Steph Micayle, Gangnam Style” acoustic cover

How do we feel about recycling?

What more do I need to say?

Kolaveri Di – the plasticity of the Tamil language

Recently I was sent this video of the Tamil song “Why this Kolaveri Di” (English version at end of post). I’ve only just found out that it was probably the most popular song of 2011. I have to admit, I have a rather slim grasp on my Tamil roots, so I had no either what it meant or what it was. So of course I went to Wikipedia: apparently, the song title translates as ‘Why This Murderous Rage, Girl?’ and the song is from the soundtrack of an upcoming Tamil film 3, due out this year, about a guy who is rejected by a girl. Anyway, this blog post is way behind the times, given that the song was released in November.

What’s really interesting is that the song is written in ‘Tanglish’, a Tamil/English hybrid, but that’s what interesting about Tamil, you don’t need to be really fluent in it to speak it, you can mix Tamil and English together in a way that you can’t (or not allowed to do) with English and other European languages (although not Tanglish). So listening to people talk conversationally over a period time I have found that slowly I have been able to understand things. I can speak Tamil, although perhaps not to the same level of my parents who came to England from Sri Lanka. When I was a child, they would often speak in Tamil if they didn’t want my sister or I to understand what they were saying, but as I got older, this became more and more difficult as I understood more and more.

Here’s an example of how Tamil and English fit together (not that you will probably need it). If you want to say “I would like (want) some food/dinner” in Tamil only (apologies for the English spellings):

Ennakku sharppadu vernum (Literally, for me dinner want). “

But you could also say:

Ennakku dinner/food-ikku vernum.”

Of course, probably because of colonial times, there are a number of English words for which there is no Tamil equivalent anyway, such as apple, (motor) car, orange and (ironically) tea, although they may be said in a Tamil accent – Ahpple, mohtar car, thear. And, there are apparently Tamil words that have become a part of English, such as catamaran and mulligatawny. So, and this post would not really be complete it I didn’t mention Hegel, there is arguably a Hegelian dialectic between Tamil and English. The two languages are plastic, where they shape and are shaped by each other, whilst at the same time resisting deformation. The language of ‘Kolaveri Di’ (the song) appears to a manifestation of that plasticity. (As an aside, the single video at the top of this post indicates the dialectic between creator and created, particularly where the studio instructions are included.)

There are a number of videos for ‘Koleveri Di’ on Youtube but I particularly like this English R&B version, which I think captures what ‘Koleveri Di’ (Murderous Rage, Girl) is all about.

And of course there’s already a Downfall parody.

Oasis, Coca Cola and a better world

You know you’re getting old when one of the biggest songs by one of the biggest band of your teenage years is, twenty years on, used to in an advert for a global brand.

Religious recycling

I have just taken over a week off from PhD stuff. I worked pretty much up to 23rd December and my head was literally hurting. I decided that I just needed to take time off. And it’s been worth it. It felt like detox and actually quite relaxing. I definitely recommend it.

So I started up again today. I have spent most of the evening combing through the videos about Recyclebank’s incentivised recycling schemes on the Green Phd Youtube channel and compiling interview questions for them. Well, not really interview questions, more a questionnaire as that is all they could do. I hope it’s enough.

I was particularly interested in the following clip of a BBC Breakfast news item in which a journalist and so-called recycling sceptic praised the Recyclebank scheme as a “step in the right direction”. He approved of incentives because it moved the argument away from recycling as a religion and towards a better way to recycle

I can see what he means because, like going to church, sometimes recycling can become a ritual without really understanding what it is about. But, inherent in his hope is the idea that incentives somehow undermine social responsibility and morality.

 

Incentives – attack on imagination?

I now have a channel on Youtube where I will be collating posted videos on incentivised recycling, and particularly the Recyclebank schemes operating in the UK. Honestly, for subject that sounds as if it would be as interesting as “watching paint dry” (to quote someone I know), you’d be surprised how many videos there are. I thought the Channel 4 News item about the scheme in Windsor and Maidenhead offered some food for thought:

The journalist spoke to a resident (described as recycler) in Windsor and Maidenhead. When talking about the reaction of his children, he said that they were disappointed that they no longer get the washing up bottle at the end of the week to turn into a robot but are happy when they are taken to the cinema. Why this particular juxtaposition? To me, it sounds like that the children are disappointed when they are denied the opportunity to use their imagination but are ‘happy’ when given the opportunity to have their imagination fed with pre-made images.

All of sudden, incentivised recycling sounds less like an instrument for environmental protection and more like an attack on people’s freedom through the suppression of people’s minds. It sounds fantastic but, in the light of cuts to higher education funding, particularly in arts, humanities and social sciences, it does raise an interesting question.