London Borough of Havering

I live in Upminster – there was once a pearly king of Upminster, and the image on the front page of this weblog shows part of his costume, including the windmill at the left. Upminster, Hornchurch, Romford and Rainham have been the London Borough of Havering since 1965, although my address says Essex. A vociferous core of locals are convinced we actually are in Essex. Not so Andrew Rosindell, the Romford MP, who must know we are in London, as he wants and has always wanted (he was born after 1965) the borough to become part of Essex. Excellent article on Rosindell and Havering by diamond geezer. The occasion is Rosindell leaving the Conservative Party and joining Reform, where he hopes Nigel Farage will help him.

diamond geezer nicely sets out how London would change without Havering:

A huge lump would be chopped off London’s eastern edge, reducing the area of the capital by 7%. The easternmost point in London would become the Dartford Creek flood barrier rather than a muddy field far beyond the M25. London would be five miles narrower than before. One-sixth of London’s Green Belt would vanish overnight.

London would lose 260,000 residents, reducing its population by just 3%. It’d become a younger city, a more left wing city and a less white city. A greater proportion of its residents would rent. It might also become a happier city because the moaners had left.
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Cockney?

Before all my latest posts were lost – and they have been recovered – there was a new comment on my site that was interesting, but that comment was lost for ever. I had replied to it. It was from a regular follower and blogger who had read something about Cockney as a dialect. I think I attempted to follow his blog and I did intend to write something about that. But I have lost all the references to it. So a new comment would be welcome.

Marmalade

I’ve made two lots of marmalade this January. Mine is very dark because I prefer that. Whatever recipe you use, this has 1 kg Seville oranges, 1 lemon, 1 kg white sugar and 1 kg light muscovado sugar. The figure is the Chinese kitchen god, who is waiting for me to thoroughly clean the kitchen before Chinese New Year.

ShoutOutForGerman / Some German words

Shout Out For German is an initiative of the German Embassy, Goethe Institut and DAAD:

It’s time to celebrate the German language in the UK! The German Embassy, together with the Goethe-Institut UK and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), invites you to take part in our social media campaign #ShoutOutForGerman – your chance to share your language learning highlights with the world.

 

Whether you’re a student, a teacher, or just a fan of the German language, from 19 to 24 January 2026, show your enthusiasm for Deutsch on social media. Use the hashtag #ShoutOutForGerman and tag the German Embassy London to showcase your school’s activities, your favourite German words, travel memories, a clip of you dancing to a viral German song – anything goes!

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Alum, alumnus, alumna, alumni

Email from King’s College London:

Dear Margaret,

Your connection to King’s doesn’t end when your studies do. As a King’s alum, you remain part of our community and your opinions and interests matter.

In our alumni survey, we are hoping to learn more about how our alumni feel about King’s, our alumni offer and how they’d like to stay connected. …

Interestingly, it goes on to say:

To recognise and celebrate the contribution of our alumni, five people who complete the survey will be chosen at random to have their profile displayed on the digital screens on The Strand, alongside our notable alumni.

I am curious about the new term alum, which avoids them having to write alumnus/alumna in a standard email. I suspect it will get more common – it’s currently usually recommended for casual rather than official use, which explains why they go on to use alumni. There seems no inclination to use alumnae as a feminine plural.

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Books I read in 2025

Books I read in 2025
It seems popular to post a list of books one has read in the year. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which I have read and whether it was this year or last. Still less can I do an Instagram or TikTok post showing a physical pile of books. I have gradually remembered more though, but my achievement is a pathetic 25 rather than 50, 60 or 100. Of course I partly read other books, but I assume this game requires me to have read the complete books. The German-language ones I read in German. The sequence is not chronological.

Yiyun Li: Things in Nature Merely Grow
Yiyun Li: Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
John Burnside: A Lie About My Father
Kazuo Ishiguro: A Pale View of Hills (A film of this came out, but after reading the novel I thought it was too subtle to film – may get round to it)
Kazuo Ishiguro: An Artist of the Floating World (reread)
Jung Chang: Wild Swans (reread), started to read the sequel but not got far. (Wild Swans is brilliant because Jung Chang’s mother visited her some years after she moved to the UK and dictated sixty hours of memories of what it was like bringing up a family in the Mao era and keeping one’s opinions away from the children – also memories of the grandmother who was married to a warlord and had bound feet – so really the story of three generations of women)
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