Ten facts about me, James Simms, you may not know 🤔 (Part 1)

Officially, I’m meant to be on annual leave at the moment but this is something I’m not great at preparing for. Therefore, in the absence of well-planned and pre-written posts whilst I rest for the season’s break, I’m throwing a personal piece together so that, in a few weeks’ time, I can celebrate the fact that I have released new blogs every single Wednesday for the entirety of 2023. 

Bluntly, this post may come across as a bit egocentric as it is about me! However, I feel like writing it so here goes. I’ll be writing it in two parts with facts 6-10 appearing in Part 2 next week.

Ten facts about me you may not know:

• I’m a “proper” Northerner.
• I’ve lived in a lot of different places.
• I’m not married and never have been.
• I find business a bit boring.
• I’m a polyglot.
• I’m amongst the world’s best players at an online game called WordGrid.
• I was unemployed for a year in 2015.
• I get obsessed with things.
• I can “rap”.
• I have a secret.

 Fact 1: I’m a “proper” Northerner 

For those of you who have seen my videos or spoken to me on the phone or on a Zoom call, you may have noticed that my accent is quite “neutral” (whatever that means). I speak like a Southerner but I use Northern pronunciation for lots of individual words. I actually grew up in Carlisle. Carlisle is the most Northerly city in England and sits at the very top of the county of Cumbria, above the Lake District. 

I lived there until I was 13 years old, when my parents (who are originally from the Midlands) left Carlisle due to my father’s work and moved us all to North Wales. I lived in Wales (Wrexham, specifically) for three years and, despite being determined to remain English whilst I lived there, Wales left a strong impression on me. I can speak with a Welsh accent in the right context and it is fairly natural for me to do so. I can also, just about, speak with my original Cumbrian accent although I find this harder to do.

 Fact 2: I’ve lived in a lot of different places 

So, here goes my geography chronology has looked like this:

So, I’ve 'knocked about a bit'. My father’s work moved us from Carlisle to Wrexham to King’s Lynn as children and being a university student and teacher has moved me about a whole load more. The last 20 years or so have been the most settled. This, as you may have guessed, has coincided with the growth of our family and my two daughters, who are now 18 and 16 years old.

Finally, whilst on this section, I want to mention that I am constantly dreaming of moving back to Cumbria in the years to come. I actually see my future, my retirement and my happiness in that part of my history.

 Fact 3: I’m not married and never have been 

So, yeah, I’ve never been married. Marta and I have been together for 21 years and we have discussed marriage many, many times but we have never actually got it sorted out. We would like to get married but two things stop us:

• Firstly, assuming we have some kind of family do, Marta, the kids and I would almost definitely spend the day as interpreters.
• Secondly, we’re happy as we are. Therefore, we don’t have any compulsion to get married.

Once, after a few post-dessert whiskies on Christmas day, Marta’s mum told me that she thought we should get married. It was quite a moment. I asked her why she thought this and her answer surprised me because it was not specifically about love and romance. Neus (Marta’s mum) said: “Well, what would happen if there was a war? They’d take the kids away.” I’m not completely sure what she meant by this but it was an intriguing moment.

 Fact 4: I find “business” a bit boring 

Before I became a “business person”, I perceived business as really complex and challenging. Whilst this is not entirely wrong, business itself is quite a simple concept. Being completely honest, I don’t get a lot from the business side of my work. I don’t particularly enjoy financial planning and strategic management. I don’t particularly value any status of being a “business owner” or CEO. I don’t particularly enjoy chairing meetings and teams. I don’t particularly want to play the business person full stop. Rather, what I really, really love is making things and communicating them with others. I am much happier on the “production line” than in the boardroom and I actually don’t aspire for this to change. 

Whilst I am the founder/owner/CEO person by title, my work is far more related to teaching, resource production and idea generation and I want this to continue whilst others around me work on the other aspects of the business. A good description of my team would be that they are highly skilled in the exact areas that I am not. I love it like this. I am never happier than when I am sitting down writing about PE or making PE resources. This is what I am.

 Fact 5: I’m a polyglot 

I didn’t even know the word polyglot until recently. A polyglot is someone who speaks multiple languages. As an adult, I have become a polyglot. Despite me being told to drop French at age 12 because I “wasn’t a natural linguist”, I have spent much of my adult life learning languages.

I’m not completely sure why but I am able to reach a competent level in a spoken language quickly. In the case of European languages, this can be a matter of days. I have taken some languages much further and learned them deeply. 

Catalan: Catalan and English are both spoken in my home. Therefore, I am exposed to it every day. My partner Marta is a mother-tongue speaker and both of our daughters are bilingual with English and Catalan. Therefore, I have learned to speak it –I guess– fluently. Although my usage is far from perfect, I am capable of speaking –and writing, actually– Catalan at a very good level. With my in-law family in Spain, I only speak in Catalan.

Spanish: So I speak Spanish quite well. Whilst it is far lower than my level of Catalan, I am able to speak at a good level. I learned Spanish kind of accidentally. All (I think) of Marta’s friends and family are Catalan speakers first. Therefore, 99% of my experiences in Spain are in Catalan. However, I’ve been exposed to Spanish over a number of years and I have learned a lot. I also learned quite a lot of Spanish in 2013 because I wanted to learn Italian (see below) from Spanish, as I had a “Learn Italian” book which was written in Spanish. As a result of all of this, I speak the language well. However, I find it less comfortable (Me cuesta mucho!) than speaking in Catalan.

German: I learned to speak German to a really good level in my twenties. I lived in Germany for a while and shared a flat with five German students. Therefore, my level progressed very rapidly. I must admit that I have spoken very little in recent years and, therefore, my sensitivity and usage has fallen away a little but I can still hold my own. 

Italian: This one is the weird one because I learned it really, really quickly. As weird as it sounds, I used the Spanish and Italian book I mentioned above to learn both Spanish better and Italian from scratch. I wrote my very own Italian learning guide which was based in Catalan (which I already spoke very well) but translated to Spanish and then into Italian. My issue with Italian is that I have only visited Italy twice and, as such, I don’t get to practise very much. But, whenever I do, I get my self-penned guide out and learn again.

I also speak a little Dutch (German and English are very useful for this) but it’s nothing to brag about and two summers ago I relearned a big chunk of Welsh. I studied Welsh in secondary school but wasn’t too motivated at that time. These days, I find Welsh to be a really compelling experience and a way to understand the whole of the UK better.

I love learning languages. It’s one of my passions and I want to spend a lot of my senior years “not in English”. I find that this enriches me but also gives me confidence in myself.

Tune in next week for part 2!

Thanks for reading

James