The big freeze
EUROPE and North America are gripped in a mini Ice Age. The temperature in parts of Scotland drops at night to 22 degrees below freezing, about the same as at the South Pole. Does this mean the polar bears, threatened by global warming, should be translocated to Scotland?
One appreciates that the immediate concern is with getting salt grit onto the roads, making sure gas and electricity supplies continue and that communities that have been totally cut off are looked after.
But the freeze has been on for some time now. One might also have expected – given the volume of concern over global warming that reached a crescendo at Copenhagen – some kind of explanation from the scientific/climatologist community.
Is this a predictable side-effect of global warming? Is it an unexplained anomaly? Does anyone actually know what they're talking about? Surely we should be told.
Maybe the climatologists are busy with their computer models. Maybe they've gone into hibernation.
Corporate-speak
THE English language is taking a mauling. If it's not digital-speak or the public relations industry, it's the weird current Americanisms. People "appeal" a judgment instead of appealing against it. They "protest" an issue – which used to mean they support it – while in fact they are against it. And then there's the corporate boardroom.
Lucy Kellaway, of the Financial Times (London), has announced her 2009 Guff Awards for "paradigm-shifting, best-in-class management guff", proving that some managers "can still push the envelope and go the extra mile".
Examples:
· The best noun pretending to be a verb. Neil McMahon, an oil analyst, told the Wall Street Journal that Exxon "might be able to change the industry structure forever and gap away from competitors".
· The most grating use of the preposition "up". In previous years there had been some great entries: to head up and to flag up. But this year's award is to a persistent PR man who said in an unsolicited e-mail: "I wanted to circle up with you to make sure you had received my note below."
· In 2009, firing people was a popular activity. Air New Zealand announced it would "disestablish up to 100 long-haul cabin crew positions".
· The best new way of saying "I haven't got a clue": A pharmaceuticals manager said: "I don't have a good optic on that at the moment."
· For unnecessary euphemism the prize goes to Andrew Liveris, chief executive of Dow Chemical. When talking of various choices facing the company: "We have significant optionality."
· Mixed metaphor: Sebastian Coe, who has won gold medals for running, wins another in his platitude-rich autobiography The Winning Mind: "There are times when there is a need to dig deep and find another gear – while never losing sight of the bigger picture."
· Best staff notice: Nokia has in its staff car park in Peru. "It is me who arrives here, early in the morning, hoping to change the world." US evangelical corporate language has travelled to Finland then Peru and, as in Chinese whispers, emerged at the end with something like the original, only sillier.
· Best company song: Gazprom has a middle-aged Russian manager singing: "Don't bother trying, you'll never find a surer friend than Gazprom" – lyrics that manage to be simultaneously sinister and sentimental.
· The year's top cliché: "The elephant in the room". In the past year there has scarcely been a meeting anywhere in which an elephant has not pitched up at some point. In leading newspapers and journals alone, last year 3 700 elephants were reported as being in rooms, while in 2000 the number was only 175. "To sum up 2009 in one sentence: It was the year in which elephants bred like rabbits."
Lucy Kellaway herself deserves an award: Pricking the Pompous, Tackling the Twits - something like that.
Astronomy-speak
THE ABOVE recalls the famous lines:
Scintillate, scintillate, globul vivivic,
Fane would I fathom thy nature specific,
Loftily poised in the ether capacious,
Faintly resembling a gem, carbonaceous.
Which means, of course:
Twinkle twinkle little star,
How I wonder what your are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Tailpiece
MY girlfriend has gone on a diet of bananas and coconuts. She hasn't lost weight – but boy can she climb trees!
Last word
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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