Category: confusion

If you are English your Northern accent may prevent you from being promoted into the high levels of the civil service and other places too

Since I read this article in the times newspaper I have been wondering how much further ahead I would have gone in my career if I did not have a Lancashire accent.

On reflection it seems a mistake to wonder about what might have happened but instead to concentrate on improving the future

I realise that what I could do do instead of learning the queen’s English I could learn to speak with a foreign accent instead.

I am very fond over the singer and poet Leonard Cohen and I have listen to him for hours and hours since being bereaved. He has a Canadian accent.Since a I love him it will be a tribute. So what I’m hearing him singing I try to to feel in my mouth and throat what he is doing with his.

I have got the accent for a few of the words but it’s taking me a long time, and now I have an accent which is a cross between Northern British, Canadian and Cockney.

It will give some researchers work because I won’t fit into one category,: when I was teaching in a university some people thought I was from the USA, other thought I was Dutch.

My name also causes problems because it’s Danish from the Vikings and it’s very hard for certain people to pronounce it or even try. Unless you’ve been living here only a few years you’ll be very puzzled. Someone who had come here from Eastern Europe asked me where I came from because she was sure my name was not English.She was trying to do some one-upmanship over someone who was less capable of adapting to life in the UK.

Is Boris Johnson English? I don’t think but he went to Eton so he has mixed with the the Royal the aristocats and the wealthy. So that is the accent that has learnt

Shall I keep my accent and it’s mixed sounds or shall I try to become totally Canadian? That does not have an answer but it has made me live longer trying to reconcile these differences and I suppose it would have been easier to go to an efficient teacher and learn to talk with BBC English or received pronunciation. That sounds quite religious as if Boris Johnson had climbed Snowdon and received the tablet from God tell ng him how to pronounce vowels.

Which way?

My path has been obscured by heavy rain

Tangled ancient brambles bite my flesh.

I am lost, will I get home again?

No one here will help me they all laugh

The rain that fell was not a cleansing wash

My path has been obscured by heavy rain

I did no wrong but still I feel ashamed.

My mind and my emotions sadly crashed

I am lost I can’t get home again

Wandering on my own without a path

Have I become a beggar, poor unwashed?

My path has been obscured by heavy rain.

Life is not a jigsaw nor a game

Did anyone at all ask where I was?

Feeling lost I can’t get home again

I must find a way I have no map.

Take me, take me, take me from this trap

My path was washed away by heavy rain

I’ve come so far, I wish my route was plain.

Jesus must be free

Jesus does not live within the church

Like the wild birds of the sky he’s free

Jesus is in no parrot with a perch

Nor does he require a bended knee

In the ancient buildings there’s some air

Quiet years of prayer have left a mark.

Yet its sad destructions caused despair.

The abbot of old Glastonbury stark

The restless ashes spread as in the air

The winds of love are heartless yet demure

Would it be a way to make things fair?

If there is a God he must be there.

Not with those who scandal eyes the poor

Soon they’ll have no shoes nor much to wear

Whores do not pay tax, oh what allure.

Christ and Mary Magdalene come by

How economics causes men to lie

The power of mathematics made the bomb

Soon the the earth shall burn to kingdom come.

Do not go

Those I thought were friends now slide away

Hiding in the shadows with no light

No mirror can reflect the sun today

Maybe it’s my eyes that cannot see

Blinded by the shock of what I read.

I thought that we were lovers you and me

The looks and glances, what you nearly said.

As for all the others let them lie.

I shall not hear their words my ears are shut

My heart has shrunk, and slow the time goes by

I feel the knife blade but I cannot cut.

Do not cast your friends off with no word.

We do not like to feel the world’s absurd

Buying the blue coat

In the year 1989 I learnt that one of my students a young woman called Heather who was married to another student was diagnosed with cancer of the bone.. she had told me in the summer term that she had a pain in her thigh.

I think I may have told them if I had surgery on my foot in 19 78 for a tumour between the bones

When we started the autumn term Heather told me that she has cancer and she was going to the Royal Marsden hospital for treatment that was the end of September l

ByChristmas time Heather has died leaving a young husband devastated

Before she got so much worse I went to see her in her flat on about the 20th floor of a tower block.

She was sitting at the table Open in front of her a text book and she show me that she waskeeping up even though she could not come to the classes.

When I was coming back from seeing heather the last time I went into Marks and Spencer’s and bought a blue coat.

I had the urge to take something in because I was going to lose someone.

It would have been more rational to give the money to Jeather who was very poor or to donate to an appropriate charity.

I remember after leaving Heather’s tower block I had to walk along the street in a very rough area and young men were swearing at me even though tears were running down my face like rain.

But Heather had never complained about that. But I realise why she had bought a dog

If I had not bought the blue coat I suppose I would have forgotten about it but we don’t know do we ?

Do you remember?

Do you remember before type C USB cords?

Before robot vacuum cleaners

Before swiping

Before digital cameras

Before smartphones with cameras

Before you could charge 4 things at once

Before you could charge anything.

Where we had telephone kiosks

And we got paper envelopes with letters inside

Before we could have live chats

With British gas or e.ON

When the children playing out of doors

Were we arguing about which TV programme to watch

When now we have our own screens

When will we stop having sex with another person

Yet we will have to fantasise or look at porn

There will be no exit from our heads

The vacuum cleaner will still work night and day

Do you remember?

Do you remember before type C USB cords

Before robot vacuum cleaners

Before swiping

For digital cameras

Before smartphones with cameras

Before you could charge 4 things at once

Before you could charge anything.

Where we had telephone kiosks

And we got paper envelopes with letters inside

Before we can have live chats

With British gas or e.ON

When the street was busy with women at home and children playing out of doors

Were we arguing about which TV programme to watch

When I know we have our own screens

When will we stop having sex with another person

Yet we will have to fantasise or look at porn

There will be no exit from our heads

Goodbye

I thought I loved a man with all my heart

Until I ate your famous apple tart.

I thought that I could live inside his arms

Till your heat destroyed his little charms

I was too kind so now I shall be cruel.

You must fight a sex fiend in a duel

I needed to escape his lassoo long

So I burst into a moralistic playgirl song

He could could afford no golden ring for me

He banks with only HSBBC.

I said he had to save me on his Drive.

He hates Google,ain’t that a surprise?

Never ever coming home again

Strong at the broken places by Katherine copyright 2007
Trees by Katherine Copyright
Blue by Katherine.Digital drawing

I’m going to give you medication now

To keep the sugar in your blood quite low

He fell, the War Memorial was, his doom

Broke his nose, not coming home

His eye bled and his brain

His cheekbone did complain

Oh, he’s never,never, coming home àgain.

In the ambulance they screamed

Whilst his blood congealed

He’s never never coming home àgain

They asked him could he count

Dying,I lament

God don’t mind dementia in the Saints

O cruel sun

The sun appeared but now has left us here

With dull grey sky and trees as cruel as spears

We control our homes as best we can

But. Nature is a Force more strong than Man

Even in our bodies we feel pain

Thus evil is around us like a stain

Why does God all powerful not step in?

When children die,when wars begin again?

When every state has weapons for mass kills

Jesus dies with victims of our Will

We allowed the government our tax

So our evil to the worst is matched

O cruel sun

The sun appeared but now has left us here

With dull grey sky and trees as cruel as spears

We control our homes as best we can

But. Nature is a Force more strong than Man

Even in our bodies we feel pain

Thus evil is around us like a stain

Why does God all powerful not step in?

When children die,when wars begin again?

When every state has weapons for mass kills

Jesus dies with victims of our Will

We allowed the government our tax

So our evil to the worst is matched

God is in and with the suffering not in church

By Katherine

One friend became an atheist till her grandson got cancer

Then she prayed

Let him get Better and I will start going to church again

Do we think God needs us to go to church?

He needs us to help the poor starving, suffering, lonely

Going to Church is for the Church

Power.

Did Jesus plan to build a Church?

It is ridiculous