The New York Times had an article on May 19th on the asparagus cult in Germany. It has a good picture of German (‘white’) asparagus. (Via Anne Beryl in Bonn)

Wendy McClure has an illustrated summary of an item on Fox News about weblogging, in which she was featured.

bq. NEWSCASTER VOICE-OVER CONT’D: “…without losing what’s been written, like in a chat room.”
And here Matt Weiler has to patiently explain the difference between a weblog and a chat room.
No kidding, they asked both of us about that.
It’s like getting a squirrel confused with a mailbox because they’re both on the sidewalk.

She concludes:

bq. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who don’t know what a blog is; I just wonder how many of them still don’t know after seeing a story like this.

Wendy’s other site, candyboots, which you might have encountered before, shows a collection of 1974 Weightwatchers cards.

(Via rebecca’s pocket, via kiplog)

Totally off topic: Gizmodo links to a site that explains why the Trilobite robot vacuum cleaner costs $1799 and the iRobot Roomba $159.99.

Anyway, neither of them would have much room for manoeuvre here. There’s area, but not much space.

When Lynne Truss’s ‘Eats Shoots and Leaves’ appeared in Britain last November, I was sure I didn’t want to read it, because the hype was suspicious.

But I had the impression that more and more people whose opinions I thought I trusted, and even including Americans (it had not then been published in the USA) raved about it, I was driven to buy a copy, a big mistake, for I have not been able to get on with it – but at least I know that now!

It sold remarkably well – 700,000 copies? It was in good time for the Christmas market, so I wonder if 700,000 copies have been read. The book even has its own website. Anyway, now I have seen a few less excited discussions, I suppose my work has been done for me. Scribe at The Discouraging Word was not 100% in favour, although his entry was tongue-in-cheek against the denigrators of strict punctuation. (Picayune punctuation rules, May 7th, and see also January 6th. I see the American edition has ‘a foreword by Frank McCourt, Author of “Angela’s Ashes”‘!

Well, it’s not the author’s fault that the book has been overhyped, and she certainly deserves admiration for her commercial success – I remember being told this once when I was complaining about another great commercial success, Peter Mayle’s ‘A Year in Provence’ (it was long my desire to write a satire on this called ‘A Year in Franconia’, but I realized no-one would have wanted to buy it).

I attempted to teach punctuation for twenty years, and this must be part of my reason for irritation. Every so often a new and interesting book on punctuation comes out, and there are a number of good old standards, so why should this one, that consists at least 50% of extraneous material, be so praised? I know many people like to read something light and amusing, but I prefer my punctuation discussion less packaged. The problem starts with the title joke, on the back cover. I have read this joke a number of times on the Internet over the years, and I too thought it was funny the first time I read it, but Truss spoils it. She’s one of those people who can’t tell jokes. ‘The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual…’ This punctuation reference, cheekily inserted to refer to the book, does not occur in the original joke and it is a spoiler – not only superfluous but detrimental to the humour. ‘The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.’ – Good jokes don’t need ‘sure enough’ pushed in, nor “confused waiter” instead of just “waiter”. (For the joke as it appears, see continuation of this entry).

There was a Guardian review by Stephen Poole on December 13th 2003 that I concur with. (LATER NOTE: not sure if I concur about ‘Eric’ Fowler – who he?)

bq. Truss tries very hard to be funny, and she is often successful. …And if we are to be brutally honest, her regular quotations from others who have written on this subject – true giants such as Eric Fowler, Kingsley Amis or George Bernard Shaw – serve only to show that pedantry works best when allied to an economical wit and rock-solid prose, rather than Truss’s own consistent style of overheated whimsy, which becomes oppressive even in such a brief book.

The question I am left with is: who was the book written for? On the dustjacket it says

bq. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset about it.

I wonder. It seems to me it is a book for people who haven’t thought much about punctuation and haven’t got enough to read. Definitely a popularizing book, but popularizing by ladling jokes on. The picture of the author inside the back cover says a lot:

Continue reading →

Das Staatssicherheitsgericht, bei dem gestern der Prozess gegen die mutmaßlichen Al-Qaida-Hintermänner anfing, musste sich für unzuständig erklären, da Staatssicherheitsgerichte Mitte Mai abgeschafft wurden. Bericht. Neue Gerichte, die sie ersetzen sollen, existieren noch nicht.

According to the Independent, the trial of 69 al-Qa’ida suspects in connection with the bombings in Istanbul last November was opened by a Turkish state security court yesterday, but the court then had to rule that it was unfit to hear the case. Political courts of this type were abolished last month in order to meet EU standards. New courts to replace them have not yet been created.

bq. State security courts similar to the one expected to hear the al-Qa’ida case yesterday were abolished last month as part of legal reforms designed to bring Turkey into line with European Union standards. The courts were set up after a military coup in 1980 to hear “political crimes”, generally a catch-all for far left and pro-Kurdish dissidents.

Hürriyet’s English version is less transparent, whether for political or linguistic reasons I don’t know.

These reforms were faster than the abolition of the Lord Chancellor in Britain last year!

Can everyone spell El Qaida in English and German? For EN I have seen El Qa’ida, El Quaida and El Qaida, for DE El/Al Qaida and El Kaida. Here is one take:

bq. Al-Qaida (القاعده in Arabic and also transliterated as al-Qaeda, al-Qa’ida, al-Quaida, el-Qaida, äl-Qaida and is Arabic for the foundation) is an Islamist paramilitary movement which is widely regarded as a terrorist organization, especially in the West.

The BBC has just started a new series of its legal programme called Law in Action. The first programme was broadcast on May 28th at 16.00 BST and it can be heard again here. Here’s the page with information on the contents of the programme. Topics are barristers’ fees in Very High Cost Criminal Cases, police cooperation with the DPP, sharia courts in England, and cohabitation:

bq. Earlier this week, it was reported that Elayne Oxley had been awarded a £100,000 share of her former partner’s home, even though the couple were not married and she made no financial contribution to the mortgage. The press heralded it as a landmark case – but was it? We take a closer look.

There is more information on the programme on the BBC website, and even an RSS newsfeed for information about it.

You can normally listen again to a BBC radio programme within seven days, but I noticed with some Radio 4 programmes I sometimes listen to there are now more earlier programmes available. So you should always look at the web page of a particular programme to see if there are earlier programmes available.

(The BBC website is very slow now, so I will close here).