|
2005-03-10 16:45
This afternoons blogpost has been cancelled as I am clearing the decks
to go on holiday, hoorah! (I probably won't manage to blog from the
road on a long weekend, but I am after all back Tuesday (II).)
Instead, why not read Scott von Pedantry's Towards
a Marxist Hermeneutics of Total Bullshit?
We didn't get the Star Wars jokes, but you might.
[Permalink]
2005-03-10 12:13
�1. A nice Swedish phrase or saying
[Det] vete f�glarna ("The birds know [it]") is the Swedish way
of saying "buggered if I know", and rather nicer, if you ask me.
�2. Found stupidity
It's not in short supply, I know, but this was in a travel agent's
window:
BRISTOL 3�C
CANARIES 70�C
MAINLAND SPAIN 63�C
Where do you want to be?
Um, Bristol? On account of as I am in no rush to die and all.
'Cept I'm going to Bar�a tomorrow (sans Chelsea shirt) and they're
just plain wrong.
�3. Books? In
libr'ies?! (It'll never catch on.)
National lottery funding should be introduced to tackle the "scandal"
of Britain's shabby and neglected public library services, according
to a report yesterday which says that well-stocked, attractive
shelves, rather than IT terminals, are the bedrock of its future.
The Lottery has apparently taken over from the LibSoddingDems penny in
the pound tax rise as an inexhausible fundning fairydust that can and
should and must be sprinkled everywhere at once. If public services
are worth paying for, why don't we just agree to pay for them?
[Permalink]
2005-03-10 10:19
Tv�ttmaskins are very excellent, it is surely beyond dispute,
but until now they have invariably lacked a built-in
strumptork.
Until
now!
[Permalink]
2005-03-09 16:05
I have you see, Varied Reader, been off the coffee. I still crash
hard at about 15:00, though, so apparently it wasn't that. (I think,
as I so very usually do, that it's a getting-older thing. Sigh.)
[Permalink]
2005-03-09 12:22
�1. I'm a girl, get me out of here!
It is the Jokkmokk
effect!
Unders�gelserne fra Sverige og Island viser, at piger generelt
klarer sig bedre end drenge i skolen i matematik og fysik. Is�r i de
fjerneste egne af Sverige er k�nsforskellen mellem drenge og piger
stor.
Det siger professor ved Danmarks P�dagogiske Universitet Niels
Egelund i et interview i det seneste nummer af det amerikanske
tidsskrift TIME Magazine. F�nomenet kaldes for Jokkmokk-effekten, og
det er opkaldt efter en lille isoleret by i den svenske del af
Lapland.
Research from Sweden and Iceland shows that girls generally do better
at school in maths and physics. The gap between girls and boys is
especially large in the furthest regions of Sweden .
So says Niels Egelund, a professor at Danmark's Pedagogical University
in an interview in the latest issue of the American TIME magazine.
The phenomenon is called the "Jokkmokk effect" after a small isolated
town in the Swedish part of Lapland.
Prof. Egelund hypothesises that the girlchildren put all their
energies into schoolwork so they can get the heck out of these such
stinking heckholes in the middle of nowhere and get a job in
civilisation, while the boys are content to grow up to a life of
huntin', fishin' and shootin' in pristine wildernesses. (Somebody
could perhaps warn them that there aren't going to be any wimmins,
though, you'd think.)
[via Birgitte, tack!]
�2. It is still genderteori!
Whilst there is much debate about whether there are increasing
opportunities for women to take higher managerial positions, [...] the
proportion of women in such jobs has increased.
[OU materials, again.]
Don'tcha just want to slap them? (The authors, not the wimmins, of
course.) As a rule of thumb, incidentally, it is quite safe and
generally preferable to ignore anyone who habitually uses the word
"whilst".
�3. Ukrainia's Yurovizhn crisis!
The anthem of the country's "orange revolution" by the group
Greenjolly won a national vote after being allowed in as a last-minute
wildcard entry.
But it is "too political", Eurovision organisers have ruled.
Greenjolly have until Thursday to submit new lyrics for the song Razom
Nas Bagato! (Together We Are Many!)
Ooh, can we play? Together we are several! has a nice ring, or
maybe Assembled, we are multiple! or We constitue, when
collocated, an abundance!
The current song became the theme for mass protests at the end of
2004, leading to Viktor Yushchenko's victory in a re-run of a disputed
presidential election.
It includes the lyrics: "No to falsifications... No to
lies. Yushchenko - yes! Yushchenko - yes! This is our president - yes,
yes!"
Too political, you say? But Yuschenko is their president; it's
just a simple fact!
[Permalink]
2005-03-09 09:38
(It is a game like "let's pretend", only more rigorous, since
mathematicians play it!)
Suppose that:
- You are the best foopball team in Yoorp!
- Your best player is the best in the world!
- You are Bar�a!
- You are going into the second leg of a fixture with a one (1) -
nill (0) lead!
Are you confident of victory, or are you, given that you are playing
Челси, reconciled to the
inevitable:
- Chelsea a triomph� du FC Barcelone 4 � 2 (mi-temps: 3-2) en 8e de
finale retour, se qualifiant pour les quarts de finale de la Ligue des
champions de football apr�s une rencontre absolument �blouissante dont
chacun eut m�rit� de sortir vainqueur, mardi � Londres.
Chelsea triumphed over FC Barcelona 4-2 (half-time: 3-2) in the second
leg to qualify for the quarter final of the League of Champions after
a dazzling match that both sides deserved to win on Tuesday in
Londontown.
It was certainly very tense, what with the away-goal rule having
eliminated the draw from its many enquiries.
[Permalink]
2005-03-08 17:05
Yes, there's glove if you want it
Don't look like no bonnet, my lord
Yes, there's glove if you want it
Don't look like no bonnet, my lord
My lord
[The inaptly-named "Verve", slightly mangled]
It does
too look like a bonnet! And so does
this!
Although we're not sure if baseball
bonnets count: our prinsessetiquettehandbook has apparently not
kept up with the yoofer today.
Also, a
perky Upsidedownian fluff piece:
Thousands of fans packed the Opera House steps and forecourt to greet
the royal couple after the ceremony. Wearing an olive straw hat and
carrying a bouquet of orange lillies and red roses to offset her
scoop-neck dress with chocolate-brown bodice and gold skirt, Mary
mingled with the crowd before moving on to Observatory Hill, where she
and Frederik unveiled a bronze-plated bust of Andersen.
I do like their frock reports, but I think I might like bigger fotos
even better.
[via our bihemispherical prinsesscorrespondentteam, tack!]
[Permalink]
2005-03-08 11:32
It is the German
trashbladets again!
Den tyska skvallerpressen har tvingats be den svenska kungafamiljen om
urs�kt p� sina f�rstasidor. Nu g�r kungafamiljen ett steg vidare
och kr�ver ett antal f�rlag p� ekonomiskt skadest�nd.
- Det h�r kommer drivas vidare i domstol, s�ger hovets
presschef Ann-Christine Jernberg.
The German gossippress has been forced to ask the Swedish kingly
family for forgiveness on its frontpages.
Now the kingly family is going a step further and suing a number of
companies for financial damages [which they've pledged to give to
charidee, of course].
"This here is going to be pursued further in court", says
courtpresschief Ann-Christine Ironmountain.
Ironmountain also by nature, apparently, but we can't bring ourselves entirely to
approve.
There can be no question that the trashbladets were in the wrong, for
sure, nor that (as the article points out) the stories so far
apologised for are the tip of a very considerable iceberg, but still:
the point has been made, wrists have been slapped, they're very sorry
and they haven't, so far as we know, done it again.
The dignified outcome would be an out of court settlement, we think.
[Tack to MM for
the offtippning!]
[Permalink]
2005-03-08 09:47
Furthermore, because of the clothes, we can't usually see the
anatomical evidence to help us tell the difference between women and
men.
OU materials (specific reference deliberately omitted)
Things are very different in the culture of sociologistes, isn't it?
To pretend, while actually making it worse, to be fair to them, they
started from the sexning of babies via genitalia and seem to have just
waftily overlooked the existence of secondary sexual characteristics as
we, for one, are not in the habit or custom of doing.
[Permalink]
2005-03-07 15:15
Sometimes we buy the Neue Post, these said sometimes being
generally when there's a 'Wegian prinsess on the cover, but the
Neue Post is no Point de Vue and it is extensively
contaminated with non-prinsess content.
But seeing as we had again this week paid good money for this
trashbladet, and we are after all learning German, we thought we'd try
some of this content of otherness. And do you know what, Varied Reader, we rather liked it!
We read, in particular, a True Readeress's Story of how she met a
bloke on holiday and they fell in lurrrrrve, but she was from
Stuttgart in Germany and he was from Hamburg in Germany! Could the
cultural and especially geographical divide be bridged! (Yes they
could, as it turned out, but it was touch and go for a while.)
We also read and correctly solved the murdermysterypuzzle! We are
looking forward also to reading the non-true un-readeress's
romancestory!
We are apparently in not a small amount of danger of becoming a German
Wimmin of a Certain Age!
[Permalink]
2005-03-07 11:51
�1. It is the Kronprinsessmary
of Danmark!
Over tusinde royale fans var m�dt frem uden for den danske kirke i
Sydney, for at hilse p� Frederik og Mary som s�ndag formiddag var til
gudstjeneste. Nogle af tilskuerne havde ventet i seks timer p� at se
det danske kronprinspar.
Over a thousand royal fans were m�dt outside the Danish
church in Sydney to greet Kronprinsessmary and her husband who
attended the service on Sunday morning. Some of the tilskuer
had waited for six (6) hours to see the Danish kronprinscouple.
�2. It is also or still Kronprinsessmary
of Danmark!
Tidligere p� dagen bes�gte kronprinsessen [Victor Chang Instituttet
for hjerteforskning] for at se og h�re om de gennemsigtige zebrafisk,
der har vist sig uundv�rlige i forskningen af genetiske faktorer...
Earlier in the day the Kronprinsess visited the Victor Chang Institute
for Heartresearch to see and hear about the see-through zebrafish,
which has shown itself to be rilly rilly cool valuable in
research of genetic factors.
�3. Is it again or further Kronprinsessmary of Danmark, you ask or
enquire?
Varied Reader, it is!
Efter at have tilbragt dage i tr�k med overklassen til
velg�renheds-baller, valgte hun nemlig at bruge flere timer p�
b�rnehospitalet The Childrens hospital at Westmead.
After something something with the upperclass to the something-ball,
she chose in fact to spend several hours at the childrens' hospital
The Childrens Hospital at Westmead.
�4. Surprise!
It is the Kronprinsessmary of Danmark, yes, but this time in the
silly Engleesh!
Princess Mary chose a figure-hugging outfit with dark brown bodice and
bronze-coloured skirt, topped with a matching broad-brimmed hat, for
the occasion.
[You have irrepressible upsidedownian Anna Louise to thank for this
such themening.]
[Permalink]
2005-03-07 09:46
Everyone I have lately been neighbour to has tended to engage in the
sort of shoutnings that end up requiring police intervention.
(Upstairs did, last night.)
Coincidence? Not very parsimonious, isn't it?
[Permalink]
previous,
next, latest
|
|
|