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2005-09-19 09:52
It
is the University of Glasgae! Which is benefitting so much from
the knowledge-economy-driven drive to increase participation in higher
education that it's reported, in a report, on its delight and glee:
The report says: "Departments seem to have reached a critical point in
their ability to cope individually with the decreasing literacy of
incoming students."
"Conveners across the faculty are reporting that students demonstrate
poor writing and even reading skills."
One classical civilisation lecturer said in the report: "The most
basic arts skill of all, namely the accurate and grammatical use of
English language, is a skill that is inadequately possessed by some
students."
They also say that plagiarisme (via the Internets) is a huge problem,
which makes us wonder: is it that students are plagiarising illiterate
sources, and if it is not, is it not slightly blindingly obvious what
they're up to?
The university - that of Openness - at which we are a student ourself
claims that plagiarism is spottable from sudden shifts in style, tone
and register, and one might think that the shift to "literate" would
be especially conspicuous.
[Permalink]
2005-09-16 16:28
With Delta and Northwest having recently filed for Chapter 11
bankrupcy, it has become a source of not-quite-negligible irritation
that the department's official travel agency will not book flights
with such airlines.
Since they are also extremely reluctant to do as they're told, we'll
probably be booking our own trips for the time being.
[Permalink]
2005-09-16 12:27
Would it smell as
sweet?
The US and European Union have reached a deal over the use of wine
names, bringing to an end 20 years of talks.
Under the agreement, US producers will limit the use of names such as
chianti, burgundy and champagne, and will eventually phase them out
altogether.
In return, the EU will relax its rules regulating wine imports from the US.
We mostly only drink Appellations de Plonque Controll�s, to be honest,
but we are now mildly curious to know if "claret" which is English
(and only English) for the wines of Bordeaux is protected and if so by
who?
[Permalink]
2005-09-16 10:29
It
is Christopher "Hatchet" Hitchins vs "Gorgeous" George Galloway:
It is still not quite clear to me at what point exactly Hitchens
jumped the rails.
Here's a hint: September 2001.
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2005-09-15 16:34
Oh:
The Dutch government has unveiled plans to create a "cradle to grave"
database on every child born in the Netherlands to identify potential
trouble-makers and reduce rising crime rates.
Starting on 1 January, 2007, all citizens, each with their own
electronic file compiling health, education, family and police
records, will be tracked from birth until death, the Health Ministry
announced this week.
Stuff like that could almost get us in touch with our inner
Libertoonian. Civil liberties seem, like social democracy, to be
something few persons other than us aspire to.
[Permalink]
2005-09-15 13:12
It
is the Bier-Worldchampionships:
V�rldens b�sta �l bryggs - i Sverige! �tminstone det b�sta av de
alkoholstarka.
Kr�nleins Bryggeri har vunnit guld i det p�g�ende �l-VM med sitt
Stockholm Festival 7,2.
The world's best bier is brewed - in Zweden! At least the best of the
high-alcohol ones.
Kr�nleins Brewery has won gold in the ongoing bier-WC with its
Stockholm Festival 7.2.
Would that, you no doubt ask or enquire, be the "lagers �ver 7%"
category? It would, it would! Congrats to our Nordic chums and their
magnificent trampjuice, for sure, but we'll stick to more civilised
biers, thanks very.
(It's getting hard to find lagers that aren't 5% here in Blighty,
which annoys us because we like and esteem them at about 3�0.2% for
non-falling-over drinking usage. Annoyingly the local Supermarkt
charges more for a branded ("Skol") 3.2% than it does for a no-name 4%
effort, and the 2.8% stuff is in silly bottles. It isn't, you will
observe or remark, easy being us!)
[Permalink]
2005-09-15 10:18
'Bladets
by Interweb:
Other companies, like Satellite Newspapers, go further. The Swiss
company has 350 automated kiosks placed in conference centers,
airports and hotels around the world where customers can slip in a few
coins or a credit card and immediately get their newspaper printed for
them at the customary size.
"There are still so many people that want to have the actual physical
newspaper, to take with them into the train or wherever they are
going," said Ralph Vooys, a Satellite Newspapers spokesman. "The
majority of people are not carrying around a laptop while traveling."
Satellite
Newspapers have a web site from hell and (even worse) no UK
installations, but they have what we've always wanted: a machine that
lets you select your 'bladet of choice (and our 'bladet of choice,
Zweden's mighty Aftonbladet, is on their list) and prints it for you
life-size while you wait.
Borders in Bristle has a range of Foreign 'bladets, but they don't
have anything as cool as this. But they do have a coffee shop, which
we think would allow great synergy - 'bladets while you wait and
coffee to wash it (and the wait) down. We'd buy that for rather more
than a dollar, for sure.
[Permalink]
2005-09-14 14:00
It is Kronprinsessmary
of Danmark!
Kronprinsessan Mary av Danmark f�rdes ig�r till sjukhus med
sammandragningar i livmodern.
Det kan betyda att en liten prins eller prinsessa �r p� v�g - men
det kan ocks� vara falskt alarm.
The Kronprinsessmary of Danmark was driven [at an unspecified speed,
injoke fans] to hospital with contractions of the uturus
[probably; the dictionary is guessing "matrix of the summary", but
we're using editorial discretion].
It could mean that a little prins or prinsess is on the way - but it
could also be a falskt alarm.
It could be X or it could be not X: discuss, with
particular reference to Wittgenstein's thought. Consider at least two
(2) values each of "it" and "X".
UPDATE: pregnantprinsess fotofeature (via Birgitte, tack).
[Permalink]
2005-09-14 12:14
Another example of restrained emotional display can be found on
maternity wards. When giving birth, many Swedish women try to moan as
little as possible, and they often ask, when it is all over, whether
they screamed much. They are very pleased to be told they did not.
Swedish Mentality, �ke Daun (p.124)
We're interested in whether anything empirically sound and
sociologically reasonable can be achieved in relation to "national
character". We don't imagine for a nanoinstant it would reduce the
amount of malarkey talked on the subject, of course, but we'd like to
do it anyway. (Daun's book seems OK on a flick-through, if a little
bit light on dialectics.)
[Permalink]
2005-09-14 10:19
It is a dull and dreary day, but what better than a
little tact to
lift the gloom:
Norge �r v�rldens s�msta land.
Norrm�nnen dricker som vikingar - och lever bara p� pizza.
Det h�vdar Jonathan Foreman, reporter p� Daily Mail.
F�r femte �ret i rad har FN utsett Norge till v�rldens b�sta land att
bo i.
Norway is the worst country in the world.
Norwegishes drink like vikings - and live exclusively on pizza.
So claims Jonathan Foreman, a reporter on the Daily Mail.
For the fifth year in a row the UN has declared Norway the world's
best country to live in.
The Daily Mail, isn't it? For the benefit of Yoorpeans spared this
shitbladet's charmless rantings, the Daily Mail holds that
Eng-ger-lund is the best country in not only this but all possible
worlds, except for the immigrants, feminists, politically-correct
social workers and Grauniad readers.
The idea that there's a country with a more dysfunctional relationship
to alcohol than dear old Blighty will come as a surprise to most of
Yoorp's holiday industry, though, we imagine.
* Two great tastes that taste great together.
[Permalink]
2005-09-13 15:43
�1. We are, we are!
England ist im sportlichen Himmel, nachdem die
Cricket-Nationalmannschaft am Montag erstmals seit 18 Jahren gegen
Australien die �Ashes� gewonnen hat.
That's the team of the England and Wales Cricket Board what won
it, we'll have you reminded, Martin P�tter; Jones the Bat is Welsh for
sure. (We're not sure about Jones the Glove, who was born in Papua New
Guinea and raised in Australia before committing himself to his
parents' native Englandandwales.)
[Link via Chris von Timber, tack]
�2. Poeng? They ain't no stinkin' poeng!
Them's runs, my Norwegish chums, runs!
P� grunn av d�rlig v�r ble kampen forsinket slik at australierne hadde
d�rlig tid. De m�tte f�rst kaste ut England og s� score de n�dvendige
poengene selv. Pietersen forsinket dem ytterligere ved � score 158
poeng som �ttende slagmann i Englands lag.
There's a breathless hush in the fjord tonight,
An age to play 'till the match is drawn,
A turning pitch and indifferent light
And a bowling attack of McGrath and Warne
Pietersen the eighth batsman, Norwegishes? His may have been the
eighth wicket to fall, but he goes in - as any Englandandwelsh
schoolboy kno - at number five (5).
�3. About time too
Duncan Fletcher, coach, guru and mastermind of the Englandandwales
cricket team has finally been granted British
citizenship, after 15 years of trying.
Mr Fletcher, 56, qualified as British as both his parents and all four
grandparents were born in the UK.
But he had twice fallen foul of rules which demand that those applying
for citizenship must have lived in Britain for five years, with
absences of no more than 450 days, including 90 days within the past
year.
Duh! He is often absent precisely because the Englandandwales cricket
team, which he coaches, gurus, masterminds and especially accompanies,
is on tour abroad.
[Permalink]
2005-09-13 13:04
�1.
It is Murray Bail on reading translations from Yoorp:
Still more important is the European instinct to circle
or actually enter, or at least be in the vicinity of, what may loosely
be called myth. The writer may not even be fully conscious of this; it
may not be deliberate. The entrails of myth crawl all over Europe,
sometimes bringing on forest-darkness, leaving in their wake fairy
tales, indelible opera plots, "irrational" warlords.
We feel we wish to say "Ewwwwwwwwwwwww"! Keep your smelly
authenticity fetishes and your lumpenreification of Continental
"Otherness" away from us by a distance, preferably, that is other than
small. (Bail's "Europe" embraces Tolsto� and Dostoeyevski and
especially the inevitability of sturgeons, but not, presumably, Angela
Carter.)
It is
(via) an exciting
competition!
Bonnier-konkurrence skal lokke nye forfattertalenter frem i Danmark,
Norge, Sverige og Finland. Eneste krav er en samtidsroman, der foreg�r
her i landet over 12 m�neder.
Bonnier-competition is looking for new authortalent in Danmark,
Norway, Zweden and Finland. The only requirement is a
contemporarynovel which takes place in the country over twelve (12)
months [one of your Earth "years"].
Better myth it up some, you crazy fools - they're mad crazy 'bout that
in Yoorp, yo!
�3. It
is the League of Champions! (Be still my crawling mythic
entrails!)
While Blighty, including us, has succumbed this summer to the
empiriciste and resolutely prosaic charms of willow on leather, the
"irrational" warlords of foopball have stalked their forest lairs,
brooding and biding their time. And their time has once more come!
And the Aftonbladet has the most comprehensive round-up we've seen,
which undoubtedly reflects the almost mystical fascination with the
formational dialectics that is so deeply rooted in the Nordic soul,
(rather than, say, the fact that Zweden itself has no team in the
competition).
[Permalink]
2005-09-13 10:36
Our nice phone company, Skype (as opposed to our unnice phone company,
the wretched Telewest)
just got bought:
Le site d'ench�res am�ricain eBay se renforce dans l'internet en
acqu�rant l'�diteur � succ�s de logiciels de t�l�phonie en ligne Skype
pour une somme qui sera comprise au final entre 2,1 et 3,3 milliards
d'euros.
The American auction site eBay reinforced its position on the Internet
by acquiring the successful online telephony company Skype for a sum
which will comprise between 2.1 and 3.3 [American] billion euros.
We think we prefer eBay to Google, if it had to be bought up. (We
don't find Google's artificial scarcity of accounts very charming,
although it is certainly very clever.)
Meanwhile we find that our dailiest papers are the Belgian Le
Soir and the Swiss Le Temps. They both seem to be more
focused than, for example, the Grauniad, which's new Berlinerflavour
we read last night - the Graun appears to be aiming to be a Sunday
newspaper that comes out daily, and has grossly misunderestimated the
shortness of our life. (The Metro is precisely the newspaper
that doesn't, but sadly it misunderestimates our intelligence instead.
A Metro for a cosmopolitan intelligentsia is what we seek.)
[Permalink]
2005-09-12 16:58
But let's face it, it's over even if it isn't
quite over:
80th over (33 left, minus two for change of innings): England 298-7
(add 6 for their lead; Pietersen 153, Giles 35)
Man of the series will presumably be Freddy Flintoff and we certainly
won't begrudge him that, but we'd've given it to Shane Warne. Yet
another 10-fer in this match, and he's almost single-handedly kept the
Aussies's hopes alive for much of the summer.
To our considerable irritation, most of the time.
[Permalink]
2005-09-12 15:43
It is JS
Mill!
[S]peculative philosophy, which to the superficial appears a thing so
remote from the business of life and the outward interests of men, is
in reality the thing on earth which most influences them, and in the
long run overbears every other influence save those which it must
itself obey.
"Bentham", Coleridge
We need to read some more Mill than we have, which is none, but we
don't expect to find ourself taking him very seriously. The Bentham
essay starts, more or less, by acknowledging a that the actual
opinions of Bentham (or any other philosopher) are largely irrelevent
to any rigorous exercise in the history of ideas or sociology of
knowledge, which is very sensible, and then goes on to study Bentham's
opinions in detail, which is completely pointless.
(Western) philosophy is the cosmological level of (western) society's
legitimation, except that it increasingly isn't.
[Permalink]
2005-09-12 12:15
110-4
(33rd over).
McGrath had a good shout on his hattrick ball; Warne is turing it
square; Pietersen has been wafting; Freddie is our last recognised
batsman; the weather is good and there are 98 overs due to be bowled
in the day.
[Permalink]
2005-09-12 09:47
It finishes today, one way or another. Raindances welcome:
Bad light prevented any play yesterday after around a quarter to four,
with 54 overs lost. The sight of 23,000 spectators, some of whom have
paid a small fortune for tickets, willing the players from the field,
then offering a roar of approval and a standing ovation when they did
go is one of sport's more bizarre images.
If, like us, you need the gory details on the light decision, look
here; it seems, contra Atherton, that the umpires were
within the laws.
[Permalink]
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