Play With Words

Simon Hattenstone on Iván Campo:

The spaniard does not just look like a pub footballer, he looks like a pub footballer who has sunk 14 pints with William Hague on a Friday night, gone down the rankest curry house for chicken vindaloo and chips, missed the last bus home, slept on a park bench, not washed and turned up at the Reebok, 2.55pm on the Saturday, to play for Bolton Wanderers.

Somehow I can’t find this article the Guardian website (was published on 30 April 2008).

pub footballer: 相对于 professional footballer，有“乌合之众”之意。

14 pints with William Hague: 前保守党党魁 William Hague 有一次为显示自己并非脱离劳动大众，称自己年轻时打工运送啤酒到酒吧，按规矩每次酒吧都会请搬运工喝一杯(pint)啤酒，并称他最多一天可以送14个酒吧。于是并传成“年轻时每天喝14杯啤酒”(14 pint Hague)。

rank: adj. Strong and offensive in odor or flavor.

chicken vindaloo and chips: 去印度餐馆吃 chips 是改造的吃法。

Reebok: Bolton Wanderers 的主场。

2.55pm on the Saturday: 英超足球比赛的正常开赛时间是周六下午3点。

Giles Coren 是 The Times 的餐馆评论员和专栏作者，我很喜欢他的幽默笔锋。星期六在 The Times 上看到他写的文章，说自他父亲最近去世后，他一度觉得没有再写的必要，因为已经 no one to impress。他的父亲是幽默作家 Alan Coren。文章中的一段写道：

As I pushed his mower up and down his lawn I realised my mother was watching me. I dropped the lever and called to her, over the whiz of the fading blades: “I can hear him now shouting, You call that a f****** stripe?’.” And she said, “No, he’d be very pleased.”

Michael White uses the analogy to tell us what they are like:

If Mrs Thatcher was matron and John Major that nice bus conductor on the No 63, Tony Blair was an upmarket estate agent. But Brown is a hellfire preacher whose media handlers have told him to go easy on the hellfire stuff because it reduces the Sunday collection.

matron: A woman who acts as a supervisor or monitor in a public institution, such as a school, hospital, or prison.

hellfire: Portending future disaster

Simon Hoggart described the strangeness of last week’s Prime Minister’s Question Times (PMQ) in the Guardian:

It was a question time full of jollity. David Cameron floored Gordon Brown by agreeing with him. In private they probably concur on many things, but it doesn’t do to say so in front of the children, so this came as a surprise.

他用了两个比喻，floored 和 in front of the childre，形象地解释了 PMQ 的意义。

Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQ) 是英国首相每周一次来到议会辩论厅，面对全体议员回答问题的时刻。PMQ 的作用，让我想起我们看古代演义小说时，常出现的两军对阵，主将出马单挑的情形。如果一方主将被“斩于马下”，马上全军“阵脚大乱”、“望风而逃”。当然我们知道仗不是这么打的，将军们只要坐阵指挥，无需单挑比武功。但是演义小说如果没了武将单挑，便少了一大乐趣，现代政治也是一样。于是 PMQ 虽然名义上是给予所有议员质询首相的机会，但看点其实是反对党领袖如何单挑首相，连回合都规定好了，有6次机会。上周 David Cameron 把布朗打翻在地 (floored)，保守党这边自然是“旌旗招展”、欢声雷动。

Simon Hoggart 接着又用反喻，把 PMQ 比作夫妻吵架－－原应回避孩子们，但 PMQ 时，众议员们象是一群习惯了父母吵架的孩子，看着父母和和睦睦反而莫明其妙了。

It doesn’t do 是一种因为老式而有趣味的表达方法。在 BBC 的古装剧 Cranford 中，古板的 Deborah 就爱用这种表达方法，特别是当她觉得某种行为不合礼仪的时候。

I saw this on the Guardian sport page and quite like the funny expression:

As this Milan side ages, visitors have become like relatives who look at the household belongings such as the Campions League and wonder how soon they might inherit them.

However, when I looked at the same article by Kevin McCarra on Guardian’s website, the sentence became:

It was as if they had come to the home of their ageing relatives and could not stop themselves from stealing a look at valuable belongings, such as Champions League silverware, that they might soon inherit.

Don’t know which is the early version though.

今天早晨几个抗议者爬上议会大厦屋顶，挂起横幅，投下纸飞机，在屋顶上向媒体打手机接受采访。警察也不用强，耐心劝导抗议者自动“下台”。

这已经不是第一次有抗议者爬上议会大厦，为今天的抗议增加一点意味的是，当3个抗议者还在议会大厦屋顶的时候，首相布朗来到议会大厦，照常出席每周三的 Prime Minister’s Question Time。

Gordon Brown:

The message should go out today clearly that decisions in this country should be made in the Chamber of this House and not on the roof of this House.

这是Gordon Brown 在 PMQ 上迄今最为精彩的一句。

如果要形容某件工作反反复复，总也做不完，你可以说 It’s like painting the Forth Bridge.

Forth Bridge，又叫 Forth Rail Bridge，是指爱丁堡城北 Forth 河(Firth of Forth)上的铁路桥。铁路桥建成于1890年，已近120岁，目前每天仍然有200趟火车经过，是英国人引以为豪的工程杰作。桥梁的大部份结构是钢，传说中等到把桥梁全部油漆一遍之后，前面的已经褪色，就又得开始重新油漆了，所以 paint the Forth Bridge 成为英国俗语。

最近负责维护 Forth Bridge 的公司发布新闻，说将采用新型油漆，保证30年不褪，所以得另找词汇代替 paint the Forth Bridge 了。

BBC documentary: Britain’s Best Buildings - The Forth Bridge

Forth Bridge painting set the end

《最新情人书信写法》(The New Letter Writer for Lovers)是从剑桥大学图书馆塔(Cambridge University Library Tower)中整理出来的维多利亚时代书籍之一。书中教男读者如何向心仪但不熟悉的女士示爱：

Madam,

I scarcely can find courage to address you, and particularly as I cannot flatter myself that you have noticed me in any way. But, at the risk of incurring your displeasure, I feel compelled to express, with all deference, the anxiety I feel to become better acquainted with you, and to confess that you have inspired feelings warmer than those a mere acquaintance might warrant.

然后是女读者如何写拒绝信，如果你看不上他的话。只要把空填上就好了。

Miss ___ presents her compliments to Mr ___ and while she is unwilling to consider his letter an insult, she trusts that in future should she meet Mr ___ he will see the necessity for abstaining from addressing her under any circumtances whatever.

只要用心，什么都可以学。维多利亚时代也是个信息时代呢。

Kathryn Hughes: The secret love lives of the Victorians

Dominic Fifield of the Guardian reports the game between Arsenal v. Blackburn Rovers:

This may have been an uncomfortable victory, squeezed from Blackburn Rovers with the home supporters whipped up into a frenzy of frustration as chance after chance was squandered, but the reality of this team’s vantage point today will render the angst suffered by their followers last night forgotten.

体育报道也可以生动兼有文采。

Philip Howard of the Times answered the question:

Pasta pros (Italians) are adept at holding their forks in their right hands, and twirling spag into a nest. The safer British way is to use a spoon as a safety net beneath the nest. The boring British way is to cut the spag up into small gobbets. When eating à la Romana, do as the Romans do.

adept: very skilled; a highly skilled person.

我觉得用筷子最方便了。