Le Baron's casual reading log

[Le Baron]

I've been distracted and done very little reading. I found out just recently that my younger sister has spinal and liver cancer. She's only in her mid 30s. She already had a voluntary mastectomy some years after having the test for the gene with a propensity to breast cancer. Which of course killed my mother.

I find it unfair, as life often is. Despite the many odds stacked against her she has built a lot up for herself from very little. She founded and runs a bio-plastics company and started off with a spices company (which still operates). She went to my brother's house and spoke about the future of her daughter 'should she herself not be around', because she is a realist.

Still the thought of it hurts my heart. I live in a different country and I've had these nasty surprises before where I'm always too far away and too late.

[stell]

I’m very sorry to hear about your sister. Sending lots of good thoughts.

[iguanamon]

It's hard to be so far away from your family in a time of need. I know what that's like and it's awful. I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. Echoing Stell, sending warm vibes from the Caribbean.

[Amandine]

My best wishes to your sister and you, Le Baron.

[Le Baron]

I was coming out of a shop today (on an ancient shopping street in Utrecht, which has been a shopping street since 1100 CE !) and these two girls, one pushing a bike, stopped me. The one with the bike said:

Hallo...Gibt es hier ein Supermarkt?! Sie (pointing to the other girl) wollte nicht nach Albert Heijn, weil sie sagte dass es kein guter ist. Zwei sind wir schon vorbei, aber ich habe keine lust mehr um länger zu laufen!

I may not have got all the exact wording right. I had an armful of things because I had no bag, and was surprised to be addressed in German, and also with 'hello'. I've never known a German tourist not to start with 'entschuldigung' at least. But anyway, I was caught off guard and replied in Dutch. And then they were also a bit flummoxed by that. Then I turned to English and said 'you don't expect to get randomly spoken to in German!' And then they turned to English, saying 'ah yes!' I said there was an Albert Heijn halfway down and pointed to the sign. They looked at one another and girl who didn't want to walk any more seemed to use the Jedi force to insist they go to it.

I think she was annoyed about something that had happened in an Albert Heijn somewhere else. Perhaps the AH had refused cash or had inflated prices, if it was un de ces putains de AH 'To Go' at a station. So I told them there was also a bio/organic supermarket and also a Persian mini-market. They seemed satisfied with that. At that point a man I know passed and just exchanged a few words.

Then they asked me where I was from. I said 'England' and they said: 'oh, are you on holiday?' Even though I'd just replied to them and that passing man in Dutch! As if I would go on holiday and completely learn Dutch just on the off-chance of having to use it. So I just did a Columbo squint and pointed at her.

Consider this though. That Germans find it easier to default to English than to Dutch from German. I get it, because everyone at school gets full-on lessons in English and all that mainstream cultural residue. Surely it can't be that hard to decipher Dutch though? I find it quite bad that English has become the lingua franca among related languages.

[Sonjaconjota]

Consider this though. That Germans find it easier to default to English than to Dutch from German. I get it, because everyone at school gets full-on lessons in English and all that mainstream cultural residue. Surely it can't be that hard to decipher Dutch though? I find it quite bad that English has become the lingua franca among related languages.

I recently watched this video and was surprised at how clueless many people are.
Being interested in languages makes us lose perspective a bit, I guess.

[BeaP]

It's funny that we don't know anything about each other, but based on the posts I tend to have a picture of some members. For example, for me you're the typical British gentleman. A better contender for the role of James Bond than the Cavill guy. I was shocked when I read that you were greeted with 'hallo'.

I'm quite worried about the dominance of English. It leads to an impoverishment of the cultural variety, which is sad, and also to a non-understanding of the others around us, which is outright dangerous.

[Le Baron]

It's like when the sun comes out tourists immediately spring from nowhere. Or maybe they're always here and just don't hang about as much in dull weather? Whatever the case I was like a dog in a dog whistle shop today, hearing numerous languages from people passing by.

A quartet of Russians photographing and discussing the plaque announcing that artist 'Gerrit Rietveld once lived here' among other people. Must have been a little artist's colony there. Then I heard a couple of Portuguese girls waiting in the straggly queue outside a corner bakery. I wondered to myself how I knew it was Portuguese when I can't speak a word and even my Spanish is lamentable. At that moment one of them let out a hacking laugh behind me and I momentarily started to believe in telepathy.

I always look out for the Spanish tourists (or even residents) so I can get myself into some sort of simple discussion. Even when it goes a little bit wrong and harder than 'simple discussion'. The method is to see who is looking around, clearly lost, then to position oneself as a handy passer-by who is accidentally available. Well this didn't work today. Apart from two young Indian women who asked if it was okay to park on the side of the canal, but they were speaking English. In that lovely sing-songy way Indians speak English. I had to tell them it is actually quite expensive and they were better off looking for the hard-to-find multi-storey car park. To which I directed them.

This is the 'Museum Quarter' near the workshop I work in, so people come to see various Museums and monuments in a fairly compact area. Next up two middle-aged Germans and the man was telling the woman a potted history of where the city walls used to be on this side of the city. He must be a history buff or heard it from a tour guide. You don't often see people walking about in (proper short) shorts and a t-shirt in March in this country, but it's going that way. The best thing I saw, though this was on Tuesday, was a young Dutch (?) fellow with three young Chinese and all of them talking in Chinese, quite loudly. Like that other fellow on YouTube who goes about in Chinatown. Not a clue what they were saying, but it was a marvellous sight.

[Le Baron]

I'm actually taking it easy! And I don't care.

It happened accidentally about a fortnight or so ago. I stopped full-on listening for a few days because 6-8 hours a day for months on end can make you go strange. And we're all strange enough.

I began a book a couple a weeks ago and it's one of those that manages to capture you and ends up feeling easier because you get drawn-in by the story. So I've basically just been reading that.

The only other thing I did was have a trilingual 'discussion' on Twitter. It started as English, but a Spanish speaker thought it was okay to just butt in and address me in Spanish with a sarcastic remark. Despite not feeling like I can manage debate I took the serve and returned it like a hungry young Roger Federer. Though one who's less good at tennis and is using a 2nd-hand racquet made of wood..
No mention of any spelling mistakes and the guy seemed to be understanding me and replying...so I felt a bit more confident. But he started getting more difficult. So I turned to French. And the guy had the temerity to say: 'Why are you replying in French? As though you assume I'll just understand it!' Distinct lack of self-awareness.

Here's Darius Milhaud's cello concerto, which at 14 minutes 39 seconds, is a lot better than those 45 minute ones with no interest in them. The lyrical cello shines because the orchestra isn't overwritten. Good man Darius.

[Le Baron]

I went to buy some sandpaper at Action - because I'm restoring/refinishing an old writing desk, very slowly. Here are some real-life examples I heard today of how some Dutch people interpolate English phrases wholesale into their Dutch:

Woman to her daughter: 'Nee, want het is helemaal against my principles...snap je?

Further on near the pet wares shelves a young woman was discussing with a young fellow the relative benefits of some plastic objects:
'Maar ik denk dat deze veel schattiger is, if you catch my drift....'

I did catch her drift. By this time it was the fourth such example of this sort of thing in two days. So I said to the girl (but was smiling to disarm any feelings of interrogation): 'Can I ask, how come you say that last bit in English?' There was the surprised bit, etc. She said: 'I don't know it's just a habit...everyone does it.' It's not true that 'everyone' does it, but a fair chunk of people do. And I replied, what would you think if while we're speaking in English like now, ik m'n laatste zinsdeel in het Nederlands zou zeggen?

She said: 'but that's not the same!' I asked why not and she said: 'English is different than Dutch!' I assume she meant it is 'everywhere', but I asked: 'that's true, but what would be the reason for you to use it when speaking to someone in NL who understands Dutch perfectly well?'

This is where it unravelled. The mild implication being that I was saying she was doing it to appear 'cool'. In the same way people used to use French phrases like 'au fait' and annoyingly in England 'quelle surprise!'. I had to diffuse things by saying, 'no, haha! I'm just interested in why it happens. I'm English so it catches my ear a lot.' The damage was done though, because when she said: 'sorry "meneer" but I can't give you the answer you want...' (though I didn't expect a predefined answer), she said it in Dutch. And the young fellow shrugged and gave me a smile with raised eyebrows like Stan Laurel.

I thought it best not to offer my thoughts on which plastic object of the two was the best. At the tills I was behind them and the young fellow nodded to me with the Stan Laurel face again. I think I'm becoming a public nuisance.