Euro Thunderbirds Are Go!
(Image courtesy of the outrageously talented, highly generous and all round good egg, Theo Spark)
Not content with having a president of the commission who looks like a Thunderbird puppet rejected by Gerry Anderson for being insufficiently lifelike, the EU has had another one of its great ideas - International Rescue, EU-style:
Much though I sympathise with the Hellenes, bilateral arrangements with its neighbours appear to have been fairly successful, and this looks like a classic Euro exercise in empire building, with the scope for spats over which country gets priority where there are multiple disasters going one too obvious to be worth spelling out.
I wonder where the Tracey Island would be....
Not content with having a president of the commission who looks like a Thunderbird puppet rejected by Gerry Anderson for being insufficiently lifelike, the EU has had another one of its great ideas - International Rescue, EU-style:
"The European Union is considering setting up permanent reaction teams to better deal with natural disasters like the current devastating forest fires in Greece.... EU Environment spokesperson Barbara Helfferich said the European Commission had started developing the idea of setting up response units, and hoped to present plans later this year. These civil protection units would consist of readily-deployable, highly-trained personnel backed up with specialized equipment. One of the so-called "response modules" already identified as a key need is a forest fire-fighting unit".
Much though I sympathise with the Hellenes, bilateral arrangements with its neighbours appear to have been fairly successful, and this looks like a classic Euro exercise in empire building, with the scope for spats over which country gets priority where there are multiple disasters going one too obvious to be worth spelling out.
I wonder where the Tracey Island would be....
Labels: EU fun and games
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on Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 9:33 am.
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The next thing we'll hear is that *Iran* will have its own permanent reaction teams to better deal with natural disasters like the current devastating forest fires in Greece.
Operor Audio Quin appositus? Etiam , Quin , ut alio in James Vinculum membrana "Intereo Alius Dies". Ludio ludius eram Madonna?
Moiuntjoy: I hope they will respond to emergencies rather more quickly than I did to your explanation of meeja a day or two ago. I have now done so, but post here as I see yu are arund and may not go back over old stuff. I am still confused! So not exactly quod erat demonstrandum then!
I hate to pick nits ...no! Honestly! But does the outrageously talented cartoonist really think that EUSSR rescue vehicle would be called by an English name?
It should have been Les Oiseaux de Tonerre. Or it would probably sound better in German, but I can't speak any. I was going to suggest something like Thunder (but in Swedish) of Thor - but I think the EU position on the Scandinavian countries is similar to their thinking on us. Too independent. Not EURO players.
Theo was kind enough to respond to my e-mail begging for a photoshopping of a Thunderbird into EU livery, so any brickbats are mine and mine alone.
Without making recourse to an online dictionary, I think Thunderbird would be something like Donnervogel in German.
Hmmm ... Donnervogel doesn't have the right ring to it. I'll bet the Scandinavian option would have more oomph. But the europonces in Bruxelles and Strasbourg wouldn't go for it.
A bit of fiddling around at InterTran produces the rather disappointing åska fågel. Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic are also rather unimpressive, whereas Polish gives the distinctly menacing grzmot ptak.
If memory serves, Captain Haddock's standard 'curse' in the Tintin books is 'Tonnere de Brest'.
OK. I vote we go with the Poles.
nomad, media can be whatever you wish it to be really. As long as it has something to do with the 'creative sector'. Sometimes it can include journalism or NuMeeja, sometimes not.
There's a professor at one of our New Universities who has been trying to define Meeja for the last ten years.
There's a new university that offers a module in Blogging as part of its BA Media Studies, and is about to launch a Master of Arts (MA) course in Blogging also.
What about Greek? They were pretty doughty at one time.
Anyone know Greek?
Sorry, Verity, my Greek's a bit rusty but I'll have a go at translating my last post...
τα μέσα μπορούν να είναι οποιοσδήποτε το επιθυμείτε για να είστε πραγματικά. Εφ' όσον έχει κάτι που κάνει με το "δημιουργικό τομέα". Μερικές φορές μπορεί να περιλάβει τη δημοσιογραφία ή NuMeeja, μερικές φορές όχι. Εκεί ένας καθηγητής σε ένα από τα νέα πανεπιστήμιά μας που έχει προσπαθήσει να καθορίσει Meeja για τα τελευταία δέκα έτη. Εκεί ένα νέο πανεπιστήμιο που προσφέρει μια ενότητα σε Blogging ως τμήμα των μελετών MEDIA BA του, και είναι έτοιμο να προωθήσει έναν κύριο της σειράς μαθημάτων τεχνών (MA) σε Blogging επίσης.
Mountjoy: Thanks - that is rather what I suspected. So, then, multilingual PhDs all round then!
If it is any help/interest, the nearest I can get in Malay to Thunderbird is: burung seperti guruh [thunderous bird]. But that is not (yet) a Euro-tongue.
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Gosh, carried away there. This is better.
Thunderbird in Italian is, erm, 'thunderbird'.
If the fires are to stop the Florentine authorities offer the solution: every 'windscreen washer person' at any road junction in the city is arressted on sight - 3 months no mucking about, money with menaces. Now for those who are burning down Greece and Sicily and Calabria?
Yes, Nomad, I got burung guruh as well (didn't get the 'seperti', though.) Then I remembered that I'd told Mountjoy to shut up about the Iranians because they're not in the EU and realised Malaysia was also not in the EU, so refrained.
Well, not quite PhDs but, erm, http://babelfish.altavista.com :-)
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