Foreign Perspectives

Archive for June, 2008

The actions that the American, British and European central banks have taken have all affected their respective exchange rates of course.

We’ve seen the pound move from a typical $1.50 to more like $2 these days and that’s obviously had quite a considerable effect on international trade between the two countries which has always been substantial. Although it’s clearly an advantage to tourists from the UK going to America clearly the move in the other direction has gone down substantially.

Within Europe the pound has gone from around 60p to the euro to more like 80p for a euro these days which, combined with the dramatic price increases in discount airline flights, has pretty much killed off British tourism in Europe this year.

But the impact on tourism is just one aspect (and a minor one at that) of the impact on the European economy. It might be great for the European tourists to have really cheap holidays this year but if the exchange rate continues at anything like the current level they’ll soon find themselves out of a job as their products are priced out of the range of export markets.

One thing that constantly confuses is that whenever we have a trip to Spain the diesel that we’ve bought there seems to last considerably longer than when the diesel that we ordinarily buy in France.

A LOT longer too. For example, we filled the car up Friday a week ago in Spain, have been running around quite a bit during the week and only needed to get some more last Friday. Ordinarily we’d have been expecting to top up at least once during the week.

Weird, huh?

Of the two courses that I’m seriously thinking of doing next year, both overlap the English course that I’m doing at the moment.

The problem isn’t so much that I’d be doing two courses at once for a long time but the reverse of that as the new courses start just one week before the current course ends. That means that, of course, I’d be starting the new course one week behind the course schedule.

Would it matter though? I actually started my current course two days ahead of schedule and find myself around 10 weeks ahead at the moment so it’s certainly possible to pick up speed. However, on other courses I’ve started anything up to a month ahead and finished up behind schedule.

In that Engineering the Future is a 30 point course and Exploring Psychology is a 60 point one it sounds like it would be easier to pick up lost time on the engineering one. However, I gather that it’s quite an addicting subject and I definitely want to be doing the psychology course fairly soon as I figure it would be handy for the kids.

The “do nothing” option is sounding quite appealing!

Although I never thought the day would come when I’d be talking of completing my modern languages degree, I find myself on the final course of that at the moment.

That means that after six years I am in the position of looking around for something to do that doesn’t fall under the heading of “modern languages”. Now, whilst I’d like to keep the studies ticking over, I’m not really looking for anything heavy duty at the moment although that really doesn’t narrow down the field of subjects a great deal.

Purely out of lazyness, I’m limiting my searches to the courses that the Open University put out but perhaps “limiting” isn’t quite the word to apply here as the range is pretty staggering (no, this isn’t a commercial for them!).

I’d also like the course to finish before the summer next year as, all being well, I’ll be off to the graduation in September. And, I’d like to do something “different” which basically rules out another language.

At the moment, I’m thinking of:

1. World Archaeology, which covers getting on for 12,000 years over the course of 18 weeks and sounds fascinating but quite hard work and starts in September which is before my current course ends, so provisionally I’ve ruled it out for this year;
2. Engineering the Future, which sounds like a truly fascinating course too. It starts in October and runs to June but there’s an associated residential. Definitely in the running;
3. Rundblick: beginners’ German, starts in November but runs to the following October which is quite long and, of course, is “just” another language which provisionally rules it out;
4. Using Mathematics is a course that I’ll need to do in due course but doesn’t really fire me up at the moment, so it’s provisionally ruled out for this year;
5. Geology, doesn’t start ’til February which means that it runs over the (hoped for) graduation ceremony so provisionally gets ruled out; and
6. Exploring Psychology, starts the week before my final exam but is workable (though I’d like a little break). Unlike the above courses this one is a full credit course ie there’s more work to be done. However, it’s one that’s been on my “to do” list for a while now.

So which, if any, will it be? At the moment, I’d say that the archaeology, engineering and psychology courses are the front runners. Or, of course, I could just take a break 🙂

Although many people concentrate pretty much exclusively on online advertising, there’s still a place for print based advertising.

It’s a very different medium though. Not only is it expensive, but you’re usually pretty limited in the amount of content that you can have and whilst it has a long lead-time, it’s quite time-sensitive too. It’s easy to pay over £500 for just 100 words and a photo. Similarly, whilst your ad may only be on the shelves for a few weeks, you sometimes need to have it with the publishers over 3 months in advance.

However, it does work well for some people and because of that I’ve covered it in quite a comprehensive article over on our listings site blog.