Sorry!: The English and Their Manners By Henry Hitchings

Book Recommendation from OISE Oxford

The English are famous for their obsession with manners, but how did it all start? Henry Hitching's most recent book traces the history of a very particular national trait.  In this new study he explores how language, manners and morals are closely related.

The synopsis:

Most of us know a bit about what passes for good manners - holding doors open, sending thank-you notes, no elbows on the table. We certainly know bad manners when we see them. But where has this patchwork of beliefs and behaviours come from? How did manners develop? How do they change? And why do they matter so much to us? In examining our manners, Henry Hitchings delves into the English character and investigates our notions of Englishness.

Sorry! presents an amusing, illuminating and quirky audit of English manners. From basic table manners to appropriate sexual conduct, via hospitality, chivalry, faux pas and online etiquette, Hitchings traces the history of our country's customs and courtesies. Putting under the microscope some of our most astute observers of humanity, including Jane Austen and Samuel Pepys, he uses their lives and writings to pry open the often downright peculiar secrets of the English character. Hitchings' blend of history, anthropology and personal journey helps us understand our bizarre and contested cultural baggage - and ourselves.

Can you give me a hand?

After scanning today's news on the BBC website I stumbled across a rather interesting article about a man with a new hand. Yes, you heard it, a brand new hand. Mark Cahill, 51, was the first man in the UK to have a hand transplant. The operation lasted 8 hours and despite not currently having a sense of touch, 'he can now wiggle his fingers'.

Is this the start of something new? Will humans soon be bidding for body parts on E bay.  How much would Usain Bolt's legs go for? Just think, in a couple of years you'll be able to have the perfect tailor made body!

The New Way to Get Your Dream Job!

We all know that youth (15-24) unemployment in the UK is not in great shape. Currently there are around 20% out of work in the UK, compared with average eurozone figures of 23%, and Greece and Spain over 50%! 'So how long will this last?', people ask. 'Don't know', is the response. It could take 2 years, it could take 10. Economic forecasters have predicted a varied number of time frames, but of course no one can be sure.

Adam Pacitti, a recent graduate from Winchester University recently obtained a first class degree in Media Studies. He has been desperately searching for a job for over 3 months, sending out a whopping 200 CVs, to no avail. He suddenly came up with a plan, and that was to spend his last £500 on a big billboard in Camden, London, to advertise his services (and the fact he didn't have a job). Within hours, he began to get replies from various media organisations offering him employment opportunities. With over 10,000 tweets of support, and an overwhelming amount of emails, Adam will surely be spoiled for choice.

Click on the image below to read more, and follow him on Twitter @adampacitti for updates!

Digital Media - The Way Forward?

Fact: Vinyl, tapes, cassettes, discs and mini-discs are slowly becoming extinct. Who needs them when you can simply download whatever kind of media you need online. Obviously some of the older stuff is harder to get hold of, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if they're not available online already, even your dad's most boring black and white films will soon be uploaded.

The big worry is that people are downloading media illegally (i.e. not paying) and then you have the obvious knock on effects of this resulting in less money for everyone involved in the industry. But as Internet controls becomes more advanced, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to get away with illegally downloading media. Only in 2011, British student Richard O'Dywer was extradited to the US for hosting a website which provided links to downloadable pirated films and TV shows. This sent a clear message that things were tightening up.

With increased Internet controls and harsher punishments for those involved, the public are now starting to think twice about download illegally. This change in mindset, along with the extinction of physical media, is being reflected in the increased sales of digital media. 'In 2012, digital sales increased by 11%, breaking the £1 billion barrier.'1

As we all know, YouTube is a great resource, and legal, too! The advertising is getting a little aggressive, but still, it's free, and with '48 hours of video uploaded every minute, resulting in nearly 8 years of content uploaded every day',2 there's myriad songs and videos available.

Listening to music is a great way to improve one's language skills. Even if you don't recognise/understand all of the words, it's a great way to get used to their different sounds. There are thousands of songs with subtitles on YouTube, too. So if you're a foreign language learner, why don't you give it a go? 5 minutes combining language learning with pleasure. 

Here's one for all of you English learners out there:

A Moment In Time

So, here we are, officially in 2013 - doesn't it just feel fabulous? The world has not ended and we continue to cruise on through, breaking new boundaries, wherever we go. 

And what about New Year's resolutions - Do you have any? They are an interesting phenomenon, as while people's intentions are so authentic, after about a week or two they seem to drift slowly into the back of one's mind like a cloud of smoke. 

My personal work related resolution is to work even harder to improve the Language Lab section of our blog. I aim to make it an even better resource for all of our keen English language learners out there. There, I've said it, and it WILL happen.

If you can't think of any of your own, click on the image below for some ideas!

Big Bellies and Cheer

Christmas has been and gone and our stomachs are now looking and feeling considerably bigger than a week ago. The crispy Yorkshire puddings and bread crumb sauce were just irresistible, not to mention the juicy traditional Christmas turkey! On a more positive note, our hole ridden socks have now been replaced with brand new ones thanks to Father Christmas' recent visit.

So, it's now time to turn our heads to the New Years Eve celebrations. The man without a plan is frantically scrolling through his mobile phone contacts list to see if there are any parties he can crash, while the ones who already have a plan are hoping it won't be an anticlimax.

Here at OISE Oxford, we wish you all a happy New Year and hope that it is filled with much love, good health and prosperity! We hope this little poem puts a smile on your face:

New Year, Cheers!

The season's tidings have brought much cheer
But the time has come for a brand new year.

2012 has flown by so fast,
At OISE Oxford, we've had a blast.

As we all think of how to best progress,
We wish you all joy and happiness!

Britons of the Year

At this time of year there are many end of year reviews featuring in our newspapers and on the television. One such review in The Telegraph is considering 'Britons of the Year'.

Telegraph writers and editors have chosen 25 notable Britons of 2012. "Whether celebrities or grassroots campaigners – or a horse – all of them have left their mark on the year". Today, The Telegraph have released the first 15 profiles, see below the named 15.  

Margaret Rhodes - the Queen's hard working cousin
Charles Walker - the MP who confessed to OCD
Michael Moritz - Oxford University very generous benefactor
Sheridan Smith - 2012's most notable blossoming actress
Sam Mendes - film director and James Bond reviver
Frankel - a horse champion
Clare Balding - an outstanding sporting presenter
Sir Michael Darrington - campaigner against high pay
Adrian Evans - the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant Master
Damian Lewis - British actor who has wowed America
Pamela Greener - vocal Budget VAT protester
Robert Halfon - MP and fuel tax rebel
Paul Adcock - champion of small businesses
Mary Berry - baking and fashion icon
Darcey Bussell - Mistress of Dance

Who do you consider the Briton of the Year?

Mary Berry

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9766599/Britons-of-the-Year.html

Druids having a whale of a time at Stonehenge

Stonehenge, a monument located 60 miles (100 km) south of Oxford, is one of the UK's most popular tourist attractions. Every year it draws in a startling 800,000 tourists.

If you have never been or heard of Stonehenge, picture in your head 'thirty upright stones (sarsens, each over ten feet tall and weighing 26 tons), aligned in a circle, with thirty lintels (6 tons each) perched horizontally atop the sarsens in a continuous circle. There is also an inner circle composed of similar stones, also constructed in post-and-lintel fashion.'

'Archaeologists believe that they were placed at this site between 2000 and 3000 years BC, and were once used as a burial ground. The Druids then used Stonehenge as a temple, and the large stone lying in the center was their alter. the Druids were thought to be the Priests of the ancient Britons and Stonehenge was an ancient British temple.'

Druids still exist to this day, and "well over 5,000" of them made their way to Stonehenge to celebrate the winter solstice earlier today, and what a celebration it was! A solstice is an astronomical event that occurs twice each year as the Sun reaches its highest or lowest excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Click on the image below to read more.

Who's the most popular cookie on Google?

Have you ever wondered who is more famous out of David Beckham and Lionel Messi, or Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay? 

While looking through OISE Bristol's blog, I stumbled across an article by the School Principal about a website called Google Fight, that can compare the popularity of keywords searched for on Google. Click on the image below to give it a go!

Midday/Noon/Afternoon/Sunset/Dusk/Evening/Midnight/Morning/Dawn/Sunrise

Midday/Noon/Afternoon/Sunset/Dusk/Evening/Midnight/Morning/Dawn/Sunrise

Click here to return to the Language Lab home page

Does anyone really care about the British Royal Family?

1,141 years ago King Alfred (the 32nd great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II) became the first effective King of England. Since then we have had a healthy supply of Henrys, Georges, Williams, Arthurs, a few more Charles, and a sprinkling of Elizabeths and Victorias. One cannot deny that the royal family have been around for a very long time. For better or for worse, it doesn't look as though this will be changing any time soon. Just the other week we heard news of our precious princess Katie soon to deliver the next of kin.

This is all well and proper, but many people do not understand what the point of the Monarchy is. Ok, they bring tourism and publicity to the UK economy, and probably overall the money that this brings in is more than the gastranomical amount of public money spent on polishing their silver spoons. But could these funds not be invested more efficiently elsewhere?

What are your views on the British Royal Family? I pose this question to my OISE Oxford colleagues and got some mixed responses:

Office worker 1: "On the one hand the Royal Family seem fairly pointless as they do not have much political influence and it doesn't seem very democratic for someone to be born into power. However, they do raise a lot of money for charity and bring in a lot of money through tourism which is obviously an advantage. We should count ourselves lucky that we do not have a corrupt Queen. She is so inoffensive at the moment that people aren't too bothered about getting rid of her but once she's gone, who knows how long the monarchy will last."

Office worker 2: "I do not see a point of the Royal Family at all! I don't understand the political system where there is a government and a monarchy. Those two should not exist simultaneously. We either chose our leaders or we don't. The monachy doesn't bring much to society, if anything they eat up too much of our public funds."

Office worker 3: " From a rather uninformed standpoint, I believe that the Royal Family is a positive feature of modern Britain. For many people in Britain and from abroad they are inspirational figureheads and offer huge amounts of goodwill and support to a wide range of charities and other organisations. The Queen has been a central and steady influence on British society for 60 years. The Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year were a time of great fun and provided a boost to international opinion on the UK. In many ways could the royal family provides the great in Britain?"

Office worker 4: "In politics, you never know what you're going to get Politicians have so much to prove.. The stability that our Monarch has brought to our country over the last 60 years is immense. 2012 has been a terrific year with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, a Royal wedding, and a future heir on the way. What is there not to be proud of?!"

Interestingly today marks the first time that a monarch has attended a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in over 200 years. Whilst this might be interpreted by some as an attempt by the Queen to re-assert her political authority, it seems the real reason for her attendance is the announcement that a portion of Antarctica is shortly to be named after her in celebration of her Jubilee; perhaps not the most pressing matter on the political agenda.

English footballer, Joey Barton, who recently appeared on Newsnight, is known to have some pretty controversial views. Click on the image below to read his article about the pros and cons of the Royal Family.

The art of British cocktail making

Blue Lagoon, Mai-Thai, Singapore Sling, Last Mango in Paris, Negroni, Woo Woo, Sex on the Beach, Mojito, White Russian, Black Russian, Raging Bison, Cosmopolitan, Margarita, Martini (shaken, not stirred), Long Island Ice Tea, Strawberry Daiquiri  Yes, you've guessed it, these are all names of alcoholic cocktails that are widely consumed throughout the UK the rest of the world.

There are no shortages of cocktail bars in Oxford, either, and there is one bar in particular that deserves a special mention. Raoul's Bar, located 10 minutes walk north of the city centre, has been independently voted as one of the world's top 50 bars of 2012 (Sunday Times Newspaper), and the staff have won a splatter of awards for their expertly made cocktails. One factor that separates them from a lot of other cocktail bars is that they only use fresh fruit rather than artificial purees. This makes all the difference!

The space itself is a bit squashed, but one cannot deny that the cocktails are simply sublime! So, if you are in Oxford, and over the legal drinking age of 18, it's definitely worth a visit. 

Will it be a white Christmas?

For many of us, snow is synonymous with Christmas. Christmas cards, songs and films all portray a 'white Christmas'.

However, unfortunately for most parts of the United Kingdom, Christmas is right at the beginning of the period when it's likely to snow. Wintry weather is more likely between January and March than December. Snow or sleet falls on average five days in December, compared to 7.6 days in January, 6.8 days in February and six days in March.

White Christmases were more frequent in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Climate change has also brought higher average temperatures over land and sea and this generally reduces the chances of a white Christmas. However, the natural variability of the weather will not stop cold, snowy winters happening in the future.

We can accurately forecast if snow is likely on any given Christmas Day up to five days beforehand.  So next Thursday we will start to have a more accurate idea.  In terms of the statistical likelihood of snow based on climatology, we know that a snowflake has fallen on Christmas day 38 times in the last 52 years, therefore we can probably expect more than half of all Christmases to be a 'white Christmas' in this sense.

Snow lying on the ground on Christmas Day - as we would expect from typical Christmas scene - is much rarer. There has only been a widespread covering of snow on the ground four times in the last 51 years.

Do you want a white Christmas?  Do you have any particularly memorable white Christmases?

Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/snow/white-christmas

Student Spotlight: Keita Shiratori

This week we are celebrating the final week of our much-loved Japanese student, Keita Shiratori. He arrived at OISE with an elementary level of English but after 6 months of intensive language coaching, he is now able to communicate confidently and fluently and this week he gave an excellent presentation about his work at Kyosan Electric Manufacturing in Japan to his fellow students. Take a look at the recording below to get an idea of what our ambitious learners are capable of achieving.

Census reveals changing face of UK

Following yesterday’s publication of the 2011 census results, a number of fascinating facts about the evolution of life in England and Wales have emerged. For those of you interested in British society and culture, here are a handful of the most interesting snippets of information gleaned from the news:

1. 1 in 8 residents are born outside the UK
Other than the UK, India, Poland and Pakistan are the most common countries of birth for residents of England and Wales. White British people are now in a minority in London, constituting 45% of the population.

2. A quarter of the population declare themselves to be of ‘no religion’
The number of Christians has decreased by over 4 million since 2001 but Christianity remains the largest religion in England and Wales, followed by Islam which is on the up.

3. Married couple households are in the minority for the first time 
The number of married and civilly partnered couples now make up 47% of all households whilst the number of single adults has risen by 3 million since 2001.

4. Women outnumber men by more than 1 million
This is thought to be due to a longer life expectancy amongst women but also due to women being more likely to fill out the forms!

5. Those in the Lake District work the longest hours
Over a fifth of inhabitants in this stunning, rural area of Britain work more than 49 hours, primarily due to it being a low-wage farming economy where many people have multiple jobs.

Sources: www.guardian.co.uk and www.bbc.co.uk/news

December - the perfect month for a swim?

While most of us are piling on the layers at this time of year, others have been stripping off this weekend for the so-called ‘December Dip’ at the Parliament Hill Lido in North London. Hundreds of brave bathers gathered on Saturday for the Outdoor Swimming Society’s 6th annual swim and having just shaved off his Movember moustache, my husband felt this was the ideal opportunity for a new sponsored challenge! The atmosphere was buzzing with a brass band playing cheery tunes as the daredevil bathers (some sporting tinsel trunks) psyched themselves up for the plunge. Since water temperatures at this time of year are barely above freezing, swimmers are advised to take cold showers in preparation for the event to prepare their body for the shock. On Saturday, the water was 3˚C (not quite as painful as 2010’s 0.1˚C when there was snow on the ground!) but most could only manage a couple of widths before their limbs gave up the ghost. The organisers claim that the icy dip can result in a high that lasts for days due to the release of pain-killing endorphins. My husband was not so convinced - “They said that it would feel great afterwards. They lied.” I can’t say I envied him as he nursed his numb extremities.





If you fancy taking the plunge, visit the Outdoor Swimming Society’s website for more details:
www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com 

Dogs drive me round the bend!

Do you have a driving licence? How difficult is it to pass the driving practical test in your country? It is rumored that it is particularly difficult to pass your test in the UK. It takes an average of 2.3 attempts for someone to pass their test. Out of the European neighbours, the Portuguese and the Spanish are notoriously dangerous drivers. 

So what about dogs? Do you know any that can drive? Would you say they are safe drivers?
Take a look at the video below to hear about a driving school for dogs. Apparently there is a Facebook page for our canine drivers, too.

The greatest pop band in the history of Mankind

Some of you may remember that a good few blogs ago we had a look (and listen) to some of Oxford's homegrown musical talent. While Oxford has indeed produced some truly excellent music, the true kings of British pop music arrived to the scene in 1960. Four Liverpudlian men with floppy hair took the world by storm and began to pelt out some of the greatest songs ever made. Girls adored them and would cry and faint with excitement when they strutted onto the stage. Of course we are talking about no other than the Beatles!

What was particularly astonishing about this band wasn't just the sheer number of quality songs that they produced, but the range of musical ability that they had. It would be impossible to group their music into one type of genre as there are many different elements (and instruments) involved. For example, George Harrison's passion for Indian culture brought in instruments such as the sitar (see photo below). They were a breath of fresh air to the music industry.

Their popularity has far from faded. When the remaining live Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Star, finally gave their permission in 2010 for their music to be downloaded on Apple's Itunes, in the first week alone 2,000,000 individual tracks were sold.

To conclude this post I would like to play you one of my personal favourites, 'Sexy Sadie' - enjoy!

Technology gone bonkers!

More and more people are becoming dependent on their mobile phones. Whether it be for checking their emails, tweeting nonsense, buying plane tickets or taking photos of their favourite OISE Oxford teachers. 

We have reached a stage now where it is hard to tear people away from their phones. It's actually quite difficult to have a conversation with someone between the age of 15 and 50 without them getting out their mobile telephone to check the weather or to take a peek at the latest Facebook updates.

Technology is developing at such a rate that it's hard to keep up. Next thing you know they'll be bringing out a bendy phone that can project films and TV documentaries on their friend's foreheads! Wait a second, I think these kind of phones may already exist!

Click on the image below to read more about some of the new technology coming our in 2013!

Mega Monday Madness! (All I want for Christmas...)

As we have now entered the festive month of December, the argument of when is an appropriate time to start talking about Christmas is now well and truly something of the past. The hubbub, hustle and bustle is now underway as shoppers are officially on their mission to find the perfect little Christmas present for their husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers etc.

Today is a particularly significant day in the shopping calender as it is the first Monday in December (dubbed Mega Monday). 'It has become the trading high point of the year for online operators because it is normally the first opportunity for shoppers to open their wallets and get out their payment cards after the arrival of the last pay packet before Christmas.'1

So what are you waiting for? Get your credit cards at the ready and head to the high street for an evening of shopping, frenzy and frolics!