The Big Challenge

Ben has just taken part in 'the big challenge', it's 'the first European English contest for schools. Ben was delighted when he heard about it, and after reading through the small print they discovered that there doesn't seem to be anything stopping him entering and trying to win a laptop or an ipod, despite that fact that he's English and a native speaker.

He brought the test paper home with him, much to my delight so I can test you - don't panic, it's multiple choice! (By the way, this test is for class 6 kids (age 12) there are different tests for different years, in case you think the questions are really easy, and you should also remember that all the questions are written in English, so while you should understand it all easily, for kids who aren't native Englsih speakers it will have been much harder...)

I won't give you all 54 questions, that would be too dull, I'll just give you a few:

1. My brother .................. at university. a) is. b) am. c) are. d) has
2. London is on the River ............... a) Teams. b) Thames. c) Thanks. d) Times.
3. What doesn't rhyme with white? a) light. b) height. c) site. d) quiet.
4. 50 people ..........in the club when they heard the fire alarm. A lot of people panicked. a) didn't panic. b) danced. c) had fun. d) were dancing.
5. The rose and the lion are emblems of ........... a) England. b) Scotland. c) Ireland. d) Wales.

Ben is currently arguing with his friends over the answer to the last question. Ben knows the answer, and knows he's got it right. His friends have put different answers to Ben and have checked on Wikipedia (the German wiki, obviously) and declare their answers to be correct...they simply wont accept that they are wrong and Ben the English child is right (it's a very Germanic trait, not accepting that they're in the wrong - trust me) not surprisingly Ben is looking foward to the day the answers are given and the results announced!

Hanging by a thread

I don't pretend to be any kind of political animal and I will happily admit that I don't know what many of the parties' policies are, Simon is far more informed about politics than I am and yet I'm the one who's made the effort to vote.

Effort? I hear you say. How much effort does it take to walk home via the polling station and mark an X in a box?
This is the first time I've had to vote from afar and to get a postal vote first you have to register yourself as a postal voter and then they send you another form that someone else has to sign as well to confirm you are who you say you are and then you get sent your ballot paper a week before the election meaning you have to mark your X pretty damn quick in order to ensure that it's back in blighty to be counted.

You probably think I'm mad to be voting seeing as I freely admit to having only the vaguest ideas of what the parties say they'll do if/when they take power, and I don't even live in the country and so the result doesn't effect me, but believe me, I have my reasons;

• Suffragettes, women fought for the right to vote back in the early 1900's, one woman, Emily Davison even died for the cause, in 1918 women over the age of 30 were entitled to vote and in 1928 the age limit was lowered to 21. Men seem to take their right to vote for granted but I don't and therefore I vote.
  

• I can't vote here in Germany, because I'm not German, I can vote in the local elections but not for the national, governmental elections. It's a bit crazy really that I can't vote to influence how the country where I live and (in theory) pay taxes is run but this is another reason that I feel I ought to cast my vote back in England, at least I can get my voice heard somewhere!
  

The fact that most policitians are complete and utter tosspots is by the by, we can only vote for those who put themselves forward, those people who want the power and a seat on a hard bench in parliament and the chance to fiddle their expenses...it has always seemed to me that the people best suited to running the country are those that say 'no thanks' - but they've got more sense than that!

It will be an interesting few days/weeks I'm sure, as everyone is predicting a hung parliament and getting all stressed about it, completely overlooking the fact that countries like Germany make a success, election after election, of running a country with a similarly hung parliament.

Thoughts of blighty

I had a lovely girlie weekend with my friend Alison (thank Al for the fab b&b service), rather than bore you with a blow by blow of what we got up to I thought I'd share the things that struck me while I was back in England...

• despite the imminent General Election there was not a single election poster on a lamp post to be seen (unlike here where they're EVERYWHERE) apparently they've been banned
• there seemed to be more traffic wardens sneaking around than shoppers, I thought I was going crazy
• high school boys seem to have short hair in the UK, whereas here sometimes it's hard to tell the boys from the girls
• the weather is just as crappy as it ever was (just like here)
• Marks and Spencers....what has happened? It's CRAP, they must have new management/designers or something, everything was bleurgh and then we took a good hard look at the clientele - and ran for it before our hair took on a blue tinge
• roadworks, still coning off roads unnecessarily and slowing everyone down to 30mph despite there being no work going on and it being a bank holiday weekend
• take out curry...bliss in a plastic, microwavable container, and so much choice
• Birmingham Airport still doesn't allow cars to drop off passengers near the terminal, unlike pretty much all other major airports - why do they think they're so special?
• Boots the Chemist, where you can buy ALL your toiletry needs from nail varnish and depilator cream to extra strength aspirin and water purifying tablets, without a gestapo style interrogation from a pharmacist
• Cadbury chocolate, fruit pastilles and maltesers - all easily purchased = happy children
• cinema, where every single film was in its original language, shame there was nothing really on that I wanted to see!
• a window cleaner working on a bank holiday - unheard of here and probably against the law to boot

It's good to be home.

Sunday Snaps 12

I'm away, Sunday is our planned shopping day, so depending on whe you read this I should be here:
You can expect the plastic to get fully flexed!