Spam From H & M With An Italian Unsubscribe
H & M just crossed themselves of my list of shops to use! Not that I actually have done!
I just got spam from them and when I unsubscribed it was all in Italian.
Hopefully, it’s the last I’ll hear from them!
The BBC Plugs A Dinosaur
The BBC is doing an outside broadcast from the newly-rebuilt Whiteley Village shopping centre near Fareham.
It may be what market research says what is needed in the area and what the major chains of shops, I don’t use, want, but it is rather a dinosaur, in that after my visits to One New Change and Trinity in Leeds, I believe that something more in tune with the modern world is emerging. The trouble with these two new in-city shopping centres, is they are difficult places to park the 4×4!
But then your life improves substantially, when you ditch your vehicle!
Where’s Laura?
Buses over London are showing my name.
Coke Advert On A London Bus
I’ve actually just had a Coke too! But where is Laura?
Where’s Laura?
She is on lots of other buses.
The French Get Touchy About Language
The French can get very touchy, when English encroaches on territory, they think is reserved for French.
But this row, reported here on the BBC is totally of their own making, Here’s the introduction.
The French parliament is debating a new road map for French universities, which includes the proposal of allowing courses to be taught in English. For some, this amounts to a betrayal of the national language and, more specifically, of a particular way at looking at the world – for others it’s just accepting the inevitable.
The English-speaking world has nothing to do with it.
My French is such, that I can get by as a tourist. I also successfully used the language, when I was at ICI, as it was quicker to read scientific reports from the Belgian company, Solvay, in French, rather than wait for a translation.
On the other hand, when I was in Montreal, a few years ago, I was totally baffled, as Canadian French, is more different to French, than American is to English.
When we developed Artemis, we sold in quite a few European countries, but didn’t bother with French, as we thought they would be touchy, wanting everything in their own language.
In the late 1970s, Metier had installed an Artemis system, at Chrysler in Coventry. For various reasons, it hadn’t been upgraded, as much as it should. Soon after Peugeot-Citroen took over Chrysler in 1979, someone in Peugeot-Citroen decided to do a company wide survey of the various project management systems in use in the group. on one visit they went to Coventry and because they were impressed with what they saw, they came straight down the M1 to see us in our offices in Hayes.
Peugeot-Citroen then decided to buy a system for Paris. We told them it was only in English, but they said not to matter, as all their engineers knew the language. They did ask us to get some proper sales flyers in French.
The rest as they say is history, in that Peugeot-Citroen introduced Artemis to a lot of their friends.
Another story I remember, which illustrates the French and their language, happened a few years later. In the 1980s, I owned a company that made hand-tools. One tool, was exported to France and the United States. Our American agent asked if we could produce an English/French version for Canada. But a straight combination of what we already had was unacceptable and we had to get a special French Canadian translation at great expense. Eventually, the Canadians excepted it.
A couple of years afterwards, we had an urgent order from France, but unfortunately we were out of French leaflets. So we faxed over the French Canadian one to ask if that would be acceptable. The response was, that it will do, but that the French would have a bit of a laugh about the language.
Make of that, what you will!
I should say, that I once travelled to the States with a secretary from the New Zealand embassy in Ottawa. She told me, that some Canadians got very upset, if she sent them a letter with some American English spelling.
Polycell Launch Underpants For Builders
This was reported in The Sunday Times.
Builders have long used Polycell to cover up unsightly cracks, so it was only a matter of time before the company launched its own underwear range. PolyPants have a high waistband to avoid revealing “builder’s bottom”.
A cartoonist friend, will have to redraw one of his best cartoons.
Irving Sellar Does A Guy De Maupassant
Prufrock in the Sunday Times reported that Irving Sellar, who developed the Shard, has his own table in the restaurant on floor 32.
He must only be following the reasoning of Guy de Maupassant, who often ate lunch in the Eiffel Tower. Wikipedia says this.
Maupassant was but one of a fair number of 19th-century Parisians who did not care for the Eiffel Tower; indeed, he often ate lunch in the restaurant at its base, not out of any preference for the food, but because it was only there that he could avoid seeing its otherwise unavoidable profile.
So does Irvine Sellar feel like that about the monstrous Shard?
Clerkenwell Design Week
This week is Clerkenwell Design Week.
There’s still two more days if you want to have a look.
More CERN Photos
There are more CERN photos uploaded here to Flickr by other visitors from our Liverpool University Alumni Relations group.
I Don’t Dip In Olive Oil Anyway
This piece of EU legislation reported on the BBC must be the silliest. Here’s the first paragraph.
The European Commission is to ban the use of refillable bottles and dipping bowls of olive oil at restaurant tables from next year.
From 1 January 2014, restaurants may only serve olive oil in tamper-proof packaging, labelled to EU standards.
The Commission, the EU’s executive branch, says the move will protect consumers and improve hygiene.
It won’t improve my hygiene, as I’ve never anything in dipped olive oil and as very few places serve gluten-free bread, it will affect me about as much as the EU saying restaurants couldn’t use light blue tablecloths.
It’s ideas like this that mean UKIP and the other silly parties all over Europe prosper.
Let’s have some serious legislation that says that all restaurants must have a gluten free policy, shown on the menu.
By The River Rhone And Lac Leman
You’re never far from water in Geneva.
I tried to get a picture of the sun creating a rainbow in the fountain, but I failed.
Note that I have called the lake Lac Leman. My father said that he lived in the city for some time, when he worked at the League of Nations. He may or may not have worked there, but he was particular, that it was called Lac Leman. According to a friend, locals always call it thus. In some ways my father was secretive about his past, but the more I find, the more his tales ring true.
The Anonymous Widower 