Would would Della do?

Leaping with the speed and grace of a mountain lion over several centuries and a few thousand miles, we arrive back in Scotland during the reign of James VI, aka James, King of England, Scotland, France (yes, I know - that's another long story, lets just say nothing beats a monarchy for stubborness) and Ireland (see comment for France), Defender of the Faith (as long as it was the right one), etc. (this is an official royal etc., rather than me being lazy)

Son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James was actually raised Protestant and married Anne of Denmark to cement his religious position. In fact, he claimed to have been struck by love's dart after seeing her portrait for the first time and wrote her love sonnets, including the immortal lines:

The fever hath infected every part
My bones are dried, their marrow melts away,
My sinnews feebles through my smoking smart,
And all my blood as in a pan doth play.

(cue gross bit - as if that wasn't enough)

Touching stuff, I think you'll agree.* Anne evidently thought so since she bore him 9 children although apparently they later drifted apart. Anyhow all this helps to show that James was not a squeamish man who fainted at big piles of gore, blood and guts. He probably found them inspiring and full of meaning in some ineffably Elizabethan way. Dude, they were a morbid bunch.

The tendancies described above might help to explain why in October 1600 (a few years after he got over his obsession with witch-hunting) he ordered the attendance of John and Alexander Ruthven at Holyrood. They were to answer charges of treason for attempting to kill him, but it was their months-old pickled corpses that arrived at court. This couldn't have been a surprise to the monarch since it was James and/or his attendants that had killed the brothers back in August and ordered their bodies' preservation. (p.177)

Following their conviction for their part in the "Gowrie Conspiracy", the corpses were then dragged through the streets of Edinburgh, publically hanged, quartered and their heads put on display. This wasn't even the end of it, since nine years later, Robert Logan had been dead for three years when witnesses testified against his reassembled skeleton for his part in the same conspiracy. (pp.178-9) Nice.

This practice faded out in Britain (with a brief hiccup for regicides at the start of the Restoration), but across the Channel, even a century or so later the trial and execution of corpses, particularly suicides, wasn't unusual. Take the conviction for suicide of a 74-year-old man in 18th-century Picardy who had hanged himself because he was convinced that his bride (20) was magically making him incapable of the "dance as old as time". (p.171)

Magic. Absolutely. But the interesting feature of this case is that convicted suicides normally forfeited their land and wealth. Since the man's lovely young bride had remarried a bare 2 weeks after his death, it's not a stretch to imagine that he was actually counting on this outcome. However this time the court mitigated the forfeiture and awarded his widow 1500 livres. (ibid) One cunning, Agatha Christie-type revenge plan foiled, methinks.

*Luckily, the most famous work associated with his name (The King James Bible) only does so because he commissioned it. He mercifully left its composition to a committee of 50-odd translators.

Page references still to this book

Is the Pope?...

Once upon a time in Rome, the shiny fisherman's ring of office didn't exactly poof from one pope's finger to the next in a graceful flurry of white doves and smoke. Transitions were a tad bumpier than the stately shenanigans that recently graced St.Peter's Square. It wasn't all about kicking around in the Sistine chapel admiring the pictures and drinking Benedictine while waiting for a super-secret conclave (flock? davinci? gibson?) of cardinals to make a decision. Those who would be pope used to take a bit more of a hands-on approach to things.

More blood, more assassins, and sometimes... zombie popes. Or at least Pope of the Living Dead. Kinda.

And so we turn our minds back to events following April 4, 896 when Pope Formosus (yes I know, would you call your son Formosus? Maybe some would, after all it means "good-looking" in latin, but what's wrong with a nice biblical name like Manger, anyway?) shuffled off this mortal coil due to old age, heartbreak, guilt or chagrin depending on whose version of events you read.

Before his death, Formosus had been caught up in political squabbles over who got to rule the Holy Roman Empire.** While he favoured Arnulf of Carinthia (East Frankish Carlovingian/Carolingian/Karling dynasty), his next successor-but-one Stephen VI (Boniface VI, the pope in between, lasted only two weeks) preferred the rugged and manly charm of Lambert, Duke of Spoleto. Since both these gentlemen had been crowned emperor by Formosus at different times (long story), Stephen VI took drastic action to ensure Lambert's legitimacy and undermine Arnulf's descendents claim. Lambert and his mother Agiltrude, no fan of the Carolingians herself, also wanted vengeance on Formosus for his double-dealing.

(gross bit coming up)

And so in January 897 they disinterred Formosus' decomposing corpse (do the maths - that's grim), dressed him in his papal togs and propped up him up on his throne.Then they convened a special synod and tried him as a usurper. The synod would come to be known as the synod horrenda or cadaver synod. (p.167)

After a bit of angry shouting by Stephen VI, the synod convicted Formosus, chopped off the three fingers he used for papal blessings, stripped him of his vestments and dumped him in a pauper's grave. But there was no rest for Formosus yet, since grave-robbers made off with his body. When they found nothing of value on it, they dumped it in the Tiber. (p.168)

Stephen's macabre trial did little to endear him to the people of Rome, and their discontent found a focus when a monk wandering along the riverbank later that year spotted a body which he quickly identified as Formosus (well, what other corpse could possibly have been bobbing along down Porto way with missing fingers?) and fished him out. Rumours quickly circulated that the waterlogged remains had the power to perform miracles. A public uprising followed and Stephen VI was deposed and put in prison where he was strangled in either July or August of that year.

In November that year, Pope Theodore II found time during his 20-day reign to annul the synod's verdict, and the body was kitted out in a new outfit and returned to its tomb in St.Peter's Basilica. His successor, Pope John IX declared any future trial of a dead person unlawful and burned the synod records.

Even this wasn't the end of the story. A later pope, Sergius III, (904-911) would overturn these rulings and write a lovely epitaph for Stephen VI's tomb. There are also reports that he exhumed Formusus' much-abused corpse, tried and convicted it a second time and then beheaded it. Although never over-turned, Sergius III's decisions were disregarded afterwards due to his Spoletan bias. Accusations of murder, corruption and the nefarious influence of his concubine, Marozia, probably didn't help.

Now of course, it could be argued that this was the sort of thing that those addled medieval-types got up to when they'd sampled a bit too much of their home-brewed mead. But this was by no means the last time a corpse was tried… (what a cliff-hanger - insert doom-laden music here, preferably with bagpipes).

**Charlemagne, son of Pepin (not a hobbit) was the most famous Carolingian King of the Franks, a Germanic confederation which covered the Low Countries, western Germany and most of France apart from Brittany. The treaty of Verdun of 843 saw three of his grandsons split his kingdom into three parts: Lothair got Middle Francia, Louis the German got East Francia and Charles the Bald (hee!) got West Francia.

East Francia slowly and stickily became the Holy Roman Empire of the West (aka of the German nation aka the Reich), the process finishing under Otto I the Great in 962. A bit before Otto, Charles the Fat (son of Louis the German) helped things along, since he managed to inherit large chunks of his uncles' territory owing to their unfortunate habit of dying without heirs. But nothing was straightforward and the situation often became as messy as their Merovingian predecessors' hair in a force 10 gale.

Picture:
Jean-Paul Laurens, Le Pape Formose et Etienne VII, 1870, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, via Wikipedia

MacWitch?

More from the book. All good stuff, really. Comments forthcoming.

James VI of Scotland, aka the later James I of England, was astonishingly intellectual for a monarch which quality earned him the sobriquet, "the wisest fool in Christendom." Well, what else do you call someone who translated texts from Latin to French to English as a child for fun? (p.124) Low on fluffy-lambkin character traits, high on paranoia (p.126), he feared a coven of witches were plotting against him and kicked off the first mass witch-hunt in Scotland.

So things weren't very much in the way of sweetness and light in late 17th century Scotland, what with Jamie-boy forming a commission to safeguard the country from sorcery, authorising the use of torture and worse still, publishing an enormously thick treatise on witchcraft, the smash (well, it was heavy enough to kill a cockroach acting as a minion of the dark side) hit Daemonologie, which recycled most of the usual superstitions and anecdotes. However, by 1597 he'd chilled out a bit and reined in the activities of witch-hunters, as well as starting to question some of the prosecutions. (p.128)

But James' influence on the rise in witch-hunting shouldn't be over-stated. It was actually a period which marked a rise in witch-hunts throughout Europe. Also, about twelve times the number of witches were burned in Scotland as in England at this time, a phenomenon Kadri attributes to institutional differences between the two countries. Scotland had moved to a more continental-style of trials led by judges, often in private, whereas England usually had jury trials. (p.128)

However, Jamie-boy would soon have other irons in the fire. Even DEAD ones...

Trials and Tribulations

At the moment I'm reading a really interesting book on the history of trials. There's a chapter dedicated to the trials of non-humans (animals, objects and corpses), which is a practice that didn't really fade out until the Enlightenment. Lots of theory about the evolution about the modern judicial system, but even more good stories.

So for your delectation, a couple of anecdotes from this chapter. The first concerns a certain Jacques Ferron and an unnamed female donkey both of whom were convicted for improper relations back in Vanvres, 1750. Man and donkey were sentenced to death, but prior to the execution Jacques' neighbours and parish priest came rushing hot-foot with a petition for mercy. Mercy for the communally-owned donkey, that is. They stated that they had known the poor maligned creature for four years and that she was "in word and deed and in all her habits of life a most honest creature." Donkey was back in the grazing ground by tea-time, nibbling while Jacques burned (alive). (p.156)

Back in 1535 Nottinghamshire a jury was convened to establish culpability in the death of one farmer Anthony Whylde, who had been suffocated when a large haystack fell on him. In a Perry Masonesque feat of deduction, the jurors managed to identify with astonishing precision the exact small bale responsible for Anthony's death. The ultimate fate of the bale is not noted. Insert bad pun of your choice here. (p.179)

Tomorrow - corpses in the dock. Wa-hay!

Still standing... le vikend

Rather dissipated, I think. Inexplicably, although I don't drink the fruit of the vine, the hop, the barley, the malt, the potato, the sugarcane, the date, the rotting palm-fruit, the wormwood, the old tyre, and so on, I still feel vaguely hungover/lethargic two days later. And I think I broke my air guitar.

Personally, I blame the idiot frenchmen who were doing their level best to single-handedly reverse the national stereotype of centuries by avoiding even the slightest hint of sophistication and savoir-faire in their behaviour in favour of acting like marauding idiots. Toes trampled in drunken efforts at "dancing": 793. Limbs ashed by flying cigarettes: 7 (one twice).

If they really were French… They seemed to have difficulty understanding or even speaking that language too. Favorite gem of conversation, "You are your friend's nose." I'm still bemused by that one. Because there must be meaning in it. Somewhere. Then there was the 'Meurican who claimed not to have known the name of this country before he arrived. All well and good, but I'm not sure this is the sort of thing in which I'd take pride. Or advertise to passing strangers.

He also produced this little snippet of conversation with Californian flatmate:
"Hey, your friend doesn't speak English, right? Where's she from?"
"England."
"Hey, they speak English good here, don't they?"

Sadly I missed the opportunity to chat with this fine speciman of manhood owing to the complete impenetrability of my dialect. Luckily I normally wander around with a portable subtitle machine or heaven knows how flatmates and I ever managed to negotiate a cleaning rota.

But a most entertaining evening in all. Hopefully, 'twas the chocolate ornament on flatmate J's birthday French lemon tart covered in seasonal fruit. And besides, if we hadn't gone to this particular 80s/90s night, I would have lived without ever seeing a hen party from Essex dance around a crutch to the Bangles (though I could have happily lived without ever seeing the middle-aged male belly-dancer from Pinner, music optional.)

Fruit?

Ahhhhh…. Friday. Light-hearted pudding of delight and rosé-fingered dawn of the weekend. Or something like that. Mel is free now, but after my manifold and great struggles with blogger over the photos for the last post I'm not sure I am able to face another attempt.

Besides, I'm busy ordering a birthday cake. (We have an oven but no pans so baking isn't really an option.) French-style lemon tart with seasonal fruit, or orange-poppyseed with mascarpone cream? Or perhaps New York or marble cheesecake with crushed amaretti biscuit base? And can I just say that there are some damn fine bakeries and cake-shops in this city?

Which leaves me only to close with the immortal words of Marvell in To His Coy Mistress, a manly man's poet with nutritional interests that were far ahead of his time, "My vegetable love should grow/vaster than empires, and more slow." Perhaps after the cake.

A cat can look at a king

In the Kingdom of Argondia, the man with the bushy beard and velvet robe is king. Well, it's not as if he's gonna be Keeper of the Garderobe or a Fuller or something, is it? So all hail King Reon and his mystic wine, fruit juice from concentrate and interior decoration skills. Lesser mortals (ie. not his famous customer, Jimmy Page) who have not visited the Kingdom of Argondia will find it about half-way up Petřin hill.

(ETA: For full Argondian effect, please play Clannad/Enya through the left earphone and Deep Forest through the right one. At a fairly deafening volume - there, that should do the trick)

It's an astonishing experience. What can I say? You know how sometimes in Changing Rooms a designer will go for a "theme". And the surprise of the unsuspecting owners when their previously white-on-pine Scandanavian master bedroom now looks as if TGI Friday's have set up shop in Tutankhamun's aging mistress' bordello? Entering the Kingdom of Argondia creates that level of disconcertment. You can get culture shock walking through the door.

Outside, birds twitter among the trees. Inside, vaguely Celtic-type music (pan pipes, muted female-angel-choir-on-heavy-echo voices that swoop to recreate the sound of leaves on water or some such thing) drowns out footsteps. Outside, timber-framed serenity. Inside, hallucinogenic paintings. Outside sweete lyttle Czech house. Inside, astonishing magic grotto effect, achieved by use of aluminium foil, fairy lights, and not a small amount of plaster. (How'd the elves get it all up that hill?).

Edited to add 2: Outside, leafy nature. Inside, steroid-enhanced demonic Argondian chia pets.

As for the subject-matter of his art, if Reon would be king, it seems his potential pick of queens are all nubile topless beauties with big eyes and the odd fish-tail. As befits the monarch of a magical realm, his courtship is likely to be fraught with peril (heheh), what with those scorpions and antlers growing out of their heads. But no doubt it will be luminous.

ETA: Photos finally added after much agonised perseverence, blogger has been relentlessly uncooperative. King Reon may have greater powers than I suspected. Apologies for their quality and flash issues, but I don't have much photographic ability and it's very dark in the Kingdom of Argondia.

The lost ones...

As mentioned in yesterday's post, as soon as I tell myself that I ought to write about something, I immediately find it next to impossible to do so. Here's a list of the most recent topics:

Mushroom picking and berries in baskets
Kingdom of Argondia
Mr. Cimrman, Czech inventor and misunderstood genius
Mongolian death-worm
Lost book
Saint-under-a-rock church
Baby tower
Marie Whatsherface, Cordonnier, in her own words
The Trial
Clocks
X marks the spot
Eiffel Tower
Thai food
Bread rolls
Opera and radicalism

Since most of these relate to what I've been doing lately, clearly, I'm no travel writer. Ah well.

A day late and a dollar…

For various reasons, including time zones, I've never been able to coordinate myself enough to contribute to Beth's SB Day - a weekly celebration of all things reading. But yesterday she asked, "What don't you read?" which is a really interesting question.

For one thing, I can't find it in me to come up with a list. I read all the time, and can barely remember a time when I didn't. If desperate, or wondering about the right sort of thing, I could read almost anything. It doesn't mean I have to like it or even think I'll enjoy it or that it's good, but in the right frame of mind almost anything could be interesting, even if only for five minutes. So it's really hard to come up with something about a book that would put me off if I had absolutely nothing else to read, although in some cases it might have to be the last book in the world. Although the last book in the world? I might put off reading it forever. Just to have something to anticipate.

Oddly, the one thing that does put me off reading something I'd otherwise enjoy or find interesting is obligation. The minute I "have" to read something it becomes a chore, and one that I'll put off for as long as possible. I have struggled through official reading lists of core texts, while devouring the "further reading". I used to dread being set well-loved or interesting-looking books to read for a class, because being forced to read them could suck all the joy out what should have been a pleasure.

Incidentally, this is even true when it's me telling myself that I ought to read a book. In a way it's a lot like the way things are turning out at this blog. I had plans for what I intended to write about for the next couple of days, but find myself completely incapable of doing this now that I've made the fatal error and thought, "I should write about xyz." On the other hand, the right question or a fleeting thought will catch my interest and mushroom into something completely unexpected, like this post.

Just to round things off, here's a list of reasons why I decided not to buy various books recently. The trick here is to realise that they haven't put me off for good, but just for now. Because in the now, when I have lots of choice, I can be really picky.

Massive hype (fear of disappointment).
Hero sounds like a jerk.
Heroine sounds shallow.
Expensive.
Trying too hard to be "wacky".
Second in series and I haven't read the first one.
First one doesn't look as good as the second one.
Really liked another book by this writer, and worried this won't be as good.
Read a lot of this sort of thing lately and doesn't sound different enough.

Also when very young, I refused to ever re-read The Tale of Samuel Whiskers because the scene where the rats rolled Tom Kitten into roly-poly pudding gave me nightmares. I also refused to read Where the Wild Things Are because the picture on the cover scared me. Instead, I used to hide it where I would hopefully never come across it, like the bathroom cupboard behind mysterious, ancient and unused hair-taming equipment. Mind you, I think I'm over this by now.

All change, please.

When Mrs. Jana announced the name of my supply teacher, she did so with a peculiar expression on her face and arms folded across her chest. "You will be having lessons with Ms. Ivanka." Sniff. "She is young." Pregnant pause. "I think that you will find her lessons will be very different." Sniff. "Yes, very different." Sniff. "She is very young."

So I'm now having classes with the young and presumably flighty Ms. Ivanka who so far seems rather enthusiastic about trendy, fashionable, "young" things like conversation and so on. All of which hurtles me smack-bang into the granite-hard wall that is my lack of everything in this language (vocab, grammar, syntax, accent, cheese).

Anyhow, to get acquainted, we had an intense discussion about my weekend this morning.

Ms.I. "So what did you do this weekend?"
Me. "I go up hill."
Ms.I. "You went up a hill."
Me. "You went up a hill."
Ms.I. "No. Yooouuuu..." points finger at me "...went up a hill."
Me. lightbulb pops on "Ohhh… I went up hill."
Ms.I. sighs "Something like that." deep breath "What did you do there?"
Me "I eat."
Ms.I. "You ate."
Me "You ate."
Ms.I. "No…incomprehensible string of syllables...Youuuuuu…" points finger at me, with slightly more emphasis.
Me "I eat salad."

Thank heavens Ms. Ivanka's extreme youth means she has the mental energy to sustain such conversations.

Trail of biscuit crumbs

In honour (again) of the wondrous day that is Friday, here is a small photo essay on my plans for this weekend, incorporating the usual escape committee celebratory subject matter for Mel. (Although by this point she may have developed the ability to survive on one brazil nut a day, supplemented only by the occasional sip of water.)

Look! cobblestones!

Well. Glad we got that cleared up, then.

This morning, to further my bid for world Czech-linguistic domination, Mrs. Jana took me on a tour of Prague. It was our “fun” class to celebrate commiserate the fact that she’ll be on holiday for the whole month of August, leaving Ms. Katka in charge.

At the moment, the weather and tourists being what they are (hot, crowded and sweaty), seven to eight-thirty is probably the best time to wander around downtown. So off we went: me with my special sheet of architecture vocabulary, and Mrs. Jana with a grim determination to demonstrate the use of as many types of verbs of motion as humanly possible.

I learned a new word without vowels (“trh” – it means market). This will come in very handy for Scrabble games or filling in the rest of crosswords as long as I remain relaxed about the more trivial rules on language use.

Ahh… I hear you say. But how many types of verbs of motion can there possibly be?

Well, apparently we run, we go-by-feet, we go-by-transport-including-dogsled and we fly but we also carry and drive (including the management of companies). Extra fantastic variety can be created by tacking on assorted prefixes that give more information about the direction of motion. You know, like English prepositional verbs but the other way ‘round.

So we went-by-feet-from a meeting-point in front of the main railway station, then went-by-feet-over the road, went-by-feet-through a passageway and went-by-feet-to the newest synagogue. Then we went-by-feet-on lots of squares while other people went-by-car-to work and carried-to work their lunch.

Czech being what it is, there are a few extra ones that don’t quite match up with English, so we also met by going-together-by-transport-but-this-time-the-more-mundane-metro-rather-than-say-a-camel-drawn-caravan, and we parted company at the end of the tour by going-apart-by-transport.

But it seems that in a further stunning plot twist, while verbs of motion are always perfective (see below), it has now been revealed that they can be either indeterminate or determinate. Shock! Horror! Gasp! Of course this is NOthing like perfective and imperfective aspects, and I should not even THINK about such ridiculous things while displacing myself in Czech. Deep sigh.

[Digression: I got very excited when looking this up online because one of the top search results was one for Hittite. Hooray! I thought. Once I have mastered this pesky bit of grammar, I shall learn to speak like an ancient Anatolian. But alas, this was a false search result created by the proximity of the expressions “verbs of motion” and “indeterminate” and “determinate” on the same page. I wish they’d organise their sites better. But at least there’s always Old Church Slavonic.]

This differentiation depends on whether the action is repeated regularly (indeterminate) or not (the other one). And of course, the distinction is made by using completely different words. As if I didn't have enough problems with all that architecture vocabulary. The former includes such thorny issues as “Do you like to run marathons?” whereas the latter is more like, “Last year I ran the Marathon des Sables in a furry duck costume.”

However (and here comes the annoying, not-like-imperfective-perfective bit) “I was running the Marathon des Sables disguised as a Giant South American Anteater when I tripped over my long and sticky velcro tongue," is determinate. Because certainly that’s the kind of action no one would wish to undertake in a half-hearted or indeterminate manner. Imagine the consequences: all those poor idiots running about in the desert in silly animal costumes with no sense of direction or purpose until they pass out from heat exhaustion.

Speaking of which, the latter is apparently why verbs of motion are perfective. Because it is understood they must all ultimately come to an end. Of course, the same could even be said of breathing, but Mrs. J. got a funny look in her eye when I brought this up, and my comment dwindled away into nervous silence. So I never had the chance to ask her if the failure to create a perpetual motion machine is due to more sinister reasons than I had previously suspected. Another mystery for the ages solved, methinks.

Anger is the enemy…

…Ridicule is your friend.

Look, the summer vibe still fills me with delight and wonder. But for some reason it appears to have gone to some people's heads in a remarkably, ummm, heady way. So just a personal appeal here.

In very public places that aren't the beach (maybe we could think of them as places that don't sell ice cream or something), and especially these nifty air-conditioned offices we have, please, I am begging you on my knees, PUT SOME BLOODY CLOTHES ON. Just some. I'm not picky. A shirt, a pair of long shorts or a skirt that is closer to your knees than your nether regions. Note that I am not requesting a ban on knees. Or shoulders. Or sandals. Even if you insist on wearing them with socks.

But enough with the midriff baring, low-cut, backless tops and short shorts. A tan, real or otherwise, is not part of an outfit. It's more like an accessory.

Anyhow, otherwise I might have to start pointing out that what looks really good in front of the mirror with carefully controlled, upright posture is less-than-successful at communicating a professional and elegant demeanour when slumped in front of a computer in a desk chair.

Besides the obvious health and safety implications, there is a reason why glossy mags tend to feature models wearing such outfits in glorious outdoor scenes and/or glamorous designed interiors, rather than frolicking among ergonomic modular workstations, prefab filing cabinets and mold-injected "easy-clean" plastic desk furniture. Even if you put a great big poster of the beach on your office partition wall and stand in front of it all day long, it's just not the same thing. Trust me. The lighting's all wrong.

If it's really that hot, let me know and I'll buy you a fan. 'Kay?

End rant.

Cross Post

Slightly off-topic, and I'm not entirely sure about the blogiquette here.

Long story short, someone wrote a letter to a magazine stating that gay romance has no place in the biggest association of writers of romantic fiction. Usual oh-so-concerned tone about slippery slopes and so on.

Letter, links and comments at SBTB inspired a poem, so I posted it over there. After brief consultation with rpc I thought I'd make it today's post as well - it stands alone pretty well. Anyone who had the same 6th grade English teacher might find it rings a bell or two...

O, Buck Morningstar rode out of the West
On a quest for revenge in a fringed leather vest
His trousers bulged oddly, his holster, low-slung
Pulled down by the weight of a six-shooter gun
A saturnine sheikh, with a 'tache and a scar
Planned to wed his foe's daughter, heard Buck Morningstar.

He rode in a fury, burst into the hall
'Mongst kilt-wearing dancers and pirates and all
Then spake the dark bridegroom, a gleam in his eye
(That caused Buck to feel unaccountably shy)
"I'm not going mad, though this may sound bizarre,
"Don't I know you from somewhere, buff Buck Morningstar?"

Those husky tones lifted the veil from Buck's mind
His mem'ries returned in a rush to remind
Him of near-fatal head wound and dastardly plot
To take him away from the love he'd forgot.
"It's you, Ram!" breathed Buck, "Whom I loved from afar!"
Grammar brought back Ram's feelings for Buck Morningstar.

"Buck, when they hit you, I thought you were dead!
"The trauma then wiped you right out of my head!
"Look, we've read the guidelines, and know this should end
"With burned biscuits, and handcrafts* for me and my friends
"Are too studly to kill off - dames like my scar.
"Can you stick endless sequels, brave Buck Morningstar?"

And with that the sheikh called his Zeta Force chums
They summoned a 'copter, black, bristling with guns
And flew through the sunset to Buck's secret den,
While the bride put her comfortable shoes on again,
Leaving jeans that must zip by aid of crowbar
To the sheikh and his cowboy, buff Buck Morningstar.


*redemptive ones, of course. But it didn't scan.

I so too have a balanced mind

No really, I do. A balanced female-male brain. The BBC says so. Must've been playing with younger brother's GI Joe that did it. Of course, they also have great big disclaimers saying that their nifty little mind quizzes are in no way a medical diagnosis, but pfffttt to that.

I can also remember strings of numbers pretty well, which apparently is linked to the ability to learn foreign words. Who'd have thought there were so many hidden benefits to learning Czech?

Anyhow, the BBC are collecting data for memory research. Lots of quizzes, tips, articles and so on. They also want people to submit their own memories of specific types (first memory, memories of significant/life-changing events). Once you're registered you can also look up what other people have written under keywords.

Of course, as with participation in all scientific research, before doing this it's worth reading the consent details. Who knows what nefarious purpose may be hidden under the seemingly innocent facade of a nifty website with pictures of elephants? Unfortunately I failed to notice the one that says, "The BBC reserves the right to edit your memories" until it was too late. Eeek.

Note to self - better check for amnesia tomorrow. Who am I?

What would Marco Polo say?

The Hare Krishnas who run the bakery where I normally buy lunch on the way to work have gone on holiday until the beginning of August. So I have decamped to a new establishment, which is all shiny red & white plastic and vaguely nautical in theme (round windows, posters of matelots). There's also a mind-boggling array of rolls, cream and jelly-based cakes, waffles and ice cream.

One thing that astonishes me is that some patrons, in a display of extreme gastric fortitude and daring, will actually be eating cake at 7:30 am when I pop in for my cheese and tomato rohliček or egg brioška. This morning, there was a gentleman eating an ice cream sundae with his coffee.

I must be descended from a long line of breakfast puritans, because the first time I saw it, I blinked in disbelief. I don't even like sugar on my cereal. To my mind, sweet, yeast-based morning goods are acceptable on weekends and holy days but cake and ice cream before 10 am feels insanely decadent.

So photo below in honour of:
1. The above-mentioned gentleman and his challenge to my dietary preconceptions.
2. Freedom for Mel.
3. Freedom from a long-term project for me.
4. The humdinger of a thunderstorm currently brewing outside (pleasepleasepleaserain).
5. Friday and pre-weekend giddiness.

(credit to here as still no camera batteries)

Bet you wish you'd never asked...

Beth asked, "what is this weird slavic imperfective/perfective verb thing?"

But please don't blame her. And I did start to respond in the comments. I really did. But the whole thing is weird. (To me, that is. It's completely normal to the millions of native-slavic-language speakers who instead think the whole latin/germanic language system of tenses* is a bizarre perversion of the time-space continuum, or whatever. At least, that's what Mrs. Jana thinks. Tenses make her angry.) And because it's weird, it refuses to be confined to a brief comment.

So first of all, I may be making a gross generalisation. But friends who studied Russian used to complain about perfectives and imperfectives in that language. And now, here I am, learning a bit of Czech and lo and behold we hit chapter 12 (skinny chapters, btw) and they leap out to bite me in my linguistic hindquarters. So I googled, and it seems that verb aspects crop up in Bulgarian and Ukrainian in a big and important way too.

Anyhow, Sara-wearing-her-Rosina-hat could do this way better than me, but here's my amateur take on the matter after a couple of lessons:

Perfective and imperfective are two different aspects of verbs. "Aspect" kind of means how you look at/think about the action that's being described, regardless of when it takes place. So if you picture it from outside the action, in a linguistic out-of-body experience, it could be seen as a single, complete action. This is perfective (as in perfectly complete). If you picture it somehow from within the action (in other words, are more interested in the process as it's going on), it's imperfective.

Aspects are different from tenses, however, which is where it becomes confusing because I've definitely come across verbs in the past being called "perfect". So I've had to chuck that notion out of the window for the moment. In Czech, you can have past and present perfective (it has a future meaning), and past, present and future imperfectives.

So far, we're only dabbling in the past, which basically means deciding if you're interested in the fact that an action has been completed or in the action itself, which could sometimes give it a continous sense, but not always. It's not really like the imparfait/passé composé distinction beloved of French tests of yore which can usually be translated as "was/were yodelling" (imp.) or "used to yodel" (imp.)vs. "he yodelled" (pc). It also communicates things in ways that are expressed in English completely differently.

For example, you could say "Last Saturday that pudgy and over-familiar chimpanzee [shopped for] a new blouson leather jacket." If you used the perfective [shopped for] you could mean either:
1. He'd found and bought the jacket or...
2. He'd checked out all the jackets and decided that he'd rather get something in padded gingham and chains and spend the change on a cheap fedora.

But if you used the imperfective aspect of [shopped for], you could:
1. Be setting the backdrop for another action in the sense of "was shopping for…when he was attacked by a vengeful Confucius impersonator", or…
2. Mean that he'd shopped, not bought anything, and would probably go back and look at the discounts in the sales next week. Or not. You just don't care if the chimpanzee is stuck forever in limbo, still shopping. Given his taste in outfits that may be a good thing.

This is about as far as I've come. And the way Mrs. Jana nervously changes the subject whenever I mention the present tense gives me the feeling we're just skimming the surface. Basically it's just weird and depends on point of view and probably just getting a feeling for it.

But here's where it gets more weird. Because instead of just taking your average verb and twisting it in devious but ultimately classifiable ways (stick a bit on the end/the beginning/in the middle, oh but here's an exception) those wacky Czechs decided instead to use a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORD. Admittedly it's one that often appears distantly related, but only in the sense that some of the letters or the odd syllable are the same.

There are no rules about how it works on this frontier, kids. And I bet that as a beginner I'm getting the easy ones. Some verbs get longer, some get shorter. Some add a prefix or suffix, some change letters or syllables or any combination of these things. So you just have to learn them. Except there can be more than one perfective verb for an imperfective one. Not always pairs of verbs tromping along two-by-two in a metaphorical crocodile for the Czechs. Oh no.

Oh. And all verbs of motion, such as "going-by-feet" and "going-by-transport-including-roller-skates" are exceptions and are always imperfective, but it's okay because they form the future tense in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY.

All of which makes me suspect that those Czech grammarians had a lot of repressed anger.

Sorry Beth. You give me garlic-browning tips, I give you rants on linguistics. Life is very cruel.

Edited to add: Aaaarrrgggghhhh. Verbs of motion are all perfective. Not imperfective. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh.

*By this I mean things like, "I will wankle-rotate", "I will be wankle-rotating", "I will have wankle-rotated", "I'm going to wankle-rotate", the nuances of which I am woefully ill-equipped to explain. I just wankle-rotate away. Or is it off?

Language? Pah!

In addition to the mystery of the floating "e" at the end, Czech also does the weird Slavic perfective/imperfective verb thing. How cruel. Do you know how they tell time? It's unspeakable. No really. The word for "quarter" has no vowels. Clearly, some ancient Czech grammarians had far too little to do on those long dark winter nights.

I'd go on holiday but it takes the accusative case and I've already forgotten that one.

In other news, we went to a botanical garden over the weekend for a bit of green and cool. 'Twas lovely, although we provided a great deal of fodder for amusement for all the tall, elegantly dressed model-types who have emerged from their winter hibernation. They stalked about the pebbled paths on slim golden legs, feet strapped into delicate confections of lace and air with heels slimmer still.

By contrast, our more sensible flip-flops and dog-chew trainers were a tad erm... earthy? But at least after three or so hours of walking, our feet still managed to carry us to the local micro-brewery's restaurant for some beer-battered comestibles. Balm for the weary soul.

Yes she is, ohhhh yes she is.

Witnesses will testify that my karaoke party-piece is a weirdly thin and squeaky version of Son of a Preacher Man. But then, karaoke is more about the singer’s pleasure than the unadulterated musical delight of their hapless victims audience. All they can hope is that their hearing will be somewhat muffled by vast quantities of booze sloshing about somewhere around the level of their eardrums.

But something is rotten in the state of Empty Orchestra. Note how the lady above appears to be taking advantage of my temporary absence from the scene to muscle in and steal some of my karaoke glory. That is no innocent beehive she is flaunting, the brazen hussy. Oh no. Look past the trivial detail of its colour. It’s a blatant “Dusty” ‘do.

Well let me tell you, you lacquered-up floozy, that no one, I repeat, NO ONE does that Dusty song but ME. I am Son of a Preacher Man. Don’t you even think about coming over here with your silly pouffy hair howling into the mic with big eyes and a voice like breaking hearts over ground glass.

I’m giving you one friendly warning. (This one). Stuff thy ridiculous coiffure (clearly a perruque) in a basket, get thee hence and find thyself another karaoke box. And take your stupid friend and his Michael “The Man With Two Haircuts” Bolton hair with you. You’ll only make yourself look silly when it comes to your inevitable defeat at my hands.

Karaoke Domination Will Be Mine.

Do I really need to do a maniacal cackle with the echo on now?

No. Didn't think so.

Shh.... If you're quiet, you might hear the gears grinding.

I'm thinking. Very hard. IN GERMAN. And it makes my head hurg. hurt.

All vill be revealed tomorrow.

PS. Someone told me this weekend that 'Allo 'Allo was experiencing a resurgence in popularity, retro-comedy styleeee, via the student population of fair Blighty. Is this true? If I can remember it from the first time, does that make me an old fuddy-duddy (not necessarily a bad thing)? Should I just retire quietly to my corner muttering about knockwurst and a mantra of catchphrases?

Good moaning.

Look! Poppyseed cake thing!

So as promised to the lovely Mel elsewhere, here is something decadent for her one day of freedom from the sound of sacred gongs, clangs and ba-doings, woven together by spiritual chanting. Photo not one of mine as camera died. Luckily this site came to my rescue in time for Mel's day-release, and it's way better than anything I could achieve. So may you become very bendy and your ipod batteries never run low.


On the other hand, I'm slowly grinding my chakras into the dust, but at least I'm still buying my (all-vegan, karmically-superior) pastries from the Hare Krishna bakery. That's gotta help? Right? What do you mean eating twelve of their almond cookies will not necessarily bring twelve-fold spiritual benefits?

*tries to do a downward dog, achieves collapsed lung pose*

Don't mess with a dictionary man

Many people say many things to me. They say things like, "What are butter beans?" and "Are you finished with the drying rack?" "That man is naked! We have our own ugly naked man! No, don't look - he'll see you staring!" and "A koala isn't really a bear, tee-hee-hee. It's a marsupial."

They also say things like, "Evil Auntie Peril, as someone who possesses the most marvellous and beautiful red shoes (new ones for summer) and striped hot pink happy kneesocks, you are clearly something of a fashion maven. Tell me, oh guru of the second-hand clothing rails, what is the well-dressed man wearing this season?"

Ummm… well actually the latter was something of a lie. Most people would probably prefer to waltz down the High St. clad in nowt but a teeny-weeny Burberry thong and matching puce Wellington boots, partnered by said ugly naked neighbour (and he looks rather heavy to be treading on one's dainty toes) than say something so patently nonsensical. Maybe it's the layering and "DangerMouse" t-shirt with fizzing bomb on the back? It could never be the delightful footwear.

Until last Sunday, I would have been stumped by such a question, and replied with pathetic hesitation, "Err… hipster jeans? Converse? Some kind of retro thingy?" Luckily, once again, the producers of Kapesní Slovník s vý slovností have ridden to the rescue on their snow-white dictionary with little Czech flags a-flying. I can only defer to their greater wisdom.

Since there is only one page of male clothes compared with four for the beautiful lay-deez (including she of the stretch dress), I can only conclude that men are supposed to wear fewer clothes than women, something our neighbour opposite appears to have taken to heart.

So anyhow, if a picture paints a thousand words, here are sixteen of mine. Most of them aren't even real ones that a person could look up in the dictionary. Maybe that's why they gave us pictures instead:

Look!
Blue
Y-fronts.
Snicker.
No!
Better!
Indigoooe.
Gigoloh-ee-oh.
Oh.
And
Matching
Vest.
Bay-beee.
Shineeee.
PJs
Garrk.

To read, or to read in bits? That is the question.

uhhh… sorta

I have vowed to never, ever do review-y type things here. Mainly because I'm not good at leaving them alone and would end up doing stuff like this, but worse, and the whole process would drive me nuts.

What follows is an addendum to an earlier post, so please keep in mind through the rest of this that I truly enjoyed Cooking With Fernet Branca. This is more in the nature of a quibble, and it might not even be the book that's caused it. CWFB is a very funny, hugely entertaining book and my memory of certain passages still makes me grin like this at odd moments, but with marginally greater overtones of the sinister kind (my teeth are pointier):

But it's now been six days since I finished the book, and its ending is beginning to bother me a tad.

Perhaps it's because I had to stop reading about 30 pages from the end? Then I made the fatal error of picking it up after a long, tiring day and so didn't have enough book left for the momentum to kick in. I really hope so.

It's not really a crash, bang, wallop ending. There's a bish, bash, bosh and the whirring of machinery (again) and this was the point where I had to break off. It left me wondering all day about The End. Then I picked it up, and the rest of the story meandered on to a fairly decent resolution. But over the last couple of days I've started to have the nagging feeling that after an attempt to move on, things looked as if they were heading for a slide back into the former status quo.

Maybe that's the point? Truthfully, this would suit the characters. They aren't exactly on a quest for personal growth. Also I've read other books with similar endings and not had any problem with them at all. I've liked some of them quite a lot. And I don't require every loose end tied up in a neat bow. So I just can't put my finger on what bugs me about this one. Maybe I'm turning into a bit of a drama queen. Or maybe it was only a question of my unfortunate timing.

Anyhow, I've been hunting around online to see what other people thought but haven't found anything that chimes yet. The Amazon reviews are either glowing or bitterly disappointed because the book's not H-P's usual style. It is a big change for him, apparently, which oddly makes me more inclined to find some of his other stuff and make the comparison. There's also this interview with the writer, which is interesting (great magazine title *koffkoff*) but doesn't help my dilemma.

I think I need to re-read, but can't quite face it yet because I don't want this nagging feeling to spoil the fun of the the book. So if anyone's read it or has had a similar experience with another book, any thoughts? Related to this, can breaking off at the wrong moment affect your enjoyment of a book? Or is it down to the writing? Are books meant to be read in one sitting or should a reader be able to put them down at any point and pick them up again later? Or is it just that certain books are more enjoyable when gobbled up in one sitting and others are better savoured in delicious bits over an extended period of time?

Feelings! Doo-bee-doo-bee, FEEL-ings!

For some time, Mrs. Jana has been urging me to buy a Czech-English dictionary. “There’s a very good one with pictures,” she has said several times, with a meaningful look. To force the issue, this weekend she gave me a long list of incomprehensible verbs to match to an equally long list of incomprehensible professions (two have no perceptible vowels). No quick trip to the supermarket à la "fruit" listings solution was going to resolve this conundrum, so off I went on Sunday to remedy the gaping Czech-English-dictionary-shaped hole in my life.

Of course, communication isn’t just about language. Subtle things like tone of voice, context, gesture and facial expression are critical to human interaction. It’s vitally important to be sensitive to these little details and gestures as they can make such a critical difference to meaning. Blank, staring DeSalvo may be DeSirable on a romance novel cover but in real life it’s essential to understand the visual clues that indicate what’s going on inside a person’s mind.

Luckily the creators of Kapesní Slovník s vý slovností are not ones to shirk their duty, however tricky. They've included in their fine dictionary a handy one-page guide to the specific nuances of facial expression. Since I've found them very useful already this morning (especially scared/frightened/fearful) I’ve reproduced the images below. Much as the delicate twitch of an eyelash in a "Noh" drama can convey so much, the following masterful depictions of human emotion demonstrate the importance of the smallest detail when it comes to the portrayal of mood.







Edited to mess about with photo sizes and layout and so on. This blog design stuff is all a bit beyond my ken. Or even my barbie. Sorry as always if it causes hassle, but wouldn't you rather have the enhanced viewing experience?

Coffee first, then the goat.

This morning I discovered by way of Mrs. Jana (of course) that a Czech expression to unfavourably describe the stick-thin is "as skinny as a goat". This phrase came up in the course of her fervent attempts to sharpen my Czech people description abilities beyond, "He is tall. She is short. They have hair". No prizes for guessing which particular toothpick masquerading as an actress became the topic of conversation.

More importantly, this gave me the notion that there may be aspects of the Czech psyche with which I am One. The goat thing in particular. For although it is a fairly recent enmity, I hate, loathe and despise the vile beasts. I am emphatically not the goat fan. I am the rabid and irrational goat anti-fan. I take great delight in eating vast quantities of chèvre cheese on the grounds that somewhere, somehow, I may be depriving a runty baby goat of its mother's milk. If I went carnivorous, goat would be on the menu every night.

The origins of this sentiment aren't hard to discover. For a period of time I looked after a small child who had a pet goatlet (not my idea). Child was an early-morning type. I was not. Child was hugely amused by my pre-dawn incoherence. I was not.

It's probably obvious where this was headed, but at 5:00 am my thought processes aren't up to much.

Peaceful snoring.
Door opens.
Shove.
Goatlet enters.
Door closes.
Clip-clop of goaty hooves.
Snuffling noises.
Mastication.
Psssshhhhh.
Mastication.
Ominous silence.
Faint splish-splish.
Rumination.
Clip-clop.
Wet tug on hair.
Reflex tug back.
Loud BLEAT of offended ruminant.
Left ear deafened.
Goaty teeth chomp.
Howls of pain.
Goat flees.
I pursue.
Feet land in sticky puddle of goat effluvia.
Mix well.
Howls of rage.
Child chuckles.
Rinse and repeat.

Pause for an important notice

I love it when a book generates the kind of unseemly laughter that makes people carefully back away from me on public transport. It's kinda rare, and usually unexpected. So particularly if you've ever read one of those books along the lines of, A Year in Some Rustic European Idyll with Better Food than the Palate-Abusing Muck of Boring Grey England, James Hamilton-Paterson's Cooking with Fernet Branca is a good bet.

By the way, if you're someone for whom I buy books as presents and it doesn't appeal or you've got it already, speak now or forever after… 'Cos otherwise you'll probably be getting a copy for Christmas or the next big festive event. It's a fast, light read and quite pick-up-able, so even though there's no audio book, those with sprogs should be okay. If you're still in Abuja, I'm gonna need that mailing address…

That is all.

This monkey's gone to heaven...

NB. Might make more sense to read the post below first. Or not, as you like. Also, still figuring out fonts, so editing a bit. Sorry.

*typing very quietly*

Beautiful Moravian Whitney wakes up. She is on a magnificent stallion thundering through the forest-jungle. She looks down with her beautiful brown princess eyes to see a pair of handsome gorilla warrior hairy arms. She is in the firmly-muscled hairy arms of the handsome gorilla warrior! She is riding on a stallion thundering through the leafy forest-jungle! Sheer drama and excitement of the moment overwhelms the beautiful Moravian princess Whitney and she swoons, gracefully.

Beautiful Moravian princess Whitney wakes up. She is in a soft bed and her beautiful princess shape lies on silken sheets. Her beautiful brown eyes open like big brown pools. They look arou- Oi! What do you think you're doing, you great big furry lump?
*SmashOfDeskTrayPropelledByEnragedMarmosetImpactingWithFurrySkull*
Give me that keyboard!

*GruntThwackCrash!GRooaannn*.

Whitney saw she was in a beautiful room. It had big windows and a big door. In the room were a bed, two chairs and two night tables. The bed was performing? ten inches? icicles? ohh… covered with a silk thingy. The silk thingamajig was somethingorother with a toaster and a gold lobster? labrador? (Oh soddit, I'll skip this bit. It's only boring description.)

Whitney special-verb-for-walked (woo-hoo!) to the window. Looking out, she saw an enormous and beautiful courtyard filled with happy peasants in picturesque national dress. Some smiled and waved at her. A woman started to sing a joyful song of welcome.

At that moment, Whitney sensed a dark and brooding presence behind her and turned, ready to face her unknown captor... *Enraged howling* Get your stinking paws off that book, you damn dirty monkey! I'll wring your so-dull-and-boring neck, you soulless maniac! Your writing has no poetry, no beauty, no Art!!! Where is your heart? Your passion???

*sound of a bag of crisps or possibly a small primate being shaken*

Gurrrrkk…paws… no… dirty… bozo… just... had... pedicure…

Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight I will perform a feat of lunatic daring.

If my profile and details about my life were actually a cunning ruse to conceal the fact that this blog was produced by an infinite number of monkeys tapping away at keyboards in some wrinkle in the fabric of time, the collective might view this cover with a sense of quiet satisfaction. monkeysayahhhhhheheheh…

But of course, this is a ridiculous idea. Ridiculous? Who are you calling ridiculous, macadamia-breath? For one thing, it’s highly unlikely that monkeys would have the in-depth knowledge of Czech required to produce a summary of the novel. They would if they were a stunningly-marked colobus who’d spent four years in Prague zoo until they were able to effect a daring escape disguised as a miniature train driver.

Of course, my command of Czech isn’t quite up to the required level either, Command? It’s a bit rich to describe your pretty desultory ability that way, methinks. Saying “I have big flat. I have a clean windows” isn’t my definition of a command of the language so I’ve asked a brave and noble staggeringly big-headed colobus colleague to help out with words of more than one syllable some of the trickier words.

Since a synopsis of the Czech version might be helpful for students of translation theory, without much more ado, Show-off. Just because you’ve been sitting around on your tufty arse writing those stupid plays for decades while some of us were suffering… Oh for crying out loud, three square meals a day and all the totty you can boff is not suffering. You only left because they said you were getting fat and cut your banana ration. Besides, you try writing in iambic bloody pentameter day in day out. It's a wonder I'm not stark staring mad. Who said you weren’t? And I’m solidly built, not fat. I bring you, the classic of regency romantic fiction, Whitney… whisperwhisperwhisper Subtitle? What do you mean subtitle? It doesn’t have a subtitle. Oh, just forget it…

The greedy father of the beautiful Moravian princess, Whitney, has sold her to a secret outer-space technology program run by a mysterious and wealthy benefactor. He tells Whitney she has a new job as an astronaut and she takes off in a strange rocketship. Hang on... Who is expert translator? You or me? The ship travels at high speed into a time-sucking star thing. Whizz whizz whizz. There is strange moog music, whoo-oo-ooo-ooo, and streaks of coloured light. It gets very cold. Whitney freezes. It's very hard frost.

Big bang. No, not that big bang, the other one. Pervert. No, not that one either. Okay, maybe not a big bang. Big thud and sound of tearing metal. Beautiful young Moravian Whitney in her rocket lands in jungle-forest. No, I have not watched too many episodes of “Lost” on DVD. Her two big beautiful eyes blink. They open. I tell you, this is nothing like “Lost”. Here are two blinking eyes, not one eye. I have learned all about the adjectival agreement of “two”.

There are noises of crashing. Horses come through the woulds stupid English spelling woods. An arm reaches for beautiful young Moravian Whitney. It is a hairy arm! It is the arm of hairy gorilla! It is the arm of a handsome hairy gorilla warrior! All right, that’s it. Stop right now. What is it with you old world apes and your obsession with over-developed pectoral muscles? This is nothing like the book. And what’s with the stupid style? Don’t give me that “lexical problems in translation”, “all will be smoothed out in the editing” crap. Are you trying to make us look dumb? Damn right I could do better. When? Tomorrow. I’ve had enough for today. I’m going to the pub.

Edited a lot to mess around with fonts to make this more legible. Sorry for any hassle caused.

Friday other-half-of-thirteen

Can't be bothered to focus on reality today, so I'm just going to lie. Six-and-a-half times.

1. My new high-tech-optimum-security work ID makes me look lithe, attractive and awake.
2. More fried cheese? What a delicious meal prospect! You can never have too much fried cheese.
3. With practice, I will able to walk between the raindrops, ensuring my freshly dry-cleaned suit does not get soaked.
4. Mmmm…. Rusks! The breakfast of kings!
5. No, your 3-hour teleconference is not distracting me in the slightest. I quite understand that you have to shout to be heard in Bulgaria.
6. Wow! When I said how much I loved fried cheese I was really hoping you'd double my portion! Thank you, from the bottom of my clogged dorsal aorta.
½. Secretly, I find accordian music rather appealing. (I think that's a cry for help.)

Thursday Half-a-Thirteen

Six-and-a-half things that whisper "You're not in Kansas London anymore."

1. Loo cubicles are complete self-contained little rooms with their own light switches. Running water, a lock and electricity - you could move in.
2. The excitement of a choice between either a 3l or 10l flush.
3. The weight of a dish appears on menus. Not like "6 oz. steak". I mean like, "Pasta with pomodoro sauce and parmesan cheese - 120 grams", "All salads 150g including 50g meat/fish/cheese".
4. Obvious to some, but traffic goes the other way (yes, I still court death by tram regularly each morning when crossing the street. Damn but those things are quiet).
5. No turnstiles in metro stations.
6. Contra-instinctive shop etiquette: change and payments go in the little dish/tray by the till, not directly into the shop assistant's hand. This still feels as if I'm being rude.
½. Coffee is more concentrated (smaller and stronger).

Cliiiiiffff!!!!!

Thinking about Cliff Richard always makes me mindless with terror, so after yesterday's assorted debacles I decided to vanquish negative vibes by listening to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots about ah… four times. Fear not for the sanity of my neighbours, flatmates and colleagues - I used headphones.

But there is something about lyrics that boldly strike out for bonkers story-telling territory that makes me happy. Especially when they involve aliens, orcs and denizens of the primal seas at the centre of the earth. I love lyrics that skirt the edge of danger; ever-vulnerable to that one over-wrought line or polysyllabic word that tips them over the precipice and onto the jagged rocks of ridicule. I even love it when they take the plunge, although I'm less likely to play the results on permanent loop.

Perhaps back in the late 60s/early 70s many songwriters didn't give a laughing gnome for vertigo. It's more likely that the mastadon-felling quantity of toasted magic toadstools they consumed had them convinced they could soar like wonky technicolour eagles over the dangerous waters beneath. But man, or rather maaaaannn, did they write a lot of silly stuff. And nothing can cheer me up more quickly than a grown man in a fright wig, platform boots, cape and luminous green tights singing impassioned lyrics about antediluvian druids, Stonehenge and the furry feet of hobbits. Don't knock it, it works.

Part of the fascination lies in trying to decide whether or not they're being serious, since some of the efforts resemble Spinal Tap out-takes. The alternative is marvelling at what might be required to take this seriously. The image forms of hairy people sitting in a circle around a bubbling pot of tie-dye, saying things like, "Wooahh…interplanetary spacecraft…flown by…those are some nice fur leggings maann…maybe with hooves?...uhhh...what rhymes with dolphin?"

Anyhow, in the middle of all of this, it occurred to me that I don't actually have a theme tune for Prague. And it would distress me if I ended up with some hideous or deeply embarrassing default song as a consequence of buying the wrong tape mix or hearing something on the radio one to many times.

Of course now that we have iTunes this is less of an issue than it has been in the past but still, I worry. These things can creep up on a person, and before you know it, "The Horse with No Name"* is irretrievably lodged in some sick, twisted part of my psyche as The Official Theme for This Period of My Life and there's nothing I can do about it.

So obviously as a start I had to google for song lyrics with "Prague" in them somewhere (googling for "Czech" + song lyrics just brings up incomprehensible pop songs and rap lyrics that I'm sure Mrs. Jana would not approve as learning aids). So far, the news is not positive. The best of the bunch is Damien Rice's Prague, but although he does arrangements with a cello (more cello in pop is a good thing, just like there should be more brass in pop too) his style is a little mournful for this purpose. But all this leaves me with so far are:

OMD, Radio Prague
Babylon Whores, Death in Prague
Killing Joke, Jana
Half Man Half Biscuit, All I want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit
The Dead Milkman, The Infant of Prague Customized my Van.

Suggestions on a postcard, please.

*Too late for this one - it's already the theme to the summer of '91. Curse you, GCSE music analysis exam. Whyohwhy did you have to pick that year to go all pop-tastic on us?

I demand a recount!

You Are 86% Evil

You're the most evil person you know. Even Cliff Richard is a little scared of you.

How Evil Are You?

This travesty of a poll is clearly rigged. When I find out who stole that 14%...

It is a time of dread...

The axial tilt of the planet know as "Earth" has caused solar energy to fall on central Europe at a more direct angle. Inland humidity has reached 64%. The incessant heat has begun to make its effects felt on the helpless. Denizens of this climactic zone have been driven to ever-increasing extremes of fashion in the quest for relief from the oppressive temperatures, known as "summer".

In the check-in queue for a certain budget airline at Prague airport, weary travellers bask in the air-conditioned cool, little caring that the single trainee on the desk means it will be over an hour before they can finish. At least they no longer have to move (much).

One man in particular appears to have caught the spirit of the season by its neck and wrung it like a soggy flannel. Proud and tall he stands, skinny of limb and knobbly of joint. His dark hair is neatly combed over his bald spot, his beard is full and lush. His glasses are large, with thick dark frames. His feet are in dark dress shoes polished to a mirror shine; the hems of his white socks precisely bisect his legs at mid-calf height. From there, the blinding white of pipe-cleaner legs is only enhanced by his luxuriant body hair.

His black cotton thigh-length shorts are neat and perfectly pressed, with knife-edge creases down the front. There are unmistakable signs that this appearance is the product of planning and effort. Above, despite his presence in a public airport where temperatures are chilly enough to require jackets, his checked cotton short-sleeved shirt is buttoned only to the naval. The air-conditioned breeze whispers over his body with predictable effects on parts of his anatomy most would prefer to ignore.

Presumably for the visual delight of all others in the immediate area, his shirt falls open in starched folds about his torso, revealing the glorious round fullness of his firm, high beachball belly. It bears a peculiar V-shaped burn in glowing red streaked in white. It mesmerises. Members of the queue consider setting up a sweepstakes on whether his waters will break before he reaches passport control.

'Tis true that clothes do not make the man: they are mere packaging. But packaging bears labels, and in this case a hazard warning that states, "Beware, English abroad". Sigh. Y'know, my flatmates, they are American. And the only Americans that seem to make it over here are young, lithe college kids in trendy sportswear. The Brits, by contrast, look as if their ideas are derived from the "before" segment of "What not to Wear" and then customised with cast-offs from a charnel house. So the comparisons are becoming painful.

Anyhow, I'm no fashionista. I wear funny red shoes. But if this is what it's coming to, can I become a cultural refugee? Or is there a way to lobby easyjet to stock muumuus and gags for such passengers? Because between this and the drunken compliments on how fluent my English is for a "Czech bird", I'm beginning to get a little testy towards my fellow countrymen. Now, where did I put my sharp stick?

But Madame, zese posts, zey are laik buses!

…but not the routemaster *sniff*

Was actually going to save this for tomorrow, but can't be bothered to sit on it 'til Friday. Besides, who knows what I'd catch? At last, a possible solution for those times when a gaping dateless maw looms large in my social life.* Celibacy has never looked so good.

Ten Green Bottles

Forgive me. I have been somewhat distracted by (in no particular order).
1. Work.
2. Study/writing thing. I defy you (okay, maybe just me since I can't use one word where a sentence will do) to write a mere 2000 words on power. 2000 words? Surely you jest? I have that and a warehouse of sofas whose backs are stuffed full of such words. I will not be chained by your pesky word limits - do you hear me? What? Marks deducted? Oh. *wearily picks up chainsaw and continues editing*
3. Online kerfuffle.
4. Homework of the Czech variety.
5. Loose boulders in Switzerland (see 1).

So to keep things here ticking over, thought I'd fulfill rpc's request for a photo of Mrs. Jana. She's sensitive on these matters, so I hired someone to distract her. Since the hapless volunteer rapidly lost lower-limb function and collapsed on the floor, the proportions shown are somewhat misleading. She is in fact several inches shorter than me, although her hair is normally much taller. It's tricky to pick her out when she's not wearing her glasses, but she's the redhead on the right.

Right. Now to find some of those cats you wanted.

Drive-by post no.2 (with a side of spicy curly fries)

On other seasonal matters, even if you don't follow the footie, Nancy Dell'Olio's diaries as published by the Grauniad are much fun.

Drive-by post no.1 (with onion rings and root beer)

Oh yay! A weekend of eating sun-warmed strawberries and gorgeous salads in people's gardens. It's been bloody marvellous. Summer has finally y-bloody-well-cumen in, loude sing cuckou! Louder (and unashamedly poppier) still sing The Pipettes. This song makes me want to doo-wop down to Dotty P. and blow next month's budget on polka-dot frocks. Catchy as hell and pure summer froth. Listen at your own risk.

Three Little Words

…but they're probably not, "Have a banana."

You know Mrs. Jana? The formidable lady who is supplying me with the linguistic tools for my assault on the Czech language? She who cheers me ever onward as I traumatise my hapless colleagues and random strangers with feats of verbal daring? (There's a lady in the sandwich shop near work who visibly flinches and retreats behind the crusty rohliky when I walk in the door.)

Well, she is a woman of Machiavellian cunning. She was clearly unconvinced by my paltry excuses for a lack of grammatical precision when ordering beef stew with dumplings during Tuesday's role play exercises. (Curse you a thousand times, oh bizarre-rules-of-declension-that-only-affect-masculine-animate-nouns-which-category-deceptively-includes-dead-animals-and-fish-but-not-eggs.) She views with scorn my plans for a 4-day weekend of frolicking in parts Britannic.

And so, to prevent me backsliding, she has given me several sheets of fruit to identify. Easy? You might think so. And perhaps with a dictionary, it might be. But so far, late nights at work have been an obstacle to acquiring that particular learning aid. Especially as Mrs. Jana recommends a "special" one with pictures. (Should that make me laugh or cry?) So instead I may end up in the fresh produce section of my local Albert, notebook and sheets in hand. This may be the straw that breaks the Black Ox's back after that check-out debacle with the unweighed bag of carrots.

But here's the rub(-arb). I have just received a text from her, which reads: "I am waiting". Nothing else. No greeting, no sign-off, no smiley faces.

Now I can tell myself that this message has been hovering somewhere in SMS-space since my slight delay in arriving this morning. Messages occasionally do this and it is of no concern. But the part of my subconscious that remembers what it was like to be a small squishy primate beleaguered by big pointy-toothed beasts is very very afraid.* Waiting where? With what? An AXE??? Eeek. Or perhaps even Oook.

*On re-reading, I dimly recall reading something similar in a Terry Pratchett?? In which case, apologies/credit to him.

"She did it the hard way" (Bette Davis)

The famous last words post/game below reminded me of my favorite epitaph, evah. Yes, it's possible to have one. No, this doesn't make me weird. Of course there's always Spike Milligan's famous, "I told you I was ill" (in Gaelic). But for sheer relish, language and content it has to be the one I came across in the church of St. Andrew's, Bramfield, Suffolk on a quick trip to that corner of England about a year or so ago. The church is noted for its detached tower, but even better, it's graced by the memorial stone of one Bridgett Applewhaite.

According to the venerable church historian, D.P. Mortlock, (now that's a proper name, none of this Bluebell Madonna twaddle for him), the Ecclesiological Society magazine of 1846 refused to print the full text of the memorial as it was "so very revolting and profane that we shall not defile the pages of our publication by reproducing it…"

On the other hand, I fully intend to sully the pages of this publication at any possible opportunity, so here's the full text, verbatim.

Between the Remains of her Brother EDWARD,

And of her Husband ARTHUR,

Here lies the Body of BRIDGETT APPLEWHAITe

Once BRIDGETT NELSON.

After the Fatigues of a Married Life,

Born by her with Incredible Patience,

For four Years and three Quarters, baring three Weeks;

And after the Enjoiment of the Glorious Freedom

Of an Easy and Unblemisht Widowhood,

For four Years and Upwards,

She Resolved to run the Risk of a Second Marriage-Bed

But DEATH forbad the Banns -.

And having with an Apoplectick Dart

(The same Instrument with which he had

Formerly Dispatcht her Mother)

Toucht the most Vital part of her Brain;

She must have fallen Directly to the Ground

(as one Thunder-strook,)

If she had not been Catcht and Supported

By her Intended Husband.

Of which Invisible Bruise,

After a Struggle for above Sixty Hours,

With that Grand Enemy to Life,

(But the certain and Mercifull Friend to Helpless Old Age,)

In Terrible Convulsions Plaintive Groans, or Stupefying Sleep,

Without Recovery of her Speech, or Senses,

She Dyed, on the 12th day of Sep in ye Year of our Lord 1737 and of her own Age 44.

On the home letch

The Czech Rep. is supposed to be one of Europe's property hotspots, where investors from all over feverishly snap up real estate like hot palačinky. Those in the know mutter sagely about the EU, stable economy and plans to adopt the Euro in 2010.

These arguments have their place, but I suspect the pundits have neglected to give enough credit to the wily ways of Czech marketing. This is the central panel of a billboard advertisement for a new suburban development outside Karlovy Vary. I stand astonished at the way it elegantly sums up the tremendous advantages of buying on this estate. Lovely brickwork.

Practice makes...

Just in case my comment in the last post about mangling Czech at my long-suffering colleagues led anyone to believe that I was suffering from delusions of adequacy in this language, here is a true and accurate account of this morning's efforts.

I have translated it into English with appropriate adjustments for accent, vocabulary and the conversational style and panache of a voluble 3-year old going through that phase where they say the same thing over and over and over and over again, possibly accompanied by rhythmic beating on a saucepan. And I'm probably making myself look good here.

Me: Gott mourning, Janoš*
J: Good morning.
Me: Hello-jour, JanOhš?
J: Hello.
Me: How ere yeuh, Janoš?
J: Who's been here before. Fine, and you?
Me: We- Weh- Whee- Fine.
J: Can no longer speak as breathing and speech organs fully compressed by fit of hysterical laughter.

I turn to my new victim. He is hiding under his desk but fortunately I am still able to shout in the direction of his feet:

Me: Good morning, Pre- Pzh- Prshemsyl.*
P: In muffled but fluent English. You can say Premek, it's easier.
Me: Still in English. No, it's okay. I have to practice.
P: Sighing noise drifts up from under desk. It's Přemysl.
Me: Pzhhrrremyls. No hang on, Przhm- PrzhemSYL.
P: Sobbing noise emerges from beneath desk. That's right. Swiftly changes subject. In Czech: How are you?
Me: Hello. How are you?
P: Fine. And you?
Me: We- Weh- Wherh- WELLuhgh.

(Still more peculiar noises emerge from beneath desk, but Přemysl is trapped by his ergonomic office chair and cannot move without tearing his trousers 'neath my dainty foot.)

Me: Goudd wheekEND?
P: Yes, thank you. And you?
Me: Yes. Yes, I have a goudd wheekEND. (Cannot do past tense yet). On sotto voce: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, SAT- Saturday I wakeuppp 5 hours 30 minutes (note: digital time only). We go to metro stay-shUN. In English: No, wait… In approximate Czech: STYA-shun. (Bangs desk with with fist to emphasise required stress on first syllable). We read. We swim. We ski. In English: What's "wait"?
P: In Czech. Wait.
Me: We wait. Our... In English: oh shit, what's friend?
P: In Czech. Friend.
Me: Our frie- rzfi- compani-onions they come. We go-by-vehicle (Czech verb for "to go" depends on transport used) tah Florenc. We-nous-allons-go-by-vehicckle Karlovy Vary. We walke Karlovy Vary. We walke Loket. 18 kilometre. We are big hongryie. We eat Loket.We slep slope, in English: oh dammit. Back to Czech for foreign idiots: SLEETP! We wakeoupppp. We walke Loket. We sees castle. We go. On, muttering: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, resonant and booming: SUN-day we walk... in English: shit sorry, more Czech for idiot foreigners: go-by-vehicckle Prajj.

(Looks round for reassurance and paeans of adulation. J is studiously at work, wearing headphones. Apart from the odd scuffling noise, there is silence from beneath desk.)

Me (soldiering on bravely, like good little Švejk): We go-by-vehicckle at 13 hour 0-50. In English: No wait, shit, ummmmm… Czech version 1.0: 15? 50? 500? 32? English: Oh yeah, Czech: 5!…. Hour 0-5. I am glad it hap-PY wheekehnd.

(Beams with exhausted pride at mastery of newest construction. Tears are running down Janoš' face. Přemysl appears to have abandoned his trousers and escaped by removing his desk drawers and the back of the stationary cupboard. Silence falls like a lead knedlik [potato dumpling]. Enter Maciek, pursued by a bear. Or was it bare?)

Me: Gott mournang, Maciek.*
M: In fluent English: I am Polish. I don't speak Czech.
Me: Tough. Goudd Mournzingg, Maciek.
M: Sighs. Realises efforts to fend me off with a rolled-up newspaper are in vain. Hello.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent victims of linguacide.

PS. Edited 'cos my opinion of my html skillz was a tad over-inflated and I messed up a load of the nested stuff, then did a double post. Sorry.

Hezky Víkend, beguine again

Since I absolutely dread speaking "foreign" English, where you just say the words MORE... LOUDLY... AND... SLOWLY... WITH... CLIPPED... ENDS... UND... A... FUNNY... ACZENT... AND... NOT... GRAMMAR... NEIN!... NE!..., I'm having Czech lessons with the delightful and only mildly terrifying Mrs. Jana. Due to her ability to look fierce at 7:30 in the morning, we've already whizzed through the innumerable greetings that pepper the Czech day: Good Very Early Morning, Good Morning, Good Slightly Before Noon, Good Noon, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Night (mercifully all situations can be covered by this idiot foreigner under the umbrella pleasantry, "Dobry Den"). Yay us!

Mrs. Jana has now declared her mission to haul me through the intricacies of verbage and the accusative case (singular) by my quaking earlobes. This means that I can now say many useful things, to wit: "I have a good book, He has a modern car, They have a tall brother." I can also tell time, but only in digital, since apparently the o'clock business is the sort of thing that makes students or even this befuddled studentka run away screaming into the night.

Being the generous sort, I absolutely insist on inflicting my new-found knowledge on my Czech colleagues, and even the Polish ones if they don't duck fast enough. Luckily so far they've found this hilarious rather than insulting. However, the time has now come for me to stop using the nifty photocopies provided by Mrs. Jana, who has been making stern noises of late. Therefore I have bitten the bullet and acquired a copy of Czech Step-by-Step, billed as "The most beautiful textbook in 2004 in CR". I haven't yet removed the cellophane to unveil the beauty that must surely lie beneath its glossy yellow cover decorated with little footprints, but will be sure to report when I do.

In the meantime, the blurb inspired me to have a look at the covers in the the "Women's Fiction" for inspiration. Cue childish giggles from one corner of "Knihy Dům" in Wenceslas square. But I think this section requires my handy-dandy digital camera to do it justice. Another time perhaps, unless they arrest me for attempted cover art plagiarism or some kind of weird book stalking.

These are the days when you wish your bed was already made...

Last few days:

EvilAuntiePeril: -3 Blogger 10,385,029.
My "sit bones": 2 Oversized man's bicycle: 59
My sinuses: -39.5 Czech weather: 29.89 bar

Luckily, I have found the street of a thousand health food shops. Or rather, two health food shops, an up-market organic restaurant and a Hare Krishna bakery. My poppyseeds now have an extra-good-no-cruelty-to-chickens karmic aura.

And yet...

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"I dunno, press the button and find out."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Running on Fumes

You know how it's really very hard to concentrate when there's building work going on? When men in paint-spattered work clothes are raising dust and carrying out manly tasks with tools in a carpetless corridor the other side of the office door? When the noises of real work echo smugly round the building? You know how it's really really hard to… Oh yeah.

It's forcing me to pronouce the words in my mind as I write them, rather than just letting them slide out of my mind and onto the screen. It's intensely irritating and feels as if my keyboard is inexblicably sticky. I'm twitchy, under constant threat of ambush from a new noise. Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Pause. Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Blessed silence.
Ah… Peace
Anxiety creeps in.
Shhhhh...
Still quiet but,
No, be calm...
Any minute n--

BANG!BANG!BANG!

sigh.

But although I am eyeballing these particular specimens of Czech manhood (hee! I said manhood!) with some disfavour, all is not lost. This morning on the way into work, a particularly shaggy gentleman staggered his way onto the train and slumped down in the seat next to mine. He then proceeded to pass out and exude a rather pungent and noxious vapour.

I began to contemplate important matters: Exactly how rude it would appear to get up and move to the other side of the train post haste? Should I warn everyone in the vicinity to switch their mobile phones off lest a random spark ignite the gases filling the carriage, turning the train into a rattling early 70s Soviet art deco inferno of doom? Could I hold my breath for another three stops?

Then the gentleman in question awoke and began to address me in Czech. Apparently assuming from my lack of response that I was deaf rather than ignorant, he leaned closer and began to speak more loudly and distinctly at a distance of about 6 inches from my right nostril.

I re-checked the number of stops to my station and stared blankly ahead. My mind frantically worked. Would hysterical screams be an unforgiveable breach of etiquette? How long would it take to develop psychic powers? Would groaning repel or attract him further? When would the gas masks descend from the storage area above my seat?

And then, to my complete astonishment, a Czech teenager clad in football kit who stood nearby turned to the gentleman in question and began to chat with him. I have no idea what he said, but it was clearly compelling. It distracted the gentleman in question out of my personal space for the rest of my journey, leaving only a trace of odorous steam and a huge sigh of relief behind him. My hero.