Thank you, posting numerous comments in every blog I can find is a great way to get new members signed up with my webcam subscription service.

Les, this is actually the only blog I read regularly (besides blogs of friends on myspace, but those don’t really count ), so I guess yours just appeals to the stupid evil bastard in all of us.

Keep the entries coming,

-B

Good work. This is the only blog I can stand to read on a daily basis.

Fascinating!

Congratulation!  Can’t get enough of you, my sexy SEB!

Hey, you two get a room. Wait, you already have one…

I read this mostly because it’s entertaining and it helps shape a perspective without having to scour newsfeeds for news.

If I’m going to be reading news with a personal/political twist on it (and all too often, I can’t avoid it), I’d rather read into the mind of someone who shares my sympathies.

Keep at it!

Our Seb, who art in blogosphere,
Googled be thy site.
Thy comments come.
Thy will be posted,
In Europe as it is in America.
Give us this day our daily thread.
And forgive us our trolls,
As we forgive those who troll against us.
And lead us not into creationism,
But deliver us to Stupid Evil Bastard.
For thine is the Weblog,
The Server,
And the url,
for a few more years.

Ramen.

And for those who can’t remember this in the original, here it is in English

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama
gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe
ðin willa on
eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice

NB the ð and the þ are pronounced ‘th’

You will get it better if you read it out loud.  Even non Anglo saxon speakers usually work it out with out being told.

Damn, Last Hussar, you’re good!!

Just change the first line to “Our Bastard, who art in blogosphere,“ and it’s perfect.

Benior: I guess yours just appeals to the stupid evil bastard in all of us.

Ditto.

Moloch: This is the only blog I can stand to read on a daily basis.

ditto.

Arc: it’s entertaining and it helps shape a perspective

Ditto.

GM: Damn, Last Hussar, you’re good!!

Ditto.
This way I can keep my unoriginality and still say what I mean ... without having to think.

I just have so much fun here. Unlike a lot of other blogs, this one has always struck me as highly personalized and cozy.

Double-dipping: Thanks for the hysterical laugh, Last Hussar!

Ditto all around!  Thanks again for the great playpen, Les!

I love that Old English, Hussar.  Another step back:

Atta unsar, þu in himinam, weihnai namo þein.
Qimai þiudinassus þeins.
Wairþai wilja þeins, swe in himina jah ana airþai. Hlaif unsarana þana sinteinan gif uns himma daga.
Jah aflet uns þatei skulans sijaima, swaswe jah weis afletam þaim skulam unsaraim.
Jah ni briggais uns in fraistubnjai, ak lausei uns af þamma ubilin.
Unte þeina ist þiudangardi jah mahts jah wulþus in aiwins.

- Gothic, around 350 AD.

LH: here it is in English

That sounds a lot like Frisian from Norde Nederland.

Damn, Last Hussar, you’re good!!

Gonna get a T with that on.

Gothic, around 350 AD

Stick some Chaucer in as a third entry and you can see the evolution of the language 350->700->1400AD.

That sounds a lot like Frisian from Norde Nederland

Possibly.  That’s the great thing about English, it draws on two strong roots, Germanic and Romance.  Although generaly regarded as being a difficult language to learn (due to it’s irregularity) it is also one of the most robust and diverse, allowing for subtlety and complexity.  Apparently it is one of the best languages for puns.

Congrats on the 40,000!  That my son should have poetry to describe his success!

Momma: That my son should have poetry to describe his success!

Ah - poetry - it’s a different zone, isn’t it?
L4T (aka P4Y) asked, who has prayed?
I think a more interesting question would be: who has written poetry?
I’ve written a lot but the only one I can remember is:
I am so wise when I am stoned,
I think to myself I shouldn’t get stoned.
But, as soon as I’m straight,
as soon as I’m able,
I go up the stairs and sit at my table,
and cone.

LuckyJohn: who has written poetry?

When I was sixteen I wrote a villanelle entitled The Boy Whose Hair Was Like a Shade of Gold for a school project.

It was no Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (perhaps my favorite piece of poetry ever written), but it was well done for a wee teen, if I should say so myself.

Ahhh, Dylan Thomas. Now that’s awesome poetry.

Hussar, and anyone else interested in the development of Germanic languages, (including Frisian, John)- there’s a nice comparison of texts, including the “Our Father” in Gothic I posted, here.  The translations are all in German, but you get the idea.

Sadie- didn’t Dylan Thomas say “Rage, rage, against the lying of the right”?

Zilch: (including Frisian, John)

I must confess. I read Melvin Bragg’s ‘History of English’ sometime ago and it mentioned a weather report in current Frisian sounding much like some of the current English Dialects (it was a hook – caught nothing). As my maternal G’father was Frisian (6’5â€? artist/womaniser – similar to my 1st brother, in too many ways - [he’s been asked to double for Richard Gere & didn’t - I’m jealous]), in the way back recesses of my head matter/memory, I think I understood LH’s stuff.
As my mate, Jim, often asks: Where’s this going, John?
Nowhere.

John: I always say, Dutch sounds like a joke language made up by a Limey and a Kraut after a few beers.  And Frisian is between Dutch and English, so it’s almost understandable by us, without having to have learned it.

With English as your mother tongue, it’s fairly easy to learn any other Germanic language, once you loosen up your grip on grammar and vocabulary, and simply regard the new language as a rather distorted dialect of English.

One of the things my lisp (living-in-sin partner) and I do is marionette shows in Middle High German.  Once you can understand that pretty well, you see all kinds of connections with Dutch, and Danish, and Icelandic even.  Lots of fun.

I’ve written my fair share of (mostly bad) poetry over the years. It’s one of those art forms that I’ve always assumed I don’t really “get” simply because it doesn’t do much for me. I have much the same reaction to a lot of “modern art” as well.

marionette shows in Middle High German

I was going to say there is nothing so obscure that you can’t find reference to it on the web, but I suppose it is no different to Chaucer being on telly.

My dad once saw a Norwegian and a Swede talking in English, as it was the only language they had in common.  In England you can pretty much trace the area of the Danelaw (are contolled by the Vikings) by the place names- Viking in the North East, Saxon in the South West.  The Saxon pronounciation still exists in someplaces- Hereford is pronounced Heh- reh- ford, not here-ford, while others have been mangled- I live in Aylesbury (pronounces Ales- bury) a mangling of Eigils Burgh (the fortified place where Eigils people live).  And of course Birmingham in, Alabama, Michigan and Iowa were never the farm (ham) of Beorn, unlike the one in England.

Les: I’ve written my fair share of [...] poetry]

I see poetry as Heart stuff - it’s basically ‘fuck’em ... I’ll write the way I want to write’ ..
When I was in the psycho hospital a few year ago a bloke wrote a lot of stuff.
He gave ME a copy and then Hung himself - that was a ... buzz ... downer. Downer. Downer. Downer. Downer. Downer.
He ran off 8 copies.
He gave me one:

He wrote on the front:
To John: I hope this gets you thru the good times as well as the bad …
Good luck mate … Noel.

I wrote an ‘obituary’:

Noel was a man
Did two tours of ‘Nam
Rough man, tough man
Had the heart of a lamb

He had his ‘probs’
Carried his baggage
His enormous mo’
Made him look quite savage.

He showed me his softness
I saw it in is eyes
I saw his caring side
I was not surprised

He gave me his book of poems
Will mine be as good?
He said: just write mate –
There is no ‘should’

I thought all poems
Always had to rhyme
He showed me that
Any writing was just fine

Goodbye my friend
I know you’re at peace
I’m just sorry you’re not here
To read this piece.

Tears ... Tears ... Tears ... Tears ...

And one of Noel’s …

A fool’s Pride.
A tree stood straight and tall

It looked just right as if it was made for me.

Not too short but a bit too tall.

So I climbed a branch or two so my feet could dangle and not touch the ground by a foot or two,

But I heard a voice from above, it was a white cloud shaped like a dove.

The voice was kind and full of love, and it said “you’r (sic) soul is not your’s (sic & many others) to take, there has been enough tears and sorrow in you’r families life, so please son, the choice is not your’s to make�.

I looked back to the sky again,
The cloud was gone, so I came back to earth and thought what I fool I had been.

Wow.
Then he hung himself from that tree while I was not too far away – I had no idea.
But … poetry is the way you feel——NOT what others’ rules confer upon you.

Whoa, John- heavy stuff.  Sorry about your friend Noel.  I’m glad you made it out of the hospital.

About rules and poetry, and also about what you said in another thread about words:

`I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,‘ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!“‘

`But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,‘ Alice objected.

`When I use a word,‘ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.‘

`The question is,‘ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.‘

`The question is,‘ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master—that’s all.‘