Germany, Parents Everywhere, Governess to the Elite, Death of the Full Stop, Pope Francis
Why the Germans Do It Better Notes From a Grown-Up Country - John Kampfner.
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| Oberwesel on the Rhine, Germany Francis Moltino (1818-1872) (attributed to) Photo Credit: The Cooper Gallery [CC BY-NC] |
...Although Germans face many problems, Kampfner remains optimistic about their future because of their relentless self-questioning rooted in embarrassment about the past. They have much to be proud of, yet few can bring themselves to praise their own country.
...Yet it is no hagiography. It catalogues many things that have gone wrong, symbolised by the new Berlin airport which was about to stage a 2012 grand opening when safety officials rangthe alarm and discovered half a million faults...It is an epic failure of public sector management.
Regional banks, hailed as a source of German industrial strength, have run into trouble. VW became a symbol of corporate crime when it was found to have falsified its car emission statistics. Germany flinches from a responsible role on the international stage...The country's infrastructure is ailing, its urban air quality poor, its recent economic performance patchy.
And yet, Germany's vast underlying strength dwarfs all this. Kampfner argues that worker representation on company boards is a success story, reflected in a productivity much greater than Britain's despite shorter working hours. There is real community spirit, participation and togetherness, reflected in social clubs and voluntary fire brigades. German universities are outstanding. The impoverished East's absorption has been a great success, even if problems persist.
Germans take pride in their huge spending on culture.
...A significant passage of the book is devoted to Merkel, the most formidable European statesman of the 21st century. Henry Kissinger once asked: "If I want to talk to Europe who do I call?" - and the answer was never a British prime minister.
...Conspicuous in this remarkable woman is her preternatural calm. She retains total control of her impulses, even when Vladimir Putin unleashed his labrador on her in the malicious knowledge that she loathes dogs. She was never deluded about the sheer nastiness that Putin's Russia represents, but is realistic about the need to coexist with it.
...of the Covid-19 crisis ... "She told citizens what she, her ministers and scientists knew and what they didn't. She never blagged. She never boasted. Most of the decisions she was forced to take went against everything modern Germany stood for."
Yet because she is a real leader, she led - and her nation followed. This has been her finest hour.
(Max Hastings, The Sunday Times, 2020)
Oh for an Angela over here. Isn't it a pity that there's no transfer market in political leaders?
Parents Everywhere
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| Past and Present, No, 1 Augustus Leopold Egg ( 1816-1863) Photo Credit: Tate Britain [CC BY-NC-ND] |
As parents, we only want the best for our children. And to me, it's very obvious that, for the sake of young people everywhere - put that down, darling, Mummy's trying to write an article - that we make sure our precious children can - no, put it down, it's a circular saw, give me that this instant - that they can definitely go back to school on the first of September, and not a day later.
For months we have - darling don't drink that, that's floor cleaner - we have been coping magnificently as parents with the - be QUIET, you little maniacs, I can't hear myself THINK - with the terribly worrying prospect of our children's education suffering, but the fact is - YOU HORRIBLE BABY, TAKE THOSE PEBBLES OUT OF YOUR MOUTH THIS INSTANT - the fact is that for their sakes alone they must be taken away and put in school for five days a week, so they can resume their vital education.
I will miss them terribly, of course, but - your mother is going to be very, very angry unless you all shut up right now - but we will simply have to cope. In fact - thinking about it now, there is a strong argument for "catch up" time, whereby - I WILL COUNT TO THREE. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING TO STOP THROWING THAT INDOORS - whereby the government actually pays us and takes our children away for seven days a week for the next year. For their own good, of course.
(by All Parents Everywhere, Private Eye, No 1528)
Governess To the Elite
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| The Governess Emily Mary Osborn (1828-1925) Photo Credit: Yale Center for British Art [Public Domain] |
... As the rest of the world worries about reopening schools, the super-wealthy are choosing to keep their children at home - in the charge of a truly 21st-century governess.
Over the past five years I've worked for a pop star, a film producer, a banking billionaire and an oil entrepreneur... The pay is good; an elite governess (or governor; the job market is becoming more gender-balanced) can expect to earn at least £45,000 a year - and keep in mind that you have no housing costs. The very best can command almost twice that salary.
Nowadays a governess is usually employed to focus on the charge's academic performance, rather than holistic child-rearing. As such, she is expected to have a world-class education. The agency I work with makes a point of only representing Oxbridge graduates. My clients are determined that their offspring will be high achievers.
Their expectations for their children's attainment range from "ambitious" to "absurd". One mother told me I was not putting enough effort into my classes and that I ought to read a particular scholarly publication on the psychology of post-impressionism before teaching one art lesson on Van Gogh to her eight-year-old son. When I said I thought that was unnecessary, she accused me of underestimating his intelligence.
This pressure means that many - in fact, most - of my students have anxiety and low self-esteem. I've worked with a 15-year-old who told me, on the verge of tears just minutes after we met: "My life will be over if I don't get into Oxbridge, Harvard or Yale." ... All in all, it's hard not to think that most of my students would be better off with a therapist instead of a governess.
... For some foreign clients, a British governess is the ultimate lifestyle accessory. I've been shown off like a new handbag or car.
... I've sometimes felt uncertain as to whether I was allowed to criticise my charge's behaviour at all. In one memorable placement I was bitten, slapped, spat on and sworn at by a cherub-faced six-year-old girl. When I told her parents I was neither willing nor able to handle her tantrums, they didn't seem especially concerned about her aggression. They told me I should not discipline her in any way and that I simply needed to "create a more positive atmosphere". I left after two weeks.
... On several occasions I've tried to tell parents that I was worried about their child's mental health. Every time my comments fell on deaf ears. The message was clear: my job was to make the children successful, not happy.
However, I have worked for some wonderful parents who understand that there's a difference between encouraging a child to work hard and pressuring them to achieve. They value their children's wellbeing over their attainment...
(Anonymous, The Times, 2020)
Academically you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. But what you can do is to encourage children to work as hard as they can so that they can attain the best that they are able to. Telling children that they can achieve anything they want to do is misinformation. Encouragement rather than pressure is the key.
Death of the Full Stop
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| Memento Mori Edwaert Collier (c.1640-c.1707) (follower of) Photo Credit: Touchstones Rochdale [CC BY-NC] |
On one level, this is risible and has been denounced as the height of snowflake sensitivity. But as a further example of the way in which modern means of communication have altered the traditions of grammar and language, it is rather significant.
...Owen McArdle, a linguist at Cambridge University who has studied this phenomenon, said: "Full stops are, in my experience, very much the exception and not the norm in instant messages, and have a new role in signifying an abrupt or angry tone of voice."
...I know that English is a living language, and its usage should reflect changing customs and practices, but I can't help but feel a little sad about the demise of the poor full stop. A tiny dot which meant so much. Ah, well. All things come to an end. Send.
(Simon Kelner, The i, 2020)
Never. The full stop shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our full stop whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender the full stop.......................................................................................................................................................
Pope Francis
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| St Peter's, Rome William White Warren (1832-1915) Photo Credit: Victoria Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND] |
... Fratelli Tutti - his third encyclical, a pastoral letter to the whole Catholic church ... urges nations to work towards a just world based on common membership of the human family. He expands on familiar themes, including opposition to conflict, the death penalty, slavery, trafficking, inequality and poverty; and support for migrants.
Francis says the pandemic has reinforced his belief that political and economic institutions need reform, showing "no one can face life in isolation" and that the "magic theories" of market capitalism have failed.
"Aside from the differing ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident," Francis writes. He adds; "The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated not everything can be resolved by market freedom."
... The leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics says: "We are more alone than ever" in a world of "limitless consumerism" and "empty individualism" where there is a "growing loss of the sense of history".
Hyperbole, extremism and polarisation have become political tools in many countries, he writes, without healthy debates and long-term plans, and with slick marketing techniques aimed at discrediting others.
He notes "we are growing ever more distant from one another" and that voices "raised in defence of the environment are silenced and ridiculed".
Addressing digital culture, he criticises campaigns of "destruction" and says technology is removing people from reality.
The Pope says his inspiration for the encyclical came from St Francis and non-Catholics such as Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu and Mahatma Gandhi...
(Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, 2020)
No doubt some will regard this as communism!
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