2003-11-07 16:17

Commutable K�benhavn

Easyjet is lauching a service from Bristol, which is where I live, to Shoppingharbour, which is amongst other things right next to Malm� in Sweden, for its customary very low fares.

In fact, a return fare costs about the same as a train to London from here. This is definitely going to have an impact on the way I spend my weekends next year.

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2003-11-07 14:08 (UTC)

Yoorp, Doomed?

Juan Goytisolo, hoorah!

[T]o argue that Spanish identity begins not with the Reconquista and the Empire has wider implications. "How can Giscard d'Estaing seriously suggest that Europe is a Judaeo-Christian society?" Goytisolo asks. "I owe so much to the Parisian quarter of Sentier, a neighbourhood where over 40- odd years I saw successive waves of Jewish, Armenian, Turkish, Pakistani and African emigrants arriving. All I had to do was walk out of my door and see people from every continent, speaking every tongue."

[...] "A culture is the sum of the exterior influences which have enriched it," he continues. "Writers of Indian or Pakistani descent now revitalise the English novel. But in France, when I wrote Landscapes after the Battle in 1982, editors went apopletic when I dared imagine a Paris with the street signs in Arabic. But a culture which doesn't accept enrichment from marginal cultures is doomed."

Doomed, we tell you, doomed!

With State of Siege, his latest novel to be published in the UK (translated by Helen Lane; Serpent's Tail, �7.99), Goytisolo deplores the siege of Sarajevo. "I made three visits in the Nineties," he says. "The second time, in 1993, the situation was even more horrible. The city was emptied of journalists, and still the Serb extremists kept up the slaughter from their artillery batteries, their snipers picking people off. Meanwhile, two hours away in Paris, life went on, oblivious."

Doomed - d'you see? - doomed!

Don't be doomed, Yoorp; doomed is bad!

[via Moorishgirl]

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2003-11-07 09:28 (UTC)

Prinsess musings

There's just got to be an Elizabethan sonnet in this:

Prinsessan Madeleine har nyligen tagit k�rkort i jakt - j�garexamen.
- Det �r nog b�de jag och pappa som har inspirerat henne. Hon har v�l k�nt sig lite utanf�r, avsl�jade Carl Philip i g�r under h�stjakten.

[Prinsess Madeleine has recently taken the exam for a hunting license.

"Probably both me and daddy inspired her. She has certainly felt a bit left out," admitted her brother yesterday during the autumn hunt.]

I mean, come on, there's the analogy with her own bechasement and ambushings by papperazzi, invokations of Artemis/Diana, frozen wastelands and silly hats!

Also, it is clear that the world needs a mock-heroic epic on the theme of the many challenges, trials and ordeals faced by Knudella on her quest for prinsesshood (prinsesshet). Gasp, as she faces an official visit from the Hice of Luxembourg:

Inden det officielle bes�g fra Luxembourg for to uger siden var der dog en del skikke, som Mary skulle l�re. �Der er nogle rent tekniske ting vedr�rende officielle bes�g. Hvordan kommer man ind, hvad er det, der foreg�r, hvordan bliver g�sterne pr�senteret? [...]�

[Before the official visit from Dread Luxembourg two weeks ago a number of customs that Mary should learn. "There's some quite technical stuff involved in official visits. How does one enter, what's going on, how are the guest introduced. [...]?"]

And the tyska trashbladets are running scared. One has apologized (for saying her boyfriend had moved in with another woman), and one hasn't (for saying she was thinking of marrying a prins of Greece):

P� tisdag m�ter Victoria en annan tysk tidning i r�tten. Via Matthias Prinz, en stj�rnadvokat som tidigare representerat bland andra prinsessan Caroline av Monaco.

D� sker domstolsf�rhandlingarna vid tingsr�tten i Frankenthal, en mil norr om Ludwigshafen

[On Tuesday, Vickan's meeting another German paper in court. Via Matthias Prinz, a staradvocate who earlier represented, among others, prinsess Caroline of Monaco.]

On balance, we at Desbladet apologize too, just in case. More specific apologies are available for anyone with more specific complaints - we are very not proud.

[Tack to �versettnings�vervakare Birgitte for valiant efforts in straightening out my Danish. Any remaining kinks are, of course, my own.]

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2003-11-06 16:53 (UTC)

Europe, Stroppy

They drive a hard bargain out there in Polandland, and it isn't winning the country many friends in the rest of Yoorp:

No surprise, then, that Poland has acquired a reputation for combining the worst characteristics of the members of the existing "awkward squad". The Poles, it is said, display the arrogance of the French, the Euroscepticism of the British and the stubborn selfishness of the Spanish.

Ouch! EU enlargement has put any thoughts of federalism on the back-burner, that's for sure:

This is all a timely reminder of the fact that though Europe will soon be united, whole and free from the Baltic to the Bay of Biscay, it may well also be a little more quarrelsome and ill-tempered than before.

Oh boy, is this going to be interesting! Still, bickering - however protacted and childish - is still a considerable step up from many conflict resolution strategies that have been employed in Yoorp in the past.

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2003-11-06 18:02

All together on the chorus

Except they get it wrong: It's "My eyes are dim, I cannot see, / I left my specs in the WC," as any schoolchild knows.

There was cheese, cheese,
Wafting in the breeze,
In the stores, in the stores.
There was ham, ham,
Mixed up with the jam,
In the Quartermaster's stores.

CHORUS:
My eyes are dim, I cannot see,
I have not brought my specs with me,
I have not brought my specs with me.

There was bread, bread,
Just like lumps of lead,
In the stores, in the stores.
There were buns, buns,
Bullets for the guns,
In the Quartermaster's stores.

CHORUS.

There were mice, mice,
Eating up the rice,
In the stores, in the stores.
There were rats, rats,
Big as blooming cats,
In the Quartermaster's stores.

CHORUS.

There was meat, meat,
Meat you couldn't eat,
In the stores, in the stores.
There were eggs, eggs,
Nearly growing legs,
In the Quartermaster's stores.

CHORUS.

There is beer, beer,
Beer you can't get near,
In the stores, in the stores.
There is rum, rum,
For the General's tum,
In the Quartermaster's stores.

CHORUS.

There was cake, cake,
Cake you couldn't break,
In the stores, in the stores.
There were flies, flies,
Feeding on the pies,
In the Quartermaster's stores

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2003-11-06 13:27 (UTC+1)

Yoorp, Medi�val

I am of course following the prinsessgossip, and I'll do a round-up tomorrow. Meanwhile the moveable feast that is Lib�ration's books section has come round again, and it is imperative that we bookmark their review of Jacques Le Goff's L'Europe est-elle n�e au Moyen Age ?

For suitable values of le Moyen Age, that is:

Jacques Le Goff milite pour un �long Moyen Age� � qu'il prolonge bien au-del� du XVIe si�cle et de la d�couverte de l'Am�rique, mais en lui retranchant une partie des d�buts qu'il restitue � l'Antiquit� tardive. Cette civilisation couvrirait toujours un mill�naire, et sous certains aspects elle aurait dur� jusqu'au XIXe si�cle. Cela change beaucoup de choses dans notre appr�hension du Moyen Age et de la naissance de l'Europe. C'est ici, � l'int�rieur de la Chr�tient� occidentale, qu'a eu lieu la s�paration si importante entre l'Eglise et l'Etat, et non pas � Byzance ou en Islam. La fameuse Renaissance ne marquerait plus la fin des temps obscurs et l'av�nement des temps nouveaux mais l'accomplissement des promesses anciennes.

[Jacques The Goff argues for a "long Middle Ages", which he extends beyond the 16th century and the discovery of America, while also cutting off a bit at the beginning and restoring it to a Late Antiquity. This civilisation still covers a millenium, and in some respects endures right up to the 19th century. This changes a lot of things in our understanding of the Middle Ages and the birth of Yoorp. It's here, within western Christianity, that the vitally important separation of Church and State took place, not in Byzantium or Islam. The celebrated Renaissance doesn't mark the end of the Dark Ages and the coming of a new age but the fulfillment of ancient promises.]

This is completely at odds with my theory (which is mine) of a thousand years of gratuitous Church-inflicted wretchedness, of course, and I shall be vigorously denouncing the book just as soon as it comes out in poche.

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2003-11-06 09:47 (UTC)

Poetastic!

I should correct the false impression I may have inadvertently given that I am not fond of Mr A Pope (no relation)'s verse in general - it is only the early pastorals I strenuously object to; the "Essay on Criticism" is much better:

Learning and Rome alike in Empire grew,
And Arts still follow'd where her Eagles flew;
From the same Foes, at last, both felt their Doom,
And the same Age saw Learning fall, and Rome.
With Tyranny, then Superstition join'd,
As that the Body, this enslav'd the Mind;
Much was Believ'd, but little understood,
And to be dull was constru'd to be good;
A second Deluge Learning thus o'er-run,
And the Monks finish'd what the Goths begun.

And while we're admiring Pope's technique, which we are, let's spare a though for craft in general:

Good poets need good models, and most modern poets are bad because their models are bad. Trying to write like William Carlos Williams is hopeless unless you're William Carlos Williams. Trying to write like Walt Whitman is hopeless even if you are Walt Whitman. Trying to write like John Milton, whose virtues are unique but whose vices are easily imitated, set English poetry back about a hundred years.

I've never attended a poetry "workshop," and I stipulate that they are as ghastly as Henihan says. My poem's OK, your poem's OK. The fact that poetry is often taught badly, however, does not mean it cannot be taught at all. If I had a two-week poetry workshop to teach, I guarantee that I would improve the poetry of everyone in the class. Or your money back, no questions asked.

Go read, for sure, and don't be too put off by the Trenchant Opiniation with which it is richly imbued. (But skip the comments, unless you really want to overdose on the apr�s-nous-la-d�lugisme of conservative American academicians.) There are exercises, which I am slowly working through. If, like me, you want to play along but can never remember the details of different verse forms, Arnaut & Karkur's prosody guide is commended to your attention. Rondeaus and villanelles, yet!

If an Elizabethan sonnet is just defined by the rhyme scheme "ABAB CDCD EFE FDD" and we're not fussy about the any requirements of pentametry or of endstopped lines, then I'll submit the opening stanza of my resadikt as doing just that, which it does. (I am so very postneoclassical!)

[Link via PF]

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2003-11-05 13:43 (UTC)

Sm�rg�spost

1.

Professor Ramachandran brings his spicy brain to bear on the problems of spicy brains themselves in the 2003 Reith lectures. (6 lectures @ 40 mins. each - it's an investment, for sure.) There'll be a book of it out next week, for which I may yet decide to wait, and he already has one out, although I have not read it.

(Actually, I've been listening as I type, and he's a very good speaker, so if you have the time I would recommend it. And they're only half an hour if you ignore the discussionising by persons of note afterwards, which of course I do.)

2.

Prinsessan Maddeleine's spicy brain, these days, is full-to-bursting with all sorts of stuff, for sure:

Vad �r dr�mmen?
- Att jag g�r hela v�gen och tar en fil kand, en akademisk examen. Det skulle i s�dana fall kunna bli verklighet tidigast om tv� �r.

[What is your dream?
"To go all the way and take a fil kand, an akademisk exam. Which is at least a couple of years off in any case."]

(It's konstvetenskap, being theory of art, so just be glad I'm not a real trashbladet, or I'd've had to've done the "Prinsess Madeleine may be pretty as a picture..." thing.)

3.

Speaking of trashbladets, Madde's mummy and daddy - who are the king and queen of Sweden! - are very cross with some German slanderbladets which have been slandering them, and are planning to sue

- Vi har bett honom om hj�lp. Hela kungafamiljen har tr�ttnat p� de falska skriverierna i tysk press, s�ger Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg.

We have asked [celebrity lawyer Matthias Prinz] for help. The whole royal family is tired of the false stories in the German press, says Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg (For! It! Is! She!).

That could have a severe impact on my Germanlearningprogramme, in which the slanderbladets play a not inconsiderable part.

4.

A bone in the grave is worth two in the display case, as is well-known, but British museums may find themselves exhibiting more tact and fewer human remains in the near future:

Australian Aborigines have welcomed a plan to set up a panel to oversee the repatriation of human remains held by British museums and universities.

But they say a wider inquiry is also needed to establish just how the body parts came into the possession of the UK institutions in the first place.

The latter question is easy enough, surely? Shameless swipeage is the usual mechanism, after all.

The main reason this is interesting is that Australia has some remains of persons from 60-odd million thousand years ago, which is about as early as the "out of Africa" hypothesis allows persons to be out of Africa, but Aboriginal societies for the most part operate with a model of the past in which these are considered to be the remains of ancestors, rather than simply paleoanthropological specimens, while western science is more inclined to the view that no social or cultural continuity worth talking about is going to have survived for 60 million thousand years, and many persons would accordingly insist that specimens is what they most certainly are.

I'm backing giving them back, of course, with the full weight of this bladet's considerable influence.

5.

We've got a shiny new anthropology department, hoorah!

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2003-11-05 11:38

Well, swoggle my horns!

This version of Ladle Rat Rotten Hut will make your brain hurt:

Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge, dock, florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

(But there's a sound file provided for the benefit of weaklings.)

I read Mr A Pope (no relation)'s Pastorals yesterday, though, and pretty much anything is an improvement on that. (It would have been kinder to classify them as juvenilia, I think.)

[via Plurp]

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2003-11-04 16:34 (UTC)

Plunging cleffage, bork bork bork

Music for guitar is usually written in the treble clef, an octave above where it is to be played. This means that such guitarists as can read music at all, which is by no means the majority and includes me only for generous interpretations of "at all", generally read exclusively in that clef.

In my case, I can only also read with any fluency if I'm playing in first position. Bad, bad, bad, you will surely agree. Especially since I want to learn the rudiments of harmony, which are invariably expounded biclefularly and typically for the benefit of pianistes or fellow travellers.

I do not play keyboards and I am not inclined to start; instead, I have been learning to play music on the guitar in the bass clef, and music in the treble clef in the octave written. The fifth positon (ie, around the fifth to nineth frets) is a good place to do this, and I am slowly picking out treble and tenor parts to simple Christmas carols from an old hymnal. Because, of course, it makes the long winter evenings just fly past.

What I really want now, though, is a four-part choral arrangement of the Lucias�ng so that I can also play that. (I found a wind quartet arrangement, and I'll try it, but I'm not altogether convinced.)

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2003-11-04 11:03 (UTC+1)

Bubbles, and other things which get up one's nose

Yeah, yeah, yeah :

Prinsessan Madeleine och prins Carl Philip festar med champagne och drinkar p� Stockholms inneklubbar.
Men de betalar inte ett �re.
Aftonbladet kan i dag avsl�ja att det �r krogarna som bjuder kungabarnen p� spriten.

[Prinsess Madeleine and her brother party with champagne and drink in swanky Stockholm nightspots.
But they don't pay an �re.
Aftonbladet can today reveal that the pubs are picking up the tab.]

Whatever. More importantly, there's a picture of Her Beigeness (and her brother). Hoorah!

[Tack to Anna Louise for the link]

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2003-11-04 09:20 (UTC)

[Book Review] Jacque Monod Le Hasard et la N�cessit�

(The indefatigable Danny Yee has a sensible review of the Engleesh translation.)

Teleonomy - how physics and chemistry can account for apparently purposeful behaviour in biological organisms - was one of the key concerns of the monsterpost, and this book is a brilliant account of the biochemistry of teleonomy by a Nobel prize-winning scientist. In fact, it's even better than that implies because Monod is explicitly engaged with the philosophical implications of his science, and he dismantles the claims of animism (the view that life is irreducible to biochemistry) and vitalism (the much more popular idea that there is some kind of Organising Force leading to increased complexity with time, including all "holistic" opponents of "reductionism") with a prose style of crystalline clarity and thrilling austerity. We like this stuff.

Also, the biochemistry focusses on the role of proteins as teleonomic agents, although without slighting the role of DNA and the translation mechanisms. Specifically, it is the 3D shape of a protein, and the possibility of non-covalent bonds to substrates and regulators to which it gives rise that are shown to underly the cybernetics (the word which Monod uses, hoorah!) of the cell.

All this is harder than Anglophone pop-science usually makes you work, but also more rewarding. If it wasn't for the facts that I'm old, and I've never liked chemistry I would now want to grow up to be a biochemist - it's that good. There's going to be a Desbladet X of the Year Awards thingy this year, you will exhilarate to know, and this is in pole for Best Book.

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2003-11-03 15:33 (UTC)

To whom it may concern

Dear Personage,

I should be most obliged if you could see your way clear to retrieving the knitting needle you appear to have left behind my left eye.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

pp. Des von Bladet.

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2003-11-03 13:35 (UTC)

Eco, Eco

Everybody's linking Umberto Eco on translation, excerpted in the Grauniad, but since I read the Grauniad books pages anyway no shout outs will be provided.

I frequently feel irritated when I read essays on the theory of translation that, even though brilliant and perceptive, do not provide enough examples. I think translation scholars should have had at least one of the following experiences during their life: translating, checking and editing translations, or being translated and working in close cooperation with their translators.

This gives me an excuse, though, to drop casually into the blogversation that I am currently midway through Mr Eco's primer of semiotics, Le Signe. In the preface to which he explains that he had come to consider the Italian version somewhat d�pass�,

Cependent, nombre d'amis et de coll�gues m'ont encourag� � laisser traduire le livre, arguant qu'il aurait encore quelque utilit� comme introduction aux probl�mes de la s�miotique. J'ai d�s lors apport� de nombreuses modifications au texte, et y ai ajout� certains d�veloppements. La mati�re du livre que le lecteur a en main est ainsi, au moins � quarante pour cent, diff�rente de celle de l'ouvrage original.

[However, numerous friends and colleagues encouraged me to allow the book to be translated, arguing that it still had some use as an introduction to the problems of semiotics. I have since then made many modifications to the text, and added several developments to it. The material of the book that the reader is holding is thus at least 40% different from the original work.]

By way of a preliminary remark on the book, I will confine myself to noting that it seems to me to be excellent, and unusually broad in its coverage. Full review once I've finished, but of course.

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2003-11-03 11:50

Of Shelving and Champagne

I put up my shiny new Ikea wide-Billy bookshelves over the weekend, with the only non-supplied tool used being the champagne bottle that has become my traditional hammer substitute on these occasions. (They're sturdier than normal wine bottles, not to mention l�dvin boxen.)

However, although it has drastically reduced the piles of unshelved books - by the expedient of providing shelves on which to shelve them -, it has not completely eliminated them. H�las, and indeed, h�las.

I did turn up a volume of Mr Alexander Pope (no relation)'s verse, for which I had been looking unsuccessfully for about a week, but it turned out only to contain excerpts from his Essay on Man which is on my Enlightenment (Upplysningen) reading list and was the reason I was after the book. I ask myself: do I really want to own more than one volume of Mr A Pope (no relation)'s verse? And I fear the answer may well turn out to be "yes", I really do.

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