The desert is a sea of sand

In between marking first-year assignments on phonology and morphology (some people need to be very afraid), I managed to finish another book that I bought in my September shopping spree. Paul Torday's Salmon fishing in the Yemen took three baths and an hour on the futon to finish.

The book isn't written in a normal narrative style. I seem to have a sixth sense for picking up books that are slightly odd like that. This one is a collection of diary entries, e-mails, letters, interviews, interrogations and extracts from an unpublished autobiography. It makes for a very dynamic read, which is probably why it didn't take that long to read (although I do take very long baths and slightly lose track of time).

Main character in the book is Dr Alfred Jones of the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence. He lives for his work, has no social life to speak of apart from a loveless marriage of convenience, and is slightly detached from reality. Sounds familiar. He is approached by a Yemeni sheikh who is interested in introducing salmon into a wadi in (the)* Yemen. This is of course a ridiculous project but after the British government gets involved Jones is put under sufficient pressure that he does some feasibility studies. He gets more and more convinced that it can be done, and while the government – influenced by the sketchy communications officer at No 10 who sees electoral opportunities everywhere, a very dislikeable chap – get(s)** uninvolved and involved again, salmon is being introduced into the desert. It doesn't all go exactly according to plan, but oh well, and it supposedly shows that the sheikh was right that everything can be done if you believe in it enough.

I'm not sure that that is the lesson I'm supposed to learn from this. I guess it's one, the other one being that political spin doctors are evil – but we knew that already. Still, I'm kind of sad that I finished the book already, and I would have liked to see what would have happened to the salmon. (They got netted and eaten, but what would have happened to them if they had been allowed to do their business? Would they colonize the Indian Ocean and diverge into a separate subspecies? I am way too Dr Jonesy for my own good.)


* No article for me here.
** If this was a formal piece of writing, the s would be dropped.
Footnoting your own blog posts for linguistic variation is a bit sad.

Purposeful phrasing

Much back-blogging needed. Meanwhile...

Yvette Lont, councillor in Amsterdam-Zuidoost for the Christian Union, is putting in a motion for a change in the bye-laws of her party, to the effect that openly gay members of the party should no longer be allowed to represent the party in official positions. Now she's been sued by a VVD (liberal) councillor for inciting hatred and discrimination. Eddy Meyer's phrasing cannot be incidental:

Met deze actie werpt zij haar schaapskleren af en komt zij uit de kast met haar ultraorthodoxe karakter.

Source

English clock

I saw a cool clock on the gadget reviews part of a Dutch news website (here). It tells you the time not in numbers, but in words, so it has a part that has numbers one, two, three, four, ..., ten, eleven, twelve and a part that has phrases five past, ten past, quarter past, ..., ten to, five to. The website shows a nice picture of this clock.

There is also a link to Amazon, where you can buy it. Amazon has a picture as well, with two clocks. One as described above, the other one saying één, twee, drie, vier, ..., tien, elf, twaalf and vijf over, tien over, kwart over, ..., tien voor, vijf voor. In Dutch.

This gadget website usually works in a very non-journalistic way: copy, paste, don't read closely and get things wrong, and steal pictures from your source website. But I wonder why they cropped the Amazon image to show the English clock rather than the Dutch one.

I suppose it's cool or something.

Style don't

Surely it is wrong for boys to wear Ugg boots?

Faroese musings

Edd (ð)
Ð is a strange letter in Faroese. It is only there because Icelandic has it, but it is never pronounced. That is, sometimes it indicates a weird type of linking sound, and there are allomorphic alternations with d (as in deyður 'dead' - deydlingur 'dead body'), but in general it's just there for its prettiness value. This results in Faroese people having no idea where to spell it and where not to:

• In the centre of Tórshavn, there's a big rectangle painted on a wall where kids play football. In the rectangle it says MÁLÐ (correct: mál 'goal'). Someone has scribbled a question mark there, with an arrow to the Ð, but it's been there for ages, and it's sort of become an iconic symbol of either silly Faroese spelling rules or of Faroese schoolkids not mastering those rules.


• When we were having lunch in one of Tórshavn's fine establishments at Ólavsøka 2004, the menu read MATSKRÁÐ. Again, the correct form is without a ð, matskrá 'menu' (literally 'food list'). We (and with 'we' I mean 'I') scribbled out the Ð but I doubt it had any effect.


• The writing on the van that belongs to the Faroese natural history museum reads Náttúragripasavni. This should have a ð on the end.

Right, so much for the introduction. Misplaced ðs sometimes lead to some confusion or amusement, this much is clear. But the example I spotted this morning takes the cake. In an article on the main (free) Faroese news website about the musical influences for some 80s Faroese rock band that are making a comeback (heaven help us), it said one of them was Uriað Heap. Right.

Syntactic change
Less interesting maybe is an example of syntactic change in progress. I like Faroese because the verb to like doesn't take a subject, it only takes an experiencer and a patient object. (To love on the other hand takes an agent subject and a patient object. Spot the semantic difference.) So usually you would get:

Mær dámar tónleikin
me.dat like.3sg music-acc.def
'I like the music'

But on the same page as the Uriað Heap thing, in the list of current chat topics:

Hví dáma fólk betur pen enn ljót menniskjur?
why like.pl people.ntr.nom.pl better pretty.ntr.acc.pl than ugly.ntr.acc.pl person.ntr.acc.pl?
'Why do people like pretty people better than ugly people?'

Assigning case to these is a bit dodgy, as Faroese has nominative-accusative syncretism in neuter (as, in fact, all Indo-European). But fólk is definitely not the dative it should be (fólkum), and moreover, the verb agrees with a plural subject likely to be fólk rather than being impersonal and in the 3rd person singular.

Hví dámar fólkum betur pen enn ljót menniskjur?

This is not spectacular or anything. It's been going on for a while, and the same thing happened to impersonal verbs in mainland Scandinavian, Dutch and English (me thinks, for example), but it's still cool to see some syntactic change in action.

So, Dumbledore eh?

According to the Beeb and J. K. Rowling, Albus Dumbledore, the late headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was gay. Although this isn't made explicit in the book, this was Rowling's image of the man, and she even made sure that a reference in the sixth Harry Potter movie script to a childhood girlfriend of Dumbledore's, which isn't in the book either, was removed. Rowling is well aware that this gives our evangelical friends one more reason to hate the books, but who cares.

As per the BBC,

... a spokesman for gay rights group Stonewall added: "It's great that JK has said this. It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster."

Well, yes, apart from the fact that it's actualy impossible for anyone, gay or straight, to become a wizard headmaster, as such beasts are things of fiction and do not really exist in real life.

This, by the way, has been the most read and most e-mailed news story on the BBC website all day. So it's apparently very important.

There's a time and place for everything

Dinner time conversation was about silly names I got from the Dunkirk marriage registers. Lupus who turned out to be Wolfgang, a Swiss mercenary. Or Iler, in Latin Hilarius, which was Hillary. And there were a couple of Ægidiuses, which prompted some Middle Dutch poetry recital:

Egidius, waer bestu bleven?
Mi lanct na di, gheselle myn

This in turn prompted a modern Dutch parody:

Egidius, waer bestu bleven?
Het is al twintig over zeven

Then Myshele asked for the time and it was, in fact, 19:20.

Buses

As is commonly known, driving on the wrong left side of the road is one of many things people in England Britain do wrong differently. What I've only just realized, is that English British Scottish buses tend to have the order of the information on them wrong mixed up inverted. So instead of, for example,

22 Emmen

which was the bus I took to high school, they say,

Penicuik 37

which will bring you to IKEA.

It all makes perfect sense if you insist on driving on the wrong left side of the road, of course, seeing as in both cases it's easier to see the bus numbers in a big long line of buses if you're standing on the pavement. But that doesn't make it right.

Diagnosis murder

From the Beeb:

Symptoms develop after three to 10 days, and include flu-like illness, inflammation of the brain, coma and death.

Hmm... if death is a symptom of the disease, then you're pretty much fucked from the start. Quite scary stuff, this.

I was going to comment on the world being a healthier place before mass long-distance travel, when all we had was the occasional outbreak of ergot giving entire villages a nice trippy experience. But even then there was the plague being spread by rats travelling on ships to Norway (Det kom eit skip til Bjørgvin and all that), and I don't suppose the mass long-distance travel that were the crusades were the healthiest pastimes around. And then of course there is the case of mass long-distance travel being caused (well, facilitated, more like) by an unhealthy situation (*).

(*) Exodus 7-12, mainly.(**)
(**) Airport gates, and exits more generally, are called έξοδος in Greek. I wonder whether flights to Tel Aviv depart from Gate 12...

In the past week I have...

• been to Ikea and bought a Billy and a Benno, among other things;


• finished The English by Jeremy Paxman (see below);


• had the Evil Article finally accepted in Transactions of the Philological Society;


• been sore-footed, for which I blame KH's idea that we should set with a 150 degree turnout;


• failed to get internet banking, probably because they only have my mobile and I gave them the landline and so there are ‘discrepancies’ between different sets of information;


• decided to do some NeighborNet stuff for my PhD, as well as do some geostatistics;


• contacted the necessary people to actually do NeighbourNet stuff and geostatistics;


• learned about Romance plurals;


• purchased two Faroese CDs through iTunes – Fram á hermótið by Páll Finnur Páll (*) and Hugafar á ferð by Høgni Reistrup;


• done some other things not worth mentioning.

Book review:

Paxman sets out on a mission to explain why the English are so damn, well, English. This mainly involves an explanation of how the English are so English, of what Englishness actually is. Another recurring argument in the book is that the English actually aren't very English at all; this is reserved for a tiny proportion of the English that Paxman calls ‘the Breed’. The Breed are the ones that live in the countryside, that are all about honour, dignity, patriotism and Etonian nepotism, that think "what-ho" and "jolly" are actual words, that excel at hunting and sports, that would gladly sacrifice a limb if it meant a Frog or a Kraut would lose two – all these quintessentially English things. The rest of them are really poor buggers who don't even have an identity. The Scots, Welsh and Irish are better off than the plebs of England; they may have been kicked off their land and replaced by sheep, or sent to work in the mines, but at least they have an identity.

But although Paxman's book is a very enjoyable read, and quite instructive about the essence of Englishness and its diachronic continuity within the Breed, I haven't been able to figure out the real crux: why are the English, if only a select few of them, so English? Or more importantly, why are most of them not?

(*) In Faroese this gets a dative: við Pálli Finni Pálli. Joyful geekery.

Beastly food

Welcome to Tesco's.

stir fry veggies	1.29
pâté	0.58
butter	1.12
yoghurt	0.58
milk	1.34
bread	0.68
chocolate cookies	1.07
total	6.66

And six points on my clubcard, too.

Birds and stones

Today we got rid of:

• six litres of out-of-date Irn Bru;


• three litres of out-of-date lemonade;


• four litres of out-of-date Coca-Cola (all from Freshers' Weekend 2006);


• the clog in the bathroom sink.

Accomplishment.

Why I missed my tutorial

Paraphrasing:

Sorry, but I had to do a week's military service in South Korea.

The disturbing thing is that it's true.

More bookblog

This one I forgot last time, mainly because I'd lend it to JF, so it wasn't on my bookshelf to remind me of its brilliant randomness:

• The Book of Dave by Will Self. I really only knew Self from his appearances on Shooting Stars (uvavu, uranu, ulrikakakakakakakaka!). His persona there was someone utterly devoid of human emotion, with a heavily sarcastic view of the world and an ego that would fill several continents. I think I was right; or at least, this book shows that Will Self is positively certifiable. The plot: London taxi driver Dave is going through a bit of a rough patch. His loveless marriage broken up, he doesn't get to see his son, and everyone seems to want something from him. Dave then goes completely insane and writes a massive misogynistic rant addressed to his son. This involves a complete separation of the sexes after puberty. Also, his arrogance as keeper of The Knowledge (e.g., where Woodburn Place is) shines through as well. In a fit of rage he buries the book, printed on metal for some odd reason, in his ex-wife's backyard. Centuries later, people find it and base a new religion on it. Suppressive new world order, that sort of thing. At times the book is a bit difficult to plough through, but it is a very challenging and mind-engaging read. (I still think Will Self should be locked up, for his own safety if not for ours. He can still appear on t'telly though.)

Then two of the recently-bought ones:

• Adrian Mole and the weapons of mass destruction by Sue Townsend. This reads as a diary, a year in the life of Adrian Mole. It is not a very interesting life as such, but it's woven together by a whole string of randomness. An insane relationship that is doomed to fail, a lifestyle that he can't afford, and his struggle to get a refund for a £57 deposit for a holiday in Cyprus (which he cancelled because Tony Blair had said that Iraq could develop weapons of mass destructions that could easily reach Cyprus in 45 minutes, which obviously makes it a Dangerous Place to Be).


• A spot of bother by Mark Haddon. Wow. Nothing at all like The curious incident with the dog in the night time, but possibly even better. For one, it's not written from the perspective of an autistic kid, so it's slightly easier to relate to. There are 144 chapters, divided between four perspectives. Plot summary from the back of the book (paraphrased as I've lent the book to EM now): daughter Katie is marrying Ray, whom the family don't like. Son Jamie is not willing to bring his boyfriend to the wedding, afraid that his parents will make a scene about it. Mother Jean is cheating on her husband with one of his former work colleagues. And father George gets squished in the middle of all this, while he also finds a rather bothersome spot on his skin and decides he has skin cancer. This is only the beginning, watch it evolve. Because the 144 chapters are so short, it's very easy to think, ‘oh, just one more chapter’, so it didn't take too long to finish.

The irony

A small avalanche-slash-episode of falling rocks in Tórshavn today, at undir Bryggjubakka in the harbour. A rather unfortunate event, especially for the two cars that got slightly damaged.


Photo credit: Jens Kr. Vang, www.portal.fo

Note the green sign in the background: this is supposed to be the safe point in case of an emergency.

Oops

I went to Cameron Toll. W H Smith's has 3 for 2 on everything (yes, everything!), and Waterstone's has 3 for 2 on selected items. Today's purchases are...

• A spot of bother by Mark Haddon;


• Love over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith;


• Salmon fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday;


• The English by Jeremy Paxman;


• Empire by Niall Ferguson; and


• Adrian Mole and the weapons of mass destruction by Sue Townsend.
  

Reviews in due course.

I also bought a DVD: Delicatessen, which is a French movie about a butcher in France just after the war, who is keeping up with demand by killing people. Could be interesting...

Meanwhile, I finished another book – Ik mis alleen de Hema by Manon Sikkel and Marion Witter. Stories about people who emigrated from the Netherlands. Some stayed abroad, some returned. For some of them it was exactly like they expected, other people's lives took a very unexpected turn. All in all rather quite enjoyable reading, but nothing world-shocking. Also, only two of the people actually said they missed the Hema. I don't, because we've got good shops here too and I was never addicted to Hema-rookworsten anyway.

New favourite word

From yesterday's Sosialurin...

Avdottin fólk og rúsdrekkakoyring

Hóast vikuskiftið hevur verið friðaligt, hava fleiri fólk verið og sovið rúsin av sær. Eisini eru 4 fólk tikin fyri rúsdrekkakoyring.

Bæði fríggja- og leygarkvøldið var mestsum fult á støðini í Jónas Broncksgøtu. Vakthavandi greiðir frá, at tey fáa nógvar áheitanir frá fólki, sum tíðliga um morgunin finna avdottin fólk í garðinum ella í túninum hjá sær. Eisini fólk, sum eru á veg heim úr býnum og síggja fólk liggja avdottin, ringja til løgregluna at boða frá.
Umframt avdottin fólk, vóru eisini fýra dømi um rúsdrekkakoyring um vikuskiftið. Tveir førarar vórðu tiknir í Suðuroynni, ein varð tikin í miðstaðarøkinum og ein varð tikin í Eysturoynni.
Vakthavandi sigur, at allir førarar høvdu eina promillu, ið var yvir tað loyvda, og onkur kann vænta at missa koyrikortið. Blóðroyndir vórðu tiknar, og einki er tó vist fyrr enn blóðroyndirnar eru afturkomnar.

It literally means ‘fallen off’, but it is used for people who are so drunk they just fall asleep. In this case, in other people's gardens – and not just the one person either. These Scandinavians and their alcohol...

Incidentally, the police station is in Jónas Bronck Street. According to the Faroese, Bronck was a famous Faroese sailor that the Bronx in New York City is named after. This is almost certainly untrue; a Swedish sailor of the same name is more likely to have given his name to the area. But hey, if you can't have an area of New York, I suppose a street in downtown Tórshavn is a decent alternative...

Culture

It's been a while since I updated with a list of books recently read. In no particular order...

Harry Potter and the deathly hallows (J K Rowling) – There's no need to say very much about this. The end was a bit anti-climactic and dragged on for a bit longer than it really should. Things were repeated again and again, which was a little bit annoying. Yes I know this by now, you've only explained it three times before! Then again, as I was later reminded of, it is a children's book.

De brug (Geert Mak) – This was this year's free book gift in the Dutch book promotion week. Mak takes us to İstanbul, to the bridge that links the European and the Asian bits of the city. The story is about the people living and working on the bridge: coffee sellers, shoeshiners, people that sell random bits of junk, and people that steal it away from you just as quickly. People that have come from the countryside to get a better life in the city, and failed. But really it's the story of the bridge itself, of İstanbul, and of Turkey.

De magie van de eilanden (Ben Hoekendijk) – A non-live travel journal of a man doing a solo crossing of the North Sea, from the Netherlands to Fair Isle, Shetland, the Faroes, Orkney, the Farne Islands, and back. Nice because I recognize a fair bit from my own travels to Shetland and the Faroes, but at times rather annoying for technical speak (slightly too detailed on how an automatic steering installation works) or his emphasis on 'spiritual' (read: quite seriously Christian) things.

Zoektocht in Katoren (Jan Terlouw) – The sequel to that great classic, Koning van Katoren. Again we see a cumbersome adventure through the country, visiting all sorts of cities, each with their own problem which is an exaggerated version of something from Real Society (people suing each other over nothing, Health and Safety rules gone berserk, animal rights in the meat industry, etc.). I always found Koning van Katoren really clever, but the issues in this book were so obvious! Or would it have been the fact that I've grown older since reading Koning van Katoren (about 20 years, in fact), and that great classic, too, is in fact political commentary very thinly disguised?

Rottumerplaat (Jan Wolkers) – The €1 edition (heavily cut) of the 1971 diary of Jan Wolkers' stay on this uninhabited island. Wolkers is basically a bit of dirty old man but at the same time very loving to animals. Oddness. But perfect for a short train ride. Also from the €1 promotional series, Heblust by Ronald Giphart. Which therefore is completely about sex, so slightly ambivalent feelings toward that one.

Think that's probably it for now.

Cleaning Services

At Support Services we are always trying to improve the service we provide to you. To improve communication and make it easier to contact the staff when you have a problem or need assistance we have now trained all our cleaning supervisors on Outlook. If you have any issues that you wish resolved regarding cleaning or suggestings for improvement then please feel free to contact the relevant supervisor.

Trained on Outlook. Suggestions for improvement? Ehm...

I hope you find the above useful.

Yes. My life is complete now. I can e-mail the cleaning guy.

This was distributed to all the desks in all the rooms. What a waste of paper. Of course, we will now all chuck these sheets and then have to deal with angry cleaners who get hernias because the waste paper bags are so heavy.

Discourse analysis

Your discourse analysis homework du jour:

Nous informons notre aimable clientèle que tout linge emporté lui sera facturé.

Nous vous remercions de votre compréhension.

La direction

What is strange about this? And what does it mean?