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No wonder the country is going to the dogs

I think the British education system suffered a lot in the 1980′s and later: O- and A-Levels were successively dumbed down, the study of foreign languages became optional in September 2004, it it became illegal to use corporal punishment, and some children’s parents automatically supported their child against disciplinary measures that the school tried to enforce.

I thought that this trend pushed by the “do-gooder generation” had been halted. So I was was surprised to read that the BBC, the British government, and some schools have been re-writing traditional nursery rhymes to make them “politically correct” and non-violent as recently as 2009. Here’s an example:

The original children’s poem:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses, And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again!

A sanitised version:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
He didn’t get bruised,
He didn’t get bumped,
Humpty Dumpty bungee jumped!

Not to mention:

In 2009, a Government-funded song book changed the lyrics of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor? to remove any reference to alcohol or punishment.

Instead the ‘drunken sailor’ was transformed into a ‘grumpy pirate’ and ‘Put him in the brig until he’s sober’ was replaced by ‘Do a little jig and make him smile’.

I think it is a great pity that Britian today has so little regard for its own culture that changes like these are initiated by government bodies.

Of course there have always been other versions of nursery rhymes, for example bawdy versions that were popular with rugby club members, but to discover that the government and the BBC have been “sanitising” the original children’s rhymes is a shock.

Fortunately, The English Folk and Dance Society is now being funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to record the original versions before they die out. (Now I’ll get off my high horse for a while).

Celebrating the Borgias in Xàtiva

The infamous Borgia family comes from Xàtiva. Rodrigo Borgia (Pope Alexander VI, 1492 – 1503) was born in the old town and every year since 2010 the city has organised a renaissance weekend which recreates Xàtiva at the time of the Borgias. The streets are covered with straw, and medieval stalls are erected where you can buy food and hand-crafted wares.

We went down into the town yesterday evening to see what was going on – there was plenty to see and do, including a exhibition of hunting birds, renaissance music, demonstrations of traditional crafts and one guy who was herding a large flock of geese through the narrow side streets between the stalls. The “shepherd” must have trained his geese, as he was able to keep them together and make them stop or move on by gesticulating with his arms at them. Quite impressive to watch.

It’s a pity that the event isn’t better publicised, as it is great fun but if I hadn’t seen posters in the town a couple of days earlier, we would have had no idea that it was taking place. There is no information on the Internet about this year’s event at all. The tourist office in Xàtiva seems to have been asleep at the wheel as far as this event goes. I am not the only person who thinks the organisers should have done more to publicise it. We noticed that sales were slow on most of the stalls (probably because of “The Crisis”), so more publicity would have certainly been welcomed by the stall-holders and restaurant/cafe owners.

Unfortunately I only took our smallest, simplest digital camera on the off-chance that there would be something to photograph. Most of the photos were taken without flash at about 1/15th second and many of them had too much camera shake to be worth keeping. However I did get a few which were sharp enough to share here.

How our garden is developing

The front garden


We had quite a bit of damage to trees and plants in the garden during the winter – it was the hardest winter for over 30 years. So this spring, the garden center has been replacing the damaged (dead) plants. They have nearly finished now, and I took some photos of the garden as it now looks. (Click on the photo above, as usual to see the others).

Unfortunately we negotiated a tough deal on the price originally, so the plants were sold without a guarantee to replace them if they didn’t survive the winter. That rather backfired on us, after the hard winter!

In praise of German bureaucracy

We’ve lived in Germany since 1980, and after we had decided to move here from the UK, we did have a few moments of wondering whether we would regret it. the Germans have a reputation for being hardworking and efficient, and of having a well established, efficient bureaucracy. Would we like it?

Over the years, we have had a number of dealings with German bureaucracy – the obvious encounters with the Meldestellen (where you register your current address when you move), the tax office, the vehicle registration office and so on. Normally everything was just for standard reasons, and we were always processed efficiently. In large towns, you sometimes had to take a ticket from a machine when you arrived, to log your place in the queue, but we were always deal with politely and quickly.

On couple of occasions, we had a special situation, and how we were dealt with then impressed us a lot.

Continue reading →

Nice wild plants

Behind the houses on the other side of the road that our house in Spain is in, lies Bixquert valley. Its about a 10 minute walk from the house into the valley, which runs to the foot of Xàtiva Castle.

I enjoy walking in the valley when I am staying in the house because there is such a variety of wild plants, most of which you don’t see growing wild in Germany. One of the most common plants is rosemary, which grows all over the hill sides, but there are also quite a few cacti as you get nearer to the castle. And a huge number of small plants which I haven’t identified yet, many of which are in flower at the moment. There is also a good selection of ornamental grasses – it’s almost like visiting a garden center – I am quite tempted sometimes to take a trowel and a plastic bag, and take some of the plants back to our garden!