|
2005-11-25 17:00
It is Eric "Hobbyhorse" Hobsbawm!
(Only unrealistic dreamers can suggest that Louis XVI might have
accepted defeat and immediately turned himself into a constitutional
monarch, even if he had been a less negligible and stupid man, married
to a less chicken-brained and irresponsible woman, and prepared to
listen to less disastrous advisors.)
The Age of Revolution, p.82
Is that a "no", Perfessor?
[Permalink]
2005-11-25 14:28
{Refrain} [No kidding]
Let's go to the hop
Let's go to the hop, oh baby
Let's go to the hop, oh baby
Let's go to the hop
Ah, ah, let's go to the hop
At the
Hop, Danny and the Juniors
While relationshipular constraints will be, um, constraining our watchage
of the Vier Schanzen this year, there is after all the rest of the
season and the mighty Winter 'Lympicks to look forward to. Bring it
on, says us, bring it on
without delay or retardation:
Mens Mika Kojonkoski pr�ver � gj�re Janne Ahonen til storfavoritt,
advarer Ahonen selv for Lj�kels�y og det norske laget.
While [Norwegian team coach] Mika Kojonkoski tries to make Janne "The
Manne" Ahonen as the strong favorite, Ahohen himself backs Lj�kels�y
and the Norwegish team.
We want "Soaring" Sigurd back, personally, after a difficult season
last year adapting to the new BMI needed for optimal skilength.
[Permalink]
2005-11-25 10:03
http://piginawig.diaryland.com/051121.html#c
�1. Unwrapped Candy Handy, Undandy
in
Ostricha :
The European Court of Justice ruled Thursday that Austria can continue to ban sales of unwrapped chewing gum on grounds of public health.
[...]
Under a 1998 Austrian law, candy sold in vending machines must be wrapped. Georg Schwarz, a Canadian candy importer, was fined by the mayor of Salzburg for breaking the law. Schwarz appealed the fine on the grounds that his chewing gum was sold unwrapped in other European countries.
�2. It's a prinsess!*
It
is kronprinsess Mette-Marit of Norway! To whom it may or may not
become a baby prinsess!
Det blir en liten prinsessa.
S� tror de flesta norrm�n som har slagit vad om k�net p�
kungafamiljens kommande tillskott.
It becomes a little prinsess!
So believe most Norwegishes who have the sex of the royalfamily's new
addition geguessed.
* offer void where applicable
�3. What you say?
I said, WHAT YOU SAY?
Unscrupulous foreign travel operators are targeting British travellers
and over-charging them for poor services because of their lack of
language skills.
Three quarters of British tourists believe they miss out on
interesting places and better deals because they only speak English,
according to a survey by translation software company Translution.
We always get our surveys carried out by translation software
companies, for sure, but we are slightly at a loss to know how our
extensive knowledge of Zwedish would get us a better deal in Ma�ree.
[Permalink]
2005-11-24 16:00
It is an attempt to get some nice warm ale to go with the sound of
leather on
willow - what could be Britisher? Oh yes, failure:
With the impeccable timing of a Freddie Flintoff cover drive, the
first day of 24-hour opening coincided with the final day of the
gripping second test in Faisalabad.
So what better way to mark the occasion than to watch England's
best-known early morning drinker take on Shoaib Akhtar & co in the
comfort of a central London bar?
Inevitably, the attempt fails. It's a thought, though, for the next
Ashes (in Upsidedownia) if not before.
One landlord said: "I don't think anyone is daft enough to open at
this time - there just isn't the demand. We actually already have a
licence to open at 10am, but we don't open until 12 because there is
no point."
I wonder if Babylon was like that?
If New York is the city that never sleeps, London was still looking like the city that doesn't get out of bed until lunchtime.
Maybe we should pop to the MegaTesco to buy a little something just
after midnight local time tomorrow.
[Permalink]
2005-11-24 12:19
Slightly
Belated in Blighty!
Des milliers de pubs anglais et gallois ont demand� � profiter d'une
nouvelle loi leur permettant de rester ouverts plus tard dans la nuit,
suscitant l'inqui�tude du monde m�dical qui redoute une augmentation
des probl�mes li�s � l'alcoolisme.
Thousands of English and Welsh pubs have asked to profite from a new
law permitting them to open later in the nuit, sucitant the anxiety of
the medical world which fears an augmentation of problems linked to
the alcoholisme.
A more pressing question is: where in our excellent neighbourhood is
going to have bothered, given that the licensing laws were abundantly
disregarded anyway?
[Permalink]
2005-11-24 10:37
We hold that the very ancient and solemn winter festival of
Twinkletree starts in December, which it isn't yet. The Portugueses, apparently, beg to differ:
Mange tusinde mennsker var p� gaden i Lissabon i Portugal l�rdag
aften for at fejre at lysene blev t�ndt i Europas h�jeste juletr�.
Many thousand persons were in the streets of Lissabon in Portugal on
Saturn's day evening to celebrate the lighting of the lights on
Yoorp's tallest twinkletree.
It isn't, it is only fair to remark or observe, an actual tree-tree at
all: it is a roughly tree-shaped thing or entity fashioned by person
or persons unknown from tree-bits.
Meanwhile, Londontown's proper tree (which is by no means threft!) is
on
its way from Ooshloo:
A majestic fir tree from the forest outside Oslo began a sentimental
journey to London on Friday, where it will do service as the city's
Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square.
Majestic d'you see?
[Permalink]
2005-11-23 16:39
It is the University of Openness and it has sent us a very excellent
collection of stuff and other stuff for our new course, State, Economy
and Nation!
It is only slightly like a Celebrity Reality Balloon Debate Contest in
Max "Chuckles" Weber, Napoleon "Boney" Bonaparte and Count Otto
"Absolutely!" von Bismarck have to eat worms and one of them gets
voted off every week.
JS "Shandy" Mill gets my vote this and every week for the foreseeable,
for sure. Off! Off! Off!
[Permalink]
2005-11-23 13:29
It is Jonny
Wilkinson, Engleesh rugby's favourite invalid!
He still tries to live by a strict code in which he imagines that
every minute of his day is being recorded by a hidden video camera. He
pretends that anything he does of which he is less than proud will be
screened back to himself and the people he loves most. "I try to
follow this ethos because when I go to bed every night I want to feel
I've done absolutely all I can to move forward in my life. I need that
intense self-scrutiny because setting goals, and chasing them, is
crucial."
Setting goals and chasing them, Varied Reader. At the end of the day
that's what it's all about, isn't it? I think Kant said something
similar, or it may have been the Baby Jesus.
[Permalink]
2005-11-23 10:57
Learning, as we currently are, German via a very very very
old-fashioned 1937 Teach Yourself book, we have now at last learned
all about the cases of the definite article.
We like this very very very much - our German bedtime reading (which
is a boy-teen Krimi which we can't actually read) remains just as
impenetrable, except now we can easily tell when it is being
impenetrable in the dative case.
That, Varied Reader, is what we call progress.
[Permalink]
2005-11-22 11:54
Cyckelnyckel, cykelnyckel?
Cykelnyckel!
It is two (2) crazy Zwedishes who cycled to Espain!
Cykelturen mellan Stockholm och M�laga tog nio veckor. M�let n�dde de
i slutet av oktober. Under resan har de uppt�ckt vilka l�nder som �r
b�st f�r cyklister.
-F�rst och fr�mst Holland, d�r cyklar alla. Sedan Tyskland och
Frankrike. I Spanien d�remot s� verkar de helt ha gl�mt bort
cyklisterna n�r de projekterat v�gar. Ibland tvingades vi ut p�
motorv�garna, ber�ttar Ulf.
The cycletrip between Stockholm and M�laga took nine (9) weeks. The
goal was reached at the end of Oktober. During the journey they
discovered which countries were best for cyclistes.
"Above all, the Netherlands, where everyone cycles. Then Germany and
France. In Espain on the other hand, the seem to have completely
forgotten cyclistes when they planned roads. Sometimes we were forced
out on motorways", tells or relates Ulf.
They then flew home and locked their bicycles in the garage until
spring which is fair enough, really.
[Permalink]
2005-11-22 10:21
It is the EU budjet meeting!
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja: "As there is nothing new to
discuss, I have got nothing new to say."
(Britain's presidency of the EU is now officially a fiasco, and it
doesn't help in these such budget negociations that Tony "Baloney"
Blair couldn't give up the UK's absurd "rebate" even if he wanted to.)
[Permalink]
2005-11-21 16:51
We know, Varied Reader, what you're asking or enquiring: hat Winter
S�den fest im Griff?
It has, it
has!
Glatte Stra�en, viele Unf�lle:
Schnee-Chaos in Bayern
Eiskratzen, Schneeschippen, spiegelglatte Stra�en: Der Winter ist da!
(Schnee-Chaos is of course German for sn�kaos, and Bayern is
Bavaria where not very long ago we were ourself.)
[Permalink]
2005-11-21 13:19
Someone somewhere hasn't got the
memo that Englishings don't sell, not least at Harvill where
Englished crime books that do sell must be a pleasant change.
There's been a foreign invasion in the crime world. In recent years
publishers have been plundering the wealth of European crime writing
to introduce authors as diverse as Sweden's Henning ["Hilarity"]
Mankell and Sicily's Andrea Camilleri to British readers. This year
four of the six books shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association's
prestigious Gold Dagger for Fiction were novels in translation, with
Arnaldur Indridason (Icelandic), Karin Fossum (Norwegian), Friedrich
Glauser (Swiss) and Fred Vargas (French) on the list. Not everyone in
the trade was happy with the shortlist, with Selina Walker, publishing
director for crime and thrillers at Transworld, lamenting its
narrowness in a vintage year that had included new novels by top
sellers such as Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Mark Billingham. In the
end though, Indridason won - and, if you haven't read them, his novels
about the dark side of Reykjavik, featuring a detective with a
drug-addicted daughter, are compelling. They are published by Harvill.
The blinkered blimps at the Crime Writers' Association, however, egged
on by a new mystery sponsor, have retaliated by restricting the
preistigious Golden Dagger for Fiction, in future, to works originally
written in the silly Engleesh.
No biscuits for you, Associated Crime Writers!
[Permalink]
2005-11-21 09:53
Well
done!
The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that
"intelligent design" is not science and does not belong in science
classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter
the evolution debate in the United States.
Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory,
said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in
school programs is "wrong" and is akin to mixing apples with oranges.
This is what comes of knowing some science, we suppose, and it is
especially apt since the weasel-in-chief of this lamentable
Creationisme Nouveau is himself a Catholic. As, rumour has it, is
the Pope:
Last week, Pope Benedict XVI waded indirectly into the evolution
debate by saying the universe was made by an "intelligent project"
and criticizing those who in the name of science say its creation was
without direction or order.
From now on he's formally known to us as Pope "No Biscuits" Benny.
[Permalink]
2005-11-18 18:04
Polish plumbers are bad, since they might come over here and take
Our Boys' jobs. But Polish dentist are
nice, since we can take our teeths to them without them posing the
slightest risk to the honour of our wimmins or our benefit systems:
I rask takt etableras f�retag som ordnar tandv�rdsresor till �steuropa
Deras kunder �r den snabbt v�xande str�mmen av patienter som vill f�
billig tandv�rd och pengar �ver till shopping och en kortsemester.
Companies organising toothcaretrips to Eastern Yoorp are being
established at a brisk rate. Their customers are the quickly growing
stream of patients who want cheap dental care and zlotys left over for
shopping and a short holiday.
Given the choice between straight dealing and straight teeth, it's the
toothypegs that have it, for sure.
[Permalink]
2005-11-18 14:32
We just applied for a job as a bit-herder with Google.nl. It is
impressively hard to find out for sure where Google.nl keeps its
actual swervers, but it is not all that hard to find out for unsure,
and where we found is exactly where we wish to spend our time in the
not too distant.
We wonder though if we ("the successful applicant") will be sworn to
secrecy in turn. (We're pretending it is a big secret already, of
course.)
[Permalink]
2005-11-18 10:16
We won't be doing our Christmas shoppning in Noo York this year, but
not
for the first time:
The Big Apple is about 11 per cent more expensive for British shoppers
than it was last festive season because of slipping exchange rates,
the broker HIFX said. But buying with the euro is about 2 per cent on
last year.
And with Germany suffering an economic slump that has sent retail
prices crashing, experts are advising bargain-hunters to shop in
cities such as Hamburg, which has direct, low-cost flights from
Scotland.
The increasing strength of the US dollar could spell the end of
transatlantic shopping breaks, which have become a pre-Christmas
ritual for tens of thousands of Britons in the past five years.
Also Hamburg is in Germany, where the bier is yummy and cheap and even
the time is almost right.
[Permalink]
2005-11-17 18:39
Just between you and us, Varied Reader, we have applied for a job
researching these such somethings. But as we sit here half-listening
to NRK's Norwegish podcast, we struggle - after all these years - to
tell it isn't Zwedish. (We don't understand it all, by any means but
sadly the same is true of Zwedish.) Whereas Danish we still simply
don't get.
Podcasts are cool though, isn't it?
[Permalink]
2005-11-17 14:53
We are attempting to combine C and Python. This is impressively hard:
we are doing a lot of manual casting and we frankly don't understand
our own code very well.
Also, and possibly relatedly, we have been cold on account of the
cold, and seem to be coming down with a cold. (Form an orderly queue,
astonished scientistes!)
[Permalink]
2005-11-17 10:37
That's not even close enough for
rock'n'roll!
It's not a great wine. But Beaujolais nouveau (bojo-lay nu-voh) has
one thing going for it that no other wine has: It's the wine world�s
favorite ritual.
That's because of all the hoopla surrounding its annual release at one
minute after midnight on the third Thursday in November, a date
regulated by French law. In the years since the 1950s, when its fame
started spreading, the release has evolved into a major excuse for
parties, parades and tastings all over the world.
Made entirely from Gamay grapes grown in France's Beaujolais region,
the wine is a light, fruity red that is fermented quickly - only 10
weeks from vine to bottle - and hastily shipped worldwide in time for
Thursday night parties. About 65 million bottles will hit the shelves
today.
Of course, these days it's shipped out in advance and most of the
sales are in Asia after the overexpansion of capacity at the expense
of quality and the annoying stunts alienated Yoorpean consumers.
Except us. We happen to like the bowzh, and we happen
to like the ritual too.
[Permalink]
2005-11-16 17:10
It seems to us that a facing-page English/German edition of a book
devoted to "langwidge games" involving restricted domains and
especially vocabulary would make a very excellent pedagogical tool for
the learner of German, for example us.
Is this not so? Or is there some other reason why Google finds no
mention of such a technique or method?
[Permalink]
2005-11-16 15:08
So Blighty was poised to finally roll back the insane
First-World-War-inspired 23:00 closing
time for public houses, and what did the coalition of tabloids and
Tories do? Why, they whipped up a
moral
panic and tried to block it, of course:
As late as last year, police chiefs at their annual conference
conceded that the new act would be "a welcome and civilised approach
to drinking" for the vast majority, but warned that dealing with binge
drinking was beyond police capability and the act could lead to more
violence. Not much opposition was heard from the Conservative party,
which liberalised afternoon drinking in the 1980s, until tabloid
newspapers began a campaign of opposition to the new hours. Now there
is widespread public opposition.
Stupid stupid stupid.
We'll be sure to have a quiet and civilised pint at 23:30 on
November the 25th at the Tabloid and Tory. And then we'll see if we
riot, but we never have under comparable circumstances in Abroad.
[Permalink]
2005-11-16 11:17
It
is the new Danish kronkronprins! And it is also the Danish habit
and custom of delaying the naming of bebisar until their formal
dippning, which can be and often is whenever it is:
Selvom der absolut intet vil blive r�bet om barnets navn, s� er der
ingen tvivl om, at der vil blive sagt �Christian� foran d�befonden i
Christiansborg Slotskirke.
Evenif there absolutely won't become the call on the bebis's name, so
is there no doubt that it will be said "Christian" before the
dippningfont in Christianborgs Castlechurch.
They're always called Chris or Fred, kronprinses, and the current
Kronprinsfred is a Fred (hence the name), so a Chris is a dead cert.
But just in case it gets too confusing, they'll sneak a Fred in the
undernames as well, and a Frenchy-French name in honour of the French
Prinshenrik, its grandad.
(To our not inconsiderable irritation the "Bruce" lobby (in honour of
the Kronprinsessmary's Strayan roots) appears to 've been sidelined.)
[Permalink]
2005-11-15 16:56
(Pay attention: this may well be on the exam.)
In de meeste competitions of foopball, Engerlund, Wales, Scotland and
All-Ireland compete separately, and that's the way everyone likes it.
But that won't wash at the Lympicks, since the UK is represented by
(deep breath) Team GB, which represents England, Wales, Scotland and
any athletes from Northern Ireland as prefer to affiliate with it
rather than Ireland (being, as they are, equally entitled to either,
which is why it isn't team UK).
Now,
with London hosting the Lympicks in oh-twelve, there is a wish on the
part of the organisers for a home team to turn up even in the
foopball, but there are fears from the individual home nations' FAs
that this might compromise their future independence in other
competitions, notwithstanding assurances that are certainly worth at
least the paper they're written on. The Scots, in particular, are
having nothing to do with it:
Plans for a Great Britain football team at the London 2012 Olympics
will go ahead without any Scottish involvement.
The Scottish FA ruled out participation but have no objection to the other home nations forming sides for the men's and women's Olympic and Paralympic teams.
England and Northern Ireland are in favour, while the Welsh FA, having
initially opposed the idea, are now deciding whether to reconsider.
Hours of fun! (We couldn't care less any which way about the outcome:
Lympick foopball is a joke and we only support les bleus de
Chelsea anyway.)
[Permalink]
2005-11-15 16:49
(Pay attention: this may well be on the exam.)
In de meeste competitions of foopball, Engerlund, Wales, Scotland and
All-Ireland compete separately, and that's the way everyone likes it.
But that won't wash at the Lympicks, since the UK is represented by
(deep breath) Team GB, which represents England, Wales, Scotland and
any athletes from Northern Ireland as prefer to affiliate with it
rather than Ireland (being, as they are, equally entitled to either,
which is why it isn't team UK).
Now,
with London hosting the Lympics in oh-twelve, there is a wish on the
part of the organisers for a home team to turn up even in the
foopball, but there are fears from the individual home nations' FAs
that this might compromise their future independence in other
competitions, notwithstanding assurances that are certainly worth at
least the paper they're written on. The Scots, in particular, are
having nothing to do with it:
Plans for a Great Britain football team at the London 2012 Olympics
will go ahead without any Scottish involvement.
The Scottish FA ruled out participation but have no objection to the other home nations forming sides for the men's and women's Olympic and Paralympic teams.
England and Northern Ireland are in favour, while the Welsh FA, having
initially opposed the idea, are now deciding whether to reconsider.
Hours of fun! (We couldn't care less any which way about the outcome:
Lympick foopball is a joke and we only support les bleus de
Chelsea anyway.)
[Permalink]
2005-11-15 14:37
There have been storms in 'Wegia, but they have been ordinary
regnstorms and we discard them. But sn� is at hand:
Och nu kommer sn�n.
-Mest vinterlikt blir det i de norra delarna, s�ger Lars Knutsson,
meteorolog p� SMHI i Norrk�ping.
And now sn� is coming.
"It will be most winterly in nothern parts", says Lars Knutsson,
meteorologiste at SMHI in Norrk�ping [Ping ping!].
Most winterly in the north, eh? What are the odds!
[Permalink]
2005-11-15 10:58
Hoorah hoorah hoorah!
Nu �r det �ntligen dags. Aftonbladet ska b�rja med RSS
It's finally time. Aftonbladet is starting an RSS feed.
Hoorah!
[Permalink]
2005-11-14 15:43
Scientistes have made a profound breakthrough in
obviousstating
(slightly bleeding):
Scientists say they have the first proof that there really is a link
between getting cold and catching one.
[...]
Professor Ronald Eccles, director of the [Cardiff University Common
Cold] centre, said the study had shown, for the first time, a
scientific link between chilling and viral infection - something
previously dismissed by other studies[!!!].
"When colds are circulating in the community, many people are mildly
infected but show no symptoms," Prof Eccles said.
"If they become chilled, this causes a pronounced constriction of the
blood vessels in the nose and shuts off the warm blood that supplies
the white cells that fight infection. The reduced defences in the
nose allow the virus to get stronger and common cold symptoms
develop. Although the chilled subject believes they have 'caught a
cold' what has, in fact, happened is that the dormant infection has
taken hold."
That is what we call "catching a cold", Perfessor E. That's
what catching a cold is!
Instead of sneering at our perfectly reasonable usages, how about an
apology for the "previous dismiss"als, since everyone outside the
medical profession knew this perfectly well all along?
We're not holding our breath, though, since the sidebar quote runs:
Mothers can now be confident in their advice to children to wrap up
well in winter
Prof Ron Eccles, Common Cold Centre
We recommend you get over yourself with some urgency, Perfessor, and
you might want to see if one of your many colleagues can do a
rectocephalectomy while you're at it.
[Permalink]
2005-11-14 14:11
�1. �Hola! indeed, prinsess!
- Jonas �r mitt livs stora k�rlek, s�ger Madeleine i en unik intervju.
F�r f�rsta g�ngen ber�ttar prinsessan Madeleine �ppet om sin relation
till Jonas Bergstr�m; om sina k�nslor och om framtiden. Det g�r hon i
den spanska veckotidningen Hola.
"Jonas is the great love of my life", says prinsess Madeleine [of
Zweden] in a unique interview.
For the first time prinsess Madeleine [of Zweden] tells of her
relationship with Jonas Mountainstream; on her feelings and on the
future. She does this in the Spanish weekmagazine Hola.
Which we now have to read, of course. It isn't easy being us!
�2. Yoorpbladets go Interweb
The Graun's Interweb-friendly strategy has made it the left-bladet of
choice for much of Anglophonia, since the FDR's many 'bladets are
heroically spineless ("balanced") when it comes to, say, launching a
war of aggression on a platform of transparent lies, or the systematic
use of torture by the military/intelligence personnel or other such
bleeding-heart teapot-tempests, whine whine whine, and this is now a
significant revenue stream for Manchester's finest terror-appeasers
and rule-change
denialistes. Also:
Autre exemple r�v�lateur: celui d'El Mundo, deuxi�me tirage des
quotidiens en Espagne apr�s El Pais, mais dont le site internet est le
plus consult� (750.000 visiteurs uniques/jour) des journaux europ�ens,
devant Bild (Allemagne) et The Guardian, et vient au premier rang dans
le monde hispanique.
Another revealing example: that of El Mundo, second by circulation in
Espain after El Pais, but of which the Internet site is the most
consulted of European newspapers (750,000 unique visitors/day) ahead
of Bild (Germany) and the Grauniad, and which is top in the
hispanophone world.
This is of course because nowhere near enough persons have had the
rudimentary courtesy to learn Zwedish and read the mighty Aftonbladet,
which's content is also all but entirely spread out on the internets
like a lobster anaesthetised in a more than slightly warm bath.
�3. A delicious pizza!
The most
delicious in the Nord!
Det h�r �r Nordens godaste pizza.
Den �r spr�dgr�ddad, t�ckt med mozzarella, tryffel, tunnskivad oxfil�,
parmesanost och drivor av rucolasallad.
- En gourmetpizza, s�ger pizzam�staren Nebojsa Pavicevic, 41.
It has stuff and other stuff on it!
"Yum yum", says pizzamaster Nebojsa Pavicevic, 41, [the perpetrator].
One of the many things we did at the weekend, incidentally, was to get
an octopot for making stovetop espressi ("espressos"), and we
are very glad we did: it makes (with expensive Italian caff�)
the best
caff� we've had since we were last in Italy.
[Permalink]
2005-11-14 10:28
Ask (ex)-prinsess
Sayako of Japanland:
The Emperor and Empress of Japan have ceremonially
waved goodbye to their only daughter, who has chosen to renounce her
title for love.
Princess Sayako, the daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko,
officially bade farewell to her parents on Saturday during complex and
traditional rituals ahead of her wedding to a commoner. Tomorrow, she
is to marry Yoshiki Kuroda, 40, a Tokyo town planner. The couple are
old friends who became romantically involved after a party hosted by
Princess Sayako's older brother two years ago.
It is so very Japan to have comple and traditional rituals for just
such an eventuality, for sure.
[Permalink]
previous,
next, latest
|
|
|