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Monthly Archives: July 2007

Riddley Walker online

Monday, July 30, 2007

Riddley Walker is a good contender for my all-time favourite novel. It’s a post-apocalyptic story told in the first person, with altered spelling and reinterpreted expressions and the rhythms of oral history to match. The language is at first intimidating, and it’s a testament to Russell Hoban’s writing that you get caught up in the [...]

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Bit of a dag

Friday, July 27, 2007

So there are also Dutch words you perhaps shouldn’t wear on a t-shirt if you’re coming to New Zealand.

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Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

Thursday, July 26, 2007

It’s Māori language week (te wiki o te reo Māori) in Aotearoa (New Zealand), and although I’m ashamed of how little I can remember, here’s a few links for anyone interested. Wikipedia has a good entry on the language, with a bunch of outside links. There’s also a site for learning and a translating dictionary [...]

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I am ball(sy?)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

It’s not news that the English band I Am Kloot has an unfortunate name if you speak Dutch. So it takes some serious cojones (so to speak) to wear one of their t-shirts around Amsterdam, like the bloke I saw in Centraal Station the other day. I like to think maybe he just didn’t realise, [...]

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Afluisteren in de tram

Monday, July 23, 2007

Meisje op mobiel: “Weet jij wat overdose betekent? Ja, het Nederlandse woord overdose… want ik dacht namelijk dat het een doos moet zijn, die over is.”

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Places not to leave your bicycle

Saturday, July 21, 2007

#173: Under the railway overpass way off to the side of Centraal Station. Not that I normally would, only the back tyre sprung a leak during a thunderstorm, and that was the closest place I could lock it up under shelter. And not that it got stolen, either. Instead, some klootzak slashed the seat and [...]

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The Black Seeds in two weeks

Friday, July 20, 2007

Heads up: The Black Seeds are hitting Amsterdam again! They’re promoting the European release of the album Into the Dojo, out in this country today. (No, I wasn’t queueing for it. I bought it on their tour here last summer. So there.) In my opinion the album isn’t up to the standard of On the [...]

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Friends list on LibraryThing

Friday, July 20, 2007

LibraryThing has split the ‘watchlist’ option into two: ‘interesting libraries’ and ‘friends’. So if anyone I actually know is using it, drop me a friend request. As you might have guessed, my LT name is tikitu. (I don’t, as a general rule, do social networking. But I’m genuinely interested in the books people I know [...]

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Shady dealing

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Night Shade Books is having a half-price sale to clear room for incoming stock. There’s a four-book minimum order and I’m broke (the last couple of posts should make clear why), but if anyone wants to go part shares and pony up the cash I’ve got my eye on a couple of titles. Stefan, I’m [...]

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Filing system

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

For last month’s trip to Brussels I stayed at an incompetent hostel. Since I didn’t have enough cash on me when I arrived (and apparently nowhere in Belgium has heard of pin/eftpos/debit cards), they took my Dutch residence permit as bond. And lost it. They were awfully apologetic when I went to check out, and [...]

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