The Independent today has a map showing the most ethnically diverse areas of Britain, or perhaps England and Wales – Scotland and Northern Ireland are described in text beside the map, but not coloured in. I’ll have to go to Brighton (least religious town).

Muslims are less than 1% of Scotland’s population, but they are the second-largest religious group.
What are the chances of two people taken at random being from different ethnic groups? It various from 2% in Easington, County Durham, to 85% in Brent, London.

There’s an article too.

This is fitting, since yesterday I heard of a prediction that standard English may be replaced by a different mixture, since there are schools in London where a huge number of languages are spoken, but none of them is standard English – only a form of slang. (The reference was to Kerswill and Cheshire – as someone born in Hackney and brought up in Havering, I was particularly interested in the Hackney-Havering comparison here This seems to be the serious end of what came out in the British press as Jafaican and Tikkiny).

This was at a symposium for English teachers put on by the Institut für Fremdsprachen in Erlangen. Speaker on youth culture and social change was Tony Thorne, of King’s College, London. Further talks reminded me to get a Simpsons DVD (which is the best set to start with – is 1 too old? How about 6?), and referred to fences in the USA, using humour and comedy in ELT – how to do it without using Mr Bean – and Ireland, the Celtic Tiger?