And if you can’t read my writing, that says:
Send a sample of your handwriting to dsanne at broadpark dot no and I will add it to the collection. Send it as an ‘attachment’ in your email, in jpeg format. This shows that you are a real person, not just a keyboard or a piece of spam. Then we can start analysing them in the comments.
Starting with Grumbly Stu, aus Deutschland:
A bigger bit of Stu:
And Julia, from Buenos Aires: The text was some lines of a traditional Spanish poem which she sings every night to her girls, but she thought it was too big so now it’s something else. Actually, I liked it big, it’s easier to analyse.
And now Ø, on a legal pad:
Empty writing.
Here is a page of notes that I scribbled down last week while attending a talk about somebody’s mathematical research. Since it was intended solely for my own use, there was no question of making a special effort to make it look nice. In fact, it may be even sloppier than usual because I was more than a little sleep-deprived: I had stayed up too late preparing my own talk. Now you’ll be wondering how my own talk went, considering that I was so sleep-deprived …
Here’s Ø’s enlarged:
Here’s a fantastic two-for-one from Siganus Sutor, in Mautitius: Martian structural engineer’s writing, plus dodo
Here’s Sig’s enlarged:
And now, ’60s French handwriting analysis. (Caution. Brutal judgments). Where do we fit on this list?
Now Trond, another structural engineer. Compare and contrast. He says Her er mine kråketær i bundet utfoldelse. – Here are my bound-up crowsfeet (according to my wife, crowsfeet is a colloquial name in Norway for handwriting.)
…And now Trond has added some Nordic Ws:
Something from Jesús. He has written in English. He says: I’m attaching a writing ( teacher’s corrections included) about one of my favorite movies that I had to do for my English classes. This is another two-for-one, in which we can discuss Apocalypse Now as well as Jesus’s handwriting – an offer you won’t find on many other blogs.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a capital A like Jesús’s before. It’s very elaborate:
A very welcome late arrival from New Zealand Stuart:
Boy, what an interesting theory. I’d love to see his handwriting.
A Bad Guide 
What a fantastic idea! ;-)
You were right, Stu, if I knew anything about graphology, I would have a feast with this…
No, in fact you have a nice handwriting, not neat but interesting.
I’m cooking dinner, I’ll come back to this afterwards…
When I was 16 I was given a Civil Service handwriting exercise book and was set to work to improve my handwriting on the grounds that otherwise I would never pass my exams. At 16. Damn cheek I call it. Or perhaps very effective. Who knows?
P.S. In my 40s I noticed that my writing had come to resemble my father’s. Is that a commonplace observation?
But mind you, I am a piece of spam.
Fish spam. Any free samples?
Dearie: Well it worked, didn’t it? You passed your exams. Nowadays, of course, they don’t need neat writing; they just need to be able to type.
I think it may be commonplace to compare your handwriting to your parents’. I know my mother based her writing style on her own mother’s. I based mine on my cousin’s, but I’ve lately noticed similarities to my grandfather’s.
And now for the analysis:
Julia has a very round hand. There’s no way she’s a man with writing like that. It leans a bit to the left, as does Julia herself, and is very firm (look at the line under her name).
Stu’s looks like it’s been through a fax machine. It’s not spiky, Stu. It looks to me to be the hand of someone who can write very fast, which is something I’ve always admired.
In my life I’ve met three people whose hand skims across the page so fast that I can’t figure out how they’re doing it. All three are super smart. It has something to do with always choosing the shortest path between adjacent letters; in other ways the handwriting of these three is quite different.
Please, please, more people send in samples. Dearie & Sig, what does your writing look like? This is important scientific work. Catanea? You’re a calligrapher, we need to see what your writing’s like when you’re off duty.
Yes, please, more samples!
My handwriting look FAAAT, let’s face it!
Yours is very nice, Crown, I specially like the vertical lines and the ‘Y’.
I change a lot my letters when I’m in a hurry, like taking notes for a class (that must show my multiple personalities)
Artur,
Alas we lack the technocapacity to reproduce handwriting samples here, but will this do?
Penmanship
Meanwhile… I come in friendship, offering this his-and-hers pair of handsome Toggenburg goats.
Beautiful poem, Tom, I love it and it’s perfect for this conversation.
You can show us that board (?) you have for your classes. I don’t know how to find it now, but I think you wrote it.
that board
That’s right. Now where is it? Under Keats, probably…
I have a black & green Pelikan pen, just like in the photograph, sitting on the table here. Unfortunately it’s broken.
Yes, that board!
I admired my father’s handwriting, which perfectly reflected his personality. I have mixed feelings about my own. I will send in a sample as soon as I can, but I think I need my son’s tech help, and he will probably continue sleeping for hours. Maybe I’ll even dig up a sample of my father’s.
I particularly like the curve in Crown’s lower case d.
From Pride and Prejudice:
“Charles writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.”
“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them — by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”
“Your humility, Mr. Bingley,” said Elizabeth, “must disarm reproof.”
“Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy, “than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”
“And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?”
“The indirect boast; — for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself — and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or any one else?”
“Nay,” cried Bingley, “this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning […]”
Ha! Found it! Tom, please may I put it up here? This post needs some color and learning.
Ø, that P&P excerpt is brilliant. I only remembered the first couple of lines, not the rest.
Yes, please take a picture of your parents’ handwriting too. It’s interesting how styles change.
Thank you, my friends, for simulating the memory which I seem to have misplaced somewhere along the way.
(What was it we were talking about? ah yes, penmanship!)
At any rate… you can click on the image to improve legibility (and increase recognition of the mania):
Negative Capability (from Deep Keats Scrolls
Well, it was ONCE possible to blow-up that image with a simple click… but e’er since Google Images began to harvest me as a sort of private corporate image-farm… many an unexpected sea-change.
and here’s another from that series… (and I see that Google has fiddled-out the enlargement capability here too!)
Can you have one Keat or are they always plural like scissors?
If one does not have hands, can we talk of his or her handwriting? (I’ll see what I can do.)
Is “Keats” in any way related to the poets we studied at school, Sheets and Kelly?
We also studied Toilets.
His friend Leigh Hunt said “Mr. Keats’s origin was of the humblest description.”
The name Keats came in divers shapes and forms during the 18th century, when English spelling had not yet been regularized. Variants might be, e.g., Kates and Keates — often in the same family. The commonest version, apparently, was Keate. That name would seem to have meant “herdsman”. The Keate families of southern England were concentrated around and about a range of sheep-walks ranging between Wantage and Pangbourne. As late as the middle of the last century the names Keate or Keats still appeared in parish registers in the half-timber and red-brick villages thereabouts. The central line of this family seems to have approached gentility in the early 16th c., probably thanks to the sheep-enclosures of the period. In grazing uplands around West Isley, place-names still “remember” the family — “Kates Field” & c. It seems branches then extended down into the sheltered villages below, occupying manors, and from thence on eastward to East Hagbourne (hard by Didcot), west to East Lockinge (near Wantage); the coat of arms of the Berkshire Kates contained a pun: three wild cats passant in pale sable. Early 17th c. migratory passages led the family to the west, as far as Cornwall, to Exeter and its environs in South Devon; and finally to London, to trade, or to Inns of Court, and also to Oxford.There would appear to have been some coherent family sense. Seventeenth century Cornish Keates remembered London and Berkshire cousins in their wills (and vice versa). Then again, as Keats biographer Robert Gittings points out, a certain Keatsian impetuosity may be guessed-at in a complementary trail of disinheritances and contemptuously small annuities. But as “long life and virility marked the family”, the Keats line persisted. By the 18th c. there were Keatses high and low, from Lands End to Spitalfields, from baronets to blacksmiths. Thomas appears late on as a Keats family name. And that was the name of John Keats’ father, who probably came from Devon or Cornwall to London, where he became an ostler — and died of a fall from a horse, when John (who would come to physically resemble his father, in small, thick-set stature, and agile, alert bearing) was still but a wee lad.
It’s odd that no one has remarked on a particularly remarkable feature of Crown’s handwriting: the calligature he draws from final letters to initial letters, when the final letter ends with a crosstroke: f or t. I’ve seen that artifice somewhere before now, I think in the original Declaration of Independence.
Crown, you’re right about my handwriting being a sample of fast writing. That’s the problem: I think faster than I can write. For many years I’ve communicated only by keyboard – with that, I write faster than I can think, so I always have to rework the formulation.
I tend to print individual letters instead of joining them together, because the joining takes more time and care than does just lifting the pen briefly, slightly between letters. But it makes my hand get cramps.
The real problem is that I don’t write to communicate with others. I write Notes To Self, which I then publish when I can understand them. That’s why the result is often illegible.
Tom, with my Firefox browser the enlargement feature works fine. I merely have to right-click on the image.
Sorry, left-click.
Stu, you must have a smart-click function. Mine appears retarded (alas!).
By the by, a bit of young Master Keats’s handwriting can be seen at top and bottom here.
I’ve sent in a sample. It required two tries, because (as so often happens) I forgot to attach the file the first time.
Ø’s is small and neat but still very expressive and well laid-out (indents) like Newton’s. It goes a bit wavy and out of control in small areas, as does mine & Stu’s but not Julia’s. I wonder if it’s an age thing. A man thing?
Tom, thank you for that. Very interesting as always.
Stu, I picked up that joining-the-words-together affectation at school from a friend of mine, though i use it nowhere near as consistently as he does (still). It gives me the impression that I’m writing faster than I am which, since I don’t write that fast, I like.
Because you think I can just do that, photograph a sample of my handwriting and send it in jpeg format. Well, for starters, my camera is buried somewhere in the spare room, and even if I could find it, it would need new batteries which I’m pretty sure I don’t have, then I would have to find the lead to connect it to the computer, then identify the right programme for downloading the picture as I haven’t done it for so long – I’ll stop here as I’m sure you can see what I’m up against as a non-technical person.
As another non-technical person, my method was the following: Ask my son if he knows how to scan an image into the printer (which doubles as a scanner) and get it somehow into my computer. Place the piece of paper with my handwriting on the scanner. Watch him push various buttons, with the result that the thing now exists in a tiny little thing called a flash drive. Watch him put the flash drive in my laptop and push more buttons to convert the file from pdf to jpeg.
If I had tried to do it with a camera instead, then I would have had to ask my wife to remind me how to use the camera, but I might then have been able to “download” it from camera to computer — and even to remember that (according to my son) “download” is the wrong word for that.
The WiPe has an article on uploading and downloading that explains things simply:
“Upload” means to transfer data from the local system (= computer) to a remote system. These are dusty historical conventions that are used to convey an air of being technically in-the-know. They are not important distinctions, so you can just say “transfer the file”, “transfer the image” etc in all cases.
There is a section in the article suggesting the term sideload for the situation empty describes in which both “systems” are “local”: transferring data from a flash drive to the computer. But nobody needs the word “sideload” when “transfer” does the job.
I have always believed that “upload” and “download” are based on a metaphor that originated in the computer scene in the ’60s and ’70s. PCs did not exist then, “computers” were large IBM setups that sat somewhere up in the clouds like God. People down below used comparatively simple “terminals” with keyboard etc. to interact with the big computer. So you “uploaded” requests (prayers), and “downloaded” files (manna) in answer to your prayers.
Dammit. Crown, please correct the first sentence of the second paragraph after the WiPe quote. It should be: “Upload” means to transfer data from the local system (= computer) to a remote system.
empty’s son says that empty should say “upload from camera to computer”. That’s in line with convention, but I rarely stop to think about such things and instead just say “copy” or “transfer”. The idea is that the camera is dumber than the computer, and so is beneath it in dignity and competence. The transfer direction from camera to computer is therefore “up”wards.
You need only remember that the distinction “upload” / “download” is of no importance whatsoever, apart from suggesting that you are younger than you really are. You would get the same unconvincing effect by having your nose pierced.
Programmers and other IT technical people are concerned to mark their dignity and competence by signs, in this case verbal ones. You find this phenomenon in many kinds of human activity. In Germany, certain “punks” formerly distinguished themselves from other kinds by wearing shoelaces of a certain color in their boots.
bruessel, the best solution for you would be to have Ø’s son come to stay in your spare room.
There’s still a possibility for anyone who has access to a fax machine to send a writing sample. He can fax a page to one of those “virtual fax machine” numbers, such as I have. It’s associated with my mail account at the same service provider.
For the case that Crown doesn’t know how to set up such a fax number at short notice, I provide mine below. The fax arrives as an email with attached PDF file, that I can then forward to Crown..
+49 32121039249
From inside Germany, you use “0” instead of “+49”. Outside Germany, the “+” means whatever the “international exit code” is, and “49” is the Germany country code.
Too bad Crown has no carrier pigeons.
Or trained snails.
I didn’t know until just now that the first “commercial” fax machine was being used in 1865.
There’s no excuse now, bruessel – and happy birthday on Friday!
Just to set the record straight, our son would prefer that we say neither “upload” nor “download” for the magical process by which the pictures travel through a wire from camera to laptop. He very sensibly recommends “file transfer”, and he also very sensibly keeps his mouth shut when we slip up and say it wrong anyway. In other words, his view of the matter seems to be entirely the same as Stu’s.
To me the “remote versus local” distinction seems like a fairly useless concept here, if only because where point A is local and point B remote for one observer the reverse will be true for another. Like immigrant versus emigrant.
On the other hand, it seems to this technologically/philosophically/theologically challenged thinker that a file downloaded from a web site will always be coming from afar — that a web site is remote for every observer. Can that be?
I like the idea that data obtained from the web has an exalted status. It explains why Wikipedia is so much more reliable than books on paper.
a file downloaded from a web site will always be coming from afar — that a web site is remote for every observer. Can that be?
Yes. I like to think that files come down to us like angels. Until we call for them they are running and jumping, playing in sunny, heavenly pastures.
Possibly your imagination is biased. That sounds not unlike goats with wings.
Naturally I now did a google search for “goats jacobs ladder”, which led me here. I had never heard of the Cheddar Man before. For me it is very hard to let go of the idea that he is made of cheese.
The article says: “it has been suggested that the caves were the site of prehistoric cheese-making”. For all we know, God worked with cheddar, not clay.
I’ve made a jpeg scan of a piece of scribble I found on the shelf behind me. Am I too late now? I’ve had my brother here this weekend. We’ve been setting up a new wireless LAN, and I didn’t find out how to make a scan under the new regime until just now.
It’s the notes for the autumn term with my scouts (I suddenly reemerged as a scout leader after twenty years this summer). It’s not my best handwriting, but it’s pretty typical for me when I plan or take notes. Distracted while thinking or listening I go back and rewrite something borderline legible, the result being totally illegible.
(My other brother implemented Internet by carrier pigeons more than 10 years ago. I’ll ask him about snails.)
I can’t see it in the pictures, but apparently you used simple clothing to log the traces at the physical layer that are inevitable with CPIP. Great idea !
I had never heard of the Cheddar Man before.
The Cheddar person.
“Activité, irréflexion, imprudence“: that’s me.
“it has been suggested that the caves were the site of prehistoric cheese-making”
Actually, really well-aged cheddar has a very good flavour, but it’s hard to find. Blessed are the cheesemakers.
It’s too bad Trond isn’t showing any Ws; Norwegians do magnificent crossed ones, much like the Volkswagen symbol. I think some Germans may do them too.
“Activité, irréflexion, imprudence“: that’s me.
You’re lucky you’re not Absence de personalité, d’originalité, goût du convenu. – And that person had been so proud that they could reproduce a Word font.
I initially wondered at the jumble of concepts in “timidité, prudence, réserve, appréhension, avarice“. I don’t think there are many people who are timid and greedy at the same time. But in fact it does make sense. We cover all those personality traits with a single word in English: anal-retentive.
What’s that in French, then? I get anal-rétentif. Come to think of it, what was Freud’s handwriting like?
Ach so!
Thank you very much for your birthday wishes. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a fax machine or a scanner here either, but your suggestion to have Ø’s son come to stay in my spare room seems eminently sensible. Is he single? (just kidding).
Single, smart and good-looking (Empty once showed a video of him playing the guitar).
>A.J.P. Crown
The Volkswagen symbol reminded me about this one of Mer Chedes Benz.
Thanks, Jesús. I hadn’t seen that. A transparent bid for free publicity. I’m surprised they’ve never screwed around with the peace symbol.
>A.J.P. Crown
Thank you!
Stu: I was nowhere near, so there were no traces on my layers, physical or otherwise.
AJP: My i bundet utfoldelse was meant as a modification of i fri utfoldelse “on free display”, since the words and numbers on the sheet are (meant to be) organized in columns.
I’ve sent you some W’s.
Well, all right, I can’t resist doing this proud parent thing: he has a very nice tenor voice, too. Here is a chorus of high school students from all over eastern Massachusetts. They audition to get in, then rehearse for a day and a half. We were tickled pink when he came back from the first rehearsal and said that he got a solo (in the Martini — the piece that begins around 6:30 — he’s the tall skinny guy with glasses).
Trond: My i bundet utfoldelse was meant as a modification of i fri utfoldelse “on free display”
Nothing to do with Chinese bound (crow’s-) feet, then? I thought it was a play on that.
So, another musical star – can’t we introduce him to Julia’s brother who is an operatic soloist in Leningrad? The Martini sounds really difficult to sing. I’m no expert, but I think that choir needs a more echoey auditorium like a church. He’s very charismatic looking, sort of like a young David Byrne or Elvis Costello; and a nice guy, a vegan, to boot.
>A.J.P. Crown
I paid a lot of money to my graphologist-psychologist for learning this “A”. Have I been cheated?
Not at all, it’s magnificent. Most academics have more stripped-down, ‘fast’ writing. I admire it. You got your money’s worth; your students will all be trying to get one of those As on the papers they write.
Nothing to do with Chinese bound (crow’s-) feet, then? I thought it was a play on that.
Sadly, no. But since you ask… Yes!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a capital A like Jesús’s before.
It’s one of the four Horsemen.
I’ll have to start writing by hand again. I’m loosing what little I had.
In English crow’s feet are a kind of wrinkle, and chicken scratch is a kind of handwriting.
It’s wonderful to be able to see all your handwritings.
Bruessel, we can send each-other real letters, that would solve the problem.
While I’m writing this, I’m hearing empty’s son chorus, very beautiful. Now I think the solo part is coming… Ohhh yes, he has a fantastic voice! And I love baroque music. My brother is such a “verdian”!! Hearing this is pure pleasure, thank you for share it with us.
I can’t find which kind of handwriting I have in that 60s French analysis. I’d like to send another sample, when I see the one up here I feel a bit ashamed: it seems that I have a gigantic handwriting. For me that means egocentrism and a flashy annoying personality… If I’m that way, I’d like to hide it!
>A.J.P. Crown
Obviously I learnt that in my childhood. Although the “A” isn’t similar, the rest of capital letters I write are, pretty much, like these (a link with a book of 1915!): http://soloplumas.blogspot.com/2007/07/caligrafia-letra-espaola.html
As regards my students, sometimes they ask me: what is the symbol you have written? I tell them that I don’t want to write like a typewriter.
By the way, I write by hands if it’s possible, above all because I go too slowly with the keyboard. For that reason I give my compositions like the sample I sent you.
>Trond Engen
Besides the four, I knew the mark of the Beast; by the way, it’s apparently a representation of www. “¡ja, ja, ja!”
gigantic handwriting. For me that means egocentrism and a flashy annoying personality
For me it just means I can’t see as well as I used to. Mine gets bigger, with fatter letters, every year.
Thank you!
Julia, I think we could classify you as ÉCRITURE CLAIRE: Soin, attention, sincéerité.
(sincérité, that is.) It’s not a perfect match, but it’s the same in essence.
Oh, you’re very nice, empty.
The name of my blog (the best is hidden) and my pretty conflictive personality might contradict this analisys… But who isn’t a contrdictions’ knot? I know: the “ecriture impersonelle” kind of guys, and we don’t want to be like them!
>A. J. P. Crown
As regards peace symbol and publicity it seems that there was, at least, an attempt. I don’t know if it’s true this information but Germán Bustos* said in the next link that Coca Cola contacted him to use the material about this symbol and Budapest he had published. You can click here in “Símbolo de Paz de Budapest” to see the picture: http://germanbustos.com/El-optimismo-al-estilo-Coca-Cola
* I don’t know who is this man.
I can’t say I hate Coke the drink; but the Coke company, starting in the 1970s, has done a good job of being irritating.
Julia: The name of my blog (the best is hidden)
Aha. Foogle won’t translate it, though I see I somehow figured it out myself, above, in the blogroll.
… though I see I somehow figured it out myself, above, in the blogroll.
I was going to say this exactly, but now I see you add it to yout comment…
And with a pedantic tone I was going to offer this piece of wisdom : “It’s LATIN, you know?”
;-)
(Although I don’t know much Latin, actually. Just some spare phrases)
Latin or Spanish, Poodle won’t translate it.
Maybe a French poodle would…
From a doggy point of view it might be translated “Best not in show.”
Oh, I don’t know what that means! (truly, I can’t figure out the translation nor meaning..)
¿Is better not to see? ¿the best is not exposed?
(I use the “¿” so you can see I’m guessing from Spanish (Argentinian) state of mind)
Sub specie caninis, surely. That’s Latin for Canis lupus familiaris, the subspecies dog.
Sorry. Rabbit dog, obviously.
I hate when I set my foot in a poodle and get all dirty.
>Julia et al.
I’ve been looking for and I found an authoritative book. “Ahí encontré esto”: http://books.google.es/books?id=1mqNvGq3tuoC&pg=PA868&lpg=PA868&dq=meliora+latent&source=bl&ots=dp_bJBneiN&sig=IS1OG–X8Qg8uhfBgiJYOiliZco&hl=es&sa=X&ei=MVUXT6G-N4bChAeuwLmGAw&ved=0CHsQ6AEwDw#v=onepage&q=meliora%20latent&f=false
As you can read, the translation proposed is: “The better things lie hidden”.
When you take the poodle out for a piddle or a pootle, you may find yourself in the doghouse with the law.
>Julia et al.
It’s better to click in “Siguiente”.
Thank you, Jesús.
This Enciclopedia de Emeblemas Españoles Ilustrados is one of my “pillow books”, actually.
Nota Bene: The Spanish author of it is one of the double-headed monster behind STUDIOLUM
stupid me (ignorant me!), with “pillow book” I meant “libro de cabecera” something like “bedside book” or “reference book”
Off-board
I’ve read today a piece of news about an interesting link (the biggest on the web) of Romanesque art. There will be 330000 pictures (also plans, maps, etc.) of 9000 Spanish and Portuguese monuments. Then they will put France and Italy.
http://www.romanicodigital.com/
Julia, I was just making a silly joke: the phrase Best in show refers to the top prize in a dog show (when people bring their pedigreed poodles and spaniels and moosehounds and so on and they are judged by the judges).
Speaking of cabacera, I just learned the delightful word rompecabezas today.
empty, I knew you were making a silly joke, I just couldn’t figure out which was!!
Now all is clear (and funny) =)
Rompecabezas it’s a wonderful word (next time I come across the Corominas Dictonary, the best etymology dictionary for Spanish, I’ll look up when it began to be used)
Another correction: I didn’t mean to say that the two actual persons behind the nickname STUDIOLUM (Antonio and Tamás) were double-headed monsters… nor individual monsters (I think…). What I meant was that Antonio Bernat Vistarini (editor of the Enciclopedia Jesús linked) was one part of Studiolum, a double-headed monster. OH; PLEASE! I’m making it worse every time… I hope someone with “English Skills” could help me!!
Si siempre articulas las sutilezas en Español, no hará malentendidos. At worst we just won’t understand anything. But I think all of us non-speakers of Spanish get excited when you write in Spanish, because then we can apply our interpretive skills.
Trond, recently on Mars all Caltex petrol stations have become Engen. I didn’t know your family had an oil company. I’m impressed.
I didn’t know either, but there’s only one explanation to this: I have a brother who’s something like a travelling system engineer in a seismological company, a cousin who’s a mechanical engineer in Statoil and another cousin who’s a logistician and runs a transport company. They must have teamed up, picking Mars as their market to keep the rest of us in the dark.
No comments all day, and then seventeen after I’ve gone to bed.
All Norwegians have a cousin in the oil business. It’s sort of like the Beverly Hillbillies here.
Beverly Hillbillies.
Ssh, he’s awake1
Trond, see if you recognise some faces there:
• http://www.engenoil.com/home/apps/content/mauritius/default.aspx
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Engen-Petroleum-Mauritius-Ltd/230002027014904#!/pages/Engen-Petroleum-Mauritius-Ltd/230002027014904?sk=photos
• http://lexpress.mu/services/archivenews-20646-carburants-les-stations-service-caltex-laissent-la-place-a-celles-d-engen.html
It might also be possible to ask for some handwriting samples, for identification purposes. You might then be in a better position to ask for your share.
About Engen.
Engen is in Baden-Württemberg, and looks very pretty.
It runs in the family. I think you just laid our holiday plans.
Makes a change from Trondheim, I suppose.
Siganus: I see that Engen Oil is 80% owned by Les Petrones Malaysiennes. They’ve already sold out, those bastards.
At first glance I saw Mayonnaise instead of Malaysiennes and thought of other oils.
People in Mayo! Throw off the yolk!
The Malacca Strait question:
Å sie eru fra? Malaysia eller Indonesia?
I think they’d better change the name to La Manche.
>A, J, P, Crown
“It’s the Engen Oil we have lit upon, Sancho”
“So I see,” said Sancho, “and God grant we may not light upon our petrol station.”
Although it isn’t our territory, your “La Manche” did me to talk nonsense.
Careful now, Sancho. If our host thinks there’s more nonsense up that sleeve, he’ll have your donkey shot.
Sorry for that. If you need me, I’ll be in the Quijotería.
This is all very engenious.
Would the Martians consider using wind power to meet some of their energy needs? Moving toward wind turbines? Tilting toward … oh, never mind.
There are wind farms in the Manche, but I believe not in the Minch.
>Empty
A sentence (actually a comparison) used in Spanish as a sort of joke and related with Don Quixote and wind turbines that I read yesterday: you are more anxious than D. Quixote in a windfarm.
Would the Martians consider using wind power to meet some of their energy needs?
Yes, Empty, I believe so, despite some people complaining about environmental impact and about the noise these revolving things might generate. All of these éoliennes — named after the Greek ruler of the winds — are supposed to be brought down during cyclones, either by sliding the rotor down along the mast or by tilting the mast itself until it rests horizontally on the ground. Therefore I’m not sure whether they could be three-bladed.
I see that in the Minch, between Lewis and Skye, there is a small group of islands that is
chiantShiant. It must be boring as hell to live there, despite them being known as “enchanted isles” by a happy few.Trond, family business can mean tough business, no? However, being in the oil business it must certainly be possible to “grease the palm” of a few well-placed people, i.e. “leur graisser la patte” — expression which shows that, among the Franks, those who can be bribed do not have hands but paws. One cannot but wonder what their “hand”-writing must be like.
A paw print for a signature, perhaps.
known as “enchanted isles” by a happy few
That’s because it’s the home of Scotch whisky. Did anyone see that 1980s Bill Forsyth film Local Hero? It’s about a US firm that wants to start drilling for oil in Scotland. Very good.
I read in WiPe that a Norse firm once tried to put wind turbines in the Minch but were stopped by the locals. We have had that sort of conflict going on in this area for a while: one way to tell the story is that the powerful spoiled wealthy people who vacation on Nantucket don’t want unsightly towers in their own bit of scenic seascape, but there may be other valid points of view.
you are more anxious than D. Quixote in a windfarm
Jesús, I really like this and I’m planning to use it at the first opportunity.
a Norse firm once tried to put wind turbines in the Minch but were stopped by the locals
All this will change once Scotland leaves the UK and joins up with Scandinavia. Then we’ll whip them into shape. If only Harald Hardrada had won the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1966, this kind of union would be a thousand years old by now and the Scots would be dying to join the EU instead.
I think I mean 1066, not 1966. 1966 was when England won the World Cup.
>A. J. P. Crown
There are lots like that and they are pretty much funny. Only some examples:
– Sb works less than the Tarzan’s tailor.
– Sb or sth is more dangerous than a piranha in a bidet.
– Sb or sth is more irritating than a hedgehog on the fly trousers.
– Sb is hungrier than an altar boy in the USSR.
Obviously the last comparison is antiquated but you can adapt it to other similar country.
I like ‘works less than Tarzan’s tailor’, I may use that too. I don’t think Tarzan comes up that often anymore and yet everyone knows who he is; so it sounds quite surprising rather like the Quixote one.
I’d send a sample, but I’ve been typing for so many decades I get writer’s cramp if I sign a cheque … my then-to-be-future wife was astonished lo these 50 years ago to see me typing a shopping list.
I get writer’s cramp if I sign a cheque
I bet you say that to all your creditors.
“Nowadays, of course, they don’t need neat writing; they just need to be able to type.” This is a source of frustration for me personally. Although I can read Devanagari Hindi well enough, and Gurmukhi Panjabi haltingly, I can write neither. Learning both scripts after the traditional mid-30s onset of CP motor skill deterioration, I simply have not managed to learn to how to write the scripts, and must type them if I want to “write”.
PS, just noticed your plug for one of my all time favourite “small” films, Local Hero. A real gem, of the lightning never strikes twice variety I discovered, once I finally tracked down his next similar effort, Comfort and Joy. Not bad, but lacking that certain elusive something that made Local Hero so good.
Yes, I agree about Local Hero, it’s his best.
I really like your writing: big letters, closely spaced. It seems to me to be the clearest of the lot, and I always liked big letters even before I needed glasses to read.
That’s really interesting about your father’s writing.
As a curiosity I told Julia yesterday (and she recommended me to add it here) that I know a book written by Octave Levenspiel, one of the most important professors of chemical engineering, as a manuscript (drawings included) and like that was published. Then Costa, a Spanish professor translated this book and it was also written as a manuscript. You can see this translation here:
http://books.google.es/books?id=TaGVOaLnQ3wC&pg=PT4&lpg=PT4&dq=levenspiel+omnibook&source=bl&ots=VOnIVLlHbs&sig=To5PkhG0ZtE8QetTLi1Z1nvYrdg&hl=es&sa=X&ei=gYk-T5-DMKGr0QX_5PCrDw&sqi=2&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=levenspiel%20omnibook&f=false
Very nice. I couldn’t get the handwritten version up, unfortunately. He sounds like an interesting fellow. In return, i was going to link to a book that we used in architecture school that was also hand written, but I see it’s now sold only with ordinary type! I expect it’s cheaper to reproduce, or something. Ah, here’s another of his books that is still printed that way. It’s very regular, though. I think it might use a typeface that imitates his handwriting.
Maybe you could get it up in Julia’s blog.
I have sent my handwriting please upload my handwriting 🙄
I wouldn’t do that, Crown. It may be a zip bomb or jpeg worm.