Longrider

3
Dec
2009

In Which I Find Myself Agreeing With Leo Hickman

Filed under: Humour,misanthropy — Longrider @ 18:56

Wonders never cease…

Hickman comments on  the latest from the optimum population trust and I agree with him (although probably not for the same reasons).

“Rich nations to offset emissions with birth control.” At first sight, I thought it was a satirical headline from the Onion. Good one, I thought: they’re imagining carbon offsetting at its most ludicrous extreme.

But then I read further: “The scheme, called PopOffsets, understands the connection [between population increase and climate change],” says the Optimum Population Trust‘s director Roger Martin. “It offers a practical and sensible response. For the first time ever individuals, companies and organisations will have the opportunity to offset their carbon voluntarily by supporting projects to provide family planning services where there is currently unmet demand.”

I believe “WTF” is the acronym now favoured when faced with such statements.

Well quite. The plan apparently is that we assuage our guilt by buying condoms for the third world – titter ye not.

The Optimum Population Trust (OPT), which is supported by environmental grandees such as Sir David Attenborough and James Lovelock, is arguing that, instead of planting tress and the like, it makes much better sense for people in developed nations to offset their emissions by paying for condoms to be handed out in developing nations where birth rates are much higher. To facilitate this, a website has now been set up where you can calculate your emissions for, say, your “summer holiday 2009″ and then make a donation which helps pay for contraceptives to be distributed in countries such as India and Kenya.

Words fail me. “Not on your nelly” springs to mind but doesn’t do justice, somehow. But to have me agreeing with über warmist Hickman is quite an achievement.

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Copyright©2009 Longrider

3
Dec
2009

On Speaking French

Filed under: French Matters,Humour,Personal Stuff — Longrider @ 17:42

A fellow expat states the obvious.

British expats in France should at least speak half-decent French if they want to be happy

Well, yes, that is obvious…

Life in rural France is full of mysteries.

Indeed.

Even now, six years on, I am not entirely confident at what o’clock, or dimness of dusk, bon jour somehow becomes bon soir. I still have my doubts about which cheek to kiss first in greeting, and whether I should be sowing or planting during the new moon.

I am bemused that the birthplace of Renoir and Gauguin should be capable of producing such thin and dribbly paint, often with a monocouche label attached, as if one coat should suffice. Which, if you are applying it to Rice Krispies, it probably will. But the weirdest mystery of all is the French language. How is it that, no matter how long your average Brit lives in the French countryside, he fails to pick up the lingo as easily as if it were swine flu in a hospital?

Indeed again. I started learning French at the ripe old age of nine. I gave up when I was about thirteen. I didn’t pick it up again until I was in my twenties and have struggled with it on and off ever since. Now, as a French resident, I have the one thing that was missing on previous occasions – native French speakers on whom I can practice. Okay, so the outcomes are somewhat unpredictable at times, but hearing the language – and as my tutor points out (repeatedly) – hearing the pronunciation, is the best way of improving my own skills. She tells me that with application, I could be good at this. But, I have to say, it is still hard work and I wished that I had continued it when at school.

No one is going to mistake me for Baudelaire, admittedly. But I have stopped worrying about my accent, ever since I made the bewildering discovery that, to the French, a marked English accent can be beguiling and – I didn’t believe this either, when I first heard it – even sexy. 

I hadn’t heard this until my tutor told me. Apparently, it’s true. The French regard the English accent in the same way as we regard the French one. Boosted my ego no end…

And so we Brits abroad will lazily club together into a sad little clique. We will employ cowboy builders from home rather than skilled local artisans, so that at least we can understand them when they rip us off. And we will talk among ourselves, trying to cheer ourselves up by bitching about how our country has gone to the dogs. Because of all the immigrants. 

Mrs L and I made a point of getting to know our neighbours who are all French – and speaking to them in French even if it was painful. Then we met another expat who just happens to be a language tutor. She spends most of her time teaching English to the French (and having arguments heated discussions with them about such things as whether crème anglaise should be eaten hot or cold – hot, naturally). Now she is teaching us French. But, in general, we have not fallen into the trap of mixing with a clique of English people and we do try to get local artisans when we need them. The problem – as regaled at some length by Peter Mayle in his Provence books – is getting them to do the work. If British builders operate in a different time zone, French ones are in a different space time continuum. A neighbour told us that you tell the artisan what you need and he will give you half a dozen reasons why you don’t. The mystery is how they make a living…

I don’t know about you, but I cannot imagine living in a place where I felt always on the margins, barred by my inability to communicate from making the slightest contribution to local life. 

Yeah, I’d go along with that – and I do feel frustrated at my lack of fluency. That doesn’t stop us engaging with local events and chatting with the neighbours. It may be slow, but we will get there. Integration is the key.  

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Copyright©2009 Longrider

3
Dec
2009

Good Grief!

Filed under: General News,Humour,misanthropy — Longrider @ 17:12

More “let’s all go veggie” bollockery.

Reducing consumption of a protein found in fish and meat could slow the ageing process and increase life expectancy, according to the research.

Scientists have long believed that an ultra low calorie diet – aproximately 60 per cent of normal levels – can lead to greater longevity.

Riiiight… So it’s all about quantity rather than quality is it? Well, yes, actually.

Studies in animals including monkeys have shown that reducing food intake can benefit health and increase lifespan.

Researchers have found that reducing calories by as much as 30 per cent could reduce risks of developing heart disease or cancer by half and increase lifetimes by nearly a third.

The extreme diets – just above malnutrition levels – add an extra 25 years to the average life in Britain with the vast majority of people living to their 100th birthday

So if we starve ourselves, we get to live to 100. Great. Terrific. Can’t wait. Frankly, I’d rather live fast and die young(ish). Life is for enjoying, not enduring. If I have a straight choice between a well lived life, one where the years of my existence hit a brick wall and fall about my feet in an undignified heap or one where I live long on a subsistence diet and bore myself to death, then the former looks pretty attractive to me.

But in a series of new experiments on fruit flies, scientists discovered that simply varying the mix of amino acids in the diet affected lifespan.

Uh huh? Fruit flies, eh?

Although flies and people are very different…

You don’t say? Okay, okay, I’m slightly misrepresenting him here and openly taking the piss, but really, quality is more important than quantity. Contrary to the belief of scientists and politicians, we are not all looking to spend eternity in our bath-chairs holding back the inevitable. Some of us, many if not most, I suspect, would rather make the most of the time allotted us and take the chance that one day it will kill us. We have to die of something after all. Might as well go out enjoying it.

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