Happy Hogmanay!

Hogmanay (pronounced [ˌhɔgməˈneː] — with the main stress on the last syllable) is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year (Gregorian calendar) in the Scottish manner. Its official date is 31 December (Auld Year's Night). However this is normally only the start of a celebration which lasts through the night until the morning of Ne'erday (1 January) or, in some cases, 2 January which is a Scottish Bank Holiday.

Origins

The roots of Hogmanay perhaps reach back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Norse, as well as incorporating customs from the Gaelic New Year's celebration of Samhain. In Europe, winter solstice evolved into the ancient celebration of Saturnalia, a great Roman winter festival, where people celebrated completely free of restraint and inhibition. The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the "Daft Days" as they were sometimes called in Scotland. The winter festival went underground with the Protestant Reformation and ensuing years, but re-emerged near the end of the 17th century.

Customs

There are many customs, both national and local, associated with Hogmanay. The most widespread national custom is the practice of 'first-footing' which starts immediately after midnight. This involves being the first person to cross the threshold of a friend or neighbour and often involves the giving of symbolic gifts such as salt (less common today), coal, shortbread, whisky, and black bun (a rich fruit cake) intended to bring different kinds of luck to the householder. Food and drink (as the gifts) are then given to the guests. This may go on throughout the early hours of the morning and well into the next day (although modern days see people visiting houses until 3 January). The first-foot is supposed to set the luck for the rest of the year, so it is important that a suitable person does the job. According to popular folklore, a man with dark hair was welcomed because he was assumed to be a fellow Scotsman; a blond or red-haired stranger was assumed to be an unwelcome Norseman.[citation needed]


Local Customs

Each area of Scotland often developed its own particular Hogmanay ritual.

Stonehaven Fireballs Ceremony 2003An example of a local Hogmanay custom is the fireball swinging that takes place in Stonehaven, Kincardineshire in north-east Scotland. This involves local people making up 'balls' of chicken wire and tar, paper, and other flammable material up to a diameter of 61 cm. Each ball has 2 m of wire, chain or nonflammable rope attached. As the Old Town House bell sounds to mark the new year, the swingers set off up the High Street from the Mercat Cross to the Cannon and back, swinging their burning ball around their head as they go for as many times as they and their fireball last. At the end of the ceremony any fireballs that are still burning are cast into the harbour. Many people enjoy this display, which is more impressive in the dark than it would be during the day. As a result large crowds flock to the town to see it, with 12,000 attending the 2007/2008 event. In recent years, additional attractions have been added to entertain the crowds as they wait for midnight, such as fire poi, a pipe band, street drumming and a firework display after the last fireball is cast into the sea.

Another example of a pagan fire festival is the the burning of the clavie which takes place in the town of Burghead in Moray.

In the east coast fishing communities and Dundee, first-footers used to carry a decorated herring while in Falkland in Fife, local men would go in torchlight procession to the top of the Lomond Hills as midnight approached. Bakers in St Andrews would bake special cakes for their Hogmanay celebration (known as 'Cake Day') and distribute them to local children.

In Glasgow and the central areas of Scotland, the tradition is to hold Hogmanay parties involving singing, dancing, the eating of steak pie or stew, storytelling and consumption of copious amounts of alcohol, which usually extend into the daylight hours of January 1.

Institutions also had their own traditions. For example, amongst the Scottish regiments, the officers had to wait on the men at special dinners while at the bells, the Old Year is piped out of barrack gates. The sentry then challenges the new escort outside the gates: 'Who goes there?' The answer is 'The New Year, all's well.'

An old custom in the Highlands, which has survived to a small extent and seen some degree of revival, is to celebrate Hogmanay with the saining (Scots for 'protecting, blessing) of the household and livestock. This was done early on New Year's morning with copious, choking clouds of smoke from burning juniper branches, and by drinking and then sprinkling 'magic water' from 'a dead and living ford' around the house ('a dead and living ford' refers to a river ford which is routinely crossed by both the living and the dead). After the sprinkling of the water in every room, on the beds and all the inhabitants, the house was sealed up tight and the burning juniper carried through the house and byre. The smoke was allowed to thoroughly fumigate the buildings until it caused sneezing and coughing among the inhabitants. Then all the doors and windows were flung open to let in the cold, fresh air of the new year. The woman of the house then administered 'a restorative' from the whisky bottle, and the household sat down to their New Year breakfast.[4]

Auld Lang Syne

The Hogmanay custom of singing Auld Lang Syne has become common in many countries. Auld Lang Syne is a traditional poem reinterpreted by Robert Burns, which was later set to music. It is now common for this to be sung in a circle of linked arms that are crossed over one another as the clock strikes midnight for New Year's Day, although in Scotland the traditional practice is to cross arms only for the last verse.

Presbyterian influence

The Presbyterian Church generally disapproved of Hogmanay. The following quote is one of the first mentions of the holiday in official church records:

'It is ordinary among some plebeians in the South of Scotland to go about from door to door upon New-years Eve, crying Hagmane.'

Until the 1960s, Hogmanay and Ne'erday (a contraction of 'New Year's Day' in Scots dialect, according to the OED) in Scotland took the place of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the rest of the UK. Although Christmas Day held its normal religious nature, the Presbyterian national church, the Church of Scotland, had discouraged its celebration for over 400 years. As a result Christmas Day was a normal working day in Scotland until the 1960s and even into the 1970s in some areas. The gift-giving, public holidays and feasting associated with mid-winter were held between the 31 December and 2 January rather than between 24 December and 26 December.

With the fading of the Church's influence and the introduction of English cultural values via television and immigration, the transition to Christmas feasting was well-nigh complete by the 1980s. However, 1 January and 2 January remain public holidays in Scotland, despite the addition of Christmas Day and Boxing Day to the public holiday list, and Hogmanay still is associated with as much celebration as Christmas in Scotland. Most Scots still celebrate Ne'erday with a special dinner, usually steak pie.

Ne'erday

When Ne'erday falls on a Sunday, 3 January becomes an additional public holiday in Scotland; when Ne'erday falls on a Saturday, both 3 January and 4 January will be public holidays in Scotland; when Ne'erday falls on a Friday, 4 January becomes an additional public holiday in Scotland.

As in much of the world, the four largest Scottish cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Dundee, hold all-night celebrations, as does Stirling. The Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations are among the largest in the world, although in 2003-4 most of the organised events were cancelled at short notice due to very high winds. The Stonehaven Fireballs went ahead as planned, however, with 6000 hardy souls braving the weather to watch 42 fireball swingers process along the High Street. Similarly, the 2006-07 celebrations in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling were all cancelled on the day, again due to high winds and heavy rain.The Aberdeen celebration, however, went ahead, and was ironically opened by the pop music group, Wet Wet Wet.

Handsel Day

Historically, presents were given in Scotland on the first Monday of the New Year. This would be celebrated often by the employer giving his staff presents and parents giving children presents. A roast dinner would be eaten to celebrate the festival. Handsel was a word for gift box and hence Handsel Day. In modern Scotland this practice has died out.

Etymology

The etymology of the word is obscure. It may have been introduced to Middle Scots through the Auld Alliance. In 1604 the custom was mentioned in the Elgin Records as hagmonay. The most satisfactory explanation is a derivation from the Northern French dialect word hoguinané, or variants such as hoginane, hoginono and hoguinettes. Those being derived from 16th century Old French aguillanneuf which is either a gift given at New Year, a children's cry for such a gift or New Year's Eve itself.[10] The second element would appear to be l'an neuf i.e. the New Year. Compare those to Norman hoguinané and the obsolete customs in Jersey of crying ma hodgîngnole, and in Guernsey of asking for an oguinane, for a New Year gift.

Source: wikipedia

Has luck accompanied you?

Spaniards shrug off gloom with Fat One's fat cheques

Spain's traditional Christmas lottery, known as El Gordo, "the Fat One," showered its riches today on the historic centre of Barcelona, making it especially likely that British tourists have a winning stake this year in the 2.32 billion euro pot.

Hundreds of top-prize tickets – worth a total of 384 million euros – were sold at a single vendor on the famed Ramblas thoroughfare, next to the bohemian Raval neighborhood, home to immigrants, students and emerging artists – and popular with many British holidaymakers.

The lucky lottery vendor, Isabel Moliner, rushed to buy bottles of cava, Catalonian sparkling wine, as ecstatic immigrants clutched their winning stubs.

"I'm going to open a restaurant," a man from Bangladesh told a herd of national television cameras. "I'm unemployed," said a man with the winning number, 32365, shaved across the back of his head. "Now I can buy a house and a car."

Moliner expects that some of the prize money fell into the hands of the tourists or expatriates who pass by her state lottery shop.

In Alicante, a British resident of Torrevieja was reported to have been among the top prize winners. The man was said to have purchased a number ending in a five because he was born in 1945.

Each year thousands of foreigners – and three out of four Spaniards -- buy tickets in the world's oldest and richest lottery, a tradition that stretches back to 1812. It has become so famous abroad that consumer groups in the United States, Britain and elsewhere often warn potential lottery players of frauds. And now purchasing the tickets has been made even easier through internet sales.

Despite the economic crisis, a total of 3.32 billion euros in tickets were sold this year – down less than three percent from last year. Many Spaniards hope that a lucky number will boost them into better times.

"There is hardly money for food but it's worth it in case this year we win," said Eusebio Porras Sanz, a 60-year-old flamenco dancer, while queuing at a lottery vendor in Madrid's bustling Puerta del Sol earlier this week. "Hope is a great thing. If you win, you are poor no more".

Indeed, throughout Spain, mortgage troubles, threatened job cuts and other headaches of the economic crisis seemed a far away as millions of euros in prizes graced depressed working class neighborhoods.

In Soria, a city in central Spain, a single bar, Gari, sold 97 million euros worth of third-prize winning tickets. Dozens of happy customers doused themselves with champagne, danced and pounded drums in the street. The owner of the bar declared "drinks on the house" as he, like millions of Spaniards, sat glued to the television set watching the three-hour drawing with 1,787 prizes.

"I'm going to pay off all my debts and then go for a week of skiing – and I'm not going to worry about how much I spend," said one woman dancing outside the bar.

The drama of the day occurred in at a shopping mall outside Madrid, where Carmen, a 70-year-old grandmother-to-be, came running to her lottery vendor in tears. She bought a ticket that won a 100,000 prize, but had left it in the pocket of her housecoat. And washed it. She raced to the shopping mall with the torn bits of the ticket pieced together in a plastic bag. The ticket will be sent to the National Coin and Stamp Factory to determine its authenticity. If so, Carmen said she will use the money to help her unemployed son.

El Gordo creates few millionaires, but it spreads the wealth widely because of a complex pay-out system that divides prize money among 195 series of tickets, each further divided into 10 smaller parts, known as décimos, which cost 20 euros a piece. Many people further subdivide these décimos, like share of stock, among friends, family or clients. This generous division ensures that the bounty is sprinkled among thousands of people – often entire businesses, villages and sporting clubs.

Last year, a cluster of small towns in the northern coal mining region of Asturias won a total of 219 million euros. "It changed our life," said Juan Martinez Serrano, the mayor of the Valdesoto, a few days before yesterday's drawing. "You can see how the money is being spent, you see better cars, a lot home renovations, and even though lightening never strikes twice, the number of people who came here to buy tickets this year is barbarous." Unfortunately for him, it was the one year he neglected to purchase the lottery. "But I was happy anyway to see how it transformed the town," he said.

Source: The Independant

More Palin revelations

Sarah Palin 'did not know Africa was a continent', say aides

Sarah Palin spent "tens of thousands" more than the quoted $150,000 on clothes for the Republican campaign, met McCain aides in her hotel room dressed in nothing but a towel, and did not know Africa was a continent, according to new reports.

Fox news has reported that Mrs Palin did not understand that Africa was a continent, not a country, and did not know what countries were in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In separate claims made in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine, the Republican vice presidential nominee was reported to have been told to buy three suits for the Republican convention, and to hire a stylist. Instead, she went on a spending spree in upmarket stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

Quoting unnamed sources within the McCain camp, the magazine alleges that most of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who "was shocked when he got the bill."

An angry aide described the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast", and predicted that the truth would eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

The magazine also claimed that Mrs Palin used low ranking staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards, and that up to $40,000 was spent on clothes for her husband Todd.

A number of articles of clothing have been lost, the magazine states.

The disclosures are made in "How He Did It, 2008", in Newsweek's Special Election Project, a behind-the-scenes account of the presidential election produced the day after the polls closed.

The magazine also claims that at the GOP convention in St. Paul, when aides Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her, Ms Palin walked into the room wearing only a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat to Todd, adding: "I'll be just a minute."

Other election revelations include that on the night Hillary Clinton officially lost the Democratic nomination, she enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain.

"Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama," reports the magazine. "Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow. "

Source: The Times

Listen to the telephone conversation between Palin and (who she thought was) Sarkozy.

Before she is confined to the dustbin of history; here is one more chance to admire the interview skills and the foreign policy credentials of Sarah Palin.

USA's Oldest Voter

Profile: Ann Nixon Cooper, 106, singled out for praise by Barack Obama

Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106-year-old black voter picked out by Barack Obama as embodying the spirit of his election victory, is an Atlanta housewife who has overcome personal hardship to raise a family and serve her community.

Mr Obama said that of all the millions of voters who had cast their ballot Mrs Nixon Cooper was on his mind, because of the enormous sweep of American history that her long life had witnessed.

"She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin," said the president-elect, before a rapturous crowd of more than 125,000 in Chicago's Grant Park.

"And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: 'Yes we can'."

The centenarian was born Ann Louise Nixon on January 9 in 1902 in Shelbyville, Tennessee, one of six siblings. When her mother died the brothers and sisters were split up, and Mrs Nixon Cooper was raised by her aunt.

In 1922 at the age of 20 she married Albert Berry Cooper, a dentist from Nashville, Tennessee. The young couple moved to the city of Atlanta, in Georgia, where for a few months she worked as a policy writer for the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, before starting a family.

As her husband's dentist's practice prospered, Mrs Nixon Cooper turned to public work, serving for more than 50 years on the board of the Gate City Nursery Association, and helping to found the Girls Club for African-American Youth in Atlanta.

"At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot," said Mr Obama.

Like other black Americans, Mrs Nixon Cooper would have gained the right to vote a mere 43 years ago, at the age of 63. She was still active in the community, teaching residents to read as part of a tutoring programme at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in the 1970s.

In 1980 Mrs Nixon Cooper's contribution to welfare and civil rights was recognised by Atlanta's WXIA-TV which awarded her a community service medal for her activism, working to improve conditions in the African-American community. This was followed in 2002 by the Annie L McPheeters Medallion for community service, awarded by the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History.

"She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome," said Mr Obama.

"A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Mr Obama asked what changes and what progress would his own daughters and their children would see if they should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper.

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment," he said.

"This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."

Source: The Times

Phrasal Verbs - get

to get round to doing something = finding the time to do something

• I must get round to filling in that form. I should have done it ages ago.


• I still haven't got round to calling her; I've been that rushed of my feet.


• I'll get round to fixing the tap soon. I promise.

to get away with something = to escape punishment when you are guilty

• He's always getting away with things. He arrived late every day last week and his supervisor didn't say a word.


• I know that if I did that, I wouldn't get away with it.


• He stood trial for the offence but the jury found him not guilty. I reckon he got away with it.
  

Have you ever got away with something? Or know anyone, famous or otherwise, who has?

Is there anything that you know you must do at some point or other, but have been putting off? When will you get round to it and why haven't you got round to doing it earlier?

Don't get me wrong - The Pretenders

Don't get me wrong,
If I'm looking kind of dazzled;
I see neon lights,
Whenever you walk by.

Don't get me wrong,
If you say hello and I take a ride,
Upon a sea where the mystic moon
Is playing havoc with the tide.
Don't get me wrong.

Don't get me wrong,
If I'm acting so distracted;
I'm thinking about the fireworks,
That go off when you smile.

Don't get me wrong,
If I split like light refracted,
I'm only off to wander
Across a moonlit mile.

Once in a while,
Two people meet
Seemingly for no reason
They just pass on the street.
Suddenly thunder showers everywhere
Who can explain the thunder and rain
But there's something in the air.

Don't get me wrong,
If I come and go like fashion.
I might be great tomorrow
But hopeless yesterday.

Don't get me wrong,
If I fall in the mode of passion
It might be unbelievable.
But let's not stay so long,
It might just be fantastic
Don't get me wrong.

Brits fought in Spanish Civil War

"Better to die on your feet than live for ever on your knees" - Dolores Ibarruri


Freedom fighters welcome honour, 70 years on

Seventy years have passed since they marched out of Barcelona amid crowds of weeping, cheering Spaniards, but it is only now that the last few British volunteers who fought in Spain against General Franco's fascist-backed rebels are finally to be rewarded by the Spanish state.

The handful of British survivors from the 2,300 men and women in the International Brigades during the civil war are now in their 90s or have passed 100, and most are physically frail.

They still cling to the memories and spirit of battles fought seven decades ago and have welcomed an offer by the cabinet of the Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, last week, that would allow them joint nationality.

"It is a gesture to those of us who survived and I'll take it in memory of all those who paid the final price and who lie unknown under Spanish soil," said Sam Lesser, 93. "There are so few of us left now."

Lesser is one of seven members of the brigades thought to be still alive and living in Britain. All have said they will take up the offer of joint nationality.

The veterans said they retained vivid memories of a country and a cause which, in many cases, changed their lives. "It certainly made a big difference to my life," said Penny Feiwel, 99, who volunteered as a nurse and ended up as an officer running a frontline mobile operating theatre before being injured. She had felt a natural sympathy for what was seen as a struggle by Spanish workers against the growing forces of fascism in Europe.

"I come from a working-class family. My father had been without a job for a long time. People today don't realise what times their grandparents went through or what they achieved."

While Hitler and Mussolini sent arms and troops to help Franco, Britain and Europe's other democracies stood on the sidelines as tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world travelled to Spain to help the Republic.

The civil war was, for many, a first big commitment in what became lifelong careers as leftwing campaigners. Among those still alive is Jack Jones, who went on to lead the Transport and General Workers Union. Jones said he would also accept the offer of nationality. Like many other members, however, he had had some doubts about Spain's current condition as a constitutional monarchy when he and the other brigaders had fought to defend a republic.

"The answer is yes, I would welcome it very much. I've had a very active life and have been leader of a large trade union, but this was a very special period."

A mixture of politics, romance and adventure drove people to sign up for the International Brigades or find their own way to Spain to fight after Franco led a rightwing rebellion against the government in 1936.

"I wasn't a communist but I was rather leftwing as a young man," said Paddy Cochrane, 95. "I hitchhiked down to London from Liverpool and went to the Communist party but they wouldn't take me on as they said I had no military experience.

"Then I saw an advertisement in the newspaper saying that drivers were needed to take ambulances to Spain, so that is what I did. Once there, he was able to enlist and was wounded by shrapnel from a hand grenade in fierce fighting at the town of Belchite. A bit of it went in at my hip and out of my bottom without hitting a bone."

Some of those wounded found it hard to stay away from Spain. Lesser was injured in a battle near Córdoba in which the poet John Cornford was killed. He later returned to do political broadcasts in English and became correspondent for the Daily Worker newspaper.

He was there in Barcelona when the brigades, who had been formally disbanded, marched away in October 1938. The firebrand communist politician Dolores Ibárruri, known as La Pasionaria, gave them a rousing send-off as tens of thousands of people packed the streets of Barcelona. "You can go with pride," she said. "You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of the solidarity and the universality of democracy. We will not forget you."

Brigaders from across the world will travel to Barcelona this month to mark the 70th anniversary of their departure.

Most would like to have taken Spanish nationality when the idea was first floated in 1996, under the rightwing government of prime minister José María Aznar. The small print of that offer, however, meant they would have had to renounce British nationality. None of them were willing to do that.

"It is a shame," said Marlene Sidaway, of the International Brigade Memorial Trust. "They were all much haler and heartier then."

Among those unable to take up the offer was her partner, David Marshall, who died in 2003.

Even some of those still alive fear they might not live long enough to pick up the reward of Spanish nationality.

"I'd love to take it," Les Gibson, who fought at the Jarama front, said in a telephone interview. "But I'm now 95 years of age and I am not sure I will be able to.

"I'm still very interested in Spain and the Spanish. It was an important part of my life. I lost some good friends there, mind you, but I managed to scrape through somehow."

A fifth of those who reached Spain from Britain did not get back alive.

"We felt we weren't just defending Spain but also our own country," said Lesser. "We were also fighting to save peace and to save Britain."

Source: Guardian

Read about La Pasionaria Memorial (pictured above) which is dedicated to the British who lost their lives during the Spanish Civil War.

Have any of your older relatives told you what life was like during the war?

Ever seen a €500 note?

Spanish hoards of €500 notes could aid liquidity

It is, perhaps, the strangest idea yet for pumping extra liquidity into Europe's troubled banking system. Spanish officials were yesterday reported to be looking for ways of encouraging Spaniards to remove the estimated 108m €500 notes they have hoarded in safes or under floorboards and take them to the bank. That averages out to at least two per Spaniard, or a total of €54bn, circulating outside the country's banking system.

A combination of tax-cheating and a long-standing mistrust of banks, means Spain soaks up a quarter of all the €500 notes - one of the world's highest denomination bank bills - released every year.

One option for getting the notes into the banking system, by offering a no-questions-asked fiscal amnesty, was ruled out by the finance minister Pedro Solbes yesterday. El Mundo newspaper reported, however, that there had been pressure from within the government's finance team to consider a fiscal amnesty. Spain's tax inspectors, whose job it is to root out the notes when they are used for tax fraud, were among those opposing the idea.

The purple €500 notes are so rarely seen that they have earned the nickname "Bin Ladens".

Most are used in real estate deals, where property is often bought and sold in a mixture of fiscally opaque cash and fiscally transparent bank transfers. The price of property deals reported to the tax authorities is, therefore, often much lower than that really paid.

Other notes circulate in the country's black economy. Sectors including the footwear industry, construction or silversmiths are thought to do much of their business in black currency.

Spain is estimated to have one of the biggest black economies in Europe, accounting for between 20 and 23% of annual GDP. Spanish tax authorities are investigating 12,000 big transactions involving €500 notes.

Source: Guardian

Do you trust the banks? Have you had any unfair treatment at the hands of them?

An interesting read?

Man reads entire Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary is not everyone's idea of a page turner.

But a man has just completed the mammoth, if not bizarre, task of reading the 22,000-page tome cover to cover.

Ammon Shea, 37, who has been dissecting dictionaries since the age of 10, spent a year absorbing 59 million words, from A to Zyxt - the equivalent of reading a John Grisham novel every day.

Cooped up in the basement of his local library, the removal man from New York would devote up to 10 hours a day painstakingly making his way through all 20 volumes of the OED - helped by cup after cup of very strong coffee.

Every time he came across an interesting word, he jotted it down, fearful that he would not remember its meaning.

Among his favourite discoveries were obmutescence (willfully quiet), hypergelast (a person who won't stop laughing), natiform (shaped like buttocks) and deipnosophist (a person who is learned in the art of dining.)

He admitted there were times when he almost gave up, frustrated at not being familiar with any of the words on the page.

In his new book, Reading the Oxford English Dictionary: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, he recalls a low point when he started learning words beginning with the letter N.

"Some days I feel as if I do not actually speak the English language, or understand it with any degree of real comprehension," he said.

"It is as if I am visiting a foreign country, armed with one of those silly little tourist phrase book...I may know enough to order a cup of coffee or inquire where the bathroom is."

By the time he reached the 400 pages devoted to words beginning with "un", he said he was "near catatonic, bored out of my mind, and so listless I can't remember why I wanted to read any of this in the first place.

"At this point, telling myself, 'You only have 351 pages of un-words to go', does not seem helpful. I don't quite feel as though I have lost my mind, but it often seems as though it is on vacation somewhere else, just east of sanity."

Why anyone would choose to put themselves through such a task is a question Mr Shea is often asked.

As a self-confessed lover of words who owns a thousand dictionaries, he said that reading the entire OED was a challenge he set himself many years ago.

"The OED, more so than any other dictionary, encompasses the entire history of all English's glories and foibles, the grand concepts and whimsical conceits that make our language what it is today," he said.

"It's a great read. It is much more engrossing, enjoyable and moving to read than you would typically think a non-narrative body of text could ever possibly be."

Source: Daily Telegraph

Baked beans beat the crisis

Baked bean sales soar as families turn back to canned food
The humble baked bean is back in fashion as families return to canned food in a bid to beat the credit crisis.

Sales of baked beans have increased by 12 per cent over the last year, surpassing annual sales of £300 million for the first time.

As food inflation in Britain has risen higher than almost anywhere else in the developing world, consumers are cutting back on their grocery bills.

Sales of post-war, ration book era food are booming, according to statistics, and families are stocking up on canned goods.

In the 52 weeks to the end of August baked bean sales reached £300.4 million, compared with just £250.2 million three years ago, according to the market research company IRI.

The figures follow evidence from supermarkets, that shoppers are starting to buy cheaper cuts of meat, such as chicken thighs rather than breast meat and braising steaks rather than sirloin or fillet.

Sheraz Dar, head of marketing for Branston Baked Beans, which released the IRI data, said: "The credit crunch is undoubtedly having some effect. Baked beans provide a very cheap source of fibre and protein so it's not surprising people are increasingly turning to baked beans for nutrition."

Asda says that sales of its budget range of Smart Price baked beans, which retail for just 20p for a 420g tin, have soared by more than 50 per cent over the last year.

With £300 million of beans sold over the last year, this could buy each household in Britain more than 22lbs (10 kilos) – or 23 large cans – worth of high-quality baked beans. Not quite enough to stock up an underground bunker, but plenty to fuel a family if the economy plumbs new ration-book era depths.

Source: Telegraph

Has the crisis altered your shopping in any way? Have you stopped buying things because they have got too expensive? Do you still treat yourself now and again to something despite its expense?

This advert for beans is from 1986 but has the same jingle as today: "beanz meanz heinz".


Do you have a favourite ad, past or present?

Pronunciation Problems

Why 'phenonemon' is the most troublesome word in the English language

Ever been refused that much-needed pay rise? Perhaps it's because you didn't ask in the right way.

It seems that many of us have trouble getting our tongue around the word 'remuneration'.

But there are many more troublesome hurdles in the language.

'Phenomenon' is the most mispronounced word, research shows, with its succession of 'm' and 'n' sounds presenting the greatest difficulty.

'Anaesthetist' also causes problems due to the tricky mixture of 'th' and 't' noises.

'Remuneration', which is often heard in its mangled form 'renumeration', came in third in the study of 3,000 Britons.

And the fourth most difficult word to pronounce, according to the poll, was ' statistics'.

However, it may be a case of back to the drawing board for some, who admitted they often struggle with common words like 'February' - which appeared in 12th place in the list.

A spokesman for Spinvox - a voicemail to text message service - which carried out the research, said: 'Many words are difficult to say and when we struggle to pronounce a word correctly it makes us self-conscious about the way we speak.

'There are some real tongue-twisters in the list and it's understandable how many people can get confused when pronouncing certain words.

'We're fascinated by the way people speak as our automatic voice-to-text conversion system has to accurately convert the different ways that people talk - including common mispronunciation.

'This means people can be confident that a written message will be authentic and contain the essence of their voice.'

But researchers also stressed that mispronunciation was no laughing matter for many.

Almost half of those who confessed to frequent errors said they suffered embarrassment as a result.

More than a third even avoided using troublesome words to save face.

But 43 per cent of people admit they often correct mispronunciation in others, and - perhaps encouragingly for the tongue-tied - only a quarter of people think it shows a lack of intelligence.

Source: Daily Mail

Make a (short) list of the words that you have difficulty pronouncing.

Robin Bank

€500,000 scam of a Spanish Robin Hood

He calls himself Robin Bank and acts as the self-appointed avenger of downtrodden loan defaulters and all poor victims of the global financial meltdown.

Like his hero Robin Hood, Spanish outlaw Enric Duran steals from the rich and gives, if not to the poor, at least to the activist groups who are sworn enemies of the banking system.

Yesterday Duran circulated 200,000 copies of a single-issue free newspaper called Crisis to show how he had spent the past two years fooling banks into lending him nearly half a million euros (about £395,000).

He said he had given it all away to social activists or spent it on the newspaper. He is refusing to pay the money back and daring the banks to get him sent to jail.

"If we include interest on arrears the present amount of debt is over €500,000, which I will not pay," he said.

As Duran, 32, went into hiding, copies of the newspaper were being handed out by friends and relatives to commuters at dozens of metro and railway stations in his home city of Barcelona.
Friends said he had fled the country earlier this week.

News of his exploits caught Spain's high street banks, consumer finance houses and building societies by surprise. They were busy yesterday checking their loan portfolios to see whether Duran was on the list.

He has provided a list of all the 39 banks he took loans from. They include one bank, Cetelem, that gave him five loans.

The police and the local attorney general's office said they had not yet started looking for Duran as they were waiting for one of the banks to lodge a formal request for him to be found.

Duran said he had raised the loans partly by setting up a false television production company. He paid back some of the early loans to ensure he had a good credit rating but stopped paying them all earlier this year.

He had started out by getting personal loans but eventually used a company name to avoid being placed on a list of bad debtors.

A small businesses office of the regional Catalan government unwittingly helped him raise at least one of the loans, according to reports yesterday.

Most of the money had been donated to social activism groups.

"What could be better than robbing the ones who rob us and distributing the money among the groups which are denouncing this situation and building alternatives?" he asked.

Bankers reacted angrily. "It is not permissible for someone to laugh [at the system] like this," Jordi Mestre, director general of the Caixa Sabadell savings bank, told the Europa Press news agency.

Other banks said they would have no trouble writing off the lost money.

"Even if it is confirmed that he took €31,000, it won't mean anything to us," said a spokesman for Bankinter.

Duran posted a video interview of himself on the internet yesterday.

"It has been an individual disobedience action against banking that I have carried out to denounce the banking system," he said.

"Banks need to grant loans because that is the main way for them to get profits. It is a wheel that will not stop until the system comes to a standstill. As individuals, instead of helping the wheel to roll by asking for loans we have the opportunity and responsibility of making things difficult for this system."

The social activist could face a prison term of up to six years if convicted.

"When I started this action I was already prepared for that possibility," he said.

Source: Guardian

Do you admire this scamster? Can you think of any other criminals that you, if not admire, at least consider clever?

AlItalia troubles

Alitalia may be nationalised by Berlusconi after rescue fails

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, will consider the option of "temporary nationalisation" of Alitalia after the dramatic collapse yesterday of a rescue bid for the troubled airline by an all-Italian consortium.

As the Italian Cabinet prepared to meet to discuss the crisis this morning, reports said Mr Berlusconi had wrongly calculated that CAI, the consortium of industrialists, would go ahead with the rescue plan despite the refusal of CGIL, Italy's largest union, and the pilots' union to accept it.

Mr Berlusconi is putting pressure on the investors to change their mind and "try again" with the support of trade unions willing to back the deal.

His miscalculation accounted for his air of optimism yesterday afternoon as the deadline for the unions to accept the CAI offer approached.

When his assumptions proved false, the Italian leader was nonplussed, according to aides, asking his advisers, "What do we do now?". He soon bounced back, however, vowing "I will not give up" and undertook to keep Alitalia flying, the aides said.

Il Giornale, the newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family, today put the blame for the crisis on the left-wing CGIL and its leader Guglielmo Epifani under the headline: "Alitalia collapses — thanks to the unions". The paper added: "The unions have tried for years to bring down Italy but they have brought down Alitalia instead".

Most newspapers condemned Alitalia staff at Fiumicino, the main Rome airport, for exulting as news of the withdrawal of the rescue plan came through, with airline staff punching the air and shouting "Better a collapse than those bandits", a reference to the industrialists in the consortium. "The cost of this irresponsibility is clear" said Il Messaggero, the Rome daily: "163 aircraft on the ground and 18,500 employees without jobs".

It said the protesters were "like those who danced on the Titanic as the ship went down". They were like people "smiling at a funeral", said La Repubblica, reporting that Air France had already applied for Alitalia's slots at Fiumicino, while Lufthansa was seeking the slots at Malpensa near Milan.

Alitalia risks becoming the first big European flagship airline to collapse since Swissair Group and Belgium's Sabena went under in 2001.

The company, which has been losing €2 million (£1.58 million) a day, has debts of more than €1 billion and risks running out of cash by the end of this month, filed for insolvency at the end of August so that the state-backed rescue and relaunch effort could get under way.

Mr Berlusconi earlier this year rejected an offer from Air France-KLM to buy Alitalia, saying he preferred an "all-Italian" solution.

Air France-KLM withdrew its offer in any case because of the unions' "impossible" conditions. Mr Belusconi, who was campaigning for election at the time, was accused by the Left of "beating the nationalist drum" to get votes and, in the process, passing up a chance to rescue Alitalia with foreign help.

The CAI rescue package included more than 3,000 job cuts and contracts laying down more hours for the same pay.

Augusto Fantozzi, the government-appointed commissioner running Alitalia, said if no further credible bids were forthcoming he would have to start liquidation proceedings. He said the carrier might start grounding flights soon. But asked if Alitalia would continue flying until the money ran out, he replied: "That is what the law stipulates and I shall respect the law."

Maurizio Sacconi, the Labour Minister, said: "The road now opens up that leads to the collapse of all the companies in the Alitalia group." He confirmed a warning by Mr Berlusconi that workers left without jobs because of liquidation would not benefit from the generous redundancy terms offered as part of the CAI rescue plan.

Italy's civil aviation authority has called Mr Fantozzi to a meeting after the weekend to decide if Alitalia's temporary licence should be revoked.

The CAI consortium had undertaken to plough more than €1 billion into Alitalia, merging its flying operations with those of Air One, Italy's second biggest domestic airline, while selling maintenance operations and other support activities.

Source: The Times

Spelling Problems

The 20 simple words Brits are unable to spell because we are all text mad

Millions of adults are unable to spell basic everyday words, a study suggests.

Of 2,500 surveyed, 40 per cent could not spell "questionnaire", 38 per cent were *stumped by "accommodate" and 37 per cent were defeated by "definitely".

Around a third of those questioned were unable to spell "liaison", "existence" or "occurrence".

Other simple words which caused problems were "calendar", "embarrass", "library" and "receipt".

Two-thirds blamed their inability to get words right on the predictive text function on their mobile phones.

Despite the embarrassing results, almost a third claimed their spelling was excellent, while 46 per cent said it was good.

Alarmingly, 14 per cent did not think it was important to spell properly, and 11 per cent were not bothered by colleagues' spelling mistakes.

Twenty per cent said they avoided writing documents by hand because their spelling was poor, and 59 per cent said they relied on their computer's spell checker to get things right - even though some are programmed with American English.

Six per cent said their spelling was so bad they had lost a job because of it.

The study was carried out on behalf of www.whitesmoke.com, which provides software to help with English grammar and writing.

A spokesman said: "It's worrying how weak our spelling has become, especially with regard to simple, everyday words.

"It's interesting to see that despite getting basic words wrong, a huge majority still regard their spelling skills as excellent or good.

"It's inexcusable to see badly-written documents in a work environment. If something isn't done in this generation, spelling standards will only decline further."

The Plain English campaign said: "People seem less inclined to consider correct spelling important.

"When we spell words incorrectly, it is bound to cause confusion and make writing more difficult to read."

The 20 simple words Brits are unable to spell:

1. Questionnaire 2. Accommodate 3. Definitely 4. Liaison 5. Existence 6. Occurrence 7. Referring 8. Occurred 9. Millennium 10. Embarrass 11. Calendar 12. Receive 13. Necessary 14. Separate 15. Cemetery 16. Library 17. Accidentally 18. Independent 19. Occasionally 20. Receipt

Sorce: Daily Mail

I admit that the odd word from the list would occassionally create problems for me. My spelling has got worse, the longer I have been living abroad. I have made some embarassing spelling mistakes in the classroom. Once I corrected "restaurant" in an exam paper, while another time I wrote "off course" on the board when I meant to write "of course". Such simple mistakes.

(By the way, I made the above mistakes on purpose!)

*Vocabulary Focus

if you are *stumped you really don't have a clue what the correct answer is.

if you are stuck, you don't know the answer because it is too difficult.

• I'm stuck with number 7. Can you give me a clue?

if you are baffled, you are extremely confused and nowhere near the solution.

• The police are baffled by the murder. They don't have any suspects and can't find any motives.

Madrid Fashion Week

Madrid Fashion Week is coming to an end but it doesn't seem to have made the international headlines. The only time that it was in the news was a couple of years ago, when the decision was made to ban ultra-skinny models from taking part.

Skinniest models are banned from catwalk

The organisers of Madrid Fashion Week have announced that they are banning skinny women to develop a more healthy image for the event this month. If any very skinny models do *turn up, they will be classed as unhealthy and in need of medical help.

The move has been heralded as good news for younger and lesser-known models, who often force themselves to become thin in the battle to secure a place among the top flight. But pear-shaped females should not celebrate too heartily, for the leading names of world fashion are showing no sign of following in the Spaniards’ footsteps. The Pasarela Cibeles trade fair in Madrid is a minnow compared with the big fish of Milan, Paris, New York and London fashion weeks.

Madrid city council, which sponsors the fashion week, has ordered that every model on show must have a body mass index (BMI) of at least 18. Models who are 5ft 9in (1.75m) tall must weigh a minimum of 8st 11oz (56 kg).

Esther Cañadas, Spain’s best-known model, does not qualify under the new rules as she is said to have a BMI of only 14. Almost a third of the women lined up appear to have been barred. The council promised that a nutritional expert would be on hand to check every model taking part in the shows, and that any woman found to have a BMI of below 16 would receive medical treatment.

The ban comes amid a row in Spain about the trend for extreme thinness on the catwalks and in high street shop windows. Cuca Solana, the organiser of the Pasarela Cibeles, was hauled before the country’s parliamentary commission for youth in April to defend the event against criticism that it pressures young women into losing weight.

According to the World Health Organisation, a woman is underweight if her BMI is less than 18.5, but Jesús del Pozo, vice-president of the Spanish Association of Fashion Designers, said that up to 40 per cent of the models who took part in last year’s event would have fallen foul of the new rules.

The organisers of London Fashion Week, which begins on September 18, said that they would not be introducing a similar rule. According to the leading agency Models 1, the models with the biggest pulling power are likely to be those with the smallest waistlines. “We have changed a lot in that there have been many more requests for bigger models, but on the catwalk long dresses do look lovely on tall, thin girls,” the agency said. “Girls who model at 15 or 16 tend to be thin girls, whose mums are thin, it’s part of their genetics, and obviously they look great in clothes.”

However, Lisa Armstrong, the Times fashion editor, asked: “Why do casting agents persist in using 15 and 16-year-olds to sell clothes to women in their thirties and upwards?” She added that the Madrid rules might have positive consequences for young British unknowns: “Madrid is a small fashion week and so this move will make very little difference to the bigger names, but younger and more inexperienced British models are sometimes sent to the smaller shows, effectively to practise.”

Sarah Doukas, Kate Moss’s agent, said that her agency, Storm, did not employ unhealthily thin women. “It’s useless to talk about body mass indexes. Who knows what that means apart from your doctor? It depends on different body types. Some people have different muscle density. I believe that girls should just eat healthily, exercise and just be normal. We just wouldn’t use someone who was really underweight or too thin.”

Source: The Times

*Phrasal verbs with turn

1. He's always turning up late for work.
2. She turned down his marriage proposal because she thought it too soon to make such an important commitment.
3. Don't worry - things will turn out alright.
4. You can always turn to her if you need any help.
5. The suspect in the murder case turned himself in last night.
6. Hundreds of people turned out to see the stars arrive for the premiere in spite of the rain.
7. They turned away anyone who wasn't dressed in the appropriate attire.
8. He was given six months to turn the fortunes of the company around.

Can you guess the meanings of the above phrasal verbs? Then check in your dicitionaries and write some examples of your own.

McCain Gaffe

You gotta feel for José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Here the Spanish Prime Minister is only four months from an end to his government's strained relations with that of President George W. Bush and blam! — along comes John McCain to suggest that the next four years might not be any better. During an interview in Miami earlier this week with Spanish-language station Union Radio, a reporter asked McCain whether, if elected, he would receive Zapatero in the White House. McCain answered, "Honestly, I have to analyze our relationships, situations and priorities, but I can assure you that I will establish closer relationships with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to harm the United States."

Ouch. The question about Zapatero came after a series of questions on how McCain sees relations with Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba. He said he would not speak to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez "without any sort of preconditions, as Senator Obama has said he would," and said Chávez was "depriving his people of their democratic rights." He judged Bolivia's Evo Morales as "very similar" and also condemned Cuba's Raúl Castro. When the questioner said, "Now let's talk of Spain" and asked whether he'd invite Zapatero, McCain responded with a vague statement that he would meet "with those leaders who are our friends" and then cited Mexican President Felipe Calderón as an example. The questioner tried several more times to steer the Senator back to a clear answer on Spain, but McCain never directly addressed the nation, saying, "What I would say is that my record is that of someone who has worked in a friendly atmosphere with those who are our friends and faced up to those who aren't."

From this, much of the Spanish press has concluded that the Republican candidate, who hails himself as the experienced foreign policy choice in this election, confused Spain — a NATO member and key ally in the fight against terrorism — with one of those troublesome Latin American states. That was certainly the interviewer's impression, for she followed up with a gentle reminder that Spain was a country in Europe. As Spanish newspaper El País put it, "In the best-case scenario, [his answer] demonstrates his ignorance with respect to Zapatero."

Of course, there's a worst-case scenario: that McCain would, if elected, maintain his predecessor's chilly relationship with Spain. Spaniards may, on the whole, revile American politics and American comida de basura (junk food), but they still tend to measure their Prime Minister's international worth by the esteem with which the U.S. President holds him. And so, for the past four years, the Spanish Prime Minister has tried, ever so earnestly, to prove that he's one of the big boys. At every international summit he has tried to maneuver himself into position for a photograph with Bush. The press has breathlessly reported on every perfunctory exchange the two have had. And the much longed-for invitation to the White House — let alone to a certain ranch in Texas — has been the object of countless pages of speculation. But for all the aspiration, Zapatero has never managed to achieve anything like that famous 2003 photo of his predecessor, José María Aznar, in the Azores looking like he just got invited to the cool kids' party.

Of course, the fact that the cool kids' party happened to be taking place in Iraq explains a lot of the distance between the two current leaders: upon taking office in April 2004, Zapatero immediately pulled Spanish troops out of "the alliance of the willing." Which is one of the ironies of this situation — that Spain can so strongly support a foreign policy opposed to the Bush doctrine (whatever that is), while so strongly hoping for a show of respect from Washington. On Thursday, Spanish newspaper ABC's regret was palpable when it lamented that "the coldness between the governments of the U.S. and Spain could continue if the Republican candidate John McCain reaches the White House."

As for Zapatero himself, the Prime Minister is apparently taking this latest attack on his ego with characteristic equilibrium. McCain may not know who Spain's leader is, but Zapatero promised to work with the new Administration "whatever it is."

Source: Time

HMS Victory in peril

As the former flagship of Britain's greatest naval hero, she is an iconic vessel.

It was aboard her that Lord Nelson died after his most famous seafaring success, the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

HMS Victory embodies the pride, history and traditions of the Royal Navy. But now she faces another skirmish

'England Expects': The Victory sees 400,000 visitors a year, but the historic ship's future is in doubt because of the upkeep cost

The Government says she may be given to a private owner as a cost-cutting measure after fears among defence chiefs that she is becoming too expensive to maintain.

The Ministry of Defence argues that increasing budgetary pressures mean it must review Victory's future like any other ship.

But the idea that the world's oldest commissioned warship could fall into private hands or go to a charity has been criticised by naval experts, who say it would be a tragedy.

Victory has pride of place at Portsmouth dockyard, where she is visited by some 400,000 tourists annually.

She costs a minimum of £1.5million to maintain and run each year, but that figure can go up when major work is needed.

The MoD is considering whether to hand Victory to a private company, to a charitable trust similar to the one that looks after the Mary Rose, to another government department, or keep the status quo.

Lieutenant Commander Michael Cheshire, now retired, who was commanding officer of Victory from 1992 to 1998, said: 'If they sell her or give her away to charity it will be an absolute tragedy.

'This magnificent ship means so much to both naval people and the whole nation - selling it to a private firm would turn it into Disneyland and would be its ruin.

'To sell off this icon would indicate the decline of the Royal Navy.'

Former First Sea Lord Sir Julian Oswald said: 'The Victory is a national treasure. Talk of selling her

or anything of that sort is absolutely daft. It can't be that expensive to keep her - she is just wood and canvas.'

Portsmouth council leader Gerald Vernon- Jackson said: 'It's essential Victory remains available to the public and in tip-top condition - she must not be allowed to rot.

'My concern is a private firm could restrict access and just open her for corporate events or increase admission prices.'

The MoD said it was committed to keeping Victory in the best possible condition, adding that sticking with the current set-up was one of the options.

A spokesman said: 'Whatever happens, we are committed to keeping Victory as a commissioned warship.'

Source: Daily Mail

Lost in Translation

Have a read of these mistranslations. Do you get all of them? What did they really mean to say?

1. In a Tokyo Hotel: Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis.


2. In another Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub.


3. In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.


4. In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.


5. In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.


6. In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.


7. In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.


8. In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.


9. In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.


10. In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.


11. In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.


12. On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.


13. On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.


14. In a Hong Kong supermarket: For your convenience, we recommend courteous, efficient self-service.


15. Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.


16. In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.


17. Similarly, from the Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Aets by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.


18. In an East African newspaper: A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.


19. In a Vienna hotel: In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter.


20. A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.


21. In a Zurich hotel: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.


22. In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist: Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.


23. A translated sentence from a Russian chess book: A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this variation has been played.


24. In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.


25. In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours -- we guarantee no miscarriages.


26. Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?


27. On the faucet in a Finnish washroom: To stop the drip, turn cock to right.


28. In the window of a Swedish furrier: Fur coats made for ladies from their own skin.


29. On the box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong: Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life.


30. Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan: Stop: Drive Sideways.


31. In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today -- no ice cream.


32. In a Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.


33. In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.


34. In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.


35. On the door of a Moscow hotel room: If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.


36. In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.


37. At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.


38. In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.


39. In an Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water served here.


40. In a Tokyo shop: Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.


41. From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
    Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.


42. From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo: When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.


43. Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance:
    - English well talking.
    - Here speeching American.

Saving the pennies

Why is a 99p price tag so attractive?

The tactic of shops ending prices with 99p is nothing new, but a study has found it's as effective as ever in getting shoppers to part with their cash. So why is one of the oldest tricks in the retail trade hard to resist?

In terms of familiar retail ruses employed to entice shoppers to part with their money, ending price tags with 99p, rather than rounding up to the full pound, is right up there with buy one, get one free promotions and half-price offers.

But according to a French study the phenomenon still swings a considerable number of shoppers. Researchers found that lowering the price of a pizza from 8.00 euros to 7.99 euros boosted sales by 15%.

For consumers, the saving is minimal and the copper coins they receive as change when paying with a note seem to be more of a hassle than a benefit - in 2005, Britons discarded or stashed away £133m in unwanted coppers, according to Virgin Money.

So if shoppers aren't concerned about saving mere pennies these days, why are they falling for the 99p effect?

Emotional difference

One theory is consumers just aren't up to the maths. Dr Jane Price, lecturer in psychology at the University of Glamorgan, says we "tend to put numbers in categories like 'under £5' or 'under £6' - rather than them representing a value. Shoppers are aware of what is going on, but don't respond to it because they don't think logically about how close numbers are - such as £99.99 and £100."

She thinks shoppers tend to focus on the big denomination - which the pound sign draws the eye to - rather than the smaller denomination: the pence. There is also the emotional incentive - people like to feel they are getting better value for money.

Robert Schindler, professor of marketing at Rutgers Business School in the US, has published several papers on the "99 effect". He expresses it slightly differently, observing that people overweigh the left hand number.

"When a price changes from $30 to $29.99, the change from three to two makes more of a difference than the value of that money could predict," says Mr Schindler. "It is like when a 39-year-old turns 40, the birthday feels like a big deal. Or when 1999 ends and 2000 starts. It feels like an emotional difference."

Discount associations

It's sometimes suggested the "99 effect" was adopted as a control on employee theft - cashiers had to open the till for change, reducing the chances of them pocketing the bill.

But Mr Schindler thinks it has a different origin. It was introduced for sale items, to emphasise the discount.

"I studied adverts in the New York Times from 1850 - where there were no 99 endings - to the 1870s and 1880s where they started to appear. Although department stores were doing it - which would fit with the cash register hypothesis - they were advertising discounts. But for the regular price they would use a round number," he says.

He thinks the retail practice developed from there, to communicate discount or the impression that things are on sale - even when they are not.

But it is a subtle effect, which works when consumers are susceptible to price sensitivities and are making a snap decision, rather than deliberating over big items like cars and houses. And high end brands which exude a classy image tend not to use the tactic.

Pressure on income

Nick Gladding of Verdict Research, is sceptical shoppers are fooled by the "99p effect". However, in these more straitened times, even tiny adjustments in price can be enough to win over hard up consumers.

"We are seeing fuel prices going up and down by 1p - it is a tiny amount of money, but people want to hear about it," he says.

So are there any other numbers that the unsuspecting shopper should be aware of?

A .95 ending is also popular, observed Mr Schindler, although anyone shopping in Asia might be struck by how prices often end in .88. The reason? Eight is an auspicious number in countries such as Japan, Hong Kong and mainland China.

Source: BBC News

18,000 Euros to leave Spain

Spain's radical plan for migrants

On the northern outskirts of Madrid, the Tres Cantos railway station is getting a makeover.

Under a fierce midday sun, immigrant labourers from North Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe shift huge concrete slabs into place on the platform, and scatter fresh layers of shingle between the rails and sleepers.

This back-breaking work pays €1,200 (£950) per month, and everyone is making the most of it.

With the construction industry in dire trouble, their Spanish boss has no other projects in the pipeline, and the entire workforce will be laid off when this job ends.

So, any takers for the government's new offer to unemployed immigrants?

If they volunteer to go back to their home countries and not return to Spain for three years, foreigners will qualify for lump-sum benefit payments, typically worth around €18,000 (£14,200).

The scheme applies to the citizens of 19 non-EU countries which share social security agreements with Spain.

"If someone offered me that cash now I'd go," says Patrick, from Equatorial Guinea. "Back home, it would go further; I could invest it," he adds.

Guillermo, from the Dominican Republic, warns that: "if the economy carries on like this, we'll all have to leave". But given a choice, he would rather stay. "I now consider myself Spanish," he grins.

Unemployment benefits

In the space of barely a decade, Spain's immigrant population has leapt by an astonishing 800%, and cheap immigrant labour was a vital factor in the construction-led economic boom.

As long as there was work to go round, Spain mostly avoided the kind of immigration-related tensions witnessed in other European countries.

Today, however, with an EU-high unemployment rate of 10.7%, the picture looks very different.

"Immigrants were seen by everyone as helping," explains Pedro Schwarz, an economist.

"They took jobs in construction - boosting growth and keeping wages down. But today, with the jobless total rising, some Spanish-born citizens are complaining that the new immigrants are beginning to hog the unemployment benefits."

For the time being, the 2.1 million foreigners registered for Spanish social security are net contributors to the system - paying in more than they receive.

But, over the past 12 months, the number of immigrants claiming unemployment benefit has surged by 81%, to 178,230 in July 2008.

"What we're trying to do is link immigration to the labour market," says Celestino Corbacho, Spain's minister for work and immigration.

"The forecasts say it'll take two or three years for the economy to recover, so we think it's good to offer people possibilities.

"If someone is entitled to $15,000 (£8,000), that's going to create more opportunities in their home country than here in Spain."

"Thank you and goodbye"

Under the new scheme, scheduled for launch in September, participating immigrants would receive two years worth of up-front unemployment benefits - 40% when they volunteer for the scheme in Spain, the rest on arrival back in their country of origin.

To qualify, they would have to surrender their Spanish work and residence papers for the duration of the deal.

The government insists this is merely a common sense response to Spain's undeniable economic problems, but immigrant welfare groups view the policy with suspicion.

"I feel that we've been used," complains Washington Tobar of the Hispano-Ecuadorean Foundation in Madrid.

"When they needed cheap labour, the doors opened. And now they don't need us, they just say 'thank you and goodbye' - and expect us to go back to our own countries."

In a modest apartment in Madrid's La Latina district, 42-year-old Leonardo Ramirez prepares lunch for his two children.

A marketing graduate in his native Ecuador, he paid his way here through construction, until the work dried up a year ago.

Now renting out a spare room to help pay his mortgage, Leonardo is one of 100,000 unemployed foreigners whom the government hopes immediately to tempt with its offer. But he is far from keen.

"Even $20,000 or $30,000 isn't that much money, in terms of capital to invest back home," he explains.

"They are people who'll have to buy a house, and children's schooling is expensive. Also, immigrant families are integrated here - they don't want to start all over again."

Avoiding conflict

Outside, on Leonardo's housing estate, immigrant children play football, while Latino pop blares out from several apartments.

This new Spain is unrecognisable from the country of 10 years ago, and the government is controversially trying to turn back the clock.

But Mr Corbacho denies that Spain is ungrateful for the contribution made by immigrants, or that foreigners are being made scapegoats for the country's economic woes.

"Immigration is not a problem, it's a phenomenon," says Mr Corbacho.

"And phenomena are never neutral - they change a lot of things and create new challenges. Our challenge is to manage this phenomenon, so that our diverse, multicultural society avoids conflict in the future," he says.

It is a radical approach to immigration from a socialist government which appeared to run shy of the issue in the lead-up to its election victory in March.

Now, the politicians hope - quite literally - to make the problem go away. And other EU governments, facing similar challenges, will be closely monitoring the Spanish scheme's progress.
Source: BBC News