The NET Interview Cycle Helpline

[Griffin NoName]

Martha sounds familiar.  (Bluenose - Marginal Mutterings)

Not this little black duck. 

Sorry, bad sign-posting. I meant (Bluenose - Marginal Mutterings) in terms of the particular topic you raised there, not anything you said.

The familiarity, of Martha, was in my mind to a certain flavour of argument which we have left behind us. Nor was I recommending the discussion there.

As Beagle wisely noted above, invoking the name of RD - bad move 

[beagle]

When will they make a program about neutral libertarianism, infinite libertarianism, etc?

This philosophy of liberty is ruddy heavy stuff. No wonder parents and other dictators generally fall back on "Because I said so".

[Aggie]

3. What is your favourite sort of home made soup?
Anything made by my wife (except for her pumpkin soup - my wife's an amazing chef, but even she can't make pumpkin not awful for me.  I'm not a fan of pumpkin)

Just curious - does she use PUMPKIN pumpkin?  Just asking because what's given as pumpkin in recipes from outside of NA generally means winter squash.  Jack-o-lanterns won't cut it for soup, generally.

[Aggie]

2. What languages do you know other than English?

passable french and I made some laughable attempts to speak german in Berlin recently. I also know how to say "I am a hedgehog" in Spanish which is a surprisingly effective chat up line.

Funny, you don't look like the Hedgehog....  but perhaps his reputation is better known internationally than his visage. 

[goat starer]

I may not look like a hedgehog but the moment of confusion can break the ice and make one terribly endearing! 

[Aggie]

Heh, I know purposely crude translations for "My hand is the pervert" in at least two languages. 
Don't use them as icebreakers, though.

[Bluenose]

My father used to be an international airline pilot with B.O.A.C.  Apparently the customs officers in Rome were notoriously officious and troublesome.  He had learned the Italian for "my grandfather's ear trumpet has been struck by lightening".  He said that, when uttered in a serious manner as if that would somehow clear things up, the effect was amazing.  All the problems would somehow immediately dissappear.  He always wondered what they thought he was trying to say.

[Sibling Chatty]

2. What languages do you know other than English?

passable french and I made some laughable attempts to speak german in Berlin recently. I also know how to say "I am a hedgehog" in Spanish which is a surprisingly effective chat up line.

Funny, you don't look like the Hedgehog....  but perhaps his reputation is better known internationally than his visage. 

That would be a handy phrase to know in prison, as long as everybody knows the song.

[Aggie]

Huh.  I was referrin' to Ron Jeremy.....

[Griffin NoName]

He had learned the Italian for "my grandfather's ear trumpet has been struck by lightening". 

In my family it was always claimed we had a an old English-Italian pocket phrase book including a translation for "my postilion has been struck by lightening".

Seeing your post I wondered whether one could trace this back to a genuine source.

Many references on the internet, including your ear trumpet version.

Q729 An actual source for the famous phrasebook line, 'My postillion has been struck by lightning'.  In Karl Baedeker's The Traveller's Manual of Conversation in Four Languages (1836 ed.) is: 'Postilion, stop; we wish to get down; a spoke of one of the wheels is broken.'  In an 1886 edition I have found: 'Are the postilions insolent?; the lightning has struck; the coachman is drunk.'  From these examples it is quite clear that the preposterous phrase could quite likely have appeared in Baedeker or similar, but where?  In 1935, the phrase was said to come from a Dutch phrasebook.

Dirk Bogarde also wrote a book "A postillion struck by lightning".

I've just dug out the phrase book I always thought had this phrase in but have never actually looked at in detail. It's a "What you want to say and how to say it" in French. , W.J.Hernan. War Edition. cost 6d. 1915, London, W.J. Hernan & Co.

It doesn't have the postilion phrase but it is a hoot.

"Put the irons on my moustache"  !!

[Aggie]

2. Favorite sitting-on-a-patio-in-the-sunshine beverage?

Beer

The brand man, the brand!  BEER is assumed for you - best patio beer though?

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

Not sure...

Some Czech beer, the brand is not that important. I'll start with a Budweiser (the Czech one), Staropramen, Starobrno... They're way too many to decide...

[Aggie]

Heh, I guess I should have realized that most Czech beers are good patio beers.

I've really got to czech into what brands are available here.  Offhand, I know that Budweiser and Pilsner Urquell are everywhere, but I'm not sure what else is....


Hmm...  Kensington Wine Market has Demon...  any good?

[Griffin NoName]

1. Would you consider yourself a pervert?
Yes, but I won't give details apart from that it is mainly theory so far.

I hope it doesn't involve squidlings.

[Swatopluk]

You still remember me posting that picture, don't you ?