Monthly archive: December 2007
wassail
A salutation or toast given in drinking someone's health or as an expression of goodwill at a festivity. The drink used in such toasting, commonly ale or wine spiced with roasted apples and sugar. A festivity characterized by much drinking.
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'u r dumb, I can haz Nobel'
From Doris Lessing's Nobel prize acceptance speech:
We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women who have had years of education, to know nothing about the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers.
And all of this because of 'the new internet, which has seduced a whole generation into its inanities'.
Please note that Lessing was too old and ill to make the speech herself and instead had someone else read it out.
Ok, first of all, respect. The woman has a body of work and has achieved what can be considered the highest recognition in literature.
Secondly, that's where I come from too. Absolutely gaga about books since I was four, I was given the fantastic opportunity to choose to study literature.
But hey Doris darling, that's the way the world goes. I was not too happy myself when, in the early Nineties, I found out that my pride and joy, the degree I had moved to London for and worked my butt off to get a first and a distinction, was on the job market just as valuable as a weekend crash course in macrame.
I reinvented myself, never stopped learning new stuff, made a pact with the Evil Internet Overlord to feed my intrinsic curiosity and I now work very happily in software development. And as soon as I can afford it, I am going to enrol in a part-time BSc in computer science.
Never, ever look back, no matter how golden the past may seem to you. Chances are you are idealising it anyway.
Besides, OMG teh title of this post is just 2 funny LOL (by the way, credit goes to whoever captioned the image that illustrates this Techcrunch article on Lessing's lecture).
collude
To act together secretly to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose; conspire.
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My week on the web
Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account last week:
- FireShot :: Firefox Add-ons
'FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations.' - Edit your photos on Flickr
Picnik/Flickr collaboration allows online photo editing of your Flickr pics. Will try if I ever sit at a machine without photoshop. Not a great fan of photo editing anyway. What you snap is usually what you get.
Christmas tree surgery
December 9th is traditionally the date when Christmas starts in Dr B.'s family, as his brother's birthday is on the 8th and it would not be nice to steal his thunder.
So I popped into town to see if I could find a nice fake yet life-like tree to match my wallet. No, I did not think either.
I thought there could be nothing worse than the unbelievable crowds I had seen in pedestrianised Oxford Circus the previous Saturday. There is actually. It's manic crowds with umbrellas.
So we picked up a Streetcar and went to B&Q in Peckhakm. The website said they had trees on stock. Someone had obviously beaten us to them, and we ended up getting a cheap real one.
We could not see much in the badly-lit outdoor garden section, what being blinded with guilt and all. But when we got home and put it up we saw that it was perfectly proportioned, a pleasure to look at and decorated, its evenly spread out branches forming the perfect conical shape.
Dr B., always the inquisitive scientific mind, had a closer look and noticed that most of the branches had been trimmed, probably in an infernal contraption with rotating blades worth of the scariest Dr Who Christmas episode:
But we won't let that spoil the magic.
raffish
Cheaply or showily vulgar in appearance or nature; tawdry. Characterized by a carefree or fun-loving unconventionality; rakish.
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7 things I did not know last week
- String vests provide excellent insulation by trapping air close to the skin.
- Eleonora Salvatore Dominguin (better known as a model by her nickname Bimba Bosé) is not the daughter of Miguel Bosé's sister Paola, but of his other sister Lucia. Miguel and his niece sing on his latest album, Papito.
- You can count in binary to 31 on the fingers of one hand and to 100 with two hands.
- You can store butter out of the fridge in Butter bells that use water to preserve it at room temperature.
- La Terremoto De Alcorcón is not a man in drag. In my defence, all I had seen of her was the low-quality video of her Hung Up spoof on YouTube. I saw her in the flesh and I can assure you that she is all woman.
- The Italian national anthem is called 'Il Canto degli Italiani'. Most Italians wrongly believe it is called 'Fratelli d'Italia' (from the opening words) or just call it 'Mameli's anthem' (from the name of its composer).
- Madonna's new album, due next April, will be called Licorice. Or Give It To Me. Although it appears that Give It To Me was released in 1991. Whatever…
La Terremoto de Alcorcon, RVT 6 December 2007
I thought only a couple of friends knew about La Terremoto de Alcorcón and her YouTube Madonna spoof video 'Time Goes By (Con Loli)':
Last night at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern it appeared that the whole Spanish expat community knows her well.
It was a riot, with Spanglish banter and a handful of songs (Can't Get You Out Of My Head, Hung Up, Two Hearts, Let Me Out) sung with Spanish lyrics (Let Me Out became Enajena, for instance) along with the adoring crowd.
She also sang the English version of Libérate, the official hymn of this year's Europride in Madrid.
waggish
Characteristic of or resembling a wag (a humorous or droll person; a wit); jocular or witty.
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gizzard
A modified muscular pouch behind the stomach in the alimentary canal of birds, having a thick lining and often containing ingested grit that aids in the breakdown of seeds before digestion.
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The seventh thing I did not know last week
I'm glad nobody noticed an unclosed tag in one of my last posts, which meant there were only six things I did not know last week instead of seven.
See? Not a bad thing to have just a handful of very distracted readers. I'd hate the pressure otherwise.
Anyway. Quite glad that item #4 did not show, as it was rather longer than the others and did not look good. Here it is then:
- Moscow had its own Vauxhall Gardens. Established by Michael Maddox in 1783, they had pleasure gardens, a small theatre/concert hall, a rotunda for promenades, and apartments for tea or supper. The word вокза́л (vokzal) became a synonym for pleasure gardens, one of which was situated at the terminus of the first Russian railway line.
The one described above is a more credible explanation why the Russian word for large, main station is today вокза́л (vokzal) than the popular yet never documented belief that a Russian delegation came to London, arrived in Vauxhall, saw the station name and believed it meant 'station'. Which makes sense, as I'd always found it hard to believe Russians could be that thick.
7 things I did not know last week
- Raw/dry denim should not be washed often. If it smells, stick it in the freezer to kill bacteria.
- Uffie (one of the many reasons I am kindly requested to listen to my music with headphones at home) provides the vocals for Justice's The Party.
- Mayonnaise does not come from Mayonne (France) but from Mahón (Minorca, Spain).
- See Wednesday's update for item #4 in the list.
- A mnemonic aid to remember the names of the various champagne bottle sizes is 'My Judy Really Makes Splendid Belching Noises'.
- Exchanging pecks when going through a kissing gate is a British custom. I thought the people I was walking with were just being extremely friendly.
- Cronenberg's 1996 movie Crash cannot be shown within the City of Westminster (London).
My week on the web
Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account last week:
- APML Beginner's Guide
A very simple yet comprehensive overview of Attention Profiling Markup Language
nostrum
A medicine whose effectiveness is unproved and whose ingredients are usually secret; a quack remedy. A favorite but usually ineffective remedy for problems or evils.
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