Today's Amusements
My friend Steve said that one of our friends on the Peninsula just found $1800 in her wood stove. Which might seem like a bad place to keep flammable bills, but the stove was outside the house, not in use. She has a dim memory of having stashed the money there before taking a long road trip, but so long ago that she's not entirely sure.
Today's World Cup games were also thoroughly entertaining. But the cultural notes that might interest all readers surfaced during the game between North Korea and Brazil. The North Korean manager claims to discuss tactics and substitutions with Kim Jong-il during games. Given that there is no sign of a phone or electronic device, it's fitting that the manager claims he communicates with the Great Leader using "an invisible device." There's some logic to the claim, given that the Japanese-raised striker has mentioned that he broke the ice with his NK teammates by showing them his cellphone, the first such device they had ever seen. And to cap the weirdness, the ESPN announcer claimed during the match that the section of the stadium filled with red-garbed North Korean fans is in fact filled with carefully selected Chinese actors paid to represent North Korean fans.
Meanwhile, in a great book previously recommended by John Tynes and Robin Laws, Dry Storeroom #1 by Richard Fortey, I found what might be my favorite pun-in-history, a deep impact malapropism. Cryptogams are (essentially) plants that reproduce by spores. At the start of WWII, a cryptogam specialist in marine algae named Geoffrey Tandy was recruited to Bletchley Park to work on decrypting Nazi codes. Apparently the recruiter at the Ministry of War had never heard of cryptogams and thought the Natural History Museum had an expert in solving cryptograms. I love the perfectly British resolve with which the seaweed specialist went to work on code-breaking. "Well, good show then, I'll get right on it." And luckily for the Allies he did. Quoting Fortey on page 166, "When sodden notebooks written in code were recovered from German U-boats, they seemed beyond recovery. However, Geoffey Tandey knew exactly what to do. The problem was actually not so different from preserving marine algae. The Museum supplied the appropriate absorbent paper, and the pages covered in cryptic language were saved from soggy obscurity. The code was cracked, thanks to the fact that the word Linnaeus used for organisms reproducing by spores was but one letter different from the word describing messages written in code."
Today's World Cup games were also thoroughly entertaining. But the cultural notes that might interest all readers surfaced during the game between North Korea and Brazil. The North Korean manager claims to discuss tactics and substitutions with Kim Jong-il during games. Given that there is no sign of a phone or electronic device, it's fitting that the manager claims he communicates with the Great Leader using "an invisible device." There's some logic to the claim, given that the Japanese-raised striker has mentioned that he broke the ice with his NK teammates by showing them his cellphone, the first such device they had ever seen. And to cap the weirdness, the ESPN announcer claimed during the match that the section of the stadium filled with red-garbed North Korean fans is in fact filled with carefully selected Chinese actors paid to represent North Korean fans.
Meanwhile, in a great book previously recommended by John Tynes and Robin Laws, Dry Storeroom #1 by Richard Fortey, I found what might be my favorite pun-in-history, a deep impact malapropism. Cryptogams are (essentially) plants that reproduce by spores. At the start of WWII, a cryptogam specialist in marine algae named Geoffrey Tandy was recruited to Bletchley Park to work on decrypting Nazi codes. Apparently the recruiter at the Ministry of War had never heard of cryptogams and thought the Natural History Museum had an expert in solving cryptograms. I love the perfectly British resolve with which the seaweed specialist went to work on code-breaking. "Well, good show then, I'll get right on it." And luckily for the Allies he did. Quoting Fortey on page 166, "When sodden notebooks written in code were recovered from German U-boats, they seemed beyond recovery. However, Geoffey Tandey knew exactly what to do. The problem was actually not so different from preserving marine algae. The Museum supplied the appropriate absorbent paper, and the pages covered in cryptic language were saved from soggy obscurity. The code was cracked, thanks to the fact that the word Linnaeus used for organisms reproducing by spores was but one letter different from the word describing messages written in code."