Patrin

Dedicated to Romani (Gypsy) culture and history and to extending awareness of the continuous Roma struggle to achieve and maintain dignity and freedom. Patrin is a learning resource and information centre about Romani culture, social issues, and current events.

Photos of the Rrom people at the site of Photographer Yves Leresche.

While the various tribes of the Rrom originated from India there are people who are known as Gypsies but who are not Rrom. The Travellers are of Irish or Scottish stock and speak a secret language they have constructed out of Irish English with borrowings from Romany and Irish Gaelic

Many words are alterations of existing words, often backwards spelling, swapped syllables, or at least altered vowels. One word has entered into mainstream English as "moniker" (name, nickname), which came from Shelta _munik_, supposedly a perverse form of Irish _ainm_ "name".cite

A Vocabulary of Shelta, transcribed from The Secret Languages of Ireland, by R. A. Stewart Macalister, Cambridge University Press 1937, gives fascinating examples of this little known language.

glodaχ ‘dirt’, ‘dirty’. That the mīdril may tarsp you, you glodach kriš bʹōrʹ ‘That the devil may kill you, you dirty old woman’ (G); glodach of the tʹera ‘dirt [i.e. ashes] of the fire’. Irish cladach ‘dirty’.

More information on Irish Travellers here

Nixon in China

The Nixons share a laugh with Chou En-lai

More photos of Pat and Dick on their historic visit to China in 1972 can be found at the Ollie Atkins Photograph Collection

The Word on the Street

The Rare Books Collection at the National Library of Scotland has Provided an online resource of broadsides (broadsheets) or How Ordinary Scots in bygone days found out what was happening called The Word on the Street.
You can browse through this collection of nearly 1800 broadsheets under various subject headings here.
Read about Burke and Hare", the Irish bodysnatchers and murders, and verse dedicated to one of their victims Elegiac Lines On the Tragical Murder of Poor Daft Jamie
The pugilistic who favour blood sports may prefer to read an account of the Battle Between Simon Byrne and Deaf Burke
My favourite so far is The Life and Strange Adventures of Maragaret M'Donald the Female foot Boy
via Things Magazine

Know your enemy

As the election draws near the weighty political issues of our time come to the fore. Hence this discusion about flagpoles at Back Pages and then the revival of the Fridge magnet be alert but not alarmed campaign. My last Fridge magnet was accidently thrown in the bin so I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of its replacement.
For as the Prime Minister has stated we all have to ensure that this country is as prepared as it can be and as protected as it can be.
While trusting in my fridge magnet to protect me in most circumstances in this age of hysteria terror I've decided to do my bit by publishing some useful excerpts from this 1940's Adelaide booklet Know Your Enemy:and Improvise your own defence
© Department of Home Security, Canberra.

If you need to take shelter and don't want to dig a trench in the backyard;

... the safest place would be beneath a solid table placed against two walls in a corner of a room. A mattress thrown on the top, as indicated in the accompanying sketch, would increase the protective value of the table, whilst a double thickness of books will also give good protection.
If you are caught unawares, why not put a stout table against a wall in the passageway, and block two ends of it with mattresses, or, if you have time, books. It would be much better than nothing.

the booklet also suggests that;

A handy means of boiling the kettle will do much to pass the time away, whilst a gramaphone or portable radio will also do much in that respect.

I suppose you could always read a book, from now on I'm only buying hardcovers for added protection. In the future I will post some useful nutritional advice, such as The Value of Dripping, Do not despise liver and how to Preserve a few dozen eggs.

Beasley Street

Time for a bit of nostalgia from the late 70's when a friend at work told me that the Bard of Salford John Cooper Clark, was still performing. I have reproduced the the lyrics of my favourite JCC work Beasley street below since the text of the song at the JCC site is almost unreadable. I don't know if the image below is the actual Beasley street in Manchester, but it was the only one I could find.


Far from the crazy pavements
...the taste of silver spoons
A clinical arrangement
...on a dirty afternoon
Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud
...are rendered obsolete
The legal term is null and void
in the case of ... Beasley street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds
somebody is out of breath
Sleep is a luxury they don't need
... a sneak preview of death
Belladonna is your flower
Manslaughter is your meat
Spend a year in a couple of hours
on the edge of Beasley street

Where the action isn't
That's where it is
State your position
Vacancies exist
In an X-certificate exercise
Ex-servicemen excrete
Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies
in a box on Beasley street

From the boarding houses and bedsits full of
...accidents and fleas
Somebody gets it
Where the missing persons freeze
wearing dead men's overcoats
You can't see their feet
A Riff joint shuts - opens up
right down on Beasley street

Cars collide, colours clash
Disaster movie stuff
For the man with the Fu Manchu moustache
revenge is not enough
There's a dead canery on a swivel seat
there's a rainbow on the road
Meanwhile on Beasley Street
silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar
...an inspector call
Where the perishing stink of squalor
...impregnates the walls
The rats have all got rickets
They spit through broken teeth
The name of the game is not cricket
Caught out on ...Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat
drive a borrowed car
yellow socks and a pink crevat
nothing la-di-dah
O-A-P
Mother-to-be
Watch the three-piece suite
When shitstopper drains
and crocodile skis
are seen on ...Beasley Street

The kingdom of the blind
...a one-eyed man is king
Beauty problems are redefined
...The doorbells do not ring
A light bulb bursts like a blister
the only form of heat
Where a fellow sells his sister
...down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon
The girls are on the shelf
Their commom problem is
...that they're not someone else
The dirt blows out
The dust blows in
You can't keep it neat
It's a fully furnished dustbin
...sixteen Beasley Street

Vince the ageing savage
Betrays no kind of life
...but the smell of yesterday's cabbage
and the ghost of last year's wife
Through a constant haze
of deodorant sprays
He says ...retreat
Alsatians dog the dirty days
Down the middle of Beasley street

People turn to poison
Quick as lager turns to piss
Sweethearts are physically sick
Every time they kiss
It's a sociologist's paradise
Each day repeats
Uneasy, cheasy, greasy, queasy
...beastly, Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish
Look around for laughs
If I could have just one wish
I would be a photograph
On a permanent monday morning
Get lost or fall asleep
When the yellow cats are yawning
Around the back of Beasley Street

LYRICS © JOHN COOPER CLARKE

A lot of the old housing in Salford has probably gone now but these photos by Barry Blitz capture a feel of the old streetlife and its demolition.

OEDILF

Wordcraft a community of linguaphiles has started this epic project, to produce a version of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in limerick form (OEDILF).
The OEDILF project has only started words beginning with a at the moment, below are three limericks in the words beginning with ad contributed by Bob Hale

With tap dancing a problem is posed
Ditto with picking his nose
He cannot wear rings
Do tip-toes or hand springs
He's adactylous :- no fingers or toes.

It's wise when telling a fib
To be sure, to be clear, to be glib
Things only get worse
If you fail to rehearse
And are forced to rely on ad-lib

When you move on from just adolescent
And advance to the stage of pubescent
Don't find it surprising
If matters arising
Have results that are largely tumescent.

via languagehat through metafilter

not cricket

The Prime Minister, well known impersonator of Max Gilles (pictured above) and fawning admirer of the late Don Brademan, after calling Muttiah Muralitharan a chucker, got a right old bollocking in this article by Christian Ryan.
In the first paragraph Ryan manages to use two of Howards obsessions (Ming and cricket) against him;
Sir Robert Menzies, among his many good turns for Australian cricket through the 1950s and 60s, once paid for a young Keith Stackpole to receive legspin coaching from Clarrie Grimmett. John Howard's one and only contribution has been to put paid to any hope of Muttiah Muralitharan touring Australia. Eight of the lamest, laziest, least considered words uttered by any prime minister on any sport – "they proved it in Perth with that thing" – will go down as Howard's cricketing legacy.
Meanwhile Muralitharan has time for his new role as an Ambassador of the United Nations Food Program.

cricket

Boynton had this fascinating link to an image of Myrtle Foster batting. A feature of this image was the unusual bat.
The Worcestershire Women's Cricket site has a brief history of woman's cricket and this following image.

It seems Woman's Cricket, along with slaughtering some of the local fauna, was quite popular in some parts of Britain among the leisured classes.
From the middle 18th century there are constant press references to women's matches, most of them played, like their male equivalents, in Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey villages. Records also exist for several matches held in Sussex around this time, these were often between rival villages, or teams of married and single women. The winner's prize for such a match might be a barrel of ale or eleven pairs of lace gloves, such games could lure crowds of 2,000 plus and betting on the result was rife.

Hemlock

Have linked to Hemlock's Diary
"The ravings of Hong Kong's most unpleasant and obnoxious expat".
The author of this blog sees himself as a modern day Samuel Pepys, but I'm sure Pepys for all his faults was a much more likable personality. However I have to admit reading the extensive diary of this malevolent misogynist was fascinating. Even If you can't stomach his writing he does have some good links to Chinese Blogs

Bush on the Couch

Washington Professor of psychiatry Dr. Justin Frank has written a soon to be published book titled Bush on the Couch:Inside the Mind of the President
In this publicity blurb for the book from HarperCollins its claimed that Frank explores:

Bush's false sense of omnipotence, instilled within him during childhood and emboldened by his deep investment in fundamentalist religion

The president's history of untreated alcohol abuse, and the questions it raises about denial, impairment, and the enabling streak in our culture

The growing anecdotal evidence that Bush may suffer from dyslexia, ADHD, and other thought disorders

His comfort living outside the law, defying international law in his presidency as boldly as he once defied DUI statutes and military reporting requirements

His love-hate relationship with his father, and how it triggered a complex and dangerous mix of feelings including yearning, rivalry, anger, and sadism

Bush's rigid and simplistic thought patterns, paranoia, and megalomania -- and how they have driven him to invent adversaries so that he can destroy them

Dr Frank who sounds a bit to Freudian for my tastes could be on to a financial winner here. I can see it now Blair on the Couch:Inside the Mind of the Prime Minister
via Juan Cole

Reagan revisited

from Nicaraguan Murals via Central America and Beyond through mango latte.
David Holidays Central America and Beyond has a number of post discussing Reagan, especially the effect his presidency had on Central America.
Also some Reagan Quotes from Brainyquote


Well, I learned a lot... I went down to Latin America to find out from them and (learn) their views. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.

word wrester

Double-Tongued Word Wrester records words as they enter and leave the English language. It focuses upon slang, jargon, and other niche categories which include new, foreign, hybrid, archaic, obsolete, and rare words.
Verwaltungsvereinfachungsmassnahmen is probably a useful term if you live in Europe, and yes there is a difference between the meaning of dub and dub-dub
via The Presurfer

Blair gets a beating

Caught somewhere between trying to impersonate Winston Churchill and a Lemming over Britains involvment in Iraq Tony Blair returned from Reagans funeral to find that labour had lost nearly 500 seats in Council elections.

The PM, who has been at Ronald Reagan's funeral, urged Labour MPs to hold their nerve amid the anti-war "protest" vote.
It was a difficult time and "lessons had to be learned", he said.

Speaking on BBC radio Robin Cook said:

"Out there are a lot of people who withheld their Labour vote because they disagreed with what we did in Iraq.
"The tragedy is that hundreds of very good Labour councillors have lost their seats as a result of something which many of them themselves would have opposed.
"If we are to win these people back, it's not enough to simply say we are holding our nerve, we are seeing it though,"
At least Red Ken Livingstone managed to scrap back in.

The Governor General manages to sum up Blairs position.
Update
It seems that Michael Moore now wants to make a film about Tony Blair.
In regard to Blairs close relationship with Bush:
"Blair knows better. Blair is not an idiot. What is he doing hanging around this guy?" Moore told Reuters.
via Plasticbag.org

Free diving

The ABC science show Catalyst aired a story about Sébastien Murat training to break the free diving record.
While I usually find Extreme sports boring and rather silly, there is something about what Sébastien Murat does that transcendes all that.
Sébastien Murat known as “The Human Sub” attempts to break the world record for extreme human breath-hold diving, made famous by the feature film ‘The Big Blue’. In the virtually bottomless waters of Kimbe Bay, on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, he tries to reach an unbelievable depth of 180 metres, without the assistance of any breathing equipment.

New Blogs

Thanks to Dogfight at Bankstown (another Adelaide based Blogger) and the Perth based Spiceblog for Linking to Tripe Soup. Have included both these blogs in my links column. Due to the improved changes in Blogger comments are now enabled.

David Hicks Charged

After being held for two and half years in Guantanomo Bay, Adelaide man David Hicks was finally charged by US authorities. As can be seen in this ABC Transcript, at least two of the three charges against Hicks look somewhat Dodgy.
Here is a site advocating a Fair Go For David Hicks

TortureGate

Watched the Jim Lehrer Newshour on SBS this evening and it was fascinating to watch US Attorney General John Ashcroft getting a grilling from the Senate Judiciary Committee about allegations of a memo that suggests the President is not bound by International treaties prohibiting the torture of prisoners. A transcript of the program can be found here.

Juan Cole points out that;
A Republican Congress is most unlikely to impeach George W. Bush, even if it does become clear that he is the torturer in chief and that Lynddie England is not the mastermind behind Abu Ghuraib. But he could be prosecuted, even after leaving office, for breaking US law against torture.

American Media Icon Walter Cronkite had this to say about Ashcroft last september;
In his two and a half years in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law. Tomás de Torquemada, you might recall, was the 15th-century Dominican friar who became the grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. He was largely responsible for its methods, including torture and the burning of heretics - Muslims in particular.

Ashcroft may be a hero of the Christian Right but he is not supported by all christians.

Transit of venus

Today the Transit of Venus occurred. Not much to look at I'm afraid. This Melbourne Observatory site is worth a look, has information about the 18th and 19th Century Transits of Venus. The Airy Transit of Venus Simulator is not as erotic as it sounds.

Obituary - Ronald Reagan 1911-2004

Ronald Reagan former Actor and US President died today, probably reached the high point of his career with this. Sadly missed by his family and the Iron Lady who once wrote about Reagan that he
"did not suffer from the dismal plague of doubts which has assailed so many politicians in our times and which has rendered them incapable of clear decisions."
A quote which is probably better applied to Thatcher herself.
It seems that CNN broke the story of Reagans death a little early.
Update
There was this
Speaking in London, the Prime Minister, John Howard, described Mr Reagan as the greatest post World War II American leader.
and then this
"He leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped to save," Mr Bush said in Paris.
And all the time I just thought he was an incompetent old bastard who should have been impeached.

come and see some cows

The rift between the French and the White House seems to be over with Bush now saying that Chirac is now welcome to visit his Ranch. What the rabid anti Arab/French contributors to this site will make of all this is yet to be seen.