Random commentary verse #1

This is a mash-up rip-off scrapbook poem composed from random phrases taken from press commentary on the current economic meltdown.


We are living through
first intimations
of crisis, crunch, collapse
nobody has been able to understand.
Each attempt to deal
consumed by an irresistible,
often concealed within the balance sheets,
abject surrender to the new orthodoxy.

The last came
triggered
by oil price spike
dramatic rises
to inflation
ending a long boom
after the war
consolidation.

Now
we are living
through price hike, triple spike, off mike
commentary
narrating Google streets
everything public
but no-one rules the world
after the squeeze.

Gaelic is endangered, should I care?

According to UNESCO's 'Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger' Gaelic is 'definately endangered.' A language is endangered when its speakers stop using it, or use it less often and stop passing it on to the next generation.

There were just 58,552 Gaelic speakers left in the 2001 census. Thats about the population of a town like Dunfermline.

This Times article lays into the "Gaelic triumphalism" which "surfaces whenever the little that remains of the culture comes under threat of further erosion, at the same time as Gaelic is crowbarred into an ever-increasing number of crannies in lowland life."

At £20m a year for BBC Alba? Sounds a lot but still only £350 per head per speaker. But taking in the wider public spending (£50m) on 1.2% of the population this rises to about £850 a head.

But consider this.

Koichiro Matsuura, Unesco's director-general, said: "The death of a language leads to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage, especially the invaluable heritage of traditions and oral expressions of the community that spoke it – from poems and legends to proverbs and jokes."

How important is it to know that Bheinn Mhor means 'Big Hill?'