Well, well, well... I watched RudeTube on Channel 4 last night and they featured reactions to some bizarre and unbroadcastable porn clip that was so dreadful that they couldn't even say what it contained.
In retrospect, the two scantily clad young ladies wandering past behind him were the clue, but I didn't know till now.
Ahem...
Wandering as one does around the internet, I was drawn this evening to the Institute of Advanced Motoring's guide to using a disabled parking Blue Badge around Europe: EUROPEAN PARKING CARD FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES. Very useful for them that needs it, despite the fact that so many of the pieces of advice end with "Check locally", making one wonder exactly how much use it is.
However, it does have a very useful bit towards the end where a paragraph is printed in most of the European languages. This is something to copy out and leave by your Blue Badge on your car to let any parking wardens know that they are required to treat the UK badge as if it were one of their own. Each paragraph is headed by the name of the country concerned, in the appropriate language. Except for a couple of ridiculous errors (Estonia is my favourite), a set of English country names and even a couple of omissions.
My pedantry circuit took over and I simply had to email them to let them know that their 2 year old document has been proof-read by someone who couldn't even be bothered to look up country names. Or perhaps with a little less sarcasm...
I’ve noticed a few errors in the PDF guide “EUROPEAN PARKING CARD FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES”. On the “Show Your Rights” pages, you have made some errors in the country names. For the most part the countries are named in the appropriate language. However the mistakes I noticed are (there may be others?):
“Inglismaa” is Estonian for “England”; it should be “Eesti”.
Hungary should be “Magyarorszag”.
“Lithuanian” is clearly not Lithuanian for “Lithuania”; it should be “Lietuva”.
“Latvia” should be “Latvija”.
“Poland” should be “Polska”.
“Slovakia” should be “Slovensko”.Switzerland’s treatment is inconsistent with Belgium’s and Finland’s. Both of these have all their local languages and names. Switzerland is referred to as “Switzerland” on all three:
German: “Schweiz”;
French: “Suisse”;
Italian: “Svizzera”.Of course, poor old Ireland and Luxembourg are languishing with only one language apiece where Ireland should really also have something in Gaelic (“Eire”), and Luxembourg should perhaps be represented in French and German as well (fortunately, the name is the same for all three languages).
Of all of these, it’s Estonia’s treatment that makes these changes necessary, if for no other reason than to stop parking attendants in Tallinn laughing their heads off at British tourists!
Kind regards
Etc etc
Not knowing enough of the languages themselves, I drew the line at going through them, although there are 3 minor variations of the German text. This may be local versions, though, so I'm not even going to go there!
It looks like the guide is over 2 years old and I do find it hard to believe that nobody else has pointed this out to them in that time, so maybe they'll just ignore me. We'll see...
I found it at last. The version of Stayin’ Alive in the current Citroën ad. It’s my a guy called MC Lita and the crime is that it doesn’t appear to be available in this country to download.
But I did find a site that streams it. Phew!
Well, I thought it was all over, but it's not. Yesterday I noticed the workmen apparently trying to clean it all with mud. I've since realised that they are grouting it all. Of course. How silly of me. Um...
Is this it? Is the final piece laid? I very much doubt it, but at least the big arty-farty square is pretty much complete.
