大象传媒

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. There used to be first-class carriages on London's Tube and the Paris Metro.
More details

2. Virgin birth is possible for wild snakes.
More details

3. People are more likely to spend banknotes when they are grubby.

4. Grasshoppers change their tune when living beside heavy traffic.
More details

5. You need a license to sell seaweed in England.

6. Ovaltine was initially called Ovomaltine until a typo.

7. Men with a partner increase the space between themselves and an attractive woman if exposed to the bonding hormone oxytocin.

8. David Cameron prefers using pencils to pens at his desk.

9. South American crickets hear like humans do.

10. In Amhult where Ikea was founded, the company's hotel has a choice of reading material: the New Testament or the Ikea catalogue.

Seen a thing? Tell on Twitter using the hashtag #thingIdidntknowlastweek

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Re this. Even looking at the downloaded 大象传媒 user guide to pronunciation I would still be none the wiser how to pronounce "KUH" and "DUH".
Derek Laxton, Cambridge

You write that the Chinese pinyin "xi" is always pronounced like the English "she", and that "qiang" and "qi" are pronounced "chee-aang" and and "chee". That is true in someparts of China but, with respect, the standard pronunciations are xi = see, quiang = tsiang and qi = tsee or tsuh depending on the tone and meaning.
Stuart Lyons, London, England

Is Basil Long on holiday this week?
Allan J, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

I say, I say, I say! Why is it called the standing committee? (Last photo.) Because they don't have any chairs!
David Richerby, Liverpool, UK

F, Rob, and Ed (Wednesday's letters) - But surely we should also explain the mathematical "story" behind the number: There was a girl aged 13, she had boob size 84, she wanted boob size 45. She went to the doctor who said 0 (oh!). Take these pills 2 x a day, but she took them 4 x a day and ended up... 13844502 x 4 = 55378008.
JoeA, Middlesex

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week we have Prince Charles staring into a boot that will feature in The Hobbit movie.

Thanks to all who entered. The prize of a small amount of kudos to the following:

6. Chimmy:
Are you absolutely sure she didn't leave a glass slipper?

5. Gareth Butler:
"Is this the low-cost housing one hears so much about?"

4. Martin Walter:
I can't get my leg up that high. Remind me to get a shorter valet next time.

3. K Morrison:
The Prince of Wales did not have this in mind when he asked to see the Duke of Wellington.

2. Abstractnoise:
No, thank you. One usually has little trouble putting one's foot in it.

1. Kudosless:
These boots were made for Tolkien.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor anticipated picture desks might have a field day over the reported low turnouts at the first PPC elections, but it's stuck by just how much they went to town.

So it is that snaps of deserted polling booths and uninterested commuters take centre stage in some papers.

The Times, for example, leads on a photo of a cow seemingly following a lone farmer to the polling station in a village in Cumbria.

is its headline. Page three sings to the same tune, with three pictures - of a runner, a walker, and a sole voter (in Brighton, Bristol and Cambridgeshire) - splashed across it.

"Ballot stations deserted as police poll flops," it goes on, reporting that at one village hall in the Lake District, officials waited two hours for their first voter.

The Guardian has a similar story, splashing six scenes of lonely figures at polling stations across England and Wales across its pages.

the paper's Michael White says.

While the Daily Telegraph declares the elections have descended into a "farce".

"Reports of widespread public apathy flooded social media sites as electoral staff were left 'twiddling their thumbs', doing puzzles and even knitting," it says.

Meanwhile the Independent chooses a picture of dog - not even with its owner - walking past an empty polling station to convey the same message. "Nothing to see here, move along," is its caption. the paper also asks.

However perhaps newly-elected police and crime commissioner should take some comfort from the above-mentioned coverage. In some of the tabloids, Paper Monitor struggled to find much at all.

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An occasional guide to the words and names in the news from Jo Kim of the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit.

The 18th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China has drawn to a close and China has appointed a new generation of leaders. The new Politburo Standing Committee, which is made up of the top leadership of the Communist Party, was led to the stage by newly appointed CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping as the final showpiece.

Here are our recommendations for pronouncing the names of the Standing Committee members. Unlike English names, Chinese names do not appear in the Western order, i.e. given name first. Chinese names, like Korean, Vietnamese and Hungarian names, appear family-name first in the original language. Stressed syllables are shown in upper case, -uh as 'a' in sofa.

Xi Jinping: SHEE jin PING (-sh as in ship, -j as in Jack, -i as in sit, -ng as in sing)
Li Keqiang: LEE kuh chee-AANG (-ee as in street, -aa as in father, -ch as in church, -ng as in sing)
Zhang Dejiang: JAANG duh jee-AANG (-j as in Jack, -aa as in father, -ng as in sing)
Zhang Gaoli: JAANG gow LEE (-j as in Jack, -aa as in father, -ng as in sing, -ow as in now)
Wang Qishan: WAANG chee SHAN (-aa as in father, -ng as in sing -ch as in church)
Liu Yunshan: LYOH yuen SHAN (-ly as in million, -oh as in no, -ue as in French vu)
Yu Zhengsheng: YUE jung SHUNG (-ue as in French vu, -j as in Jack, -u as in bun, -ng as in sing)

The Pronunciation Unit's advice is anglicised so that any word, name or phrase, in any language, is pronounceable by broadcasters and intelligible to audiences. Some of our previous blog posts have discussed why Mandarin Chinese presents challenges in the process of anglicisation. Not only does Mandarin Chinese have a number of vowels and consonants that do not exist in English and have no obvious equivalent but it is also a tone language. Mandarin Chinese has four tones - high level, high rising, fall-rise, falling (and a fifth null-tone) - which are vital, just like vowels and consonants, to differentiating meaning.

Many readers will know the famous example of the four 'ma's: depending on the tone, this syllable can mean "mother", "hemp", "horse" or "to scold". English is not a tone language and English broadcasters are not expected to recognise, much less reproduce, this level of phonetic detail in Chinese, or indeed, in all the world's languages, which is why in the Pronunciation Unit's systematic way of anglicising Chinese syllables, we do not reflect tones.

The mismatch between the English and Mandarin Chinese systems also presents difficulties for Chinese speakers trying to pronounce English words and names. Mandarin Chinese does not have the vowel which appears in the English word cup and London written in Simplified Chinese as 伦敦, is pronounced by Mandarin speakers as luun duun (-uu as in book) with a rising tone on the first syllable and a high level tone on the second syllable.

I should add here that while English isn't a tone language and that's why many native English speakers find it so hard to learn tone languages, English speakers do sometimes use tone and pitch in words to differentiate meaning, although not in the same way as Mandarin Chinese uses lexical tone.

Let us imagine two British people trying to walk through a narrow doorway from either side. One person says a perfunctory "sorry!" but so quietly that the other doesn't quite hear her. "Sorry?" the second woman asks. "Sorry!" says the first woman, earnestly apologising for not speaking loudly enough. If you are a native British English speaker, you might have found yourself saying all these different sorries on any given day, sorries that have a pitch rise as a question, sorries that are apologies and have a big pitch fall.

Hanyu Pinyin, the official transliteration system of Mandarin Chinese in the People's Republic of China, may also present confusion (and, in my particular case, a certain amount of despair in the first week of learning Pinyin) for people unfamiliar with the system because of the seeming discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation: the grapheme 'i' represents the sounds -ee (as in street), as in Pinyin 'xi', -uh (as 'a' in ago), as in Pinyin 'shi' and -i (as in pin), as in Pinyin 'jin'.

However, Hanyu Pinyin's relationship between spelling and pronunciation is not as random as it seems because it is actually syllable-based; the syllable xi is always pronounced shee (-sh as in ship, -ee as in meet), whether in Xí Jìnpíng or 尘ó虫ī (the Chinese name for Moses). Compared with the wide variation one finds for the English syllable she in the words shed, she, fishes and masher, pronouncing Pinyin can suddenly seem much more pleasingly systematic and straightforward.

You can download the 大象传媒 Pronunciation Unit's guide to text spelling.

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It's so rough being poor when your wife has assets of $430,000 and you live in a country where that's 46 years' salary for an average person.
David Richerby, Liverpool, UK

F (Wednesday letters), surely you mean 55378008? Unless you were specifically shading from the wind behind a cleavage. I'll get my graphics calculator.
Rob, Horsham

F (Wednesday letters) , people must have been lazier in my school as we opted for the simpler 58008.
Ed, Wakefield

Why is a new Chinese leader anointed rather than appointed? I thought anointing was done using oil to biblical kings - hardly appropriate for a modern Communist leader.
Henri, Sidcup

Re "China anoints Xi as new leader", I know it's a big country but do they really need eleven leaders?
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

From Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, we learn that for some "lunch" is "dinner" and vice versa. That doesn't make too much sense does it? Perhaps what was really meant was that some call the midday meal lunch and the evening meal dinner while others call those meals dinner and supper respectively. And what about Tea, High tea and Brunch?
David Norfolk, Folkestone, UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

So. Parents. Who does it in your house?

In the week that the Coalition announced plans for mothers and fathers to share time off after a child's birth, the Daily Telegraph's Allison Pearson has hit upon a :

"We will know we have got there when taking time out to be with a new baby makes a man look strong, not weak, and it's Dad who books the babysitter"

Right on, sister, I hear you shout. But soft, what light breaks just to the right of her rallying cry on page 32? It is the east, and Helen-from-Corrie-in-a-bikini is the sun. (Public health warning: )

The foundations of female solidarity wobble somewhat when it comes to discussing this young woman in ITV's "jungle survival contest" who is afraid of creepy-crawlies and changes into a bikini in order to "make up for my patheticness with my boobs".

Meanwhile, breathless discussion continues about the Petraeus affair. The Times bookends its masthead with the socialite and the biographer, and on page seven has a flowchart of all the connections between the , such as:

• colleagues
• emailed from secret account
• twin sisters
• emailed bare-chested photos of himself
• family friends
• etc

It is, indeed, a tangled web. (One without spiders in it, Helen-from-Corrie-in-a-bikini).

And the Guardian has a devised by Hadley Freeman, with questions such as:

"David Petraeus allegedly had an affair with the woman, Paula Broadwell, who wrote his biography." Which part of that sentence is inaccurate?

1. "Allegedly"
2. "Wrote his biography" (someone else wrote it, even though Broadwell's name is prominently on the cover. She did the research. The undercover research, fnar fnar - oh do stop it)
3. "Broadwell" (give me a break, what kind of phoney name is that for a mistress? What is this, a Dashiell Hammett screenplay?)

And:

Broadwell became jealous of Tampa socialite and friend of Petraeus, Jill Kelley. But unbeknown to Broadwell, Kelley had her hands full exchanging 20-30,000 emails with General John Allen over two years. Have you sent 20,000 pages of emails to anyone in your entire life?

1. No, I have a life
2. No, are you freaking insane?
3. No, no and thrice no
4. All of the above

In Paper Monitor's experience, when given the option "all of the above", it's best to take it.

...

...

Oops. Your humble columnist is being given a very hard stare by the 7 days 7 questions setter.

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So far the Grampian Police have been unable to quack this case?
Rusty, Montreal, Quebec

To Shiz (Tuesday's letters):
It just goes to show, in my day, it was 53378008 on a calculator.
How times (and augmentations) have changed things!
F, Gloucestershire, UK

I suspect Michael Stocks refers to the practice of whole class taster sessions in instruments such as ukulele. It does depend on the school of course, but it worked at the school where I trained. The music specialist taught basics of music understanding through singing and class lessons, then progressed them from Year 3 into Ukulele and Recorders. THEN the parents get to pay for music lessons.
Kay, London

Rusty (Tuesday's letters) - have you ever consider closing the curtains?
Ed Loach, Clacton, UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor couldn't help but chuckle at the coverage of David Cameron's wardrobe malfunction in the papers today.

It was a, says the Daily Telegraph, when the PM's shirt "popped open" during the aptly named Lord Mayor's Banquet, where he was due to give a speech.

"He had come to expand on Britain's role in world trade. But ended up revealing more than his plans to boost British exports," it says.

However although Mr Cameron "briefly exposed his chest" the paper praises his quick recovery, when he "refastened the mother of pearl studs on his formal white-tie shirt".

The Daily Mail is less forgiving, if more tongue-in-cheek.

is its headline.

Meanwhile in other stomach matters, the Telegraph also reports the tale of a pub landlord that was "saved by his beer belly".

It says a 22-stone publican escaped serious injury after he was run down by drug dealers in his car park because his stomach cushioned the impact from his vital organs.

Now there is no suggestion that Paper Monitor has a paunch, but it's time for lunch.

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Whilst I was disappointed that Michael Stocks' missive (Monday's letters) didn't contain an amusing anecdote, I thought I was agreeing with him, until the end. In my experience (state school, my own and my chidren's education) musical instruments are only taught if the parent pays extra for it, and school music lessons consist almost entirely of singing.
Chookgate, Milton Keynes

So I suppose, Michael (Monday's letters) you would equate the playing of chopsticks on the piano or (shudder) 3 blind mice on the recorder with being able to write the likes of 5318008 on a calculator?
Shiz, Cheshire, UK

To Prospective Clown (Monday's letters): Surely you're also potentially Broke. Personally, I'd go for the red nose and oversized shoes...
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

Dear Paper Monitor - you might like to pass on to the punsters at The Sun that no, Van Gogh did NOT paint nudes.
Colin Edwards, Exeter, UK

I think we all rather make a spectacle of ourselves when breeding.
Rusty, Montreal, Quebec

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

"Soap star and MP in bugging nightmare" - no, not a headline telling of further Leveson fallout but the Daily Express on the reality TV show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.

One doesn't need to have watched the show to know the bugging in question alludes to actual bugs. As in insects. Not a small electronic device used to eavesdrop on the unsuspecting. Or phone hacking. But creepy crawlies. And maggots. Not spiders though. (Can maggots be classed as creepy-crawlies?)

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail is most aerated.

"Pregnant again, but is Peaches wise to let the dog get so close?"

Peaches (as in Geldof, rather than the fruit, or indeed the 1996 song by Presidents of the United States, or the very different song by The Stranglers) has a six-month-old baby. Called Astala (as in... er... Astala). And a dog called Parper. Which, indeed, dogs do.

And Peaches (Geldof, that is) has posted a photo on t'internet of Astala getting a nuzzle from Parper. And Peaches (Geldof, that is) has also announced she's pregnant again. And plans to name her unborn son Phaedra. As in granddaughter of Zeus. And as in she who gave life to Lee Hazelwood in Some Velvet Morning.

Paper Monitor is unclear about which particular element of this story most aerates the Mail, but the Dogs Trust is quoted as saying: "Never leave your dog alone with your child."

To be fair to Peaches (as in Geldof), the dog and baby are not alone - she's in the room Instagramming the moment.

And finally, few things warm the cockles of the Daily Telegraph's heart as much as a glossy brunette.

Needless to say, it is all over the David Petraeus resignation story. Still chestnut-haired at 60, and frequently photographed looking spick and span in his general's uniform, he's a well-turned-out fella.

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My partner is refusing to countenance us meshing our surnames of Clarke and Brown together should we ever get married... No fun.
Prospective Clown, Reading

I thought parlours were things that only spiders had these days, but for your parlour game, my wife's maiden name is Davies, so meet the Wavies!
Phil Warne, Nelson, NZ

Who to replace "Dickens of the Day"? (Friday Letters) Why, H.P. Lovecraft, of course! "...the suddenness of his motion dislodged the waxen mask from what should have been his head." Indeed.
Rob, London, UK

Just a thought. This headline: "Dad builds video baby monitor" should more accurately read:
"Man buys camera and downloads software".
Alex, Bishop Auckland

Angus Gafraidh of London, I can beat you. I have been appearing as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol -The Musical" all week. Bah humbug!
J. Paul Murdock, Wall heath, West Midlands, UK

In my career as a music educator for over 50 years I have frequently noted significant parallels in the teaching and learning processes of both mathematics and music. Both are obviously concerned with patterns and patterning. Both are hierarchical in acquisition. Both have two performing media.

In mathematics education, the aural (listening) and oral (speaking) processes of memorising and calculating numbers, their functions and their correlations are basic to any progression of learning. The calculator, an instrument, can facilitate access to exciting opportunities in the worlds of mathematics and science, but only when the necessary basic skills have been acquired.

In music education, the aural (listening) and oral (singing) processes of memorising and recognising musical sound, its functions and its correlations are basic to any progression of learning.

Musical instruments, applied appropriately, can open doors to new and exciting opportunities in the world of music and our surrounding culture.

In most of our schools, common practice in music teaching is to reach for an instrument first, rather than to ensure the development of basic music skills through use of the singing voice and inner listening. Consequently, it is not unfair to describe many of our young instrumentalists as "mute musicians", able to operate an instrument without experience of the necessary musical basics.

Therefore, the government's wish to limit the use of calculators in the teaching of mathematics from 2014 has my support. But is it not time for the secretary of state for education and his civil servants to correct the anomaly of encouraging the use of musical instruments before children in class have acquired the essential music skills? When will we understand the distinction between music-making and music education?
Michael Stocks, Kirkby Lonsdale UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Heads will roll - how many times have we heard this in the news over the past couple of days? Type it into Google news and you'll get the point.

The Sun, however, manages to put the phrase to use in the context of the Tower of London and the story of how apparently including ones to unlock the drawbridges. Thousands had to be spent on changing the locks.

The paper's sub-editors were clearly enjoying this one - with many a historic Tower-based pun. Bungling guards were "facing the chop". "Off with his head" blasts the first line of an editorial on the opposite page, before the rather painful: "Clearly they need to beef up security."

A box in the story informs readers that the Bonfire Night burglary was "not the first Bloody time" this has happened. In 1671, a "mallet-wielding Irishman" [Paper Monitor did initially read this as "mullet-wielding"] Thomas Blood nicked the Crown Jewels. He didn't get away with it. Take a look at the engraving of him that accompanies the story and you might want to read that as "mullet-wearing".

While we're on the subject of puns, turn to page 25 and you simply won't be able to miss the: "Dude gets nude to paint food" strap above a .

"Van Scoff" shouts the headline. And how did the subs arrive at it?

Got to be something to do with the artist's name, surely. He's going to be called van something. Nope, he's called Tjalf Sparnaay - but he is Dutch like that other famous Dutch artist.

So the connection is made, and a reference is written in: "And rather than paint nudes like Van Gogh, he likes to portray everyday objects - food in particular - while in the nude himself.

It's an art that headline writing, it really is.

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