And of course Tudor brick work should be no more than two and half inches, ask Dan Cruckshank, he is so wonderful. But there is something I've been dying to ask about the block busting, "Wolf Hall". 

I actually bought the book and then threw it aside almost immediately. I'm never keen on reading a work of History by an English novelist but...how does Thomas Cromwell's nasty Welsh relation actually walk in. "a Welsh way"? I wanted to go to Haye just to ask this. Why rub this in which she does, after the first chapter? And how does one walk in a, "Welsh way"? Are walks unique to nationalities? Oh look there 's Sven the Swede lurching to the left again! Only to be expected. Oh look there's Rupert the Malingerer of Havistock with his usual middle hop, only to be followed by Rufus with his unorthodox Cornish gait followed by Sally the Saxon is she really making a bid for the sea? 
This is what happens when you have Mantels, ..."I'll explain. My voice may sound as though I've been eating Turkish Delight all day but I have the gift of prophecy so follow me...I want you to imagine (as I have done) what may have taken place during this dramatic moment. I have no idea and neither have you what actually happened and so we can all just guess but I don't need facts or support, just...listen to my construct." English Lit and History are at odds but it's wonderful knowing people like you are here. Really and apologies.

I think you are wonderful SST, always have. Kind, brainy and thoughtful and a solid and almost embarrassing endless mine of information when I can barely cut and paste. You know your stuff! God you are good! You always have been.  

Looking at these wonderful pictures there is something of David(e) about them? Or perhaps not. So wonderfully melodramatic and bad...But always better than Tracey Eminem and thingy Damien Hurst! Of the wealth and the diamond encrusted skull. 
The Perfect example of the Emperors New Clothes.

My copy of Wolf Hall wasn't illustrated, so I'll just have to take your word for it, Minette.

Or are you perchance referring to the site's smileys in your previous post? In which case you are quite correct of course, as all were commissioned by myself purely on the basis of their aesthetic subtleties and draughtsmanship. As is evident ...

By the way, I notice you get all high and mighty when Welsh perambulatory stylistic aggregation is (quite reasonably in my opinion having witnessed Welsh rugby fans over many years) alluded to as a national character trait by English hysterians. However not a dicky bird from you, I see, when Egyptians get the same treatment!



Or Saath Lahndaners, for that matter ...

Ok fair cop norddman! I'd simply like to know if I walk as a Welsh person should...a rolling gait or a meaningful stride? I don't want to let the side down...

I'm just slightly shocked to see Wolfie Smith doing a very bourgeois, yet very credible, song-and-dance routine! But at least he hasn't let the side down entirely ... Lambeth, like Tooting, is still saarf of the river.

Minette wrote:

I'd simply like to know if I walk as a Welsh person should

There are many in England who would maintain that this would be "westwards".

I am actually in agreement with you about Hilary Mantel's writing style. Besides the rather ill-thought-out similes etc (I just take them for granted with modern authors) I found the "in his head" perspective a trifle off-putting. It's a rather American style, actually, so on that basis alone seemed a little out of place in Crum's head. It's ok for trivial incidents such as his dad beating the living crap out of him in the opening chapter, but thereafter when he's toying with complex inner conflicts regarding faith, Anne Boleyn's knickers and career advancement, it all gets rather "so what-ish" from the reader's point of view. You feel like screaming at the lad to just get on with it and decide something for f*ck's sake, and stop boring us with all the mental preambles (which in fact the real Cromwell probably never encountered much anyway). In that sense the BBC series was better - an odd pained wince from Rylance was enough to convey half a page of mental dithering in Mantel's book. In fact when you saw him wince you grew quickly to realise his next utterance would be a doozie, and he rarely let us down. Well done the scriptwriter!

Rylance winced a lot in that programme, didn't he?

nordmann wrote:

I am actually in agreement with you about Hilary Mantel's writing style. Besides the rather ill-thought-out similes etc (I just take them for granted with modern authors) I found the "in his head" perspective a trifle off-putting. It's a rather American style, actually, so on that basis alone seemed a little out of place in Crum's head. It's ok for trivial incidents such as his dad beating the living crap out of him in the opening chapter, but thereafter when he's toying with complex inner conflicts regarding faith, Anne Boleyn's knickers and career advancement, it all gets rather "so what-ish" from the reader's point of view. You feel like screaming at the lad to just get on with it and decide something for f*ck's sake, and stop boring us with all the mental preambles (which in fact the real Cromwell probably never encountered much anyway). In that sense the BBC series was better - an odd pained wince from Rylance was enough to convey half a page of mental dithering in Mantel's book. In fact when you saw him wince you grew quickly to realise his next utterance would be a doozie, and he rarely let us down. Well done the scriptwriter

What utter nonsense.


Minette, I am very glad you are back, but I do recommend you try again with your reading of Wolf Hall (and Bring Up the Bodies). Mantel is an excellent writer, and her books should be neither tossed aside lightly, nor should they be thrown with great force - after a mere chapter or two. Try reading the whole book - it helps with critical assessment.

But Eng. Lit. folk and History folk can never be friends - we are like the farmers and the cowmen in Oklahoma!.







PS  

Minette wrote:

...Rufus with his unorthodox Cornish gait...

 

They do walk funny in Bude, it's true. No love lost for the Cornish down here, I'm afraid.

Rylancette wrote:

What utter nonsense.

No it's not. Take this for example as a way of saying Cromwell found out it was just coming up to twelve o'clock.

Creeping Christ? he thinks. What does he mean? His head turns sideways, his hair rests in his own vomit, the dog barks, Walter roars, and bells peal out across the water. He feels a sensation of movement, as if the filthy ground has become the Thames. It gives and sways beneath him; he lets out his breath, one great final gasp. You’ve done it this time, a voice tells Walter. But he closes his ears, or God closes them for him. He is pulled downstream, on a deep black tide.

The next thing he knows, it is almost noon.

If I remember the scene in the programme there was a LOT of wincing going on there, though it must be said not by Rylance but by young Simon Bottomley (who had the unenviable job of anticipating how the older version of his character interprets character acting).

Did you know they run lessons in Cornwall so you too can learn to walk like them? Riverdance it's not!

Good grief - I've seen more abandoned frenzy at a Church of England tea-dance.

They're weighed down with all those pasties (or pasty's as they will insist on putting in their adverts) they keep stuffing themselves with.

I'm watching The Young Pope starring Jude Law at the moment. It's excellent - very surreal and funny - sort of The Sopranos at the Vatican. Might start a Popes Various and Vatican Shenanigans Assorted thread - but then again, perhaps not.

Has anyone else seen it? Law's costumes have been designed by Giorgio Armani and they are superb: he (Law, not Armani) even looks utterly cool in his silly papal hat. I didn't know the papal tiara was a bit like a helmet. The opening credits are brilliant - Devlin playing All Along the Watchtower, plus various art works, plus a travelling comet - I absolutely love it:

It's on my list. Law isn't a wincer, is he?

My favourite pope was Rex Harrison as Julius II in the film where he commissioned Ben Hur to paint his ceiling. A proper pope - all battle hardened, scarred, Shakespearian, dressed in tin and psychopathic.

Though all the popes in The Shoes of the Fisherman were great too - Zorba as the new pope, Cassius as the old pope, and even Rumpole of the Bailey as would-be pope.

Ben Hur: It does look rather nice, doesn't it? Always worth shelling out that bit extra for Farrow and Ball Estate Emulsion.



PS No wincing from Law so far, but I'm only on Episode 5.

PPS I'm very confused by the kangaroo.

Lost again my message
Start again:

Temperance,

reading for the moment: "The Lady Elizabeth" from Alison Weir. Read also from her some weeks ago: "Eleanor of Aquitaine". She is also a historian, so I suppose her work will be historical accurate with some own interpretations...
What is new to me that she approachs the "female" sex from the point of view of a woman. That's interesting to me, while I up to now read hundreds of novels written by men (perhaps more novels up to now written by men than women?) and every time the sex was approached from the male attitude...From what I read in these two novels Alison Weir does a good job, and she is certainly better and not so long winded as Hilary Mantel in her work about the French revolution...

But Temperance why I "interpellate" you, is for a word that I met in the Elizabeth book and that was familiar to me, namely: "sweet sister temperance" I can't find it back in the hundreds of pages, but it seems to be a term, which was used in the time...between sisters?...as a cosy name?... from where comes "your" sweet sister Temperance?...

And then some new words as "codpiece"...if it wasn't for the context..and if I hadn't a vague rememberance of a discussion overhere...

As ever your faithfully Paul.

Paul, Sweet Sister Temperance was the affectionate nickname given by Edward VI to his sister Elizabeth. The Duchess of Somerset (the wife of the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour), who was not a fan of Elizabeth, apparently snorted in derision when she first heard Edward refer to the young princess as SST. Demanding the reason for this preposterous new name, the arrogant Duchess was told by the young king: "Temperance is a fair and godly thing in women. I would more of them had it."

Which was a  delicious little dig at his Auntie Anne who was, by all accounts, an insufferable woman. Possibly he was also having a go at his other sister, Mary, who was already digging her heels in about going to her old Mass.

I notice that, whereas Priscilla has been canonised, I have merely been given a new name that makes me sound like a pyjama fabric.

St Rylancette of Wince wrote:

I notice that, whereas Priscilla has been canonised, I have merely been given a new name that makes me sound like a pyjama fabric.

I didn't canonise Priscilla. I think she fired herself.

nordmann wrote:

St Rylancette of Wince wrote:

I notice that, whereas Priscilla has been canonised, I have merely been given a new name that makes me sound like a pyjama fabric.

I didn't canonise Priscilla. I think she fired herself.

Well, someone has certainly shot himself or herself in the foot: not quite sure who.

Better to be a pyjama fabric than a blessed martyr, I suppose - St. Tammy Wynette comes to mind. The lyrics of Stand By Your Man  still make me want to throw up. Was this utter tosh really written by a woman?

But we have all been a teeny-weeny bit sensitive at times about silly names and titles, haven't we? You should revert to being Dictator and get everything back to happy normality.

I wrote:

Well, someone has certainly shot himself or herself in the foot: not quite sure who.

Probably me.

I'd be very careful about admitting to shooting yourself in the foot. In WW1 doing so could get you on a charge of faking a wound in order to get invalided out of the conflict with a "ticket the Blightey". But that way usually led to a court-martial on a charge of cowardice, and all too often ended in a dawn rendez-vous with the firing squad.

Oh heck - had better delete above.

No coward soul is mine - just a bit of a woolly one. Good job in this weather too. It's freezing here - only one degree, blowing a gale and shintry wowers all day. It's absolutely horrible out there. Going to snow properly tonight they tell us. The whole of England is now in total panic, as ever when snow is forecast. Some wonderful headlines today. This is the most scary:

SNOW HELL COMING: Whole of UK to be trapped in -10C freezing DOUBLE VORTEX for a week.

Crikey.

Lots of hot chocolate and last two episodes of Young Pope tonight, I think.

Deleted post - because of being in the wrong place.

Temperance wrote:

Oh heck - had better delete above.

No coward soul is mine - just a bit of a woolly one. Good job in this weather too. It's freezing here - only one degree, blowing a gale and shintry wowers all day. It's absolutely horrible out there. Going to snow properly tonight they tell us. The whole of England is now in total panic, as ever when snow is forecast. Some wonderful headlines today. This is the most scary:

SNOW HELL COMING: Whole of UK to be trapped in -10C freezing DOUBLE VORTEX for a week.

Crikey.

Lots of hot chocolate and last two episodes of Young Pope tonight, I think.

About time the snow moved on somewhere else, we've been trapped under snow and -10C in Greece for two weeks now. You are welcome to it and enjoy! In the meantime we can look forward to a balmy +10C for a little while at least.

Temperance wrote:

Paul, Sweet Sister Temperance was the affectionate nickname given by Edward VI to his sister Elizabeth. The Duchess of Somerset (the wife of the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour), who was not a fan of Elizabeth, apparently snorted in derision when she first heard Edward refer to the young princess as SST. Demanding the reason for this preposterous new name, the arrogant Duchess was told by the young king: "Temperance is a fair and godly thing in women. I would more of them had it."

Which was a  delicious little dig at his Auntie Anne who was, by all accounts, an insufferable woman. Possibly he was also having a go at his other sister, Mary, who was already digging her heels in about going to her old Mass.

I notice that, whereas Priscilla has been canonised, I have merely been given a new name that makes me sound like a pyjama fabric.

Now I see Sweet Sister Temperance where your "nom de plume" came from...after all those years ...
And yes all what you said was also in the Alison novel...at least that too seems to be historical...once one starts to be suspicious...

Kind regards from Paul.

Temperance wrote:

Oh heck - had better delete above.

No coward soul is mine - just a bit of a woolly one. Good job in this weather too. It's freezing here - only one degree, blowing a gale and shintry wowers all day. It's absolutely horrible out there. Going to snow properly tonight they tell us. The whole of England is now in total panic, as ever when snow is forecast. Some wonderful headlines today. This is the most scary:

SNOW HELL COMING: Whole of UK to be trapped in -10C freezing DOUBLE VORTEX for a week.

Crikey.

Lots of hot chocolate and last two episodes of Young Pope tonight, I think.

Here on the Belgian coast they are expecting a storm flood of the 1953 scale...
http://www.floodsite.net/juniorfloodsite/html/en/student/thingstoknow/hydrology/1953flood.html

I was there in Bredene, near Ostend, now some 64 years ago...

Kind regards, Paul.

On the east coast of England too, Paul. We are silly about snow panics in England, but anxiety about a North Sea storm surge is most definitely not silly. Things could get very grim later tonight.

ID - I had no idea it could get so cold in Greece of all places.

I tend to listen to the BBC and RTE radio news of a morning, and today with snow descending on both septic isles it was interesting to contrast the coverage (news-, not snow-).

On the BBC a rather frantic and breathless reporter standing "literally" knee-deep somewhere on a hill in Wales described being assaulted by "furious flurries" (lovely image, that) and how it had been predicted that the inevitable flurry-related mortalities will so swamp the emergency and health services that it could "literally" bring the country to its knees. Rather curiously, she added that "the RAF were on standby", presumably to launch air strikes against the frenzied mobs of rabidly snow-blinded Welshmen rampaging through Llandudno on their knee caps.

On the Irish radio a similarly placed reporter in a hill-farm in Clare, when asked what the worst ramifications had been so far, replied that farmers were reporting it was now very difficult to see their sheep.

nordmann wrote:

...flurry-related mortalities...

This has got me wondering how the Met Office defines a snow flurry. When does a snow flurry become a snow shower or even a snow fall? I consulted Wiki for further information and found this. Useful to know in the present challenging conditions. I feel more prepared now.

When flurries accumulate, they become a layer of snow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_flurry




Morrison's car park earlier today.

In Norway the colloquial term for a flurry is fluskrasnø or faukersnø. Fluskrasnø, as opposed to umsnø, "kisses" your face and it doesn't actually fall, instead it "fyklers" or "fluskrers fauker" (terms not with a parallel in English which describe a wandering and peripatetic descent from lofty origin into banality - good for describing light snow flurries as well as politicians' answers to difficult questions, Res Historica discussion threads, England football managers, the USA etc).

Umsnø on the other hand breaks your nose, bowls you over, and dumps six feet of white shit on you before you have a chance to stand up again.

Curiously neither of these are necessarily the worst - by far the most Norwegian vitriol is reserved for the hated valleklessesnø, that horrible mixture of snow and rain which is called "sørpe" when it lands and is seemingly designed by Thor (he gets the blame) primarily to dissolve the leather in your shoes while simultaneously breaking your coccyx (which I assume also explains the scarcity of cows in Norway, or at least why the surviving examples walk funny).

After snow has fallen we "vabba" through it if it's very deep, "grynne" through it if it's only up to our necks, "knegrynne" through it if we're like the BBC reporter in Wales, "base" through it if it's slippy, "snysa" through it if we "base" while swallowing some of it, and "vodla" through it if we've perfected some kind of snow-swimming technique. Those of us with tennis rackets or planks tied to our feet can of course simply "løype" over it while hopefully dodging the next "umsnø" assault, a lack of success in which endeavour is described as having been rightly "fauked" (like in English actually, or as applies to the whole of Wales for that matter according to the BBC reporter this morning).

Well, yet again England has survived: it is still jolly nippy (is there a Norwegian equivalent of "nippy"?), but the North Sea has been contained, thank goodness. Essex lives on.

The nasty cold weather has kept me in and bingeing on my boxed set of The Young Pope, which I have now finished. My initial enthusiam has waned a bit. The series is undoubtedly beautifully located (the Vatican is very lovely - all those nice pictures and other arty things everywhere), stunningly photographed and thoughtfully acted, but I have concluded that, despite all the impressive quotations from Spinoza, St. Augustine and St. Ignatius of Antioch, the actual screenplay is actually a bit overblown and intellectually hollow. To use a vulgar Northern expression, is this production all fur coat and no knickers (or, as the Americans would say, all hat and no cattle)? The screenplay is superficially clever - and very funny at times - but where is it taking us? I'm baffled by the main character. This ultra-conservative, dazzlingly photogenic, young Pope Pius XIII - what or who is he meant to be? The second coming of Jesus, or just a different kind of Nero - holy, chaste, undoubtedly sincere, but still completely bonkers? A Young Roman Catholic Emperor, but one with with a Messiah complex? I was pondering all this last night and that quote from Oscar Wilde came into my head: "The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity". Mmm.

Watching this programme has made me realise how little I know about the Popes, the Roman Curia and the Vatican - the whole Roman Catholic caboodle (the Roman Empire Season Two?), the set-up that has played - and continues to play - such an important part in the history of the Western world. I want to start a thread on this but, to be honest, hesitate to do so. The site has very few regular posters now, and I worry that the religious discussions that a few of us have indulged in here over this last year or so have helped contribute to the decline of interest in Res Historica as a discussion forum. Have we few bored everyone to death?

But then if we don't get snotty with one another (and why should we?) such a discussion about the history of the Popes could be illuminating and informative - no?

Then again, perhaps we just need more moggy posts (I've done my fair share of those, too).

PS Someone killed the Pope's kangaroo. Who did this and why? Was the poor animal simply one of the "dream" characters? I haven't a clue.

Temp wrote:

is there a Norwegian equivalent of "nippy"?

"Kjølig", or "frisk" if one is a glass-half-full person.

Discussion forum participation is down generally from its levels a few years ago, I have read. Res Historica in fact has recently overtaken its closest rival among forumotion hosted sites, a happy-clappy Christian affair which I will not promote with a link from here, and which kept us in second place for the last few years. In terms of viewing figures recorded by Google Analytics this site has rocketed upwards over the last year or so while its onsite activity has decreased to about half of where it was last year. While unfortunate that members seem less willing to contribute, in the general context of modern trends towards less thematic social media sites it's actually doing ok.

That's good: I am overjoyed your site has overtaken the other lot. How gloriously ironic.

Not sure where to post this - but is it true that Queen Serimaris of Assyria invented trousers, does anybody know? http://histon2.tripod.com/id67.html  History does not record whether she had a VPL (visible panty line).

I think it's fair to assume that trousers predated the claim as expressed on the site, LiR. But while you're here - have a vegan ale. I am reliably informed that a beer, in order to qualify as "vegan" has to be run through a centrifuge and then through cellulose pads in order to filter out the yeast and large proteins which may have inadvertently arrived there through an animal's gut (before it is to be inserted again into a human animal's gut). All very complicated and smacking of neurosis, if you ask me. But nevertheless here's a film of the process in action with the middleman cut out, and with the added benefit of attemptedly murdering Jeremy -

Talking about middlemen, complicated processes and neuroses, then today I heard a radio advert which caught my attention. This isn't in praise of the ad, however, because I can't remember (or didn't hear) which company it was for. So in that respect the advert was poor. No. This relates to the tail-end of one of those financial services ads. You know the ones where the terms and conditions are rattled off at ridiculously speed.

In this particular advert, among all the usual waffle about annual percentage rates and balance transfers etc, I heard the words 'before the 6th of April 2017'. What's wrong with that one might ask? Well nothing as such. That's the personal fiscal new year after all. And it could well have been the corporate fiscal new year on the 1st of April 2017 or even the calendar new year on the 1st of January 2017.

What struck me here, however, was that the reader said '2017' as "two-thousand and seventeen". That's 7 syllables long. The alternative "twenty-seventeen" has only 5 syllables. And the producers of these commercials are supposed to be sharp-as-nails professionals for whom time is money and every nano-second counts. I ask you.

And talking about the new year, then in our household my latest tipple of choice is gin and tonic with orange. Instead of the usual slice of fresh lemon or lime, we immerse a segment of orange peel from a jar in which Mrs Vizzer soaked (pickled?) orange peels in lemon juice, sugar and gin months ago. "It's the best gin 'n' tonic ever!" I say. She rolls her eyes and says that she's been doing it for years but that I've just not noticed because I usually drink brandy or rum. Furthermore, she says people have been serving G'n'T with orange for decades if not centuries. But it's all new to me and I get very excited these winter evenings when I hear the tinkle of ice going into a glass:



I'm sure that it's new year in Scotland or Russia or China or somewhere. Mine's a gin and tonic. Happy New Year!

It's certainly coming up to New Year in China, Vizzer.  I am pleased to hear that someone is bothering to use more syllables than they need.  I get irritated by what I take to be Americanisms that shorten phrases to make them snappier, for example (but just when you need them, it's hard to think of examples, of course) and using your date one:  "23 May" instead of "the 23rd of May", in speech. Or leaving out 'and' in phrases.  Or an abomination: New Year's for any time round the New Year, including New Year's Eve.  It has become so ubiquitous that even on National Radio (which has become to the horror of many "RNZ National") I heard it. But you get used to anything, I have found, and RNZ National seems fine now.

All this should be on the rant thread.

Regarding remarks that might be on different threads, then this might have been on the to-be-or-not one*, Nordmann, some 8+ years ago you mentioned a - then - discussion in Ireland, that of where the name O'Bama may have originated, was that ever settled?

*Note - on that thread I was almost slammed for being off side and dare not comment on such asides as this. I'm still trembling/blubbering - almost.

The consensus at the time was that his great grandfather was either one of the Termonfeckin O'Balmas or else a descendant of Seán Mór Ó Dúibh from Ballykenyah. However reality turned out to be even stranger, the lad being - as it turned out - an actual great-great-great grandson of one actual Falmouth Kearney from actual Moneygall in County Offaly (or actually County Tipperary, depending on which side of the main street you're looking at), a name and location you just wouldn't make up so on that basis we all assume is true.

Aforementioned Falmouth apparently emigrated as a young man to the United S of A in 1850 having obviously decided that a career in his father's shoemaking profession was a load of cobblers, or maybe just because he was fed up with locals asking him how the weather was in Cornwall.

Anyway, it is reported that the ex-president was chuffed with his cobblers ancestry when it was revealed to him by a special emissary sent from Offaly in 2007 and has since ordered at least one pair of new shoes to celebrate.

Thank you for the clarification, Nordmann, though it raises another little question as I seem to have heard the name Falmouth pronounced somewhat like 'Foulmouth' - as I'm far from certain on the various dialects, could that be true or just a local way of putting it?

The Netherlands video for POTUS:

Brilliant, ID.

From the Huffington Post website, these are genuine complaints received by Thomas Cook:

1. “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”
2. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”
3. “On my holiday to Goa in India , I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”
4. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price.”
5. “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”
6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”
7. “They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax.”
8. “No one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”
9. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers.”
10. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”
11. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun.”
12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”
13. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller.”
14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort’. We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”
15. “There were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”
16. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”
17. “It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.”
18. “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
19. “My fiance and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

I love it! 
But am i mad? 
What is happening?

As a reply to Trike's message above.


Extracts from complaints to a District Council

- I wish to complain that my Father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole of his back passage.

- The lavatory is blocked. This is caused by the boys next door throwing their balls on the roof

- This is to let you know there is a smell coming from the man next door.

- The toilet seat is cracked – where do I stand?

- I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is running away from the wall.

- I am still having trouble with smoke in my built in drawers.

- I request your permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.

- Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces.

- Can you please tell me when our repairs are going to be done, as my wife is about to become an expectant mother.

- I want some repairs done to my cooker, as it has backfired and burned my knob off.

- The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.

- The person next door has a large erection in his back garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.

- Will you please send us someone to mend our broken path. Yesterday my wife tripped and fell on it and she is now pregnant.

- Our kitchen floor is very damp, we have two children and would like a third, so will you please send someone to do something about it.

- Would you please repair our toilet, my son pulled the chain and the box fell on his head.

- Will you please send a man to look at my water; it is a funny colour and not fit to drink.

- Would you please send a man to repair my spout, I am an old pensioner and need it straight away.

- I woke this morning and found my water boiling.

- This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broken and we cannot get BBC 2.

And another one for Trike, got to be watched until the very end though.

Where is everyone? Are you all away restocking the fall-out shelter or queuing for your courgette and iceberg lettuce ration? I'm occupied shifting heaters round the house and boiling water since my ancient boiler is on the blink and it's so old that there's no spares available so it's got to be a new one. I hope it's installed quickly, even my great granny had a polished black range that gave her heat and hot water. The cat is, of course, outraged that there's no warmth behind her radiator hammock and is drawing me filthy looks from my bed where she has retired in a monumental huff.

2017 is real b*st*rd, ain't it?

ferval wrote:

Where is everyone? Are you all away restocking the fall-out shelter or queuing for your courgette and iceberg lettuce ration?

And it's not only 1940s-style rationing that's back ... I see Vera Lynn has just released a "new" CD of her wartime hits! Meanwhile Andrea Leadsom has been wittering on, again, about "brexit's sunlit uplands", Theresa May's said she intends to "stop them at the beaches", and to cap them all, Bo Jo, in full faux Churchillian mode, has gone on about all them filthy European naarzies, and likened the French President to a Vichy collaborator, Frau Merkel and Herr Junker to Hitler, and has generally upset all the people on whom depend the delicate matter of the UK's future relations with its closest neighbours. He certainly ain't no Anthony Eden.

I tell yer, if things go on like this - especially if the 'Daily Mail' gets its way - the next thing will be Woolton pie on Celebrity Bake-off,  and re-runs of ITMA and 'The Crazy Gang' on the BBC wireless.

A drink anyone? In 1940 beer (the only alcoholic drink that was usually available, unless you had lots of cash), cost only 3d a pint, but it was very weak and had little flavour, ...  and you often had to bring your own container.

PS : I was stopped by the Gendarmes last week ... just a routine security/documents check, nothing else. But there was something about their manner when they looked at my driving licence and then queried, "Eeenglish?", that made me respond, in French, "no, actually I'm Scots". After that we were all smiles, handshakes, and chats ... it was after all only a routine check, and they could clearly see from my papers that I'm resident here.

Smiles and handshakes aside, I however felt that I'd just passed ... or rather actually failed ... my St Peter's test of honesty and courage.

Meles meles,

"I see Vera Lynn has just released a "new" CD of her wartime hits!"

"My" Vera Lynn...I wasn't aware that she still was among us....and see in some month: one hundred years
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/feb/01/dame-vera-lynn-to-mark-her-100th-birthday-by-releasing-album
Hail hail the lady.

Kind regards, Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

"Eeenglish?"

They could at least have had the decency to say "Angliche?" which alternative was widely heard used in the 2014 television miniseries Résistance. Despite the somewhat adolescent take of that drama I did learn something from it which was that the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris are singular and partitive in French - (i.e. le jardin du Luxembourg). For years I had been merely transliterating the commonly-used English form 'Luxembourg Gardens' as "les jardins de Luxembourg". Any French-speaker (and particularly any Parisian) must have thought that I was 'un propre Angliche' - or should that be 'un Angliche propre'?

Ever since (as compensation) I have been giving it its full value in English and saying "the Garden of the Luxembourg Palace". Part of me, however, thinks that that too is wrong because there are 2 Luxembourg palaces and 2 gardens and that in French a translation of 'the Luxembourg Gardens' would be 'les jardins des Luxembourgs'. But then for that to be consistent we should be saying in English "the Luxembourgs' Gardens" which of course we don't. Arrgh!

No more resistance to the logic of French grammar. Basically this Englishman got it wrong. I surrender.

Vizzer,

"Any French-speaker (and particularly any Parisian) must have thought that I was 'un propre Angliche' - or should that be 'un Angliche propre'?"

"propre" Now you used once a word...
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/197628 the same for instance with "pauvre" also indicated in the link...
"pauvre type" (idiot), "type pauvre" (a guy, who is poor)
Vizzer, don't become desperate... ...even I, although fluently in French, have many times some hesitation as for the place of the adjective...of course a years long practice of the language gives the "place" without "thinking".
Sparked by your difficulty I had a look in my:
Grammaire française, à l'usage des Flamands par R.Dierckx Docteur en philosphie et lettres. Pour toutes les classes (garçons et filles) (couldn't resist to put a   after this "garçons et filles"...those were the times...) Neuvième édition. Bruxelles 1958.
I have to say that I have still a great help from this grammar, even after all those years, while it is very well brought and in detail.
From that grammar:
Place of the adjective.
No fixed rules. It is the use and the reading that will learn most about the place: before or after the substantive...
It mostly depends from 1. the number of syllabes of the adjective, 2. the euphony, 3. the meaning that one wants to give to it.
1.The adjectives with many syllabes are placed mostly after the substantive (or it has to be that the substantive is even longer than the multisyllable adjective)
2. l'euphonie: par exemple: une branche basse et une chambre fraîche...
3. le sens: un brave homme (a good, honest man), un homme brave (a brave, courageous man)
Always after the substantive:the  past participle, colours, nationality, accompagnied with a "complement" or with an adverb on -ment.
Mostly after the substantive: adjective from a verb; adjectives expressing a form.
Always before the substantive (when after: another meaning).
"ancien, beau, bon, brave, dernier, gentile, grand, gros, haut, heuruex, jeune, joli, joyeux, larege, long, lourd, mauvais, nouveau, pauvre, petit, premeir, vieux, vilain, vrai.

Kind regards, Paul.

ferval wrote:

Where is everyone? Are you all away restocking the fall-out shelter or queuing for your courgette and iceberg lettuce ration? I'm occupied shifting heaters round the house and boiling water since my ancient boiler is on the blink and it's so old that there's no spares available so it's got to be a new one. I hope it's installed quickly, even my great granny had a polished black range that gave her heat and hot water. The cat is, of course, outraged that there's no warmth behind her radiator hammock and is drawing me filthy looks from my bed where she has retired in a monumental huff.

2017 is real b*st*rd, ain't it?

Our boiler is on it's last legs too, has sprung a leak that just keeps getting larger and we are increasing the size of buckets underneath in accordance. It will just have to last a bit longer, it has no choice in the matter  The joys of living on the sea, everything eventually rusts. sigh.

My 17yr old washing machine required a new thermostat last week, first breakdown in all those years. Touch wood it will have to last a bit longer too.

No shortages of either zucchinis or lettuces in Greece though....