Glockenspiel
Because Pudge has got rhythm, I bought a xylophone (or more precisely, as Wikipedia informs me, a glockenspiel). He loves it a lot, and so does Charlotte, as can be seen from this photo (whereas Marcel seems to largely ignore it).
He has definitely got the hang of it – he instinctively knows how to hold the sticks, and he’s quickly getting a more controlled touch.
I wonder how long it’ll take before he starts playing tunes… 
Types of democracy
The Economist Intelligence Unit has produced a really interesting survey of democracy in the world (in PDF format).
It confirms my worry that political participation is horribly low in the UK, much lower than in any similar country. I suspect Denmark’s score is dragged down by the lack of separation of church and state.
The survey splits democracy into five separate categories:
- Electoral process and pluralism
- Functioning of government
- Political participation
- Political culture
- Civil liberties
I extracted the data and did some analysis of my own. The strongest correlation seems to be between (1) and (5) – that is, electoral process and pluralism are closely tied to civil liberties. A somewhat less strong correlation is found between (2), (3) and (4) – that is, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture are all linked together.
On the other hand, the weakest correlation is between (1) and (4) – that is, electoral process and pluralism are fairly independent of political culture.
This means that one can very roughly split the world’s governments into four groups, based on two axes, (1)+(5) vs. (2)+(3)+(4):
- Countries like Angola, Central Africa, Chad, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Togo, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan which score low in all regards.
- Countries like Bosnia and Hercegovina, Dom Rep, Ecuador, Georgia, Ghana, Haiti, Liberia, Malawi, Nicaragua, Niger and Russia which technically are democracies and have some civil liberties, but where there are big problems with the functioning of government and with political participation and culture.
- Countries like Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique which are very far from being pluralistic democracies and are low on civil liberties, but which nevertheless have functioning governments and a certain degree of political participation and culture.
- Countries like Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland which do well in all respects.
Temporary email addresses
Slashdot were running a story about 10 Minute Mail today. Basically, it’s a web page that gives you an email address that only lasts ten minutes.
It’s extremely useful because lots of other web sites requires you to provide an email address, but you can’t be sure they won’t spam you later. Also, to get a permanent email address with Yahoo! or Hotmail or whoever, you normally need to provide a valid email address to get started, so this provides a nice starting point.
However, this also means it’s a very useful way for spammers or other bad guys to cover their tracks, so I wonder whether this web page will remain available, or whether there’ll be pressure to get it shut down…
5 år ved VK(O) :-(
Jeg så i de danske netaviser, at den af Dansk Folkeparti støttede VK-regering nu har styret Danmark i fem år. 
Det har jo været en deprimerende regering at læse om, men rent faktisk har jeg ikke oplevet ret meget af dens virke personligt, da jeg jo emigrerede til Skotland tre-fire måneder efter dens tiltræden (eller med andre ord lige så hurtigt, som jeg kunne finde et job i udlandet).
Jeg håber ikke, den kommer til at fejre mange flere fødselsdage!
Parents
My parents are coming on a visit for the weekend – my mum will arrive tomorrow (Thursday) and my dad the next day, and they’ll go home together on Tuesday.
They haven’t met Phyllis yet, so it’s good they’re finally coming. I hope the weather won’t be too dreich!
The difficulty of acquiring a Scottish accent
When I moved to Scotland nearly five years ago, I imagined I would quickly acquire a Scottish accent. That hasn’t happened, however. This is due partly to the number of non-Scottish colleagues I have and to the other varieties of English I hear on TV.
However, a big problem is not being able to guess pronunciations correctly based on my knowledge of RP. There are at least four major issues:
- Syllable-final /r/. In common with most varieties of American English, the /r/ is pronounced in words like port, far and better. Given that I know how to spell, this is easy enough to do when I have time to think, but I can’t do this perfectly while speaking quickly – not only will I forget to put in some /r/s, but I’d also tend to put in some extra /r/s in words like bath.
- or, er and ur: In most Scottish accents, the words word, herd and curd don’t rhyme. It’s the same problem as before: I can do it when I’m given time to think, but not otherwise.
- wh: The h is not silent in wh, and this leads to the same problems as before. The spelling is not always a guide – the h is silent in whelk, for instance.
- north vs. force: In common with some other varieties of English (including old-fashioned RP and Jamaican), the vowel in north is different from the one in force. In this case, I can’t even do it correctly when given time to think about it, because I’d need to relearn all relevant words.
Anhypostatic headache
My dad is very fond of googlewhacks. He has now even found a nearly fool-proof way of generating them:
Ich habe heute ein google-whack entdeckt, und fast so was wie eine g.w.machine. Wenn man theologische Spezialausdrücke und Krankheiten kombiniert, kommt man oft auf ganz wenige Lösungen. Anhypostatic headache ergibt 1 von 1.
Don’t sit down
I just love signs like this. What is it that is forbidden? Sitting down? Using the toilet? Leaning forward? Holding the toilet roll?
I suspect it’s reading, but what’s the point in that?
Hans første flødebolle
Filed under: da, featured, fooddrink, kids, myphotos, photography
Jeg købte forleden en pakke flødeboller (Tunnock’s teacakes på engelsk), og hverken Charlotte eller Léon kendte dem. (Sjovt nok hævder Phyllis, det er en skotsk ting, men de smager nu ligesom danske flødeboller.)
Først vidste Léon ikke, hvad han skulle stille op med den – den var for stor til at få ind i munden – men snart fik han dog bidt hul i den, og som det ses på billedet, blev han hurtigt overbevist om flødebollens fortræffelighed!
Ænder
For et par år siden havde jeg tre gode radikale venner på besøg herovre. De forærede mig en gul plastikand, som jeg stadig har (se billedet).
Jeg undrede mig dog en del over, hvorfor de i alverden gav mig den, men de opførte sig, som om det var helt normalt og comme-il-faut.
Men da jeg nu så på Anettes blog, at hun også havde fået en and, er jeg virkelig begyndt at spekulere på, om jeg er gået glip af noget…
Er det blevet en tradition i Danmark i de snart fem år, der er gået, siden jeg forlod landet, at man giver venner plastikænder? Eller er der noget andet på spil?