Anyone for Dinner for One?

What do Germans do on New Year's Eve. They watch Dinner for One. Never heard of it? It was written by British author Lauri Wylie in the 1920s, seen in Blackpool in 1962 by German entertainer Peter Frankenfeld who invited actors Freddie Frinton and May Warden to perform the sketch on his live TV show Guten Abend, Peter Frankenfeld. The version now seen was a 1963 live performance in Hamburg's Theater am Besenbinderhof. Since 1972, it has been shown on German TV every New Year's Eve. It also has regular outings in Switzerland, Austria, South Africa, Australia, and Latvia. There is a Latin version and many parodies. It has never been shown in the UK or the US.
It's very predictable stuff, and thus highlights yet another Mystery of Them - how come they like it so much, and we don't?
Jude Stewart explains all here, where there are also links to the complete skit (just under 11 minutes long) and the script.

We're doomed again. Well, maybe not.

It's like childbirth. Who, having gone through it, would do it again? Yet, one or two years later, it's all a scream and a pant once more.
So with gloom and doom. It is forever with us, but we constantly forget the last bout, and then in we go again. Or is it just that Buffy is always hard at work?
A nice reminder from David Shariatmadari on the openDemocracy site.

Put out the light

Evidently, police in Manchester have advised people against putting Hanukkah candles in their windows because of the risk of attack. They did not say who the attack might come from.

All great artists know

All great artists know that part of their task is to light up the distance between two human beings.
Maps for Lost Lovers, Nadeem Aslam

Antiquity

Nebuchadnezzar II, the greatest of Babylonian kings, builder of the Median Wall, sacker of Jerusalem, who created the Hanging Gardens of Babylon as solace for his homesick wife, whose name appears on the bricks of 95% of all the ruins of Babylon, who lived and ruled over 2,500 years ago - Nebuchadnezzar was a lover and collector of antiquities.

Italian Post Office resolves the pensions conundrum

The Italian Post Office is about to issue 2 stamps with a guarantee of rarity. There will only be a certain number produced and any not distributed by the end of next year will be destroyed. Should you rush to buy them? Well, you can, but it won't do you much good. You can't have them. Not unless you're 18.
It'll work like this. Anyone who turns 18 in 2006 will have 3 months after their birthday to apply for a postcard with one of these stamps attached. Only one. If you're a boy, you get a blue one. If you're a girl, a pink. Given the low birthrate in Italy, and the certainty that a large number of people will either be too late or not bother to apply, and given that the remainder of the batch will be destroyed at the end of the year, the number out there will be very small. Instant rarity. Instant value. Who needs a pension?
The stamps will also be available for normal postage, but those will be 'pre-postmarked'. There's an article (in Italian) here.

Continuing on and on

It is an infallible sign of incipient decrepitude and a hardening of the arteries that new linguistic tics overload the synapses and move the bowels. However, just to pass it on ...
Until not that long ago, phrasal verbs were made up exclusively of Anglo-Saxon elements: verbs such as get, make, take, etc plus in, on, out. Now there is the tendency to create them using a Latinate verb. That in itself is no big deal. It's just that the additional particle adds nothing. I came across two this evening reading to S2: continue on & radiate out (there were no complements). I ask you - what does on add to continue, or out to radiate? Bugger all. So why say it?
That is enough. The rest is silence. (Like Hell.)

Max Hastings on what history to study

An excellent article by Max Hastings in the Guardian about what children in this country should study in History. Far too obvious to be taken seriously.

It may justly be asserted that - for instance - the Muslim peoples of the Middle East sustained much higher cultural values in the 12th and 13th centuries than the European crusaders they fought; that many Indian peoples possessed more impressive heritages than our own. But the world's development in the past 500 years has been dominated, for good or ill, by what westerners have thought and done. Other societies, again no matter whether for good or ill, have been losers whose power to determine their own destinies, never mind anyone else's, has been small.
History is the story of the dominance, however unjust, of societies that display superior energy, ability, technology and might. If one's own people were victims of western imperialism, it is entirely understandable that one should wish to study history from their viewpoint. But, whatever the crimes of our forefathers, this is the country of Drake, Clive and Kitchener, not of Tipu Sultan, Shaka Zulu or the Mahdi.

No, comes the reply. We must study those who did not have any effect on how we live today, and make lots of excuses for why they didn't. (Via Samizdata)

Volunteering and purity

Libération has it in for volunteers. According to this article in Corriere della Sera, Libération says that NGOs have become institutionalised; ie their urge to survive vies with the work they were set up to do. The only example given in this article is taken from the book by Richard Werly, Tsunami, la vérité humanitaire (Jubilé) in which he says that "many aid teams could have left the devastated area 3 months after the disaster, but didn't because they wanted to be there longer just to justify the money donated". Libération concludes that even if the NGOs have not been reduced to the profit motive, this change amounts to a 'moral deviation'.
The article continues with further charges against the doers of good.

The historian Amina Yala, after 5 years of study and tens of interviews, has isolated 6 types: the Idealist, the Militant, the Opportunist, the Professional, the Part-timer, the Adventurer. Six very different types, some worthy of esteem, others less so. Yala speaks of the 'ambiguous adventure' in her book 'NGO volunteering: The Ambiguous Adventure'. She laments the scarcity of the Idealist, and the increasing number of 'Opportunists' and 'Volunteering Professionals'.

The first, evidently, just want to get away from Europe and their own problems, while the second choose the volunteer sector as a career, a well-paid international job.
I signal this article because it is one little example of a way of looking at the world that leads to despair in those that share it, and, because they always holler from any nearby moral high ground, a great deal of useless discussion among the rest of us. The question they always ask is, 'How pure are the motives?' Inevitably, the targets of the day are wanting in purity, and the activity is generally found to be yet another example of the capitalist corruption of the world.
The question should be (as it should be for government), 'How effective are they?' Because that is really all that counts to the recipients, either of aid or services.
I must declare an interest. My daughter is going to China next year as a volunteer teacher. Her motives are: she wants to get to know another culture; she enjoys helping people learn; she wants to see how well she can get along without her family. She's very balanced and has no illusions about saving anyone. Her experience with those few Chinese she comes into contact with shows every prospect of being mutually beneficial, which is the best of all possible outcomes. On which, see the answer to the first question here.

On how to survive living with teenagers

Sarcasm
Emotional blackmail
Control of the money supply