2005-06-29 14:56
Under the headline �Solo
Hume pu� fermare Marx� Alla Bbc la sfida sui grandi filosofi,
Corriere della Sera engages in a little light second-hand tact:
�Lo votano perch� � un vecchio con la barba bianca ed � cos� che la
gente si immagina un filosofo�, protesta la professoressa Lisa Jardine
dell'universit� di Londra. �Era solo un giornalista che sapeva di
economia, non dovrebbe neppure partecipare alla gara�, dice la
parlamentare conservatrice Ann Widdecombe. In ogni caso Karl Marx � in
testa al sondaggio della Bbc sul �pi� grande filosofo della storia� e
si avvia a vincere una libera - se non regolare - elezione, privilegio
in genere non toccato ai suoi epigoni.
[Oh come on, guess. We did!]
Being dissed by Lisa "Limpet" Jardine and "Wibbling" Ann Widdecombe is
not perhaps the highlight of Karl "The Spectre" Marx (He's Haunting
Europe!)'s career, but an endorsement is an endorsement, and this is
(albeit unintentionally) both.
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2005-06-29 12:51
Last week Genoa; this week Madrid; next weekend glorious Londontown.
But did you heard? They have books in Abroad now too!
The Graun rounds
up some scribbleurs and Skrifters you really ought to 've heard of
if you weren't such a blinkered Engleesh peasant. Surely everyone's
heard of Halldor Laxness though? (We'd read him, even, but we have
some nice Anna Karenininina to finish first.)
[via]
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2005-06-29 10:59
Aftonbladet
makes the pilgrimage:
I sitt p�g�ende 30-�rsfirande har de brittiska
veteranerna gr�vt sig tillbaka till r�tterna.
Och d� pratar vi inte om litet f�rstr�tt skyfflande - sextetten har
g�tt fram som en bulldozer och skyfflat fram en hel del som l�nge
varit begravt.
In their ongoing 30th anniversary celebrations the british veterans
have dug back to their roots.
And we're not talking about a little absent-minded shovelling - the
sextet have gone out like a bulldozer and dug up a whole load that had
been long buried.
Five (5) pluses and the coveted Most Convoluted Metaphor That Doesn't
Work In Translation In A Review In A 'Wegian 'Bladet award! Dig on,
you crazy Maiden of Iron!
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2005-06-28 16:12
We are vair vair good with 'puters, for sure. Photocopiers and faxen,
not so good. In fact faxen typically reduce us to utter perplexity on
the rare occasions the Universe conspires to inflict them on us.
Bah! They are henceforth banned from all Imperial territories and
domains, with immediate effect.
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2005-06-28 11:44
�1. Feminise me harder!
It is Sandra
Harding, neoscholastique feministe philosophe of science!
What, you may ask or enquire, is there that is specifically feministes
to say about, f ex, an electron? So far as we can tell, there is no
such something. Indeed the interview is magnificently - even
cheese-shopply - evacuated of remarks on the sciency bits of science.
It probably says something about our trajectory as a philosophe of
science that we were more irritated by the residual
neo-scholasticisme.
�2. It is the Tour de France!
On Saturday! We like the Tour! It is like a race, only with
bicycles! Allez les anyone-but-Lances!
�3. Prinsess!
We've been vair vair disappointed with teh coverage of prinsess -
kronprinsess Maxima of the Nederland's new baby. If you read
only Engleeshbladets you might not 've noticed the happy event at all,
and the 'Wegians have done no better.
Thank goodness, then and as ever, for Belgium:
De tweede dochter van de Nederlandse kroonprins Willem-Alexander en
prinses M�xima heet Alexia Juliana Marcella Laurentien. De vader
maakte de vier namen dinsdagochtend bekend, toen hij in Den Haag
aangifte deed van de geboorte.
My name is Piet and I live in Amsterdam, den hoofstaad van het
Nederland.
�4. Did we mention "too
hot"?
Madrid is forecast for 38�C on Saturn's day. If anybody wants us at
the weekend, we'll be in the Museas Nacionale Della
Refrigidacion, 'kay?
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2005-06-28 09:36
Oh
this year i'm off to Sunny Spain Y Viva Espana
I'm taking the Costa Brava 'plane Y Viva Espana
If you'd like to chat a matador, in some cool cabana
And meet senoritas by the score, Espana por favor
We want none of these things but we are nonetheless off to sunny Spain
tomorrow afternoon.
In Spain's southern region of Andalucia, where temperatures have risen
to 40C [that's "40�C", silly Beeboid!] (104F [and you can spare us the
Fs, thanks]) in some areas, the regional government is preparing to
alert the elderly, infirm and those with young children by text
message.
The country has also set aside 750m euros (�499m) of emergency aid for
farmers struggling to cope with the country's worst drought in 60
years.
We've set aside a crisp 5 EUR note for emergency gin and tonics.
Tally-ho!
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2005-06-27 16:00
We haven't got hay fever - we've got imperial hay flu!
Chinese imperial hay flu!
It is much much worse than silly old hay fever and everyone should be
vair vair nice to us and mop our fevered brow and bring us soup.
(Gazpacho, please, since it is still also too hot.)
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2005-06-27 12:25
Or should that be "globalization"?
Most English printers follow the French practice of changing -ize to
-ise; but the OED of the Oxford University Press, the
Encyclopaedia Britannica of the Cambridge University Press,
The Times & American usage, in all of which -ize is the
accepted form, carry authority enough to outweigh superior numbers.
Fowler, Modern Engleesh Usage, p.306
We'll stick with our trusty Frenchified affectation, thanks all the same.
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2005-06-27 10:23
From the
Beeb's Own Correspondent:
Twenty-five years ago, not many foreigners lived in Italy and not many
people spoke foreign languages nor appeared to have any desire so to
do.
But now, in the globalised world, some middle-class Romans send their
children to international schools so that they will grow up speaking
English fluently.
The problem with extrapolating from anecdotal evidence is that it
scales unpredictably badly, of course.
In restaurants the waiters are usually Italian but, if you look into
the kitchens, the people that are turning out local favourites like
buccatini all'amatriciana or spaghetti carbonara are very often
Asians.
And the way of life that seemed routine and ordinary 25 years ago is
disappearing.
The businesses that paid for it - that produced things that people
wanted to buy because they were well designed and well priced - are
struggling to compete against cheap competition from China.
We're reading Krugman's La mondialisation n'est pas coupable at
the moment, and we are starting to feel it is our moral duty to urge
you to do likewise. Teaser: almost everything everyone says about
international "competition" is false, much of it mendaciously so.
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