The official language of the EU :-)

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.


As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".


In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.


The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f" This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z"
and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou"
and
after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil,
pleas pas on to oza pepl



Well... maybe not!!!

Chocolate

If a bar of chocolate makes one person to smile imagine a backpack full of it weighting about 8kg...
That were more than 50 chocolate bars...
If you're not smiling yet wait because your turn might be coming soon!!!

Well... maybe not!!!

Coincidences

In 1981

1. Prince Charles married
2. Liverpool was European Champion
3. The Pope died.


In 2005

1. Prince Charles married (again...)
2. Liverpool was European Champion (again...)
3. The Pope died.

So be aware... if Prince Charles wants to marry again and Liverpool qualifies for the Champions League final.... Please, someone warn the POPE!!!

Well... maybe not!!!

Home Alone again this week

(after helping a friend not being alone at home... ->
it knows who....)

The title is an answer to a friends BLOG!!!
Well as I said I back home again. Last week I finally took some time to relax from summer hard work at the lab and get some deserved holidays!!!
This time I joined the useful to the pleasant and I went Zurich for a few days, visiting a good friend, in the way for the wedding of a common friend! By other words I visited Judith and we both went to Carola's wedding!!!!
Zurich is a very beautiful city and of course totally different from what I'm used to around here!!! It's very nice, very open, very clear city with a lot of green spaces and a nice forest to walk around very very close.
After spending some days in Zurich, a few places around, visiting the top of Santis (2502m), we went to Germany to a city called Spesbach near Landsthul, in the area of Kaiserlautern.
There were a few differences in the wedding compared with things around here!!! For a start my friend is Protestant (I'm catholic) so the ceremony is a bit different from what I'm used to. German apparently use their weeding ring on their right hand (left hand here in Portugal)!!! Instead of a very large party for the ceremony, they have something more cozy, and all their friends and know people have a party a few days before the wedding.

Ok I'll leave some photos as usual!!!

Judy's "office"


A lake


Zurich's Fraumunster


Limmat river in Zurich


Zurich seen from Polyterrasse


Zurich


Santis


Shelter / restaurant at the top of Santis


a walk in the forest around Zurich


Zurichsee


Chocolate fruits





PS - in that german area there a very strong presence of Americans due to the presence of a large US military airport, hospital and so on... Somehow I only had a song in my mind....

Lyrics ©2004 Rammstein. (translation)

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

Wenn getanzt wird will ich führen
auch wenn ihr euch alleine dreht
Lasst euch ein wenig kontrollieren
Ich zeige euch wie es richtig geht
Wir bilden einen lieben Reigen
Die Freiheit spielt auf allen Geigen
Musik kommt aus dem Weißen Haus
und vor Paris steht Micky Maus

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

Ich kenne Schritte die sehr nützen
und werde euch vor Fehltritt schützen
Und wer nicht tanzen will am Schluss
weiß noch nicht dass er tanzen muss
Wir bilden einen lieben Reigen
Ich werde euch die Richtung zeigen
Nach Afrika kommt Santa Claus
und vor Paris steht Micky Maus

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

We're all living in Amerika
Coca-Cola, Wonderbra
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

This is not a love song
This is not a love song
I don't sing my mother tongue
No, this is not a love song

We're all living in Amerika
Amerika ist wunderbar
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika

We're all living in Amerika
Coca-Cola, sometimes war
We're all living in Amerika
Amerika, Amerika


Well... maybe not!!!

Still Katrina

Quoting a New Orleans inhabitant to a TV network:
"We see those tragedies on TV and we pray to God for those people....
But we're convinced that is never going to happen to us!!!!
Well... maybe not!!!

Katrina

Without wanting to put more wood in the fire just 2 simple ideas keep puzzling my mind:
- why is that rich people continue to build wooden houses specially in hurricane areas

- perhaps it's about time some people realize that Kyoto protocol (or something similar) is not so fool after all and some serious concern must be done about the environment...

"Open your eyes, open your mind
(...) don't pretend to be blind "
Guano Apes

I suggest a movie called "the day after tomorrow"

Well... maybe not!!!

Working away for a few days

For those who are acquainted with cientific lifestyle, know that cientific meetings are one of the ways or showing your work and discussing new ideas about it.
So that was my work last week: an international conference on Biophysics in Montpellier.
Ok you'll start thinking nice way to work... Well you can always skip some areas which the subjects don't relate so much with your area of interest and do some sightseeing... but I think that is also part of the job.
I decided to go by car to the meeting (ok long travel of 3500kms going & return) and also enjoyed an afternoon trip to Marseille and few stops in the way back in Andorra and Madrid...
As usual I leave you some pics...



"Le Corum" conference center



Montpellier's place de la comedie



overview of Marseille (from Notre Dame de la Garde)



Madrid's Plaza Mayor