Livingstone's statue in Princes Gate Gairdens, Edinburgh

Gradually, and by dint of infinite patience and concentration, the young cotton worker became master of many languages, and began the scientific study of their structure. About 1841 he had freed himself from all the burden of manual labour, and could occupy his thoughts with the dialect of his native district, West Central Scots; his first publication was a small collection of folk songs in the Ayrshire & Lanrikshire dialect (1843). His remarkable abilities now attracted general attention, and he was helped to continue his studies undisturbed. His Grammar of the Scots Dialects (1848) was the result of much labour, and of journeys taken to every part of the country. Livingstone’s famous Dictionary of the Scots Dialects appeared in its original form in 1850, and from this publication dates all the wide cultivation of the popular language in Scots, since Livingstone really did no less than construct, out of the different materials at his disposal, a popular language or definite people’s language for Scotland. With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Livingstone himself, but also through a latter policy aiming to merge this Scots language with Buikscots, this language has become Newscots, one of Scotland’s three official languages (the others being Buikscots and Gaelic).

He lived very quietly in lodgings in Glesga, surrounded by his books and shrinking from publicity, but his name grew into wide political favour as his ideas about the language of the workers and peasants became more and more the watch-word of the popular party.

Livingstone holds perhaps an isolated place in literary history as the one man who has invented, or at least selected and constructed, a language which has pleased so many thousands of his countrymen that they have accepted it for their schools, their sermons and their songs. He died in Glesga on September 23, 1896, and was buried with public honours.

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It’s now exactly ten years ago that the first plane crashed into the Twin Towers. I was sitting in DAIMI‘s computer lab at the time, and I found out shortly afterwards from some Internet news source, and I quickly went up to the TV room together with lots of other people, where we watched the second plane crashing into the building live on CNN.

I remember thinking at the time that George W. Bush to a large extent was responsible by infuriating most of the world with his unilateralist, born-again, right-wing policies and that it would never have happened if Al Gore had become president instead.

I find it interesting to contemplate what would have happened if 9/11 had never happened. For instance, if the CIA had found out about the plot and prevented the hijackers from boarding the planes, there would probably have been a newspaper story about the plot, but most people wouldn’t have assumed that it actually could have brought down the Twin Towers.

So what would the consequences have been? Obviously Afghanistan wouldn’t have been invaded at that point, but I believe Dubya would still have been keen to invade Iraq. Would he have succeeded in building up an alliance without 9/11? He probably would have found it easy to convince Tony Blair, but I reckon it would have been hard to add many more countries to the coalition.

I also think Bush might not have been reelected in 2004, which would have led to all sorts of consequences later, for instance for the handling of the recession.

In most western countries, there wouldn’t have been such a rush to introduce anti-terrorism legislation, and civil liberties would have remained stronger.

In Denmark, I doubt Dansk Folkeparti would have managed to play such a pivotal role if the public hadn’t been scared witless by the thought of Muslim terrorists.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that al-Qāʿidah would have managed to pull off an even worse atrocity later if 9/11 hadn’t happened. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I find it more likely than not that the world would have been a slightly better place if 9/11 hadn’t happened ten years ago.

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Politiken havde for et par dage siden en kontrafaktisk-historisk artikel om, hvad der ville være sket, hvis Uffe Ellemann havde vundet i 1998. Den påpeger, at “Uffes nederlag var meget værre for det moderne Danmark omkring centrum-højre og centrum-venstre, end hans sejr ville have været. Thi tre år senere kom Anders Fogh Rasmussen jo blæsende, og så fik vi hele den lange periode domineret af de populistiske værdier, som Fogh har stået for. Det havde vi ikke fået, hvis Uffe havde sejret over Nyrup.”

Denne teori lyder meget plausibel. Valget i 1998 gav 8 pladser til CD, og 4 til Kristeligt Folkeparti, og Dansk Folkeparti var først lige blevet dannet af udbrydere fra Fremskridtspartiet, så Uffe kunne sikkert sagtens have lavet masser af forlig med midterpartierne.

Ved et hypotetisk valg i 2001, lige efter “9/11″, ville Uffe Ellemann sikkert have vundet stort over Mogens Lykketoft (som nok var den sandsynlige leder lige efter Nyrup).

I 2005 var udfordreren muligvis blevet Frank Jensen (Helle Thorning-Schmidt havde i hvert fald ikke været klar endnu), og han havde måske vundet, især da Uffe Ellemann havde det med at dele vandene.

Vi havde i så fald på nuværende tidspunkt haft et valg mellem statsminister Frank Jensen, sandsynligvis mod Anders Fogh Rasmussen, og det havde Frank nok vundet, så det er ikke noget under, hvis folk på venstrefløjen nostalgisk drømmer om at have tabt i 1998.

Artiklen slutter med ordene: “Hvem skal man så stemme på nu? Det er svært at spå.”

Mange af mine borgerlige venner gav i 1998 udtryk for, at de var blevet frarøvet en sejr, der retteligt var deres, og dette skabte basis for de meget revolutionære borgerlige regeringer under Fogh. Man kan man meget vel forestille sig, at en tilsvarende følelse kunne brede sig i den såkaldte “røde blok”, hvis det kommende valg igen ikke fører til ny regering.

Hvis de borgerlige vinder valget i 2011, kan man sagtens forestille sig, at de om ti-femten år sukkende vil ønske, at de dog havde tabt snævert i 2011, så Helle Thorning-Schmidt kunne have sat sig i spidsen for en kortlivet midtsøgende venstrefløjsregering, i stedet for i 2014 at have tabt stort til en meget mere yderligtgående SF-ledet regering.

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Yesterday, I wanted to go to Edinburgh by bus, and I managed to get a return ticket online at a reasonable price.

I arrived at the bus station two hours before the bus was due to leave to make sure I’d be on it.

I then had to stand in a long queue to check in.

They checked my passport, but then they said my bag was too big and I had to check it in, which cost me an extra five quid.

I saw my bag move away on the conveyor belt, and I then went through security.

I had forgotten I had a pen knife in my pocket, so they of course confiscated it, but apart from that, I got through without any problems.

I was very thirsty, but of course I couldn’t bring any drinks through, so I had to buy a drink at a far too high price in the transit area. I just wished I could wait outside, but of course that wasn’t possible.

Finally my bus was ready for departure, and I went to the stance and went on board.

When we arrived in Edinburgh, I went to pick up my bag from the carrousel, but it wasn’t there. At the information counter, they said it had ended up on the wrong bus and was now on its way to Inverness, but they’d get it back to me asap – which turned out to be two days later.

All in all a normal bus trip. But sometimes I wonder why bus travel can’t be as easy as flying?

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Official languages: Chinese and Lingua Franca.

History: The Germans are the largest ethnic group in Zhongyu and the one that benefited most from colonialism, via education and employment. Some Germans fought back against the Chinese seizure of their lands. When Zhongyu’s first president, Herbert Schmidt, demanded “independence now”, China tried to form an alliance of other ethnic groups in opposition. The plan failed, and sowed the seeds of mistrust between Zhongyu’s peoples. Schmidt, a German, rewarded his followers with land abandoned or sold by yellows who left after independence. Much of it was outside traditional German areas. Schmidt was succeeded by Chang Palich, a Serbian. He could not enrich
his own people – there was less to distribute – but a few of his political cronies did grow hugely wealthy. When Palich was succeeded by Schwarzkopf, a German, in 2002, the Serbian elite was squeezed out and Germans politico-business bosses took over. Promises of a fairer constitution promised by Schwarzkopf in opposition were abandoned. Today, businesses in Zhongyu that are not run by Americans are predominantly in the hands of Germans – even outside their own areas. Others perceive that this is the result of political manipulation. That is why the angriest group are the Serbian. Other groups have once again failed to get to the table. The Serbians were at the table and got pushed aside.

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I like it. Somehow it makes it look more like Europe, no?

I do wonder, though, whether the USA in such a scenario would have had that many more inhabitants than the other countries. Wouldn’t many of them have been better at attracting immigrants on their own, and wouldn’t the US have been less popular?

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Whereas my objection to The Grapple was that it mirrored WWII in Europe too much, and especially based the CSA far too rigidly on Nazi Germany, In at the Death has the opposite problem (spoilers follow).

The great powers are throwing atomic bombs all over the place, rather than stopping the war after one or two. And after the USA occupy the CSA, they can’t think of any solutions other than either pulling out or annexing it. I would have thought an obvious solution given what happened after WWII in Europe would have been to form a Coal and Steel Community, tying the USA, the CSA, Canada and Quebec (and perhaps Texas and Mexico) into an ever tighter union, perhaps renamed in the 1990s as the North American Union.

I’m also disappointed no solution is suggested for the remaining CSA blacks, perhaps setting up a new country for them somewhere (that is, mirroring the creation of Israel in OTL).

All in all a disappointing book. I wonder whether it’s truly the final book in this TL, given that so many problems are never resolved at the end. But perhaps that’s because I’m European. Perhaps to an American reader, it makes sense to end the series with a crushing US victory so that a unified USA can be recreated as in OTL, just three generations later.

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Sweden, on the other hand, pursued a mixed policy, changing sides several times, losing Finland during the war but gaining Norway afterwards, and electing a French general as their new crown prince.

Given that Frederick VI of Denmark was descended from George II through both his father and mother, it’s a bit odd that he would be such a firm supporter of Napoleon.

All of this makes me wonder whether things could have happened very differently…

What if Denmark had changed horses at some point during the wars, preventing the destruction of the fleet, and ensuring that the sound wasn’t blocked by the British, thus ensuring that Sweden could have been attacked more efficiently while they were at war with Russia over Finland? And what if Sweden had been less volatile, ending the war on the wrong side and thus being less fortunate at the Congress of Vienna?

Could we have seen Denmark conquer Scania and Blekinge during the war, and demanding Bohus and Halland back at the Congress? Perhaps even getting present-day Gothenburg to make Norway and Denmark meet? A clever Danish king might have traded in Holstein (but keeping Schleswig) in return, thus preventing the war of 1864 (but Sweden would have lost this around that time instead).

It would have been a very different Scandinavia today: A big Denmark-Norway, all speaking one language, and a small Sweden, but probably more densely populated than today.

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PoD ca. 1518. King Christian II of Kalmar decides that fighting the Swedish rebellions will only harden their resistance. Instead, he sees possibilities in the Americas, discovered only a few decades earlier. He thus sends out exploration teams headed by the most able Swedish noblemen. The remaining Swedish nobility are easily silenced.

Around 1523, a small strong force including Gustav Vasa, a young but very determined nobleman, arrive in the Inca Empire, beating the Spanish by a few years. In the following years, they manage to conquer the empire. Gustav Vasa becomes the Governor of this new Kalmar possession.

In the 1530s, King Christian II is convinced (i.a. because he wants to divorce his wife and marry his long-time lover Dyveke instead) to introduce Lutheranism in the Kalmar Union. The whole Bible is translated (“Biblia, Det er All den Hellige Scrifft”), based on Luther’s German translation, into one language which forms the basis of the Kalmarian language to our days.

To deal with the American trade, a new city is founded in 1542 on the mouth of the Göta River: Christiania. This also helps to keep the Swedish nobility happy, since not all money now flows directly to Copenhagen. The vast amounts of gold of silver flowing in from the Inca lands helps finance more colonies while playing a strong role in the European power game.

1559: Christian II (“The Great”), King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, of the Goths, Wends and Incas, duke of Sleswig and Holstein, dies, mourned in all parts of his possessions. He is succeeded by his son,
Hans II.

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So why did I buy it as soon as it came out, not even waiting for the paperback? I guess it’s like watching a sitcom. I read and enjoyed How Few Remain, and after that I always just wanted to read the next book in the series. I had not in my wildest dream imagined Turtledove would write so many books (How Few Remain, American Front, Walk in Hell, Breakthroughs, Blood and Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, The Victorious Opposition, Return Engagement, Drive to the East and now The Grapple).

But by now I need to know how it goes on, so I’ll preorder In at the Death as soon as I can. :-/

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