Language teaching

If you wish to put children right off the idea of learning a foreign language force them to learn a difficult one, but only after they've passed the age at which bi-lingualism comes easy.

That's the English way. Don't even start foreign languages till the pupils are 11 or 12 years old. Only offer other languages to those who have passed selective examinations to grammar schools.

Spanish is one of the easiest for non-native speakers to learn (I read somewhere). Millions of British people go to Spain for their annual holidays. Choice of foreign language in schools could seem obvious but no, French - academic, literary, complex French not tabloid or street French - is a common choice. German, with the added complexity of that strange script, was another popular choice by teachers.

Heaven forbid that children might gain a sense of achievement by picking up a realtively easy language in primary school. Never mind that multi-lingual children have been shown to learn every other subject more easily. That misses the point...

The English education system is designed to fail around 80 per cent of those who enter it. Is it any wonder that those who know the system - teachers - form around 70 percent of the parents choosing the legal option of home education?

Things we thought we'd never live to see

Transistors (remember them?) were derided as a scientific curiosity of no practical use. They were too small, couldn't handle the currents needed and so on... Within ten years or so from the invention they started appearing in radios. Then integrated circuits came in, effectively a collection of miniature transistors, and we sit typing at a machine containing the equivalent of millions of the little things.

Pocket calculators, back in the 1950s, were often mentioned when schoolchildren were asked what they hoped would be invented. The idea that you might have a battery-powered calculating machine the size of a packet of gaspers never failed to produce guffaws from our wiser, older teachers. They also pooh-poohed the suggestion that removing longwinded pen-and-paper calculations might actually make mathematics easier.

Space flight - don't be so ridiculous, we were told in 1955. The amount of fuel needed to lift a rocket even into Earth orbit would be too heavy for the craft to lift off in the first place. In 1956 the USSR put a craft into orbit. Sputnik, if you wish to look it up.

Amazon deforestation could never happen. Every time they tried to build a road, by the time they'd finished surfacing it the jungle would have invaded the other end, obliterating all trace of man's puny efforts.

In 1964 a new town was planned on the basis that "for the forseeable future" oil would be the cheapest convenient source of energy. Miles of new roads were laid for the expected number of new cars. We got the cars and also in 1973 the oil crisis. Arab oil states had finally decided to act in concert instead of selling their natural resources for pennies per barrel.

Every time I hear an expert assure that "it could never happen" I start counting the weeks until the impossible occurs. Past examples are too numerous to mention in full. The list above is just a sample.

Another wise woman's blog.

See The Gifted Typist.

Voting in the USA.

Please, if you are entitled to vote in the USA today, do it.

Regardless of your political persuasion, no matter who wins, when things go pear-shaped you can at least say to the moaners: "Don't blame me, I voted. Did you?"

Fake websites

All right, you pedants! If a website exists, it exists and therefore cannot be fake.

I refer to those sites whose content is about something that doesn't exist. One of the more fascinating examples is discussed at www.snopes.com/pregnant/malepreg.htm and the original's a dilly.

BBC , wrong again

The BBC ('Today', Radio 4, November 7, 2006) describes Sir Robin Knox-Johnston as the first man to sail around the world solo. He wasn't. He was the first to do it non-stop*.

The first solo circumnavigation was by Joshua Slocum (q.v.) in the 19th Century. He called at various ports for supplies. K-J received food and water from other vessels.

Slocum's greater achievement, in the eyes of many, brought him fame before he sailed the globe. Shipwrecked with his family in South America, this canny Yankee skipper decided it would be cheaper to build a boat than to pay the fares back to New England by passenger boat. He bought a local plantation, hired help, felled trees and built his own small vessel. His navigation skills took them home safely. The boat is in a US museum.

*Only a few days ago the Guardian's Corrections column corrected the same mistake.

Magical tunnel moments

Years ago, around the middle of January, we entered Wast Hills tunnel going north and everything was normal until we looked back. The ripples left by the boat were illuminated by the afternoon sun, which we could not see, and remained so until we'd almost reached the Kings Norton end. It looked like molten gold, lighting up the whole length of the tunnel behind us.

We'd always hoped to repeat the trip at a similar time in the opposite direction but it was not to be. There would have been no call for a tunnel light.

At other times of year this effect was never seen. We imagined the angle of the sun as well as its position relative to the horizon had to be just right to produce it.