mandragora

Got into a discussion on a mailing list today re English language differences, particularly re 'gotten'. I maintained that it's not used in Britain but a couple of Brits chimed in to say that they use it.

All I can say is that according to the OED, the past participle of 'get' in British English is 'got', whereas in US English it's 'gotten'. And if it's good enough for the OED, it's good enough for me ::g::

Oh, and Websters refers to gotten as being 'obsolete' in Britain.

In my defence I cited the Harry Potter books, pointing out that you won't find a single 'gotten' in them, as they're written by a British writer and set in Britain. And indeed you won't, unless of course you're reading the Americanised version.

Snerk.

In 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' (and why the US publishers felt the need to change the perfectly serviceable 'Philosopher's Stone' is beyond me) sure enough there are 'gottens' galore.

I found an online extract and spent some anally retentive minutes looking for differences between the original and bowdlerised, um, Americanised, version. Besides the transmutation of 'got' into 'gotten', I noted the following:
bobble hats: bonnets (which conjures up a rather hilarious image in my head)
roundabout: carousel
cooker: stove
motorbike: motorcycle
Sellotape: Scotch tape
Mummy: Mommy (spit! Really can't see any need whatsoever for this change)
cine camera: video camera ('cos there's such a huge difference between them...)
video recorder became (of course) VCR
hamburger bars: hamburger restaurants (Why? Can't believe even the most insular American child couldn't have worked that one out)
cinema: 'the movies'
holiday: vacation
fringe: bangs

Now all of these alterations were in just a couple of pages. the sheer amount of effort that must have gone into changing the whole book is mind boggling. Why? What was the point?

Yesterday was not a good day.

It's not that I'm totally unsympathetic to the firefighters' demand for more money. But. Dammit, why when they go on strike does that result in the total shut down of the Piccadilly Line? Not to mention a greatly reduced service on the other tube lines.

I'm lucky, I can get a train into The City, and pick up the tube from there to my ultimate destination. Felt sorry for the poor sods further down the line, though, who had zero chance in actually getting onto the incredibly overcrowded train and were left standing bleakly on the rain-swept platform.

Yesterday, I had to get to court, as the trial I've been involved in recently was continuing. Arrived just in time to attend court when the trial actually resumed, courtesy of the firefighters' strike, instead of the pre-arranged earlier time to discuss matters with the client. Sigh.

As a litigator I'm used to trials, of course, but from a civil POV so I'm on a learning curve vis a vis criminal law. Emotions can run high. They certainly did yesterday. The trial concluded and the jury pronounced their verdict.

Guilty.

Seconds later, there were sounds of a disturbance from the dock where the Defendant, our client, was standing. The guard in the dock hit the panic button and sirens blared as several other guards piled into court and the police officer in court, who was the lead officer in the case, also leapt into the dock.

The Defendant was trying to strangle himself with his own tie.

Above him, in the public gallery, his mother and girlfriend screamed in horror and anguish.

The judge cleared the jury from the court room, as the guards mananged to subdue the Defendant, even as he cried out that he was innocent. Later, when we visited him in the cells he was still distressed but had calmed down somewhat. He's now on suicide watch.

Double sigh.

Wearily, I made my way back home, hampered by the fact that I couldn't take the straightforward route as the Piccadilly Line was up the creek. When I finally got home I discovered that I'd inadvertently managed to tape over my copy of the dS episode 'Victoria's Secret'. Trivial, admittedly, but still. Bugger.

Then checked my email and discovered that a close friend had had some very bad news concerning the loss of a contract that will seriously impact on her financially.

Wrote a LJ journal re all of the above and LJ ate it. Was too knackered to compose another entry last night, so left it until today.

Triple sigh.

Crappy day all round.

I was in Homebase the other day, which had been totally revamped. I wandered upstairs to take a look at the furniture and noted that they had 'nightstands' for sale. What I want to know is, when did bedside tables become nightstands?

It was only a few years ago when I had to ask an American friend whose story I was betaing what a nightstand was. And now they're being sold in DIY outlets all over Britain.

We're becoming so used to Americanisms that it's becoming ever harder to spot them when we see them. Witness the very good Harry Potter story I read lately that had been betaed by at least one Brit. But she'd missed the 'gottens'. So used to reading them in US based fanfiction that she'd forgotten that gotten has been obsolete in Britain for a couple of hundred years or so, presumably. I must admit that it is a pet bug-bear of mine - any sentence structured to use 'gotten' just isn't British - we don't tend to use 'got', 'gotten' etc in the same way that Americans do.

Or at least we don't at present. I'm not taking any bets on the future.

a radiator key around when you need it?

I've got loads of the damn things, but can I find even a measly one? Nope.

Sigh. Homebase tomorrow it is.

There are many members of the English & Welsh judiciary who are the epitome of kindness and courtesy. Unfortunately, the judge I appeared before this morning wasn't.

I was sitting in a packed court-room waiting for the first of the couple of cases I was dealing with to be called when, disaster! A mobile phone went off.

Everyone - counsel, solicitors, police officers, defendants - dived for their briefcases/jacket pockets/handbags etc to check that it wasn't them. It wasn't. It was me.

Sigh.

I could've sworn that my mobile was off. Just as well I didn't swear to it, as I'd have been committing perjury. Double sigh.

Cue hasty exit on my part complete with ringing phone, which was in the depths of my bag which meant that I was unable to reach in and swiftly delete the call. As I dived for the door, the judge yelled after me to not to bother come back.

He'd banned me from the court.

Luckily, a couple of colleagues were in court and were able to take over my cases, so the clients were represented.

As everyone who'd been in court trickled out as their cases were dealt with, they all stopped to commiserate - it was definitely a case of there but for the grace of God and all that.

It wasn't just the fact that my mobile had gone off, it was also the fact that it had happened in front of this particular judge, who is, hmm, well let's just say, 'not popular' and leave it at that. One lawyer commented that she'd had a three week trial in front of this judge at the end of which she felt like slitting her wrists. Several commented that they really didn't think the 'offence' warranted being banned.

Mind you, the clerk of the court rather snottily commented to me later that if it happened again I could be done for contempt (because, of course, in the scheme of things leaving one's mobile on is such a heinous offence). Several lawyers said that I was, in fact, lucky that I hadn't been banged up in the cells for the rest of the day (I think they were joking, but who knows with this judge?).

Still, it could have been worse. Apparently, there is a judge who confiscates mobiles if they go off in his court and never gives them back. This is of dubious legality, but what are you gonna do? Apply for judicial review because he won't give your mobile back and incur the opprobrium of the Court of Appeal? I think not.

A colleague was in court the other day in front of another judge when a mobile starting ringing. The judge went apeshit, yelling at everyone in court that when he found out who's it was... Eventually, everyone twigged to the fact that the sound was coming from somewhere suspiciously close to the judge. Yep. It was the judge's own phone that was going off. Proof that no one is infallible.

As for me, well now my card is well and truly marked where this particular judge is concerned. But all I have to do is to decline to take on any cases in front of him for the next twenty years or so and I should be home free...

Due to a friend's illness I ended up staying in last night and settled down to see if there was anything worth watching on the telly. Despite having about 70 channels to choose from pickings looked to be slim. However Channel 4 came to my rescue.

First up was a documentary called The Model Empire which looked at why the Roman Empire was so successful and compared Ancient Rome's domination in the past to that of America today. The point the documentary was making was that the Roman Empire succeeded by making the conquered nations want to be Roman. If the Romans had depended solely on military might, their Empire would not have lasted for almost a thousand years.

In a similar fashion, the US exports its culture world wide, through TV, movies, the internet and the ubiquitous fast-food - Coca Cola and McDonalds are now pretty much everywhere. Although the US maintains a military presence in well over a 100 countries worldwide it does not, and cannot, rely solely on military might to maintain its dominance, even though it has the best armed and equipped military force in the world. Rather like the Romans in their day.

The Romans were bewildered when any nation attempted to reject all that Rome had to offer. Sometimes client nations rose up in revolt and slaughtered any Romans living in their midst - there was a massacre of 80,000 Roman citizens living in Italy, for example. The Romans could not comprehend why anyone hated them so, because surely what they had to offer was worthwhile and progressive? The programme pointed out the similarity of Rome's reaction to that of the US following the horrors of September 11 last year.

The pace of modern life makes it unlikely that America will be able to maintain its dominance for as long as the Roman Empire lasted, (modern empires are a bitch to maintain - just ask the British) and the programme made the point that America has to make some hard decisions about its role in the world in the next decade or so, but the parallels made for very interesting viewing.

Later, there was one of the most chilling TV programmes I've ever seen. It was called The Pact. In July 2000, the bodies of four women were discovered lying in a house in Dublin. They had all died of starvation.

Three of the bodies were found in the lounge, each huddled in blankets. The other was in the kitchen, collapsed across a pile of rubbish bags, much of which consisted of carefully shredded documentation - the women apparently went to some pains to ensure that their lives remained as private as possible.

The women were related to one another, one was the aunt of the other three, who were all sisters, and two of whom were twins. The aunt had come to live with the sisters' family at the twins' birth in order to help the family out and had ended up in effect raising the twins and their younger sister while the parents were busy working to support the family. There were five girls in all, but the oldest two sisters were raised by their parents, not their aunt. According to old school friends the three younger sisters kept very much to themselves, although they were always polite and well spoken.

The aunt and the sisters lived at home, working in the family hardware shop, until the sisters were all in their late twenties/early thirties. They then left home to go and live with their aunt in a house in the suburbs of Dublin by the sea. They lived there for twenty years, but again they kept very much to themselves.

However, the landlord of the house they were living in evicted them for non-payment of rent and they were forced to relocate in a much less salubrious part of Dublin. In the new house they were even more rarely seen than in the old, keeping all the curtains drawn at all times and only venturing out to shop for food or attend church, making sure that they didn't go to the local church where they might be forced to interact with their neighbours. They also cut off contact with their relatives, including their two older sisters.

At some point the women made a decision - a pact - to die, in effect to commit suicide. This despite the fact that they were all fervent Catholics. It was meticulously planned. On 31 March the aunt and one of the sisters took their last trip outside the house, as testified by the taxi driver who drove them back home from central Dublin. From receipts found in the house this was the last time they bought anything and therefore ventured outside.

They then sealed themselves up in the house and never left it again.

It took them a long time to die. Although they stopped eating they took fluids, thus prolonging how long it would take until the end. It takes the human body between thirty to sixty days to die of starvation if liquids continue to be drunk. The aunt, who was the oldest and was in her eighties, was the first to go. She actually died of pneumonia brought on by starvation. One of the twins followed her a couple of days later. The remaining sisters lasted another two weeks, one dying a day or so before the other. The last to die was the sister whose body was in the kitchen.

The horror of this is almost beyond words. The women condemned themselves to an extremely cruel and protracted death - dying of starvation is one of the worst ways to die as the body in effect eats itself, consumes its own organs, in a desperate attempt to sustain life.

It appears that one of the twins had second thoughts, as a letter addressed to her fellow twin was found underneath the mattress on which her body lay. In it, she pleaded with her sister to reconsider, writing movingly of how terrible their suffering was. The letter was apparently written over a period of days and the sister's handwriting deteriorated considerably as the effects of starvation ever worsened, However, she didn't actually hand it to her sister and died a few days after the last entry.

I am trying to imagine what it must have been like for the remaining two sisters in the last couple of weeks of their lives, lying beside the bodies of their sister and aunt. I cannot comprehend how horrible it must have been.

People have suffered and died in a similar fashion since the human race began. However, this was usually due to circumstances beyond their control, or for a 'cause', such as the IRA hunger strikers. In the case of the latter, their protest took on a life of its own. The eyes of the world were on them, they were receiving great publicity for the IRA's aims etc and that would put the onus on them to continue on with their hunger strike until the very end. But this was the aunt and sisters' choice. They could have stopped at any time, but didn't. This choice and the fact that they did not stop I cannot comprehend.

They believed that they were casting off their fleshy shells and would ascend to heaven, to the spirit realm. But even so, how tragic that they thought that life had nothing to offer them. Worse, that they chose just about the most cruel method possible by which to die. Slitting their wrists would have been much quicker and less painful.

Photographs of the women show that the sisters were all very pretty women, who could have easily had lovers and friends and lived full lives. The aunt was a handsome determined-looking woman, who presumably again could have lived and enjoyed life. Maybe she did - after all she was old when she died, unlike the middle-aged sisters.

Tragically, it seems that the last sister to die was attempting to escape her tomb when she collapsed and died. The Garda believe that she was trying to get hold of the key to the locked back door in the kitchen, but was too weak and fell onto the rubbish bags.

The bodies were not found until two months after the last sister died. The landlord came round to see why the rent hadn't been paid, and forced entry when there was no response to his hails.

I have seldom seen anything so disturbing on television. It makes the usual horror movie look suitably laughable. Because this was real.

I have some stuff that I need to get rid of, which adds up to quite a large amount. Now, I could simply leave it outside for the binmen to take, but most of it is recyclable and I want to do my bit for the environment, so I decide that I'll take it to the nearest recycling centre.

This turns out to be ever so slightly difficult. For more moanings go ( here )

Once a year my nephews spend a week staying with their grandparents, without Mum and Dad. Once a year my mother begs me to come and stay at my parents' place in order to assist in entertaining said nephews. So far, I've always taken pity on her and agreed. This year was no exception.

Is it just me, or are boys harder to deal with than girls?

Anyway, amongst the other entertainment this year we took them to a theme park called The American Adventure. It was full of faux American culture - fake saloons, diners, bars etc. And, of course, the rides. The advantage of me going along is that, as a person who *loves* going on rides, the bigger and most stomach churning the better (what can I say, I'm an adrenaline junkie), I would happily get on all the rides with the kids so my beleaguered parents wouldn't have to. Some of the rides were actually pretty good, The Missile, for example, which was a roller coaster which hit 60mph at some points and looped the loop a few times both forwards and backwards engendered a genuine thrill. We rode that one a few times. The American Adventure isn't as good as Alton Towers, of course, but is worth a visit.

Anyway, we decided to get on a ride called The Runaway Train. The seats were such that there were 4 people to a carriage, divided into 2 sets of 2 seats. The seats weren't molded, though, and you could easily slide across from one to the other. The kids got onto the one set of seats and I sat in front of them, beside a Frenchwoman. The ride wasn't sufficiently violent that you really needed to be strapped in, not like The Missile, for example, where each person had an individual bar that can down around their body. In th case of the Runaway Train, the safety bar was made of metal and simply came down across both people in each seat.

So, we set off on the ride and despite it looking quite gentle from the ground it was actually pretty good. The track rolled up and down and several times twisted quite violently to one side or another. The Frenchwoman and I spent some time apologising to one another when the carriage angled at such a way as to send one of us sliding over - forcefully - into the other as the train twisted and turned it's way round the track. Several times it was at quite a severe angle. Then it was over, as we approached the end point, back to where we'd started. Only it wasn't. The train kept going.

That's unusual, I thought to myself, letting us go round the track twice. I was right, it was unusual; in fact the train had been meant to stop and now really was running away!

There were a few exclamations from the passengers, but no one was panicking as we weren't certain whether this was meant to happen or not, and then the train jerked to a halt, and reversed. We finally stopped at a point where there was a wooden platform, high up on stilts, with a ladder up from the ground to the platform. Trouble was, the track at this point was at a rather sever angle and I was at the top of the seat. I grasped frantically at the side of the carriage and braced my feet to avoid sliding inexorably on top of the hapless Frenchwoman who was sharing the seat. I was sweating as I braced myself hard. If I'd been in a seat with someone I knew I'd have thought the hell with it and let myself slide on top of the other person. But this was a stranger and well, to just let myself go would have been awfully rude. Hmm, I can be so British at times!

Eventually, the passengers realised that we weren't going to move at any time soon and several started to wriggle out from under the safety bar, which was still locked in place, onto the wooden platform and down the ladder. As soon as the, thankfully, slim Frenchwoman clambered out of the seat I was up and out, onto the platform and shaking my arms, which had been bearing the strain, ruefully. I noted that some poor hapless large people were well and truly trapped, not able to wriggle out from under the safety bar but couldn't stop to see if I could help in any way as I had to chase after my nephews who were already down the ladder. We wended our way around the track, which was raised high above our heads, until we came to the exit and leaped to the ground, laughing as we did so. The Runaway Train had definitely lived up to its name.

I was just reading this entry in arachne's journal regarding a programme on celebrity plastic surgery. And that got me thinking about the celebrity cult that seems to be reaching epidemic proportions at present and the what appears to be sudden popularity of RPS. I'm thinking that the two are connected.

( Read more... )

First post, having finally succumbed to LJ. After much prompting by arachne!

Question is, now that I've got one what do I do with it?

This afternoon we actually experienced pretty decent weather. Makes a nice change from the torrential downpour causing mass flooding, it being the height of summer and all that.

So, I went for a walk in the park. One thing that I love about living in London is that you're never far from a park. The city is riddled with them, a necessary adjunct to urban living. My local park really isn't very big, it's definitely not one of the Great Parks, catering as it does to a strictly-suburban-and-proud-of-it part of North London but nonetheless is both pretty and popular with the residents.

I drifted past the children's playground filled with parents keeping a sleepy eye on their offspring. There were at least 3 football matches going on, definitely amateur, set up with a couple of jumpers for goalposts and no-one was wearing football boots - judging from the amount of slipping and sliding going on - but there was still some rather nifty footwork. I was impressed.

I checked out the queue for the ice-cream van as I walked past the crazy golf course - only open in the summer, of course. Today, the Friern Barnet fair had come to call; there was the tinny tinkle of the Merry-go-round and the hum of the waltzers overlaid with the tonal shrieks of the riders. Plus the sickly-sweet smell of candyfloss. Only a small fair, it was rather charming.

Back I walked, first past the boating lake followed by several ornamental lakes and round a rather fierce swan that spread its wings and hissed at me as I strolled along. I glared back. My goal was the salsa music I could hear playing in the distance. Was it...? Yes, a live band! In the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Oh joy.

They were good. At least I thought so and so did the rest of the audience based on the amount of dancing going on. Some of it was typically British, rather self-conscious and ever-so-slightly awkward. Others had got rhythm. And how.

There are times when living in London is frustrating as hell, bad transport, air and rushing crowds uncaring of anything so basic as good manners. But then I decide to take a stroll in my local park one afternoon and come across not only a fair but also a live band. And then I remember why I love this city.