Things I want to write about

[cosmolinguist]

• Coming out, and reactions to it that are worse than you think.
• Britishness, Englishness and the Life in the UK test.
• How to be a worthwhile human even when you're not being "productive"
  
  • especially "...in gainful employment"

Too tired, though.   Too goddam tired, all the time.

Comments

[marjory.livejournal.com]

The Life in the UK tests unnerve me. A lot of the time, I scarcely scrape through the exemplars in The Guardian, so I wonder whether I should be here!

[cosmolinguist]

They unnerve me much more than that, but the versions in the Guardian are one of many things I want to talk about; I think you're in good company.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I have just taken the UK Citizenship practice test, sight unseen, and I failed. 14/24 from mostly cruising by on general knowledge. Maybe with a thorough perusal of the study guide, I would be allowed to stay, but I'm not sure how my ability to memorise some truly niggly multiple choice questions would make me a better citizen.

E.g. children aged 13-16 can only work for 12 hours a week. The other option given was 10. An awful lot of the questions were of this nature and to do with benefit-eligibility. What ever can they be driving at?!

I did the Guardian History one yesterday and passed (phew!). I have a degree in History and it's been a lifelong passion etc. but it jumped between topics like Robert Walpole and when the Welsh were first brought under the English legal code, which boggled me. There was also the semantics one, delineating the difference between Britain and Great Britain (I saw it coming and I still got it wrong).

[cosmolinguist]

Heh, I won't have to write this now; you lot are doing it for me!

May also wants to drop sections of the official Life in the UK: A Journey to Citizenship handbook, which explains things such as the Human Rights Act and how to claim welfare benefits and give details of managing everyday life such as reading the gas meter, getting home contents insurance or dealing with the local council.

Instead, Conservative ministers want to tell new migrants that Britain is “historically” a Christian country with a “long and illustrious history”

[cosmolinguist]

I found the practicalities stuff a bit patronizing -- if they really wanted people to know how to set up a bank account, they'd do it before you'd been here the years it takes you for your visa to run out -- and mostly unhelpful: the two questions I wasn't absolutely sure I got right were about the speed limit on a dual carriageway and how TV licenses work in a shared house; it's hard to think of a time when either of those pieces of information would be useful to me, much less when I'd need to know them without being able to ask Mr Google.

But it's telling that she doesn't want people to know how to claim welfare benefits eh? Especially as that will be newly relevant to people who, up until they get their ILR, have NO RECOURSE TO STATE FUNDS emblazoned on their passports!

[cosmolinguist]

OMG they're all so good but the second is a thing of beauty.