition afterwards was a bit silly given how often that hasn't happened. Instead, Clegg & co hung on to their ministerships until the very end, and the party was wiped out - and still hasn't recovered. It will be interesting to see if the Scottish Greens manage better.
I don't necessarily think this will hurt their vote, but it will curtail their influence. Difficult to see them in coalition with the SNP again. But worse, because of their extremism and obsession with Indy, they won't be able to work with Labour or the LibDems either despite in many respects having a lot of cross over with them. Lab and LibDems voted for all the idiot gender and hate crime stuff that has caused so much of the trouble - though they've gone very quiet on it since.
Can this appalling weather really continue? 8C in London with heavy rain. It is nearly May
FWIW they have had basically the same in Brittany. My guide today told me ‘it hasn’t stopped raining since last July’. I’ve lucked out with some of the first sunny days since last autumn, and even then there have been overcast days and it’s notably chilly
Have we broken the Gulf Stream?
Global warming i think is likely to lead to the uk becoming cloudier and wetter. A more miserable climate than before if thats possible.
Could be worse though. It could be Moscow. As I understand that place it's wet, cold, drab, dreary, and the regime is run by a nutter. I'm sure you'll agree.
Sounds like the uk under Liz Truss.
Nah, in this country we can mock the PM relentlessly and compare them to a lettuce, if in Moscow you did the same you'd be falling out of a window.
Putin is a fanny.
Whatever you think about Putin he aint no fanny. Ruthless and murderous maybe. He once killed a rat with his bare hands.
Didn't he spend most of 2020/1 as a Howard Hughes-esque recluse because of an itty bitty little virus?
(And I don't mean the Howard Hughes with the brilliant voice for radio news.)
Can this appalling weather really continue? 8C in London with heavy rain. It is nearly May
FWIW they have had basically the same in Brittany. My guide today told me ‘it hasn’t stopped raining since last July’. I’ve lucked out with some of the first sunny days since last autumn, and even then there have been overcast days and it’s notably chilly
Have we broken the Gulf Stream?
Global warming i think is likely to lead to the uk becoming cloudier and wetter. A more miserable climate than before if thats possible.
Could be worse though. It could be Moscow. As I understand that place it's wet, cold, drab, dreary, and the regime is run by a nutter. I'm sure you'll agree.
Sounds like the uk under Liz Truss.
Nah, in this country we can mock the PM relentlessly and compare them to a lettuce, if in Moscow you did the same you'd be falling out of a window.
Putin is a fanny.
Whatever you think about Putin he aint no fanny. Ruthless and murderous maybe. He once killed a rat with his bare hands.
Didn't he spend most of 2020/1 as a Howard Hughes-esque recluse because of an itty bitty little virus?
(And I don't mean the Howard Hughes with the brilliant voice for radio news.)
Reflecting on yesterday's interesting conversations on numinousness, I think when visiting somewhere historic, we look through personal sets of spectacles.
My habit is to take an interest in the human community that was there, looking at that story through the lens of the details that are still there, and my knowledge of the history. Others ways of looking are through an architectural view, or an aesthetic or artistic view.
I think the difference I feel between say a French and an English village church is that in the case of the English church it is the backstory of a community that still exists, whilst in French examples I have seen there is a feel of a memorial or museum to a community that ceased to exist in that place some time ago. Almost a skeleton vs a living body, to reach for an over-crude contrast.
I'd draw a comparison with my experiences some years ago (1990s) of walking the routes of London's now-subterranean rivers reading the signs in the landscape which remember where the used to flow. An example might be a garden boundary that used to follow the bank, but is still left now that the river has gone.
If you want simple "noom", I'd go for Escomb near Bishop Auckland over St Peter's on the Wall. A saxon church built around 675AD with stone mined from a roman fort, still in its round churchyard which is a a mark of 'ancient', simply dressed inside, still in the middle of its village inside a boundary road called Saxon Green. What a place to go to Midnight Communion on Christmas Eve.
For noom in London two I'd think about would be St Barts the Great, with (still, I hope) an amazing, small professional choir. And All Hallows on the Wall in the City, which has a ceiling like a regency drawing room inside.
But for me I'm equally interested in the human community, so that pulls in modern times. I used to be a member of the Othona Community, which is a network contemporaneous with the modern Iona Community (ie 1950s iirc) with their base at a centre in Bradwell near St Peter's on the Wall, where members visit to recharge their batteries. It's the only place known to me where I can gather kilos of damsons in the hedgerows.
In London I like the journey made by the now Lord Mawson, from being a discouraged young URC Minister in the early 1980s with an empty, echoing church in Bromley-by-Bow in the East End, to what is now a major community hub providing a plethora of community services used by 2000 people per week. There are not dissimilar projects of development of communities everywhere, which I see as part of the same story. I really enjoy exploring that type of story - whether in the 1600s or the 2000s.
Enough of that - have a good evening, all.
Good choices!
In terms of London churches with noom I’d also go for St John’s Chapel inside the Tower of London. Meganoom. Also St Sepulchre without Newgate - the Old Bailey church - all those condemned men. Anything by Hawksmoor but especially Spitalfields. And the Temple church is pretty noomy
I was living within 10 minute's walk of Spitalfields when it was being restored in the late 1990s, and the vicar was looking for how he would create a future for the community. I was just behind Wesley's Chapel - so on a street called "Paul Street", with Mark Street and Luke Street on the two other sides of the block - which was (I assume) a late 19C set of tiny apartments called Victoria Chambers. History everywhere, and an Architectural Salvage Yard out of the window.
It has one of the best, and most pleasant to use, rings of bells in London.
Good times with challenges.
A bit got chopped. I am off now.
Good times with challenges.
Another example of my favourite type of story is the Mansion House 9000 telephone which still exists (or did when I last visited) in St Stephens Walbrook, which is the original one used by Chad Varah the Curate when he founded the organisation in 1953.
To me that's a part of the same story as the Ducking Stool in St Mary's Warwick, the Maidens' Garlands in Holy Trinity at Ashford-in-the-Water, the churches with Cromwellian weapon-impressions or marks on the outside walls where weapons were sharpened, or ones where a full immersion baptistry has been installed in the last decade.
For other types of story - the routes of public footpaths qualify for me eg walks with coffin stones in place, or areas of places such as Bedford Park or the Moravian Settlement at Ockbrook (there is really a thing called the Ock Brook).
Or for another modern one perhaps the locations of Elim Pentecostal Churches, which still in measure trace the preaching tours in the 1920-30s of the Jeffreys brothers - just as Methodist Churches did for Wesley.
I went on a great walk last summer which took me through the Moravian settlement at Ockbrook. And then tapas in the pub in the village. Was a glorious day. Also, interested that you're a ringer. I knew there had to be at least one here! I used to, though haven't for some time.
Actually, I'm not. I tried when I was living in the City, but moved around too many times to settle anywhere.
But the people who served me Aubergine Schnitzel this week have a 13 year old son who is learning in the church next door - they live in the former school house in a Derbyshire village.
My slightly mischievous dining companion introduced him to a video of the "belfry" at Pershore Abbey, which is Gilbert-Scott being creative - it is a cage suspended in the Tower above the chancel crossing.
"Access to the ringing room is very interesting and not for the faint hearted as the bells are rung from a cage suspended in the central tower. The path from the ground to the cage involves two stone spiral staircases, a walkway through the roof, a squeeze through a narrow passage and a see-through iron staircase into the cage."
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
Its funny i caught covid twice yet i dont seem to have a problem with long covid yet others i know who never got covid once seem to have got very sick.
I've got insomnia and an odd wheeze that sounds almost like I've swallowed a kitten, but mostly I'm just getting old.
Can this appalling weather really continue? 8C in London with heavy rain. It is nearly May
FWIW they have had basically the same in Brittany. My guide today told me ‘it hasn’t stopped raining since last July’. I’ve lucked out with some of the first sunny days since last autumn, and even then there have been overcast days and it’s notably chilly
Have we broken the Gulf Stream?
Global warming i think is likely to lead to the uk becoming cloudier and wetter. A more miserable climate than before if thats possible.
Could be worse though. It could be Moscow. As I understand that place it's wet, cold, drab, dreary, and the regime is run by a nutter. I'm sure you'll agree.
Sounds like the uk under Liz Truss.
Nah, in this country we can mock the PM relentlessly and compare them to a lettuce, if in Moscow you did the same you'd be falling out of a window.
Putin is a fanny.
Whatever you think about Putin he aint no fanny. Ruthless and murderous maybe. He once killed a rat with his bare hands.
Didn't he spend most of 2020/1 as a Howard Hughes-esque recluse because of an itty bitty little virus?
(And I don't mean the Howard Hughes with the brilliant voice for radio news.)
The SC is on dangerous ground and should have not heard the case but left the lower courts decision to stand .
If they start trying to separate official v private the ramifications will be huge . Ironically giving the Dems perhaps their strongest message .
Just imagine what Trump could do without constraints . If the SC continues to act as a GOP arse licker calls for an expansion of the court will grow if Biden wins.
From what I gather, if President Jefferson had just ordered Madison to execute Marbury, instead of refusing to deliver a commission to him, at least four current Supreme Court Justices would have been cool with that. https://twitter.com/secretsandlaws/status/1783544500293394846
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
English is the best language in the world.
Nah, it is French, particularly swearing in French, it is like wiping your arse with silk.
Can this appalling weather really continue? 8C in London with heavy rain. It is nearly May
FWIW they have had basically the same in Brittany. My guide today told me ‘it hasn’t stopped raining since last July’. I’ve lucked out with some of the first sunny days since last autumn, and even then there have been overcast days and it’s notably chilly
Have we broken the Gulf Stream?
Global warming i think is likely to lead to the uk becoming cloudier and wetter. A more miserable climate than before if thats possible.
Could be worse though. It could be Moscow. As I understand that place it's wet, cold, drab, dreary, and the regime is run by a nutter. I'm sure you'll agree.
Sounds like the uk under Liz Truss.
Nah, in this country we can mock the PM relentlessly and compare them to a lettuce, if in Moscow you did the same you'd be falling out of a window.
Putin is a fanny.
Whatever you think about Putin he aint no fanny. Ruthless and murderous maybe. He once killed a rat with his bare hands.
Didn't he spend most of 2020/1 as a Howard Hughes-esque recluse because of an itty bitty little virus?
(And I don't mean the Howard Hughes with the brilliant voice for radio news.)
Can this appalling weather really continue? 8C in London with heavy rain. It is nearly May
FWIW they have had basically the same in Brittany. My guide today told me ‘it hasn’t stopped raining since last July’. I’ve lucked out with some of the first sunny days since last autumn, and even then there have been overcast days and it’s notably chilly
Have we broken the Gulf Stream?
Global warming i think is likely to lead to the uk becoming cloudier and wetter. A more miserable climate than before if thats possible.
Could be worse though. It could be Moscow. As I understand that place it's wet, cold, drab, dreary, and the regime is run by a nutter. I'm sure you'll agree.
Sounds like the u k under Liz Truss.
Nah, in this country we can mock the PM relentlessly and compare them to a lettuce, if in Moscow you did the same you'd be falling out of a window.
Putin is a fanny.
Whatever you think about Putin he aint no fanny. Ruthless and murderous maybe. He once killed a rat with his bare hands.
Jolyon Maugham went one better and killed a squirrel in a fit of rage. But he's still a fanny. And so is Putin.
It was a fox.
And he was in character as a post-WW2 Samurai, wearing his wife's kimono and wielding a baseball bat iirc.
One that will live in infamy. Silly twot should have had a .22 rifle if he was going after foxes.
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
We have a landmark lighthouse here which has just hit its 150th birthday and they’ve lit it beautifully to celebrate it. I wish it would be permanently like this but then it might lose its “noom”.
The lighthouse incidentally gave its name to the Grand National winner Corbiere to find some tendentious link to betting.
So here’s a lighthouse being lit for the people on land not the sea. (Not my photos.)
(Snip)
This is perhaps my favourite photo I've ever taken. Strumble Head lighthouse in Pemborkeshire, at dusk. A vertical red beam of light from the sun disappearing below the distant horizon, and a horizontal beam of light from the lighthouse.
I had only a few seconds to take the shot whilst the lighthouse's beam was visible at the same time as the sun's beam, and in the right direction. I took the photo hurriedly and at a slight slant. And I'm no photographer. It's an imperfect photo.
But I know I'll never experience those few moments again.
Nooooooom!
Very nice
Two different companies have beaten you to the word:
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
English is the best language in the world.
Nah, it is French, particularly swearing in French, it is like wiping your arse with silk.
No, it's English. If what you claim is true, PB.com would be a Francophone website.
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
No one is denying any of that. The point is most people learn languages to real proficiency because they think it will materially benefit them, usually in their career. We are moments from a machine which will make everyone expert at every language
Who is going to spend years learning a language for the ‘spiritual and cultural insight’ when they happens? Not many. Lockdown showed us what happens when people are given loads of free time and a chance to ‘improve themselves’. They don’t do it, they lounge around and play video games and maybe do some cooking but that’s about it
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
English is the best language in the world.
Nah, it is French, particularly swearing in French, it is like wiping your arse with silk.
No, it's English. If what you claim is true, PB.com would be a Francophone website.
Reflecting on yesterday's interesting conversations on numinousness, I think when visiting somewhere historic, we look through personal sets of spectacles.
My habit is to take an interest in the human community that was there, looking at that story through the lens of the details that are still there, and my knowledge of the history. Others ways of looking are through an architectural view, or an aesthetic or artistic view.
I think the difference I feel between say a French and an English village church is that in the case of the English church it is the backstory of a community that still exists, whilst in French examples I have seen there is a feel of a memorial or museum to a community that ceased to exist in that place some time ago. Almost a skeleton vs a living body, to reach for an over-crude contrast.
I'd draw a comparison with my experiences some years ago (1990s) of walking the routes of London's now-subterranean rivers reading the signs in the landscape which remember where the used to flow. An example might be a garden boundary that used to follow the bank, but is still left now that the river has gone.
If you want simple "noom", I'd go for Escomb near Bishop Auckland over St Peter's on the Wall. A saxon church built around 675AD with stone mined from a roman fort, still in its round churchyard which is a a mark of 'ancient', simply dressed inside, still in the middle of its village inside a boundary road called Saxon Green. What a place to go to Midnight Communion on Christmas Eve.
For noom in London two I'd think about would be St Barts the Great, with (still, I hope) an amazing, small professional choir. And All Hallows on the Wall in the City, which has a ceiling like a regency drawing room inside.
But for me I'm equally interested in the human community, so that pulls in modern times. I used to be a member of the Othona Community, which is a network contemporaneous with the modern Iona Community (ie 1950s iirc) with their base at a centre in Bradwell near St Peter's on the Wall, where members visit to recharge their batteries. It's the only place known to me where I can gather kilos of damsons in the hedgerows.
In London I like the journey made by the now Lord Mawson, from being a discouraged young URC Minister in the early 1980s with an empty, echoing church in Bromley-by-Bow in the East End, to what is now a major community hub providing a plethora of community services used by 2000 people per week. There are not dissimilar projects of development of communities everywhere, which I see as part of the same story. I really enjoy exploring that type of story - whether in the 1600s or the 2000s.
Enough of that - have a good evening, all.
Good choices!
In terms of London churches with noom I’d also go for St John’s Chapel inside the Tower of London. Meganoom. Also St Sepulchre without Newgate - the Old Bailey church - all those condemned men. Anything by Hawksmoor but especially Spitalfields. And the Temple church is pretty noomy
I was living within 10 minute's walk of Spitalfields when it was being restored in the late 1990s, and the vicar was looking for how he would create a future for the community. I was just behind Wesley's Chapel - so on a street called "Paul Street", with Mark Street and Luke Street on the two other sides of the block - which was (I assume) a late 19C set of tiny apartments called Victoria Chambers. History everywhere, and an Architectural Salvage Yard out of the window.
It has one of the best, and most pleasant to use, rings of bells in London.
Good times with challenges.
A bit got chopped. I am off now.
Good times with challenges.
Another example of my favourite type of story is the Mansion House 9000 telephone which still exists (or did when I last visited) in St Stephens Walbrook, which is the original one used by Chad Varah the Curate when he founded the organisation in 1953.
To me that's a part of the same story as the Ducking Stool in St Mary's Warwick, the Maidens' Garlands in Holy Trinity at Ashford-in-the-Water, the churches with Cromwellian weapon-impressions or marks on the outside walls where weapons were sharpened, or ones where a full immersion baptistry has been installed in the last decade.
For other types of story - the routes of public footpaths qualify for me eg walks with coffin stones in place, or areas of places such as Bedford Park or the Moravian Settlement at Ockbrook (there is really a thing called the Ock Brook).
Or for another modern one perhaps the locations of Elim Pentecostal Churches, which still in measure trace the preaching tours in the 1920-30s of the Jeffreys brothers - just as Methodist Churches did for Wesley.
I went on a great walk last summer which took me through the Moravian settlement at Ockbrook. And then tapas in the pub in the village. Was a glorious day. Also, interested that you're a ringer. I knew there had to be at least one here! I used to, though haven't for some time.
Actually, I'm not. I tried when I was living in the City, but moved around too many times to settle anywhere.
But the people who served me Aubergine Schnitzel this week have a 13 year old son who is learning in the church next door - they live in the former school house in a Derbyshire village.
My slightly mischievous dining companion introduced him to a video of the "belfry" at Pershore Abbey, which is Gilbert-Scott being creative - it is a cage suspended in the Tower above the chancel crossing.
"Access to the ringing room is very interesting and not for the faint hearted as the bells are rung from a cage suspended in the central tower. The path from the ground to the cage involves two stone spiral staircases, a walkway through the roof, a squeeze through a narrow passage and a see-through iron staircase into the cage."
I've rung there. Not for the faint hearted. Also rung at Ockbrook, as you mentioned the place earlier!
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
Mate. Language learning is dead. If it’s not dead, AI is about to kill it. We will very soon have literal Babel fish that translate everything perfectly in real time into our AirPods, and likewise in reverse. We may even have lenses that lip synch the words so it looks like the person talking in French to you is talking in English but in their accent, this technology already exists
Who on earth is going to spend much of their youth learning something pointless, that brings no material advantage? Granted, some privileged kids still might, the way they learn the flute or the cello, but for 97% of children the time will be spent better on something useful and beneficial
So many on this site have no idea what AI is about to do to the world
You don't run or cycle? Speaking another language changes the shape of your brain and makes you live longer. Speaking another language does for the brain what being physically active does for the body.
If you think education is just about getting on the corporate hamster wheel you really are a philistine reactionary. We live as sentient beings in a vast and majestic universe...
You can translate docs using technology but actually talking to people is a whole different thing. I live in a country where technology is already used in ways that an inky reactionary wouldn't get... which means we understand the uses but also the limitations of "AI" and a whole load of other stuff coming gown the line. It will, I think be pretty exciting. Languages and language learning won't be going away though... unless you are happy with a one dimensional understanding of things, which , given your often expressed rather negative view of life, perhaps you are.
Why are you such a relentlessly pompous old nun’s vulva
I know languages are good for the soul blah blah fucking blah
I am merely pointing out what is coming our way and extrapolating how humans will react. You’ll thank me when it happens, for warning you
Oh come on, you're just a bullshitter. You literally have no idea what's coming, and wetting your knickers about a few "AI" pictures morphing your girlfriend with a goat is just sad. Selling your tired hackneyed reactionary cliches is all you've got left. At least I put actual money down investing in this stuff. Those that can, do. Those that can't, bullshit.
We have a landmark lighthouse here which has just hit its 150th birthday and they’ve lit it beautifully to celebrate it. I wish it would be permanently like this but then it might lose its “noom”.
The lighthouse incidentally gave its name to the Grand National winner Corbiere to find some tendentious link to betting.
So here’s a lighthouse being lit for the people on land not the sea. (Not my photos.)
(Snip)
This is perhaps my favourite photo I've ever taken. Strumble Head lighthouse in Pemborkeshire, at dusk. A vertical red beam of light from the sun disappearing below the distant horizon, and a horizontal beam of light from the lighthouse.
I had only a few seconds to take the shot whilst the lighthouse's beam was visible at the same time as the sun's beam, and in the right direction. I took the photo hurriedly and at a slight slant. And I'm no photographer. It's an imperfect photo.
But I know I'll never experience those few moments again.
Nooooooom!
Very nice
Does anyone know what those vertical beams or light from the sun are called as it dips below the horizon? I've seen a couple since (including in my home village), but they seem to be blooming rare.
I don't think so, as the effect is slightly different. Crepuscular rays are relatively common (I frequently notice them), and are from the sky to the ground. These are from the 'ground' up to the sky. P'haps.
Its funny i caught covid twice yet i dont seem to have a problem with long covid yet others i know who never got covid once seem to have got very sick.
I've got insomnia and an odd wheeze that sounds almost like I've swallowed a kitten, but mostly I'm just getting old.
Long Covid doesn't appear to be made up; there's good evidence of persistent problems in some.
Im making a bet that rcs is going to ban me tonite. Whos with me.
Been good knowing you. You've entertained a little beyond the the usual paint by numbers jobs.
And you got me properly with the wee Labour blaming detail on that Telegraph battlefield doom article. I was in the mood for a proper rant the other night, and that did for me. I hadn't read that it was posted by you, so count yourself an accidentally well fed troll.
If you get sent to the PB front again, come back as dontstop and say everything backwards, and we'll know it's you.
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
I'd argue that learning languages young is an important part of broadening the mind, and learning flexibility plus appreciating different types of outlook - different languages are like different dimensions of thought imo. And it's correct that learning languages early is far more straightforward.
There are plenty of places where two or three languages can be picked up as a normal part of growing up - think of the Netherlands, or Wales.
I'm still grateful that I had the opportunity to do English, French, German and Latin to 16 before I went for science/engineering, and I still regret not being able to keep them up properly since.
We have a landmark lighthouse here which has just hit its 150th birthday and they’ve lit it beautifully to celebrate it. I wish it would be permanently like this but then it might lose its “noom”.
The lighthouse incidentally gave its name to the Grand National winner Corbiere to find some tendentious link to betting.
So here’s a lighthouse being lit for the people on land not the sea. (Not my photos.)
(Snip)
This is perhaps my favourite photo I've ever taken. Strumble Head lighthouse in Pemborkeshire, at dusk. A vertical red beam of light from the sun disappearing below the distant horizon, and a horizontal beam of light from the lighthouse.
I had only a few seconds to take the shot whilst the lighthouse's beam was visible at the same time as the sun's beam, and in the right direction. I took the photo hurriedly and at a slight slant. And I'm no photographer. It's an imperfect photo.
But I know I'll never experience those few moments again.
Nooooooom!
Very nice
Two different companies have beaten you to the word:
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
You say "which is why..." but it looks like you're saying we should do it because Ed Davey speaks multiple languages. I'm sure this can't be what you mean! To what end ahould we be teaching otger languages? I'm not unsympathetic to your argument. I have always been a monoglot and I simply cannot understand how people becime fluent in other languages. It just seems impossibly hard. But fortunately English monolingualism doesn't appear to hold anyone back. But I'm interested in your argument. The problem is there are just so many otger languages. Even if you were to master three or four, there would still be thousands you couldn't speak.
Learning another language gives you a perspective on how language works, because other languages do things in other ways, it gives you a window into a culture too. And you don’t need to obtain fluency to get those benefits. I speak a little Japanese, not remotely anywhere near fluent, but it opened my eyes to many things and made travelling around Japan very different.
Yet another beautiful French city. Quimper. How do they do it?
No noom in that lovely cathedral tho
I got there too late, and left too early, to get into the cathedral, but loved my stroll around exploring Quimper
Quimper sounds like it should be an English word - or one of those fake answers in Call My Bluff.
What would it mean?
Isn't it pronounced Kim-pair?
In Chaucerian English I fear Quimper would be very rude.
It means “confluence” in Breton, because three rivers merge here. Which gives me an excuse to post another photo of relentlessly charming Quimper
Its pronounced khhaaaaAAAMP-eeaarrr
Camp-Ear?
You basically have to sound like you’re gargling mouthwash
That's most French words AFAIAC. Daft unpronounceable language for the Northern English male. Makes Welsh look easy.
I think I disagree.
Try and say "hamper" with an extra R and a faux-Scottish (?) accent.
Or think of a poor quality pear: ham-pear.
I'm surprised that @Leon put "a"s in the second half, which according to me nearly adds an extra syllable in French.
Or even better, ask Nick Clegg or Ed Davey, who have 4 or 5 languages each.
I knew about Nick Clegg's languages skills but not Ed Davey. Which are they?
Waffle and obfuscation.
... apparently in 3 European languages too. According to Wikipedia "Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish."
Four surely.
French hardly counts as a language
Naughty!
Which is why we should teach our kids French, German or Spanish as a first language before the age of 10. Tory morons who think that there will be any success teaching Japanese or Mandarin in high school "because its more useful" should be place in a maximum security home for cretins.
Mate. Language learning is dead. If it’s not dead, AI is about to kill it. We will very soon have literal Babel fish that translate everything perfectly in real time into our AirPods, and likewise in reverse. We may even have lenses that lip synch the words so it looks like the person talking in French to you is talking in English but in their accent, this technology already exists
Who on earth is going to spend much of their youth learning something pointless, that brings no material advantage? Granted, some privileged kids still might, the way they learn the flute or the cello, but for 97% of children the time will be spent better on something useful and beneficial
So many on this site have no idea what AI is about to do to the world
You don't run or cycle? Speaking another language changes the shape of your brain and makes you live longer. Speaking another language does for the brain what being physically active does for the body.
If you think education is just about getting on the corporate hamster wheel you really are a philistine reactionary. We live as sentient beings in a vast and majestic universe...
You can translate docs using technology but actually talking to people is a whole different thing. I live in a country where technology is already used in ways that an inky reactionary wouldn't get... which means we understand the uses but also the limitations of "AI" and a whole load of other stuff coming gown the line. It will, I think be pretty exciting. Languages and language learning won't be going away though... unless you are happy with a one dimensional understanding of things, which , given your often expressed rather negative view of life, perhaps you are.
Why are you such a relentlessly pompous old nun’s vulva
I know languages are good for the soul blah blah fucking blah
I am merely pointing out what is coming our way and extrapolating how humans will react. You’ll thank me when it happens, for warning you
Oh come on, you're just a bullshitter. You literally have no idea what's coming, and wetting your knickers about a few "AI" pictures morphing your girlfriend with a goat is just sad. Selling your tired hackneyed reactionary cliches is all you've got left. At least I put actual money down investing in this stuff. Those that can, do. Those that can't, bullshit.
Thing is, "creatives" have thought that they are cleverer and better than everyone else. You can't get a computer to create a masterpiece, even if they can do your accounts.
What LLMs gave made explicit is that a lot of creativity is just remixing the work of others. You could put the entire archive on The Spectator (say) into a LLM and it could churn out an infinity of vaguely reactionary opinion from here to forever, and it would sell.
That's the real problem. It's not that AI has reproduced the ghost in the machine, it's that it's mafe it clear that there's mostly never been a ghost. Most of us came to terms with that ages ago.
(Yes, the economic transition will be messy. I suspect that the public will trust Starmer with that more than Sunak. But all the human arts will survive. They will just be accomplishments (is that the word from Victorian novels?) rather than economically viable skills.)
When Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, made an alliance with Margaret d'Anjou in 1470 she forced him to grovel in front of her for fifteen solid minutes on a stone-cold (literally, as it consisted of flagstones) floor while apologising for all his past misdeeds towards her and her husband before she accepted him.
I wonder if Ash Regan is feeling vindictive?
Hopefully , her shopping list will not be short
It should be the antithesis of all the policies that the Greens inflicted on Scotland as a result of the Bute House agreement.
Comments
Even now in the EU they can’t use Claude 3 because of anti AI laws. Madness
The UK is doing ok but could do better (in AI)
Yes I really feel for kids age 18 or 21 who’ve just spent their childhood mastering a really hard language like mandarin. Completely pointless in terms of future career. A waste of an education. Very soon everyone will speak perfect mandarin via a machine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepuscular_rays
But worse, because of their extremism and obsession with Indy, they won't be able to work with Labour or the LibDems either despite in many respects having a lot of cross over with them. Lab and LibDems voted for all the idiot gender and hate crime stuff that has caused so much of the trouble - though they've gone very quiet on it since.
(And I don't mean the Howard Hughes with the brilliant voice for radio news.)
But the people who served me Aubergine Schnitzel this week have a 13 year old son who is learning in the church next door - they live in the former school house in a Derbyshire village.
My slightly mischievous dining companion introduced him to a video of the "belfry" at Pershore Abbey, which is Gilbert-Scott being creative - it is a cage suspended in the Tower above the chancel crossing.
"Access to the ringing room is very interesting and not for the faint hearted as the bells are rung from a cage suspended in the central tower. The path from the ground to the cage involves two stone spiral staircases, a walkway through the roof, a squeeze through a narrow passage and a see-through iron staircase into the cage."
Because there are other people with that power.
#InsiderTrading
https://twitter.com/secretsandlaws/status/1783544500293394846
And he was in character as a post-WW2 Samurai, wearing his wife's kimono and wielding a baseball bat iirc.
One that will live in infamy. Silly twot should have had a .22 rifle if he was going after foxes.
Who is going to spend years learning a language for the ‘spiritual and cultural insight’ when they happens? Not many. Lockdown showed us what happens when people are given loads of free time and a chance to ‘improve themselves’. They don’t do it, they lounge around and play video games and maybe do some cooking but that’s about it
Also rung at Ockbrook, as you mentioned the place earlier!
Ive got odds
1/3 Tonight or Tomorrow morning.
1/2 Tomorrow afternoon or evening.
NEW THREAD
Tut tut, doctor...
I think it's a 'sun pillar'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pillar
The story of frequent persistence of #SARSCoV2 in multiple organs after mild Covid keeps getting stronger, and correlates (odds ratio >5) with symptoms of #LongCovid
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1782773912939729361
And you got me properly with the wee Labour blaming detail on that Telegraph battlefield doom article. I was in the mood for a proper rant the other night, and that did for me. I hadn't read that it was posted by you, so count yourself an accidentally well fed troll.
If you get sent to the PB front again, come back as dontstop and say everything backwards, and we'll know it's you.
Good luck, sir, to you, but Slava Ukraini.
There are plenty of places where two or three languages can be picked up as a normal part of growing up - think of the Netherlands, or Wales.
I'm still grateful that I had the opportunity to do English, French, German and Latin to 16 before I went for science/engineering, and I still regret not being able to keep them up properly since.
NOOM THREAD
What LLMs gave made explicit is that a lot of creativity is just remixing the work of others. You could put the entire archive on The Spectator (say) into a LLM and it could churn out an infinity of vaguely reactionary opinion from here to forever, and it would sell.
That's the real problem. It's not that AI has reproduced the ghost in the machine, it's that it's mafe it clear that there's mostly never been a ghost. Most of us came to terms with that ages ago.
(Yes, the economic transition will be messy. I suspect that the public will trust Starmer with that more than Sunak. But all the human arts will survive. They will just be accomplishments (is that the word from Victorian novels?) rather than economically viable skills.)
Mess with them at your peril.