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2004-07-30 14:48
�1. Outwith?
Outwith indeed:
Scotland's registrar general Duncan Macniven "The increase is mainly 'tourist' weddings, where neither bride nor
groom is a Scottish resident. But, in 2003, the number of 'Scots'
couples rose by more than 800.
Perhaps that was the effect of a change in the law in 2002, which
allowed civil marriages outwith registration offices - which now
account for over 10% of all weddings."
What is this outwith? Wee Google pixies, bring me
outwiths of a possibly Scots origin!
"Outwith
means outside or beyond." Good pixies!
�2. Danish me harder!
I read a whole
something
on Kierkegaard from Danish lah-di-dah-bladet Information, and I might
just have a go at today's
follow-up, on the problematique of history:
Om disse problemstillinger bem�rkede kejser Napoleon selv:
�Historien er den l�gn, man er blevet enig om.�
Of this problematique remarked emperor Napoleon himself: "History is
the lie that nobody contests".
�3. Feech me a feecher!
The BBC has a question or
enquiry for us:
Could it be that your choice of summer book has less to do with what
you would like to be reading and more to do with what the industry
wants to see in your lap?
I think you may be mistaking us for another 'bladet, Beeboid. Our
Varied Reader is nonetheless assured that the article is an
interesting round-up of the machinations of the (UK-ish) book retail
trade in the lucrative summer season.
�4. Oh, to be in England!
Even Harmison
(England's specialiste fast bowler, previously thought not to know
much more about batting than which end to hold the bat) fancies a go
at the West Indian attack:
Harmison calmly dispatches Bravo over point for four, and then
promptly does a bit of gardening on the highway-flat wicket with a
nonchalance that almost borders on irritation that the crowd seem
surprised at his batting antics. A single means he'll face the next
over ... naturally.
In the end England declared (at 566 for 9), which will rilly
rilly hurt.
[Permalink]
2004-07-30 samwidge (utc+1)
No manners:
Hungry sheep on the Yorkshire moors have taught themselves to roll 8ft
(3m) across hoof-proof metal cattle grids - and raid villagers' valley
gardens.
No respect:
Mrs Lindley added: "What amazes us is they are not frightened. When
you try to move them on they look at you as if to say it is their
patch and you are not right in the head. You can shout at them and
even if they see a dog they are not frightened."
I blame the touchy-feely policies of '60s liberals. "Let the sheep
express themselves!" they said, "Let their creativity and
individualisme flourish!"
And look what it's got us: gangs of fleecy delinquents roaming the
countryside causing havoc - havoc! - in lawns and flowerbeds. It's got so bad that many of the petunias in my neighbourhood are afraid to go out alone, even in broad daylight!
If you ask me it's about time we brought back National Service and
taught the sheep of today some discipline and respect for authority.
[Permalink]
2004-07-30 morning (utc+1)
The obituary you want is this one,
which covers the rest of his career too:
Starting in 1984, Crick started working extensively with
neuroscientist Christof Koch, and together they co-authored most of
Crick's papers associated with neuroscience. "Our theory was that
consciousness involves specific neurons, firing in a specific way and
sitting in a specific part of the brain," Koch told The
Scientist. Their work focused on the visual system, and their working
hypothesis is that while the primary visual cortex is important for
vision, it does not generate ultimate conscious perception - in other
words, the correlates are not in the primary visual cortex.
The world is less spicy today, for sure.
[Permalink]
2004-07-29 tea (utc+1)
�1. Watch out for the elephants!
A: Why did
the Frenchman sprinkle salt on the road?
B: To keep elephants
away.
A: But there are no elephants in France.
B: See, it's
working!
It works for welfare
tourisme, too:
Sweden has received no applications for unemployment benefits from
citizens of the ten new EU member states, despite talk of an influx of
"welfare tourists" earlier this year.
The People's Xenophobic Salt-Sprinkling Party remarked, "Eternal
vigilance, my friends! Vigilance and salt! Freeloading no-goodniks
are still poised - poised I tell you - at our borders!"
�2. In which I can't be bothered
English:
A French electricity board worker is in trouble with her bosses after writing a guide on how to survive in the French corporate world without doing any work.
Corinne Maier's tongue-in-cheek book Bonjour Paresse, or Hello Laziness, has earned her a disciplinary hearing.
Frenchy-French:
Corinne Maier, auteur du livre "Bonjour paresse" et agent d'EDF depuis
12 ans est convoqu�e par sa direction en vue de sanctions
disciplinaires. Le livre qui "pr�ne l'art et la n�cessit� d'en faire
le moins possible en entreprise" n'a pas �t� du go�t de la direction.
�3. Stick cricket!
Productivity disenhancement and
then some.
[Permalink]
2004-07-29 samwidge! (utc+1)
I'll have to summarise chunks of this one,
since it suffers from chronic feature journalisme.
Melton Mowbray, is a place in Leicestershire, and a famous designation
of a certain kind of pork pie. (Pork pies are a very specific kind of
thing in the UK.)
[Matthew] O'Callaghan, an area councillor for Melton
Mowbray, safeguarding the Leicestershire delicacy is an important
thing for industry, tourism, and regional pride.
"This is intellectual property," he says. "It's part of our food
heritage. And it should belong to the people that made it."
So they're having a go at getting the EU's coveted "protected
geographic indication status", one of this 'bladet's favourite
things.
In Britain, for example, Newcastle brown ale is protected, as is
Cornish clotted cream, but not Cornish pasties which can be made
anywhere. Stilton cheeses, which come from the same area as Melton
Mowbray pies, are also on the EU's list, although cheddar has been
judged too generic.
As I understand it, the problem with cheddar was that the horse had
bolted, but protection (a Product of Designated Origin -
protection comes in flavours) was granted to the more specific
designation "West Country farmhouse Cheddar cheese". Which is pretty
much a sop, but still.
And here as well there's an argument that "Melton Mowbray" has become
a kind of pie, rather than a pie from a particular place:
Northern Foods, which makes "Melton Mowbray" pork pies in factories in
Shropshire and Wiltshire - and would therefore have to drop the MM tag
- argues its been making pies for a century, and that itself is a good
tradition.
There is a also a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed designation, which
is not geographically constrained, if the various parties are
interested in compromise, but at the moment it looks like the
Leicestershire folk are playing all-or-nothing.
We will certainly keep you informed!
[Permalink]
2004-07-29 morning (utc+1)
Two guests are speaking to Basil in German.
Basil: Oh, German. I'm sorry, I thought there was something
wrong with you.
-- Fawlty Towers, of course.
It is time for the "bad silly Engleesh no-speaky the Foreign"
article!
Again!
Earlier this year the former chief inspector of English schools, Mike
Tomlinson, described Britons as "barbarians" when it came to learning
foreign languages.
Research published this week, which suggested fewer than one in 10
British workers could speak a foreign language, even to a basic level,
appeared to show the accusation was well-founded.
Recruitment firm Office Angels' poll of 1,500 workers found less than
5% could count to 20 in a second language [...].
Because, of course, there are few situations a foreigner will
encounter that cannot be dealt with by a firm and decisive
enumeration, and in many cultures it is taken as a serious insult if
the numbers between 8 and 14 (inclusive) are mispronounced.
Still, it is the BBC's destiny to dust this article off, and it is
ours to link it. I think they should publish a calendar in advance -
just after cherry blossom season we could have an Deploring Anglophone
Monoglottisme season where we all team up in pairs, find someone what
speaks Foreign and one person he or she say "Me no savvy, Jacques!
Speaky the Engleesh!", and the other person he or she say "Actually it
is a very great shame in many ways that we no savvy your lingo! But
if you could speaky the Engleesh, that would be great. Sorry!"
(Although you can simulate much of the effect by reading the readers'
comments section at the end of the story.)
When I've bootstrapped Danish, it'll be onwards to the Tsky-Tsk
("German"). I am fanatically certain that it must somehow be possible
to cash in on the neglect of German by silly Englishes, and I want
that gravy!
[Permalink]
2004-07-28 tea-time (utc+1)
�1. It really isn't easy being a prinsess!
BT has the scoop:
Det kan godt v�re, hun har f�et prinsen og hele kongeriets dybeste
beundring, men det kr�ver nu ogs� sit at v�re prinsesse. Der var i
hvert fald mange kvinder, der f�lte med Mary i g�r, n�r de kiggede ned
p� hendes ti centimeter h�je h�le og de sylespidse skosnuder.
She may have won the prins and the whole kingdom's admiration, but
being a prinsess still makes its demands. This would in any case
[think] many wimmins who accompanied Knudella yesterday, when they
looked down at her ten centimetre heels and needle-sharp shoe
toes.
Her whole outfit is fit for a queen, frankly, and not in a good way.
Poor Knudella!
�2. It isn't easy being a Danish!
Have we linked the official IPA
sketch (.pdf) of Danish phonology before? I'm still working
through the Pimsleur course - expect a Monday Review of Stuff next
week.
�3. London!
My belov�d home town! It's expensive! It's dirty! It's crowded!
It's the most visited city in Yoorp! (Ahead of Paris, where I've
never been, except to change trains.) And so on!
The conundrum of maintaining London's popularity despite cripplingly
high prices is one which tourism officials are well aware of.
It's not enough to suggest tourists simply go elsewhere in the
country. More than 10 times as many visitors come to the capital as
Edinburgh, the second most popular destination.
London is expensive! But it is also London!
(And the next person who tells me Swedish prices are very reasonable
these days is going to find themselves retreating to a safe distance
in short order, that's for sure.)
[Permalink]
2004-07-28 14:31
It's gender-theory day at soaraway
Afonbladet, 'Wegia's biggest-selling daily (I think that's right):
Det finns m�nga fr�gor att fundera �ver kring sambanden mellan
maskulinitet, femininitet, genus och k�n. En s�dan fr�ga �r om det
finns n�gon sj�lvklar koppling mellan maskulinitet och manskropp,
eller femininitet och kvinnokropp. Queerteoretikern Judith Butler
menar att det l�ngt ifr�n �r s� enkelt som att maskulinitet och
manskropp h�r ihop. Det �r inte ens s� enkelt att sj�lva det
biologiska k�net uttrycker n�got naturligt manligt eller kvinnligt
anser Butler och pekar p� hur sociokulturellt konstruerad m�nniskans
f�rst�else av biologi och "naturliga" k�nsskillnader �r. Genus, men i
n�gon mening �ven den k�ttiga kroppen, ses som instabila och
kulturellt formbara fenomen.
There's a lot of questions to ponder in relation to the connection
between masculinity, femininity, gender and sex. One such question is
whether there's a self-evident connection between masculinity and the
male body, or femininity and the female body. Queer theoriste Judith
Butler says that it's a long way from being so simple as that
masculinity and the male body belong together. It's not even
straightforward that biological set expresses something naturally male
or female, Butler considers, and points out the extent to which
persons' understanding of biology and "natural" differences between
the sexes are socially constructed. Gender, but in some respects even
the fleshly body, are seen as unstable and culturally malleable
phenomena.
(It's even called "Vilken toak� f�r man st� i?", "Which toilet queue
should one stand in?" but I hadn't seen this when I was getting all
Foucauldian above, by which I mean below, honest.)
There are even references! It is Pride week this week, of course, but
even so, references!
[Permalink]
2004-07-28 10:36
Du ska f� min gamla potta n�r jag d�r
Du ska f� min gamla potta n�r jag d�r
F�r d�r uppe hos Maria
F�r man pissa i det fria
Du ska f� min gamla potta n�r jag d�r
You can have my china piss-pot when I die
You can have my china piss-pot when I die
For up there where halos twinkle
They're not bothered where you tinkle
You can have my china piss-pot when I die
Trad.; trans. me; tune: "She'll be Coming Round the Mountains"
Much recent work has theorised the "body" as a locus of exchange
within a network of physical and symbolic forces making up an economy
of desires. The touriste body is no exception, and this paper
focuses on the problematic of the sub-economy of bodily fluids
for the urban touriste navagating the exo-domestique plumbing
facilities of an unfamiliar environment.
Two Scandewegian cities are discussed in detail: Stockholm, where
sparse public conveniences are typically priced at 5 SEK (~0.50 GBP),
but where such installations often also provide single-user walk-in
urinals at no charge, and K�benhavn ("Copenhagen"), where there is
instead a proliferation of dedicated herre/dame pissoirs.
We explore also the connections between the gendering of the
Scandewegian urban urinatory experience and the extensively studied
�l-procurement protocols (which are of course very different in the
two cities in question).
In the final section we apply Bordieu's theory of practice to singing
aye aye yippy, aye aye yippy, aye aye yippy yippy aye.
[Permalink]
2004-07-27 outrage! (utc+1)
New "Scientiste", hang your head in
shame, if you still have any:
One of a Neanderthal baby's first words was probably
"papa", concludes one of the most comprehensive attempts to date to
make out what the first human language was like.
[...] Pierre Bancel and Alain Matthey de l'Etang from the Association
for the Study of Linguistics and Prehistoric Anthropology in Paris
have found that the word "papa" is present in almost 700 of the 1000
languages for which they have complete data on words for close family
members. [...]
"There is only one explanation for the consistent meaning of the word
'papa': a common ancestry," Bancel says.
There are, of course, (at least) two explanations: that, and the one
generally accepted by reputable historical linguists. Here's the late
Larry Trask taking some time out from turning in his grave to explain:
There is no need to speculate. First-language acquisition has been
very well studied, and the facts are clear.
At the so-called cooing stage, children produce no recognizable speech
sounds. The youngsters start producing recognizable speech sounds --
usually reduplicated -- when they reach the babbling stage. And all
children proceed in much the same way.
The first vowel produced is [a], because this is the easiest vowwel to
produce, since it requires no work from the tongue or the lips. All
other vowels are harder.
The first consonants produced are the labials, [m b p] These are the
easiest consonants to produce, because they require no work from the
tongue. Of the three, [m] is the easiest, since [b p] require some
work from the velum, not needed for [m].
Next to be produced are the coronals, [n d t]. All other consonants
are harder than these, and are produced later.
Consequently, the first babbles heard repeatedly by the fond parents
are typically [mama] ~ [ama}, followed by [baba], [papa], [ana],
[dada], and so on. And so the parents typically assign meanings to
the babbles in something like this order.
Later:
Look at the evidence. In family after family of closely related
languages, we find that the mama/papa words differ substantially from
one language to another, showing clearly that they have been
independently invented. Look at Turkic, or at Slavic, or at Bantu, or
at any language family.
Inheritance is just as bad a theory as borrowing, which is what Trask
was opposing in that post. It is so bad, so obviously, wretchedly bad
and so magnificently at odds with a careful study of the evidence that
one is forced to assume Merrit Ruhlen is involved with this somewhere.
(Has the NYT picked it up yet? That'd be the clincher.) New
"Scientiste" does quote a sceptic in a "Dreary no-hoper professor X
expressed some caution about this glorious new perpetual motion
machine" aside buried near the bottom. Probably this counts as
"balance" if you're looking from Planet Journalisme.
In fact, I turned up this
article (.pdf) by Trask on just this question:
The conjecture that the mama/papa words are descended from
"Proto-World", the ancestral language of all languages, is worse than
just wrong: it is incompatible with the evidence. In reality, if some
almost inconceivably ancient ancestor of all human languages had
genuinely possessed something like mama for "mother" and papa for
"father", then we should definitely not see what we do see.
In twenty-something pages, he not only demolishes this inane non-theory (from
beyond the grave! Fear Zombie Trask, fake linguistes, fear for your
tiny but spicy brains!) but explains how real historical linguists
work with real data, which is very far from being closely related to
the Ruhlenian school's approach, for very good reasons.
Even Bancel admits that there will never be conclusive proof. "We have
no Neanderthals around to ask."
I mean, Neanderthals?! Do you have not a shred of clue left,
New "Scientiste"? Not one single frayed shred?
[Permalink]
2004-07-27 tea-time (utc+1)
In which we spend some time with the Euclidean path integral approach to quantum gravity
John
Baez on Hawking's recent talk:
I should start by saying that the jargon used in this talk, while
doubtless obscure to most people, is actually quite standard and not
very difficult to anyone who has spent some time studying the Euclidean
path integral approach to quantum gravity. The problem is not the
jargon so much as the lack of detail, which requires some imagination
to fill in. When I first heard the talk, this lack of detail had me
completely stumped. But now it makes a little more sense....
Not to me, especially, but it's fun to watch. Hoorah for InterWebNets
and for John Baez! (If it wasn't for him, we'd be stuck with New
Scientiste which seems over the last decade or so to have come to
prefer bad psychology and disgraceful "linguistics" to actual science.
Science is hard!)
[Permalink]
2004-07-27 samwidge (utc+1)
V�r st�ndiga l�ngtan efter Paradiset, som f�r oss nordbor ofta tar sig
formen av sol och sandstr�nder, har lett till att vi f�tt n�got s�
unikt som v�r egen ��kta svenska hawaiimusik�.
Our constant longing for Paradise, which for us in the [frozen
wastelands of the] North often takes the form of sun and sandy
beaches, has led to us making something as unique as our own "genuine
Swedish hawaiian music".
[Thomas Allenders Ukulele Skola ]
This is as authentically authentique as this 'bladet would ever wish
to be, for sure.
"Sj�mansjul p� Hawaii" by Yngwe Stoor and M Torres, from the introductory
notes for which this quote comes, is very pretty, and I can play the
chords on the ukulele and I can also pick out the melody on guitar.
(I can only read music at all on a guitar, and by no means well even
then.) The fiddly bit is, as you will imagine, putting these
together.
It concerned with the traditional theme of longing for winter and sn�
and nearests and dearests during the Twinkletree season, and is set to
replace Bj�rn Afzelius's "Odyssevs" as my favourite song, since the
point of the latter is somewhat dissipated now that I have actually
been to Sweden. But it is also very much in copyright, so I am
unlikely to find myself in a position to upload recordings of it, even
when I figure out how to record things and upload them.
Is there much pre-Mouse ("public domain") popular musique to be sung,
I sometimes wonder or muse? Classical is all very nice and can be
troubadoobed to good effect in some cases (I am tempted to try Die
sch�ne M�llerin at some point, since I am if nothing else a better
tenor than Fischer-Dieskau, although I am also an incomparably worse
singer by any sane metric; and Schubert would have arranged it for
ukulele if he'd had one, I feel sure. Probably with a happy ending,
instead, in which the grass-skirted M�llerin happily hulas her
reciprocation of the hero's devotion and the sun breaks through the threatening storm clouds of misdirected libidinal energy, hoorah!) but they often do not swing, and
I find this odd.
[Permalink]
2004-07-27 morning (utc+1)
In the Free and Democratic Republic of the United States of
America Ayn Rand is widely agreed to be a philosophe of some
distinction, and has a considerable following. This fact inspires a
mixture of bewilderment, hilarity and fear in non-natives
on the rare occasions it comes to their attention.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, David Hasselhoff is widely agreed
to be a rock n roll star of some
distinction, and has a considerable following. This fact inspires a
mixture of bewilderment, hilarity and fear in non-natives
on the rare occasions it comes to their attention.
Bonus link: An American (surprise!) libertoonian in Oslo. Just
imagine! (Or you could read it, I suppose; I'm exercising my
Yoorpean exemption, for sure.)
(Link via lagomduktig,
guessing whose nationality is left as an exercise.)
[Permalink]
2004-07-26 16:24
In a recent Crooked
Timber thread I waxed meandrical about the time I defied my
post-punk Glorious History and Cultual by buying a Grateful Dead
triple live album. (I was still strictly vinyl in those days,
although I was about the last such relic. This was mostly because I had a
turntable but not a CD player, but also because I didn't like the
sound of CDs. It turned out later that I just don't like Hi-Fi in
general, having grown up on medium wave "AM" radio.)
And reading Hegel, which I sort of am now, has accordingly inspired a
new exciting game for all the family!*
If Hegel is the Greatful Dead - pompous, prolific relic of a defunct
tradition who somehow refuses to die, and attracts admirers you would
think would surely know better, including I -, which bands are other
philosophes? Bertrand "Dirty Bertie" Russel is the Sex
Pistols, I should say, with Frege as the Ramones, and A J "Freddy"
Ayer as Sham 69. (Language, Truth and Logic simply is
"If
the kids are united, they will never be divided", and you have my
permission to inform anyone who dissents on this matter that they are
wrong wrong wrong.)
But what about Wittgenstein? One of those absurdly arty
punk/post-punk bands like The Wire, who you always suspected of
secretly being as much influenced by the Krautrock of Can and Neu! as
the Pistols? The chaste hermeticisme of the Cocteau Twins? It's a
tough one, for sure...
* Some family members may enjoy this game more than others, for sure.
[Permalink]
2004-07-26 samwidge (utc+1)
(Of Histories and Myths, intended as a modest contribution to a
discussion of such matters initiated by Mr
Holbo and continued by Mr Golub.)
Much depends, I would say with my finest philosophe hat on, on
what we mean by history. I will distinguish three (3) flavours
of history, on the perhaps reckless assumption that such taxonomical
exercises are not harmful in and of themselves, but become pernicicous
only as part of a imbalanced metaphysical diet.
1. The apparently trivial sense of history as a place where facts can
accumulate. Longditudinal studies of myth and genealogies in oral
societies have shown that the immutable and eternal facts that both
represent are typically functions of time; an archive of recorded
history can in principle interfere with this.
2. A place where innovations can be recorded. Different from the
previous in that it makes history a witness to progress.
Intertwined with the previous in that written history is itself an
innovation, and one which may very well be accompanied by others.
3. An origin myth of a given national, ethnic or cultural group.
History, in this sense, has perhaps more in common with myth than with
scholarly histories, to which they may owe little. (Although academic
historians are and especially have been persons of their time and
place, too.) In particular, this kind of history is concerned with
things that have been true since the dawn of time, and especially why
"they" are not like "us", for suitable values of "them" and "us":
It was only in 1349 that Dauphin� fell by inheritance to the French
crown, and later still, in 1486, that Provence was left to France by
the will of the Good King Ren�. The memory of the long years of local
independence, when their counts were subject to the distant and
generally preoccupied Holy Roman Emperors, has never died; and in the
South it is romanticized by traditions of the old Provence of the
troubadours and knights, of songs and chivalry. Tradition is truth,
in so far as it conditions the minds of its inheritors. One blazing
day I climbed to the ruined castle of Beaucaire, to see the tiny
Romanesque chapel where St Louis worshipped - it was locked. Coming
down the hill I fell into a caf� and demanded an iced lemonade. "Is
there a bus across the bridge to Tarascon?" I asked the waiter. "No,"
he replied, "You must walk. But why walk to Tarascon?
Empire!" I walked that blistering half-mile to the Tarascon
bridgehead, found a restaurant with a vine-shaded terrace, and
explained that I was hungry after exploring Beaucaire. "Why
Beaucaire?" said the waiter with withering scorn. "There is nothing
there. Royaume! (Kingdom!)" A man of Arles was more
explanatory. "We are not like those people over there," he said. "We
find them greedy and dreary and cold, cold. They are different from
us. We simply don't like them." Different, there's the nub. A mere
five centuries of union with France have not sufficed to obliterate
that ancestral difference. In character, let the anthropologists
argue it out. In feeling, it is a fact. Political unions do not
change ancient loyalties or emnities, or only very slowly.
[Freda White, West of the Rhone p.27]
Glorious histories and cultuals notwithstanding, this is in fact a
fine example of a thing to be explained ("they are different from us")
and an explanation of it ("it has always been so!") worthy of any oral
society, even if the jaguar gods and eagles and what have you have
mutated into troubadoobs and beautiful prinsesses.
[Permalink]
2004-07-26 10:28
Welcome, welcome, glorious Morn,
Nature smiles at thy return.
["Welcome,
welcome glorious morn", as set for high tenor by Purcell,
preferably. It goes on for ages (well, 1'36 or so), and is vair vair
nice.]
There is a problem with the word "welcome" which Swedishes keep using
and does not mean what they think it means. The Swedish word
"v�lkomna" (yes relation) is used thus:
- Got natt! H�lsa kocken och tacka! Det var en uts�kt m�ltid!
- Tusen tack och v�lkomna tillbacka!
"Good night. Give my regards to the chef; it was an outstanding
meal!"
"Many thanks, and welcome back."
(From Kalle Ankas Pocket Special)
In Swedish "v�lkomna" is used as an invitation and the emphasised
unidiom above is one you will certainly see and hear it a lot in
Swenglish. Swedishes of a fastidious nature are hereby informed that
English "welcome" can only serve as a greeting, and we find the
Swenglish version very confusing. (Until we get used to it. Silly we
may be, but we are not untrainable.)
[Permalink]
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