Trivia time! Video version of IQuiz LVII now available!

@wwaycorrigan

As I've always said, it's better (and more profitable for me!) to actually come to IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz" for real.

Play a video version of IQuiz LVII at vimeo.com.

Of course, for those not residing in Bogotá, physical attendance at the city's top trivia night is next to impossible.

So, for the, um, millions of IQuiz aficionados out there, here we're sharing a video version you can play at your own leisure. Check it out at https://vimeo.com/743198458.

As you'll see, it's devoid of the swashbuckling host that you'd get at the live event — you can't win them all — but all the relevant audio is there.

Obviously, you can pause it, rewind or skip forward where needs be.

It's important to note for the on-this-day/famous-birthday questions that the date this edition of IQuiz actually took place was 25 August (the year being 2022, in case you're reading this well into the future!).

Enjoy!
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Colombia on the fringes

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

Colombian tax reform. Many have tried it — or at least given helpful suggestions — but few have had much lasting success. The mere utterance of the phrase sends some folk into a paroxysm.

In 2021, planned revenue reforms were a chief reason behind what resulted in months of public unrest. Over a year on and with a new president in place, finding ways to boost Colombia's coffers is back on the agenda.

Colombia on the fringes: Not a bad place to be in many aspects.

Fat tax
To be honest, and for reasons that will become clearer, I haven't paid too much attention to President Gustavo Petro's plans in this regard.

From what I do know, the somewhat controversial proposal to tax certain sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods is something that I largely agree with.

Ditto with disposable plastic products. Many Colombians seem incapable of shopping without putting practically every item into a separate plastic bag. Charging them for such a practice might just make them think twice.

That those earning more than ten million pesos (currently just over 2,255 euros) per month — only about two per cent of the population, apparently — will have to pay income tax is also welcome. I'm not, unsurprisingly, currently in that bracket.

Increased fuel taxes will most likely see travel become a little more expensive but I can shoulder that.

'It's not that the devil will be in the detail of proposals to come — Colombians tend to be byzantine in terms of details on paper.'

Looking at the other changes mentioned, I can't see much that will directly affect me adversely — unless I become ridiculously rich in the coming months. 

This would appear to be the same for ninety-eight per cent of Colombians, the mooted reforms mentioned above excepted. They do certainly love their gaseosas (fizzy drinks) here (for more on that see https://wwcorrigan.blogspot.com/2016/01/waging-sweet-war-for-healths-sake.html and https://blogs.eltiempo.com/wrong-way-corrigan/2014/01/31/colombias-battle-with-the-bulge/).

Of course, the Petro presidency may affect that ninety-eight per cent and me in other ways, not just financially, and for both good and bad. 

It's not that the devil will be in the detail of proposals to come — Colombians tend to be byzantine in terms of details on paper. It's how they're actually implemented for real. That'll be the key.

Pay to stay
Whatever the case, despite almost eleven years in the country, I feel somewhat outside the state's structures. Again, many Colombians — for better or for worse — could say the same but for very different reasons.

In my case, having a temporary visa status as a visitor (V type) is one reason for this "isolation". Yes, it allows me to engage in independent paid employment here but it doesn't put me on 'the road to residency', as the phrase goes.

It does, though, ensure I make an annual contribution to the state in the region of one million pesos. I won't have it said that I don't pay my way here. 

(Coming from a Nanny State pay-as-you-earn [PAYE] tradition, I find the idea of filing tax returns odd. Apparently, I'm a bit away from the threshold for payment anyway. In any case, pretty much all of my expenditure goes back into the Colombian economy. There are certainly no peso remittances being sent back to Ireland.)

In general, I'm largely indifferent to the country's politics. A presidential or Bogotá mayor election piques my interest but that's pretty much the height of it.

I cursorily check Colombian news but I rarely feel enthused to delve deeper into the comings and goings of events here. Most of my engagements with current affairs media these days are from UK sources.

So, outside of the perennial visa headache and bank dealings, my relationship with official Colombia is along the lines of, 'If you don't mingle much in my life, I won't mingle much in yours.'

Akin, it could be said, to the parting words Don Corleone gave to the Turkish drug dealer, Sollozzo, in The Godfather movie: 'Good luck to you, especially as your interests don't conflict with mine.' A risky analogy that, perhaps.

For the most part, I'd like to maintain this relative independence from the Colombian state. Let's not make each other any offers that we can't refuse. Well, we won't say "never" on that one.

But let's try not to over-complicate things, whatever might happen in the future.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

A Hack(ett) job on Britain

@wwaycorrigan

Oh, how one can be irked by what are to all intents and purposes rather inconsequential matters.

This happened to me with a Ms Alison Hackett after reading two similar-themed letters she had published in Irish dailies over the last few days. They can be found at https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/if-we-have-a-minimum-wage-why-not-a-maximum-one-41917129.html (fourth one down) and https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/yourview/arid-40939784.html.

Her utter vitriol for the way Britain runs its affairs and her apparent Gallic glorification is rather misplaced.

Indeed, this sentiment that exists in some quarters in Ireland that the EU can do no wrong while Britain just blunders is worryingly myopic, particularly so as it seems to dominate official policy and media coverage. It would be best to focus on the myriad shortcomings in one's own backyard before attacking the neighbours.

I did write a reply to Ms Hackett's Irish Independent letter which is published online here, https://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/investing-in-renewables-will-guarantee-returns-for-all-41919458.html (third one down). The letter is also in the images below.

Right of reply. 

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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

The Bogotá curse

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

Friday the 13th. Considering all that's happened since, some superstitious types — not me, I hasten to add — might deem it quite portentous that this was the date of the initial, tentative encounter that would prove to be so life-changing.

The month was February, the year 2009. One day before my 24th birthday as it just so happened to be.

Where it all began in Bogotá: The city's historic centre. (Photo credit: Oli Pritchard.) 

Bothersome beginning
To what do I refer? The first time I set foot in Bogotá. My Bogotá beginning, so to put it.

I still recall quite vividly those early, uneasy moments in the city. Were they signs of how my complex relationship with the place would develop? Maybe.

After getting a rather pleasant introduction to provincial Colombia in the small city of Popayán in the south, the nation's capital was the next stop.

Emboldened following three-and-half months of solo travelling around South America — somewhat paradoxically, the few unsettling incidents along the way appeared to boost my confidence, not diminish it — arriving in Bogotá I took a public bus rather than a taxi from the main transport terminal to the centre.

Stepping off this bus on Carrera Cuarta (Fourth Street) with Avenida Jiménez I went in search of my accommodation, the-then quite new The Cranky Croc hostel (it's a Bogotá institution now). Using a map on the back of a business card from the hostel as a guide — smartphones and Google maps weren't really a thing then — I figured it would be simple to find.

'After various inaccurate directions from friendly-but-unhelpful locals, I finally found my bearings and located my lodgings.'

In fact, I was just a block and a half away from it but Avenida Jiménez disorientated me a bit. Those damn diagonal streets. They can play havoc with an otherwise easy-to-navigate grid system.

So whilst impressed with Bogotá's physical setting as I wandered for about an hour trying to locate The Cranky Croc, I started to feel like I was having a Nightmare on Elm Street experience.

Mildly intimidating "greetings" from a few "undesirables" didn't help either. Carrying about 20 kg on my back and tired after a long overnight bus journey, I was feeling a little vulnerable.

After following various inaccurate directions from friendly-but-unhelpful locals, I finally found my bearings and located my lodgings.

Pleasant Popayán: The first city Wrong Way stayed in Colombia, all the way back in 2009.

Once settled and having befriended two dormitory companions, we headed out that night — to celebrate my imminent birthday of course. While I didn't know it at the time, we went to the swanky Zona T. Oh how my social life has changed in the intervening period!

In a club there we met a group of, um, friendly women originally from Bucaramanga. It was largely down to these ladies that saw me enticed back to Bogotá a couple of years later. (Subsequent returns and my final decision to live in the city had much less to do with them.)

Losing the centre
The story behind Elba, Paola and Sandra is one for the memoirs. Or at least for another time. For it's those first, arguably ominous impressions of Bogotá, specifically its historic centre, that I want to focus on here.

Like many foreigners who come to live in Bogotá, the centre was where I initially settled. While it wasn't really ugly when I first visited over 13 years ago, it's certainly more aesthetically pleasing today following a few facelifts and the construction of some architecturally impressive buildings. It's shedding that dreary 1980s industrial look that darkened it back in 2009.

'I disliked the university ambience before these centres of learning became fully dominated by bearded lefties, of both the male and female variety.'

Yet, despite — or perhaps because of — living in the centre for almost four years, I remain at best indifferent to it. At other times, I've more of a hostile feeling towards it. I seldom view it in a positive light.

On the rare occasions I return there — being 20 km away doesn't help to encourage one back — I'm reminded of this mild aversion.

Why this is, I'm not entirely sure. One thing, though, is the fact that compared to other parts of the city it's very difficult to shake off the tourist label in the centre. That's because, obviously enough, it gets lots of tourists passing through. So somebody of my origin tends to be seen as just another passerby.

OK, I always will be a foreigner — a gringo if you will, although be careful calling me that to my face — in Colombia.

Yet in my beloved Barrio Santandercito at least I sense that I'm part of a community. I never really got that feeling in the historic centre. (I did get it to a certain extent in La Perseverancia — a barrio in which I never actually lived, only socialised — but on recent returns there I've noticed that irritating tourist vibe creeping in. The renovated food plaza appears to be the "culprit" for that.)

Another factor for this negativity towards Bogotá's centre is due to its being a university hub. There's just something about the university environment that irks me. And this was the case before they became fully dominated by bearded lefties, of both the male and female variety.

Little wonder, then, that I felt more at ease in the centre around Christmas time, when the universities were on holiday. For the record, shocking as this may be, there's not much of a university ambience in Santandercito.

It could be said that what all this adds up to is that I don't particularly like big cities. Yes, I do live in one, but my base in Bogotá's far north has, in some ways, more of a small-town feel to it.

It's this, Bogotá's barrio beat, that I move to. And as much as it might be good for me to escape from it, at times it feels that I'm wedded to it for life.

So perhaps it's this, and not my inauspicious introduction, that is the true "curse" of that fateful first visit to the city on Friday the 13th of February 2009. I, however, don't do superstition.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Return of the peripatetic preceptor and the languid language learners

@wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]

As the old adage goes, 'never say never.'

So while I have let it be known that over the years I've grown quite tired of freelance English teaching since I first started such work in 2012, I don't think I actually ever said that I would never return to it.

A fresher-faced Wrong Way, um, spreading knowledge back in 2012. 

Face time
Nonetheless, having, since 2018, largely left behind the travelling teacher gig — travelling from class to class across Bogotá that is, and usually spending more time getting to classes than giving them — the thoughts of going back to that lifestyle are anathema to me.

OK, those in the Teaching-English-as-a-foreign-language (Tefl) industry will point to the fact that the pandemic has largely eliminated the need for the peripatetic preceptor. Online sessions now appear to have become the norm.

From the perspective of a teacher with multiple clients/students in different companies — the market I'm specifically referring to here — why rush around Bogotá or wherever when classes can be conducted from a fixed point, staring into a computer screen?

'I want virtual sessions to end as soon as they begin.'

Virtual classes allow for far more teaching time as there's no travel involved. With that, potentially anyway, there's more scope to earn money.

I, however, prefer the face-to-face approach. I've found giving lessons over the internet to be more draining than the traditional method. I generally want virtual sessions to end as soon as they begin. (A strong dislike of working from home — I've yet to have accommodation in Bogotá that I'd truly call my "home" — does play a part in this mindset.)

Call me, um, old-school if you like, but I enjoy being able to stand up, walk around the class, nay meeting room, and make use of a whiteboard.

Putting all that together, and barring a complete collapse in my personal finances, the only way I could return with a degree of enthusiasm to teaching English is with a well-remunerated, fixed-term, part-time deal (Wrong Way does need time to nourish his own brand), preferably with a reputable company.

That is to say, an arrangement where a price for the service is agreed on before commencement. The pay-per-class model, particularly when it's the student forking out and not his/her company, is usually not a steady source of income.

'Qualification is a result, education a process.'

This, what I consider a more attractive teaching proposition — in-person, relatively well-paid and "guaranteed" by a company — is what I've recently signed up to. The first payment date has yet to pass, so until the money is firmly in my account I'll hold off on congratulating myself for my negotiating skills.

Yet, somewhat nervously, I have already started. So after over four years, I'm back giving in-person classes to business professionals.

The difference now is that it's mainly on my terms. There's no intermediary institute or the like cashing in on my endeavours. (To repeat, the first payment is pending, so I write cautiously here.)

Now, lest I be accused of adopting nothing more than mercenary methods for work that requires plenty of enthusiasm and passion, not to mention know-how, I'm not merely in it for the money, just going through the motions.

For one, it's a 20-kilometre round-trip from my apartment to the office. That's a bit outside my comfortable walking zone, especially when one has to lug a laptop around. Once I've received the first payment, the plan is to buy a decent bike. (I do have access to one but it's not the most efficient of two-wheelers. Put it this way, it doesn't entice one to ride it.)

The new part-time office. It's due to pay off a bit better that the panadería.

Logistics aside, the fact that two of the three students are little better than beginners means these are far from my favoured form of classes. Moreover, that one of those two has been trying — with little success, evidently — to learn English for years, gives an idea of the task at hand.

Educational excellence
In a more general sense, it does beg the question, are some people just ill-equipped to learn a foreign language? Most cognitive experts would answer that in the negative.

It isn't that there are those who simply can't acquire another tongue because their brains are "wired differently". In many instances, it comes down to the learner's desire. If there is a real need then most likely he/she will learn. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

For sure, teachers — or as I like to call them, facilitators/guides — play an important role in this, too. They have to know their "brief" for starters.

Creating the right pedagogical environment and following a method that best suits the student's learning capacities are other factors. One-to-one instruction allows for greater flexibility for both of these compared to classes in big groups.

For me, that's the key. Flexibility. What works for one student may not work for another. I like to think that I do have this adaptability.

I do, however, sometimes receive criticism from qualified English teachers because I'm not 'a real one.' My retort: What is a "real" teacher?

In my school-going days, I had numerous "qualified" teachers who appeared quite inept at imparting the knowledge that they had learned. They certainly weren't figures of inspiration.

Again, one does have to know the nuts and bolts of the subject in question before he/she can teach it but simply having this knowledge doesn't mean one can easily pass it on to others. Not all gifted sports stars go on to become great coaches, after all.

This is a danger with qualifications and the weight they often carry. One feels one has "made it", so to put it, on receiving the piece of paper to hang on the wall.

Yet, qualification is a result, education a process. Learning, after all, only ends at death.
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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".

Decluttering discussion with Nihal Arthanayake on BBC Radio 5 Live

@wwaycorrigan

Considering I've had seventeen — that's not including extended trips back to Ireland — house moves in Bogotá since I started living and working here in early 2012, one would think that I've become a master of the art of decluttering.

Wrong Way Corrigan on BBC Radio Five Live (image from the BBC.) 

OK, as a single man with a backpacker's mentality of sorts, I'm probably better than most at keeping material acquisitions to a minimum. 

Nonetheless, I do think I can become more efficient at binning what are essentially unnecessary possessions. I could, quite literally, detach myself from many items I currently hold on to and probably feel much for doing so. 

Such decluttering was the theme of the first hour of the Tuesday 02 August 2022 edition of Nihal Arthanayake's show on BBC Radio 5 Live. Having touched on this topic in a 2013 blog post, All that you can't leave behind, I lent my two cents' worth to the conversation.

You can hear my thoughts from 37:30 on the following link, 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019rps.

Or check it out at https://youtu.be/dOy3c5WHX6Y (see below). 

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Listen to Wrong Way's Colombia Cast podcast here.

Facebook: Wrong Way Corrigan — The Blog & IQuiz "The Bogotá Pub Quiz".