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2006-01-27 17:26
It
is the sneeuw in Italia!
Na 24 uren van sneeuwval is vrijdag het openbare leven in het noorden
van Itali� grotendeels lamgelegd.
After 24 hours of sn�fall is Friday the public life in the north of
Italia in greatparts paralysisstruck.
Give us a "Ch"! Give us an "ao"! Give us an "s"! C'mon Telegraaaaf,
just for us?
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2006-01-27 13:34
We don't especially understand middle eastern politics, we
cheerfully admit. The Palastinians appear to have been given a choice
between the incumbent Useless Corrupt Party and the Anathematic Pariah
Party, and - having apparently had enough of uselessness and
corruption - chosen the latter.
And now everyone is queuing up to tell them they didn't ought to 've
done that. Why did we let them have an election at all if they
weren't allowed to choose? (And when is the FDR going to realise that
its alleged program of encouraging democracy is going to make it look
stupid if it turns out to want to veto the results every time the
punters choose parties they don't like, which is to say every single
time? Oh, right, never.)
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2006-01-27 10:12
It
is li'l Mo, pride of the Tsart family, who fled
Vietnam for Australia some twenty (20) years ago. Mo's musical
precocity was soon recognised, and her compositions - such as the
opera Die
Rosoboe ("Pink Oboe") and that one that goes "duh duh duh dah dah - die
die, dum dum" have since won her a place in the musique world's heart.
Happy birthday, Mo!
[Permalink]
2006-01-26 16:14
The correct ordering of Cherman cases is: nominative, genitive,
dative, accusative. That's the way we learned it and that's the way
we like it.
The insolent Anglosphere, however, insists on nominative, accusitive,
genitive, dative. Which is in line with the order we learned for
Latin, but still.
[Permalink]
2006-01-26 16:13
Seminars are for reminding us why we never go to seminars.
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2006-01-26 10:11
�1. Freebladets go rampage!
It is the original Zwedish Metrobladet:
Dix ans. Il aura fallu dix ans au journal gratuit Metro pour devenir le
premier quotidien de Su�de. Metro revendique aujourd'hui 1,4 million
de lecteurs pour une population de 9 millions d'habitants, selon les
chiffres de l'�tude ind�pendante Orvesto, portant sur 2005. Un gain de
255 000 lecteurs, soit une progression de 22 % par rapport �
2004.
Ten (10) years. It will have required ten (10) years for the
freebladet Metro to achieve the largest circulation in Sweden. Metro
claims today 1.4 million readers, out of a population of 9 million
inhabitants, according to the figures of the ind�pendent study
Orvesto for 2005. A gain of 255 000 readeurs, being a progression of
22% compared with 2004.
�2. Down, Dawk, Down!
It is Andrew von Helmintholog at the Torygraph Science party:
Not one person I talked to at the party had a good word for Richard
Dawkins' TV series. The most vigorous denunciations all came from
atheist scientists. I was a little surprised, since one of them had
been very close to him.
The Dawk, isn't it? As a public intellectual and historian of ideas
he makes a great snail biologiste, for sure.
�3. Phenomenologise me harder!
The Internation New York Yoorp Herald Sossage P'tang P'tang
Tribune-Express-Sun-Star-Pilot-Telegraph had an excellent story the
other day on the understudied phenomenon that many persons in the
Eurozone attribute higher levels of inflation to the introduction to
the Euro than experts are usually able to measure, and now it is
unemployment:
Germany's Berliner Zeitung says many people associate the European
Union with economic and social fears which may come to threaten the
bloc's continued existence.
The paper says 84% of Germans fear that jobs may be lost to EU
countries where labour costs are lower, while two-thirds fear that
European integration leads to lower social standards.
The figures, it says, are "devastating". The paper argues that they
point to a "legitimacy crisis" which goes beyond concerns over the
lack of democracy.
Quite right. If you're running a democracy, being right is not enough
on its own: you also have to be seen to be right on the mean streets
of Lebensweltville. (Of course the FDR's administration has chosen to
work exclusively with the latter, but that is hardly to be recommended
in the sane world.)
Tony "Baloney" Blair cops a lot of flack for his many focus groups,
but policies persons won't vote for are as pointless as a nice healthy
salad that doesn't get eaten.
[Permalink]
2006-01-25 18:02
We found a nice bug today: Python's Numeric library changed its
implementation of the diagonal function for multidimensional
arrays in ways that broke our code and make no sense at all to us.
Trust no one, Varied Reader, and you didn't hear it from us.
[Permalink]
2006-01-25 12:12
�1. An unapology
We are British. We talk about the weather. Full stop ("period").
�2. For shame, Danmark!
There is no sn�kaos. Please return to your homes. We
repeat, there is no sn�kaos:
Intet snekaos
Der kommer ikke mere sne i de n�ste mange dage, lover DMI. Til geng�ld
bliver den sne, som faldt i dag, liggende l�nge.
"Sn�?".
The weatherforecaster looked perplexed and almost affronted.
"Of course it isn't going to sn�."
"It sn�ed yesterday", said the journaliste.
"I know it sn�ed yesterday. I'm telling you it isn't going to sn�
today."
"There's still a bunch of sn� out there."
"From yesterday. It sn�ed yesterday. It isn't going to sn�
today."
"So no kaos, then?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Goodbye."
�3. Level 2 for the plan of hivernale emergencies!
It
is the Frenchy-French, now also afflicted, but they've got a plan:
La pr�fecture de Paris a annonc� qu'elle activait, � partir de
mercredi � 18 heures, le niveau 2 du plan d'urgence hivernale, qui
pr�voit une vigilance accrue vis-�-vis des sans-abri lorsque les
temp�ratures sont comprises entre -5 et -10 degr�s la nuit. "Des
consignes de vigilance renforc�e ont �t� donn�es aux services de
police, en particulier la brigade d'assistance aux personnes sans abri
[Bapsa], ainsi qu'� la brigade de sapeurs-pompiers de Paris", a
annonc� la pr�fecture dans un communiqu�.
— Oh l� l� but it makes the cold !
— Courage, ma petite! The sapeurs-pompiers are surely on their
way!
[Permalink]
2006-01-25 10:00
Firstly,
it
is Norway, and it is especially the north of it where there is
some very considerable weather:
The storm that lashed the northern county of Finnmark was just the
beginning of grim winter weather battering Norway, and warnings of
extreme conditions from the coast of North Tr�ndelag to West Finnmark
are in effect.
The Dowager Countess is currently on a hurtigruten in north
Norway, and she reports that 683 Statoil employees were evacuated to
her boat.
Secondly, it is
Danmark, where they are still mincing their words:
Sne og vinter plager trafikken
Sn� and vinter plague traffiks
We wonder what it would take to get the Danishes to call it
kaos. A suspicion that immigrants were somehow responsible,
maybe.
[Permalink]
2006-01-24 17:36
�1. Belgium!
It
is the first chapter of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens:
'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan
gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss--
Canton de Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth.
I myself was born in Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.'
�2. Weather maps
There seem to be no good online weather maps of Yoorp. We demand
those triangulated black lines for fronts and a filled contour plot
for temperature, with occasional symbols for sun, rain or sn�.
We find instead that the ugly and unergonomic perpetrations of various
newspapers and Broadcasting Corporations do not even agree on the
basic facts, which causes us to be other than amused.
�3. Oh l� l�, the Tour comes to Londontown!
Of
course, they're waiting until we've emigrated, presumably out of
spite.
Millions of spectators are expected to crowd the streets of London
over two days in July next year following Tuesday's announcment that
the 2007 Tour de France will start in the capital.
Very nice; now have a nice stage in Belgium so that we can actually
get to it.
[Permalink]
2006-01-24 12:11
Humbly report, your Lordships, you are beautiful when
you're angry:
Angry peers last night invoked the memory of fascist regimes which forced citizens to carry their papers as they tore the heart out of the Government's planned legislation for identity cards.
(We suspect Tony "Baloney" Blair will shortly decide that their
Lordships need another dose of "reform". Such are the benefits of an
unwritten constitution, h�las.)
Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Home Office minister, had to listen
to a succession of peers denounce plans to include all holders of
biometric passports on the planned ID cards register. Not one peer
spoke in favour of the plans. Ministers have always insisted the
scheme was voluntary, but critics say it amounts to "compulsion by the
back door".
(Emphasis added.) Biometric passports are the suck too, of course,
but even their Lordships are no match for the Empire.
[Permalink]
2006-01-24 10:58
It
is the very considerable cold, brrr! And it's not inconsiderable
fatality:
Polish authorities on Tuesday said eleven people had died from cold
over the previous 24 hours as temperatures plummeted below minus 30
degrees Celsius. The deaths bring to 161 the number of fatalities in
Poland from cold since October 1 last year.
Nearly half of the dead were homeless, of whom 90% were drunk.
Alcohol is not good in the cold, as the survivor's of Russia's
Neoliberal Genocide could tell you. It makes the blood go to the
skin, which is the last place you want it to be.
[Permalink]
2006-01-23 15:22
In stanzas composed of raucous whooping, for only such can drown the
windstorms' constant roar, they glorify the simple lives of our walrus
herders.
Vocabulary,
Wislawa Szymborska
It is terribly cold in Pologne
just now:
Vingt-sept personnes sont mortes de froid ce week-end en Pologne, o�
les temp�ratures sont descendues la nuit � -32�C dans certaines
r�gions. Au total, 150 personnes ont ainsi perdu la vie depuis le
d�but de la vague de froid.
Twenty-seven (27) persons died of cold this weekend in Poland, where
the night-time temperatures fell to -32�C in some regions. In total
150 persons have died since the beginning of the cold spell.
Also:
De koudegolf die Rusland sinds een week in zijn greep heeft, rukt op
richting West-Europa. De Siberische kou leidde in de Scandinavische
landen en het midden en oosten van Europa al tot grote
problemen. Tientallen mensen kwamen om het leven. Inmiddels heeft de
kou ook Griekenland, Oostenrijk, Hongarije en Duitsland bereikt.
The coldwave that Russia since a week in its grip has, is headed in
the direction of Western Europe. The Siberian cold has already lead
to great problems in the Scandinavian land and the middle and east of
Europe. Tens of persons have died. In the meantime the cold has
reached Greece, Austria, Hugary and Germany.
Bonus non-weather link: It
is Christian Valdemar Henri John, prins of Danmark, and it is
especially his dippningfrock, which was made in Belgium (where else?)
in 1870 for an earlier prins Christian, of which there have been very
many.
[Permalink]
2006-01-23 12:36
It is Stephen "Hand-in" Glover, and he has a dream:
The
World is the working title of a new
British compact newspaper, to be managed by Independent columnist
Stephen Glover. The planned launch is hoped to take place in late 2005
or early 2006. Glover intends to model the newspaper on the French
newspaper Le Monde, and plans to shun celebrity-oriented tabloid news.
Unfortunately, the Google-trail for this project goes cold after early
2004. We empathise slightly with Meester Glover's theory that almost
all Engleesh bladets are these days mostly trashbladets, but we are
not the first to observe that there is exactly one that excludes
celebrity gossip and sport and other such froth in favour of the
purest hardest news: it is the Doshbladet ("Financial Times")
and it is what we read.
It does seem to us that it would be an interesting experiment to do a
highbrow Metro - a waffer-thin staff and a bunch of newswires but
focussing on actual news, plus (possibly) a little bit of in-house
analysis.
[Permalink]
2006-01-23 10:35
C'mon everyone, sing along!
Baby this town puts the crown back on your head
It's a monarcy, it's unelected
We gotta say, and you know it's true
That scamps like us, baby we were born to rule
(With apologies to the
Broooooce)
It is the royalbabyboom!
(Nine prins(ess)es!)
I helgen d�ptes lille prins Christian, Danmarks nye tronf�ljare.
[Permalink]
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