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2004-04-16 postsamwidge (utc+1)

Come on 'Shire! (a haiku)

Finally summer -
The cricket season's started.
It's raining, of course.

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2004-04-16 samwidge (utc+1)

Sm�rg�spost

�1. Yurovizhn Phrasebook, slightly Vikinged

Vikings from what is now Sweden couldn't go west to pillage the Britain since Norway and Denmark were in the way, so they went off to pillage Russia and, via internal Yoorpean waterways, even managed to sack Istanbul (Constantinople). With the Yurovizhn in Istanbul this year, Expressen's handy Swedish-Turkish phrasebook certainly bears this in mind:

Herregud, vad har de p� sig?
Aaah, baksane ne giymisler �yle?
(Good lord, what are they wearing?)

Du vet att Istanbul hette Miklag�rd en g�ng i tiden va?
Istanbul'un bir zamanlar Miklagord oldugunu biliyormuydunuz?
(You do know Istanbul was called Miklagord at one point, right?)

(Note: The Turkish seems to have mislaid its diacritics, and that wasn't me.)

�2. Double wodka!

A two-litre box (as in wine in a box) of the wodka, Sir or Madam?

Fr�n och med den 1 maj �r Estland fullv�rdig medlem av EU.
Samma datum inleds f�rs�ljningen av l�dspriten - tv�litersf�rpackningar Koskenkorva - i butiken Prismo i huvudstaden Tallinn.

As of the 1st of May Estonia will be a full member of the EU [hurrah!].
On the same day the sale of box spirits will start - two-litre f�rpacknings of the Koskenkorva - in the Prismo shop in the capital Tallinn.

Ask not what you can do for Estonia, Varied Reader, but what Estonia can do for you - it can do you proud. This is a timely riposte to those 'Wegians who think of Estonia mostly as a destination for cut-priced "wodka tourisme", for sure. (In Sweden, these days, boxes of wine are dead classy and all the posh brands are available in this format.)

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2004-04-16 fika (utc+1)

Knudella �l!

Prinsessor and �l! Have I died and gone to heaven? Certainly I am not in Australia, but I already knew that since I am not at all upside down. (There is no prinsess�l for for Australians, h�las.)

Tasmanian hops mixed with barley grown by Danish royalty are the recipe for a beer to be sold in Denmark to celebrate Tasmanian Mary Donaldson's marriage to Crown Prince Frederik in May.
[...]
"Bringing the barley from Denmark and the hops from Tasmania to produce this beer, champagne style of beer, 6.5 per cent alcohol, lightly flavoured with the hops so I think it's going to be wonderful," [Australian Hop Marketers managing director Mick Dudgeon] said.

The beer, Carlsberg Crown, will be available on the Danish market at the end of the month.

It will not be sold in Australia.

"The month" in question was the March. So, anyone tried it?

And another one! (I am so very Google news!)

Tassie gal Mary Donaldson will marry Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark in May, and Danes being Danes there'll be a lot of beer going down the hatch.

"Tassie gal"? Strewth!

The giant Carlsberg brewery is knocking up a special batch of Carlsberg Crown for the rest of Denmark to drink. And even though they're calling it a champagne beer, even that's not special enough for Prince Fred and Princess Mary to quaff at the royal wedding breakfast.

So all the little independent breweries in Copenhagen have begun a competition to see which one can put together a right royal drop.

The winner gets to supply the royal wedding and the losers get the dregs from the drip-tray.

Strewth encore, isn't it? Anyway, this is a synergy we are very glad to see being leveraged, this prinsessor and beer thing. (Mine's a pint of "Maddes urringning", cheers.)

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2004-04-16 mornin (utc+1)

On learning Spanish

Preliminary indications are that after about a fortnight's worth of unintensive evening study, my Spanish reading ability is at about the level it took 18 months of Swedish classes to achieve. This is a grossly unfair comparison because the first year of Swedish focussed ruthlessly on pronunciation, speaking skills and everyday tasks and situations. Also, my French was in reasonable shape, and that's a big head start with the Spanish. Even so, this is doing nothing to counter the widely-held belief that Spanish is a cinch.

To celebrate, the Guardian has rounded up a person (one Sara Woods) to learn the language the hard way in the first of a promised ongoing series:

A few weeks after turning 30, to the consternation of family and colleagues, I made the decision to take a year's sabbatical from my job and to follow a plan hatched during my final year of college - to live in a foreign country and to learn the language to competency.

If my family and colleagues had been consterned that I turned thirty, I would have gently proffered to them some remedial numeracy materials - it came just after I had been 29 for about a year, and I am old-fashioned enough to think that's pretty much as it should be. But it goes on:

Choosing to learn Spanish was an easy decision, after Chinese and English it is the third most commonly spoken language and is the official one spoken in 20 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. It is rumoured to be one of the easier languages to master, but, more importantly, Spanish-speaking cultures are renowned for their passion, colour and celebration of life.

Strawdenry, isn't it? I can tell we're going to enjoy this series a great deal. Later on we find the claim that the common Spanish name Jesus is pronounced "Haysoos". (It's really ['xesus], IPA fans, if you don't already know, and I want to hear the friction on that fricative!)

(The only criticism I have of my Spanish tutor book - from the days before tapes and multimedia, of course, since I actually want to learn the language - is that it's unambitious in what it thinks can be achieved in phonetics without a human teacher. Luckily the Collins Gem minidictionary fills that gap admirably.)

Interestingly, the new sponsor for the Grauniad's language resources section is don Quijote.org, and by a remarkable coincidence this is also the residential Spanish course provider that this Sara Woods is using!

The English phrase for the day, accordingly, is Chinese Wall which is "used in journalism to describe the separation between the editorial and advertising arms of a media firm."

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2004-04-15 14:09

Grouches to the number of two (2) and other things

�1. The students are back

Cluttering up everywhere and, worse still, eating MY samwidges.

�2. Online payment systems

Can we agree that a field marked Card number (excluding spaces) is grounds for a custodial sentence, or would you prefer me to launch a preemptive strike on your capital city first? I mean, these people are to be trusted with my credit card number and its validation and debiting, but sed 's/ *//' is beyond them?

�3. Not a grouch

Not a translation article, either - it's an interpreting article. I pity the fool who tries to stereotype this bladet, which is infinite both in its variety and (etymologistes will be pleased to note) in its unfinished- (even sloppi-) -ness.

Along with the 400 hours that Martin Kukal is required to spend in the classroom, he needs to squeeze in about 600 hours of listening to the radio, watching television, reading newspapers and surfing the Internet.

And when all of that is out of the way, he works to expand his working vocabulary in both Czech and English.

Kukal, 32, is a student enrolled in the European Masters in Conference Interpreting (EMCI) program at Charles University, a master's degree-level course of study for interpreters hoping to work for the European Union.

�4. Same Prague Post, different Prague subject:

Yes, a translation article, what fun!

As a freelancer, Milan Havlin translated German documents in his Prague 1 flat, which measured about 5.5 square meters (6.6 square yards). He worked for himself, by himself. That was 1990.

Today, as director of Presto Translation Center, he has a roster of 5,000 freelance translators and 12 full-time translators -- and his two Prague 1 offices, combined, measure 730 square meters.

Floor space, eh? This is a measure of translatorial excellence with which I was previously unacquainted - no wonder Japanese translations have the reputation they have, which they certainly do.

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2004-04-15 samwidge (utc+1)

Yoorp isn't a continent, it's a peninsular with an attitude problem

But even so.

1. Helloooo, Yoorp!

Via the Dowager Countess, an article on Innernet sites relating to the "newbies", from the Sunday (Murdoch) Times's Innernet section. There is linkage, though, so don't be so sniffy:

For all the typically British "let's laugh at the funny foreigner" joshing in this Doors guide, we bid the new kids on our block: wilkommen, bienvenue and welcome.

It's beyond me whether that allusion to Cabaret, set of course in the dying embers of the Weimar republic, and using languages none of which has any official status in any of the EU entries is intended to be friendly or just contemptuous, but it's unarguable that the links include touriste phrasebook sites to the number of zero (0). We'll be bidding Latvia a hearty "Sveiks!" when the glorious day comes, for sure.

2. It's not just "Slovenia", you know:

One complaint, from Eva Staltmane of the Latvian Tourism Board in London, is that most Western Europeans do not even know where her country is.

"Very often people think that Latvia is somewhere in the Balkans. It is probably that Baltics and Balkans sound kind of similar," she explains.

"This is very frustrating, a couple of years ago when the Balkans was not a very safe area to go, it affected us very much."

"Slovenia"/Slovakia; Baltics/Balkans - geography is hard! Also:

"I think there are going to be a lot of early adopters who will be heading off this summer, to explore new opportunities -- particularly on the Baltic Sea and in Estonia and Latvia," says [Simon Calder of the Independent newspaper]

May the second is the day I start complaining that the Baltics ("Balkans") are just ruined by all the backpackers these days, and don't think I won't.

3 You say "Gorizia"; I say "Nova Gorica" - let's call the whole thing on!

Background at the Carniola: essentially, Yugoslavia built Nova Gorica (in current "Slovenia") right next to the existing Gorizia (in Italy) out of sheer pique at being denied it in a territorial redistribution. And now the barbed wire is coming down:

Gorizia, with its 37,000 inhabitants, and Nova Gorica with 15,000, have had a foretaste of unity since January last year, with a common bus service.

The two towns also envisage sharing a hospital, and a water purification station, but according to Tamara "May 1 won't change that much".

"For the moment, we will remain two towns, with two families, with each one having their own house."

A trial unseparation, isn't it?

4. Statutory translation article:

From the Baltic Times:

Meanwhile, translators within Estonia's borders will have their work cut out for them after EU accession, too. For instance, the private sector will have more work to handle in different languages, said to Tolkekunstnikud OU, a Tallinn-based translation and interpretation services company that has been translating EU legal acts and regulatory documents into Estonian and Estonian laws and international agreements into English.

"In the last 12 months the amount of that work has been constantly increasing," said Krista Jurisoo of Tolkekunstnikud. "The effect of EU accession can be seen in increased demand for translation of the European standard and patent specifications. The amount of translations of various machine manuals from German into Estonian has increased in particular."

Hoorah for Krista Jurisoo of Tolkekunstnikud! It is very welcome to be reminded occasionally that the sharp end of translation is very much about the translation of various machine manuals, and not slim volumes of the poesie, charmante though the latter certainly often are.

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2004-04-15 mornin' (utc+1)

English 'em all and let God sort 'em out

We're shunning Scott von Pedantry-Fistful's call for non-anglo Yooropop in its native habitat, since he dares to criticise the mighty Yurivizhn. But if we were playing, which we're not, we'd nominate Bo Kasper's Orkestra and Lisa Ekdahl. Two great tastes, certainly, and they certainly tast great together:

M�n dom s�ker kvinnor, kvinnor s�ker m�n
S�ker efter n�gon som kan f�lja med dem hem
Jag har f�r�ndrats
Kanske just p� grund av dej
Du vet att jag har sv�rt att s�ga nej
Jag vet jag aldrig kommer leva hundra �r
Jag n�jer mig med en minut bredvid dig om det g�r
Och tr�ffar jag n�n annan s� t�nker jag p� dej
Du vet att jag har sv�rt att s�ga nej

Keeping rhyme and rhythm and letting the rest go, as is our wont, to the devil, this would be:

Men are seeking women, women seeking men
Looking out for somebody to come back home with them
Things are different now
Maybe just because of you
You know No's not a word I like to use.
A hundred years is longer than I'll live, no doubt
I'll take a minute's pleasure by your side if it works out
And if I meet somebody else I'll surely think of you
You know No's not a word I like to use,

Of course, the song "Ja, m� han/hun leva uti hundrade �r!" ("May s/he live out a hundred years!") is the Swedish equivalent of "Happy birthday to you!", but you can't have everything and if you heard Lisa and Bo duetting on this, I don't think you'd be too bothered about that.

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2004-04-14 sunny (utc+1)

Micronationalismes, somewhat fierce

It's "Slovenia" again!

The Grand Union cafe in the capital Ljubljana is - like most of Slovenia - stylish and comfortable.

It feels much more like central Europe than the Balkans.

But under the crystal chandeliers, Alexander Todorovic, a bearded ethnic Serb, has a story that sounds very much like the Balkans.

"Slovenia" is in central Yoorp, this I unequivocally declare.

What the author of this article has unaccountably missed is that the Ett Land; Ett Spr�k; �n Folk! ideology of nationalismes has a pretty shitty track record across pretty much all of central Yoorp (and beyond, of course). Whenever countries have been carved out of geographies featuring non-homogenous distributions of ethnicities of inhabitants, there has been typically been discretization error, in which minorities, or even local majorities, have been included in countries with a different dominant ethnicity. (One would have thought this would be obvious, but there's no accounting for journalistes.)

Examples do not fail to abound: Bassett, reviewed below, points to the tensions between ethnique Hungarians and ethnique Romanians in Transylvania (currently in Romania), which he considers irresolvable; some of the less tactful Hungarian governments have rattled their sabres about the formal recognition of Hungarian minorities in Romania; we've covered before, and surely will again, the situation with Russian speakers in Latvia up in the usually civilised Baltics; not very long ago, the BBC website did a "Yoorp's forgotten War Crime" feature on the post-war fate of ethnique Germans in the Sudetenland (by then back in Czechoslovakia, as was); and, of course, everyone in central and eastern Yoorp hates the Roma ("Gypsies"), especially since there's been something of a shortage of Jewish persons lately.

It is, of course, the prospect of EU membership that has done most to pressure governments into passing, if not necessarily implementing, legislation to protect the rights of ethnique minorities (even the Roma, in some cases!) and it is, of course, the prospect of EU membership that will do the same in the Balkans. (A little Googling turns up a summary of a 2001 report by George Soros's Open Society Institute focuses mostly on the Roma.) Even our intrepid journaliste gets that much right:

Croatia also wants to join the EU and it knows it could find its bid blocked by Slovenia.

So in the last week, the two countries have decided to put historic rivalries aside and seek international arbitration on their disputed border.

Also, the referendum on the Slovenian erased will have no practical effect (see the comments hos von Carniola), so things aren't as bad as they may have been made to look. Except for the Roma, of course.

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2004-04-14 after prompting (utc+1)

Prinsessgossiproundup

�1. At the doppning

If the heir to the throne is a kronprins(ess), then it stands to reason that the heir to the heir to the throne is a kronkronprinsess, yes? Good. So kronkronprinsess Ingrid's fontdoppning ("baptism") was a kronprins(ess) studded occasion, for sure, with the Kronprinsfred (DK), kronprinsess Vickan (SE), the Kronprinsfleep of Espa�a ("prins of Ostriches") and of course the doting parents Mr and Mrs Kronprinsess Mette-Marit.

Fadderne er kong Harald, kronprins Frederik av Danmark, kronprinsesse Victoria av Sverige og kronprins Felipe av Spania (prinsen av Asturias), prinsesse M�rtha Louise og kronprinsessens mor Marit Tjessem.

The godparents are Kong Harald, the Kronprinsfred, kronprinsess Vickan and the Kronprinsfleep (prins of Ostriches), prinsess M�rtha Louise and the kronprinsessmother Marit Tjessem.

The kronprinsess isn't on speakers with her dad, you will recall.

�2. Peace, harmony and other spreadables:

It's our very good friends, the German trashbladets, and they've gone Knudella crazy!

"Mary er den absolutte superstjerne i det danske kongehus, og hun og kronprins Frederik er et sandt dr�mmepar, som vil sikre os helt fantastiske billeder fra brylluppet." S� direkte formulerer chefreporteren ved Tysklands st�rste sladderblad Bunte, Stefan Blatt, �rsagen til, at han skal tilbringe en uge i K�benhavn for at d�kke brylluppet 14. maj mellem kronprins Frederik og Mary Donaldson.

Knudella is the absolute superstar in the danish Royle Hice, and she and the Kronprinsfred are a real dream couple, which will ensure for us totally fantastic pictures from the wedding.

So direkt formulates the chiefreporter of Germany's biggest trashbladet Bunte, Stephen Page, the reason why he is going to spend a week in Shoppingharbour to cover the wedding on the 14th of May between the Kronprinsfred and Knudella.

Plus he's on expenses, and if the weather is as nice in Shoppingharbour as it is here the Danish wimmins will have changed into their traditional folk summer dress of approximately nothing, and this is widely agreed to be a far from unpleasant spectacle. But when exactly did Bunte get to be top Tyska trashbladet?

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2004-04-14 mornin'! (utc+1)

Monday, Monday Review of Stuff

�1. An apology.

Bah-da bah-da-da-da, isn't it?

"Monday is Monday", Thurston E Pisteme, the celebrated nominaliste tautologician, once quipped. But there are those - and among them are we! - who take a more nuanced view. Easter Monday is, in nominaliste terms, certainly a Monday (hence the name), but it lacks many of the signature attributes one associates with the family of Mondays, in the Wittgensteinian sense. In particular, since Easter Monday is a public holiday in England and Wales (but not necessarily Scotland), it is not only a good day to stay in bed (as Mondays often are), there are no negative repercussions for doing so.

In Easter week, at least, the first day when persons are expected to drag themselves out of bed and into work (in England and Wales, but not necessarily Scotland) is Tuesday, so there is certainly a strong case for saying that in Easter week, Monday falls on a Tuesday (as a bonus, this drives the nominalistes utterly beserk with rage) or, in the spirit of compromise, that Tuesday is "local logical Monday".

Unless, of course, you work for an English or Welsh (but not necessarily Scottish) university, as I do, in which case it is considered vital, after a double Bank Holiday weekend, to take the Tuesday off as well. So in English and Welsh (but not necessarily Scottish) universities it is reasonable to assert that in Easter week "local logical scholarly Monday" falls, in fact, on a Wednesday.

Therefore, you will surely agree, an apology is very necessary: the editorial staff of this 'bladet apologise to readers in England and Wales (but not necessarily Scotland) for posting our irregular "Monday review of stuff" on a Monday, which is by no means our habit or custom.

�2. Bob Dylan, Various

Inspired by the Normblog poll and the fact that the relevant Dylan albums were in the fiver rack of Fopp, I got Blonde on Blonde and Bringing It All Back Home at the weekend. (I already had Highway 61 Revisited.) And it is very nice that I too can now "sing" along with classics such as "Bug-eyed Lobster From the Doldrums, And So On", but even better, "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is now competing for top place in my list of Dylan songs I wish I'd written, with "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry". (Greatness I do not greatly aspire to, for sure, but I like what I like, and that's close enough for more than rock'n'roll I can assure you.)

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2004-04-13 13:26

The Monday Review of Stuff

�1. John Le Carr�, The spy who came in from the cold.

When I was aspiring to be a publisher specialising in translations, Le Carr� was my model of writing that was simulateously marketable and good, so I figured I should probably read one at some point. However, the street price of a new copy of this or most of his others is about 7 quid, and I wasn't about to pay that. So for a while I've been scouring the second hand shops, and the last non-charity second hand bookshop in town came up trumps with an ancient hardback for 1.50 GBP.

It turns out that Mr Le Carr�'s Agatha Christie meets 1984 schtick isn't particularly to my taste, and the main female character is little short of preposterous, but this was before the discovery (in the '60's) that wimmins were persons too, so presumably Le Carr� couldn't have known better. At least in those days novels were short enough to read in a single sitting.

I was moved to note two (2) sentences from the same page (74, in my edition):

"She reminded Leamas of an aunt he had once had who beat him for wasting string." (Younger readers may not know that in the bleakness of Cold War Yoorp, aunts were strictly rationed.)

"His face had a hard, grey hue and sharp furrows; he might have been a soldier." (During the long years in which many Yoorpean states had compulsory military service, candidates with faces of unfavourable hue, or insufficient furrows were typically excused. Perhaps Le Carr� could be used to train an �lite corps of physiognomistes to be used in the current Iraq kerfuffle to distinguish enemy militia from innocent civilians, assuming the latter category still applies.)

�2. The Sheaffer School Fountain Pen -- Medium Nib

I like fountain pens. In particular, I like cheap fountain pens, since my demanding life-style means that they are likely to be dropped, stepped on or lost. In the past, I've only ever had bad experiences with Sheaffer, whose "medium" nibs are typically absurbly fat, but at 2 quid - and in an attractive shade of blue - I was willing to take the risk. Besides, the competition lately has been thin on the ground, and the last pen I actually liked's cap cracked so that it won't screw on securely.

In fact, it's vair vair naice, although the switch to Sheaffer cartridges is one I could have done without.

�3. Central Europe [sic], Richard Bassett (Penguin/Viking)

This, from 1987, purports, implausibly, to be a guide book to the general area of what was once the Austro-Hungarian empire. Bassett, at the time the Murdoch (n�e London) Times's Vienna correspondent, makes a point of noting in the fly-leaf author's bio which Oxbridge college he attended (I forget) and that "in 1981 he was appointed for a season as principal horn of the Ljubljana Opera House", so you have no excuse for not knowing what you're in for.

Happily, only the first chapter, on Vienna, is completely insufferable, as Bassett opines endlessly on each of the many churches in Vienna, and many other buildings besides, and offers tips which serve no purpose beyond showing off about how to get into buildings not normally open to the public. (Coax the security guard in Serbo-Croat, for example.)

But outside Vienna things improve a good deal. While the reader's stamina for buttresses, naves and sgraffito decorations continues to be tested throughout, there's much more description of people and places. Here's a Saxon village in Transylvania:

Although there are unlikely to be many inns in the villages, the hospitality of these people is unrivalled in Central Europe and schnapps, water, beer and bread will never be refused to the traveller, especially if he is on foot. At weddings, a few words of German will guarantee a place at the subsequent banquet, a happy feast overshadowed only by the realization that this culture is ultimately doomed.

(p. 123)

(The piano-tuner also, of course.)

Exactly how any of this is supposed to work in practice is left magnificently unclear, and I, for one, am in no hurry to plod up to Saxon villages in Transylvania in the hope that the dust on my boots cab be traded for schnapps, water, beer and bread, however ultimately doomed it is.

And here is an enigmatic remark on the relationship between beer and architecture:

After Karlšten, the line runs on across more rolling countryside to PLZEŇ (Pilsen), a town which rises through the smoke, its cathedral pinnacles surrounded by brick nineteenth-century chimneys like an illustration from Pugin's Contrasts. As might be expected from a city which has dedicated itself to producing quite simply the best beer in the world, there is little of great architectural merit to be seen, apart from the Gothic church of St. Bartholomew. Grassy rails lead to the old brewery buildings from the crumbling yellow station, with its dramatic Beaux-Arts roof-line and ubiquitous femmes fatales on the frieze.

(p. 168)

("On the frieze" is a Central Yoorpean expression meaning something like "on the razz", but perhaps a fraction more restrained.)

If there's gonna be a rumble between the beer gang and the architecturistes then the record will clearly show that I'm with the former, but can't we all just get along?

And finally, you will observe that he quotes Latin without translation, although this example is not the most obscure:

History recounts few more stirring scenes than this appeal to Magyar chivalry, which in turn was met with the famous cry: 'Vitam et sanguinem pro rege nostro Maria Theresa!', as a hundred noblemen drew their sabres to pledge their allegiance to the woman who was their king.

(p. 204)

(Finno-Ugric languages, such as Hungarian ("Magyar"), have no grammatical gender, so this is of course a very natural misunderstanding. The quote translates as "Vittles and songs for our king Maria Theresa!"; "sabres" is of course a euphemisme so as not to shock the femmes fatales - they may be on the frieze, but they're still ladies in spite of h-e-double-l, and there's a dance or two in the old dames yet.)

Anyway, it's out of print, and probably only of interest to those of us whose favourite genre is snobbish and absurd old travel guides, but if you're the other such person, then you will certainly enjoy it. Not as much as a good Gordon Cooper, whose snobbery is less pointedly anachronistic, but some.

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