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'One in Five'
An introduction to living and studying in the UK

Modern communication

Not Tonight, Dear, I Have a BlackBerry

Your perky pocket PA winks and bleeps
You take it to the loo to check your mail
- The hand-held power hub that never sleeps -
Stay too long, come back sweaty, glass-eyed, pale
But in control. You've learnt to delegate,
Keep cyber tags on things, bring far to near,
Send 'spin' memos to every wobbling plate,
Become the wireless master puppeteer.
You're never, now, not ever, quite away.
Unthinkable to turn it off - and churlish.
Your status slips from puppeteer to prey,
The gizmo's got you by the late and earlies.
You are unfailingly available.
Resistance is feudal. You are in thrall,
Have lost rights that were once inalienable,
Are at its beck, buzz, flash, wink, beep and call.
Back to the bathroom, brush, wee, wash, click, wipe,
Then sit, unblinking, semi-catatonic,
In your online CA meeting, and type:
"Hi, my name's Matthew. I'm a cyberholic…"

Matt Harvey

The British are often described as self-deprecating

In Praise of Self-Deprecation

The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.
Scruples are alien to the black panther.
Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.
The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.
The self-critical jackal does not exist.
The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly
live as they live and are glad of it.
The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos
but in other respects it is light.
There is nothing more animal-like
than a clear conscience
on the third planet of the Sun.

Wislawa Szymborska
Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, 1996.


Regional accents and dialects are very much alive in the UK

Old Tongue

When I was eight, I was forced south.
Not long after, when I opened
my mouth, a strange thing happened.
I lost my Scottish accent.
Words fell off my tongue:
eedyit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit
stummer, teuchter, heidbanger,
so you are, so am ur, see you, see ma ma,
shut yer geggie or I'll gie you the malkie!
My own vowels started to stretch like my bones
and I turned my back on Scotland.
Words disappeared in the dead of night,
new words marched in: ghastly, awful,
quite dreadful, scones said like stones.
Pokey hats into ice cream cones.
Oh where did all my words go -
my old words, my lost words?
Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word,
did you ever try and call it back
like calling in the sea?
If I could have found my words wandering,
I swear I would have taken them in,
swallowed them whole, knocked them back.
Out in the English soil, my old words
buried themselves. It made my mother's blood boil.
I cried one day with the wrong sound in my mouth.
I wanted them back; I wanted my old accent back,
my old tongue. My dour soor Scottish tongue.
Singsongy. I wanted to gie it laldie.

Jackie Kay

[Scots-English translation: eedyit - idiot; dreich - dull; wabbit - exhausted, weak; crabbit - bad-tempered; stummer - silly person; teuchter - bumpkin, peasant; heidbanger - stupid person; geggie - mouth; malkie - razor; laldie - a thrashing, punishment]

The UK is not just England

A Welsh 'englyn' expressing a poet's
feelings for his country.

Fy ing enfawr, fy ngwynfyd - fy mhryder,
Fy mhradwys hyfryd;
Ei charu'r wyf yn chweru hefyd,
A'i chasau'n serchus o hyd.

Alan Llwyd

The poet's English translation

My great agony, my bliss - my anxiety,
My lovely paradise;
I love her bitterly too,
And hate her affectionately always.

Alan Llwyd


British food

If… with apologies to Rudyard Kipling

If you can order an English Breakfast and eat it too,
When others refuse and claim it's hard to chew;
If you can trust your stomach when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can chew and not be tired by chewing,
Or being called obese, don't deal in lies,
Or being weighed, don't give way to worrying,
And yet don't look too good, nor turn down extra fries.

If you can guzzle cream - and not make cream your Master.
If you can dream of cake - and not make cakes your aim.
If can meet Digestion and Dyspepsia
And treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can bear to hear what you have eaten
Twisted by knaves to make a diet for fools,
Or, seeing the cake-mix in the bowl unbeaten,
Add yet more sugar and take up the beating tools.

If you can order fish with double chips and gherkins,
Lace them well with vinegar and salt,
And feast, then start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a sigh nor call a halt;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your stomach when they are nearly gone,
And so hold on when everything is in you,
Except the sense which says to them, 'Hang on!?'

If you can eat your pies and keep your virtue,
Munch royal biscuits - nor lose the common touch;
If neither crisps nor ready meals can hurt you;
If all men eat with you, and all too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of steak well done,
Yours is the overheating Earth and all that's in it
And - what is more - you'll be truly British,
my daughter, my son!

Oscar Fovarge

And here's the original by Rudyard Kipling. This represents what many British people regarded (and some still regard) as ideal attitudes and behaviour.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
'Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Albert Einstein's favourite limerick

There was a young lady called Wright
who could travel much faster than light.
She departed one day
in a relative way
and returned on the previous night

Anonymous

Critical thinking

One in Five

One in five in
The world today
Are apparently
Chinese they say
Now we have five
In our family
So one is Chinese.
I know it's not me
Well it's not mum
Or my dad even
So it must be one
Of my brothers then
Now is it Colin
Or Lee Woon Jae?
I think it's Colin
I have to say

Paul Curtis


The English language - a cunning tongue

There, their, they're

I hope you'll excuse this pedantic bore,
I can see the berry, but where's the straw?
I need some help to pass this course,
I can see the radish, but where's the horse?

I can't believe that British food is
Quite so bad or quite so cruel as
To stick soldiers in eggs or toads in holes
To mash up swedes or serve fools in bowls.

It's a language that promises more than it delivers:
'A penny for your thoughts' has had no givers;
'I'll give you a ring', but I'm not married yet;
'Be my guest' - do you want to bet?

Would you trust a language that poaches eggs,
Or thinks it's fun to pull your leg,
Forbids the very sweetest fruit,
Or thinks 'Follow your nose' a worthwhile route?

The proof of this trickery is in their words,
With pronunciation and spelling made for the birds.
Choose 'lose' for 'loose', and you'll spell like a goose.
Why the 'i' in juice, but not truce, what the deuce?!

If you think a 'pet' is friendly, try 'threat' or 'debt',
There, their, they're - don't fret!
You'll surely decide enough's quite enough
When you see the headline 'Life pronounced tough'.

Oscar Fovarge

War on Language

They say:
Truth is the first casualty of war
but they are wrong
it is Language
Language goes AWOL when the first shot is fired
Language is packing its bags
it's heading for the border
looking over its shoulder
nervously checking its papers
will it pass 'go' or
be monopolised
compromised again
Language is waiting in transit
hiding in the hold of a leaking ship
anxious to leave the violence behind
Language knows it will be tortured
if it returns home; it can never return home
Language will risk word smugglers
Language is a refugee
made illegal by circumstance
Language is being detained behind a cyclone fence
it is being held against its will
Language doesn't know who it can trust anymore
it was rescued and escaped in a mini-bus
then left to fend for itself in a desert of concerned onlookers
all holding remote controls and ready to switch channels
Language has a secret
It knows how quickly
a disturbance becomes an intervention
how overnight it can change from
a local police action
to a global reaction
to first strike and zero tolerance
There is a war on Language

Marian Spires
Australian poet


Human Beings

look at your hands
your beautiful useful hands
you're not an ape
you're not a parrot
you're not a slow loris
or a smart missile
you're human
not british
not american
not israeli
not palestinian
you're human
not catholic
not protestant
not muslim
not hindu
you're human
we all start human
we end up human
human first
human last
we're human
or we're nothing
nothing but bombs
and poison gas
nothing but guns
and torturers
nothing but slaves
of Greed and War
if we're not human
look at your body
with its amazing systems
of nerve-wires and blood canals
think about your mind
which can think about itself
and the whole universe
look at your face
which can freeze into horror
or melt into love
look at all that life
all that beauty
you're human
they are human
we are human
let's try to be human
dance!

Adrian Mitchell

Acknowledgements
Teflonstage Ltd and Kestrel Books Ltd would like to thank the following for permission to include their work in this production:
Matt Harvey for 'Not tonight, Dear, I have a Blackberry'
Wislawa Szymborska for 'In Praise of Self-Deprecation'
Jackie Kay for 'Old Tongue' from her collection 'Darling: New & Selected Poems' (Bloodaxe Books, 2007)
Alan Llwyd for permission to read his Welsh englyn in 'Fy ing enfawr'.
Oscar Fovarge for 'If' (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling), 'There, Their, They're'.
Many thanks to Paul Curtis for permission to read his poem 'One in Five'.
Australian poet Marian Spires for 'War on Language'.
Permission for use of the poem 'Human Beings' by kind permission of United Agents on behalf of Adrian Mitchell. From the collection 'The Shadow Knows' published by Bloodaxe Books Ltd.
Please note: Adrian Mitchell requested that none of his poems be used for any examination purposes whatsoever.