Ahoy there, ye scurvy swabs. Many of ye, me hearties, will already know that it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day today where ye has to talk in the pirate lingo as much as is possible.

Anyone failin’ to talk like a proper swashbucklin’ buccaneer will find themselves consigned to Davy Jones’ Locker after being made ter kiss the gunner’s daughter and possibly bein’ keelhauled an’ all, or my name’s not Captain James the Silver of the good ship Turbulent Cadaver.

It’s the time of year us pirates git together ter discuss the critical issues of the day: how many man can you git on a dead man’s chest? We’ve managed sixty three, but admittedly we did have to snap some of the rib-bones off ter git a bigger surface area for me dastardly crew to stand on. Took a while to get the fo’castle cleaned properly that day, I kin tell you. I was whippin’ away half the afternoon to get the salty seadogs that make up me crew to get it sorted.

Now, if ye’ll excuse me, I’ve got ter go and set the black spot on a piece o’ landlubbin’ scum who never paid back the doubloons he borrowed off o’ me. And I need to get the Turbulent Cadaver into dock anyway. There’s a problem with the mizzen mast. It broke off in a blow, and now it’s mizzen’. And don’t forget to shiver yer timbers, lads. And not just lads: Cap’n James the Silver is always prepared te offer any lusty pirate wenches a warm welcome… and something more besides.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a joke I’ve pinched from Mr. Conyard in the dockyard:

Q. How can you tell if yer a pirate?
A. You just arrrrrr

[Anyone wanting the pirate image for their own purposes is welcome to use it, but please don't hotlink to it - take your own copy and don't leach my bandwidth. It is by J.J. McCullough, who has released it into the public domain. You can find a much larger, better version of the image at file:piratey on Wikipedia.]

For example, on the net TYPING EVERYTHING IN BLOCK CAPITALS, PARTICULARLY LONG SENTENCES AND EXTENDED PARAGRAPHS CAN BECOME DIFFICULT TO READ (ESPECIALLY FOR PEOPLE WITH DYSLEXIA) AND COMES ACROSS AS ‘SHOUTING’.

It’s also rude. It’s difficult to read, and it implies that the convenience of the person doing the typing is more important than readability, as if someone is telling you that “my opinions are so important that I don’t have the time to consider your convenience”.

At least, that’s how I judge every comment I find typed completely in block capitals. If you really can’t be bothered with correct capitalisation or punctuation, why should you expect anyone else will want to bother with your opinion — the impression given is that your opinions and arguments will probably have been constructed in the same haphazard and slapdash factor.

The comedian David Mitchell makes a similar point about judging people who use poor spelling and grammar here.

I have to say that I think this depends on precisely what the problem with your grammar and spelling is. I am not going to object to the odd spelling mistake or typo in a personal blog environment, nor am I ever going to complain about a conversational style, because to me blogs are an informal environment and that is perfectly reasonable. Of course, as that is my style, and I am prone to the odd typo (but hopefully not too many), I was bound to say that, wasn’t I?

But I still have my own little bugbears. I object to people using “they’re”, “there” and “their” incorrectly. I object to the grocers’ plural. That doesn’t necessarily stop me taking the piss myself, mind you, as one of my relatives who had just scored 100% on a their / they’re / there test on facebook found out…

But all that was just disguising a serious point. If you don’t use the right word, then many people, myself included, will judge you on this basis, and what is worse, we will also judge your opinions more harshly. If you can’t work out which word you should have used their, then we will ask ourselves whether you are likely to have made similar mistakes when constructing your arguments or opinions. We will tend to judge them more harshly.

And then there’s swearing and txtspk. Personally, I don’t object to text-speak acronyms too much, and will now and again use some of them — LOL, ROFL and IMHO being the most common, although I have also succumbed to OTOH, FWIW and IANAL (particularly when giving advice).

However, I’ll tend to use one or two, and — and this is the thing which bugs me — I won’t randomly remove vowels from stuff I am typing online, jst 2 mk it shrtr. For me this just adds to the reading difficulty for no appreciable benefit.

I will try not to judge a comment along the lines of…

LOL! Wnt 2 pub — gr8 nite out — rat (_o_)

…on this basis, because in informal communication, particularly on places like Facebook, I probably wouldn’t have been main audience this was aimed at, and it’s not exactly someone attempting to provide advice or more formal support in some way.

And then that brings me to swearing. While I frequently joke I do, I don’t actually buy into the cod-latin motto of Roger’s Profanisaurus (the ultimate swearing dictionary):

Swearwordum est maximus et sapiensRoger’s Profanisaurus

…”swearing is big and clever”. But nor do I think it isn’t big and clever. It’s all down to usage, and knowing what is appropriate in particular circumstances. The level of swearing I use in the blog I don’t think is particularly high, although I’ll piss, and shit, and throw in the odd fuck now and again, these tend to fall into my mental categories of ‘appropriate swearing’.

For me, appropriate swearing is:

• When the swearword is the most appropriate term. For example, I feel the phrase “taking the piss” works better than “taking the mickey”
• When the swearword is quoting direct speech.
• To emphasise a point, or also to contrast a point by throwing in a seemingly incongruous swear word, you fucker

Obviously, what is the most appropriate term may well very according to the circumstances. I could refer to the same sort of thing in a number of different ways…

• To one of my children: “Don’t step in the dog poo!”
• To an official: “There is a problem with dog excrement in the park”
• In relaxed informal conversation: “We nearly trod in the dog shit”
• In relaxed informal conversation when I’m not so sure of the other person’s attitude towards swearing, I might use a milder “We nearly trod in the dog crap”.

I don’t see it as a decline in moral standards for newspapers to sometimes use swearwords. It’s interesting and it reflects the editorial stance of the newspaper, what they find offensive. I seem to recall (although I couldn’t swear to it) that The Sun had reported Ron Atkinson as saying that Marcel Desailly was a “lazy f***ing nigger”, whereas The Guardian had reported it as “lazy fucking n****r”, showing a significant difference in the bit they termed offensive.

FWIW, my opinion is that ‘bad’ language (i.e. swearing) isn’t bad at all when used appropriately but that there is little place for racist language (except that I think that it’s appropriate when talking about racism, as above).

Tom Hume has used an API to look at swearing in The Guardian. (Please note: his photo is ‘all rights reserved’: I specifically asked and received permission to use it)

It appears that there has been quite a rise in shits and fucks reported since 1999 (shits appearing in nearly 0.9% of articles now — 0.9% is the top mark on the Y axis), although my favourite quote is from the guy who produced the image:

Wank is massively underperforming over the last decade, whilst cock is flat; Tom Hume: Tracking UK Liberal Indecency

But, and it’s a fairly big but, incessant swearing will switch me off just as quickly as block capitals. Again, this depends on circumstances, in the pub my own personal swearometer appears to crank up a notch or three, so I won’t judge language there, but in written text — blog posts, comments, and so on — then I tend to start judging, particularly if I feel the swearing has been used instead of punctuation and is not necessary in the context.

I had intended to try and find an example of this sort of thing to show you, but if you start searching for “fucking cunt” in google, you will find that quite a number of the results returned do not relate specifically to swearing. So I’ll just leave that. But hopefully you know the sort of thing I mean.

So there are a lot of ways that I will judge you based on not what you say, but how you say it. And, like I said, I’m far from being the only person who will do this. If you want your message to be heard, I’m not asking for perfection, but if you could have a reasonable stab at the following list, I’d be more likely to actually give your message due consideration.

• Don’t type in block capitals
• Have a reasonable stab at spelling, punctuation and grammar, although I don’t expect perfection
• Don’t over-use txt-spk.
• Don’t swear where it is inappropriate to the context, and don’t swear incessantly even if some use may be appropriate

I don’t expect perfection, but if you want me to take the time to read whatever it is, I expect you to put at least a little effort in…

For the most part this appears to be because they are in incomprehensible managese (like legalese, only more for managers) such as “predictors of beaconicity”, although in some cases it’s because while they are relatively comprehensible, there are simpler words which would work better, only wouldn’t generally get used because they don’t sound ‘cool’ enough.

For example, tranche is to be discouraged. It means ‘slice’. The LGA quite reasonably make the point that if you mean slice, why not say so?

Some words which have become fairly standard ‘in-house’ are criticised — “procure”, “benchmarking”, “can do culture” and the like are suggested should be dropped, although the LGA is less than coherent about what should be used instead.

This is a great idea, and I’m all for our councils (and our MPs, MEPs*, and our justice system) actually learning to speak in what I would term as English. However, there are two major problems with this.

* whether or not I’m standing.

The first one would appear to be that councils don’t listen to the LGA. What makes me say this? Well, it sounded vaguely familiar for a start and the BBC article where I first noticed this report has some links at the side, suggesting that the LGA have attempted to ban jargon before.

For example, if we look at the Guardian from June last year, we see:

The LGA has listed 100 words or phrases that public bodies should avoid if they want to communicate effectively with people.

The list, which has been sent to councils across the country, includes such abominations as “value-added”, “improvement levers”, “predictors of beaconicity”…The Guardian: Striking A Blow For The Jargon-Haters, June 2008

Chortle. There’s that “predictors of beaconicity” again. And if we look back a little further, we’ll find the same thing in February 2008 (referring to the first list of December 2007).

The Local Government Association’s list of 100 words that should not be used in communication with the general public makes for alarming reading.

It ranges from the slightly muddled such as “revenue stream” [money] and “best practice” [right way to do things] to the downright flabbergasting “predictors of beaconicity”

BBC News: Why do councils love jargon?, February 2008

Hmm. It would appear then that one of three things is happening. The first possibility is that the LGA is toothless and irrelevant as the fact that they have felt the need to include “predictors of beaconicity” on each list to date would seem to indicate that councils are ignoring what the LGA have to say and continuing to spout the seem meaningless garbage that they have done for some time.

Or secondly, it could be that Councils aren’t actually using the term “predictors of beaconicity”, only it’s too good a jargon term for the LGA to drop from their list. Which would seem to imply that the LGA’s list isn’t based on actually helping the man on the street, it’s about trying to grab headlines.

Hmm. How could one possibly research such a thing?

It would appear from my rather cursory research that Councils haven’t been the ones using the term “Predictors of beaconicity”. Nope, this was Central Government. On Hazel Blears’ watch, the Communities and Local Government Department produced a report called — guess what? — Predictors of Beaconicity in November 2007. Not, you’d note, Local Authorities at all.

It would appear from my refined search that a grand total of no councils whatsoever have used the phrase ‘predictors of beaconicity’ except — and this is important — when referencing the LGA list of words that they shouldn’t use.

It would therefore appear that the LGA have not only banned councils from using a phrase which none of them were using in the first place, but it has then been directly responsible for the only references to the phrase which exist on council sites…

How is this actually helping local government? Or, for that matter, the proverbial ‘man in the street’? Is the LGA incapable of doing any research? Or is it just that it’s less effort to continue to regurgitate out-dated and inaccurate information?

It does surprise me somewhat — although it probably shouldn’t — that the media seem prepared to accept this LGA release verbatim, without questioning any of it. This is reflected in the way in which this story is covered in various places, which seems to work from the assumption that councils are using these terms, without any actual evidence provided to support it. I’m sure some of the terms are being used, but the one I looked at wasn’t and the LGA are surely doing Local Government in the UK a disservice by implying that they do…

If you’re in the mood for a bit of a laugh at ‘those mandarins in city hall’, you can even take part in the BBC Midweek Quiz: Council Jargon. Again, note the assumption that because the LGA say it’s a banned word, councils must currently be using it. Perhaps the LGA could put their banned word list to more effective use next year by naming and shaming those councils it believes are responsible for most of this jargon, with more cited examples. That way we wouldn’t just have to take their word for it.

Oh, and that BBC Quiz itself isn’t perfect. I got one of the answers wrong, which left me with 5 out of 6 answers correct. I wasn’t therefore too surprised to find that I had ended up in the second category “4 – 6: Make some sense”. However I did feel that the BBC were perhaps making it a little difficult to get the top score of “plain speaking”, with 7 correct answers needed from only 6 questions.

Although it maybe suggests that the BBC’s fact-checking is no better than the LGA’s.

Getting back to my original rant, what’s the third possibility? That the LGA list is made up and irrelevant to what councils actually use and that councils are ignoring it anyway. And after all, why should councils be expected to listen to the LGA when they don’t follow their own advice?

the LGA have some way to go in leading by example, judging by their own website. I searched “place shaping” and got 302 hits. Stakeholder got 347. Third sector 412. Interface 126. Synergies a more modest 51 but as the LGA themselves ask: “Why use at all?”Conservative Home | Local Government

And that brings me rather neatly to the second problem with the LGA list. At the bottom of the press release it says “200 words and their alternatives”. Now I don’t know about you, but I take alternatives to mean “what should be used instead”. Yes?

This would seem to be backed up by them saying things like…

• advocate — support
• autonomous — independent

LGA

But then their suggestions for alternatives get a little weirder…

• CAAs — why use at all?
• Cautiously welcome — devil in the detail
• holistic — taken in the round
• social exclusion — poverty

There’s a mix of problems here. Firstly ‘why use at all’ isn’t an alternative to CAAs. It is instead an acronym for the Civil Aviation Authority. Or possibly a Comprehensive Area Assessment. If you are referring to either one of these, surely you’ve got to call them something, and saying that “we’re carrying out a why use at all? of your local area to determine how best to spend public funds” doesn’t really make that much sense.

Secondly, ‘cautiously welcome’ and ‘devil in the detail’ are not direct alternatives either. What is meant is that when you say ‘cautiously welcome’, you presumably ought to expand on what you’re welcoming, and what you’re being cautious about, otherwise it doesn’t really mean anything other than you’re sitting on the fence whilst trying to appear positive. Unfortunately, as they’ve just listed these four words, this may not be clear.

And why on earth would anyone think ‘taken in the round’ is a clearer explanation for ‘holistic’? Surely an ‘overall’ view is much plainer English?

And sadly, the Local Government Association, whom I really would have thought ought to have known better, have assumed that social exclusion = poverty. Simple as. Except it isn’t that simple. People may be socially excluded for a number of factors. Sure, poverty is a common factor in social exclusion, but sexuality, religion, class, disability, education, geographic location, and age are all frequently reasons people may be socially excluded. Poverty is therefore not a suitable alternative to the phrase ‘social exclusion’.

I really would have expected the Local Government Association to have known better. Then again, I would have expected their list of discouraged words to have had some greater relevance to the words which councils were actually using. I would, at the very least, have expected them to follow their own advice. It’s almost enough to make you wonder if @localgovernment isn’t a spoof…

Oh, yeah, and I know I covered this in more detail in my Equality series of posts last year, and in my power of names post, but I’ve got some new things to add…

I encounter many people — usually just in passing — who, while they would not use the word nigger in conversation (on the basis that irrespective of their personal feelings, they know it will be found offensive) are quite happy to refer to ‘pakis’ and ‘chinks’. Depending on who they are, and what the circumstances are, I may take the time to tell them that I find the use of the word offensive, particularly if they are someone I am likely to engage in conversation again.

But we have to remember that it isn’t just racial names which are inappropriate and should not be used. You have terms such as ‘fag’ and ‘queer’ for homosexuals which would usually be seen as offensive if used by someone who is not gay, but I have known to be used by gay people, much in the same way that some black musicians use the word ‘nigga’ (these would generally be the same ones who use offensive terms to describe women, too).

Note however that this brings up two issues: firstly, does someone have the right to take offense at someone else using a word which they themselves would use? Secondly, should the term not be avoided anyway, as there is some argument that some civil rights groups would object to any use of the term.

And then you have the issue of the terms being used out of context. Famously, Chris Moyles described a ringtone as ‘gay’ because he didn’t think it was very good. It appears that he has misappropriated the word to mean that something is rubbish and defended this on the basis that other people have used it to mean this.

Well, for a start, I think he’s got the etymology wrong: I think gay to rubbish went along the lines of gay = feminine = weak = feeble = rubbish. Which, no matter how you cut it, still looks offensive to me. But if he’s allowed to redefine terms like this, just think how wonderful it would be if we could get this phrase into common usage…

Urrgh! I’ve just stepped in a Moyles!

Then we’ve got things like Little Britain, which has characters such as Maggie Blackamoor (who vomits copiously any time something foreign or homosexual is mentioned), the university secretary (?) Linda who offers insulting comments about various sorts of people (gay, disabled, foreign); Lou and Andy, the allegedly-disabled person and his carer, and various other similar characters. In short, mostly relating to people who are unusual in physical appearance (fat, disabled); have some sort of non-”normal” sexual preference (homosexuality, transvestitism), are from a foreign country or something similar, and the humour is derived from situations around that.

It’s one of those things where some people think that it is being offensive to minority groups, and some people think it is joking about the perceptions people have about minority groups and the way they tend to be treated. To be honest, I think this is a hard one to call; I come down on the side of it’s a program about perceptions, but the character Alf Garnett, whilst intended as a satire on bigotry, ended up being seen as somewhat of a hero to those he was supposed to be satirising.

And then you get some words which are deemed so offensive that the community in question has made no attempt to reclaim them, and indeed are actively campaigning for them not to be used. One such word is retard.

While it could be argued that the use of this word has been encouraged by the Tropic Thunder controversy, where a number of disability advocates have suggested that large parts of the fun are there basically to make fun of people with intellectual disabilities, it is possibly also true that the controversy stirred up has actually made more people aware of how offensive the term is, and how frequently jokes are made at the expense of the disabled.

Racism and homophobia are far from beaten, but there is an increasing acceptance that these are wrong. But all too frequently disablism is allowed to go unchallenged. It’s time to stop that.

Our choice of language frames how we think about others.
It is time to respect and value people with intellectual disabilities.
It is time to accept and welcome us as your friends and neighbors.
Change the conversation … stop using the r-wordThe R-Word

You can even pledge not to use the r-word, although I think actually treating other fellow human beings as, well, fellow human beings is probably a good start in itself.

For example, The American Family Association don’t like the word ‘gay’. They instead prefer to use the word ‘homosexual’, presumably as ‘gay’ doesn’t sound disapproving enough. That’s all very well up to a point, but as the Washington Post pointed out when quoting the report from the American Family Association, it does cause problems when you encounter someone like the sprinter Tyson Gay…

Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he’s certainly someone to watch in Beijing.

“It means a lot to me,” the 25-year-old Homosexual said. “I’m glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me.”

American Family Association report, as quoted on the Washington Post Blog

And now we’ve got the iTunes store getting quite upset about certain words which may cause offence. Words like ‘hot’, ‘teen’, and ‘pussy’ — which admittedly when appearing together look a bit dubious — have been censored.

As the BBC points out, this means we have songs by J****y Cash, we have Nirvana’s classic ‘Smells like T**n spirit’ and even a recording of The Owl and the P***ycat.

Now I can understand that the iTunes store is reluctant to show explicit song titles on it’s site for fear of offending people and so blanks them out, but this rather misses the point. If kids can still purchase the songs with the offensive lyrics, then you’ve not protected them at all — you’ve in fact made money from facilitating their purchase of offensive songs. If you don’t want kids to see offensive titled songs, introduce some sort of age checking — allow those over 18 access to see and purchase these songs if they want, but don’t allow youngsters the facility.

Because I am more likely to get offended by the idea that I need to be ‘protected’; that I am somehow going to be corrupted, offended, or sent into a state of shock by seeing or hearing some word. It’s like when you hear a song on the radio and it has quiet bits in it where they’ve blanked out the swear words. If you don’t think it’s appropriate don’t play the expletive deleted song, rather than playing some butchered version of it.

I don’t find sexual references, or strong language offensive. I do find homophobia and racism offensive. Other people will have different beliefs, and may have different tolerance levels for different things. Still, at least I don’t live in an area which has ‘the Scunthorpe Problem’:

The problem was named after an incident in 1996 in which America Online’s dirty-word filter prevented residents from the town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England from creating accounts with AOL, because the town’s name contains the substring…Wikipedia: The Scunthorpe Problem

As the article goes on to point out, residents of Penistone, of Lightwater, and people searching for information about the footballer Nwankwo Kanu have all encountered similar problems. Also, the term ‘socialist’ has been blocked in many cases for containing the string ‘cialis’.

Now I’m not in favour of censorship in the first place (although I do, for example, try to avoid listening to music with more er… robust … language when my kids are in the car) but there can really only be only word for censorship done so badly. Or you could call it censor****, if you’d prefer

Those of you who know me know I like word games, so when I found a little application on Facebook where it gives you six letters and you’ve got to make as many words out of that as possible to score points, I was bound to be interested.

There are various bonuses to be obtained — a four letter word will give you an extra 2 seconds play time, whereas a five letter word will give you an extra 3 seconds time and a six letter word will give you the extra three seconds plus a bonus round where you have to unscramble one of your friends names.

I’m quite smug about the fact that I’m sitting out there on 36,000 points, some 15,000 clear of my nearest friend, and that I’ve qualified as an anagram cyborg (the highest grade). However, I do recognise that it’s only a game and also that some people have scored comfortably over 200,000+ points (some are reporting 1,000,000+ points) but even if I could keep gaining bonus time, I don’t think I would have the patience to sit at the computer for that length of time…

I do like the ranking system though — depending on how many points you score, it describes your vocabulary as being equivalent to various things including a mime or a playground bully (poor scores), through a celebrity chef and a circus ringleader, through lawyer, librarian, scribe and scientist, philosopher and what I had assumed to be the top grade — poet (as all the other grades cover a range of about 800 points, and this one goes from 20,800 all the way up to 29,999).

If you’re already on facebook, and you like word games, why not give this one a try? Only don’t beat my score else I’ll feel obliged to waste even more of my time trying to get the high score amongst my friends again…

Basically, the idea is to write a blog post for Sunday 1st June — about whatever it is I would fancy writing about in a particular day — but to write the entirety of the post in a different language. It doesn’t have to be a long post. It just has to be in a foreign language (and not provided via one of them automatic translation thingummies). If it’s any consolation to the anyone reading this who is absolutely terrified by the idea, I can assure you that my foreign language skills are at a similar, if not lower, level.

I can vaguely remember a few German words, and I can remember more in French, but other than explaining how I go to school when it is raining, or to explain to someone that I am not a fitted carpet (why I ever thought that was likely to crop up in conversation, I’m not sure)

Je ne suis pas une moquette

Anyway, if anyone thinks that they fancy the challenge, let me know… I’ll keep a list of anyone who fancies trying it!

Well of course that’s unfair. I said exactly that about 18 months ago when I launched my personal campaign for user friendly licences, which rather fizzled to a halt. But the 3-point plan I had then is still what I’d like to see on licences now:

• A plain English summary of the license agreement is presented in not more than 300 words at the top of the license that does not require reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level.
• All boxed products to have at least this license summary printed on the outside of all packaging where it can be read before buying it.
• Ensure that the law is clear and it is widely known that anyone rejecting any license agreement terms not explicitly stated on the packaging can return the product to where they bought it for a full refund.

Me, back in September 06

The NCC have referred the details of some licence agreements to the OFT, including those belonging to Adobe, Microsoft and Apple amongst others.

For further information — including the full report — take a look at the NCC’s press release.

The Goldfish feels that the idea of upholding an ideal of British Values is wrong, because to do so smacks of arrogance, of a permanence that doesn’t exist (what the values of today’s society are may not be the values we cherish in 30 years), and because it’s pointless — a British person is a British person, irrespective of whether they buy into all of these values.

I agree with all of the points she is making, at least to some extent. But that’s not going to stop me arguing with her!

Firstly, arrogance. I think I’m in broad agreement with what the Goldfish is saying: that we shouldn’t assume British values are inherently better than anyone else’s values, but I disagree with the thrust of her argument here.

In order for something to be British, it has to belong to Britain and the British people, as opposed to other countries and other peoples. It has to be something uniquely ours, like British Beef or the British weather. In order to have a set of values, a set of moral tenants which are unique to Britain, we must believe that the people of other countries in the world do not hold these values — or at least they don’t in great number.

Therefore, in order for such a set of British Values to exist, we must be morally superior to other countries and other peoples in the world.The Goldfish

Take the cherished “British Sense of Fair Play”. And let’s ignore the fact that not every Brit exhibits it. Does it mean when we cherish the “British Sense of Fair Play”, we’re meaning that other countries don’t play fair? Of course not.

What we are saying is that this is a value we are proud of, that we identify with. Citizens of other countries are perfectly entitled to choose that value too, but they may prefer to identify with “diligence”, or “artistic”, “fine brewers” or “not being obsessed by whether or not the EU have rulings about the straightness of bananas”.

So I don’t think that by referring to a British sense of fair play, I’m excluding any other country from it. I’m just saying that it’s a value that I, as a British subject citizen choose to identify with. I don’t see that as arrogance.

Secondly, pointlessness. This one I find it harder to disagree with. I wouldn’t say someone is less British if they don’t like Real Ale and Cricket. I’d say that was their misfortune, but it doesn’t make them less British. Like the Goldfish, I too have heard the “if you believe that you aren’t a true American” line trotted out by people wanting to prop up their otherwise failing arguments (“requiring websites to be accessible is unamerican!”), and I too am tired of it.

Similarly, some people would suggest a shared value is our allegiance to the Crown; we’re all British subjects and should do what Liz II jolly well tells us. Well as a semi-republican (don’t particularly mind the Royal family per se, I just consider myself a British citizen) I don’t see why it’s necessary for them to have any constitutional role at all.

So that might make it more difficult to come up with shared “British Values” that everyone agrees with. But you could still surely get some that the majority would agree with…

And then onto permanence. Intolerance of bigotry is seen (by most) as a good value now, but it wasn’t so long ago that the overall “British Values” would have been rather homophobic, rather racist, rather sexist and so on. And even if racism and jokes against stereotype haven’t been exactly encouraged recently, you’d be surprised at how recently “me want pullee Christmas clacker!” was seen as perfectly appropriate for someone Chinese in a kids book (1978 Rupert the Bear annual, the chinese doll story). And that’s before we even consider stuff like Tintin in the Congo.

The Goldfish talks about the ongoing exchange of ideas being essential. But to me, that in itself is a “British Value”. Us Brits are a mongrel nation: a bit of anglo-saxon, a bit Viking, a bit Norman, a bit who knows what else: throughout our history we’ve absorbed other cultures, digested ‘em, and picked out ideas, thoughts, and vocabulary from them. One of my “British Values” is to embrace this melting pot and enjoy the richness of British culture, which is only possible because it has drawn from so many others.

And sure, there’s things to be proud of too. Abolishing slavery, and fighting against it, for a start. And there’s things we ought to be ashamed of, too: like … um … well, slavery. If we can accept the things our country and our people have done wrong (and in some cases still do) while being proud of the things we do right, I’ve got no problem with that. To me, that’s patriotism. It’s tribalism writ large: and I’m a proud North-Easterner, and I’ll admit that.

But that tribalism is only a problem when you use it to say my tribe is better than your tribe; striving to make your tribe one you can be proud of is a perfectly worthy goal (and doesn’t mean other people can’t be proud of their own). If you view your country, your region or your tribe through rose-tinted lenses, you won’t get to appreciate what other tribes, regions and countries have to offer, you’ll have a more narrow-minded view and that doesn’t really help anyone.

Patriotism is seeing your country as it is — successes and failures — and striving to make it better. That’s my England. That’s my Britain. That’s my patriotism.

Well, after that game, they got a proper goalkeeper, and lost the next match 5-1 before winning their third 6-4. Unfortunately, this hypothetical team’s entirely hypothetical goalkeeper then picked up rather too many injuries from diving about and so they needed a new keeper.

Hypothetically, they asked me. I warned them I wasn’t a very good hypothetical goalkeeper (nor indeed a particularly good actual one): I’ve got reasonable reactions (certainly better than some) but I’m not in the same hypothetical class as their previous hypothetical goalkeeper. Since I arrived, we’ve lost 8-3 and 17-0. Although in my defence, the team that beat us 17-0 have previously beaten the 22-0 team, so they are theoretically a better team. And I’d point out that our “nil” would indicate that most of the play was around our goal.

Still, on the bright side, I saw more of the ball than most of my team mates. Frequently from close range. Including in the side of the face after about thirty seconds and right into my chest after about four minutes.

Our main problem is we’re all really unfit. Our second main problem is that for the most part, we’re fairly shit, but it’s the third problem I want to talk about: the fact that one of our team members finds us all completely incomprehensible most of the time.

She’s a girl.

Well, technically she’s a woman, as she’s actually aged… um … twenty one and a bit … but the main problem is us lads have all played five-a-side before, and she hasn’t, and some shouts have got her confused. So for the benefit of this hypothetical player on a hypothetical team, I bring you the actual guide to five-a-side jargon.

Hit It!

Doesn’t mean: punch the ball

Doesn’t mean: play that funky music, DJ

Does mean: Shoot!

Line!

Doesn’t mean: I’ve spotted some cocaine on the floor

Doesn’t mean: Form an orderly queue and wait your turn for the ball

Does mean: hit the ball up (or down) the side of the pitch in a straight line

Square!

Doesn’t mean: it’s time for a square dance

Doesn’t mean: you’re really boring and unhip

Does mean: pass the ball across the pitch (usually towards the centre, but depends where you are)

Time!

Doesn’t mean: I’m terribly afraid I’ve left my watch in the changing rooms. Could you tell me what time it is, if you would be so good?

Doesn’t usually mean: That’s it, game over

Does usually mean: you’ve got a second or two, no need to panic

Man On!

Doesn’t mean: … I don’t really know what else you could take this to mean, to be honest

Does mean: one of their players is right next to you and is going to try and take the ball off you. Try to avoid them doing so, if you could

If you can think of any more that would aid the understanding of this hypothetical language barrier, let me know…