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2005-05-13 16:51

Bad Pope, No Biscuit!

We're taking more than somewhat of a dislike to this Beno�t XVI, we admit it freely and openly:

Pope Benedict XVI has begun the process of beatifying his predecessor John Paul II, the first step to sainthood.

Even by the relaxed standards Jean Paul II introduced, he is a long way from fitting the bill: a saint, it is worth bearing in mind, is still in principle expected to have perpetrated miracles.

Of course in practice the beatification of Mother Theresa sets a precendent for tearing up the rule book and throwing it away and it is not really any of our business anyway, except as a sign of what to expect from the new Pope: same, apparently, as the old Pope, only without the charisma.

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2005-05-13 15:34

Unenchanted evening

So I really need to have an essay ready to post tomorrow morning so that I can get proof of postning, and the minor drawback to that cunning plan is that I've currently only got a scritchy handwritten draft.

In principle I can use the laptop at home for uptypening but it is prolly simpler to do the bulk of the work here where my LaTeX installation is setup proply. (There's a part (a) I haven't even looked at yet, though, and I don't have the question here.)

But tomorrow evening fellow cosmopolitan Anna K is in town for beers, so at least the posttraumatic unwindning is in place.

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2005-05-13 14:24

Een langere werkweek? Nee dank u!

It is our intermittent and occasional guestlangwidge, the Dutchy-Double-Dutch! As employed, in particular, by the NRC Businessbladet:

Werkweken van meer dan 48 uur staan in de Europese Unie onder druk. Het Europees Parlement schrapt de uitzonderingsbepaling waarop lidstaten zich kunnen beroepen voor een langere werkweek.

Working weeks of more than 48 hour in the EU have come onder threat. The European Parlement schrapt the exceptionstipulation by which memberstates can appeal for a langere werkweek.

We particularly like the subheadline "Engeland furieus", although as an Engleesh ourselves we are very far from furieus: at $OLDCOMPANY we were "invited" to opt out of the 48-hour maximum, and we would rather not have been.

Our workweek is quite lang and hard enough already, thanks. (And so are many of our other attributes, spammeurs may wish to note.)

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2005-05-13 10:26

On Volk music and other cameraderies

It is Greil Marcus on Like a Rolling Stone.

"To the folk community," said Bloomfield, who had been part of it, "rock'n'roll was greasers, heads, dancers, people who got drunk and boogied."

You say that like it is a bad thing! We get drunk and boogie, and we do not believe the world offers a more rewarding vertical pasttime.

But in the UK the sort of protests that had followed Dylan and the Hawks around the US were organised. The Communist party had long operated a network of Stalinist folk clubs where the songs to be sung, who could sing what, and in what manner, was strictly controlled. The idea was to preserve the image of the folk, whereas pop music symbolised the destruction of that community by capitalist mass society.

We have officially called a truce with Volk music, of course, but to say it entirely lacks uneasiness would be to say a thing which is other than strictly true.

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2005-05-13 09:41

Deja vue all over again

While we vigorously approve of this:

"Cosmopolite" was once a pejorative code word used to denounce Jews, anarchists, pacifists and others who refused to accept the call for fixed borders coming from the nation states. Now, in another historic turning-point, cosmopolitanism makes a comeback. Per Wirt�n discusses what it means to be cosmopolitan both today and in historical terms. Religion has successfully been separated from the state, he argues. The same should happen to the nation.

We remain slightly perplexed that it doesn't reference Ulrich Beck's vair similar line of argument. (Although it was only published in the same e-zine. We have come to think that "Eurozine" is probably closely interwoven with our glorious destiny - it is a kind of Courrier International for the terminally pretentious, and we laugh - laugh! - at the medical science's recommended daily intake of pretension.)

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2005-05-12 15:35

Credit where it's due

It is due, in particular, to Mr Borders's Book and Stuff Emporium for:

  • Stereolab, Oscillons from the Anti-Sun
  • Robert Musil, The Man Withour Qualities (1130 pp!)
  • Simon Reynolds, Rip it up and start again: postpunk 1978-1984 (Reynolds was the original provocation for our journey towards intellectuallisme - his writing for Melody Maker in the late '80s, collected in book form as Blissed Out - was the first we ever heard of Barthes and Foucault et al.)

They still don't have Harry Potteur VI in Frenchy-French, though but.

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2005-05-12 11:51

Back When Rock N Roll Was Killing My Life, a nostalgia

We once loved Stereolab (i.e., "Jadis nous aimions Stereolab"), back when they played the back room of the Joiner's Arms in Southampton and played a Neu-d�rived Motorik bubblegum fusion overlaid with bizarre and often French leftiste propaganda breathily intoned by cute and often French wimmins. Indeed, one of the relics in our relicary is precisely a signed setlist from such an occasion or event.

But then they started dabbling with these new-fangled "synthesisers" and playing the sort of venue where you have to make an effort to push to the front, and we slightly lost interest.

But lah-di-dah DN alerts us to a new boxed set of Stuff from that mostly golden era of 1993 to 2001.

Med ett radikalchict v�nsterpatos, id�er fr�n noiserock, krautrock och sextiotalspop, snygga skivomslag och en s�ngerska med Amelie-fr�n-Monmartre-page har Stereolab alltid varit ett oklanderligt popband - p� papperet.

Det �r sv�rt att inte �lska en grupp som d�per en l�t till n�got s� musiksnobbskorrekt som "John Cage bubblegum", trots att deras musik varken �r s�rskilt experimentell, eller fungerar som tuggummipop.

With a radicalchic leftistepassion, ideas from noiserock, krautrock and sixtiespop, attractive recordsleeves and a singeress with Amelie-fr�m-Montmartre-bob, Stereolab have always been an irreproachable popband - on paper.

It is hard not to love a groop who name a song something as musicsnobcorrect as "John Cage bubblegum", even though their music is hardly very experimental, or works as chewysweetiepop.

And what, we ask or enquire, is or ever has been wrong with chewysweetiepop?

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2005-05-12 10:09

Geography and other fictions

The Free State of Trieste and Trst, Latveria, "Belgium" - the list is endless:

There are almost 200 official countries in the world but there are dozens more unrecognised nations determined to be independent. They have rulers, parliaments and armies, but they rarely feature on maps and receive few foreign visitors.

Today it is Trans-Dniester! Which is the bit of Moldovia that the Russians couldn't bear to live without, or something.

Fighting talk was limited to thoughts on political strife in neighbouring Ukraine and the impact on Ukrainian exports of salo, pig fat.

Some Trans-Dniester eat it covered with chocolate, which is as unappetising as it sounds.

It sounds very yummy indeed, foolish Beeboid!

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2005-05-11 16:00

A little bit of politics

�1. Flagrant rudeness!

Georgia-Porgia has a flag, which is only a bit suspiciously like Eng-Ger-Lund's mighty cross of St Jordi Dragonslayer, but apparently there's no rules at all:

The lack of any rules on this means there is potential for diplomatic clashes. When Indonesia became independent in 1949, it chose a new red and white flag.

"Monaco complained bitterly about it because it's exactly the same as their flag derived from the royal family," says Mr Faul. "But Monaco was not a member of the UN and was small enough to be ignored."

Not any more, Indonesian fiends! We, the Holy Roman Emperor, swear vengeance!

�2. Yeah, right.

It is Ulrich "Riskmeister" Beck - who features heavily in an essay we're writing - on the terroriste threat:

The greatest danger, therefore, is not the risk, but the perception of it, which releases fantasies of danger and of the antidotes to them, thereby robbing modern society of its freedom of action. Sheer cynicism is helpful in this context.

Sheer cynicisme is what we do best! We're not cheap, of course, but hire us anyway: we're worth it!

Max Weber assumed that decisions on war and peace are among the "essential characteristics" of a state. I am a citizen of Munich. Who decides on war and peace on behalf of the citizens of Munich? The town council of Munich? The government of the State of Bavaria? The German Federal Parliament? The Federal Chancellor? The European Parliament? The European Commission? Nato? The President of the United States? The United Nations Security Council? It may be laid down formally, in fact it has become rather unclear.

Unclear? Unclear!? The cheek of the man! We, the Holy Roman Emperor, decide war and peace on behalf of the citizens of Munich!

But we like the sound of cosmopolitan states, since it has the word "cosmopolitan" in it, and we like that:

Cosmopolitan states are founded on the principle of the national indifference of the state. Just as the religious civil wars of the 17th century were ended at the Peace of Westphalia by the separation of state and religion, so could - this is my thesis - the national world (civil) wars of the 20th century be answered by a separation of state and nation.

Separate state and nation! Separate state and nation NOWWWWWW!

And then pay hommage to your rightful Emperor, of course. And tribute. We like tribute!

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2005-05-11 11:39

When the Saints go working out...

(You may need pencil and paper for this one. We're writing a Prolog program to understand it for us...)

Sweden rescued Finland in the icestickfoopball, hoorah, but now it is Southampton in the proper foopball. Every season they flirt with relegation, and every season they escape, but this season could finally be the one that didn't get away:

What they need: A win would relegate West Brom, but would be immaterial if Norwich win.

If Norwich fail to win and Crystal Palace win, Southampton would need to win by the same margin as Palace win at Charlton. If Norwich fail to win, and Palace win, a Saints victory by one goal less than Palace's margin of victory would keep them up on the next criteria, goals scored. A draw would be enough if Norwich lose and Crystal Palace lose or draw and West Brom lose or draw.

Right-o!

Witch: Right. But there's been a change. They broke the chalice from the palace.
Hawkins: They broke the chalice from the palace?
Witch: And replaced it with a flagon.
Hawkins: Flagon.
Witch: With a figure of a dragon.
Hawkins: Flagon with a dragon.
Witch: Right.
Hawkins: Did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?
Witch: No! The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon, the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

Oh dear.

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2005-05-11 09:48

Sm�rg�spost

�1. Die young, Stay fishy

A tiny coral reef-dwelling fish called the pygmy goby has taken the record as the shortest-lived vertebrate.

The pygmy goby lives an average of 59 days, pipping the previous record holder, an African fish which lives for just over two-and-a-half months.

�2. Oh, Claude Hag�ge

The European Commission should consider adopting a Slavic working language, such as Polish, alongside the current Germanic and Romance trio of English, French and German, according to French linguist Claude Hag�ge.

"Claude Who?" you ask or enquire? The eminent perfessor is a single-issue nutter whose concern with langwidge "diversity" is mostly concerned with the corrosive effects of creeping Anglophonia. And he has harsh words for 'Wegians:

Les pires ennemis de la diversit� linguistique sont ceux qui s'avouent vaincus d'avance, dit le linguiste en col�re. Hag�ge d�plore l'anglophilie de beaucoup de pays europ�ens, surtout les pays du Nord, qui n'ont pas l'habitude de consid�rer la langue comme une question politique.

The worst ennemis of linguistic diversit� are those who declare themselves defeated in advance, says the linguiste angrily. Hag�ge d�plores the Anglophilia of many Europ�an countries, especially the Nordic countries, who are not in the habit of consid�ring langwidge as a political question.

He speaks, we are exhilerated to infer, excellent Finnish.

[via]

�3. For Shame, 'Wegia!

And then on Aftonbladet's front page what is it we find or encounter? It is this:

Chatta med pokerm�staren Greg Reymer, 12.30. Chattet g�rs p� engelska.

Chat with pokerchamption Greg Reymer, 12.30. The chat will be conducted in Engleesh.

Let them speak 'Wegian! It's not about communication, it's about politics dammit!

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2005-05-10 15:38

Tacthockey!

Finland is poised - poised! - on the brink of elimination from the ishockeyfoopball world cup before the finals.

Finland �r n�ra att missa slutspelet.
En niondeplats skulle vara Finlands s�msta VM-placering p� 50 �r.
- Missar vi slutspelet v�gar jag inte t�nka p� hur det blir n�r vi kommer hem, s�ger Tomi Kallio.

Finland is close to missing out on finalplay.
Nineth place would be Finland's worst world cup result for 50 years.
"If we miss out on finalplay I dare not think how it will become when we come home", said Tomi Kallio.

In the way of such things, their fate now hangs in the balance and will be settled by the result of the Sveden-Lithuania result - if Sweden lose, Finland go home not daring to think how it will become.

The ironi is that Finlandernas would normally naturally instinctively support Sweden's opponents in any contest with a third party.

Nu h�nger Finlands hockeyframtid p� Sverige, �rkerivalen, och landet som de flesta finl�ndare mer eller mindre avskyr isportsammanhang.
- Usch, att det kunde bli s� h�r, s�ger Tomi Kallio.

Now hangs Finlands hockeyfuture on Sweden, their archrivals and the country that most Finlandernas more or less loathe or detest in sporting connections.
"Usch, that it could become thus or so", said Tomi Kallio.

Such foolishnesses! We were in Japan for chunks of the last properfoopball worldcup, and everyone was cheering on South Korea without the slightest hesitation or equivocation.

So we and Sweden and Finland and especially Tomi Kallio cry or call as one: "Allez les kronor!"

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2005-05-10 12:44

Bookorderupdate

I ordered a French book from a silly Engleesh bookshop, and they did say it'd be a while.

It's been over a month. I popped in and remarked on this and the man said "Yes, it does sometimes take that long". Not, I was too polite to remark, with Amazon.fr it jolly well doesn't. He didn't seem at all surprised or perturbed, really, which is a surprisingly effective way to disarm an irate customer. But the next time I read about the woes of bricks'n'morter bookshops in the face of Interweb outfits I'm going to go back to cheering, for sure.

The book in question was mentioned in the introduction of my current OU block. The essay for that block is due next Tuesday and has to have been posted to arrive by then, so probably needs to be sent on Saturday at the latest. My essay, it is safe to infer or deduce, is in no danger of being informed by said book.

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2005-05-10 10:16

I got your hegemoni right here, Bourgeois pigdogs!

We are very longstandingly fond of stroppy French marxistes, of course, but we are developing a taste for stroppy Svedish leftistes also, and here's a case in point:

�SA LINDERBORG om brotten som gl�ms bort n�r borgerligheten skriver om historia.

�sa Linderborg on the struggles that are forgotten when the bourgoise write history.

You get the distinct feeling she'd find the bourgeoisie unworthy of biscuits, for sure. Here she is on WWII, its causes:

Kriget handlade inte, som p�st�s, om en strid mellan ont och gott eller ens fr�mst mellan demokrati och diktatur. Det var en forts�ttning p� de mots�ttningar som l�g till grund f�r f�rsta v�rldskriget: kampen om kolonierna och de sk�rpta klassmots�ttningarna i Europa, orsakade av kapitalismens och liberalismens kris. Borgarklassens r�dsla f�r den av arbetsl�shet och dyrtider radikaliserade arbetar�r�relsen drev dem i famnen p� fascisterna i Tyskland och Italien, l�nder med glupande koloniala anspr�k - Tyskland ville f�rvandla Sovjet till sitt eget Indien.

The war wasn't, as claimed, a struggle between good and evil or even primarily between democracy and dictatorship. It was a continuation of the opposition that the first world war was based on: the fight for colonies and the sharp class antagonisms in Europe, caused by capitalism and liberalism's crisis. The bourgeoisie's fear of unemployment and a workers movement radicalised by inflation drove it to embrace fascism in Germany and Italy, countries with grasping colonial ambitions - Germany wanted to transform the USSR into its own India.

(Which is not to say that Nazisme wasn't very evil indeed, of course, and it does not go unsaid that it was.)

It is a long and vigourous polemic, for sure, and we enjoyed it a great deal. And we will laugh in future even harder in the faces of those who claim there is no serious leftiste newspaper in Sweden and that Aftonbladet, in particular, isn't one.

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2005-05-09 15:33

Toadal Gross-Out

I am a toad
And I like to explode
When I'm sat in some bushes
Or just by a road.
If I'm feeling unwell
Then I just start to swell
And then I can't stop -
'Til at last I go "pop"!

[Traditional North German Childrens's Rhyme, trans. von Bladet]

No, really:

Det l�ter n�rmast otroligt men paddorna h�ller p� att d� ut vissa omr�den i norra Tyskland. Paddorna sv�ller upp till tre och en halv g�nger sin normala storlek varefter de exploderar.

It sounds incredible but toads keep dying in certain regions in northern Germany. The toads swell up to three and a half (3�) times their normal size, whereupon they explode.

Anyway, Frans Mutschmann - for it is he! - explains that it is all down to crows pecking out their livers, which would annoy us too. And as too the question all toad-besotted northern Germany is asking, viz. "what is to be done?", he has this response:

- Det finns ingen anledning att oroa sig. Det �r bara naturens g�ng.

There is no reason to be worried. It is only nature's way.

"Yeah right thanks a bunch mate!" croaked a passing spokestoad, "Just wait till they start pecking the liver from your living body and see how much you like it! Remember Prometheus?"

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2005-05-09 13:34

It is the First World War, slightly ironic

It is also noveliste Adam Thorpe on this such subject:

As the American historian Jay Winter comments: "Paradoxically, the more unified Europe becomes, the more the war's historiography is compartmentalised. Living in different intellectual universes ... we historians are further than ever from a European vision of the very conflict that created present-day Europe."

(It's a good piece, but he's not a proper journaliste so it's short of easily extractable soundbites.)

Even more startling is the German view of it all. For Willy Barth of Mainz University the war was caused primarily by the Kaiser's disturbed character (rather than the clashing icebergs of empires or the Sarajevo pistol-shot), and was "in large measure a family feud. Victoria and Albert married their daughter Victoria to Crown Prince Friedrich in order to deepen German-British relations by blood-ties; with Kaiser Wilhelm II and his estrangement from his English mother, their plan boomeranged fatally. This is no popular view in Britain," he admits.

Really? We, for one, have now formally adopted it as our preferred explanation.

Leading historians of the first world war like Jean-Pierre Becker, John Horne or Jay Winter are acutely aware of the deep differences of perception, and the Historial de la Grande Guerre (opened in 1992) was established as a corrective. As Bertrand Belvalette, who is in charge of the museum's education service, explained: "We are more to do with understanding than with drama or emotion, which means we get relatively few British visitors - for whom the front line is literally a long series of cemeteries, places of remembrance, the soldiers buried where they fell."

You know, when we get up to speed on German, and perhaps learn a little East Belgian as well, it would be more than somewhat interesting to do a Comparitive WWI-ologie trip to the Congtineng and find out what all this historiographical hilarity is all about.

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2005-05-09 11:14

Sm�rg�shoorah!

�1. Hoorah!

Princess Letizia, the future Queen of Spain, is three months pregnant with her first child, the Royal Palace has announced.

(Gender bug, you ask or enquire? Gender bug:

If the child is a girl, she will be in line to the throne after any sons that Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia might have in the future.

Under the Spanish constitution, the eldest male automatically succeeds, even if he has an older sister.

However, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to change the law, saying it discriminates against female royals.

Cap'n Slippers is a good egg, says us, and we won't hear a word against him.)

�2. Hoorah!

La princesse Letizia d'Espagne est enceinte et l'heureux �v�nement est attendu au mois de novembre, a annonc� dimanche le Palais royal.

The prinsess Letizia of Spain is pregnant and the happy event is expected in the month of November, the Royal Palace announced on Sunday.

Is this metonymy, synecdoche or something else (e.g., a speaking palace! The crowning masterpiece of 18th-century clockwork!)?

�3. Hoorah!

Los Pr�ncipes de Asturias, Don Felipe y Do�a Letizia, anunciaron ayer con �gran alegr�a� que esperan para dentro de seis meses el nacimiento de su primer hijo.

The Principle Asturias Don Felipe and Do�a Letizia announce with �large alegr�a� that something something six months the birth of their first child.

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2005-05-09 09:42

Sm�rg�spost

�1. There's only one (1) JG Ballard!

This time, on aeroplanes:

Before take-off the cabin crew perform a strange folkloric rite that involves synchronised arm movements and warnings of fire and our possible immersion in water, all presumably part of an appeasement ritual whose origins lie back in the pre-history of the propeller age. The ceremony, like the transubstantiation of the host, has no meaning for us but is kept alive by the airlines to foster a sense of tradition.

�2. Maternityfashion, Kronprinsessmary-style

Or rather, the anticipation of such:

- Jag �r �vertygad om att hon kommer att bli trends�ttande f�r gravida, och visa att man visst kan vara snygg, �ven om man �r gravid, s�ger den danska modejournalisten Malene Malling till tidningen BT.

"I am convinced that she's going to be a trends�tter for the pregnant, and show that of course of can be smart even if one is pregnant", said the Danish fashionjournaliste Malene Malling to the 'bladet BT.

�3. Maternityexcellence, Swedish-style

If you're planning to make bebisar, you might wish to consider making Svedish bebisar:

Amerikanska R�dda Barnens nya rapport listar de b�sta och s�msta l�nderna att vara mamma i. Sverige kniper f�rsta plats, t�tt f�ljt av Danmark och Finland.

America's Save the Childrens's new repport lists the best and worst countries to be a mother in. Sweden took first place, closely followed by Danmark and Finland.

We find this exceptionally undifficult to believe, for sure.

�4. Why I am so very typical

I voted in Bristle East this time, but I'm a Bristle Westerner at heart:

Bristol West, the brainiest seat in Britain, crammed with more PhDs than any other constituency, was William Waldegrave's Tory territory until Labour came from third place to win it.

(Our emphasis.)

Take that, Oxbridge East! And take that also, Oxbridge West! We's the brainiestest there is, so there!

�5. Ballot semiotics

There's been a modicum of sulknings at the fact that Labour has been reelected with a comfortable, if reduced, majority on the back of a 37% share of the popular vote, but we for one have no problem with that at all: the "popular vote" is in no small part an artifact of the electorate's increasingly carefully targetted votenings. We, the people, declared this time round with not inconsiderable clarity that we wanted Labour, but we don't want Blair:

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, former minister Glenda Jackson, a vocal critic of the Iraq war and the Hampstead and Highgate MP, said: "The people have spoken. In fact they've screamed at the top of their lungs. And their message is clear. They want Tony Blair gone."

We do! We do! Go away, Tony, and don't come back!

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