|
2003-08-08 17:34 (UTC+1)
The text of the Vanity Fayre special does have its moments, though.
It is written by Prince Michael of Greece, who is willing to defend
absolute monarchy and inexplicably keen to show off the full extent of
his intellect:
The House of Denmark, to which he [George I of Greece] belonged, was
not originally really Danish, for its roots were steeped in Germanic
mythology.
Huh?
And it turns out that "morganatic" is the correct term for a marriage
of an Royal Personnage to a Person of Unroyalness, although my shorter
OED (My! Shorter! OED! Hoorah!) claims that its from medieval Latin
matrimonium ad morganaticam, in which "the wife and childrens,
if any, are entitled to no share in the husbands possessions beyond
the 'morning gift'", and doesn't note that this is no longer the case,
possibly because it wasn't yet no longer the case back then.
And there's a jolly fold-out family tree of the once-great
interweavology of the once-great Royle Hices of Yooorp for those
dynastical trainspotter moments, and let's face it we all have them
and it's nothing to be ashamed of, whatever Mr Pope says.
And it clears up that M�rtha Louise only gave up the title "Her Royal
Highness", while it's still OK to call her a prinsess, hoorah, so I
have lately improved my opinion of it a good deal.
[Permalink]
2003-08-08 15:58 (UTC+1)
It's taken me an awfully long time to grok in fullness that some of
the countries in Yoorp are fairly new, and that countries can come and
go and borders can move. (Yes, yes, I know; Silly Engleesh!)
Germany is currently trying to pick a list of the 10 greatest Germans
(with You Know Who having been excluded from voting, just in case),
and an Austrian gentleperson is seizing the opportunity for a spot
of tact:
Austria's ambassador to Germany, Christian Prosl, has said that
because Salzburg is in modern-day Austria, Mozart is Austrian, and has
complained over the composer's inclusion in the list.
The thing is, there was a language called German before there was a
state called Germany (these are Engleesh names, but parallel
constructions exist), and there was a de facto supra-national
German ethnicity that went with it. Bringing the two into closer
alignment was explicitly stated as a motivation for some of the last
century's unhilarities, in fact.
So the question, almost as fascinating as cheese labelling but not
quite, is whether someone who would presumably have qualified as
German in the sense prevailing in Mr Mozart's time still qualifies as
German in an age that has adopted a definition of Germanness based on
a subsequent nation-state.
And if you're snaffling up Freud, why not go all the way and make a
grab for Kafka and cheer up the Czechs as well?
The BBC don't mention Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche or Heidegger as being contenders, although Claudia Schiffer ("pictured", ho ho) and Boris Becker are, but I haven't actually looked for the full skinny.
[Permalink]
2003-08-08 13:58 (UTC+1)
To remind us why we bother, then, what better than a
semiotic autopsy on the affair no one except me is calling
Knudellagate:
�Jeg kan kun tolke dronning Margrethes udtalelse s�dan, at der kommer
en forlovelse meget snart, selv om udtalelsen ikke er officiel. Katten
er lukket ud af s�kken,� siger forfatteren og journalisten Merete
Wilkenschildt.
["I'd interpret queen Margrethe's remarks thuswisely: that an
engagement is coming really soon, although the announcement isn't
official. The kat's out of the bag," said author and journalist
Merete Wilkenschildt.]
That's much more like it, is it not, Varied Reader? A nation will
surely sleep soundly tonight with the thought, "If it's good enough
for author and journalist Merete Wilkenschildt, it's good enough for
me."
[Permalink]
2003-08-08 13:21 (UTC+1)
"To be Young and Royal: A Special 57-Page Portfolio" mostly
amounts to stiffly posed photos.
There's no way I could resist such a thing, of course, but it's the
most persuasive case I've seen for a good while for being someone who
could resist such a thing - this kind of material just
doesn't work for me in ze Engleesh.
If you also can't resist, be sure you have enough snarkage for the
whole class.
[Permalink]
2003-08-08 10:05 (UTC+1)
Could somebody please write this essay and give me all the credit -
I'm just an an ideas person. Thanks.
[Permalink]
2003-08-07 15:52 (UTC+1)
Polyglots! Ever wanted a really extensive collection of really quite
hard grammar tests?
Look no
further.
I am apparently "Advanced Intermediate" in both French (70-something%)
and Swedish (85%), making the Swedish at long last my Official
Language Of Secondness. (Actually, I am definitely better at
Swedish syntax, but my French vocabulary is way ahead.)
The tests are rigorous enough that for me to try to fake competence in
Italian or Latin would only end in humiliation, but if you think your
Japanese, Chinese or Irish are up to the job (or you happen to have a
taste for humiliation) then help yourself.
[via Anna Louise, tack.]
[Permalink]
2003-08-07 13:56 (UTC+1)
Oh man oh man oh man but the Berlingske Tidende has gone
Kronprinsess Knudella crazy! One would almost think that they knew
this was coming and had prepared in advance, or something.
Relish
their
portrait of Her Blivende Herselfness (snippet: �Mary Elizabeth -
kan det blive mere kongeligt?� "Mary Elizabeth - could it be more
regal?") by all means, but spare a thought for Kronprinsfred's exes,
of which they have an immensely tasteful fotoseries (which is
javascripted, sadly, to the point of unlinkability but easy enough to
find). He's not "Prins" Albert of "Monaco", our Kronprinsfred (and
thank heavens for that), but he's not done badly for himself over the
years.
Drama and romance and fotos, oh my! (Note that there's another
fotoseries chronicling the Knudella wcourtship and I recognise every
single one of them, good grief.)
(I'll try to blog something non-prinsessly tomorrow, but really.)
[via Birgitte, tack]
[Permalink]
2003-08-07 12:38 (UTC+1)
[Anna Louise's tip off, hurrah!]
Squeezing the last drops of drama from the drama like the drama-Queen
that Kronprinsfred's mummy - the dramatically-accomplished Queen of
Denmark - is, she is at the dropping heavy hints
stage:
En forlovelse mellem Mary Donaldson og kronprins Frederik er n�rt
forest�ende.
Det bekr�ftede dronning Margrethe indirekte p� et pressem�de i
formiddag p� slottet Ch�teau de Ca�x i Frankrig, hvor regentparret for
tiden ferierer.
[An engagement between Knudella ("Mary") Donaldson and Kronprinsfred
is practically understood.
Queen Margrethe [who is Kronprinsfred's mummy] confirmed this
indirectly at a press-conference this morning at the Ch�teau de Ca�x
in France, where her French husband likes to strut around like he's
some kind of bigshot to make up for the fact that he gets no respect
in Denmark the royal couple are on holiday.]
Sorry about that, our translation staff seems to have acquired a bit
of an attitude lately.
If you close your eyes can you almost hear the distant tinkling of wedding
bells through the still, heavy, hot and humid air?
Don't expect any sense from me until this is officially official.
[Permalink]
2003-08-07 10:12 (UTC+1)
So. Imagine, then, the solemn and indeed majestic dignity as the 12
golden mullets slowly ascend the flagpole, and the full European Parliament
stands to attention and belts out the canonically aphasic adaptation
of Mr Beethoven's classic arrangement of Mr Schiller's Ode to joy,
La, La, La, La, la-la-la,
La La La La, Laaaaaaa Lala,
La, La, La, La la-la-la,
La La La La Laaaaaa Lala
[Schiller, trans. Von Karajan]
Not a dry eye in the house, I'd wager.
Some traditionalists might try to sneak in the German:
Freude sch�ne G�tterfunken
Tochter aus Elysium
Ich betrete h�m h�m -trunken
hm hm hm hm Heiligtum
Deine Zauber binden wieder
was die Mode streng geteilt
alle Menschen werden Br�der
(?wo dein sanften Fl�gel weilt?)
[Schiller, adapted Birgitte]
Note how the new humming sections undercut what might otherwise be an
oppressive and cloying sentimentality by obliquely reminding - even
enacting - that lofty visions neglect details and specifics at
the risk of appearing foolish and incoherent. A clear improvement on
Schiller's text, I would say.
Or we could try the
Swedish drinking song approach:
Snapsvisor vill ingen sjunga,
som har vett i skallen sin.
Hellre spara d� din lunga
och h�ll ut din flaska gin.
I think you'll agree that I've surpassed something with a translation
of this that still fits the music:
Nobody sings drinking songs
If brains, not sawdust, fill his head
Don't waste your breathe on sing-alongs,
Let's have another gin instead!
[Birgitte has pointed out that the sentiment of the original was towards pouring the gin away rather than into a glass, so my translation is clearly as big an improvement as her own version of Mr Schiller's composition, hoorah!]
(The gin and tonic, like stilton cheese and cricket, is of course a
sure proof that God is an Englishment, but don't tell anyone I said
so, OK?)
[Permalink]
2003-08-06 14:52 (UTC+1)
Olivi Bino's L'Europa difficile. Storia politica
dell'integrazione europea 1948-2000 has been translated into
French as
L'Europe difficile : Histoire politique de l'int�gration europ�enne,
and it is the latter version that I picked up in Oxfam. It's
dauntingly long, and pretty openly federalist in the introduction
(which is all I've read, so far). There is no Engleesh translation.
Instead, why not amaze your friends by learning all the
words to the EU anthem?
In 1972, the Council of Europe (the same body that designed the
European flag) adopted Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" theme as its own
anthem. The well-known conductor Herbert Von Karajan was asked to
write three instrumental arrangements - for solo piano, for wind
instruments and for symphony orchestra. Without words, in the
universal language of music, this anthem expresses the ideals of
freedom, peace and solidarity for which Europe stands.
Or spot the deliberate
mistakes in some misrenderings of the EU flag's 12 gloriously
perfect golden mullets.
(Has anyone got any skateboarding duck stories? My spicy brain is bedrown�d
in a silly seasoning marinade, what with the heat.)
[Permalink]
2003-08-06 10:55
Last year the Grauniad had a feature article on the meeja
silly season that sets
in in the dog days of
summer (viz now). This year we are contenting ourselves with
demonstrations, such as this from BT (via Birgitte,
tack) on the saga of Kronprinsfred's perpetually immanent engagement to
his lovely Tasmanian bestly belov�d:
Den forlovelse, resten af landet venter p�, vil nemlig v�re en mindre
katastrofe for politikerne. Efter den d�deste sommer i dansk politik i
mands minde vil politikerne nu have din opm�rksomhed igen. Samtidig!
The engagement that the rest of the country yearns for will be a minor
catastrophe for politicians. After the deadest summer in Danish
politics in living memory, politicians now want to regain the
limelight again. Simultaneously!
Simultaneously, that is, with the Knudellafever that will of course
sweep the nation like a new sensation just as soon as official notice
is given, and quite right too.
(� Nom d'un pipe, Jacques, en Danemark on attend une rentr�e
difficile, n'est-ce pas? � � Bah, ouais. La jolie Tasmanienne, quoi
? �)
Sweepstakewisely, I will content myself with the remark that the
current Point de Vue (where it's silly season all year round, hoorah)
has a headline � Victoria de Su�de et Daniel Westling: Bient�t Fianc�s
? �
[Permalink]
2003-08-05 14:37 (UTC+1)
[via Anna Louise, tack.]
I slutten av august l�per kronprinsesse Mette-Marit blant sjiraffer og
apekatter i dyreparken i Kristiansand.
At the end of August kronprinsess Mette-Marit will run around with a
mixture of giraffes and apekatter in the zoo in Kristiansand.
As you do, obviously. (My Norwegish is currently out of callibration so I
dare not risk a point-mining expedition on this one.)
[Permalink]
2003-08-05 12:35 (UTC+1)
The Great
British Banger, hoorah:
The secret of the successful "economy" sausage these [post-BSE] days
lies not so much in strange offals but in fat and protein
engineering. Pig rind is an essential ingredient in the protein
engineer's toolbox. Frozen, imported, chopped to a slurry and soaked
with hot water, it produces a bargain blancmange which can make up
30-35% of the sausage and still be called meat. Manufacturers'
handbooks recommend rind emulsion because its high protein content
boosts the nitrogen counts which are the basis for tests to determine
the meat content of products.
Oh, that's nasty. Perhaps you'd like to calm down with some soothing
chocolate? EC
Directive 2000/36 was defanged on its way through the legislative
process in another victory for the UKish population, if you believe
the (UK's) Food "Standards" Authority:
In a hard fought battle the UK secured the right to continue to make
milk chocolate to its own traditional recipe, which contains less
cocoa and has a higher milk content and is the taste preferred by UK
consumers.
- When sold elsewhere in the EU such milk chocolate will have to be
labelled as 'family milk chocolate' in order to help distinguish it
from milk chocolate made in the rest of Europe.
UK chocolate: it's like chocolate, only less so! Thank you, FSA,
whoever you are!
[Permalink]
2003-08-05 10:12 (UTC+1)
Kraftwerk have a new
album out. Ten years in the making, apparently it sounds like
Kraftwerk, hoorah!
I appear to be unequal to the struggle against enrolling in more and
further educations. The Open University's European
Studies programme is a clearly a cunning scheme to deprive me of
all my spare money and time, even if there is no option to study
Scandewegian and a shocking lack of a level three course on
The Role of Prinsessor in Modern Yoorp (they could even put
Gender Studies stuff in and I'd still take it - I would read Judith
Butler for the prinsessor, and this is not a small thing to say for
sure.)
Also, an article
on Yoorp's pension deficit. It's narrativised to the point of
structural incoherence, but that's what we von Bladet's do best:
- The Yoorpean population is aging as people neglect the ancient
art of Making Babies. (It is also urbanising, which the article
foolishly thinks is the same thing.)
- Much of Yoorp funds its payment of pensions to Persons Of
Chronology via taxes on the currently working.
- More Pensionable Persons Of Chronology and fewer persons of
working age is a trend that is going to lead to a funding crisis, and
sooner rather than later.
- Much of Yoorp takes immigrants begrudgingly, and fails to
integrate them into the taxable work-force and then moans about them
being a drain on the welfare system in general, and especially their
habit of producing the next generation of potentially taxable workers.
- We may conclude that Yoorpeans are racist half-wits whose keenest
desire is that their societies should self-destruct.
Stop that, Yoorp, and I'm only saying that because I love you.
[Permalink]
2003-08-04 15:18 (UTC)
An encyclopedia
article on Native
Ameriquean Languages, (via Language
Hat), which is well worth your time. Other articles deal with
assorted Amerindian language families, for the Reader of Substantialer
Leisure.
Or how about a survey of "Human
Language Technology", state of the art as recently as 1997?
C'mon, they've got Lauri Karttunen on computational morphology, how
can you possibly resist? ("Because lexical transducers are
bidirectional. they are generally non-deterministic in both
directions.")
[Permalink]
2003-08-04 11:36 (UTC+1)
Have you ever wondered how the immanent enlargement will affect our
beloved EU flag? I know I have, but it turns out that it
won't:
The BBC suggested that the EU is being forced to redesign its emblem
as a result of its forthcoming enlargement. This is untrue: the number
of stars on the EU emblem has never been representative of the number
of Member States. There are 12 stars on the emblem and, currently, 15
Member States. The number of stars is fixed at 12 because this is a
number that traditionally symbolises perfection and completeness.
This must be one of the many traditional symbolisms into which's
mysteries I have sadly not been inducted. If you know what twelveness
and perfection have to do with each other I'd be very glad if you told
me, especially if there is a lack of connection with Mr Pope and his
hate-mongering middle-eastern death-cultistes who are not
inconsiderably out of favour hos von Bladet.
[Permalink]
2003-08-04 10:59 (UTC+1)
and the sky is substantially clearer than my head. With hindsight,
skipping lunch yesterday in favour of much Guiness and a packet of
peanuts still seems like a pretty good idea, but it is not a decision
that has been without consequences.
Also, I have seen Nan Tow's Tump, said to be the largest tump in the
Midgely Wood district, and a long barrow which's name I have forgot,
but which is also the largest something in somewhere and thus very
impressive.
And some of a Formula One race, which is a dull thing they do with
cars, and some of England's heroic capitulation to Seth Effricka in
the cricket, which reminded me just how good it is to watch,
especially in pubs. (I do not have a TV, you may recall, so I am at
the mercy of circumstances in these matters.)
[Permalink]
previous,
next, latest
|
|
|