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Ron Dough
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« Reply #45 on: 01:03:35, 30-08-2008 » |
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Any visit to Lush is as quick as possible, t: the overpowering mix of aromai(?) more than enough to induce a blinding headache if experienced for more than a couple of minutes at a time....
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #46 on: 01:09:16, 30-08-2008 » |
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Hope you'll be able to list some more cultural differences when you return from your travels, t: Bon Voyage!
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time_is_now
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« Reply #47 on: 01:11:45, 30-08-2008 » |
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Obrigado Ron.  (I'll actually be speaking French for most of the week as time 2's mother and grandmother don't speak English and I don't really speak more than a few words of Portuguese ...) |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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MT Wessel
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« Reply #48 on: 01:38:08, 30-08-2008 » |
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.... why should we desire their friendship? Oh dear, Sydney ... Never mind .... The Empire strikes back and it serves us bloody well right as far as I am concerned.  |
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lignum crucis arbour scientiae
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Sydney Grew
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« Reply #49 on: 02:00:55, 30-08-2008 » |
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Note the sexist infantilisation of servant women compared to men . . . We principally note the infantilism of the bogus word "sexist" which having come from goodness knows where somehow managed in 1968 to insinuate itself into the language! |
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #50 on: 06:28:53, 30-08-2008 » |
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So I just served people the way I'd expect to be served myself in a shop, and I never bothered about calling anyone 'Sir' or 'Madam', although of course I judged how familiar I could be with different customers based on my sense of the individual I was dealing with, just as I would do now if I was talking to a stranger in a bar or in the street.
I like that approach, t. It is very reasonable. In the old days in Russia sales people were very rude. It was not uncommon to have an answer to your question be given in such a way: "And why do you ask such a question? We don' t have that, don't you see, you have no eyes?" One was happy if reply did not include: Get lost. Customer was a petitioner or a beggar in the old days. He/she said: Thank you to the sale person, not the other way around. Philidor, I like the example in your post. I knew an old Polish couple when we lived in Wales. They both were WWII veterans. Their story was (they passed away) very interesting for me. They lived in different parts of Poland and both were taken over by Russians. (They had some sort of a pact with Germany and devided Poland between themselves.) The wife was then 15 years old and the man was in his 20s. Both were sent to labour camp, he as a nationalist because he refused to teach someting in school or said something. She was sent with the whole family. They were saved by Germany starting the war because Russians wanted to create Polish army. I spend majority of my time with them when I lived in Wales. |
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« Last Edit: 12:46:00, 30-08-2008 by trained-pianist »
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Philidor
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« Reply #51 on: 11:15:55, 30-08-2008 » |
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Note the sexist infantilisation of servant women compared to men . . . We principally note the infantilism of the bogus word "sexist" which having come from goodness knows where somehow managed in 1968 to insinuate itself into the language! We agree, but what’s the alternative? ‘Gender hatred’? ‘Discrimination on grounds of dangly bits'? 'Fear of women'? Philidor, I like the example in your post.
I knew an old Polish couple when we lived in Wales. They both were WWII veterans. Their story was (they passed away) very interesting for me. They lived in different part of Poland and both were taken over by Russians. (They had some sort of a pact with Germany and devided Poland between themselves.) The wife was then 15 years old and the man was in his 20s. Both were sent to labour camp, he as a nationalist because he refused to teach someting in school or said something. She was sent with the whole family. They were saved by Germany starting the war because Russians wanted to create Polish army. I spend majority of my time with them when I lived in Wales.
My favourite London pub now has two generations of Polish immigrants as customers: the WW2 generation -- who all, for some reason, have beards you could stuff a mattress with -- and the new EU arrivals. There was an amusing scene a while back when a drunken English racist had a go at them, telling them: ‘Get back to your own country!’ The younger ones laughed at him or offered to fight him outside but an older one gave him a lecture on the bravery of Polish 303 Squadron. He finished off by saying: ‘They had more patriotism in their little fingers than you have in your bloated racist body!’ The entire pub cheered - the Poles are very popular - and the racist slunk into the night. It’s true -- the pilots were incredibly brave. |
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #52 on: 11:34:09, 30-08-2008 » |
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My friends husband was not a pilot. I don't know how you call people on foot. I don't think he was in a tank. I know their name and they are dead now. I don't know if I can post their name.
She was a nurse in the hospital that was the first after the front line. From Russian camp they went by train all the way to Kaspian sea and may be even Uzbekistan. Russians wanted to form a Polish Army. She said that she was amazed that people did not know how to count or write. She was called to be a book keeper in a collective farm. They even bought a goat and had milk.
Then somehow the rumour was that Russians let the Poles cross the boarder somewhere to Persia. They crossed by the sea, many were sick on that journey. She was with her mother and younger brother. Their father was in a different camp and also made it to Persia later.
After Persia they were in Palestine. She always said: It was such a beautiful country, people were nice to each other, friendly, etc.
She wanted me to speak Russian to her, but she would answer in English.
They went to Italy and then there was the war. She met her husband in Palestine. When he was wounded they thought he will not be able to see. She was there in the hospital.
They had two sons and lived in Wales. May be you will meet people that know about them. Their story was so interesting. They became small holding farmers, though both came from landed class.
The husband wrote a book, but the book is not as interesting as to was talking to them.
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« Last Edit: 12:54:22, 30-08-2008 by trained-pianist »
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #53 on: 11:43:10, 30-08-2008 » |
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"LUSH" I find myself fighting for breath if I find myself within fifty yards of one of those places so consequently I've never entered one. How do the staff survive it? I usually have that problem too, even though their products are lovely one at a time (I have been given various gift sets for Christmas and so forth). In some cases it is necessary to cross the street to avoid virtual asphyxia. However, I have discovered that the branch on South Molton Street (near Bond Street tube) is much better. I think the merchandise there is simply given enough SPACE. I actually remarked on this to one of the staff there, and she said people tell her that all the time. I was having this discussion with a friend the other day, and she says the branch in Liverpool Street Station is also far less overpowering than your average Lush shop. I don't know how the majority of Lush shops get away with it, I really don't. Surely it must be considered an environmental nuisance? |
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #54 on: 12:14:44, 30-08-2008 » |
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I don't mind what people call me, whether I know them or not, except that when a shop assistant or someone in a bank or somewhere is being irritating in some other way, the form of address they're using can sometimes become an extra irritation.
As I've mentioned before, the extended PW clan has a branch near Fort William in the Western Highlands, where shop staff seem to receive special training in rudeness and indifference to the public (presumably on the basis that taking your custom elsewhere requires a trip to Glasgow or Inverness, both of which are two hours' drive away - and Inverness can be just as bad). The one that particularly gets up my nose is "we don't get any call for those", oblivious to the fact that they're getting some call for it from the person they're addressing ...  |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #55 on: 12:31:25, 30-08-2008 » |
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That's more of a cultural difference within a nationality, though, PW: I'd say that Fort William (jumped-up frontier town that it is still) is far worse than Inverness, and you rarely receive that sort of treatment anywhere else in the Highlands or on the West Coast - certainly not Glasgow, where you're often treated like a long-lost friend, even if it's your first time in the shop. Some Edinburghers can be decidedly sniffy, though, as if the whole concept of serving others were completely beneath their dignity.  |
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #56 on: 12:43:08, 30-08-2008 » |
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Quite so: the people who run small village shops in the West Highlands are always incredibly friendly and helpful, and are not only unfazed by requests for something slightly out of the way, but are actually quite likely to stock it. You certainly won't get the response a friend of mine got in a Fort William supermarket, who, on asking whether they had any celeriac, was assured by a member of staff that there was no such vegetable ...
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #57 on: 12:59:11, 30-08-2008 » |
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I really wouldn't want my students to call me by anything other than my first name.
That's true for me too. I really dislike the habit of certain colleagues who insist on introducing me as DOCTOR harmonyharmony [insert surname here]. Mind you, I know colleagues who insist on introducing themselves like that (though obviously they use their own name and not mine). One thing I go out of my way to emphasise is that, whether or not they are students and we are lecturers, we are all learning and that, although we are in an environment where a degree of respect towards lecturers is assumed, to some extent we are all colleagues. One of my undergraduate lecturers, who incidentally failed one of my modules (saying that 'this sort of thing should not be encouraged!'), was one of the last at that institution to insist (though I never heard him do so, I think we all just assumed) that students referred to him as Professor Reerg [not his actual surname you understand]. When I came back as a PhD student, and he had ascended to the heights of beatific emeritusy, I always addressed him by his first name. He looked surprised and stunned like a rabbit in the headlights. I'm afraid to say that it gave me some sense of satisfaction as he attempted to remember how he knew me. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #58 on: 13:04:47, 30-08-2008 » |
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I really dislike the habit of certain colleagues who insist on introducing me as DOCTOR harmonyharmony [insert surname here].
But it would depend on the circumstances. If you were introduced as "And this is Bert" at a conference, it wouldn't tell others anything other than giving them a name to call you by... whereas it might be germane to the discussion to mention your full name (with or without the academic title) since you might have publications of relevance, and a known stated position on some of the topics being discussed. But "Bert" could be anyone  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #59 on: 13:26:01, 30-08-2008 » |
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What sort of inverted snobbery is it, if you work your socks off to achieve a doctorate and then object to being called by the title? If you have studied to this level, then surely there's nothing wrong with it being recognised?  I'm with Syd on this. I don't like familiarity with my name at all unless I've invited it. If I were a doctor, I should like to be so addressed. I'm Mrs. Jones to people I've never met before. I then decide whether to invite them to use my Christian name. |
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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