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2004-06-25 18:35
(cf last year.)
The little frogs, the little frogs, they're really quite a sight
The little frogs, the little frogs, they're really quite a sight
No tails and no ears but they hop with all their might
No tails and no ears but they hop with all their might
Kou-ack-ack-ack, kou-ack-ack-ack, kou-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack
Kou-ack-ack-ack, kou-ack-ack-ack, kou-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack
The evenings are drawing in, you know...
[Permalink]
2004-06-25 fika (utc+1)
And it's very much "Ah, honey,
honey"
as BBC news goes head to head with the Archies's classic pop fluff:
Sugar, pour a little sugar on it, honey
Pour a little sugar on it, baby
I'm gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah!
The European Union is planning a major shakeup of sugar subsidies to
answer charges that they hurt poor countries.
Yeah yeah yeah!
Pour a little sugar on it oh, yeah!
Pour a little sugar on it, honey
Pour a little sugar on it, baby
I'm gonna make your life so sweet, yeah yeah yeah!
Pour a little sugar on it, honey!
Part of the impetus for the change is a World Trade Organisation case
brought by developing countries led by Brazil, whose sugar cane
industry is challenging the generous handouts given to European sugar
beet farmers.
Needless to say, the proposal has been criticised (by Oxfam) as not
going far enough, but Oxfam is in the business of having principles (and bless it for being so good at it) while the EU is in the business of grinding out messy compromises (and bless it, too, for being at the very least better at that than it is often credited for).
[Permalink]
2004-06-25 11:56
�1. Knudella capped!
If I were to tell you that the headline of a story was Prinsessen
under strikhuen ("The prinsess in a knitted cap"), would you
excuse me from further Engleeshing of its contents? There's a
perfectly good photo of a prinsess (the fair Knudella) in, as you
might imagine, a knitted cap.
�2. Prinsess rights are human rights!
Meanwhile, a slightly
worrying precedent has been set:
Princess Caroline of Monaco has won a major legal battle over the
right of newspapers to publish pictures of her. The European Court of
Human rights said photographs of her and her children should not have
been published, even if they were taken in a public place.
In particular the Court, which apparently refers to itself in the
third person, "considered that the general public did not have a
legitimate interest in knowing Caroline von Hannover's whereabouts or
how she behaved generally in her private life."
This case is about German trashbladets, which are probably the most
feared prinsess predators in Yoorp, and overturns a previous ruling by
a German court.
Of course, if the ECHR can impose its Will To Privacy on the Germans,
this is going to repercuss substantially on the Yoorpean paparazzi in
general. In principle, even the vile Engleesh tabloids could be
exposed to the very alien concept of privacy, which would be a bracing
novelty for their business models.
(Note that the ECHR has nothing whatever to do with the EU.)
[Permalink]
2004-06-25 morning (utc+1)
I gotta keep rockin', mama, I ain't lyin'
My heart is beatin' rhythm and it's right on time
So be my guest, you've got nothin' to lose
Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise?
Woo-ee, woo-ee baby
Woo-ee, woo-ee baby
Woo-ee, woo-ee baby
Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise?
["Sea Cruise",
John Fogerty]
NB: It's "du jour", not "de jour". Puh-lease!
[Permalink]
2004-06-24 'putering (utc+1)
Or at least say things funnily, at least when they're Kronprinsess
Knudella - for it is
she! (and the Kronprinsfred.):
Her blev de vist rundt i skolens laboratorium, hvor de begge var meget
sp�rgende - selv om Mary dog m�tte tage en dyb ind�nding, inden hun
udtalte �hav�rred.� Men hun havde ingen problemer med at sige �rejer�,
da hun bukkede sig ned og kiggede p� nogle meget store af slagsen p�
en glasplade.
Here they were shown around the skool's laboratorium, where they were
both very interrogative - even if Knudella had to take a deep breath
before she pronounced �hav�rrad� ("sea-trout"). But she had no
trouble saying �rejer� ("prawn") when she bent down to look
at many large sorts on a glass plate.
Ha! You may have survived the glass plate of large shrimps,
kronprinsess, but let's see how you fare against the local
delicacies! (*snaps fingers at minions*)
[H]vidvin, r�de og gr�nne sodavand, ostepops ved siden af en ny lokal
snack, som bestod af t�rret torsk med s�lsp�k. En delikatesse, som
stadig er under udvikling, og som skal g�re det ud for fl�skesv�r.
White wine, red and green sodavand, cheesy somethings besides a
new local snack consisting of dried cod and seal-fat. A delicacy
which is under continued development, and which is designed as a bacon subsitute for pork scratchings.
Are you in the habit of eating seal-meat, kronprinsess?
[Permalink]
2004-06-24 samwidge (utc+1)
�1. Bj�rk Bj�rk Bj�rk!
When there is Bj�rk and a
Greenlandic choir, the need to see any point in Ms
Gudmundsd�ttir's idiosyncratic vocal stylings is substantially
reduced. And all the Greenlandic stuff is right at the start, so you
can save much valuable time! [via PF, tack]
�2. Cognate with banker. (No, wait, that's rhyme.)
From a Michael Dibdin review
hos Grauniad:
It's no coincidence that the Italian words for "strange" and
"foreigner" are cognate. Anyone able to gain legal entry to Australia
can become an Australian, but however long you live in Italy and
however proficient you may be in the language, you can no more become
Italian than you can Welsh.
Remarks such as these, while immensely gratifying to those who refuse
to relinquish the superstition that words, and especially foreign
words, are a form of esoteric magic, can work as poetry (e.g.,
J. Thurston Kluwberthal's "Yet another American sophomore in Paris,
sigh", which opens Un �tranger: a foreigner; a stranger) or as
dinner party witticisme (e.g., the above quote), but they will bear no
more weight than that.
Grinding it, by way of demonstration, with uncalled-for relentlessness
into the dust, we may observe that Australia, like the USA, was
conquered ("settled") by Europeans in historical times, and that
immigration plays a central part in both their national mythologies.
Meanwhile, the word for "foreigner" is exactly the same in (the
Engleesh-speaking communities of) the USA, Australia and England, but
you can very certainly live in England for many years and still pass
for "not really English" if you have, say, a foreign accent. (We
don't, with a very few dishonourable exceptions, key off skin colour
anymore. Well done, us!)
On the other hand, it is entirely a coincidence that the Swedish word
for "foreign", utlandisk utl�ndsk, is transparently cognate to the
English outlandish, but it is no less amusing (or profound) for
that.
�3. Tysk, tysk!
Our intrepid series of foopball meeja meeja coverage continues
unabated by the palpable indifference of our Varied Reader. Today,
Norway - which unlike Swederlund and Denmarklund isn't even in the
competition - is gripped by an earnest
national debate about exactly how pleased to be that the Germans
are eliminated after a sound trouncing from the Czech Republic's
B-team. Take it away, VG:
Tysk presse er n�del�s mot landslagsstjernene etter EM-exiten
onsdag. - Denne troppen vil vi aldri se igjen, skriver Bild.
The German press is merciless about the national team after
Wednesday's exit from the European cup. "We never want to see this
squad again," writes Bild.
Norwegish Skadefro (like Swedish Skadegl�dje) is
only semi-cognate to the German and English Schadenfreude.
Coincidence, you say? Maybe, maybe not.
�4. That's an awful lot of kvadratmeters, M�rtha Louise!
Yes, prinsess M-L's planning application has gone through at
long last:
Tilbygget blir p� i underkant av 100 kvadratmeter, og arbeidet vil
trolig starte opp allerede i sommer/h�st.
The extension is on the underedge of 100 kvadratmeters, and work will
probably begin in the late summer or autumn.
(Have you ever noticed that Lebensraum is cognate with
living room? This is, as any Grauniad book reviewer could tell
you, why the Engleesh spend so much time soliciting quotes to
reupholster the Sudetenland.)
[Permalink]
2004-06-24 07:55
For countless generations scholars have laboured to understand why
anyone would take dreary post-beat nincompoop Charles Bukowski
seriously. Today, this 'bladet exclusively reveals his secret: a
surname beginning with 'B'.
Just think: Baudelaire! Becket! Bataille! Burroughs! Ballard! -
B! B! B! B! B!
Brilliant and possibly deranged tales of steely-eyed misanthropy
and/or despair! Instant edgy outsider cache and hipster appeal! B,
we salute you!
Until Bukowski. I bet he changed his name from Taylor or something.
Anyway,
Ballard,
definitive chronicler of the Reagan era and the Grand Old Man of
apocalyptic literary surrealism, is on top form in this long Grauniad
interview:
Can art be a vehicle for political change? Yes, I assume that a large
part of Blair's appeal (like Kennedy's) is aesthetic, just as a large
part of the Nazi appeal lay in its triumph of the will aesthetic. I
suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way
for political change are largely aesthetic. A Buick radiator grille is
as much a political statement as a Rolls Royce radiator grille, one
enshrining a machine aesthetic driven by a populist optimism, the
other enshrining a hierarchical and exclusive social order. The ocean
liner art deco of the 1930s, used to sell everything from beach
holidays to vacuum cleaners, may have helped the 1945 British
electorate to vote out the Tories.
Well done, ocean liner art deco of the 1930s! A grateful future doffs
its hat to you! (At least, it would if anyone still wore hats and knew
how to "doff" them.)
What is so disturbing about the 9/11 hijackers is that they had not
spent the previous years squatting in the dust on some Afghan hillside
with a rusty Kalashnikov. These were highly educated engineers and
architects who had spent years sitting around in shopping malls in
Hamburg and London, drinking coffee and listening to the muzak. There
was certainly something very modern about their chosen method of
attack, from the flying school lessons, hours on the flight simulator,
the use of hijacked airliners and so on. The reaction they provoked, a
huge paranoid spasm that led to the Iraq war and the rise of the
neo-cons, would have delighted them.
When J G Ballard talks spasms, Varied Reader, you would do well to pay
attention.
[Permalink]
2004-06-23 16:11
Greenlandic
for silly Engleeshes:
Greenlandic for travelers is also sensibly arranged. Find a
word or sentence in English in the first column. Beside it you will
find the equivalent in Greenlandic. In a third column you will find a
phonetic pronounce guide which makes speaking Greenlandic easier than
you migth think. Greenlandic for travelers will also help you in many
different settings; at the store or open market, out gunting or dog
sledging, at the bank or at a resturant, even at the doctor's office,
to name a few.
Is there anything more frustrating than when you get stuck for a
Greenlandic phrase while out gunting? I, for one, hate that.
Danish-reading persons will certainly wish to check the other books by
Hertling, Birgitte, including the mighty Qaagit,
but they will also especially enjoy the
story
of C. E. Janssen's magisterially bonkers Elementarbog i Eskimoernes
Sprog til Brug for Europ�erne ved Colonierne i Gr�nland:
Nu var de europ�ere i Gr�nland, Janssens parl�r var beregnet p�, n�ppe
l�ger. Derfor var det sikkert ogs� nyttigt, at n�r alle disse
d�rligdomme var behandlet, s� var der til slut et tr�stens ord at give
videre: "du skal ikke frygte, thi Gud med sin Hj�lp er altid tilstede
hos dig, og vil gj�re dig rask igen".
Et afsnit om levnedsmidler starter i den gr�nlandske kost: "pleier du
at spise S�lkj�d?", hvilket der er to svar p� - "ja jeg spiser jevnlig
S�lkj�d" eller "da jeg lige nylig har spiist, skal jeg ikke have
Noget".
Now, Janssen's phrasebook was prepared for Europeans in Greenland,
hardly doctors. So it was probably also handy that when all these
sicknesses were treated, there a consoling word to close with: "Have no
fear, God and his help are always with you and will make you hale
again."
A section on groceries starts with Greenlandic food: "Are you in the
habit of eating seal-meat?", to which there are two (2) answers: "Yes,
I often eat seal-meat" or "Since I've just eaten, no thanks".
[Tack till Danish correspondent in exile Birgitte f�r l�nkning, and David for Danish translation corrections.]
[Permalink]
2004-06-23 fika (utc+1)
Prinsessor are great all the time, for sure, but a prinsess in a
traditional folk costume is a thing especially to be cherished. New
kronprinsess Knudella of the Kingdom of Denmark is thereby and
thuswisely kronprinsess also of Greenland, and among the connoisseurs
of prinsessor in tradtional folk costumes the Greenlandic folk
costumes are highly prized. And today we will be serving our prinsess
fashion special with a side order of polysynthesis, a term of
art in linguistic typology dating back to von
Humboldt and Schlegel themselves!
Une type polysynth�tique, o� toutes les relations grammaticales
de la phrase peuvent s'exprimer par des adjonctions ou des
transformations faites � un seul radical, aucun partie de la phrase ne
peuvent �tre chang�e de place. A titre d'exemple on a cit� le
groenlandais; une phrase com kavfilioniarumagaluarpunga
� je voudrais faire du caf� � n'est constitu�e que d'un seul mot.
(A polysynthetique type, where all the grammatical relations of
the phrase can be expressed by additions to or transformations of a
single root, with no part of the phrase capable of being moved from
its place. By way of example we may cite Greenlandic; a phrase such
as
kavfilioniarumagaluarpunga "I wish to make coffee" is composed
of a single word.)
(Hjelmslev, Le Langage, p. 125)
Greenlandic, d'you see! That's where
kronprinsess Knudella is! In traditional folk costume!
�Hvor er den flot,� sagde hun, mens hun blev beundret fra alle
sider. Efter bes�get p� �ldrecentret tog Frederik og Mary videre til
Gr�nlands eneste sv�mmehal.
"I wish to make coffee!" chortled the bizarrely-clad prinsess. Then
she and Kronprinsfred went swimming with the penguins. Brrrr!
(Sorry, my Greenlandic is still a bit wonky. Definitely something
about swimming, though.)
L'anglais moderne ... est devenue pl�tot un type isolant ... Certains
disent la m�me chose du fran�ais moderne, alors que d'autres pensent
qu'il est sur le chemin du polysynth�se : dans la phrase je ne le lui ai
pas donn�, en tout cas, il n'y a pas qu'un seul changement de
place possible (ne lui ai-je pas donn� ?), si bien qu'ici on
peut se trouver devant des mots-phrases sembables � ceux de
groenland.
(Modern English ... has become rather an isolating type [of language]
... Some say the same thing about modern French, while others think
that its heading towards polysynthesis: in the phrase je ne le lui ai
pas donn� "I not it to-him have NEG given", there is only one
change of place possible (ne lui ai-je pas donn� ? "Not to-him
have-I NEG given?"), so that here one encounters word-phrases like
those of Greenland.
(Hjelmslev, op cit, p. 125)
Did you know that the French have over 50 words for penguin, by the
way?
[Permalink]
2004-06-23 morning (utc+1)
Sulkissimo!
The computers are down. I think it was me that crashed the server. I think I'm going to be fairly unpopular. Oh well.
When my computer is back up I have some languagey goodnesses for you, but until then how about some foopball? Last night's action is a bit complicated to explain, but the main points are such that a person equipped with the typical number of hands could assign a point to each hand and have no hands and no points left over (2):
- Italy are out because Denmarklund and Swedenlund drew 2-2, precisely the result that meant both of them were guaranteed to qualify at Italy's expense. (This is the complicated bit. Foopball moves in mysterious ways, isn't it?)
- Some Italian persons are not very happy about that:
"Uno scandalo". Alla fine la cosa pi� dura la dice Gigi Buffon, uomo solitamente pacato: "A qualcuno, ai ragazzi, il calcio insegna ancora qualcosa. Quando ci sono gli occhi di tutto il mondo puntati sul calcio e il calcio deve dare un segnale, ti aspetti che quel segnale sia un altro. Quando abbiamo segnato e mi sono girato verso i tifosi italiani per esultare ho capito che era successo quello a cui io non avevo creduto. Ma il calcio � una ruota e prima o poi questi li incontrer� di nuovo. E' una vergogna, un risultato schifoso".
"2-2, eh?" remarked Mr Buffon with a face like thunder, "A rum business, if you ask me!"
Honestly, though, you should have seen the look on Bouffanti's* face when he scored the winning goal and rushed over to the bench in rapture, to find only inconsolate despair on the face of his manager, who'd just heard, as had the eerily silent fans but not the players on the field, that Swederlund had just snatched the fatal equaliser in the last minutes of their game. Foopball is a rubbish game, but that was great drama. And I was watching on radio!
UPDATE: It couldn't have happened to a
nicer team, isn't it?
The reason Italy have been pressuring Uefa over the past few days, to the point where Uefa allowed Italian TV two extra camera positions behind each goal (the Italians wanted seven extra), is because if Italy had been in the same position no one would have been surprised at a 2-2 result.
Only 44 days ago Italian police raided 12 clubs across Serie A, B and C during an investigation into match-fixing, shortly before which the Siena goalkeeper Generoso Rossi walked out of the club. Siena were high-profile suspects.
* (Probably) not his real name.
2004-06-22 15:42
The mighty
8
sidor (news in vair vair vair easy Swedish) has this to say:
Matchen mot Danmark kommer att bli en h�rd kamp. Det kanske inte
r�cker med att spela bra. Det beh�vs ocks� n�got extra. Som Zlatans
klackspark som r�ddade Sverige i matchen mot Italien i fredags.
The match against Denmarklund is going to be a hard struggle. It may
not be enough to play well. Something extra is needed. Like Zlatan's
klackspark, which saved Swedenlund in the match against Italy
last Friday.
Oh, all right - it just means 'backheel'. But if I ever need an
Eastern Yoorpean alias, it'll be Zlatan Klackspark, for sure. ("The
name's Klackspark. Zlatan Klackspark.")
[Permalink]
2004-06-22 13:41
�1. Why the
name seemed familiar
England supporters clashed last week with riot police in the Algarve
coastal resort of Albufeira and dozens of British nationals have been
deported by the Portuguese authorities.
I've been to Albufeira, for a family Twinkletree three years
ago. It's in Portugal's Costa del Concrete, and every bar was
advertising Engleesh foopball on TV and Engleesh beer, and every
street corner had a time-share salesdroid on it. (After the first two
my big sis agreed to blank them in the pa-Russkie, which they are not
in the habit of speaking.) It had, even in winter, the feel of a
place where Engleesh foopball fans would be proud to riot.
Of course, I actually like the Costa del Concrete; you just need to
get to a town that supports a population other than only of Engleeshes
and marvel in its gloriously un-"authentique" (hoorah!) ugliness. It's
scraggier and bogglier-eyed than, say, Florida.
�2. Dip me in chocolate and throw me to the Ukrainians!
Every lump of pig fat's dream, for
sure:
For years people here have loved pork fat, known as salo. Normally,
small slices of the white fat are eaten with black bread, raw garlic
and vodka [and especially vodka, I shouldn't wonder].
[... But now:] For the equivalent of �1 you can now get four small
sticks of salo covered in chocolate at Kiev's poshest Ukrainian
restaurant.
�3. En-ger-lund �lpriceenquiry
Daylight robbery
at the lager sheds! Scandal!
The powerful Commons trade and industry committee is investigating the
rise of pub companies, known as "pubcos".
[...]
Stephen Alambritis, from the Federation of Small Businesses, says
hundreds of his group's members had complained about the power of the
pubcos. Drinkers could be paying 45p too much for their pint of beer
because of the companies' powers, he argues.
�4. Smultronball
Wimbledon, in years un-such as this when there isn't any foopball, is
the central sporting ritual of the Engleesh bourgeoisie. Strawberries
and cream and England ("No, Darius, it's not 'En-ger-lund'. And wipe
your mouth; it's got cream all round it.") being rubbish and a fresh
crop of wide-eyed, miniskirted, Eastern European jailbait in the
wimmins. But we only have eyes for Martina
Navratilova, hurrah!*
In her first singles match at Wimbledon in 10 years, she pummelled
Catalina Castano 6-0 6-1 in 47 minutes and was afterwards asked for
her response to those critics. "Are they still saying it?" she asked,
staring back at her interrogator. "I don't think so."
Yeah, shut up, silly critics! Go and practice saying "Navratilova"
properly with nice long unstressed Czech vowels, because there's
plenty more saying it to be done.
* Not in the sense of watching any tennis, of course. It is a dreary
spectacle, and in no way diverting.
�4. Penny pinching, German-style
They're having to import small change from Austria,
which also trades with the mighty Euro:
German shoppers who use notes to buy goods, and hoard their coins at
home, are thought to be partly to blame.
Another possible factor is a tradition in some regions for
brides-to-be to collect copper coins to buy their wedding shoes.
You'd think the Bundesbank would have a task-force dedicated to
analysing trends in the coefficient of regional nubility, wouldn't
you? The wedding-shoe-coin-hoarding-regions-nubility-taskforce, in
which, incidentally, I should be very glad to serve if there are any
vacancies?
[Permalink]
2004-06-22 samwidge (utc+1)
Les bleus ont all�s ! And they've got their shape back at last:
Les joueurs voulaient un 4-3-1-2 qui permettrait � Pires d'�voluer �
gauche, Zidane dans l'axe, et Henry d'avoir moins de terrain � couvrir
pour maintenir la d�fense adverse sous pression. Santini, qui a tout
mis� sur un 4-4-2 avec casting �volutif depuis sa prise de fonctions,
a �cout�.
The [Frenchy-French] players favour a
4-3-1-2 formation with Pires on the left, Zidane in the
centre, leaving Henry with less territory to cover defending under
pressure. Santini, who has been dead set on a 4-4-2 formation with
evolving roles ever since he took over, has listened.
Santini, mate: It wasn't broken, and you really shouldn't have fixed
it.
Meanwhile, an
old favourite, for those who like their foopball even more
philosophical:
The Germans playing 4-2-4, Leibniz in goal, back four Kant, Hegel,
Schopenhauer and Schelling, front-runners Schlegel, Wittgenstein,
Nietzsche and Heidegger, and the mid-field duo of Beckenbauer and
Jaspers. Beckenbauer obviously a bit of a surprise there.
And there have to be question marks over Schelling and Schlegel at
this level. As indeed it proves:
Heraclitus a little flick, here he comes on the far post, Socrates is
there, Socrates heads it in! Socrates has scored! The Greeks are going
mad, the Greeks are going mad. Socrates scores, got a beautiful cross
from Archimedes. The Germans are disputing it. Hegel is arguing that
the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics,
Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it
exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside.
[Permalink]
2004-06-22 09:43
His etymologies to perform:
The words straw (Old English strēaw) and to strew
(Old English strewian) were in prehistoric times
morphologically connected; the Primitive Germanic types are
*[strawwan] 'a strewing', 'that strewn' and ['strawjo:] 'I strew.' At
that time strawberry (Old English strēaw-berige)
'strewn-berry'must have described the strawberry plant as it lies
along the ground; as straw became specialized to 'dried stalk;
dried stalks,' and the morphologic connection with strew
disappeared, the prior member of strawberry was isolated, with
a deviant meaning, as a homonym of straw.
Leonard Bloomfield, Language
Strewn-by-Smultron's-mighty-hand-berries!
[Permalink]
2004-06-21 afternoon (utc+1)
Sweden loves and cherishes its strawberries, of course, but there
aren't enough to go round. Imports of lesser Forren strawberries take
up the slack, of course, but there is a temptation for the less
scrupulous to pass off their lesser Forren strawberries as the real
thing. The mighty Smultron, lord of strawberriliciousness, and his
Earthly representatives have a suggestion for you, sinister strawberry
smugglers:
Dont!
Even! Think! About! It!
I �r �r Jordbruksverkets v�xtinspektion beredda att m�ta fusket med
�kade kontroller, uppger Sveriges Radio J�nk�ping. Ett tiotal uts�nda
kontrollanter �ker runt i landet f�r att kolla s� att lagen
efterf�ljs. Ytteremballaget till jordgubbskartongerna skall vara m�rkt
med ursprungsland, odlare och kvalitetsklass. Misst�nker de att n�got
inte st�r r�tt till kontrolleras uppgifterna med odlarna.
This year the Farm ministeries produce inspection is ready to meet
fraud with increased checks, says Sveriges Radio J�nk�ping. A dozen
roaming inspectors will be travelling in the country to check that
Smultron's sacred law is followed. Outerpackaging of
strawberrycartons will be marked with country of origin, grower and
quality class. If they suspect something doesn't add up the
information will be checked with the grower.
Some of you un-Swedishes may be wondering if the Swedishness of
strawberries is really that big a deal. This is heresy, of course,
in the eyes of Smultron and all his followers, but it is also
so very misinformed. Magnus Engstedt (b�rr�dgivare p�
l�nsstyrelsen i J�nk�ping, whatever that is) is here to put you
straight:
- Det �r faktiskt s� att v�ra jordgubbar �r godast och det beror p�
v�rt klimat. De kyliga n�tterna h�r g�r att sockret inte f�rbrukas
vilket g�r b�ren s�ta och goda. I Norrbotten har man de godaste
jordgubbarna som finns att f�.
"It is indeed and in fact so that our strawberries are the yummiest
and that's a result of our climate. The cool nights here mean that
the sugar isn't broken down, which makes the strawberries sweet and
tasty. The strawberries in Norrbotten are the finest there are to be
found."
And of course a b�rr�dgivare p� l�nsstyrelsen i J�nk�ping is by
ancient tradition sworn to strict objectivity in these matters, and
quite right too.
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2004-06-21 samwidge (utc+1)
There is no such thing as an um-goose; although g�s is the
Swedish word for goose, umg�s means in fact "to see (spend time
with) each other", and this is a something of which kronprinsess
Vickan of Sweden and her allegedly deprecated boyfriend have been
doing to an extent which by no means lacks considerability:
Kronprinsessan Victoria och hennes Daniel Westling umg�s fortfarande
lika intensivt med varandra.
Trots detta ifr�gas�tts parets k�rlek.
Det senaste halv�ret har flera tidningar �tskilliga g�nger publicerat
felaktiga uppgifter om dem.
Kronprinsess Vickan and her Daniel Westling are still spending lots of
time with their um-goose.
Despite that the pair's love has been called into question.
In the last six months several bladets have on a number of occasions
published false information about them.
Several bladets? We have only been aware of Expressen as being up to these
particular no goods. Expressen is normally more prinsess-friendly
than its deadly rival Aftonbladet*, but it's in danger of being left
off the kronprinsess's Twinkletree card list at this rate, if
Aftonbladet's anonymous source is to be believed. And for the record,
it's all struntprat ("rubbish-talk"), so there:
- Kungaparet gillar Daniel. Han �r ofta inbjuden till privata
tillst�llningar som middagar och f�delsedagskalas, ber�ttar en k�lla.
The king and queen [who are the kronprinsess's daddy and mummy!] like
Daniel. He is often invited to private occasions such as dinners and
birthday celebrations, a source relates.
And he's even being invited to �land ("Beer-duck") this year. Oh
well; at least this way I don't have to keep up with contemporary
Swedish fiction...
* And yet I still prefer Aftonbladet - it is so magnificently
leftiste!
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2004-06-21 10:16
I haven't read the constitution yet, but I'm already
worried about this referendum thing:
Tony Blair begins the task of selling the newly negotiated EU
constitution with a statement to MPs on Monday.
The trouble is, Tony Blair has already convinced the public that he's
a liar and a shill for George Bush. Combine that with the level of
ambient Europhobia in the UK and it's hard to see a critical mass of
persons resisting the tempation to assume he's a liar and a shill for
Franco-German federalisme.
Still,
At one point late in the day, God nearly scuppered accord. Poland and
other Roman Catholic nations fought in vain to have a mention of
Europe's Christian roots inserted into the constitution's preamble.
But Irish leader Bertie Ahern managed to steer a deft course through a
bewildering maze of "red lines", blocking manoeuvres and obscure
explanatory clauses so that all leaders could come away with a
"win-win" solution.
The words "in vain" have never sounded so sweet. God bless you, Mr
Ahern!
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