Running, jumping, climbing trees…

Fat Controller Magazine, May 2005

Basking in the Moroccan sun

I was in the Sahara Desert feeling particularly smug. Minutes earlier I had just completed my first successful negotiation of a sand dune on board a camel, called Alan. There was a warm breeze and a fat sun dozed pleasantly in the grey sky. In short, I was filled with a traveller’s excitement and nothing in the wide world could bother me.

A moment later, my sense of tranquillity was punctured in an instant with a sharp poke in the ribs from our tour guide. He was a stub of a man, wrapped up in what seemed to be a thousand sheets and with an accusing, beaky face emerging from the top. He was also Alan’s proprietor.

Earlier in the day I’d summed him up as the Moroccan version of Basil Fawlty and he didn’t seem to much respect tourists or their ‘moments.’ Perhaps he was in the wrong industry.

‘Another IInnglish, eh?’ he inquired pointlessly, giving me another stab with his index finger.

I gathered during the next four minutes that he wasn’t too taken with Old Albion.

‘Why, oh why, do we put up with the Queen and her oaf of a husband?’; ‘How on earth do you manage to keep the food down?’ and ‘The Weather! Don’t you freeze?’ sprayed the rhetorical machine gun.

If there was a gap between words, I’d have attempted to insert a defence. But there wasn’t. Before long he had evolved to a critique of high capitalism and how ‘the English’ (of course), had been buggering the Moroccan people very effectively for the past few decades. As I was in a fine mood, I decided to not to point out to him that I had just spent $40 for half an hour on the back of Alan, and it was his own form of rampant commercialism that had been buggering me over for the past few three weeks.

‘Surely, I must know that Beckham’s not half the player the Chamakh is? And why is it that you don’t bother to learn any other languages?’

This rounded off his verbal assault and in a puff of sand he was off, towards a quivering group of Americans.

Despite the fact that this infuriating camel entrepreneur had all the grace and charm of a steamroller, he had a point. Not regarding the food, weather, Beckham or the Queen, but his last lingering point about languages. Even amongst the madness there are moments of clarity.

The rise of the ‘lingua franca’

An indisputable phenomenon of the late twentieth century has been the rise of English as the global language. Having been born slap-bang in the middle of Britain, I should, by rights, be grateful that my mother tongue also happens to be the lingua franca of business, tourism and sport. Put plainly, you’d have to travel vast distances to hidden corners of the Amazon before you located people who’d not come across the words ‘hotel’, ‘Ok’, ‘football’ or ‘happy.’

But should this exempt us from the language lab for eternity? Perhaps the mellifluous prose that sits stoically at the front of our British passports serves as an excuse note directly from the Queen herself:

‘Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary’

‘Such assistance and protection as may be necessary’? Doesn’t this sound a little like the colonial voice reappearing from behind the mist? Was it written down for Cecil Rhodes, T.E. Lawrence or a gaggle of Scousers on holiday in Spain? Does it mean that the English should be addressed in their native language at all times in order to speed the process along?

To employ one of the most British of phrases, Eddie Izzard is one who has the British perspective down to a T. It’s almost as if you can see the British brain working: ‘Two languages in one head? Surely not? Good Lord, man! You’re asking the impossible!’ In the same breath he remembers how, ‘the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana.’

Few statistics remain to adequately demonstrate the number of bilingual Brits. Most are agreed, however, that there are few – and even then the majority are comprised from English/Welsh speakers. If you want to get annoyed about this fact, then I’d suggest that it’d be well within your rights. It’s not your fault.

The learning of a second or third language is not given the importance it should be. Of course French lessons and German lessons and Spanish lessons exist, but in many schools they are treated with all the importance of a fire-drill. All too often they are treated as a matter of routine and as a result, the brain disengages within a minute.

Blame the system

For five years I sat in a French class at school. We drew pictures of the Eiffel Tower, then we drew pictures of Notre Dame. We briefly flirted with incomprehensible verb charts but soon abandoned them as our teacher didn’t speak French herself and didn’t fancy getting in a tangle. Retrospectively, I might well have better spent my five years trying to balance an orange on my head.

One of the biggest inadequacies of the British education system is its failure to teach its students foreign languages. In comparison with other European countries, the difference is stark. Whilst finding Brits outside London with a good knowledge of a second language is rare, 36 million Germans have a good working knowledge of English, as do 14 million Italians and about 75% of the Dutch and Swedish populations.*

Does it matter? Well, arriving at the age of 21 with a working knowledge of French, Spanish, German or Italian can give you a sharp edge. When holiday you don’t have to exist on isolated compounds, you can expand your business interests with ease across borders and best of all French people are unable to be rude to you without you noticing.

* Source: Eurobarrometer survey