Eurovision 1956-2012 Recapitulated

Just because - well it's interesting to see the changes over the years in the winning songs in the Eurovision Song Contest from its inception in 1956 to the latest competition earlier this year:

- and I hadn't recalled until now that in 1989 the winner was Yugoslavia, just before immense changes in Europe, a country that no longer exists - or rather, a country that now exists in multiple new forms. Banal the Eurovision Song Contest may be, but it certainly reflects in sometimes astonishing ways developments in our continent over most of my lifetime.

Fridge keeps his cool ...

Those who know me will already know that I have next to no interest (in fact that would be more accurately described as 'absolutely no interest') in football, but the recent sterling result by Nairn County Football Club in winning the final of the North of Scotland Football Cup match 2-1 against Wick Academy, a result which prompted the 'Wee County' manager, Les Fridge, to say:
"The cup win is a fantastic achievement for the club, but I’ll be emphasising to the players again this week that they cannot afford to get carried away by it. Now, we need to focus. Winning the cup was nice and we celebrated it, but it’s done and consigned to the history books. We have a massive couple of weeks coming up with a match against Formartine United, before facing Forfar in the Scottish Cup. However, we’ve got plenty of mental strength and experience within the squad to keep the focus on what we want to do this season. We’ll now move on and try to create another successful chapter to our story of the season."
- seems a suitable occasion for me to mention an activity I almost never do.

I first became aware of this gentleman's name some years ago, a few years after I came to live in Nairn, and did a double-take the first time I read it to satisfy myself it really is his name. I hope he won't mind me using his name in a punning manner in the title of this article, should he ever become aware of it - it is only meant humorously and in no way maliciously. Incidentally, I became aware just a week or so ago of another name, this time of a place called Snodland (which is a town in Kent, by the way) which I did not immediately realise was a real place; it sounded more like something out of The Lord of the Rings or some other fantasy/historical novel. What this really highlights, I suppose, is my own cultural insularity, a 'fault' of which by its very nature people tend to be unaware they exhibit until something comes along to jolt them (or in this case, me) out of their complacency.

What we mean ... What they think we mean

Occasionally I come across something interesting, or amusing, or both and this seems to qualify.

When British people say something [idiomatically], do other nationalities, whether English-speaking or non English-speaking, always understand accurately what is implied by the words being used? Communications between people using supposedly the same language, English, as their native tongue can certainly be fraught with misunderstanding when British, Americans or Australians are involved, although I'd say this tends to be marginally less so when I've dealt with Canadians. My own experience over the years has led me to understand that very often misunderstandings arise because people (in this case we British) do not necessarily say directly what they mean, out of 'politeness' or an unwillingness to upset the other person in a social or business context. Mind you, it is not only we British who do this - my dealings with non-European nationalities such as Chinese or Japanese have often thrown up similar mutual misunderstandings and for much the same reasons, not to mention the perils of taking at 'face value' what a French person really means when [s]he says something.

Anyway here is what I came across in the Twitter feed of someone I follow:

I asked him where he got it from and he mentioned the website of a UK charity, but it seems they got it from someplace else and so on - this article in the University of Pennsylvania's "Language Log" gives more background although how accurate or exhaustive it is I cannot say. It adds some more detail to the table above and gives a few phrases in French which can mask what is really being said. In my experience all these are scarily accurate.

Verbiage blocks road

It is reported that almost 15 tonnes of journalist Andrew Marr's book, 'The Making of Modern Britain', have been spilled when a truck 'came off the A4 Bath Road in Theale, Berkshire, late on Tuesday night spilling boxes of the books'. As the linked BBC article comments: The book is said to "paint a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire". Now folks, do you think this is a publicity stunt by agents for Mr Marr in an effort to improve sales of the book? Fortunately the driver was unhurt.

BWV 1052 - just because ...

J S Bach - Harpsichord Concerto No.1 in D Minor - BWV 1052

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Enjoy!

Culture in Nairn - "Mr Write" - 31st March 2010 - Little Theatre

I came across a theatre review in the Scotsman about a couple of plays recently performed at The Tron in Glasgow by the NTS (National Theatre of Scotland). The review mentions that one of the plays "Mr Write" is touring Scotland over the next few weeks and mentioned Nairn as one of the venues. A little research reveals it is to be performed at 7pm on Wednesday 31st March at The Little Theatre - ticket availability is on the Nairn Drama Club website here.

Inverness makes choices about burying its dead

People get born, live their lives and eventually die. What to do with the bodies of the deceased? Traditionally, in western culture, the custom has been to bury people 'six feet under' in a coffin usually made of wood, for the body to decompose over time or as the minister seems always to say when 'committing' the body to the ground:
Earth to Earth
Ashes to Ashes
Dust to Dust
In more recent times it has become increasingly popular to cremate the body and either to 'scatter' the ashes or to keep them in some kind of urn or container. Partly in my view thas has been because of pressure (i.e. shortage) of space, partly for other cultural reasons. Indeed cremation was for many centuries frowned upon by an all-powerful church, until this began to be challenged in the UK in the latter part of the 19th century (and there's an interesting article about this in the University of Durham Schools area).

However, for many people burial remains the preferred way, so Inverness is to decide shortly whether to demolish a derelict house and its walled garden within the Kilvean Cemetary in order to provide upto 750 additional burial spaces. Getting a burial 'lair' or 'plot' has become increasingly difficult (and sometimes costly) in many part of Britain. In British society there does not seem be any negativity in overlooking a cemetary from one's home (certainly not the case in some Asian cultures - east Asia, at least) so if the property were redeveloped as a house or apartments I am sure there would be a market for it. I confess I have no particular feelings about this one way or the other, except that it will shine an interesting light on Inverness's priorities (and on the city where I happen to have been born).

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birthday

Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of the man often regarded as Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns; he was born on 25th January 1759 at Alloway in Ayrshire and died on 21st July 1796 at the age of 37 in Dumfries. The National Library of Scotland also has a website devoted to Robert Burns and the ubiquitous Wikipedia entry is here. Happy Birthday!

I've selected a couple of his pieces of writing to include here; the second is one of his best known works and is included as a rather fine video-clip, followed by some notes, whereas the first is probably rather less well known, but he wrote on such a vast array of subjects that it is difficult to make a choice and these two are mine. Enjoy!

ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE My curse upon your venom'd stang, That shoots my tortur'd gums alang, An' thro' my lug gies sic a twang,                    Wi' knawing vengeance, Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang,                    Like racking engines! When fevers burn, or agues freeze us, Rheumatics gnaw, or colics squeeze us, Our neibor's sympathy can ease us,                    Wi' pitying moan; But thee - thou hell o' a' diseases -                    They mock our groan. Adown my beard the slavers trickle, I throw the wee stools o'er the mickle, While round the fire the giglets keckle,                    To see me loup, An', raving mad, I wish a heckle                    Were in their doup! In a' the numerous human dools, Ill-hairsts, daft bargains, cutty stools, Or worthy frien's rak'd i' the mools, -                    Sad sight to see! The tricks o' knaves, or fash o' fools,                    Thou bear'st the gree! Where'er that place be priests ca' hell, Where a' the tones o' misery yell, An' rankèt plagues their numbers tell,                    In dreadfu' raw, Thou, TOOTHACHE, surely bear'st the bell,                    Amang them a'! O thou grim, mischief-making chiel, That gars the notes o' discord squeel, Till daft mankind aft dance a reel                    In gore, a shoe-thick, Gie a' the faes o' SCOTLAND'S weal                    A towmond's toothache!

Now a rather better known, if not necessarily 'better', piece:

TO A MOUSE. ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH NOVEMBER, 1785.

In my edition of Burns' Poetical Works and letters (* - see at end) the notes on this poem say the following:

Notes on 'To a Mouse "It is difficult to decide," writes Currie, "whether this address should be considered as serious or comic. If we smile at the 'bickerin' brattle' of this little flying animal, it is a smile of tenderness and pity. The descriptive part is admirable; the moral reflections beautiful, arising directly out of the occasion; and in the conclusion there is a deep melancholy, a sentiment of doubt and dread that rises to the sublime." Gilbert Burns tells how the poem was the outcome of a real incident. The poet, while farming with his brother at Mossgiel, was holding the plough, with John Blane, the hired man, acting as driver, when the little creature was observed running off across the field. Blane, having the pettle, or plough-cleaning utensil, in his hand at the moment, was thoughtlessly running after it, to kill it, when Burns checked him, but not angrily, asking what ill the poor mouse had ever done him. The poet then seemed to his driver to grow very thoughtful, and during the remainder of the afternoon he spoke not. In the night-time he awoke Blane, who slept with him, and reading the poem, which had in the meantime been composed, asked what he thought of the mouse now.

Incidentally inside the frontispiece of my copy of Burns' poems, referred to above, there is a poem in the pencilled hand-writing of the person from whom I received the book, her signature appears on another blank page at the front and I know her writing from when I was a child (she died in the 1970s, when I would have been in my mid-20s); so far as I recall she had given me the book some years before her death, although I cannot remember exactly when, but wonder if it may have been around my 21st birthday and from the date of publication (see * below) I wonder if it may have been one of her own 21st birthday gifts. I suspect strongly that the poem must have been written by her, as she had been an English teacher in a grammar school (in Cumberland) for many years, but grew up on a croft on the Black Isle, just north of Inverness; she was an aunt of my father. It is very short, but it seems to me that it is very definitely written in the style of Burns. Anyway, here is the poem:

On a Visit to Inverness There's nothing here but Highland Pride, And Hielan Scab & Hunger, If Providence has sent me here, He did it in his anger.

* - The Poetical Works and letters of Robert Burns. Introduction, Notes, and Glossary by Robert Ford, Collins (Glasgow 1903)