Back in business - a retrospective Part 3 'Thoughts from the Paddington to Swansea train'

Dear Reader,

Here's another little instalment from my dark purple notebook:

"Oh I've missed the Welsh accent! I'm sure I couldn't tolerate it on a daily basis for long, but nonetheless, there is an innocuousness about it that warmed my heart as I asked the train ticket inspector which one of the three bits of train journey confirmation he actually needed to see. And he proceeded to hold a short conversation with a passenger who was also Welsh. There's just something completely unpretentious about it, totally approachable and utterly endearing.

Which is rather helpful as this train to Swansea that will get me to Bristol is not only packed with people around almost comically reduced-size tables and spaces between seats, but even featured a Harry Potter-like, "missing carriage".  I walked up and down the platform, looking for coach 'D' only to find that the more I looked between coaches 'E' and 'C', the more coach 'D' wasn't there. Another British rail-related impromptu intelligence test. Which I failed. The correct response is to get onto coach 'C' and imagine it as 'D' in your mind, and lo and behold, the ticket details above the seats reflect this newfound mental re-wiring. They should hand out leaflets entitled, "The tricks we like to play on people with our sheer incompetence - also known as 'the joy of travel in the UK'" to any unsuspecting passengers, particularly foreigners, or honorary foreigners like me, just to give people a fighting chance of coping with what is a shockingly provincial and almost useless train service. (But that would be far too helpful.)

I have to admit, with all due trepidation at using the following introductory phrase, but, "I remember a time when..." there were actual table-sized tables on these trains. And when it felt rather grand to travel on the train, compared to the coach. But it seems that the trains have gone in for dramatic cost-cutting and super-sardine-like packing of the carriages themselves. So much so, that when sitting in an aisle seat, where a full sized case will barely make it past me as though it was measured down to the millimetre to make sure it would officially fit, but only with the straightest-lined dragging of an expert, I am almost forced to hold my breath and certainly not cross my legs, in order to fit in. And if that weren't enough, the guy sitting opposite me is so overweight that he's just lucky that the 'table' on the aisle side actually tapers towards the aisle, which allows him extra room for his rotund belly. Or is he in fact averagely sized, it's just the miniature proportions of the train now making him look overweight? I can't tell."

---------------

I made it to Bristol ok and even had the help of a kind, or crazy, passenger to carry my case up the stairs (I didn't stand much of a chance of doing that myself, because there were rather a lot of steps and a lot of people hurriedly trying to get up them and I just kept getting in the way, and getting knocked from side to side with them - hence the passenger-pity) but then had to laugh that having done that, the way out involves going down the same number of stairs to get to the main entrance/exit. Thankfully at this point there was actually a lift.

Bristol was its usual, grim, boring and more run-down and dingy than I remembered it, self (but I imagine that's partly down to the recession) and I am SO glad I no longer live there. Even if I've only swapped it for a similarly 'run-down-in-places' city, where the central area architecture certainly compensates for the rest but the mentality of the native residents is just about as provincial, unenlightened and full of despair as in Bristol. Just with fewer Polish bus drivers. Just imagine if Bristol were full of Czech bus drivers. My head would be so very confused...

That's all for now dear reader. Tummy ache of the nastiest kind has struck again and I think I'm going to need to lie down with a hot water bottle...

Good night.

Ms. Platform Edge.X

The Czech language, Slovaks and cheap hair dye

It's been an odd kind of day, mostly exhausting because I had so much to prepare for my meet-ee this morning and then only an hour and a half in between to try to do some Czech homework, but my Czech lesson went quite well.  I'm getting to a point where I know most of the main things necessary for a basic conversation in Czech, but I sometimes still don't know the perfective verb that pairs with the imperfective one I know.  (I like how my spell check is currently underlining these words as if they don't exist.  Obviously my spell check never had to learn about Czech grammar.)  

Yes, perfective verbs exist.  They are the ones which signify an activity done once, whereas the imperfective ones are used for regular activities.  So if I want to say, "I have to go to the shopping centre," I would have to ask myself, "hmm, which verb do I need here - do I mean I have to go to the shopping centre every day for a meeting or I have to go to the shopping centre now, just once?"  Not that hard, but the verbs for 'to go' (and I mean 'on foot' here) are 'jít' and 'chodit'.  I go (once) carries the meaning 'I will go' and is 'jdu' but 'I go', every week, every day etc. is 'chodím'.  Quite different aren't they? 

It's quite complicated that there are two ways of saying future intentions, (though English sort of has three) you can either use a word that functions like 'will' or use the present tense of the perfective verb which is always future in meaning.  But that requires you of course to know both the perfective and imperfective to have the choice.  And I can't believe the number of verbs where I do know both but can't for the life of me remember which one is which.  So I end up saying the equivalent of, "I'll be doing it" instead of, "I'll do it".  (Actually, that one I know both forms of [dělám/udělám] like the back of my hand.  And it's easier than in English anyway, because there isn't another verb like 'make' that requires you to know which nouns go with it and which don't.  Hearing any foreigner say, "I do so many mistakes", highlights this difficulty rather well.)  But I'm sure I've recently said something like, "I was remembering" instead of, "I remembered", or, worse still, "I'll try", instead of, "I'm trying".  So, having told you all that, I imagine you're thanking your lucky stars that you don't have to learn Czech.  Yes, well good for you.  Hmmph.  Some of us have to work hard to survive, you know.

The almost tragic thing is, however, that I know, in spite of Czech being a language that drives me insane with how "challenging" it is, I will miss speaking/hearing it when I come to London.  I'll be dying to find some way of keeping in touch with it, so I'll probably have to read the online newspaper I always check (www.idnes.cz) in order to not feel too far from it.  And when I come back, I'll feel pleased to be back in this quirky little country with its seemingly unintelligible language and it'll feel like home the first time I hear someone say something typically Czech, like, ,,to víš, že jo!" [you know it is! / of course it is!] or just, ,,ježiš marja" [=lit. "Jesus Mary!" = "oh my god!"] Which is utterly looney, is it not?  But I kid you not, I do enjoy speaking Czech.  I love the fact that it's so incomprehensible to most English speakers. It's like knowing a special code and I've always rather liked the idea of codes.  

It's a way of having a secret club only for those who know the lingo.  Except in this case, my secret club is a country of about 10 million, all of whom speak it a hell of a lot better than I do.  And there's also the fact that Slovaks speak such a similar language, that they understand Czech perfectly too, so there's another 5 million. And when Slovaks move here, they adapt to saying things in Czech instead as and when necessary, so they speak it better than me too.  I still find it really confusing listening to Slovak speakers on TV, as I start wondering why I can't understand as much, but think it has to be Czech, but then I realise it's a Slovak programme and that's why everything sounds sort of...skewed.

And with that, I'm feeling really rather tired now and must go to bed.  I washed my hair this evening and it's already looking less than professional (it really does look like I dyed it myself with a cheap bottle of Wella hair dye or something) so I just hope the architect won't be totally disappointed tomorrow.  It's his birthday and I want to make him feel happier, not make him feel ashamed that his girlfriend looks like someone who never grew out of henna-ed hair and tie-dyed dresses...

Wish me luck.

Thatcherism and other reasons not to be cheerful

Pretending my day wasn't another hellish exercise in preventing me from ever doing anything creative ever again is getting harder and harder.  

I know they've won.  I really do.  All you have to do is keep throwing more problems, more demands, more hassle, more stress than a person can take in a lifetime so the best they can hope for is to merely survive, condense the worst of it into ten years until it's too late for them to succeed anyway and just keep laughing while they carry on desperately trying to get their head back above water.  This is suffocation.  That's how I feel.  I am fighting a constant battle to stay alive until the next permitted breath.  And I never know how long they'll make me wait for the next one, so I don't know if I'm just going to die trying to hold on for it.

I now realise that what I've just described is not unlike water-boarding.  I.e torture.  You know, the kind they use on terrorists to get them to confess to their evil plots.  But if the evil plot is to make the vast majority of people work so sleep-deprivingly, health-damagingly hard in order to just about scrape enough money to pay their bills (not to mention health insurance) on their rather modest accommodation* that they never get to prove their worth in what they are actually uniquely best at, then it begs the question: who are the real terrorists?  And where is the Guantanamo equivalent for them?

I rest my case.  (And now, maybe I can also rest my head on a pillow and do that unfamiliar 'sleeping' thing, whatever that is.)

*On a completely unrelated note, I realise that I got talking about the similarity between council flats and ,paneláky' in my Czech lesson today.  And, for all the attitude I get from a certain place for my slowness in learning Czech compared to Slavic language speakers, (which is down to not getting paid enough to be able to have fewer meet-ees, so I've no time to do any homework anymore) it dawns on me that I had a conversation in Czech about politics today. (Yes, albeit a slow, laborious and helped-along one.) So put that in your metaphorical pipe and metaphorically smoke it!  I can now moan about the repercussions of Thatcherism in Czech as well as English.  (Well, someone had to.)

Baby, I Don't Care

I have been caught up in a lot of anguish and distress of late, as I always do when someone tries to dictate to me how my life should work, without an ounce of appreciation for my attempts at adaptation.  So I have resolved to think of all the good things that are keeping me going, despite this:

1) My meet-ee's colourful jumper this morning

2) The free coffee delivered thanks to said meet-ee that I SO DESPERATELY needed

3) Transvision Vamp's "Baby I Don't Care" (no-one does pop-rock quite like Transvision Vamp, even if they were irritatingly arrogant idiots) discovered at such a pertinent time.  ("You don't have to say you love me, baby IT'S ALRIGHT, cause honey I don't care...")

4) Cherry-filled chocolate.  (Oh yes..!)

5) Left-overs from the architect's stay, such as a yummy Danish pastry and wine.

6) The kindness and tolerance of the Faerie Godmother Trainee

7) A long and thoughtful email from L-Star, though painful to read how he's suffered of late

8) The Swedish teacher's email noting her recovery from an operation

9) The Czech language.  It may be killing me, but by learning some of it, I'm actually beginning to feel I'm gaining insight that other, less diligent people, do not have a hope in hell of understanding.  (Oh sense of superiority, how fleetingly you grace me with your presence...)

10) The fact that the architect mentioned 'trip to London' and 'May' before I ruined it by questioning if he'd really still want to be with me by then.

Oh and, the fact that my meetee this morning laughed so much when I answered his question with, 'I'm an Aquarius'.  To which he replied,  "Hahahahahaha...that explains EVERYTHING."

Confusing culture

I've not been particularly involved with many people for a while.  Isolation has prevailed somewhat.  However, I have had one or two meetings and the last two days has involved meeting two French speakers for two completely different purposes.  One, as a language exchange and the other as more of an interview situation.  I have to admit, it's been a bit disheartening to find that the fact that I've been learning Czech so avidly lately means it infiltrates my otherwise reasonable-ish French.  I've found myself saying some astonishing things.

The first was mixing up a number; 'vingt tisíc' instead of 'vingt-mille' or 'dvacet tisíc' (= 20,000).  Then I mixed up little linking words like 'mais' with 'ale' (= but) and 'et' / 'a' (= and) and 'ou' / 'nebo' (= or) and it was quite funny really, although pretty confusing and incomprehensible to someone who doesn't speak both languages.  Which would be me, in fact, because I really can't say I speak Czech yet.  I can 'get by', i.e. communicate, though it takes some considerable time and all of my case endings are wrong, but it is no doubt the clumsiest, pigeon-Czech imaginable.  Alas.

Whereas, with French, I've recently had a number of compliments.  It's been rather lovely.  Today it was, "your pronunciation is very good", and last week's language exchange was, "ton français, c'est vraiment top".  But then I discovered, I mispronounced something as simple as 'culture'.  I  was hesitant to pronounce the 'cul' (= bum) in 'culture' basically.  So it came out sounding like 'couture' ('sewing'), which, as you can imagine, was rather confusing.  So now every time I try to say 'culture' in French, I think, "dans ton CUL!", without meaning to, but as a way of remembering, yes, I really have to say it starting with the word for BUM.  Hmm.  How, erm, cultured.