Dr. Who - No, That's Dr. Dolittle!

Cotswold Wildlife Park

We took our annual pilgrimage to Cotswold Wildlife Park yesterday. Fascinating as the animals are, I've seen them umpteen times before, so tend to find my mind and ears wandering to the antics of the other primates on show at the park -- the human ape. The park is effectively just up the road from Swindon, so it's about a half an hour journey for my family to get there in the car. The eclectic mix of accents emanating from the transient population of humans is evidence of the park's popularity, not only from those within the UK, but also from farther afield, with visitors jetting in from around the world. As we started wandering around the exhibits on show, the comments of other visitors assailled my ears and, much to my wife's relief, I did not pass comment - except in my head...

Visitor: Look at those little otters!

Me: They're not otters, they're mongooses.

Otters

Mongooses

Visitor: Is that the anteater?

Me: No, that's a capybara.

Anteater

Capybara

Visitor: Look at that huge turtle!

Me: Tortoise.

Turtle

Tortoise

Visitor: I haven't seen a hippopotamus before.

Me: You still haven't. That's a rhinoceros.

Rhinoceros

Hippopotamus

Visitor: Aren't those meerkats sweet.

Me: Meerkats are sweet, but those are prairie dogs

Meerkats

Prairie Dogs

Visitor1: I like that wombat.

Me: You like a wallaby.

Wallaby

Wombat

Visitor2: That's not a wombat, it's a kangaroo.

Me: No, it's still a WALLABY!!!!

Growing up in the 1970's and 1980's, I watched a lot of wildlife documentaries like "The World About Us", "Wildlife on One" and anything connected with Sir David Attenborough. Going on the comments I was hearing yesterday, I must have been the only one.

Modern Britain

At one point at work last week, in the office which serves as home for eight hours of my day Sunday to Thursday, there were six of us; a Nigerian, a Romanian, a Slovakian, a Pole, a Nepalese and an Englishman. We work together for the sake of the common good of the Company and do an excellent job working as a team. As in all walks of life, there are disagreements and sometimes cultural differences cause misunderstandings, but, by and large, we are a cohesive unit, laughing and joking through the stresses and problems our industry throws at us every day. Twenty or thirty years ago, if someone had told the inhabitants of my industrial/rural town, set as a zirconia stone atop the golden Moonraker county of Wiltshire, that the demographics of the town would expand to include such a rich and diverse influx of migrants seeking economic stability and a life different to that which was their's back home in Africa, Europe and Asia, then a typical Swindonian would have looked upon such a statement with disbelief. The town had a thriving Italian and Polish community back then, but the diversity that is resident in the town now was something that was confined to the big cities of the United Kingdom; Birmingham, London, Manchester, Liverpool and their ilk.

As someone who finds anthropology fascinating, it has been interesting to see how my migrant

colleagues have adapted to their new life in Blighty. The most marked observation is in their use of language and their coming to terms with how the English they learned at school is so very different to that which is actually spoken by the indigenous Briton. Add to that the myriad of regional accents and it's no wonder that a simple phrase or instruction can be met by a blank look of incomprehension; imagine coming across someone with a broad Scouse, Geordie or Glaswegian accent for the first time and suddenly those hours of sitting in a classroom in Bucharest learning how to recite "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper" in a clipped Oxford English sibilation must seem like such a waste of time. As they settle into their new life, over time, the English of the phrase book is replaced with regional vernacular, aitches are dropped like a native and full integration is achieved when an expletive muttered under their breath is one which is in English and not their native language; I am cheered to hear one of my foreign colleagues call out "bollocks" when something goes wrong, as it means that they must be at home in their new English environment.