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2006-01-19 11:19
Kauderwelsch's Allemand:
Mot � mot (credited to Jumpin' Jacques Derrida at the above
Amazon.uk link) has been our reference for the langwidge for a couple
of years, on account largely of its size.
However, we just recently found out that German adjectives are
declined differently in three (3) circumstances: with no article, with
an indefinite article and with a definite article. The
mot-�-mot merges the first two (2) of these, with a hybrid
table. (There is also an error in the table of d�clinaison of
the definite article, but we had previously taken that to be an
isolated incident.)
We may yet find ourselves in the grammar/phrasebook business in
self-defence, is how it may or may not come to pass. (There isn't
anything useful for Dutch, sadly, since our German is still fairly
blah.)
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2006-01-19 10:46
It
is the weather, of which there is forecast to be quite a bit:
R�kna med att frysa de n�rmaste dagarna.
En extrem k�ldchock kan ge -50 grader i de h�rda vindarna.
Dessutom blir det sn�kaos p� m�nga st�llen.
Expect to freeze in the next few days.
A wave of extreme cold could give windchill temperatures of -50�C in
the hard winds.
Besides which, sn�kaos is expected in many places.
Wrap up warm, Varied Reader - we're off (weather permitting) to East
Belgium (AKA "The Netherlands") this afternoon.
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2006-01-18 16:12
It
is Turin! Or it may be Torino!
Turin or Torino? It's the Olympic version of "You say
tomato, I say tomahto."
The city in northern Italy that's hosting the Winter Olympics next
month is "Torino" to the locals and NBC. For most of us non-Italians,
it's always been Turin.
"I believe readers are seeing it on television with the NBC logo, it
says 'Torino,' the Olympic Games," Ron Fritz, sports editor at The
News Journal in Wilmington, Del., said Tuesday. "And then they see it
in the paper, 'Turin,' and they're thinking we got it wrong."
Which is right and which is wrong? Let's have a heated debate!
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2006-01-18 12:31
�1. The Red Corner
It is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!
Casquettes, T-shirts et chopes de bi�re mais aussi cartes � jouer,
barboteuses et balles de golf: l'Autriche, qui f�tera en 2006 le 250e
anniversaire de la naissance de Mozart, d�cline sur tous les modes et
dans toutes les tonalit�s le nom de son enfant ch�ri.
Caps, T-shirts and biermugs but also playing cards, barboteuses
and golf-balls: the �strichia, which celebrates in 2006 the 250th
anniversary of Mozart's birth, d�clines on all fashions and in
all tonalit�s the name of its cherished infant.
We want un "ours Mozart" en costume et perruque d'�poque and we
want it now!
�2. The Blue Corner
It
is Rembrandt "Rembo" Harmenszoon van Rijn, our favouritest
painter!
Dit jaar is het vierhonderd jaar geleden dat Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606-1669), de wereldberoemde schilder van De Nachtwacht, in Leiden
werd geboren.
This year is the fourhundredth year geleden that Rembo
(1606-1669) the worldfamous painter of The Nightwatch, was born in
Leiden.
(The Dutch are under the very amusing misapprehension that Rembrandt
is especially famous for the frankly underwhelming Nightwatch, but for
heaven's sake don't spoil it for them.)
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2006-01-18 10:07
It
is lots and lots of sn�:
Skolebusser k�rte fast, og trafikken p� motorvejene sneglede sig
afsted, da st�rstedelen af Danmark blev ramt af store m�ngder sne.
Skoolbusses drove stuck and the traffic on the motorways snailed
itself out of town, when large parts of Danmark where ramt of
large masses of sn�.
So we have sne, we have what can only be described as
kaos, but the Danishes are all like "oh, let's call it a
‘sne-inspired disruption to traffic and services’, how about
that?"
That's not good enough, Danmark! Sort it out!
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2006-01-17 16:15
It
is Robert "Crummy" McCrum glurping on about the e-book - now only
5-10 years away, for an unlimited time only! - and he say:
When it comes, the e-reader will store hundreds or thousands of titles
and support a digital rights management technology that will allow
publishers to police the way their copyrights are exploited. They will
not, for instance, want e-readers to be able to send books to their
friends' readers. To retain commercial advantage, publishers may also
want to allow access to a title for a limited time before it has to be
repurchased.
The real reason the last Sony effort tanked was the disastrous
crippling their content arm inflicted on it, and until recently we'd
confidently bet that consumers would tell publishers to stick
similarly broken denial-of-serviceware up their e-arse.
But then the Mac-heads broke rank—and who, barring curmudgeons
like us, could blame them: the iPod is after all very shiny—and
our bet, for one, is off. (But it'd be slightly cool to have a good
platform to make editions of the Gutenberg corpus for anyway.)
Bonus quote:
The on-demand book will lack the aesthetic appeal of a conventional
hardback, but in the knowledge economy of the 21st century, this may
not be significant.
The conventional hardback has the "aesthetic appeal" of a Soviet-era
car park, Crummy old thing, although it lacks the convenience.
(Where do they get these persons?)
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2006-01-17 14:07
It
is a slightly unusual take on the journalistique enterprise:
On the first day of 2006, the lead story in Rio's O Globo newspaper
was about the fireworks and festas of the night before. In the days
before and after, ample coverage was given not only to domestic
politics, trouble in the Middle East, and yearly retrospectives, but
also to the seaweed invading the city's beaches, how to avoid traffic
congestion on New Year's Eve, and the paper's annual competition to
choose outstanding social entrepreneurs. [...]
Our priority is obviously news," says Luiz Garcia, a veteran columnist
at [Rio's O Globo] who writes a daily critique of the coverage for the
staff. "But the thing we do well is provide a service. We tell you who
to complain to if the meat at your supermarket is off.... We tell you
how to do your taxes online. We help make life easier for our
readers.
Which is all very well, but where do you fit in the lifestyle, travel,
motoring, lifestyle, celebrity-gossip and lifestyle features if you do
that? Eh?
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2006-01-17 10:40
It is Agnes
Wold, immunologiste, our new favourite public intellectual:
Snusk �r bra f�r h�lsan.
Nu f�r feministerna st�d av experter: Vi borde st�da mindre.
- Allergier �kar p� grund av att det �r f�r rent, s�ger Agnes Wold,
immunolog.
Dirt is good for your health.
Now feministes are supported by experts: We should clean less.
"Allergies are increasing because it is too clean," says the
immunologiste Agnes Wold.
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2006-01-16 16:10
�1. Darts, Keef!
It
is the Darts World Championship, contested by two (2) Dutchpersons
and exceptionally popular with many (>2) Dutchpersons as a result:
Ruim 3,4 miljoen Nederlanders hebben zondagavond de finale van het
officieuze wereldkampioenschap darts in Frimley Green op televisie
bekeken.
Bijna 43 procent van de Nederlanders die tv keek, had afgestemd op
SBS6 om de strijd tussen Jelle Klaasen en Raymond van Barneveld te
volgen.
More than 3.4 million Dutchpersons watched the darts on Sunday evening.
Around 43 percent of the Netherlands who watched TV, [...]
3.4 million is 43 percent of 7.9 million; since the population of the
Netherlands is about
16,407,491 (July 2005 est.), we infer or deduce mostly that the
TV-watchers as a whole were a minority of the population.
�2. Freebie Forewarning, Finally!
Newspaper
DVD list. It is far from complete and hard to Google up, but at
least we didn't have to do it ourself.
�3. And finallij!
In at least some fonts, Dutch "ij" is set with a distinctive glyph
with the tail of the "j" tucked under the "i". We call this a
ligature, and we've added it to our list of those a font really ought
to support, but we've had (so far) no luck at all getting anyone to
confirm or deny its presence in individual fonts. Sigh.
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2006-01-16 12:42
�1. Anyone for pancakes?
It
is India vs. Pakistan! (It often is now that relations have
thawed enough to hold matches, since there is a backlog to catch up
on.)
Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid were closing in on the world record
opening partnership in the first Test against Pakistan before bad
light stopped play.
Which is all very well, but Pakistan 679-7d; India 403-0 at
stumps on day four (4) tells its own story: this is the deadest
pitch anyone can remember anywhere, anywhen.
�2. Baptise me quieter!
It is li'l
prinsess Leonor de Todos los Santos, the future queen of
Espain, and she has slept through her first big state occasion which
is a good start, for sure.
�3. Who's H�gerstr�m, anyway?
It
is Ernst Cassirir! Writing about this such H�gerstr�m! That
Cassirir was seeking asylum in G�teborg at the time (he was slightly
Jewish) and had taken Swedish citizenship and that H�gerstr�m was
slightly Zwedish also is certainly just a coincidence.
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2006-01-16 11:03
Avec un ciel si bas qu'un canal s'est perdu
Avec un ciel si bas qu'il fait l'humilit�
Avec un ciel si gris qu'un canal s'est pendu
Avec un ciel si gris qu'il faut lui pardonner
Avec le vent du nord qui vient s'�carteler
Avec le vent du nord �coutez-le craquer
Le plat pays qui est le mien
"Le plat pays", "Jumpin" Jacques Brel
To say nothing of its hospitable tax regime! Yes, it's Belgium, man!
Belgium!
Belgium has one of Europe�s most onerous personal income tax rates
— at 50 per cent for top earners — as
well as other hefty tax burdens. But it has become an unlikely haven
for super rich foreigners because it does not tax capital gains or
wealth, in contrast to France and the Netherlands.
Luc Legon, a director of accountants PWC in Belgium, said: “For
people without earned income, Belgium is a very favourable country for
tax.”
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