This tweet from @Case4theCrown just shows the exasperation the judiciary – a body not normally known for making its feelings known – feels with regard to the continuing farce that is Capita’s courts and tribunals interpreting “service” for the Ministry of Justice.
It’s a bright, sunny day in Bristol and there’s a hint of spring in the air. In addition, the daffodils are out in their brazen glory, like these fine examples planted by Bristol City Council in Castle Park.
Along with the blossom of the cherry, in honour of which A.E. Housman wrote “Loveliest of Trees” (posts passim), daffodils are another spring favourite celebrated in poetry, in this case William Wordsworth‘s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
The Good Huswifes Jewell was an English recipe book written by Thomas Dawson which appeared in the late 16th century, of which the British Library has helpfully provided a transcript of the page covering pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known in secular Britain as Pancake Day.
The transcript of the pancake recipe is as follows:
To make Pancakes
Take new thicke Creame a pine, foure or five yolks of egs, a good handful of flower and two or three spoonefuls of ale, strain them together into a faire platter, and season it with a good handfull of sugar, a spooneful of synamon, and a little Ginger: then take a friing pan, and put in a litle peece of Butter, as big as your thumbe, and when it is molten brown, cast it out of your pan, and with a ladle put to the further side of your pan some of your stuffe, and hold your pan …, so that your stuffe may run abroad over all the pan as thin as may be: then set it to the fire, and let the fyre be verie soft, and when the one side is baked, then turn the other, and bake them as dry as ye can without burning.
This is the first time I’ve ever come across a pancake recipe featuring ale. 🙂
As regards the author, Thomas Dawson wrote a number of popular and influential recipe books including The Good Huswifes Jewell (1585), The good Hus-wifes handmaid for the kitchen (1594) and The Booke of Carving and Sewing (1597). These books covered a broad range of subjects, including general cookery, sweet waters, preserves, animal husbandry, carving, sewing and the duties of servants.
Proofreading is a skill requiring meticulous attention to detail. However, something clearly went wrong in respect of this camera advertisement, as the product description sounds really crappy. 😉
Hat tip: Agata McCrindle.
The media have been awash this morning with reports of Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp.
WhatsApp is a mobile messaging company; or it was until the story fell into the hands of the illiterati in the BBC newsroom, who suffered one of their periodic vowel movements. 🙂
Hat tip: Gala Gil Amat.
When work restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants were relaxed at the start of the year, the usual xenophobic elements of the British media stoked fears that every criminal in eastern Europe would make a beeline for the UK and crime would soar.
Emotive language was (ab)used, with the nation being told Bulgarians and Romanians would ‘flood’ into the country and dear old Blighty would be ‘swamped’ and similar such tosh.
If crime had increased due to Bulgarian and Romanian migrants, this would have resulted in a massive rise in the criminal justice system’s use of linguists, as suspects and defendants are entitled to understand and follow the proceedings in their mother tongue.
However, this surge in the use of East European linguists hasn’t actually happened.
Indeed in response to Freedom of Information (FoI) Act queries, Cambridgeshire Police has revealed its spending on services for Bulgarian and Romanian linguists has actually declined, as revealed by the Cambridge News:
Data has revealed the force spent just £9.10 on Bulgarian and £1,357.84 on Romanian translators in January last year when the restrictions were in place.
But after they were lifted at the start of the year, the force spent zero pence on translators for the two languages.
Hat tip: Katya Ford
Murphy’s Law was working well when Lakewood High School of St Petersburg in Florida decided to hold a literacy event for parents back in 2012 (on 29th February apparently to tie in with the leap year. Ed.), as shown by the illuminated sign below.
NBC News has full details in its report.
Sigil, the open source editor for epub files, is not be developed any more, German IT news site Heise reports. John Schember, who has been Sigil’s maintainer since 2011, is taking stock after a few months: he had been hoping for a revival in the cross-platform editor’s development after moving Sigil’s code to Github in September 2013. However, there have only been a few commits which also mostly concerned minor matters. However, the most recent version of Sigil – 0.7.4 of October 2013 – can still continue to be used as long as it still works.
As an alternative to Sigil Schember is recommending the open source Calibre e-book manager, which has also incorporated an e-book editor in the meantime. Calibre is stable and already comprises many, but not all of the functions provided by Sigil. Calibre’s editor is also being actively developed. Although Calibre’s e-book editor is not using any of Sigil’s code, Schember nevertheless views it as Sigil’s spiritual successor.
The paper edition of the Law Gazette of 3rd February 2014 contained the following letter from Matthew Coxall of Thomas Boyd White Solicitors of Bexleyheath in Kent, whose content needs no further commentary.
Hat tip: RPSI Linguist Lounge
One really has to admire the journalists at the Bristol Post, getting the news out to the public 6 days a week, sometimes in the face of extreme adversity.
For instance, a Sunday morning is a bad time for the spellchecking software to have a dicky fit. After all, no IT support will be available until Monday.
Never mind, in the absence of a spellchecker, the Post’s Geoff Bennett ploughed valiantly on to produce this report, part of which is shown in the screenshot below.
How long will it take before ‘spoekesman’, ‘reeasonably’ and ‘spercial’ are added to the Oxford English dictionary?