British Sign Language - Are you deaf?

Just a couple of videos for you today from the You Tube channel of me attempting (pretty poorly) to sign.

Whilst I'm fairly certain that I'm butchering these signs a tad and wouldn't exactly recommend my videos to anyone as a learning tool, recording them has been a great way to push myself to practise, and learn what I'm doing wrong - as amateurish as these may look, they are not even first takes!!

It seems that signing with the hands and expressing ideas facially simultaneously is a lot more difficult that one would imagine!

I've also been discovering, via the Sign BSL app and the BSL - British Sign Language facebook page, the extent to which BSL is a living language, not one concocted in a lab by hearing people to offer a chic method of communication for the Deaf Community.  

Just like with any spoken language there are different sign variations for some ideas.  I've recorded a couple that I've come across to demonstrate how different these variations can be.

This is a bit scary to a beginner, but I guess there weren't likely to be any shortcuts to learning this language just because it's visual, rather than spoken/written.

9 Reasons why I loved Eurovision Song Contest 2016

(and a few reasons why I didn't!)

#1. New Points System

Let's start off with the heavy stuff!  I loved the new system for announcing points by splitting the judges and popular votes!  For one, this made for a more exciting final, with the Ukraine able to leap-frog Australia who seemed to be home and dry with a 200-point lead.  Secondly I believe this either had and interesting effect on political voting, or else it revealed a few things about political voting that, perhaps, hadn't been expected

Let me elaborate.  For anyone that didn't watch this year, the splitting of the votes actually held a few surprises!  The judges votes did not seem to be politically swayed in the ways we have come to anticipate.  For example, Denmark gave only 4 points to hosts Sweden, and Norway gave them nothing at all!  Granted, Finland still gave them 12 points, but you can't have everything!!

The moment that Ukraine sealed their victory over Australia and Russia

It's possible that the splitting of the votes offered a transparency that made judges less inclined to be political, but the photo-finish that cemented the Ukraine entry as winner was a surge from the popular vote.  So if there was a political reaction to the emotional Ukrainian song (about a Russian invasion in 1944), in the wake of current anti-Russian sentiment, it was the European public that pushed this political movement forward.  This is a different matter altogether than the previous allegations of bureaucratic favouritism!

#2.  Native-language entries

There were quite a few entries this year with total or partial native-language lyrics.  What is more, they mostly performed very well indeed!  The Austrian entry was even in a non-native language - French - which was actually kind of odd, but lovely!

Ukraine (Jamala - 1944)  Winner!

Bulgaria (Poli Genova - If Love was a Crime) #4

France (Amir - J'ai Cherché) #6

Austria (Zoë - loin d'ici) #13

Italy (Francesca Michielin - No Degree of Separation) #16

#3. "Love Love, Peace Peace"

Love Love, Peace Peace was an interval act from the Swedish hosts, who demonstrated a wonderful sense of humour at the occasion, putting together a song of their own comprising a whole host of elements that have proven successful in previous years.

...It's really best just to watch it:

#4.  Shout out to Swedish Music Industry

Unfortunately I can't find the video for this on You Tube!
This was a 3-minute video showing, at a glance, a taste of some of the successful Swedish acts across the globe (for better are for worse!) over the past few decades.  These included Blue Swede, ABBA, Ace of Base, Europe, Avicii, The Cardigans, Basshunter, The Hives and Peter Bjorn and John.

I didn't recognise a lot of these as being Swedish, and it was great to see the diversity of the acts, as well as appearance from couple of favourites of mine - Sabaton and Ghost.

Sabaton photo: Shaun Joyce Photography

Sabaton are a band that relate (usually in English, but sometimes also in Swedish) quite amazingly detailed accounts of historical battles through the medium of power metal.

Ghost are a Doom Metal band that perform in the guise of demonic popes and play about with the tropes of old-fashioned horror movies in their music and staging.

Please do check them both out, if you don't already know of them, as they're quite brilliant!

#5.  Graham Norton

image put together by express.co.uk

Graham Norton is one of the main reasons why we watch the Eurovision Song Contest in the UK, even when we claim to hate it!  His comments are always witty and light-hearted and he's been quite a wonderful successor for Sir Terry Wogan, who very sadly passed away earlier this year.

Graham asked us all to raise a glass to toast to Sir Terry along with the 9th act this year, having been previously advised by Sir Terry when he took over the Eurovision gig never to drink any alcohol before the 9th song (presumably a health warning!)  A classy and heartfelt tribute!

#6. The Staging

The Swedes did a marvellous job this year, and some of the visual feats accomplished between them and the finalists this year were quite special, despite there not being too much this year by the way of huge dance troupes or ridiculous stage props (Cyprus' huge steel cages excepted).

Russia's, in particular, was inspired.  Entrant Sergey Lazarev navigated a near-vertical rubber wall with confidence to create an impressive visual illusion.

#7. An Emotional Final Performance

No matter where you opinion may lie on the reasons why the Ukraine entry won, no-one can deny that the song had substance like no other entry did.  It was plain, also, that the song meant a lot to performer Jamala personally, resulting in an emotional final performance of her song.  At several points she sounded so choked-up I didn't think she'd make it through the whole song!

#8.  Diversity

Even though I didn't love the "alternative" entries this year, and found that there were still a few too many solo acts and dance numbers, I still appreciate that the genre diversity awakened by the likes of Lordi seems to be here to stay!
In the interest of expressing the levels of diversity simply, I'm going to resort to some very cheap comparisons here.  Apologies!
 
Cyprus = The Rasmus
Georgia = Kasabian/Suede/Chemical Brothers...I think...this entry was weird!
Germany = Florence and the Machine

We even got a little bit of country music from the Netherlands!  Happy days!

#9.  Enjoying it with Friends

The Eurovision Song Contest may not be seen as credible by all, but I do believe that there is opportunity for anyone to enjoy it!  It's a great excuse for an elaborate get-together!  The photos below are a few from our celebrations this year!

...and now for a couple of things that I didn't like so much

#1.  Frans - If I Were Sorry

Sorry Sweden, I hate to single you out, but your entry really got under my skin this year.

On the surface, If I Were Sorry seems to be a passionate love letter, but the reality is a bit nastier, to the point that my immediate assumption was at improper use of the conditional tense by a non-native English speaker.

There's no error here though - everything ties up and makes perfect grammatical/syntactical sense and, ladies, Frans may look as though butter wouldn't melt, but he's definitely not sorry for whatever it was he said or did to you.

I'm all for a song that tells a story, and a surprising and ugly truth - I listen to Pulp and Hefner - but this one just didn't tie in at all with the rest of the package.  Frans looks too boyish to deliver such a boorish message, the dainty, chilled-out melody doesn't complement said message, and neither does the message fit the occasion (see "Love Love, Peace Peace" above!)

I also felt that this was not enough of a performance-piece to be deserving of winning the contest, no matter how catchy it ended up being.  Frans performs in jeans and a t-shirt and barely moves throughout - the whole just seemed a bit too lazy.

#2.  Not enough silly!

 I'm blaming the semi-finals for this!  I think they're weeding out the weirder entries and leaving only the most credible for the final.

I can't complain too much at this - Eurovision is a music contest after all - but for me part of the charm is with those few entries that are just too bafflingly awful to even hate!

I may have to watch from the Semi Finals next year to be sure that I can get my dose of daft!

Bring on next year!

Shawarma turn my meat?

shawarma photo, courtesy of Fiction-Food.com

We all know The Avengers love it, but what is shawarma, and where does the name come from? 

In short, Shawarma is an Arab dish of roasted meat served either plated or in a wrap with garnish and sauces.

شاورما 

broken down (from right to left):

sh = ش

a = ا

w = و

r = ر

m = م

a = ا

As you can see, Arabic is a phonetic language, and the word shawarma is actually a phonetic rendering in Arabic of a Turkish word, çevirme, whose meanings include turning and rotation. (there are no "tch" or "v" sounds in the Arabic language)

This is pretty logical, as both dishes are cooked in the same way: on a rotating spit.

The term çevirme is actually no longer the tag for this dish in Turkey.  Now you will hear instead of döner kebap (donner kebab in the UK), which has a similar etymology:  Döner kebap means roughly rotating roast.

Kebab on its own does not, therefore, actually denote the fast food rotisserie delicacy that we believe it does in UK.  When we ask for a kebab we are simply asking for roasted meat.

Other kebaps include the şiş kebap (shish kebab. Literally: skewer kebab)

The Avengers enjoying some schawarma

Why rotate?
  Turning the meat allows the meat to cook evenly.  Traditionally this would have been horizontally, but now the spits are usually vertical, allowing the fat from the meat at the top to drip down and baste the meat at the bottom.

The Greek also adopted this method with their gyros.  And again, it's all in the name: gyros' definitions include turn and circuit

γύρος

broken down:

γ = g

ύ = y

ρ = r

ο = o

ς = s

Greek is another phonetic language, though, so they also initially borrowed from the Turkish, before penning the name gyros.  This time it was döner which was borrowed.  It became: 

ντονέρ

broken down:

ντ = nt

ο = o

ν = n

έ = e

ρ = r

As a slight aside: one might assume that the french-named equipment is also named after its rotational action, but rotisserie actually comes from the verb rôtir, to roast.

So, are there any differences between our turny meat cousins?  A few.  

All can be made with a variety of meats, though lamb is more common with döner.

All can be plated or wrapped in local flatbreads - taboon bread for shawarma, pita for döner and gyros - with such staple salad foods as cucumber, tomato and lettuce.

Some local variations on garnish and sauces follow:

shawarma
tabbouleh (a salad of tomatoes, parsley, mint, bulgur and onion, seasoned with olive oil, lemon and salt)
fattoush (a salad of toasted/fried pita bread, mixed greens, radishes and tomatoes)
tahini (sesame seed paste)
hummus
pickled turnips
amba (mango pickle)

döner
cabbage
onions with sumac (a lemony spice)
pickled/fresh cucumber
chili

gyros
feta
haloumi
tzatziki (strained yogurt with cucumber, garlic, salt, olive oil and redwine vinegar)
mustard

Turned over and out.

German Soap update - Alles Was Zählt

As usual, Essen is smoking some special kind of German-soap-crack and nothing makes much sense at all.  Here's a run-down of current events along with some useful vocabulary....

Love and Marriage... and Sex Games

Vanessa, Christoph & Anne - photo: rtl.de

Vanessa and Christoph are preparing for their wedding, and everything's going super!

...of course it's not!  This is a soap!

Christoph's former band-mate and old flame, Anne, has turned up in timely fashion.  She's working alongside Vanessa, totally cool, irritatingly likeable and...not quite over Christoph.  Vanessa's great idea to side-step her own trust issues:  Encourage Christoph to get his lust for Anne out of his system with a one-night stand.

Christoph doesn't take the bait the first time, but is still not convinced that his fiancée trusts him, so Anne... wait for this... prepares a naked ambush to demonstrate to a hidden Vanessa that even an outright proposition from her won't tempt Christoph.

...so far this one appears to be working, but don't try this at home folks!  I sense that there's still an infidelity twist in this tale to come!

photo: rtl.de

Vocabulary

auf jemanden scharf sein = to have the hots for someone (slang)

scharf = hot (spicy - food)

das Flaschendrehspiel = spin the bottle

die Flasche = bottle

drehen = to turn

das Spiel = game

Schnick Schnack Schnuck = a game (very similar to Rock, Paper, Scissors)

kindisch = childish

der Junggesellenabschied = stag party

mit den Eier Ping Pong spielen = to play ping pong with (someone's) testicles

All is fair in Love and Ice Skating...

photo: rtl.de

Not terribly happy with being secretly drugged by Jenny, Marie has been looking for a new trainer: queue the return of Diana Sommer, star of AWZ when it first aired 10 years ago!

As Diana stole Jenny's boyfriend back in the day and took the German and World figure-skating titles with comparatively little experience and training, Jenny's not a big Diana fan.

So...she sets her current, recently-unestranged husband Veit the task of getting rid of Diana once and for all.  

Veit's idea?  To almost run Diana over with his car, and then warn her about "taking false steps" and "accidents happening" with a lack of subtlety that would make a Bond villain weep with despair!

Jenny, Michelle, Marie, Diana - photo: rtl.de

Vocabulary

Schmuddeltrulle - not an easy translation to find!  From what I can make out it means something akin to "skank", with "schmuddel" meaning "dirty" and "trulle" being slang similar to "ho" or "slag".  Lovely!

die Boshaftigkeit = viciousness, spitefulness

die schlimmsten Unfälle = the worst accidents

schlimm = bad

der Unfall = accident

falscher Schritt = wrong step

falsch = wrong

der Schritt = step, move

auf sich aufpassen = to look out for oneself

The Infidelity Tango

Lena, Ingo & Marian - photo: rtl.de

The easiest way to go through this mess is step-by-step...

Marian had a one night stand with wife Lena's best friend

Lena moves back in, to have Marian accuse her of having an affair with his best friend, Ingo.

Lena denies the affair...because it simply didn't happen.

Then, the night that Marian finally starts to believe her, she has sex with Ingo.  Whoops!

She comes clean immediately, Marian forgives her and they rekindle their romance with a night away in a hotel.  All going well until...they both realise that they find sex with one another boring now.

...No pleasing some people!

photo: rtl.de

Vocabulary

Bombe aussehen = to look great, to scrub up well

verkrampft = inhibited, tense

locker = casual, easy, laid-back

die Versöhnung = reconciliation

etwas versauen = to bugger something up.

Totally 100% fucked-up story of the week Award!!!

Kerstin & Deniz - photo: rtl.de

...of course this one involves Veit and Jenny again!

Jenny is concerned that she's messed up one too many times and isn't likely, at this stage, to inherit her parents' firm - not when there are so many square employees/partners about that are doing their jobs well and working hard!!

Veit's plan (conceived during some sensual chess playing):  to isolate those pesky work-horses by destroying their professional and personal respect for one another and prevent a scenario where they might side with one another against him and Jenny.

Makes sense!  It's the "how" that is truly fucked up!  They decide to convince Kerstin that co-worker Deniz is a "bit rapey" by sending a misoginistic email to her from his account (we'll detail that below in the vocabulary for you).  They then procede to DRUG HER and MAKE HER BELIEVE THAT SHE'S BEEN MOLESTED/RAPED by Deniz.  Wow!  Surely there might have been an easier/less mentally scarring method guys?

 (what is it with Jenny and drugging people!!)

photo: rtl.de

Vocabulary

nettes Rock, trägst du auch was darunter? = nice skirt, are you wearing anything underneath?

das Rock = skirt

tragen = to wear

nett = nice

eine Anmache = chat-up (line)

das Schach = chess

der Erbe = inheritance

die Gerüchte = rumours