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( 4 comments — Leave a comment )
alfrecht
Oct. 5th, 2016 08:03 am (UTC)
Intriguing…

I am VERY messy, and creative; and I swear a fair bit, and am pretty intelligent by most metrics.

I loved a sign one of my high school teachers had over his desk: "A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind." My apartment, however, might suggest otherwise to some people…!?!

I also got into a slight argument with an idiot a few years ago who said that because I used the phrase "Those who know me know I'm pretty fuckin' intellectual," and he said that it was impossible to be an intellectual if one uses words like "fuck" at all. Almost every Ph.D. I know swears like a sailor…

(When I was young, I did get in trouble for swearing many times, because I refused to see "bad words" as anything other than words that are useful in some situations. Now, I say "fuck" around my mom all the time and she doesn't comment at all on it because she understands my viewpoint on the matter, without sharing it. About fuckin' time!)
fub
Oct. 5th, 2016 10:22 am (UTC)
For once I read the comments -- and the one at the end of the article about how Mr Grayling is wrong has a perfect take-down of the usual "Why is the EU concerned with this -- can't they focus on what's important!?" complaint.
I'm a big fan of the British sense for understatement and irony.
nwhyte
Oct. 5th, 2016 12:19 pm (UTC)
That's so good it's worth reproducing here in full.
If you ever leave the shores of this sceptred isle, you may notice that other European countries are gravely deficient in shoreline, and rather one country simply abuts another, the poor things. In light of this, some clever foreign sorts conceived of the idea of running railway lines from one country to another; so one can, for instance, travel from Paris to Brussels merely by taking a direct train, without needing to change at the border.

Given this, you can perhaps imagine the difficulties caused by platforms being of different heights where you board the train, from where you alight; the train cannot easily be at the right height for both stations. You might board the train easily, but face an unexpected severe drop when disembarking, or the other way around. Most inconvenient.

It is therefore in everyone’s interest, in continental europe at least, to agree what height to build platforms to, so that passengers can board in one country and alight smoothly in another. Due to our splendid isolation however, it is less important for us to do so.

The sensible solution, therefore, would be for continental countries to agree a common platform height, without seeking to impose upon the UK or Ireland, whose railways are mostly separate. And lo and behold, this is exactly what was agreed.
hano
Oct. 5th, 2016 02:38 pm (UTC)
I fully expect the Tory front bench to end their conference leading the faithful in a rendition of 'Tomorrow Belongs To Me.' Things are getting uglier here by the day. Time, I think, to go learn some French or German, what would you suggest?
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  • nwhyte
    25 Jan 2023, 13:24
    O tempora! O mores!
  • nwhyte
    24 Jan 2023, 10:34
    Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!
    Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ.
  • nwhyte
    8 Dec 2022, 12:44
    UK mailboxes aren't waterproof?! That seems like an odd design.
  • nwhyte
    29 Oct 2022, 16:28
    Now I know that "psephologist" is a word.
  • nwhyte
    9 Sep 2022, 11:19
    That would make things less awkward.
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