Hungarian without Tears

It’s really rather strange how many Hungarian words I remember from 35 years ago. I never learnt the language properly, but picked up a considerable smattering as I grew up — a necessary task if I was to hack into the secret conversations my mother thought she was having with my aunt. Hungarian, friends, is a kind of good news bad news story.

The good news is that there's only a comaratively small vocabulary of Magyar words, and once mastered it’s amazing how they stick in the memory, even after 35 years. I probably acquired them at an impressinoable age, along with what some call a passable accent. Some words are amazingly easy to remember — a bar? “barás.” Easy!

The bad news is that the structure of the language, being Finno-Ugaric, ignores many customary Indo-European conveniences. Let me illustrate. I have been looking at grammatical notes extracted from some tome in the Cambridge Unversity Library as an earnest undergraduate in 1976, when, in the first flush of youth, I had illusions I would be able to master this lot someday.

My notes indicate there are in fact Eighteen Cases in Hungarian marked by enclitc particles (as aganst virtually none in English). So almost every noun declines as Nominative, Accusative, Dative-Genitive, and Ablative. Easy if you’ve done Latin. But then, according to my undergraduate notes, things hot up. You’ve got another fourteen cases to go — Instrumental, Causal-final, translative, terminative, essive-formal, essive-modal, inessive, superessive, adessive, illative, allative, sublative, elative and delative. Oh, and Labio-dental Fricative. No, actually I made that last one up becaue I am being silly, but if you think Hungaran is short of cses, it might be worth a whirl.

Got that? Let me illustrate (remember s = “sh” and zs = “s” — and remember how to pronounce “cs“ and “gy” which are separate letters from a now lost alphabet). This is our simple word for a bar, almost the same in Hungarian:

1. barás — The Bar (subject)
2. bart — The Bar (object)
3. barásnak — To the Bar
4. barástól — From the Bar
   
5. barással — With the Bar
6. barásért — For the Bar
7. barássá — Into the Bar
8. barásig — As far as the Bar
9. barásként — as the Bar
10. barásul — by way of the Bar
11. barásban — In the Bar
12. baráson — On the Bar
13. barásnál — At the Bar
14. barásba — In the General Direction of the Bar
15. barásra — Onto the Bar
16. baráshoz — To the Bar
17. barásból — Out of the Bar
18. barásról — About the Bar
    

Now, remember, even very stupid Hungarians have to have this stuff off pat. No wonder they knock spots off us at Maths, and pack the Economists’ think-tanks, Dentists’ surgeries and Financial Capitals of the world. No wonder they follow you into revolving doors and come out ahead. Easy when you’ve mastered the case structure of their language.

Surveying the height of the grammatical mountain I failed to scale with any confidence in 1976, when I actually had a few spare brain cells, I retreated with the gang this evening to a delightful pavement restaurant in Pest, where they make paprikás csirke just like my late lamented Aunty Helene, with Gnocchi, and was transported. The summit remains elusive, and I fear I will not be jabbering away in Hungarian for a while yet, if ever. Budapest is still Divine.

Summertime: living is easy

This summer has seen the longest intermittency of this blog in three years — a bit of of sabbath with the family. I’ve caught up with a few domestic jobs in the strange on/off semi-staycation before a week with the whole family and friends in Budapest. This will be profoundly amazing, as I have not been there since 1976. I visited with my mother (who was born there) at various times before that when it was still very much the other side of the Iron Curtain. How intermitten next week will be depends on the state of internet connections, but I anticipate the blog spluttering back gently towards life again over the next few days, DV.

Back at home, Job No. 1 on the Big Guilt Prevarication Domestic List for some time has been the fish tank, which has needed a comlete reboot for a not inconsiderable time. Ridden with algae and worse, it contained, by the beginning of August, one single minnow, known in the trade as Michael Fish. Michael has been looking at me reproachfully for most of last year, and I have now bumped up his accommodation and social lfe with 20-odd companions, aided and abbetted by Chris and Erica, friends of Lucy’s who are moving and needed to find a home for some of theirs.

So now we have a cheerful tank in the hall, the little darlings chuntering around as tropical fish do. Most unanticipated has been our first pet crustacean, Kevin the Raw Prawn. He isn’t cuddly, but he’s got a certain je ne sais quoi (Why, after all, would anyone with half a braincell keep a prawn as a pet?). He is shy and retiring, but comes out about twice a day, stands on a rock like the Lion King banging his chest, and waves his multifarious arms and legs around cheerfully at anyone who can be bothered to give him any attention.

Lucy and I have found fish to be a restful accompaniment to morning prayer, even slighty disturbing see-through Glass Catfish.

We have sat together a couple of evenings wondering how fish can be so much more engaging, in their own way, than anything on 600 odd channels of TV next door...

It’s Lovely down in the woods today

Best days off take me out of myself with the nearest and dearest — so a gloriously sunny Saturday was spent together at Alton Towers. It’s weird not having any aviation noise, though. I hadn’t realised how ubiquitous aviation was until it was no more, and life must be especially weird around Heathrow. Currently the Eyjafjallajökull volcano (try saying that when you’ve had a few) still seems to be winning.

Our younger family members are more into theme parks perhaps than me, but with hearts high we headed for Britain’s largest Theme Park, Alton Towers — Rural Staffordshire and pity the neighbours — and the newly opened Th13teen.
This has been billed as the “Ultimate Rollercoaster” “Never has so much theme park technology been combined in one fantastically thrilling ride,” gushed the blurb, backed by late night TV advertising.

For an hour and a half we waited in line.
Tension built slowly, as portentious organ music swelled, a bit like Church. Meanwhile, a nubile soloist languidly sang lines from The Teddy Bears Picnic in a minor key (I kid you not). Then she counted slowly up to Thirteen (geddit?) in a dusky sotto voce that the unordained might associate with dirty phonecalls.
Thank the Lord for Amazon Kindle on the iPhone. Then...

Actually, I hate to say it — Th13teen was OK but, perhaps, just a tad lame. There was a substantial but not major iggly wiggly rollercoaster through the woods, with only a lap bar, then a hi-tech bit in a tomb thingie with a few jerks and screams and some laser stuff, then you whizz backwards in the dark for 10 seconds or so. Fair enough, but Lord knows why it all cost £15 million. Perhaps I lack imagination, or 20+ years of being a vicar have insulated me against screams and plastic bats. I did like the wraiths, though — kind of sackcloth dirty old monks. If they sold the outfits in the gift shop I might have been sorely tempted.

To check out whether we had lost our taste for being centrifuged, we headed for Lucy’s all time favourite rollercoaster, Air. This simulates flying around on your tummy wiggling your toes, and a right old sensation it is, too. It’s a classy ride, very smooth, and greatly improved if you get to float over Staffordshire without screams. Rolling gently over and upward into the sun like dead ants with your best beloved by your side brings you closer to heaven than a poke in the eye.










We took Anna for the first time on Rita Queen of Speed, a name that’s fun to ennunciate in thick Glaswegian. Rita accelerates you from 0-60 in 2 seconds. She offers a particularly orgasmatronic experience for us Brits, because her Queue to Thrill ratio is One hour to 18 seconds.

Finally, we all went on Nemesis, which is very iggly wiggly, like this:

You Barrel roll in and out of a few holes in the ground for 22 seconds, shooting 3-4G on the loop the loop bit. All most acceptable. I usually look like I'm nodding off in the pix, but on our Air ride, I look I’m casting eyes up to heaven, and Lucy looks insanely happy, like she’s got there already. Perhaps we have, after almost 26 years of marriage. The very nice lady at MacDonalds on the way home (I know, I know — first time in years) complimented Lucy on our childrens’ politeness (an unanticipated bonus). Proof that the family that plays together outlays together. Back to school next week. And planes overhead, perhaps.

All aboard the Marrakech Express

Best family trip ever. Given the age ranges and proclivities involved, it’s not easy to gather our extended clan any time but Christmas, but it’s worth the effort. Cities work better than country cottages, and cash is tight. The answer this year was Marrakech — nobody had been, mind-expanding, guaranteed sunshine, and significantly less money all in, including flights, food, outings, everything, than the basic rental of a cottage in Scotland.


We stayed at Dar Zarman, in the heart of the Northern Medina. The whole Riad concept was ideal for us — Beautiful medieval house, plunge pool, air conditioning when needed, roof garden, and above all, kind helpful people. Peter Mercer bought the place a few years ago, and did a Grand Designs job on it — our tribe filled it for a week.


Ably aided and abetted by Hassan and Fatima, our hosts could not have been more helpful, fixing up everything that needed local knowledge to fix, getting stuff in, giving advice, helping us through, the occasional slap-up meal, but always with good humour, unerring reliability and a light touch. Help included haggling lessons, how to get around, how to use a local Hammam, tipping etiquette, the works.

This made our stay exactly the right level of adventurousness for a ten year old, fun for the twenty-somethings, relaxing for long-suffering parents. This was way and away the best family outing ever, and, final cherry on the cake, came in at forty pounds under budget — no debt on the credit cards, nothing lost, a lot of fun, plenty ventured and much gained...
(For now just pictures of Dar zaman — more of the place on weekends to come, perhaps...)

Communal Bath House manners

Interesting times down the local Hammam this morning. Cultural interaction, this being a local rather than tourist bath house, was fascinating. Women whom we would think prudish because they wouldn’t walk down the street in a skimpy top and shorts found our female Western insistence on wearing a top in a wholly female bath house weird and prudish. So what is, actually, “prudish?” what is “natural?” Another conversation with someone local who had been to London posed a question —“why do you need millions of security cameras in England? Here, most people, most of the time, know God will be angry with them if they steal, so they don’t” — a naïve point of view, perhaps, but indicative of another cultural gap?

Back to the Public Bath House. Hammams conserve water and combines the advantages of a shower and a bath — you open your pores and relax like a bath with steam (aided by gommage = mud scrub if you want) but refresh and get rid of the dirt like a shower. The whole notion of a community bath house is a bit odd to our very privatised Western sensibilities. Being bloky and throwing water over ourselves was a lot of fun and we all wish we'd taken the plunge (except there isn't a plunge to take) earlier in the week.

I came away feeling that how we interpret and understand gender are the finest tuned most personal bits of our cultural conditioning, and the easiest to get wrong. Absolutising them is ridiculous. They live within our comfort zones and evolve all the time. It’s all too easy to assume we know that the other person is being liberated or oppressed when all they are being is themselves! Observing gender interactions in an Eastern culture also throws some of the context of the Bible into perspective, as a near Eastern text.

To respond to God in others, we need to listen carefully, reducing our interpretative filters and assumptions to a working minimum, defocusing on our own reactions and respecting their provisionality. We need to express ourselves openly but courteously, suspending our disbelief about the other person’s culture. Then we need to draw gentle and provisional conclusions. That’s how cross cultural sensitivity works, and seeing the different strategies people have for straddling cultures, it’s plain Christianity in an open Cross-cultural environment feels very different to the way it does from an Imperialistic ( = Chauvinstic and standardized) standpoint.

Early Christianity grew best at points of cross-cultural intersection, the open ports and trading system nodes of the near East; so an age of globalised communications should be fertile soil for the authentic article... What has to change in us for this to be the case?

Guitar shopping for beginners

School holidays, and first family project was getting Nick a proper guitar. He's had an OK but not great MFI Plywood special for a while now, but not full size, and now friends were bugging him at parties and putting it on YouTube, and he’s spending hours with his guitar, he really does need a half decent one. So, armed with wee pot of dosh from an amazing and beloved aunt who died in 1999, we headed for Britain’s own Tin Pan Alley.

Contrary to expectation this is not a fantasy location off Harry Potter. Guitar shops proliferated, more than wot we’d had hot dinners, so we nuzzled round with the whole family (minus Catherine) in tow, sizing up possibilities, then zeroed in on Wunjo Guitars in Denmark Street to see what they could do for us. Brian was amazing — no silly sales pitch; just sized up the job, sat Nick down, tried a few possibles, narrowed it down to two, then one ideal guitar — an entirely Nick led process. He than did us a doable deal and banged a bit of dosh off. This was helpful, as when you go to a world class place to buy anything you get an amazing selection of good stuff, but you can end up paying through ye nose. Not here.

So, for the family record, here’s the dream Machine — a Cort MS710 — Flamed Maple, rich tone, and a bit of welly especially with pick-up. It will only get better with age and constant playing. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever! Topped off with a celebration meal at the Rainforest café and, don’t laugh, a Snog in Brewer Street this has to be one of the more amazing family days out for a while...

This be the Verse 2

Philip Larkins (in)famous “This be the verse” (They f*ck you up, your mum and dad...) has long been highly regarded in counselling circles. It’s a lot of fun, and every time I've heard it quoted, it’s met by by knowing looks of recognition, wherever folks gather for encounters like Dr Evil’s legendary Father/Son family therapy session with Carrie Fisher:

Now, in the week of the poet’s death, John Halton has posted a response from a newspaper cutting by Adrian Mitchell:

They tuck you up, your mum and dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.

Kudos to John for the poem. Two impressions from yesterday — Anna waving goodbye before my annual Xmas trek, & one of the sights of Newport Pagnell, more Philip Larkin than Adrian Mitchell...

Happy families? all a bit weird...

Do nothing — Christmas is Coming! Last year I followed Maggi Dawn’s excellent Biblical advent course. This year Lucy and I have been taking Stephen Cottrell’s advice as we prepare for the Big Day. Stephen tracks through most of the weary things we’ve all felt, and some of us have said, about Christmas on its way, then takes the whole thing to the cleaners, by suggesting some down-to-earth ways of Thinking Different, that could really make a difference.

On Page 1 (as far as the busy journalist can be expected to read in any book) Stephen quotes one weary grinch:

Groan. It’s the first day of December, I’ve got about a hundred Christmas cards to write...”

Sadly our journalists were so busy that they didn’t get far enough to realise that this wasn’t an ex Cathedra statement from Stephen but an opening quote about feeling harrassed round Christmas. This mistake gave birth to a “Father Ted has got it in for the Chinese” story about Stephen and Christmas Cards. This straddled the world, from GetReading:

The self-styled “crazy bishop” has made the news again urging us all to forgo sending Christmas cards.

to the sunburned splendour of the (Murdoch) Brisbane Courier Mail

Church of England Bishop Stephen Cottrell says we should chill out this December and forget about sending Christmas cards.

Even Kiddiwinks got misled, as the fountain of niceness, CBBC Newsround reported:

Stephen Cottrell says we should stop sending Christmas cards to absolutely everyone we know, because it's a waste of time.

This is the time of year when most journalists go out, leaving machines to write ritual formulaic stories instead. There is a Holy Trinity of seasonal RF Stories:

1. Sales exceeding all records (possibly not this year, but they might run it anyway)
   
2. A council somewhere cancelling Christmas so as not to offend other faiths
3. Some vicar somewhere who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus.
   

These stories are not produced by human beings. There is no point treating them as though they were. The tale of a bishop banning Christmas cards is a variant of (3).

Having read as far as page 46 of Stephen’s book, I can testify that it’s worth it:

To one degree or another, we all find our families embarrassing. It’s something we all have in common. And the other sobering fact that we seem hell-bent on avoiding is that we are all members of our family. What really irritates us about them is that they are so like us! And here’s another uncomfortable truth: we are part of a common humanity. We all have the same frailties, insecurities, anxieties and heartfelt longings. We are all a bit weird. We are all flawed. We are all less than the people we want to be. We all get embarrassed by ourselves and by those around us. We all cause embarrassment to others.

Christmas can be a time when we let this get on top of us. Wouldn’t it be better to take the medicine on offer? To accept these frailties, and then do two other things: first, accept yourself as the flawed and beautiful person that you are; and second, have a very good laugh at your own foolishness and enjoy the foolishness of others, especially those you’re going to be spending the next week with. After all, this is supposed to be the season of goodwill.

I defy the risk that the world’s press will now report that the self-confessed weird bishop has murdered all his family. I like his advice today:

• The best comedies will not be on TV this Christmas. They will be around your own table, if you can but see them.
• Re-imagine the peoples of the world as a hugely complex, extremely muddled, wonderfully odd and riotously funny family. Enjoy the differences. Take proper account of the deep-seated similarities.