Tea in The Local

So I had an article published in The Local, which is probably the world’s biggest outlet for Swedish news through English (a narrow target group, admittedly, but still fairly large).

The article is about tea, and it’s about me doing a bit of moaning about tea, but I guess you’re all used to that by now.

And now, three days after the article has been published I am number 1 on The Local’s “most frequently emailed” list and also present on the “most read” and “most commented” lists.

Now I’m not suggesting that all my readers should go in and start mailing it to everybody they know in order to keep me on that list. No, I’m not suggesting that at all.

Apologies to those of you who have come here via The Local, since you are aware of all this already.

But please feel free to browse the 400 other articles I have scribbled over the years and let me know if anything takes your fancy. Or spew some invective in the comments, whichever you prefer.

Hopefully I’ll get a few more in The Local, acquire a rabid cult following, then a book deal, and then a house in Cornwall with a herd of goats. It’s only a matter of time.

/ paddy

A slightly pointless milestone

So here we are, at last. It’s been a long struggle through time and space: many comments registered, many friends made, many images “borrowed” from Google, and much bile sprayed at things that deserved a good old-fashioned biling.

But now I can lean back and smile smugly, because at long last it’s here: blog entry number 400.

Hurrah!

I admit, as pointless round-number celebrations go, 400 isn’t a great one.

Not at interesting as 500, for example. And less interesting than 100 or even 900.

But still, to us humans, a bunch of zeros at the end of a number sequence always gives us a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

And if there’s one thing I want my readers to have, it’s a nice warm fuzzy feeling.

So here’s to 400! And may there be many more of them.

(Until I get a book deal, because then I’m selling out, closing shop and moving directly to a goat farm in Cornwall.)

/ paddy

Quoting the obvious

After some chatter in my comments (chatter in my comments – is that like a party in my pants?) concerning the erratic and amusing miss-use of quotation marks, I made a discovery in town.

Close to my work I snapped this photo showing the concept in all its glory.

For the Englishophiles, the text basically says:

“Worlds best” sweets!

The idea with these quotation marks is obviously to “tone down” the meaning of the “world’s best” part. As in: 

“We are saying ‘World’s best’ but of course we both know that isn’t true, but we’ll say it anyway, for a laugh. And to avoid being sued we’ll just add the quotes. Done!”

But it doesn’t actually “tone down” the meaning of the phrase at all; what it does is to make it completely ironic and have it mean the opposite to what the person is intending.

Hence the hilarity.

Quotes can also be incorrectly and hilariously used to emphasise something. In this case the person is assuming that quotes are the same thing as italics, bold or underline, the more standard ways to emphasise a point in a text. But again, it just makes the whole thing tragically funny.

You want more? YOU WANT MORE?

Well you got it. Here at the wonderful world of unnecessary quotation marks you can lose yourself in examples of missplaced quotes and reversed meanings.

It’s funny; trust me!

/ paddy

A Farewell to Fores

Many moons ago I applied for a job at a Swedish organisation called Fores. This is a green liberal think-tank who want to focus on solving our severe environmental problems by encouraging both big and small business to get involved.

Now regardless of your political leanings (and I am not at all sure of mine these days) this seemed like a fine idea and a great opportunity, even though the position itself was part-time and a bit vaguely defined.

However the people at Fores turned down my finely crafted application, told me the position basically did not exist any more, and sent me in return a question that went like this:

“Do you know anything about Macs? Because we need somebody to help us keep our Mac network working”.

Which unfortunately told me everything I needed to know about this workplace.

So today I wandered into their site to see how they are getting on and I stumbled onto their scientific advisory board. And my jaw slid open and remained there.

Check it out here. From of a list of  20 people, 2 of them are actual scientists and a further 2 are so vaguely defined that they may or may not be.

The remainder are economists, political scientists (not much to do with science, I think you will agree) and various scattered disciplines far removed from science and technology.

For the love of Jove, they even have a “Gender Researcher”, surely the bottom of the barrel when it comes to academic disciplines.

Conclusion: The “scientific advisors” are not at all scientists, and any advice they offer will be pretty hard to swallow. Which makes the whole idea kind of pointless.

So sorry Fores, but you’re just not pulling any wool over any eyes.

So the lessons to be learned here are:

• Don’t promise things you can’t deliver
• Don’t try and offer us scientific advice from non-scientists
• Don’t fill an office with people who only know how to use Macs
• Don’t turn Paddy down for a job and expect to get away unscathed

/ paddy

Bad Pills

On November 1st 2009, a great and historic thing happened in Sweden.

Was it a battle? A terrorist event? A royal baby to suck our resources dry?

Well no, it was the day when aspirin and other fairly harmless pharmaceuticals were made available in normal shops.

You see (gather round now children, this may take a while) before this day you were unable to buy basic pills anywhere in Sweden except in the state-run pharmacy chain Apoteket. 

Have a headache? Need to buy a morning-after pill? Live in a part of town where there is one Apoteket that opens at 11 on a Saturday and not at all on Sundays?

Then tough. Until now.

So welcome Sweden, to the 20th century.

Now if we can only fix it so we can buy a bottle of wine on a Sunday, give University students exams that actually test their ability, and reward people according to their merits and accomplishments, then we might be able to drag it into the 21st.

/ paddy

Rock gods and rock dots

This blog post is based on an original conversation with Martin Rundkvist.

There was, and is, a healthy tradition in heavy metal and hard rock music to use various extra dots and squiggles over the vowels in the band name.

Think: Motörhead. Or Mötley Crüe. Or Queensrÿche.

This denotes hardness or something. And these special dots are affectionately known, among other things, as “rock dots“.

Now consider, if you will, the 80s metal band Trojan. In the spirit of the age they decided to adorn their name with rock dots. So the album covers and t-shirts all had the typical 80s heavy metal imagery, plus the band name splayed across the top, in all its extra-umlaut glory.

(The Swedes will already see where this is going. So shhhhh…)

I couldn’t find a band t-shirt on the web, so I threw one together for the occasion. And here it is.

And the fun part of all this?

“Trojan” means nothing special in Swedish, but “Tröjan”, with rock dots over the “O”, actually does.

And do you know what it means?

It means “The t-shirt”.

Isn’t life just superb sometimes?

/ paddy

Four Stone Hearth Volume #78

Hello. And welcome to another drunken stagger through the halls of anthropology and archaeology. I am your host, Paddy K, and I am here to shower you with bones. Lots of bones.

So then, without further stalling for wordage, let’s introduce the experts, who have lots of clever things to say about things that I barely understand.

Experts, take it away!

First off,  the folks over at Archaeopop tell us a tale about the Nefertiti bust and the attempts to return it to Egypt. Of course this tale also features the Egyptian Indiana Jones, Dr. Zahi Hawass (and I only say that because I know that archaeologists just love hearing about Indiana Jones).

Next, those nice people over at Radio Lab discuss the ways in which language and music are connected. Haven’t you heard of Radio Lab? Go there. Now. And never return.

Future retro is one of my own favourite areas. This is, basically, the reverse of archaeology – what did people from the past think the future would look like? Head on over to Paleo Future to see the latest snippets of retro futurism. For example, where are all the flying cars, eh? Eh?

Eric at The Primate Diaries discusses how birth control for women may be affecting the way they pick their partners, as well as their bits on the side, their bits on top and even their bits underneath.

And speaking of smut (and we were, weren’t we? Well I generally am) I am always tickled by the very existence of the “unsuitable material” rooms at the British Museum. This is where 3 centuries of twitchy curators have placed their kinky material that the ladies might have swooned at, effectively removing it from the popular historical record and making the Victorians believe that all previous ages were as prudish as they were.

Martin Rundkvist gets his nose to the grindstone and takes us on a trip to look at a burnt mound. And if anybody knows their way around a burnt mound, it’s Martin.

Mathilda over at her eponymous blog wants to put white supremacists straight on a few things. And so what if it’s from a year ago? It’s still good stuff.

And of course I simply have to include Glen from Paleoglot, since I never have the faintest idea what he’s talking about. And I find that kind of refreshing.

Ciarán over at Ad Hominin explains why hominid evolution in the Middle Pleistocene is a great big bloody mess, with many theories, lots of species and not very many bones to back it up with.

TED continues to pump out mind expanding talks at a terrifying rate. Talks in the area of anthropology/archaeology are thin on the ground, but here’s one I enjoyed,  on skin colour in humans. And then there’s Louise Leakey, talking about nothing less than digging for the origins of humanity.

Over at A Hot Cup of Joe, we learn something about the reaction of the Creationist “community” to the unearthing of Ardipithecus ramidus. Further evidence that they should, you know, just shut the hell up.

Neuroanthropology present us with a primer on, you guessed it, neuroanthrolpology. And that word is so long it doesn’t even appear in my spell-checker.

And finally I, for my part, have been considering the classification and behaviour of different road-users. Field research, if you will. But on the road. And not in a field.

So that appears to be that. Tune in the next time at…hang on, the next slot on November 4th is vacant! Vacant, I tell you! Come on now, get the finger out and host the damned thing.

Just contact Martin Rundqvist to make a date with destiny!

The next time I do this blog carnival, it will be a swimsuit edition. So people, you have been warned – start hitting the bench press and warm up the baby oil because I’ll expect you all to be nice and buff. I know I will be. Deal?

/ paddy

Nina JablonskiNina Jabolski

Shaggy Dog Stories

Note: This blog entry was based on a true Facebook story. Names, dates and sexual preferences may have been changed to protect the innocent.

So I was walking to work. Picture it now. Wait, here’s a photo I took that will help you:

Yeah, now we got it. So just about THERE I passed a lady and her dog. The dog was doing something doggy – sniffing, peeing, quoting Marx – which the lady did not like.

So she pulled the dog closer on the leash and said:

“Tusse, I TOLD you not to do that, why don’t you ever listen to me?”

Which, since it was a dog, is probably a bit pointless.

This reminded me of a previous dog-lady anecdote (oh yes, a thin thread, I grant you). On that occasion another old lady was walking in a park, along a small path, dragging a reluctant dog behind her.

A moped was coming, quite fast, so the lady pulled the dog in and said to it sternly:

“Watch out Moppsy, there’s a moped coming!”

I just like that she felt the dog had to receive extra information as to the precise form of the imminent danger.

Of course, I can’t talk – I regularly speak to myself while working or doing stuff at home, whispering fiercely about this or that while work-mates and pets look on in deep amusement.

Oh well, at least I don’t go for a dump on the pavements. Not yet, anyway.

NOTE: Next Wednesday, October 21st, I will once again host the Four Stone Hearth Anthropology blog carnival. Please send in your links to anything vaguely relevant. That is all.

/ paddy

A Death in the Boy Band

Now it’s not my place to speak ill of the dead. But I see that Stephen Gately passed on, and in that most rock-and-roll of ways – by choking on his own vomit.

Sad, but also stupid. I mean, come on – vomit? In 2009? Please.

But what I don’t get is why people are praising him just because he was gay. As in: “a pioneer in the pop world” and how brave he was to come out.

Um, hello? If you were to pick a business to be gay in, wouldn’t music be a first choice? I would have thought that the reaction would be more like – yeah yeah, sure, get in line, Stevo.

And so what, he’s a hero now?  For filling the world up with shit tunes? For helping to unleash the horror of Ronan Keating on us?

Or for crapping all over something that is quite important to me and to many other people – popular music – just for the sake of getting his own grinning mug on the telly and lining his fucking pockets?

I am prepared to accept that he may have been a very nice guy. And even if he wasn’t, I’m still sad to see him go. And all respects to his grieving family and friends; seriously, this must suck for them.

But if the truth be known he was a crap singer in a rubbish band that tainted the world’s view of Ireland. And boy oh boy, I’m so incredibly glad to see the end of fucking Boyzone. 

Long live real music.

/ paddy

De-lurk and reveal thyself

Inspired by Martin’s occasional delurking events, I thought to offer my readers the same opportunity.

So, if you have been hanging out here for a while and have never made your presence known, now is your chance.

Just stick your hand up and leave a comment to tell us who you are, why you are here and what keeps you coming back. And what the management can do to make your stay with us more enjoyable.

Who knows, we might all learn something. (And I also avoid having to think up something to write about, which is always nice.)

Let the delurking commence!

/ paddy

A Great Day for Europe

All the newspapers today (well, yesterday, when I started writing this) are spouting off about the Lisbon treaty, about the “landslide” YES vote in Ireland. And about the “great day” for Europe.

Well it isn’t a “great day” for anything; in fact it was a tragic day that demonstrates the staggering failure of democracy in Europe.

Do you non-Irish know what the Lisbon treaty is about? Probably not, because your government took away your option to vote on it, and simply voted for you instead.

I don’t know what it was about either, and I even read some of the election pamphlets in Ireland a few weeks ago. But I still don’t know very much.

You can see that nobody had an idea what is involved when both the Yes and No sides presented almost identical arguements as to why we should vote for them. And the reasons that weren’t identical were innane – “we will be left outside Europe” and so on.

The biggest scare tactic used was the threat of removal of aid for the Irish economy and Irish banks. Basically – “Vote Yes or risk your country going under”. Nice.

To promote the passage of the treaty, the Irish were given some “guarantees” – or, if you prefer, bribes – to convince them to go ahead and vote yes. Among these was the provision for the Irish state to continue pissing all over women’s rights and continue the Catholic Church backed ban on abortion.

So now, with this Yes vote, the Irish have a legal guarantee that Europe will not interfere in the question of allowing Irish women the right to choose what to do with their own bodies.

So in what way is this a “great day” for anything? Simply throwing a referendum at the people again and again until you get the answer you want, calling it “final” and then never bringing it up again?

The actualy turnover was 57% and 67% or so of them voted yes, meaning that about 40% of the Irish electorate said “Yes”, hardly a landslide, as the press are saying.

If the Irish had said “Yes” on the first attempt, would there have been another vote in case they had changed their minds and now wanted to vote “No”? You bet you arse there wouldn’t.

And if Ireland was truly was a democracy, then there would be one referendum more, and they would take the best out of the 3 results. And that ain’t going to happen, is it?

So don’t worry, nothing actually changed on October 3^rd – the power in Europe still rests with the same people, and they will continue to get what they want in the same ways as before, despite their record of being very very wrong, so many times.

Yes, a great day for Europe indeed.

/ paddy

EU Farm Subsidies

Thanks to an article over on Sound and Fury, I discovered that the entire database of EU farm subsidies is now available on-line for our perusal, thanks to a volunteer effort by journalists, researchers and computer programmers.

This is fantastic and scary stuff. I have always wondered where this money came from and where it went, and now we can trawl through the data at our own convenience.

This video gives the background and a whole lot of surprising facts (click to launch it on the external site, I could not embed it directly):

The major things that struck me were that fully one quarter of the 55 billion Euro dished out per year (over 40% of the EU’s budget) goes to, of course, Big Business. And another large chunk goes to big landowners, the exact opposite of what we are led to believe (that the CAP is in place to support small farmers).

A couple of examples plucked from this excellent article on the subject:

• The largest recipient of “aid” in the UK is the food giant Tate and Lyle, who pocket €134,069,000.

• The Queen of England received £473,500 in farm aid in 2008. Because, you know, she needs it.

Think what this money could be used for instead of lining pockets that require no further lining and propping up inefficient industries. It’s all a bit sickening.

So the conclusion? We are being bum-fucked by out politicians who are once again channelling out money to themselves, their friends and the powerful people who support them. Small farmers? Taxpayers? Transparency? Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all good and hard.

The next time the farmers are out complaining about their incomes, we should join them, and complain about the large part of OUR incomes that is being ripped out of our hands and handed directly to the people who least need it. Anybody else who is tired of being lied to?

/ paddy