2002-07-19 15:34

Outer Pedestria

I don't like driving. When I changed jobs to live and work in the same city it was at least partly so that I wouldn't need a car, and that part of the plan has been a triumphant success.

Unfortunately the public transport in the United Kingdom is often distressingly bad. Trains connect cities, up to a point, but after that you're on your own. (It is not a coincidence that I tend to wear - and wear out - heavy duty boots.)

Today I've been trying to scavange a lift to a leaving-do from my old workplace, which is in the middle of Wiltshire-flavoured nowhere, which in turn is the only reason I had a car in the first place.

If I'm a pedestrian, it surely follows that I must be from Pedestria. In fact, it often feels like I'm in exile in Outer Pedestria, and it's hard work getting anywhere from here, I can tell you.

2002-07-19 09:41 (UTC+1)

Denied!

Well, I've got the latest Point de Vue and I'm tr�s disappointed. There's not a word about our Vickan, and a photo of Mette-Marit on a boat is hardly adequate compensation.

I can only assume that they were caught off guard by last week's events - 25th birthdays are unpredictable things, by their very nature - and will repair the omission next week. Or there'll be trouble...

2002-07-18 13:25 (UTC+1)

The Prodigal Son

Today's bible reading is from the gospel of Luke, Chapter 15, verses 11-19:

And he said, A certain man had two sons:
And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

Les Langues scandinaves has versions of this in Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Bokm�l, Nynorsk (both flavours of Norwegian), Faroese, Swedish and, of course, French, which made me want to see the English version, as well. (It's just as well I have a pre-concordised bible on my computer, too, since no reference was given.)

And I was curious, too, because there's a stray og ("and") in the Swedish version (it's usually och, of course). I wondered if that was some kind of bible thing or if it was like unto a sheep that had strayed from the true path. I don't have a genuine Swedish bible to hand, but I have Internet access and there's no og in this version which is otherwise (textually) identical.

Now I must be off - I have some urgent wasting my substance with riotous living to be getting on with.

2002-07-18 11:50 (UTC+1)

A Fogey Writes

Now, listen to your Unca Zompy, kids:

You learn to write by writing. A lot. A good rule of thumb is: unless you're a genius, the first thousand pages you write will be crap. So go and write them and don't bother the world with them. By page 1001 you'll probably have learned something. (Another good rule of thumb: no, you're not a genius.)

Does blogging have the "bothering the world" nature or not? Incidentally, diaryland says I'm up to 140 entries - only another 860 to go before I learn something!

2002-07-18 09:59 (UTC+1)

Monosyllabic

It's so warm and so humid that I can't feel where my hands stop and the air starts. After we all spent so long complaining about the cold and dismal summer we had up to the middle of last week it would be both hypocritical and ungrateful to start complaining about the heat, but everyone's ennervated and grumpy and we're all just holding our breath waiting for the inevitable storm.

So, today, all I have for you is Swedish monosyllables. Malberg (SE) offers spotskt ("arrogantly"), but Bord (FR) counters with sk�lmskt ("mischievously").

My word! A quadruple terminal consonant pile-up, with an initial "sk" (which denotes, by common consent, the weirdest sound in Swedish)!

We'll have to wait for the judges marks for artistic impression, of course, but from here it looks very much like the Frenchman has done enough to clinch a shock upset in this prestigious event!

And now back to the studio...

2002-07-17 10:23 (UTC+1)

The Bernadotte Connection

Of course, there is a connection between France and Sverige, at least. Back in the early nineteenth century Sweden lost Finland to Russia in a game of Geopolitical Intrigue (a bit like the popular board game Risk except with real dead people and no board) and the Swedish people held the King responsible. So they sacked him and installed a French chap, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (who had been a general under Napoleon and was widely agreed to be tr�s chic) instead.

Of course, Bernadotte had to change his name to Carl XIV Carl XX Carl, in the Swedish fashion, but that's a small price to pay. (Besides, it could have been a lot worse - I'm starting a campaign to persuade our very own Prince Charles to adopt the name Channel Light Vessel Automatic MXXIV Falling Slowly in the unlikely event His Gracious Mother ever pulls over to let him drive.)

And the descendents of Monsieur Bernadotte have been kings and queens of Sweden ever since. The End.

2002-07-16 13:44 (UTC+1)

Partay!

It was the Maths Departments Fluids Lab's opening party last night. "Drinks and experiments from 4:30 pm," they said. The pick of the displays was the one on avalanche control which involved a video of one of the department's students being on Icelandic TV.

I want to be on Icelandic TV! How come she gets to be on telly in Iceland and I don't? (Apart the fact that she's from Iceland, speaks Icelandic and works for the Icelandic meteorology office on stuff of vital interest to Icelanders, that is, obviously.)

To rub it in, every once in a while the avalanche researchers all go off to the Swiss alps to do "research". It's the snow, they tell us. Very important ingredient in yer avalanche research, is yer snow.

You might argue that I get to go to Geophysics conferences in Nice and you would not be wrong, but on the flight home we bumped into a bunch of students, including the aforementioned Icelander, who had been out there for a whole week. There's no justice, I tell you, none!

2002-07-15 16:26 (UTC+1)

Franco-Nordic relations - my part in their downfall

I've now finished reading Bertil Malmberg's book La Phon�tique. It's an engaging and accessible read, if you read French. The examples are largely drawn from French and English, with occasional outbreaks of Swedish (Malmberg's native language) - he's not trying to do a Catford-style grand tour of every possible sound the human speech organs can make. There's also more of an emphasis on phonetics from the outside, with extensive palatograms and cross-sections of tongue positions and the like, which I can take or leave, to be honest, but his discussion of combinatorial phonetics, illustrated mostly with French example is fascinating and taught me several things I hadn't even suspected that I didn't know.

Amazon.fr seems to be turning into my bookseller of choice lately - next up is Les Langues scandinaves (in the same Que sais-je? series) whose listing proudly boasts:

Cette pr�sentation des langues scandinaves, langues parl�es par une vingtaine de millions de personnes de l'h�misph�re Nord, s'appuie sur l'�norme travail accompli depuis plus de trente ans par l'�cole scandinaviste fran�aise.

Before I saw that I would have assumed that the School of French Scandanavianists could join forces with the Swiss Seamen's Society and the Dutch Mountaineering Club and still hold their social engagements in a telephone box, but I am wildly exuberated to find out how very far this is from being the case, and I look forward to knowing more about their �norme travail. (That's work. You lot!)

In other delightful Franco-Nordic news, a newsagents near my office has (without any prompting from me) started selling Point de Vue! And it has paparazzi photos of Drottning Sylvia in a bikini which show that her inclusion in Aftonbladet's everso tasteful Vem �r snyggast - Silvia, Vickan eller Madeleine? survey is far from simply being a question of politeness. (Although with Madeleine's support currently cruising at over 80% the result is a formality.)

2002-07-15 11:24 (UTC+1)

Well you know I hate to be a downer

Summer has only really arrived in the UK this week, but even so it is my solemn duty to point out that we're the side of midsummer when the evenings grow longer, and the slippery slide down to autumn is well underway.

So carpe the bleedin' diem, already, Varied Reader, iff'n you ain't done by now.

I owe this observation to 12frogs who brings us a reminder that November (November, dammit!) will once again be National Novel Writing Month (AKA NaNoWriMo). "Nation" in this context denotes the USA, by which they mean the world. (It's a Merkin thing.) The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, which is absurd, which is the idea, because that way you can't worry about the quality of the plot or prose style, which is a good thing because it forces you to just get on with the business of writing.

It's a similar concept that drives Desbladet - I write stuff every working day, because if I waited around for inspiration, or even coherence, I wouldn't write at all. The only difference is that NaNoWriMo would involve averaging more than 1500 words a day. Ulp.

Still, if I'm going to join in this time around (which is far from settled) I'm going to need to start making notes now.