Seven lessons into my beginners’ Mandarin course, I was contemplating how the brain deals with different language. We were doing a role play of a fruit stall and as the shopkeeper I asked “hái yào?” (“Anything else?”). The customer wanted to say “Nothing.”

“Just say ‘rien’,” someone else suggested, and that desire to pluck a word from a different foreign language makes me wonder if the brain has one section for native language and another for all others.

It was the same when I was in Germany last year. If I didn’t know a word, it wasn’t the English that came straight to mind but, if I knew it, the French. Sometimes German words pop into my head when I don’t know the Chinese. Probably, though, on more occasions than not it’s the English word that I think of first, but I don’t notice myself doing it because it’s so natural. In that case, each word (as a concept) would have its own cubby-hole in my memory with a version in each language, including English, attached to it.

This is rather unscientific, of course. Is this psychology or linguistics? Either way I’m sure people with PhDs have investigated this in great depth.

Duncan is angry that some poor little Oliver Twist like urchins with barely a limb between them have been packed off to the World Cup after their school organised a particularly expensive school trip only for the money to go to some dodgy touts and no tickets to turn up. Fortunately, Mr Blair stepped in and saved the day and now the diddled kids can have a lovely time in Germany.

According to theguardian, the silver lining did have a cloud though:

Most of the children are to be flown out by British Airways

The LibDems have acquired another blogging Lord, and their first blogging hereditary peer, in the shape of Lord Avebury, aka Eric Lubbock, former MP for Orpington.

You can read about, amongst other thing, his exploits on the by-election trail in Bromley and his speeches in the House of Lords at http://ericavebury.blogspot.com/. I met him in Orpington during the General Election last year and a very good chap he is, with a strong track record on human rights. Hopefully he will join LibDem Blogs soon.

According to theguardian:

The education secretary, Alan Johnson, dismissed the accusation, saying: “The point about John Reid is he is not Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. He doesn’t get pushed around by anyone.”

Could someone with more literary nous explain the allusion? Was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm particularly acquiescent?

I now can’t shake an image of John Reid as The First Mrs de Winter.

Next time:

The education secretary, Alan Johnson, dismissed the accusation, saying: “The point about Tony Blair is he is not Rhett Butler. He isn’t a Southern gentleman and he does give a damn.”