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2004-01-23 samwidge (u!t!c!)
Been around the world and I, I, I
I can't find my baby
Lisa Stansfield
(Not particularly relevant to my situation, but persons familiar with
the earwormy tune will now hate me for causing it to get wriggling
back round their various heads.)
More interestingly, when picking from a list of visited countries,
what is one meant to do with countries that were then but no longer
are? I ticked Croatia rather than Yugoslavia, because that's where
Dubrovnic is now (I think) but when I went there back in the 80's it
was in Yugoslavia; anyone who spent time in a supranational supergroup
like the USSR is going to get lots of spare tickage if they can
remember which of the assorted subsequent solo acts they traipsed
through.
Anyway, one globe, slightly
trotted:
Varied Reader, I implore thee - show me yours!
[Permalink]
2004-01-23 mornin' (utc)
Hoorah and welcome to the club, Greece!
Sn�kaos i norra
Grekland:
Sn�ov�der och stormvindar svepte �ver stora delar av Grekland p�
torsdagen, vilket ledde till kaos p� v�garna och inst�llda flyg- och
f�rjeturer.
Sn�storms and stormwinds swept over large parts of Greeceland on
Thorsday, which lead to kaos on the roads and cancelled plane and rail
journeys.
Oh, well, since the trains not going anywhere I'll have a large ouzo;
thanks for asking. No ice.
[Permalink]
2004-01-22 apr�s-samwidge (utc)
Ein zwei drei vier -
Lift your stein and drink your beer!
Ein zwei drei vier -
Lift your stein and drink your beer
Drinking
Song
In response to my request for a country-by-country breakdown of beer
consumption, Birgitte provides a source
of exactly that. In, which is surely much funnier if like her you
know the language, German:
Im EU-Schnitt wurden 2000 76 (78) Liter Bier pro Kopf getrunken. In
den USA waren es im Vergleich dazu 82 (84) Liter, wobei der Begriff
Bier dort gro�z�gig interpretiert wird. Die st�rksten Biertrinker in
der EU waren traditionsgem�� die Deutschen, die allerdings mit 125
Liter pro Kopf auch weiter hinter den 80er Jahren mit 146 Liter
liegen. Gro�e R�ckg�nge gab es in den vergangenen 20 Jahren auch in
Belgien von 131 auf 99 Liter, in Gro�britannien mit einem R�ckgang von
117 auf 95 Liter und in D�nemark von 122 auf 102 Liter. Der Bierdurst
der Iren ist zwar im Vergleich zu 1999 auf 125 (126) leicht gesunken,
im 20-Jahresabstand aber sogar um 3 Liter gr��er geworden.
Help me, Kauderwelsh
Allemand, mot � mot (available at Amazon.de, but not
Amazon.fr, hilarity fans will wish to note), you're my only hope!
Across the EU the average yearly beer consumption per head was 76 litres
(76 litres) in 2000. [Figures in parens are for 1999 - DvB.] In the
USA, by comparison, it was 82 litres (84 litres), where the definition
of beer is interpreted generously. The biggest beer drinkers in the
EU were, in accordance with tradition, the Germans, who at 125 litres
admittedly lay behind the 80's figure of 146 litres. Large declines
have also occured in the last 20 years in "Belgium" from 131 litres to
99 litres, in Great Britain [which is prolly the UK - DvB] from 117 to
95 litres, and in Denmark from 122 to 102 litres. The beer thirst of
the Irish is indeed lightly reduced from 1999 to 125 litres (126
litres), but over a twenty year interval it has grown by 3 litres.
(No fishies were harmed in the making of this translation.)
Kauderwelsch
phrasebooks, I can now announce, are not just worth learning German
for, they are also a good way to learn it - the mini-grammar is small
enough that you can find stuff in it, and comprehensive enough that
you can, you know, find stuff in it.
That, and a Collins Gem dictionary, and Copious Free Time and your
days of babelfishiness could soon be over...
Now where were we? Ah yes:
Drink! Drink! Drink!
To eyes that are bright as stars when they're shining on me!
Drink! Drink! Drink!
To lips that are red and sweet as the fruit on the tree!
[Permalink]
2004-01-22 fika (utc)
As reported, breathlessly, by Hege Lyngved
Odinsen, Robin Stenersen, Marianne Heen Johnsg�rd, Tom Berby, Espen
Egil Hansen and H�var Bremer for VG. The prime minister, Kjell
Magne Bondevik, says:
- Ingrid er jo et kjent norsk pikenavn, samtidig ogs� et norr�nt navn
og et kongelig navn i Bernadotte-slekta. Ingrid-navnet er ogs� brukt i
kronprinsessens familie, og derfor en fin kombinasjon av de to
familiene.
"Ingrid is of course a well-known Norwegish girl's name, and also a
norr�nt name and royal name in the Bernadotte family [Sweden's
Royle Hice]. The name Ingrid is also used in the Kronprinsess's
family [which is common as muck, Herselfness apart] and is therefore a
fitting combination of the two families."
Interpolations are of course mine.
[Permalink]
2004-01-22 mornin' 2! (utc)
Each time that I visit Norway my first purchase after arrival is the
current issue of Rutebok for Norge, a timetable which gives you
the latest information about every railway, steamer, bus, ferry and
airline service in the country. Even if you lack knowledge of the
Norwegian language, a half-hour's study of this most interesting
publication may make all the difference between rewarding, informed
travel and dictated travel wherein the whole thing, lock, stock and
barrel, is left to the advice of a travel agent. I do not mean to
belittle agency travel. It is often helpful, even essential to the
majority of travellers, but obedient travel, just adhering slavishly
to an itinerary drawn up by someone else, is not consonant with the
fun and feeling of utter independence when you act as an individual on
your own. Then, apart from its practical side, I find the
Rutebok, like most foreign timetables, enjoyable sparetime
reading. For in addition to facts and costs on Jernbane
(railways), Skip (shipping services), Bilruter (bus
routes), Ferjeruter (ferry routes, across the fjords) and
Flyruter ("fly routes"), there are many other odds and ends of
essential tips.
[Gordon Cooper, Your Holiday in Norway, (1955?) p.32]
There is nothing quite like diligently combing a book-sized timetable in a
language you do not know for odds and ends of essential tips, is
there?
Mr Cooper's A Fortnight in Venice was previously featured in this bladet, and more
of his work will most assuredly feature in the future. Given the
antipathy to Germans which he generally neglects to make the slightest
effort to conceal (the section on Bergen identifies the Hanseatic
league as a self-proclaimed "master race", and I think there might be
just a hint of a subtext there), I am especially keen to procure his
Your Holiday in Germany.
[Permalink]
2004-01-22 morning! (utc)
Hooda thunkit - there already is a prinsess Ragnhild, and
she's not
keen on having an ickle namesake! Because:
Ragnhild er altfor vanskelig � uttale i utlandet.
Ragnhild is too hard to pronounce in Forren.
Bah! It's easy enough, Varied Reader, we assure you. Pronounce it as
"Rangnhild" (try it, it's not as bad as it looks) and Norwegish
persons will marvel at your cleverness, which is never bad.
The BBC notes
that
Celebrations to mark the birth will include flying flags from all
public buildings and cannon salutes from military fortresses.
Norway's last female monarch was Queen Margrete who assumed the
Danish-Norwegian throne in 1380 upon the death of her husband and
ruled until 1412.
Flying flags? That's a traditional Norwegish way to celebrate
alternate Tuesdays; make an effort chaps! The Dutch are way out in front so far.
And Birgitte alerts us to rumours that Margrethe I of Norway (who was
also sometimes Margrethe I of Denmark, since in those days they hadn't
learned enough geography to reliably tell the difference) wasn't a
real honest-to-goodness queen at all, but only a regent on behalf of
various infants or children she had taken the precaution of bearing.
We'll settle this urgent constitutional crisis in the only way that
befits its importance. Web rules wrestling: two falls, two
submissions or a knock-out, and as always, Google's decision is final.
Bing! Round 1! This
lot seem to have got "reigning" and "regent" rather mixed up at
the worst possible moment:
3. Have there been any Queen Regnants in Denmark?
Yes, twice, even though the first one never used the title Queen of
Denmark. Margareta, Queen 1380-1412. Born 1353 at S�borg,
Denmark. Parents: King Valdemar Atterdag of Denmark and Helvig of
S�nderjylland. Ruled Denmark from 1376 and Norway from 1380 in the
name of her son Olav. Defeated Albrekt 24 of February 1389 and was
recognized as Queen of Sweden (a title she had used since 1375). She
later ruled in the name of Erik, who in 1389 had been elected King of
Norway and in 1396 King of Denmark and Sweden. She died 28 of October
1412 onboard her ship in the port of Flensborg. Married 9 of April
1363 at Copenhagen's Palace to King H�kan VI of Norway. Child: Olav
(1370-1387)
Margrethe II, the current Queen. She acceded the throne in 1972.
Google's dictionary says "regnant" is an English word, so we're
stuck with it, and although the text suggest only regency, those dates
aren't complete. Bing! Round 2!
Margrethe 1. (1375-1412)
I de f�rste �r efter Valdemar Atterdags d�d, regerede Margrethe for
sin mindre�rige s�n, Oluf. Efter dennes d�d som 17-�rig i 1387 blev
Margrethe som Rigets Frue Danmarks egentlige hersker.
In the first years afer Valdemar Atterdags death, Margrethe reigned on
behalf of her underage son Oluf. When he died at the age of 17 in
1387 Margrethe became Denmark's sovereign in her own right as the
Kingdom's Wife.
So 1380-87 as Queen Margrethe, Olav's Mummy, a stretch of independent
rule of Denmark to 1389, and then a later period as Erik's Mummy,
although we still don't know what the situation was in such parts of
Norway as weren't Denmark during various parts of this time.
Bing! Round
3!
Med Olufs d�d f�rsvann fundamentet f�r Margrethes makt. Hennes �ldre
syskons arvingar v�drade nu morgonluft och s�g chansen att g�ra
anspr�k p� kungatronen. Men redan n�gra dagar efter Olufs d�d samlade
hon det sk�nel�ndska tinget i Lund som valde Margrethe till
"fuldm�gtig frue og husbond og til ganske Rige af Danmarks
formynder". Hon genomf�rde h�r en statskupp som �sidosatte alla regler
och traditioner; hon gavs utan traditionell arvsr�tt makten som regent
med en helt ny titel, med makt att i enighet med riksr�det utse en
arvtagare n�r det passade henne.
With Oluf's death the foundations for Margrethe's power vanished. Her
older siblings heirs felt a change in the air and saw a chance to
claim the throne. But within a few days of Oluf's death she gathered
the Scanian parliament in Lund, which elected Margrethe to
"alle-powerfull wyfe and Master and till quite ye Kingedome of
Denmark's Guardianne". She carried out here a coup d'�tat which
disregarded all rules and traditions; she was given without
traditional inheritence rights power as ruler with a completely new
title, with power to designate an heir when she passed away in
agreement with the state council.
Knock out! You might question the jurisdiction of Scania's
parliament, and the legitimacy of the coup d'�tat to which it
consented, but so far as this 'bladet is concerned she was very
definitely a proper queen of something, and that's good enough for us.
UPDATE: Birgitte, who did this in school when she was, like, ten, is having none of it. Rules is rules and queens is queens, and Queen Margrethhe wasn't (hence the name), and points to this biography
of Dronning Margrete den f�rste ("Queen Margrete the First" ) by way of proof.
[Permalink]
2004-01-21 still hoorah! (utc)
As the Norwegish blogosphere rejoices, Hilde remarks
of the new prinsess:
She can be the first reigning queen of Norway since 1412!
That's about time!
And I look forward to the discussions about gender, power,
monarchy, the state etc that will follow.
Of course, in Storbrittanien och Nordirland, where I live, we
have had a Queen since 1953, and both Denmark and the Netherlands have
also successfully tested their patches of the Infamous Succession
Gender Bug, hoorah!
So while we appreciate the endless discursiveness of Norwegish public
life, and we certainly acknowledge the need for things to do in the
long winter evenings, there is a considerable weight of evidence that
gender, power, monarchy and the state are likely to be profoundly
unaffected by the reign of a queen rather than a king. (Although
we're not going to find out for sure one way or another while Haakon
is around, which we hope and trust will be a very long time, so
there's no rush.)
But of course in 1953 nobody had even read Foucault, let alone
J. Butler, so heaven knows but what we may have missed something
crucial. We will, as ever, endeavour to keep our Varied Reader
informed.
[Permalink]
2004-01-21 samwidge (utc)
"Katie
weighs all of two tonnes, remember!"
Russian troops have retrieved 10 tonnes of beer trapped under the
Siberian ice after a week-long operation.
[...]
They retrieved the kegs of beer but the rope snapped and the truck
slipped back under the water.
The Rosar brewery in Omsk said the freezing temperatures probably kept
the quality of the beer from deteriorating and said it will still take
the delivery. It plans to sell the beer at a discount.
But the iconic beer in Ice-cold in
Alex was, of course, the mighty Malaysian juggernaut
Carlsberg, on whose global empire the sun
never
sets:
Danish brewer Carlsberg has said it has made an offer to buy German
rival Holsten for just over 1bn euros.
[...]
Carlsberg said buying Holsten would help its strategic goal of
building its brands, particularly the Carlsberg brand.
It said Holsten was a "well-invested, highly efficient company", with
a strong distribution network in Germany, Europe's biggest beer
market, through which to expand sales of the Carlsberg and Tuborg beer
brands.
We owe to an ex-colleague's wife's MBA course the insight that
Carlsberg's core strength not in fact brewing but its ability to
distribute perishable refrigerated fluids in vast quantities, so this
deal makes perfect sense to Desbladet Business Focus. Germany, we
will remark in passing, is also the most populous country in
Yoorp, and we are holding out for a proper beer-per-person breakdown
before we're at all impressed.
[Permalink]
2004-01-21 hoorah! (utc)
Happy birthday dear Future
Queen of Norway,
Happy birthday to you!
En liten prinsessa, nummer tv� i den norska tronf�ljden, �r
f�dd.
��Kronprinsessan Mette-Marit lades vid fyratiden p�
onsdagsmorgonen in p� f�rlossningsavdelningen p� Rikshospitalet i
Oslo.
��Kronprins Haakon k�rde sj�lv sin h�ggravida hustru
till sjukhuset.
A little princess, number two in line to the Norwegish throne, has
been born.
��Kronprinsess Mette-Marit was in labour for four hours
on Wednesday morning in the maternity department at the National hospital in Ooshloo.
��Kronprins Haakon drove his pregnant wife to the
hospital himself.
VG has gone predictably beserk with
patriotic joy, so I may be busy for a while...
UPDATE: Birgitte points
us to the Danish coverage which remarks,
Navnet p� den nyf�dte bliver ikke offentliggjort f�r p� et et
ekstraordin�rt statsr�dsm�de, der holdes i morgen.
The new-born's name won't be officially announced before an
extraodinary cabinet meeting to be held tomorrow.
With Sigurd being a boy's name, we at this bladet are now solidly and
unwaveringly backing Ragnhild, and you may be sure that we will be
using all our influence with the Norwegish cabinet in this matter.
[Permalink]
2004-01-21 mornin' (utc)
Babies are more like trains than buses, VG points out:
although the timing of their arrival is certainly unpredictable, you
still normally only get one at once:
Kronprinsesse Mette-Marit og kronprins Haakon m� v�re forberedt p� �
vente mange dager etter terminen p� torsdag f�r de blir foreldre.
Kronprinsess Mette-Marit and her husband must be prepared to wait many
days after the term of her confinement on Thursday to become parents.
While Denmark's blushing kronprinsess-to-be, Knudella "Mary"
Donaldson, are going
on a little trip after their eagerly-anticipated nuptuations:
Kronprins Frederik og Mary Donaldson rejser i juni den lange vej
mod nord til Qaanaaq i Gr�nland.
Kronprinsfred and Knudella will travel a long way north to Qaanaaq in
Greenland.
This is undoubtedly very wise indeed, since it is even further to
Qaanaaq if you set off initially by proceeding in a southerly
direction, and Kronprinsfred and Knudella undoubtedly have Denmark's
finest geographers to advise them in these matters.
[Permalink]
2004-01-20 allgonedark (utc)
According to an Online Language Translators report:
"Danish: national language of Danishsia, Brunei and official language
of Singapore."
Danishsia? The largest non-existent potato importer in South-East
Asia, for sure. Politiken, which has the original report, has also
further sport with the story, but for some reason seems to have
written it in an obscure dialect of Malay spoken only in
Schleswig Holstein and nearby areas.
[via David TEFLSmiler]
[Permalink]
2004-01-20 not hungry (utc)
to all the loonies, monkeys, persons of cultural applicability and peripateticistes out there!
[Permalink]
2004-01-20 samwidge (utc)
We will forgive la-di-dah DN, although not for anything in particular,
for publishing this account
from Ulla Roseen of how she became a translator, and the circumstances
thereof, in celebration of the International Year of Translation:
Jag blev �vers�ttare d�rf�r att jag blev f�r�lskad i en bok. Om
Sibirien. Skriven av en bulgar. I det l�get, n�r f�r�lskelsen �r het
och det inte finns n�gon att dela l�supplevelsen med, finns bara en
sak att g�ra: �vers�tta. Med boken under armen stegade jag (24 �r
gammal) upp till Den Store F�rl�ggaren med mitt projekt, han lutade
sig tillbaka i sin skinnf�t�lj och sa att "lilla fr�ken f�rst�r att
det �r sv�rt att �vers�tta - det r�cker inte med att kunna ett annat
spr�k".
I became a translator because I fell in love with a book. On Siberia.
Written by a Bulgarian. In that situation, when the infatuation is
raging and there's no one to share the reading experience with,
there's only one thing to do: translate it. With the book under my
arm I marched up (24 years old) to The Big Publisher with my project,
he leant back in his leather armchair and said that "you have to
realise, young lady, that translation is hard - it's not enough just
to know another language."
Nonethelesswisely, outcome it did, with Roseen having learned on the
way to cherish the "freedom" offered by the non-existence of any
Swedish-Bulgarian dictionaries, which is proof enough that she's a
born translator if you ask me. It's "Bortom Ural" ("Beyond the
Urals") av Jordan Raditjkov, and it's won all sorts of prizes and
acclaims and who-knows-what.
Some of his other books are out in other languages; he trades as
Yordan Raditchkov in the Frenchy-French whose Amazon has several but
not, so far as I can tell, the Siberian one,
Jordan
Radichkov in Italian and possibly in Engleesh (although Yordan
Radichkov, the
Kafka of Sofia has its champions); neither of the
Engleesh-speaking Amazons stocks any of his books. He's also Jordan
Raditschkow in German, but Amazon.de only has one story collection.
So it looks like it may be time for the old "it's simply
marvelous! Of course, I don't read Bulgarian; it's out in
translation. Only in Swedish so far, though, but it really is
absolutely exquisite - you'd love it, I'm sure you would!"
[Permalink]
2004-01-20 mornin' (utc)
Aftenposten brings timely
warnings about budget airlines, which are of course expected to
play a crucial role in the current International Year of Yoorp:
Flyselskapet Ryanair tillater kun 15 kilo bagasje pluss syv kilo
h�ndbagasje. For hver kilo overvekt m� du ut med 50 kroner. Dette er
bare �n av de mange �konomiske feller du kan g� i ved � fly til
lavpris.
Budget airline Ryanair allows only a 15 kg baggage allowance plus 7 kg
handbaggage. Every kilo over that will cost you 50 NOK (6 EUR).
That's just one of the many economic traps you can fall into flying on
the cheap.
Otherwise: it is widely suspected that Ryanair's lowest (advertised)
fares meet at best some legal miminum threshold for existence with
little relevance for purchasability in practice; Easyjet sells only
point-to-point tickets and couldn't care less if you make a connecting
flight, even if it's another Easyjet flight; Ryanair (especially)
flies to some airports with pretty random relationships to the cities
they are alleged to serve; none of the cheapies gives you anything to
eat or drink on board (but you can buy it or take your own,
which is a better deal than Disneyland offers); and they will
weigh your baggage, and make you pay for any excess.
Also they alert me to the hard-to-google budget Norwegian carrier, Norwegian, which offers
Stansted->Bergen for 30 GBP one way including taxes, which is by no
means a bad deal, especially if you happen to be fond of Bergen, which
I certainly am.
[Permalink]
2004-01-19 samwidge (utc)
�1. Look, an opinion!
You don't see many of those these days, for sure, and what a splendid
specimen
this is! Scott Douglas - for it is he! - is in no danger of picking
up a finder's fee on the plot:
Now with no books or literacy we can finally eliminate language, at
least language in the traditional sense. Hearing somebody speak in
complete sentences will be confusing and hard to follow. When the
world is surrounded by graphics, speaking in words seems
inappropriate. Since it is impossible to speak in images, something
else needs to be worked out. At first it will be best to speak using
chat room abbreviations; when you find yourself amused at something,
you will smile and tell the person "L-O-L" or when you are leaving you
will say "B-F-N." A formal, romantic wedding proposal would look
something like, "W-Y-M-M?"
Ho ho! Cultures whose languages lack a writing system, is it that
they find "[h]earing somebody speak in complete sentences will be
confusing and hard to follow"? Astonishingly, it turns out that this
is by no means the case, which is on the contrary quite otherwise.
The persons best equipped to announce this fact are called
"anthropologists" and "linguists", and they have been announcing it to
anyone who will listen for a century or so.
Of course, Scott Douglas's piece is by way of being an indulgence in
hilarity or "humour", which is Journalisme for "offensively stupid",
but we are impressed that a world in which email and texting have made
the written word indispensable to communication as never before could
be mistaken for one on the verge of illiteracy.
Since, however, this is a very common position, I will do the world
the largely undeserved honour of explaining how it came about, which
is actually quite simple:
The increased importance and convenience of textual communication
has lead to increased exposure to the writing of persons who aren't
very good at it.
Fifty or a hundred years ago there was certainly at least as high a
proportion of illiterates in western societies, but they weren't
sending email or writing web pages or texting with abandon, and they
were correspondingly easier not to notice. These days the kind of
peasants who would have been tugging their forelocks down on t'farm
back in the "good old days" are emailing badly crafted memos about
business meetings and texting each other (in Yoorp) till their little
thumbs are sore, while the corresponding shortage of minions means
we're all our own typists and proofreaders, and the secretaries who
would once have silently disentangled our dysfluencies are these days
doing it for themselves.
I would, in fact, bet good hard currency that the proportion of
persons in the Western world who are skilled in the use of the written
word has in fact risen over the last 50 years, although the proportion
who are just getting by has certainly risen faster. And if you must
insist that this is a bad thing, do not be surprised if I hold it
against you.
[Via the Muselivre]
�2. We were somewhere around J�nk�ping when the sn� began to take hold
Oh yes:
[U]tanf�r J�nk�ping r�dde sent p� s�ndagskv�llen kaos sedan det
blivit totalstopp i trafiken d�r �ven plogbilar och sandbilar satt
fast.
Outside J�nk�ping chaos ruled late on Sunday evening as traffic
came to a complete halt when even sn�-ploughs and sand trucks were
stuck fast.
I was initially disappointed that New York, unlike the Scandewegians,
did such a poor job of succumbing to the sn�. But it's fair enough,
really, if you think about it: New York probably only occasionally has
really serious blizzards, so they are bound to be rusty when one
finally comes along, while Sweden gets them several times a year,
which gives them a great deal more practice in being surprised.
[via Birgitte, tack]
�3. Vickan solves the Middle East crisis!
Kronprinsessan Victoria, 26,
is in Saudiarabien.
Kronprinsessan �r Sveriges viktigaste nyckel n�r delegationen med
finansminister Gunnar Lund knyter nya aff�rskontakter i
oljelandet. Kronprinsessan och minister Lund har m�tt regeringen och
kronprins Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz i huvudstaden Riyadh.
- Vi har diskuterat Mellan�sternkonflikten. Kronprinsen �r en viktig
akt�r som kan samtala med de olika parterna.
The kronprinsess is Sweden's most important key when finans minister
Gunnar Lund seeks new business contacts in the oil-rich country. The
kronprinsess and minister Lund have met the government and kronprins
Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Azis in the capital Riyadh.
"We have discussed the weather middle east conflict. The
kronprins is an important figure who can communicate with the
different parties."
(The Saudi royal family is certainly the opposite of an advertisement
for monarchies having actual power and stuff, but probably the rigid
protocol of state visits made it impractical for Vickan to say so.)
[Permalink]
2004-01-19 10:30
�1 X-ray vision, slightly undisproved
Our new friends at Izvestia have
another
scoop. (Must! Learn! Gavareetya! Pa russkee!)
Russian scientists have been unable to disprove a teenage girl who
claims she has x-ray vision and can see inside human bodies.
Doctors at Saransk's children hospital carried out exhaustive tests on
16-year-old Natalia Demkina whose claims she has x-ray vision has
gripped the Russian public.
But according to Russian daily newspaper Izvestia, the scientists have
so far failed to explain the vivid and detailed accounts she gives of
the inside of bodies.
[12
Frogs]
�2 EU power, more than slightly struggled over
Crooked Timber, the Grauniad reader's Slashdot, covers
the implications of the EU stability and growth kerfuffle. This is
some very implicative for the future stuff, and it is a thing of
goodness that there are clever people analysing it, because the news
meeja haven't shown any great willingness to do so. I'm cheering for
the treaty, the commission, the rule of law and a hearty slap in the
face for the French government, not necessarily in that order.
�3 Travelicious!
I have never been to Scotland, of course, but that's about to change.
As part of the International Year of Yoorp I shall be attending a
scientific meeting in the former Yoorpean Capital of Culture, Glasgow,
where they speak a special Glaswegian dialect in which pretty much the
only intelligible word is "fookin". Luckily this is also, in my
experience, a good half of the words by volume, so there isn't really
a problem understanding the majority of what is said.
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