With it being Jane Austen’s bicentenary (of her death) there are lots of things in the newspapers about her. Some well known authors write about their favourite Austen books here.

Jane Austen stars in a Bank of England literary links exhibition. It looks like it would be worth going to – if it wasn’t in London! You can read about it here.

I’m interested in the way language changes so a book called That’s the Way it Crumbles: The AmericaniZation of British English by Matthew Engel might be one I’ll seek out, you can read about it here.

One thing that really amazed me when we were in the Netherlands recently is the amount of English that appears everywhere. There’s no doubt that it must be a great help to people who wish to learn a language to have signs in that language all over the place, but I’m just wondering why the Dutch aren’t ‘up in arms’ about it (as the French usually are). On many shop doors in Dutch towns there were signs saying – Come in – We’re OPEN And also MID SEASON SALE signs were on many shop windows. These were in towns where tourists will rarely visit – we were only there because some members of my family live nearby. I even heard Dutch teenagers speaking in English to each other in the street – I suppose it must be fashionable. Can you imagine teenagers in Britain choosing to speak in a foreign language – for fun?!