signs

Double-entendres: the problem with symbolic shortcuts

Double-entendres: the problem with symbolic shortcuts

This is not a particularly profound post (which, incidentally, is not to claim that regular posts on Q are either), but having just finished Sarah Lyall’s rather delightful (if affectionately acerbic) The Anglo-Files: A Field Guide to the British, I came across this amusing story from the Blair landslide of 1997 at which a record number of women (very patronisingly described at the time as Blair’s babes) were elected to Parliament. (more…)

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Friday Fun 30: Hotel Life lost in translation

Friday Fun 30: Hotel Life lost in translation

Just for a change, here are a few choice quotations from this rather fun tome, Charlie Croker’s Lost in Translation. Of course, it’s never fair to make fun of people’s mistakes in a language not their own. After all, I dread to think of all the terrible errors I’ve made when speaking French.

However, it’s a slightly different matter when it happens on official signs or notices. So here are some taken from hotels around the world.

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Curtailing outbreaks of sinning in rural churches

Curtailing outbreaks of sinning in rural churches

Last weekend was a weekend of weddings. There was a certain wedding down the road from us on Friday; we went to a lovely, small family wedding in deepest darkest Herefordshire on Saturday; and I was preaching on the GREAT wedding of Revelation 22 at All Souls on Sunday. But I’m not going to talk about any of them now.
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The joys of Ugandan English

Not quite sure how I came across this wonderful Wiki page – but for any who have ever lived or visited Uganda, or East Africa generally for that matter, it is a treasure trove. Definitely worth printing out as a precautionary measure to keep in your back pocket.

Which reminded me of some things we wrote in our monthly newsletter when we were living there… exactly 7 years ago  – simply can’t believe it was that long ago now.

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Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 30 (March 2011)

Sacred Treasure A great deal has happened since - but it is definitely worth reading this remarkable letter from Dr Mouneer Hanna Anis, Bishop of Egypt, about the situation there (written on 2nd Feb). Tim Challies has a nice potted…

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