Comments for Anglopole's Ponglish World

Comment on Back to uni! by anglopole

anglopole — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:19:20 +0000

oh, thanks, Awanturnica! ;p

Comment on Back to uni! by awanturnica

awanturnica — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:00:10 +0000

you made me laugh
i like that
hope to see you soon in GU1

Comment on The Isle of Dogs by Me

Me — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 20:55:26 +0000

Unfortunately even the ignorant have a voice that can influence many using this form of media.

The picture shown of the black dog is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

The dog mentioned in the story is a Bull Terrier, a completely different breed.

Looks can be deceiving. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier, also vastly different from the pitbull in size and temperament.

According to the ATTS (American Temperament Test Society), the Staffordshire Bull Terrier has an 88% pass rate, the Bull Terrier has a 91.2% pass rate, and here’s a shocker, the famous Golden Retriever had an 84.6% pass rate.

However, sometimes we do see these dogs being handled by less than responsible owners, and the dogs character reflects the owner. Just ask Cesar Millan of the Dog Whisperer show.

If these types of owners were all of a sudden fans of the Golden Retriever breed, we would all be typing about this breed instead.

I apologize I have to cut this thread short, family emergency

Comment on Back to uni! by anglopole

anglopole — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:24:39 +0000

Thanks, Gabriela!

Comment on Back to uni! by Gabriela

Gabriela — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:40:51 +0000

Congratulations! Some decisions may seem easy, but I guess they aren’t.
And I wish you luck with that IoL test.
¡Saludos!

Comment on Back to uni! by anglopole

anglopole — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:17:10 +0000

Well, Bedford Uni is the largest of its kind in the county. There is a technical college in Bedford as well, and funny enough it’s situated in the town centre and does actually looks like one of those ancient schools…. My guess is that Bedford Uni is relatively new and that some years back people had to go to other counties to study. Well, one can always tell me off by saying I could have gone for a course at Cambridge Uni which is not that far away from here. Yet, cost-wise Bedford uni is definitely more student friendly!

Comment on Back to uni! by Adam

Adam — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:27:28 +0000

I guess the answer here is that Bedford University is not a real University! Taking nothing away from the quality of teaching there, or the qualifications you can gain, this would have originally just been a small local technical college. Generally Universities in the UK are rather ancient and attractive, or ‘red brick’ but still quite imposing, and usually situated on a large campus.

Comment on The British Sense of Humour by Amber

Amber — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:11:46 +0000

I disagree, I feel that if you are offended by the British sense of humour then you don’t understand how we use it, and if you offend others with it then you’re not doing it right.

As a nation, we are extremely mocking of ourselves and others around us, but it /is/ meant for entertainment. Sarcasm is a bit of a social thing, and when you can be a moody and cynical old fart around someone you know you’ve bonded.

I think the key thing to remember is that an insult from a British person is not necessarily made in a nasty way. I feel that perhaps we are just generally afraid of letting our defences down, so adopt a permanently pessimistic stance, and derive humour from that. A British person finds it very difficult to compliment or encourage someone at the risk of sounding cheesy or fake, so, instead, to show appreciation we will make aa off-hand nasty comment. This may sound strange to others, but here we know other Brits will understand the sentiment and understand we don’t mean it. I guess we sometimes forget that other countries don’t share our natural black humour.

Comment on So, who are the racists in the UK? by anglopole

anglopole — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:10:54 +0000

Hi there Szczygielka! It’s great you choose to be undestanding towards Poles who, as you rightly said can be ‘as stupid as a box of hair’ about their approach towards strangers, especially those who are of different ethnic background! I have to say that whenever we (and we are a multi-colour family) visit Poland and get the stares from people all around, I do not find it remotedly funny. Even if the stares are not hostile, I just it really is stupid to be staring at someone just because they are black or mixed race!! After all, it is not that uncommon to meet ‘exotic’ foreigners in Wroclaw, where I come from, as it’s a university town!!!

Comment on So, who are the racists in the UK? by anglopole

anglopole — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:01:50 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Neil! Ignorance is indeed the devil that can be blamed for many things in many societies and I really like the fact there there are quite a lot of documentaries, chat shows etc. on the British tv that do give information and educate people about different culutres, ethnic groups, etc. Nevertheless, the 'Question Time' that was aired two weeks ago was quite a controversial happening, was't it? It was when Nick Griffin, the leader of BNP had a platform to have his say about some issues that are closely related with racial prejudice....This show confused many here as a general feeling is that even the freedom of speech should be safeguarded by some guidlines as to how far people can go in propagating their controversial views =>> One cannot condemn racism and treat is as illegal and at the same time allow an openly racist political party exist and spread its rather sick views. Equally irritating and often unhelpful is political correctness , supposedly meant to protect people from being racially abused. I'd say PC often makes people more racially aware. I really am wondering why we can't be as natural about ethnic difference as we are about languages - after all hardly anybody would claim one language to be objectively superior to another, or would they? Why can't people understand that 'different' doesn't mean 'worse'?