Last Saturday, Wales convincingly beat Ireland for the Grand Slam. Usually, I would listen to the games online using
a Real Audio service. However for this game I could not connect to RTE Radio or BBC 5 or BBC Radio Wales or anywhere. Very
frustrating for me. I checked the progress of the game from time to time on the BBC Sports site. Even more frustrating! Despite
a late Irish surge, it was Wales' game throughout. With all of this, the last thing on my mind was posting my disappointment
to the blog.
I got an email today from Glyn in Merthyr Tydfil on another topic. He went on to ask why I had not posted about "the
great events at Cardiff last Saturday!!!" Good on you, Glyn. It was a fair question.
For the record Wales won the Grand Slam as follows:
Played 5; Won 5: Drew 0; Lost 0; For 151; Against 77; Series Points 10.
What happens when you run something through one of those online translation services. This happens:
Original English:
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.
To Dutch: (so far so good)
Mary had een klein lam,
was Zijn vacht wit als sneeuw
en overal ging die Mary,
was het lam zeker te gaan.
Dutch to French: (oops, the lamb becomes paralysed)
Mary a eu petit paralysé,
a été sa toison blanc comme neige
et partout est allé ce Mary,
a été lui paralysé à aller certainement.
French to German: (still paralysed and it's fleece acquires a spacebar!)
Mary hat gehabt klein gelähmt,
ihr Leertastenvlies als Schnee war
und überall ging diese Mary,
ist ihm gelähmt worden, gewiß zu gehen.
German back to English:(but the spacebar is now un-translatable)
Mary gelaehmt had small,
their space bar fleece as snow was
and everywhere went this Mary,
it was gelaehmt to go certainly.
Dave O'Mahoney, better known as Dave Allen has died in London. A very droll man, indeed. Who hasn't done an impression
of him with that hint of a warm slur in the voice?
As he said: "Am I the Irish comedian with half a finger? No, I'm the Irish comedian with nine and a half fingers"
Maybe a minutes silence at Lansdowne tomorrow, before the game?
There is some irony in the different ways that prisoner abuse in Iraq by the U.S. and British Armies surfaced.
For the U.S. Army, it almost appears that everyone had a digital camera. Huge numbers of images were circulating on CD and
on the Internet. You could say that access to digital technology was their undoing.
For the British Army, it almost appears that no one had a digital camera. The images were discovered when a roll of film was
dropped off for developing back in England. You could say that lack of access to digital technology was their undoing.
