h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now Now, Taff. Youse (not me!) welsh can be at least as obtuse.

Pointedly ignored, except in cwmraig conversation around the bar.

Quite amusing when I said "nos dda" when leaving.

that must have been either north or west wales, not enough welsh speakers in the south to get that situation.....innit, like, but.

Yup, 'twas north - but having visited south quite a few times for work, I thought there were more of the stirring types at that end.

However.


I keep wondering why there's such enthusiasm for Europe among politicians. Perhaps they're all hoping to get on the bandwagon (and be like that welsh nottawizard and his wife)?
Or perhaps they know something we don't and aren't allowed to tell us?

snout in the trough, self importance, no responsability you just do what your party tells you, no real link to your constituancy, based n europe...the holiday never ends

Yes, there's that - many of us seem to think that sort of way.

But, that's a touch facile, surely? Those people are presumably at least as intelligent as the rest of us - some certainly are - and not all can be sir-serving jobsworths.

Meself, I think what they're not saying out loud (though, again most of us realise it, I think) is that we (no no, you) are in decline and our (no no, your) best chance of a dignified survival is to be in cahoots with those other countries, thus making up a bloc that's a bit difficult to ignore.

Well, Europarliament are improving things. They recently axed a law they themselves had burdened us with - it regulated the bend radius of cucumbers.
And as to that Multikulti thing...people like Taff, who could have stayed in their "little English ghetto" while posted here, learned more than just a smattering of German and were very welcome.
Otoh we have people who very loudly insist "no no, I´m German", but their children, second generation Germans, are the idiots in class when they begin school because they hardly understand a word.
Our politicians burn money to bail bankers who have gambled away millions, but that gets them more prime time TV limelight than dealing with the real problems. Rectums, all of them.

<>

Too good for local politics
not good enough for national politics
or passed their sell by date
what do we do with them????

EUROPE!!!!!

Taff, one of the b****ers even managed to get regulations changed. The janitor has to be there on Thursday 6am so our politicians can sign in to have been in office (€€€) and still catch the first plane for weekend at home.

>people like Taff<

is that what Germans like?

with curry ketchup on them

>Otoh we have people who very loudly insist "no no, I´m German", but their children, second generation Germans, are the idiots in class when they begin school because they hardly understand a word.<

So how many generations of being German does it take until their children aren't idiots?

I think what Pit might have been getting at - and I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong - is that even though the family are saying "we are German" if they are not speaking/reading/writing German at home and adopting German culture, then when the children get to school they fall behind because of poor language skills.

If the German kids invited the foreign kids round for dinner, to play with them, to birthday parties, the onus is on the new children to learn German. My experience of mixing with children who don't share a common language is that they very soon learn to communicate. One way or another.

Yes I see your point Sho..and of course it can happen here.

But what I don't much like is Pit's simple-mindedness, talking in stereotypes.

The whole thing is quite complicated. It can depend on cultural traditions of the immigrant. I mean its a heck of a lot easier if you are a fellow west European..and of course families are likely to be far more welcoming of your children in that case.

Ghettoisation is a complex subject. And my own understanding that the biggest problem in London, which I know most about, was Bangladeshi women in the East end who were kept indoors and didn't learn English. I don't know how things have changed now But I do get the impression that second generation Bangladeshis now speak English because there was a big push to enable that at school.

I completely agree that immigrants should learn to speak the mother tongue of the host nation, for everyone's sakes. But I haven't a lot of time for people just throwing wild statements around like,

>Otoh we have people who very loudly insist "no no, I´m German", but their children, second generation Germans, are the idiots in class when they begin school because they hardly understand a word.<

I expect a bit more intelligence of argument.

Effers, it´s something I´m very mad about. Young children pick up a new language in less time than it takes your to get cold - but when they get no contact with it at that age...bang, another loser who could have been a winner.
Ghettoism - yup, that´s it. Unscrupulous slumlords who, instead of renovating their houses, allow whole town quarters to become a foreign enclave by attracting poor immigrants who don´t know that there are standards here, it´s they I want shot.
Children who grow up bilingual not only have a picknick when they have to do foreign languages at school, they are better at maths as well.

I agree on the host language point. My two have French as well as English, and the oldest is starting on Dutch. If you're going to live and work here (Belgium) successfully, you really need all three.

Don't agree with the rubbish about MEPs being lazy though. I've worked with several, and none of them are doing less than a 60 hour week, plus travel.

The money is good, sure, but the ones from 'normal' political parties work hard.

sprout

"The money is good, sure, but the ones from 'normal' political parties work hard."

Doing what? They are responsible to no one. Most in the UK don't even know the name of their Euro MP. They are rarely mentioned in the press and seem to agree with whoever wants a slice more of our industry or national income. Ask the mackerel fishermen what they think of their Euro MP.

if they don't know the name of their Euro MP then that's more their fault than that of the MEP surely?

How many people turned out for the last Euro elections? (I did)

I voted too, much good may it do. Most don't vote because they can't see any point in doing so. All we ever hear is how much Europe is costing us followed by a stream of daft new regulations that usually end up costing us even more. Can you wonder that support for the European Federation is so low? Ask the fishermen of Cornwall, the North East and Scotland what they think about the 'support' they get from their Euro MPs. Have you heard how much perfectly good fish our fishermen have to throw away because of daft laws instituted by the European Parliament? No! People don't know their Euro MPs because they don't want to know them.

the point isn't that the individual Euro MPs can help one particular group - horrible as it is for those who are affected (I live in an ex-coal mining area, our Euro MP couldn't save the mine either and there's a lot of unemployment)

However, Euro money does go into places like Cornwall and the north of Scotland, Wales and other areas that Westminster doesn't always reach.

The problem is that if the Daily (hate) Mail says "Europe is a waste of time, look, we're not even allowed bendy cucumbers now" a lot of people forget the other things that Europe is doing.

But then - I don't actually pay that much attention to what they do outside of what affects me (Euro money subsidised my company's factory in Wales, then when the subsidy ended it closed and Euro money subsidised the one that opened in Poland...)

Euro regulations regarding taxes and import tariffs are also keeping some industries here in Europe rather than having us all buying Chinese imports. But that's not sexy enough for the Daily (hate) Mail.

"All we ever hear is how much Europe is costing us followed by a stream of daft new regulations that usually end up costing us even more"

... a lot of media "stories" about daft Euro-regulations are myths with no basis in fact. That's all we ever hear because it suits the agenda of certain "newspapers" to peddle utter nonsense....

That's not to say that everything is rosy with the European Union - it's not - but that's enough real problems with the EU without the tabloids making stuff up.

Given the cuts to university budgets and a "flat" funding settlement for research, EU funding and Europe-wide research collaboration and cooperation is going to be become ever more important.