Oscar Time...

So what´s with Beyonce Knowles performing with a horde of young boys in uniforms.... ;-) I know I´m not the only one to see the perversiveness ;-P Oh And WHY???? I ask again why not have Minnie Driver herself perform the Phantom of the Opera song that she sang to begin with..?!? Smacks of payoffs :-(

Oh and did Orlando look in Bloomin good or what ;-) Liked the cut of that suit ....

Oh and if you´re intrigued by the hungover cat that is me ;-P check out the pictures from last nights "Þorrablót" the annual "get together and eat smelly food" festival :-D

Awwww ;-) aren´t we cute......

How I feel today...

Old but good ;-)

A Community language is the only way...

Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC, the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments. European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult; take for example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staffed, at top level, by the principal nations.

In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.

There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it was announsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written ' f '. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend.

By this tim it would be four years sins de skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from words kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand esh ozer. Ze drems of ze Guvermnt vud finali hav kum tru.......

Silent thoughts in visual form...

The Glove ....

Here´s an oldie yet a good one. We were discussing recurrent themes in Emblematas, riddles and the incongruity that binds it all...as well as our own dirty thinking ;-) And I remembered this joke from ages ago that fit the discussion perfectly and voile, on page two of my yahoo search there it was.. so I decided to share it with you :-D

A young man wished to purchase a gift for his new sweetheart's birthday, and as they had not been dating very long, after careful consideration he decided a pair of gloves would strike the right note -- romantic, but not too personal.
Accompanied by his sweetheart's younger sister, he bought a pair of white gloves; the younger sister purchased a pair of panties for herself.

During the wrapping, the clerk mixed up the items and the sister got the gloves and the sweetheart got the panties. Without checking the contents first, he sealed his package and mailed it to his sweetheart along with this note:


Darling,

I chose these because I noticed that you are not in the habit of wearing any when we go out in the evening. If it had not been for your sister, I would have chosen the long ones with buttons, but she wears short ones that are easy to remove.

These are a delicate shade, but the lady I bought them from showed me the pair she had been wearing for the past three weeks and they were hardly soiled. I had her try yours on for me and she looked really smart.

I wish I were there to put them on you for the first time, as no doubt other hands will come in contact with them before I have a chance to see you again.

When you take them off, remember to blow in them before putting them away as they will naturally be a little damp from wearing.

Just think how many times I will kiss them during the coming year. I hope you will wear them for me on Friday night.

All my Love,
Hollingsworth

P.S The latest style is to wear them folded down with a little fur showing.

[accessed 25
february 2005]

An Eye to the Sky... ;-P

A Most excellent evening :-)

After a day of studying and tidying up (yes it actually happens occasionally ;-) I made some Kjötsúpa (Icelandic lamb/vegetable soup) and then had a great long bath with Metallica blaring at me :-D Perfection !!! I even added those tiny weird flowry thingies Asuka sent me for Christmas which after sweating over the dictionary for a long while I came to the conclusion were probably supposed to go into the bathwater ;-P

Anyways, Halldór just walked in from the snow, and seeing as he a) brought a bottle of wine and b) was studying, I guess I´ll forgive him for coming home so late ;-)

Catch you later, Good thoughts!

A change of seasons...?

Snow... we have snow in Edinburgh!

Use condoms!!!

Why is life so difficult ?!? ;-) Ok so it isn´t all that difficult but boy trying to be a parent and a good one at that definitely IS ! After buying my train ticket for tomorrow and surpricing Halldór at school with iron bru and a chockolate muffin we headed to Blackwells (bookstore)... I allowed them to go downstairs to the childrens section whilst I preused japanese books upstairs and made grand threats of removing privileges were I to find them fighting or misbehaving when I came down. Well I came down and they were perfect, so polite and well behaved just browsing the books, so I decide to reward them with books. They both had books in mind (here is where I start doubting mself) but I quickly persuaded Elena to go for a different one, one with letters and stickers and then proceeded to get Ragnar to change his mind about his book, it was on ancient egypt but too hard for him to read and cost 15 quid, so I found him a simpler one on egypt and another one on mummys. At which point he couldn´t decide.... then he brings harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban, and after having him read me a bit I say sure but lets start with number one and then I ´ll get you the others... plus it´s thinner! Naw..he doesn´t like that... so in the end I´m looking for books bringing new ones to his attention and he´s all bleah, finally I dig up the goosebumps series remembering that it had one book on mummys.. naw he´s not intrested in that but says "I like this one" about another one in the series.
So off I trot, happy with life and myself, to buy books for my children only to return to him looking at me teary eyed and saying he didn´t want that one. At this point horns are sprouting from my forehead and steam is coming from my ears. He tends to do this a lot! Decide something then want to change his mind later and becomes all sullen and withdrawn when it´s not possible.

My dilemma is: was I doing the right thing in trying to manipulate him towards what I though best for him? I did stay in the same genre and had no qualms about the type of story, all that I insisted on was that it was the first in a series, easy enough for him to read and within my financial capabilities. Seems pretty logical until I think back and figure out that all this could probably have been avoided had I just agreed to buy book one or two he chose originally... :-(
What do you think? I don´t want to buy him something that´s not going to get read or used but I do want to encourage independent decision making ....
And here I am overanalyzing again, right?? ;-P
Any thoughts?

A Journey into the Highlands ;-P

o.k. major long time no see, sorry about that, can´t really blame being hectic either.. oh well. On the scale one to ten the greatest news is that of our highland trip with dad. I´d already recounted the adventures of me my precious self driving all the way to Glasgow, and back as well mind you ! ;-P
During the weekend we went out to dinner with Janet, Halldórs friend from school and visited the Falkirk wheel, just south east of Edinburgh. Souds easy dunnit? Well it is if you count in the fact that for the first 3 times or so we tried to leave the city by car we kept returning to the place of origin!! I count myself innocent seeing as I was merely the driver and I had two fully qualified navigators at hand ;-)
The rest of the weekend was spent playing with the trainset dad got Ragnar for Christmas :-D Although I´m not sure exactly who got the most enjoyment out of it ;-) it seemed to be very much the boys playing with a new gadget :-D

Then on the Monday we set off north, first day included Urquhart castle on the shores of Lock Ness and then we stayed the night in Kingussie.

The second day we were racing the sun because yours truly was so intent on catching Eilean Donan castle in the sun, well we just about made it :-D It was truly amazing as usual, and as the amount of photos taken there can bear witness to ;-P
p.s. if you feel like you know the castle and if you´re a movie buff then you might be recollecting a scene from "Highlander" where Connor MacLeod rides accross a bridge away from the castle off to his first battle ;-)

That day, after an amazingly scenic drive through the mountains we stayed in a small town called Plockton.... ahh but it is at this point in the story that I´ve gone ahead of my photos ;-) i.e. I´ve still to post the rest of the travel pics so me thinks I´m going to finish this tale of adventure later :-D
There is also the minor factor that I have to finish writing an abstract for the paper I´ll be delivering in March at a conference of sorts here in Edinburgh :-( Terrified look of panic ... ach.. I guess it´ll work out as long as I actually get to work on it ;-)

Anyways hugs and kisses from snowy/sunny/freezing Edinburgh ;-)

Eilean Donan Castle :-D

Message from John Cleese

"To the citizens of the United States of America: In light of your failure to elect a competent president of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium," and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra'; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up "vocabulary"). Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

4. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

5. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

6. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." American brands will be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

7. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters.

8. You will cease playing American "football." There is only one kind of proper football; you call it "soccer." Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the "World Series" for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

9. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

10. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation."

Well again it´s official

Which Website are You?

The Templars Temple in Temple ;-)

After picking dad up in Glasgow (after an infinitely exciting drive to get there, involving roundabouts, lane changes and me driving on the wrong side of the road ;-) We took the scenic route back home and stopped by in this little village called Temple, seeing as dad wanted to check out a record company (homeowned) there.
Whilst he was inside discussing the pros and cons of Scottish bagpiping in irish pubs in Italy, we trotted down the walkway to the templar abbey below and what a sight to behold. Amazing !, I of course like graveyards to begin with and this was a photgraphic treasure for me !!! So if you´re up for an overdose of photos ala Gunnella, then be my guest and click any of the pictures :-). I´d love some feedback though ;-)
Cheers from Springy Edin...

Flower?

Believe it or not, spring´s already here ;-) I like living here !

So what´s up?

So for some newsupdates... Steini is off back to Denmark, well I assume he´s in Denmark, haven´t heard from him yet and knowing him he might just as well have ended up somewhere entirely different ;-P Kinda envy him of his carefree ways and life sans responsibilities... He´s been living in Christiania for the past year or so, and amazingly enough he actually has a mailing address now .. A vast improvement :-D
But come to think of it, I don´t think I could actually keep that kind of a life up for very long. And then there is always the issue of my two gorgeous little beings. The living proof of my capability for keeping things alive ;-P Didn´t work on cactuses nor on ........ well enough on that ;-)
So what else, well went out partying with Ragna on Saturday ;-) Excellent fun, met up with some rather colourful characters and stayed out late :-D
Oh and I finally allowed Ragnar to get the haircut of his choice!! Well, perhaps not exactly, he had wanted tall spikes in glaring colours so we settled on spikey hair ;-) and some highlights. Weird how they´re growing up, guess it´s inevitable but... ;-P
Anyways, off to school tomorrow, for the first time this year. Weird the semester setup here... Really looking forward to this second semester, as well as meeting the guys ;-) Got one resault back, didn´t like it much at first :-( it´s a 6, but after having been pointed out to that the top possible grade is 8 I guess it´s ok, according to the info it´s equal to a B so.... Still haven´t heard about the other on though and I was struggling on that one, shiver. Better not think about that.
Until later, cheers from Edinburgh :-D Where the trees are already sprouting into bloom. Slight difference from Iceland ;-P

A Sign apart ;-P

Came accross this sign down in Talgarth ;-) Wonder what has had to have gone on before necessity pushed the tenants to put up the sign...?

I´m back..

The essays are over and done with, even recieved a premilimary grade for the first one. Not exactly astounding but neither failed.. and I guess at masters level I can no longer expect my normal grades... sanity is slowly returning now that I´m back from chilly Wales. Wales you ask..? ;-) Well, the British contingent of the AFS held a retreat in Wales over the weekend ;-) Excellent fun!

We met up in Talgarth, apparently approximately 15 minutes from Cardiff ;-P
We, being the Sheffield folklore ma group :-) the intellectuals in question pictured left :-D !
All in all an excellent, albeit slightly tiring, weekend. Filled with loads of new faces, possible contacts and yes,... of course some beer drinking for those of you who know me ;-P
..
Anyways, will write more when coherence seeps back post sleeping ;-) As is obvious sleep is sorely needed seeing as meaning has been lost. New pics on both picture sites and..

Oh yes :-D !! Thank you all for commenting and helping me dechipher whos who on my "strange people who read my blog" list :-D

Hugs and cheers from a warm and somewhat befuzzled Edinburgh (hum wonder if that Millers did me any good ;-P) Yeah.. hey ho hey ho it´s off to sleep I go..