Above one of the buses operating the Truro Park & Ride service run by Cornwall County Council.
Most BG readers will not understand today’s title. Indeed, neither do I! It was produced by me typing the words “good” and “day” into this (https://www.cornishdictionary.org.uk/) Cornish to English translator website.
I live in the Land’s End ward and my councillor is Brian Clemens an independent. When people living in my ward travel to Truro by car most of us use the park & ride service as it is an excellent service. The buses are clean, the service regular and it is much easier and more convenient than driving into the city centre and searching and then paying to park the car!
I moved down to Cornwall on Sunday 9th February 2014 and the first time I used the service was surreal. In part because I naturally compared the experience with similar experiences I had had living in the West Riding of Yorkshire. However the reason for me using the word “surreal” and not the words “quite different” was due to a recording played over the vehicles public address system announcing the next stop. Anybody who has travelled on the London underground will of course be familiar with this form of PA. What causes me to use the word “surreal” was the language used! You see, when travelling on London’s world famous “tube” the announcements are in English. The announcements on the Truro park & ride buses are in Cornish!
When I heard it I was delighted! Why? Because it brought home to me that I had moved into a completely different part of my county! As I alighted from the bus I spoke to the bus driver saying that this was a surprise to me as I had recently moved down to Cornwall. With a very broad grin he replied. “Yeh. Nobody understands it!”
Some may say that this is a waste of Council Tax. Far from it! Even though I don’t speak Cornish and have no plans to learn it, I fully support the council devoting money to this and would complain to my councillor were the council to consider scrapping this and having an English language replacement instead.
There is a wider issue here and this is a matter of what we could define as “cultural sovereignty”. This is a much broader issue than the one that preoccupies French politicians and campaigners in seeking to remove non French influences in the French language. I would resist any such campaign to do similar with English. English is a famously magpie language taking words from other languages and adopting them for common or occasional use.
The problem we in as a nation (and I mean the UK) have is that English is spoken across the world and most of the English speakers live outside the UK. The largest concentration of people using English as a first language are of course in the USA.
One of the problems we have as a nation of English speakers is that the internet is dominated by businesses and organisations located in the USA and controlled by citizens of the USA. Prime examples are Facebook and Google.
Now at this point many BG readers may ask: “How is this a problem?” And, “What does it matter?”
It matters because these companies follow the cultural practises, mores and social traditions of the USA and these can often differ from those in the UK. This in particular applies to the way the search engine Google filters and presents results. The programmers setting these apply what they would call “American standards and values”. Were they – for let us say eccentric reasons – to apply “British standards and values” their users – the largest concentration of whom are located within the USA would notice a difference and a large number would draw this to Google’s attention and quite a number would complain. As a reputable and honest business Google would in these circumstances give a straight answer to a straight question. To the question from a US Citizen, “Why have the search results changed?”, were Google to answer, “Because we have from [month, day, year] applied British standards and values and are no longer applying American standards and values.” The US Citizen might very well complain to their US Congressperson.
Now one can bet your bottom dollar that whether that US Congressperson was a Democrat or a Republican they would inform Goggle in no uncertain terms that as an “American” corporation they will apply American standards and values and NOT the standards and values of a foreign state!
They may well state that….. “Yes, the Brit’s are our friends and allies, but WE are Americans!”
I regard this as important. Many BG readers (especially our American readers) will regard it as utterly unimportant!
This may well be regarded as a minor and completely trivial example, but I will make mention of it anyway. Before I do however, I will issue a variation on the warning, “Do not try this at home!” The variation being “Do NOT try this on the internet!”
Herewith below is an image of a famous lady, Linda Lusardi.
It was taken in the days when Linda was at the height of her fame as one of “The Sun” newspaper’s “Page 3 girls”. As you can see, the image is what in the UK we would define as “topless”; that is to say that Linda is wearing a bikini bottom but no top and thus her breasts and her nipples are displayed. This image however is regarded in the USA as a “nude” image. Nearly all images with actually show a woman’s nipple is classified as “nude”.
NB: Were Google and Facebook to change this policy and adopt the British practise and adjust their search engine and internet filters to accept the British understanding of “topless” when applied to female humans they would be in very severe trouble very quickly with a number of US organisations and campaigners. Were they to reply: “We are now applying British standards and values and are no longer applying American standards and values.,,,,” to say the reaction would not be favourable would be to understate matters enormously!!!!! Such a change is NOT going to happen!
Now to the dangerous bit, which I restate, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS!
Were a very, very, very, very stupid person – having found that typing in “topless” and “woman” does not bring in the results desired and on the (correct) understanding that images such as the one above is classed as a “nude” image by the US configured search engines, were to type into the Google search engine the search terms “nude” and “women”, he would get a large number of search results most of which would be pornographic websites displaying live or simulated sex scenes, male and female genitalia (being used) and images that can only be described as pornographic. In other words, filth!
The danger here is that such websites are targeted by criminals for infections with trojans and viruses and as a result of surfing onto these sites one will incur problems. There is a saying: “Lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas!” This is a VERY APT saying when using the internet!
So we repeat: DO NOT GO THERE!!!!!!
Again, many BG readers will ask: “Why does this matter?”
It matters because we as a nation should have facilities and services made available to us that are constrained and set up to comply with what is deemed acceptable in the UK and NOT that which is deemed acceptable in the USA.
So these question we have to ask is THIS: What do we do about it?
Well it is no good wasting effort, money and time trying to persuade such as Facebook and Goggle to do what they will never do! As for trying to persuade US politicians to assist the UK in this matter, I think you would have greater chances of success trying to persuade Nigel Farage to join the Liberal Democrats!
About the only way to tackle this internet problem is to set up British based, British run versions of Facebook and Google. We suggest non commercial versions as many internet users do not like the adverts and artificial intelligence software that Facebook and Google bring with them. Of course that would mean the platforms could not make any money!
The obvious organisation to set up and run such operations is the BBC!
Yes! That’s right! The left wing, green BBC! Yes they may be left wing. Yes they may be green. But they are British!
This is why I think the reforms suggested here (https://british-gazette.com/abolishing-the-tv-licence/) and the reforms suggested in Tuesday’s post (https://british-gazette.com/nadine-and-polly-handbags-at-dawn/) should be adopted.
Again, many BG readers will object because they (correctly) fear that the reforms proposed by the BG will not solve the problem of left wing and green bias at what the BG has repeatedly described as “the Balderdash Broadcasting Commissariat”. There are two very important points I would make:
Firstly: This is why it is VERY important to make the BBC democratically accountable! Yes, the setting up of banded constituencies is the most spectacular example of Gerrymandering since the US original! But at the end of the day, it is still democratic and gives some measure of influence to those taxpayers paying the most.
Secondly: A MOST important aspect of any functioning democracy is this: The loosing side MUST accept the result!
Were the reforms enacted and the votes take place it is entirely likely that the editorial behaviour of the BBC would not change. It would continue to have a left wing and green bias. We would still have BBC presenters rabbiting on about the planet heating up! The the way to win that argument is to campaign in the traditional ways! And accept, if we loose…… We loose!