Spotted on Devon House in Whitehall Road, Bristol, this morning.
This fine old building, which has a Georgian core, is currently being refurbished for some sort of supported or sheltered housing scheme.
However, whoever thought up the “Supported Independence” text on the sign doesn’t really understand English and probably couldn’t even begin to say what constitutes an oxymoron, i.e. an epigrammatic effect, by which contradictory terms are used in conjunction. .
Earlier this week Wales Online reported that train company Great Western Railway will not have Welsh language announcements or signs on its new class 800 fleet that will be providing services on the Great Western route from South Wales to London Paddington.
Class 800 locomotive in GWR livery. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The lack of Welsh language announcements or signs on board was first spotted by Cardiff City Labour councillor and Welsh learner Phil Bale, who raised the matter with Great Western Railway via social media.
GWR responded to Cllr. Bale as follows:
I’m afraid we have no plans to have bilingual signage and on-board announcements on these services.
Diolch yn fawr, GWR!
The decision was justified by GWR remarking that the trains serve both England and Wales they aren’t a dedicated South Wales Fleet. However, as a patronising nod in the direction of Wales having a distinct language, GWR did point out that it had leaflets available in Welsh, but passengers would have to ask for them first (presumably in English. Ed.).
In response to GWR’s monoglot policy, Councillor Bales remarked: “For me it shows that Great Western are stuck in the dark ages. We have a Welsh Government target of one million Welsh speakers and there are international transport operators who manage to provide their services in different languages all across Europe.”
As the trains do serve both countries, one would have thought that providing bilingual announcements and signs would have been a common courtesy to those who speak Welsh; and as for Councillor Bales’ remark about running services in other countries, your correspondent doesn’t believe the travelling public overseas would tolerate the incompetence and sheer bloody-mindedness of GWR.
GWR’s attitude contrasts sharply with that of fellow train company, Arriva Trains Wales, which also runs services between Wales and England (e.g. from Cardiff Central to Manchester Piccadilly. Ed.). Arriva provides both signs and announcements in both Welsh and English, as well as bilingual ticket machines and timetables, even at English stations.
Plaid Cymru described GWR’s attitude as “disrespectful“, whilst a Cymdeithas yr Iaith (Welsh Language Society) spokesman said: “Ensuring bilingual signage and announcements on trains in Wales is a matter of basic respect for the Welsh language – there is no excuse not to. The fact GWR have said they don’t intend even to ensure these simple things, and that they’ve missed easy opportunities to do so, shows that they are not a suitable organisation to provide a train service in Wales.
“The Welsh Government should publish strong language standards in the transport sector so that the Welsh Language Commissioner can force companies like GWR to respect the language.”
According to the South Wales Argus, a Welsh Language Commission spokesman said: “Great Western’s alleged lack of investment in the Welsh language is a cause for concern.
“In 2016 the Commissioner submitted a report to the Welsh Government recommending that Welsh language standards should be placed on train companies. The Commissioner continues to work with train companies and others to develop the use of the Welsh language on a voluntary basis, and discusses public concerns with them.”
Yesterday The Document Foundation (TDF) announced the release of LibreOffice 5.4.2, the second minor release of the LibreOffice 5.4 family. LibreOffice 5.4.2 continues to represent the bleeding edge in terms of features and as such is targeted at technology enthusiasts and early adopters.
LibreOffice 5.4.2 includes approximately 100 bug and regression fixes. Technical details about the release can be found in the RC1 (release candidate) and RC2 change logs.
Download LibreOffice
LibreOffice 5.4.2 is available for download for all major platforms (Linux, MacOS and Windows).
Donate to LibreOffice
LibreOffice users, free software advocates and community members are invited to support the work of The Document Foundation with a donation. Donations help TDF to maintain its infrastructure, share knowledge, and organise events such as the LibreOffice Conference, with the next one taking place next week in Rome.
LibreOffice wins survey amongst Ubuntu users
LibreOffice was the runaway winner in a survey of Ubuntu Linux users for desktop productivity software with 85.52% of the votes. The closest competitors were Google Docs with 4.29%, WPS Office with 3.22% and Apache OpenOffice with 1.96%, while all other office suites accounted for less than 1% responses.
“Even with Windows shipping Ubuntu/Bash on their desktop, even with Google shipping Chromebooks with Linux+Chrome pre-installed, even with Mac OS running away with a premium segment of the desktop market, even with Android phones and tablets, there are many tens of millions of passionate Ubuntu desktop users who are eager to have their voices heard! And LibreOffice continues to be THE enabler of local office productivity on the Ubuntu Desktop,” says Dustin Kirkland, Vice-President of Product Development for Ubuntu at Canonical.
The results of the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Default Desktop Applications Survey were presented by Dustin Kirkland at the UbuCon Europe conference in Paris in September.
