2002-06-07 14:35

Maybe it's the rain,

maybe it's the football. It's 16 years now since I ostentatiously ignored an England-Argentina world-cup match which went on to become one of the key myths of English football. I never did get into the habit of pretending I cared about football, and 16 years later, here I am ostentatiously ignoring the England-Argentina game that's transfixed the nation again.

Maybe this is adulthood, when everything starts to feel like a variation on a theme already sounded, when everything I have or want to say feels like just another voice in the ongoing fugue of who I am. Shifted or inverted, maybe, but still recognisable.

Maybe from now on novelty will be a question of arrangement, counterpoint, juxtapostion, and maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe everyone gets to such a point - maybe I'm late!

Or maybe it's just the rain.

2002-06-07 11:52

Swedish phonetics (part n)

I've been neglecting this. I'll try to catch up. Today is easy - [d] and [d.] are just like the [t] and [t.] I discussed last time, only d's rather than t's.

(At least for native speakers of English who get aspiration right by default. I'll write about aspiration some other time, but for now if you don't already know what it is don't worry about it.)

2002-06-06 18:22

Two-hour transatlantic teleconference!

My research group has a visitor right now. Things are busy. Lots of fascinating new ideas, but since I'm at the bottom of the food chain I get to write all the code to make them happen. Watch Des code!

2002-06-06 10:12

Nee-Naw Nee-Naw

On Sunday (I think) I was woken up by the front door buzzer. Turned out somebody wanted me to know that there was a car on fire outside the house. (Where would we be without dog-walkers, eh?) It wasn't my car, obviously, since I don't have one, but the landlord does up old cars and it's not unusual for there to be four rusting heaps of junk out the front.

It is a bit more unusual for one of them to be on fire, thankfully, but there certainly was smoke coming out of the bonnet, and it was clearly getting worse. International man of action that I am, I grabbed a handy fire-extinguisher and had a good squirt, but it made no difference at all.

So I called the fire brigade and they sent a fire engine and they put it out. And then I went back to bed.

2002-06-06 09:35

More penguins

In honour of my impending trip to Japan, here's a site dedicated to Badtz Maru, the Japanese penguin (from Sanrio, the people who brought you Hello Kitty) with attitude. My newest favourite thing is my Badtz Maru key-ring.

2002-06-05 15:04

Pingvinerna, tack!

This trendy new "weblog" style format of Diarylands allows - even encourages - a more link-driven approach to this whole web-authoring process. (I wonder if it will catch on?)

Not just more link-driven, though, more penguin driven, and that can only be good.

So, get your finest virtual selves over to the Penguin Warehouse for a cornucopia of penguin-related shopping opportunities. You know it makes sense!

[ via the equally penguin-infatuated /usr/bin/girl ]

2002-06-05 9:13

Aah!

Even by the standards of sycophantic Royal-infatuated skvallerbladets Hello! is long on pictures and short on analysis, and don't get me started on the paper quality. Still, the last issue covered the Norwegian royal wedding (not a huge news event in the UK, so far as I can tell, but I don't read proper newspapers or watch TV so I might have missed it) and sometimes it's nice to just kick back and look at the pictures.

Since the crowned heads of Europe tremble at the prospect of Desbladet's wrath, I'd better say at once that:

• The bride looked lovely.
• The bride's hair looked lovely.
• The bride's dress was lovely.
• Lovely, lovely, lovely.
• Mette-Marit looked lovely, as ever.
• Princess Victoria looked lovely, but little Madeleine - lovely though she also looked - could perhaps afford to ease up on the Perma-Tan(TM).
• Some of the guests were "ordinary" Norwegians allocated tickets by ballot. Aw, bless, isn't that lovely? That almost makes up for not getting my press pass.

Tune in next time for more incisive analysis on modern european royalty!

2002-06-05 9:13

Ooh!

Expressen has an exclusive interview with princess Victoria, amid rumours that she has a new boyfriend - a personal trainer at an exclusive gym in central Stockholm. I'm not yet fluent in the nuances of all this stuff (I'm a republican in the UK, so royal gossip is not exactly my core strength) but her careful lack of an explicit denial looks suggestive to me.

In fact, only last week there were rumours swirling around linking her with various princes in town for the wedding, and I'm inclined to think that this was leaked to calm the situation down, although whether it's targetted at the public or the princes themselves, I have no idea.

2002-06-05 9:11

I'm the Anti-christ, and so is my wife.

A bloated and irrelevant anachronism or an invaluable part of our great nation's shared cultural heritage? A remnant of an era whose attitudes and beliefs are necessarily foreign to our own, or a salutory reminder of virtues all too easily overlooked?

I refer, of course, to the 25th anniversary of the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, and the accompanying reunion of the surviving members.

That might seem like ancient history to some of you young whipper-snappers, but Desbladet would argue it's as relevant today as ever it was. After all, it's not Forget about the bollocks, for now or There will be a time for the bollocks, even if this isn't it. No, it's Never Mind the Bollocks. There's a lesson for us all, I think, in that unwavering sense of purpose, and it's one that speaks as clearly to us now in these difficult and troubled times as it did in the halcyon days of the 70s.

Indeed, what strikes today's listener about the work is precisely its freshness and vitality. What, we're assured, struck contemporary listeners as barely competent - scandalously primitive - now sounds - if never quite polished - at least assured and purposeful. I think it's safe to declare that it's proved itself to be a classic of enduring value, even if youthful indiscretion causes the lyrical content - although commendibly vivid - on occasion to overstep the bounds of good taste.

As the corner-stone of the so-called "Punk" movement of the late 70s which did so much to re-invigorate the British music industry - then as now an important part of our export trade, Desbladet feels that it would be only fitting for the Queen - coincidentally celebrating an important anniversary of her own - to recognise these achievements and formally bestow the thanks of a grateful nation on Sir Johnny Rotten. Go on - we mean it, Ma'am!