xeger@687: Indeed, and I was aware of that, but the 'hooligan' comment was quite uncalled for.
As for Blake, now, I'm not English, but I do think 'Jerusalem' is quite well known in England, and if you go into the more subtle demographics of who watches which sports there, rugby union (which has taken Jerusalem to its heart) is very much a posh sport, being nominally amateur until about 15 years ago, with Oxbridge graduates common in the playing ranks and certainly in the stands. So quite a few of the crowd would be well aquainted with poetry.
Earl Cooley III @677: Spectator sports are about so much more than jock adulation. A sense of belonging, for one.
xeger #672: Contrary to what you may think you know, watching sports live does not make you a hooligan. Not even in England.
Since the "Twenty-five largest fictional companies" is still off line, I have to ask and hope that Banks' 'Business' was on the list?
Have fun for me. Had planned to be there to meet some of you whose posts I've been reading for years. Then last October happened in Iceland.
But there will be another WorldCon and another ML party.
TexAnne #104 that sign says 'The USA wants to save European culture from going under'. That's from the Danish on the colour picture, it's Dutch on the b/w, so I'm sure someone can confirm that translation.
Being able to drive to another country has always seemed like a dream from up here. Since last October the thought sounds like the purest fantasy possibly.
Indeed, the 'summer starts...' thing is astronomical vs meteorology. Up here, the latter dominates, much for the reasons stated (weather is more important than length of day). In fact in the old Icelandic calendar reckoning, there were six months of summer and six months of winter. I call that optimistic, I tend towards six months of winter, three of spring and three of autumn.
The US seems to go astronomical.
And as to the economy thing, yeah, US might not be in a good way, but any extra exit strategy would be a bonus. At least I have a job again.
As for the baking collapse, everyone is going "Dough!! you should have foreseen that!"
Sadly, no. A US citizenship would be quite a handy thing to have once the time comes that economic collapse here necessitates escape
Sunrise at 2:55AM yesterday, sunset at 12:04 this morning here in Reykjavik.
Xopher @14: "Summer is the season when days are longer than nights, but growing shorter. " I think you missed out 'In the US' at the start of that. This only applies in certain areas of the globe. May and June here are not that much warmer than July, and at the end of August things are definitely cooling down. Conversely, even if January and February are colder, if any one were to come here in November and think it wasn't winter, because that starts on Dec 21st... well...
Oh, and a certain someone wrote about stuff happening at Midsummer, I believe I have an ally *g*.
Over in Sweden they had their 'Midsommar' celebrations last weekend. Quite the festival apparantly.
Serge@44: Nice touch.
http://twitter.com/ApolloPlus40 tweets the journey as it happened, although I don't think I'll be staying up to follow it on the day, or night, as it is.
Xopher's #9 is Fbzr Rapunatrq Riravat
The next one isn't so confusing unless you run it through Japanese, Chinese and Korean:
#22 Due to the regulations or, because it is not, of this she is one that asks
A short report from Iceland, and this one while jumping the gun a little, it may be of more general interest than previous ones, so please bear with me until the punchline.
But first, boring political details. The government of the Independence Party (centre-right-far right) and the Social Democratic Alliance (centre-left) has collapsed, an all-party unity government looks unlikely and a minority government of the SDA and Left-Greens (what it says on the tin) looks fairly certain. Now the leader of the SDA has been having treatment for a benign tumour (see #279 and 280) so is not claiming the Prime Ministership and reports say that an agreement is close that the Minister for Social Affairs (from the SDA) will become PM.
Now she would be Iceland's first female PM, but certainly not the world's.
What she *would* be, is the world's first openly lesbian PM. As far as I know, and a short Google doesn't tell me otherwise.
For those who want their politics dramatic, it's hard to beat Iceland atm. Further on from the Sidelight and Sica #248, today the PM and head of one of the two parties in the coalition government announced he had a minor cancer of the oesophagus, was stepping down as party chairman (but not as PM) and called an election for May 9th. What with the chair of the other reigning party, the Foreign Minister, just today returning from Sweden from an op on a benign brain tumour, Icelandic politics doesn't look like the healthiest profession around.
For US relevance, some suggest that Obama fever has been partially to blame/thank for the fervour of the protests, as the change in the US galvanises folks.
From Iceland, thank you, all who voted for Obama
I can now go to bed.
Since we know there are only 200 people in there world anyway, it is of course inevitable that ML would have as a longtime reader (and very occasional de-lurker) an Icelander who works at Kaupthing.
And yes, the past three weeks have sometimes felt like a novel was happening to me. But only as a minor character.
I was quite disappointed not to find XXXV QVVX in the signaling code. This, we're reliably informed by Pratchett and Gaiman, means "Have found Lost Continent of Atlantis. High priest has just won quoits contest".
Maybe that's in the section that everyone promises NOT to talk about to non-sailors.
Sica @ 918, even if I'm a big fan of both types of 'slátur' (liver sausage and 'bloodfat') I'm still not trying haggis and I lived for a year in Glasgow. I don't know why lungs should faze me, but they do.
Hákarl isn't great, but edible, especially with schnapps.
I wonder how many nations have elevated their 'eat this or die' food to 'national delicacies'. Quite a few I think.
I first heard this mp3 years ago, and reliably for these days, someone has put some sort of video together and it is now on YouTube. Carmina Burana on banjo.
Like Dan #669 said: You bastards.
I'm BjornFr on LT
It took ages to do the amazon imports, .com and .co.uk, had to save html files, upload to a web server and then import. (700+ and 600+ items in those files respectively, books, DVDs and CDs, too large to upload)
After that it's taken LT about 3 days to process and since they did it in two batches and I got sucked into manually adding books in between, there are even more duplicates. Amazon has this habit of recommending new editions of stuff one owns and therefore there are dups, trips and quads in there, lots of trimming left.
I have also ordered a cue:cat, both for old stuff and also to quickly add new ones.
I'm not looking forward to adding my older Icelandic books, even the new ones with ISBNs might be trouble, or my 50 odd Folios.
Looks like LT is missing an 'add exactly this book' from others' libraries, as opposed to sending you to search.
No matter, I'll get them all in.
Oh, and I'm a long time lurker but have met some people here due to elsewhere on the nets, mostly the ones who live furthest away.
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|---|---|
| 2009 | 14 |
| 2008 | 5 |
| 2007 | 3 |
| 2006 | 3 |
| 2005 | 2 |
| 2004 | 3 |
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