1月 31 2009
当英国首相布朗在 Davos 大谈贸易保护主义的危险之时，英国的 Total 炼油厂工人正在举行非正式罢工，原因是炼油厂把一些工程外包给意大利和葡萄牙的公司，意大利和葡萄牙人抢了英国工人的饭碗。罢工工人举出的标语上写着 British jobs for British people，是布朗两年前在工党大会上喊出的口号，以示他为英国工人代言的形象。
但 是 British jobs for British people 不仅是保护主义，而且在欧盟内部也是不合法的。人员的自由流动，正是欧盟的重要支柱。正象昨晚 Channel 4 News 所说，正确的说法，应该是 European jobs for European people。
1月 30 2009
英国众议院每周三中午有30分钟的 Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQ – 我过去曾用过“首相提问时间”和“首相答问时间”两种译法，显然后者更好)。现在的趋势，根据一些议会专门报道议会辩论的记者(他们的职业称呼是 sketch writer – 议会写生员)，似乎是越来越粗鲁没礼貌。原因是工党首相布朗(Gordon Brown)容易动怒又不会开玩笑骂人，而保守党领袖卡梅伦(Cameron)倒是严辞锋利，但为了避免显得夸夸其谈太轻飘，不得不时时做出激愤状。两人你来我往谁也收不住，有时弄得大家都下不了台，身后的议员们就表现得像是一群看人打架在一边拍手叫好的看客，常常裁判－－Common Speaker (众议院主席)不得不介入拉架。所以本周三双方互骂对方 student politics 就显得挺应时：
The Prime Minister tried to be rude in return by accusing Mr Cameron of playing “student politics“, but the Tory leader batted this straight back: “Mr Speaker, only one of us was a student politician and he’s never grown out of it.”
Mr Brown was obsessed by student politics at Edinburgh: Mr Cameron kept out of student politics at Oxford.
Andrew Gimson on Telegraph: Sketch: Gordon Brown feels the pain of creating a brave new world
《泰晤士报》上的 Ann Treneman 则更多地感叹在世界经济危机面前，别人都团结一致，英国的议员们却东奔西散：
Student politics? We should be so lucky. This may even be sub-playground. I have seen pre-schoolers behave better. What is strange is that, in the country, the recession has brought us together. As a people, we are hunkering down, trying to ride it out. But, at Westminster, the recession has driven our politicians farther apart. Now, as surreal as a dream, they are screaming into the wind across an ever-growing abyss.
Ann Treneman on the Times: No end in sight to Gordon Brown’s global nightmare
1月 20 2009
Inaugural address of President Barack Obama
My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
1月 14 2009
Times 的餐馆评论员 Giles Coren 在他最近的文章中，对 Guardian 做了一番调侃，反映了部份人对这份报纸的偏见。他在解释为什么 Guardian 上的餐馆评论不如他自己的好：
Both critics are good friends of mine and both have undeniably tremendous appetites, but both are rather hamstrung, I guess you could say, by working for a newspaper group whose business model turns on the certainty that schoolteachers, social workers and angry jobless graduates will always need a newspaper, so it might as well be theirs. Thus any restaurant (or indeed anything) that reeks of frivolity, extravagance, bourgeois aspiration or pretentiousness must be flattened with the cold hammer of Socialist Realism.
