BREXIT Blues

Normally my first post of the year is the publication of one of my poems. I am breaking that tradition this year. I am not celebrating the more than six-hundred thousand viewings of my blog either.

[Image description: on a grey background the words “Sad, sad day. #BREXIT.”]

As a blog that proudly has the word European in its name, I am compelled to lament the United Kingdom leaving our friends, allies and main trading-bloc in the European Union.

I very much suspect that this action will be seen as foolhardy in the not too distant future. I fully anticipate that we Bremainers will fight for however long it takes to rejoin the EU in the future (just as the Brexiteers have fought to exit since the day we first joined in 1972, some forty-eight years ago). I suppose we need to let the old guard die off and then the youth and young adults can assert their optimism and hope in the European project.

Please do not give up on Britain, my fellow Europeans. We may be an island, but - in spirit if no longer legally - we are still part of the continent of Europe. I hope that the day will come very soon when we can once again proudly play Ode to Joy.

[Image description: the EU flag, twelve golden stars forming a circle on a Royal blue background]

Ciao! Bis bald! ¡Hasta pronto! Au revoir!

🤓

Liechtenstein

[Image description: flag of Liechtenstein]

My blog has just notched up several visits from someone(s) in Liechtenstein. Don't recall seeing Liechtensteiner visitors previously, but could just have missed them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein. (By the by, a female citizen is known as a Liechtensteinerin.) The country is sandwiched between Austria to the East and North and Switzerland to the West and South.

[Image description: map of Liechtenstein;

courtesy Wikipedia; commons ©;

author Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa)]

Whilst Liechtenstein is in continental Europe, it is not part of the EU, the European Union. Nonetheless, it is a signatory to the Council of Europe (since 1978), Schengen, the free movement agreement, EFTA and EEA.

Thanks for visiting, whoever you were. And how exciting to discover more about parts of Europe one knew next-to-nothing about!

Anglo-Swedish-German Entente Cordiale

A couple of evenings ago I was viewing "Inspector Barnaby", the German-language version of "Midsommer Murders". Last night I watched "Potiche" (Trophy Wife) with the stunning Catherine Deneuve and comedic Gérard Depardieu in French.

Yesterday afternoon I had a really interesting conversation in German and English on the merits of sport and travel as means of progressing mutual understanding between different nations and indeed regions within individual countries. My German-Swedish neighbours are returning home tomorrow. I shall miss our conversations across our respective balconies. Mind I did once meet them in the flesh as it were. On Sunday gone, we, along with much of the local and tourist population, were taking a long and leisurely stroll along the esplanade, the paseo marítimo, in the glorious sunshine and comparative warmth, when my companion and I encountered them not far from bar Maracas and near the castillo Bil-Bil. So close-up our neighbours were just as affable. How odd though to conduct conversations in four languages - English, Spanish, Swedish and German. And that was just the four of us! 

Virtually everyone one meets in Spain, or for that matter anywhere in Continental Europe, is a polyglot. It re-inforces how useful languages are and the ignominy that, as a nation, we Brits on the whole fail to live up to the mark of our European counterparts.

[Image description: Rosetta Stone courtesy Wikipedia]

Learning languages, like playing sport and travelling, helps to break down barriers, in that one comes to appreciate other cultures, other literatures, other politics and other ways of thinking and behaving. Communication is good for business and economies; it is good from a socio-cultural perspective; it is also good for peace.