I’m sitting here, sipping my tumbler glass full of whiskey — straight, single malt of course — with my feet up on my desk. The laptop is actually in between my legs, which is a rather interesting angle to type from, but it works. If only I had a roaring log fire, the image would be complete; unfortunately I have to make-do with a blow-heater that sounds like its on its last legs, trying to heat up my own little corner of the Antarctic.

Sometimes, when I wake up, my legs are so cold that I swing out of bed and fall to the floor because my legs have decided not to do their primary function: stand. Living in a old house really does suck sometimes.

I just had a few things to say, which didn’t really warrant an entire blogging, so I thought I’d whack them in here before I go to bed. First, a lovely little story, written by my younger sister. We’re all so very proud of her; she’s come such a long way since the accident:

You know, that picture actually reminds me of another Father Ted sketch! For various reasons, Father Ted ends up writing an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest (only click it if you’re REALLY interested, but be careful… it’s a dark and slippery slope back out), only at the last moment he has to re-write the song because he’s actually stolen another song. This results in… well, check it out:

Sorry, anything to make you watch something from Father Ted.

Other than that, I just wanted to do a little ‘wrap up’ for The Penis Monologues, which you can listen to if you missed them the first time around (it’s also quite fun to hear my accent change between each!):

• #1, The Cowboy:  
• #2, The Scottish:  
• #3, The Irish Priest:  
• #4, The Russian:  
• #5, The Australian:   

(If you can’t see the audio players, you’ll have to visit my blog)

It’s been a lot of fun trying my hand at accents that I’ve never really used in conversation before — it’s amazing just how hard it is trying to make a single word sound authentic. The vowel and consonant sounds change SO MUCH between each language, it’s quite amazing. It’s been quite a thrill trying to make them appear almost real and try to give a little bit of a backdrop for each stereotype at the same time: they are almost entirely truthful, with only a  few bits stretched to make them more interesting.

I noticed that no one from any of the 4 countries (or a real life cowboy!) have commented on my accents, so I might never know if I completely butchered them. I’ll just assume I did a fairly good job of them — a man can hope, right? If you want to hear something I can do rather well — speaking proper English — go and check out some of the other podcasts.

Next up is probably some kind of… review. Either of a video game, or maybe some cameras. It’ll be in proper British-English, which is a relief to most, I think. Ah, and I’m working on some kind of ‘weekly feature’ for the blog, which probably won’t interest a lot of you, but I think it’s about time that I wrote about something with an element of authority — I’m simply sitting on a wealth of knowledge which I feel I should share!

On the dingy, grey streets of Birmingham the Queen’s English is now… the Queens English. You heard me. A recent ruling by the Birmingham City Council has ruled that apostrophe’s will be outlawed on all new signs. St Paul’s Square? Its now St Pauls Square.

The president of the Apostrophe Protection Society (no, I’m not making it up, it was formed in 2001, in Boston) described it as ‘absolute defeatism’. I’d describe it as apathetical abject horror. Complete dissolution of everything that our imperialistic forefathers stood for! They didn’t fight back the French time and time again or push the Vikings from our lands so that we could… give up the fight and give in to illiteracy and pedanticism. If you’re a pedant wondering if I just made up that word — maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.

The council said the move had been taken for the purposes of consistency and to avoid costs and confusion over whether place names should ever take an apostrophe.

Apparently people have actually been sending in letters to the council to ask if Druid’s Grove once belonged to a Druid. Now there’ll be no ambiguity: it’s a grove for lots of druids. Birmingham City Council has decreed it, and thus it shall forever be. Wonderful.

Apostrophe’s have long been a bone of contention all over the English-speaking world (do other languages use them to denote possession like us? Or just elision? Wiki knows all!) The problem is: they require a certain level of literacy to be used correctly — not a vast level, but certainly some literacy. Grocery store owners, market sellers and other workers that are unlikely to be school-educated are notoriously bad at placing the apostrophe correctly — check these out:

The last one is all kind’s of wrong — it features extraneous and sorely lacking apostrophes AND misuse of quotation marks (there’s a gallery for misused quotation marks, if that’s your kind of thing).

This rampant militarism for and against the apostrophe is nothing new though. While taking it a bit too far, there’s even a site dedicated to killing the apostrophe. On the other, slightly more moderate hand, fighting the cause of the noble and functional apostrophe there’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a book which all of you should read (especially the bloggers out there that like to really nail their grammar use). Also on our side — and I assume you are all on my side –  are the lovely AAAA — Americans Against Apostrophe Abuse — although it looks like their site hasn’t been updated since 2005. Maybe I should pick up the battle standard, sound my horn and beat the drum’s of waaaar!

Sadly this is just one more nail in the coffin for our lovely language. If English teachers in Birmingham thought they had it bad with the increase in illiteracy caused by ‘netspeak’ (incidentally, by far the easiest way to tell if the person you’re talking to has a sub-100 IQ is to see if they ask ‘howz r u 2day lol??’), it’s going to get a lot harder with the abolition of apostrophes.

But perhaps, and I feel we’ll probably have to admit defeat in the grand scale of things, this is just the natural progression of our language. It’s sad though: part of the reason Shakespeare’s 500 year old scripts are still readable today is because our language has slowly evolved, taking on new words and nuances as necessity dictates, rather than revolutionary overhauls (like the removal of the apostrophe) that have afflicted other languages around the world. LOL, I really hope it isnt time to embrace our new, simplified possession-free world.

But this one has to be shared, after my brief outburst about the misuse and abolition of our fantastic friend the apostrophe.

Unfortunately this is just lending more credence to my inspired idea of enforcing would-be parents to take an IQ test before reproduction is allowed.

In other news, I just wrote a fantastic wall of text over in the ‘Life as a guild leader’ section of the blog. 2800 words in 2 hours!

I took yet another wrong turn and looked around. It was 10am, but down here in the maze-like bowels of Venice it could’ve been 10pm. I’d been up since 4am and the caffeine from the cup of coffee on the plane was wearing thin. Breakfast would’ve been lovely and there was certainly the tantalising smell of food in the air, but following my usually-acute sense of smell had already led me into three dead ends.

A couple of geriatric Italians grinned at me toothlessly from a doorway. Even if I attempted to ask them for directions in Italian they would feign illiteracy.

I stared at them and grinned back, making the shape of a gun with my index finger and thumb. My over-sized canines had done most of the work, but I had to admit: the finger-gun was a nice touch. Pointing it at the pensioners I asked: ‘Dov’è Al Doge Beato?‘ They showed me, with a nervous succession of frail arm movements, where I might find my humble abode for the next two days: The Blessed Duke, the Happy Duke — something like that.  It sounded cheesy, but it was charming– everything in Venice is lovely.

Perhaps ‘lovely’ isn’t quite the right word; ‘quaint’ better describes the almost-complete dilapidation of the city. As I walked on, almost everything is in an awful state of repair. There’s something about floating in the middle of a warm and windy salt-water lagoon that really eats away at the paint and brickwork. A few bridges and labyrinthine turns later, I stood outside my hotel: a canal-side, turn-of-the-millennium building — and I’m not talking about a few years ago! My room looked out over a canal on one side, and had a floor-to-ceiling double-door leading out onto an ancient stone balcony on the other. It wasn’t cheap, but considering nothing in Venice is, I thought I’d splash out.

‘You can’t miss Piazza San Marco, just head towards…’ I zoned out as he begun gesturing wildly with his hands. It was obviously an Italian thing, pointing and gesticulating; some kind of sign language that I wasn’t privy to. He noticed the blank look on my face. ‘I’ll get you a map.’ Armed with my map and camera and finger-gun I looked around and then at the map, trying to catch my bearings. Picking one of the three paths that headed south at random I felt like one of my other namesakes, Sebastian Cabot. He’d been a major player in Venice back in the day and he’d probably had less difficulty navigating Venice than me — he ended up exploring Brazil for the King of Spain! — but I gave it my best shot. I’d already decided ahead of time that ‘getting lost in Venice’ would be one of the primary objectives of my trip. Losing myself as I cut between two buildings that were no more than half a meter apart; disappearing amongst the endless serpentine alleys, lost to the world. Venice isn’t big, but you only need walk 50 meters off the beaten path, turn a few corners, and you’ll find yourself alone, standing beneath the imposing facade of a  Gothic church or Renaissance house.

First up was a trip to to the Piazza — the only real open space in central Venice and the home of most major landmarks in Venice. There’s also a huge clock tower in the middle which, as you’d expect, grants a spectacular view of the ancient core of Venice.

There are museums and churches aplenty in Venice, much like every major city in Italy, but they pale in comparison to the ones in Florence and Rome. I could easily spend hours writing about the 50 churches that I visited during my trip, but that’d be boring! (Unless you like churches a lot… like me!) Perhaps you can now understand where my recent interest in dissecting religion has come from — you can only spend so long basking in the shadow of such an ancient, powerful institution — Roman Catholicism — before something goes ‘pop’.

Venice was home to the very first Jewish Ghetto, a Venetian word that probably derives from ‘iron foundry’, or a corruption of ‘Judaca’, the name given to the streets in which the Jews were confined to in Venice. This is where Jewish segregation all began, though this ghetto didn’t enforce labour like later incarnations around the world — it was merely separation from the aggressive and violent Christians. Set up by the incumbent Duke to protect rather than enslave, the Jews probably sought refuge there — they definitely weren’t free to leave however! It was also around this time that Jews became, um, Jewish: Catholic law prevented money-lending, but Jewish law did not. Jews also became the best doctors because most medical texts at the time were in Arabic, a language that Italians and Venetians struggled to understand.

The Venetian Ghetto existed until Napoleon came along in 1797 and removed all of the gates that had penned them in for 250 years, though some early documents could put it over 700 years! All that remain are the hinges that held those gates, but the Jewish love of money lives on! (Remember, it’s not our fault though — blame the Pope!)

It was a little sad, walking around the dirty, tired streets of Venice, a city that had once been the most affluent city state the world has ever seen. The Queen of the Adriatic was one of its many names, a name that makes you wonder just how opulent and vibrant the city had been 600 years ago. For centuries, Venice was ruled by merchants – a republic, led by aristocratic merchants, their sole purpose being to make more money (something they did very well. What most people don’t know is that Venice actually held an empire — a small one, mainly consisting of the Aegean islands Crete and Cyprus, but an empire nonetheless. They had a sizable military force, and their navy of 3,000 ships were almost invulnerable in their stronghold of a lagoon. Most were merchant ships but often converted into warships when piracy flared up in the East, or when they played a large part in the Forth Crusade — the crusade often viewed as the final schism between Catholic and East Orthodox religions — a role in a war that would ultimately spell the end of the Byzantine empire. Not bad for an unnavigable flyspeck of an island!

And the scary bit? It was all made possible with money; a leader with almost unlimited resources and support from a loyal, trusting republic:  that’s capitalism.

Much like my little run-in with the American Secret Service, what happened after the ‘Bell Tower Incident‘ in Venice will remain an untold story — for now. For my memoirs, perhaps. This story begins a few days later. I’ve arrived in Florence, though stories about Caesar’s flourishing city are coming later — this one’s about a journey to Pisa.

The Italians don’t speak much English. Heck, they don’t speak a lot of Italian either — it’s mainly gesticulation: grunting, sighing, shrugging, pointing and prodding — but really, they don’t speak much English at all. It wasn’t a long train journey from Florence to Pisa but I’d already finished my book on the train from Venice — damn, my mum was right about taking more than one book. She’s always right about that kind of thing but don’t tell her. There I sat, looking out of the window at not much at all. The train was almost empty, so you can imagine my surprise when a soft, deep, syrupy Italian voice asked me to move my feet.

No one asks me to move my feet on an empty train. Most people do a kind of funny sidelong-glance-skip-past thing when they see an empty chair next to me. Must be something to do with the way I growl quietly and bare my teeth. It’s not because I’m a mean bastard, it’s simply because I don’t fit in single train or bus seats — I need the extra leg room, thus my perfection of the ‘Sebby Sprawl’, a manoeuvre that allows me to fill a space almost three times my regular volume. Anyway, of course I moved my feet when asked. What does a man have if he doesn’t have his manners? (Clue: the answer isn’t ‘a penis’.)

Until that moment I thought I was pretty manly as far as things go (externally of course, we all know my innards are a little bent). The man — beast – that sat down opposite made me feel positively effeminate. Never before has the squeak of a man’s leather shoes against a plasticky floor made me feel like a castrated manservant — a eunuch. He adjusted the cuffs of his perfectly-tailored shirt and checked his cuff links. I felt my throat begin to dry up and licked my lips before they too became parched. He turned his head and inspected his shoulder, flicking off non-existent lint. I shuffled in my chair nervously. Was that a blush I could feel creeping up along my neck under my ears and across my cheeks? I was face to face with someone — something — that I’d only heard of in books or seen on TV and I hadn’t a clue what to do.

At long last he looked up from his suit and we locked gazes. An uncomfortable moment passed — for me at least. He looked like he was enjoying it. He had a steady, beatific repose. An aura about him that stated simply: every single second of his life was as good as or better than what had come before. Finally I broke off and looked out of the window, that blush consuming the remainder of my face and body.

“Buonasera”

An involuntary shudder — the good kind that resulted in me crossing my legs. This guy was good, better than me. He imitated and crossed his legs too. His eyes were blue, his hair dark black. My eyes wandered a little — he watched my eyes and grinned with perfect teeth as I followed the contours of his face. Immaculately-pruned stubble leading to a dark-olive, lightly-muscled neck and then down to a pristine, white shirt. “Sorry” I mumble, embarrassed, suddenly remembering that I’m sitting opposite a stranger. I’d just undressed him with my eyes, much like I would a beautiful girl.

He seemed surprisingly unphased by my lingering stare. That was the first sign that I wasn’t sitting opposite a regular, macho, sharply-dressed Italian man.

“Io sono Sebastiano.” I smiled apologetically, acknowledging my awful, accented Italian.

“Marco.” He nodded, smiling, accepting my attempt at his beautiful, romantically-fluid language. “Duecento ragazze.” He looked a little coy, slightly shy, but more than a just a weak undertone of pride.

Two hundred girls…? I blinked, certain I’d misheard. But he nodded again, confirming the rictus of intermingled wonder and doubt plastered all over my face. He’d used simple Italian to make sure I’d understood.

Unfortunately my rudimentary knowledge of the language failed to dig up a suitable response. Bravissimo? Gran? I flicked rapidly through the dusty leaves of my cranial book of phrases wondering how best to congratulate this human stud. I gave up and simply offered him a manly handshake. I guess it was the right thing to do as he quickly grasped it — even his skin was perfectly soft and supple, sheesh — and squeezed, delivering yet another killer, brain-melting smile. It took a while for coherence to re-establish a foothold; it took even longer to reclaim the hand that he was so graciously looking after for me.

The rest of the journey involved the usual nodding and smiling and wild gesturing — quite graphically in his case — I didn’t understand much, but I got the gist. It felt more like he just wanted to talk to someone, any living soul that might appreciate and acknowledge his insane achievement with a gentle pat on the back. Well done, Marco, buono lavoro.

When we finally arrived in Pisa he grinned and extended his hand again, quickly withdrawing it as I reached forward to grasp it. “No.” He wagged his finger and fired some more rapid Italian at me that I failed to understand. Probably something along the lines of ‘the first handshake was nice and all, but if we start that again, we’ll probably not make it off the train before the doors shut…’

“Amor non conosce travaglio” Love never tires. Off he skipped into the crowd at the station, leaving me to orient myself and set off towards the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Ever since, whenever I’ve found myself between the soft-but-firm grasp of a beautiful girl’s legs, I can’t help but find myself magically transported back to that train carriage, listening yet again to his slick, softly-spoken syllables.

Perhaps I’m fantasising about Casanova; perhaps I’m cursing my Italian illiteracy. Either way, I’m wishing I’d learnt some more of the damn language. I could’ve been the world’s second greatest lover.

Apologies for the long-winded title; it’s actually quite hard to find a subject that gets right to the point. This isn’t about triggering a particular emotion in gamers — not directly, at least. It’s also not about how ‘emotional’ gaming can be — we already know that playing games can be an intense experience that can warrant a massive gamut of emotions.

This entry’s about your avatar — your character, the model that represents you — and the emotions that it can, or as the case may be, cannot display.

Emotions have long played a vital role in communication and human interaction. We smile and raise our shoulders a little when we’re happy; we frown and slump when we’re sad — these emotional keys are a form of communication in their own right: body language!

Beyond subtle muscle shifts we also have emotive reactions that we’re less aware of: we blush when we’re embarrassed or caught lying; we raise our voice in anger or petulance. Most importantly though are the muscles groups on our face: the flaring or contraction of our lips and eyes, the furrowing or raising of the brow — each of these actions, or reactions, are ‘programmed in’ genetically and almost impossible to alter. It’s these same minute movements that we’re (often unconsciously) reading in the face of whoever we’re talking to. It’s these tiny twitches in someone else’s face or body language that can trigger our own involuntary responses: that momentary curl of the lip might be all the indication you need to run away quickly.

This ‘hunt for emotion’ as we communicate with other people is so ingrained that online communication has always felt a little… distant. Internet veterans are cautious, aware that without body language their words can easily be misconstrued. Newbies often blunder, forgetting that no one can see the ironic smile on their face. There’s a reason emoticons , *asterisks*, CAPSLOCK and _underscores_ exist: to convey emotion! It’s clunky and slow compared to body language or facial expressions but it’s the best that we have.

Why, twenty years after the first text-based world, are we still communicating with such basic tools? Some early games like LegendMUD had ways to inflect mood into your conversation through expansion of the verb sets (’say alts’) but since then… nothing. In graphical virtual worlds a couple of games have tried to incorporate moods (notably Star Wars: Galaxies and EverQuest2) but still they were still primarily low-tech text-only executions, toggles: /angry, /sad, /afraid, or parsing exclamations and queries.

Why are we still running around in virtual worlds with emotionless, gormless avatars? In single-player games it’s almost the state of the art, the bleeding edge! ‘More realistic than ever before!’ the developers cry. What makes the games more realistic? Interaction with the game world: physics and realistic NPCs, or in the case of virtual worlds, other player avatars. You only need to look at the success of LittleBigPlanet — a very simple platformer with oodles of delicious detail and bucket loads of charm and a very diverse emotion system.

For a market segment that generates almost all of its appeal (and revenue) from the immersive quality of virtual worlds it’s amazing that there isn’t yet a virtual world that has the power to model emotions through various facial expressions and body poses. You could even go one step further from the toggle system and parse complex emotions like sadness, apprehension and lust out of chat. Then there’s the character state itself: in battle your avatar would grimace upon being hit; a healer would smile upon saving a party member.

Are we simply being held back by World of Warcraft’s ancient graphics engine? Surely it’s time for realistic, immersive emotions in virtual worlds.

Further Reading

• Some work into avatar puppeteering in Second Life which, unlike WoW, actually has some built-in facial expressions
• Bob Moore’s presentation from the Austin GDC 2008 has a more-scientific, sociological look at it under the header ‘Challenges in Avatar-Mediated Interaction’

This entry picks up from the end of my ‘stuck up a bell tower‘ story, one of the more foolish situations I’ve ever found myself in. I’d been rescued from the tallest point in Venice by some stumpy uniformed types that turned out to be the local police… It may not sound like it yet, but this is yet another too-much-information (TMI) story, so stick with it until the end, it delivers. If you want more, check out Lilu’s blog. And now on with the embarrassment…

The bald policemen, both with faces like a smacked bottom, frog-marched me all the way to the nearest canal where a boat with Polizei stencilled on the hull awaited my arrival. The boat’s captain gave a quick flash of the boat’s blue lights and a toot of the siren in greeting. If the boat had had a low roof, or if either of the officers could actually reach my head, they would have no doubt pushed me under it. Instead, they grunted and waited for me to climb on.

I held my head high in a manner that best befits a noble British naval officer as we puttered along the squalid, soupy canals. I become intensely reflective in times of danger or duress: I begun to wonder if the locals realise that tourists overlook how dirty and smelly their city is just because it’s so damn charming. I pondered where they were taking me and what they might do with me when we got there. I even thought about diving over the edge of the boat, but that would’ve meant leaving my camera behind.

So I’m heading to an Italian police station with nothing more than a rudimentary understanding of the language and primitive stick-men-drawing abilities. In other words, I’m stuck up an effluent-topped canal without a paddle — shit.

We pulled up alongside a nondescript brick building; it had bars across the windows, but no other hints that it might be a police station… or worse… jail…

While being lead inside I took one last look at my surroundings in case I had to describe my location over the phone to the British embassy or Jack Bauer while negotiating an escape plan. They pushed me through a dilapidated swing door that was once navy blue and into some kind of reception. My camera and phone were quickly placed in a locker and a form was placed on the table for me to sign. I reached for the pen slowly but one of the men behind me coughed and shook his head, yanking my handcuffs and pulling backwards towards a small room — surely they’re not going to question me… I don’t speak Italian! — and as if reading my thoughts, the other officer promptly appeared with an Italian-English dictionary.

Flopping the tome open at the centrefold I had a feeling these poor guys had done this before. Brits don’t have a fantastic reputation for being great tourists, mainly because of our yobbish football fans. I was about to receive the same treatment reserved for proper troublemakers — is getting stuck at the top of a major landmark really that anti-social?

“You… make… distress.” I nodded slowly and smiled inanely, hoping I came across as some kind of simple-minded pacifist. It’s at times like these I wish I didn’t have a beard, or really big eyes that have the tendency to make eye-contact for extended periods of time — ‘eyeballing’ they call it, in macho-man and law enforcement circles. The police officer tried again:

“You… inebriated?” I stopped nodding and started shaking my head very quickly. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the other policeman pulling some latex gloves out of his pocket. Oh, not drunk… drugged… The one with the dictionary nodded as his face lit up with a a tight-lipped, grim smile. “We check.” He shut the book and signalled to the other officer to lift me out of the chair, which he did, roughly.

The begloved officer pulls the chair away and pushes it into a corner. He snaps the cuff of the gloves with a thwack while the other man takes my still-cuffed hands and pulls them to the far side of the table, forcing me to lean over. I can feel but cannot see the other officer as he reaches around my waist to undo my trousers. I can feel them falling to my ankles, followed moments later by my underwear.

Looking up at the man that’s pinning my wrists to the edge of the cold metal table I try out my best pitiful whimper, a task made all the more simple by the warm, plasticky hands now groping around my buttocks. I let forth a cry as his stumpy fingers enter me with no ceremony, foreplay or lubrication. Prod, wiggle, grunt. Mamma mia! Che macello! (Don’t look that one up)

And then it’s over and he’s pulling out, I’m being uncuffed and he’s pulling his gloves off into a bin. I lay limply on the table for a few minutes until the one with the dictionary breaks the silence: ‘You… free… go, prego, prego.’ He points to the exit and looks irritably at my half-naked form. Smiling bravely and nodding, I reach down with aching arms to pull up my underwear. Thank God I’d already lost that particular virginity a few years ago, I thought to myself, my senses slowly reclaiming ownership of my body. That would’ve been a fun story to tell the kids: how I lost my anal virginity to a bald fat man — and I didn’t even know his name…

Stumbling out into street I knew I’d got off lightly. It could’ve been a lot worse. I could’ve been thrown into a jail cell with a fat, big-bossomed man called Martha that insists I call him ‘mummy’. I could’ve been deported after just 24 hours in Italy.

Most importantly: the policeman could’ve had cold hands.

I was sitting in front of the TV — not something I do often, I assure you — and for some reason or another my mind wandered towards Germany. I think it was a war film. Anyway, I had a little ponder, a little brainstorm, and I came to the conclusion that I actually know very little about Germany. I also assumed that other people might not know much about pre-War Germany too! Perhaps people study the history of Germany in more detail in other countries, but I can’t imagine it being an important topic outside of Deutchland itself.

There are experts out there, but this entry is not for you — this is just a short piece on the formation of Germany itself: the 2500 years that occurred before the World Wars — believe it or not, a lot has happened there! Our contemporary culture, both European and worldwide, has thick roots that stem from Germany. This little story will wend its way from the Nordic tribal settlers to the early dominance of the Franks; from the long-winded Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to the downfall of the German Empire at the end of the first World War.

Germany’s recorded history begins in 56BC, though for 500 years tribes had been moving down from northern Scandinavia through to Denmark and then Germany. Famously, Caesar (who was first to record the name Germania) built a wooden bridge that spanned the Rhine in just ten days, but then retreated once he heard that the Seubi (Suevi) tribe had amassed a force to repel him, should he attack. The name ‘Seubi’, incidentally, has its roots in the prefix ‘Swe-’ which literally means ‘one’s own’ — the same prefix that gave Sweden its name. The tribe that repelled Caesar was almost certainly from Sweden originally! I’m sure it’s quite common knowledge, but all Prussian and Russian kings — Kaisers and Czars — derive their title directly from Julius Caesar himself.

It’s worth noting that the Seubians were converted from their pagan rituals to Arianism in the 400s — a ‘heretical’ (after the First Council of Nicaea) sect of Christianity that believed Jesus was extraordinary, but not as powerful as God himself. I mention this only because of the later use of the term ‘Aryan’ by the Nazis to represent the one, true, destined-for-leadership master race is completely unrelated — but it’s an interesting coincidence!

The fall of the Western Roman Empire allowed the expansion of the Frankish Empire to begin. Originally a West Germanic confederation of tribes, the Franks would go on to form an empire that would span France, Germany, Northern Italy and make dependent states of the modern-day Eastern Bloc. With the baptism of some Frankish nobles, and later on the work of missionaries from England, Scotland and Ireland, Germany dropped its old Arianist ways and became fully Roman Catholic by the 800s. The aid of the British Catholic missionaries would turn out to be, 1200 years later, beautifully ironic.

Another thing that people forget is that English — both the language and the name — originates from the Western Germanic people of Angeln, or its modern name of ‘Anglia’. Regions of this name still exist in England and Germany! As an aside, while the Angles were settling in what would become England, Britons were settling in Brittany (France) — and while I’m at it (blame the nationalist streak in me), the Normans that invaded England weren’t French — they were descendents of the Vikings that had occupied what would eventually become France! Anyway, back to Germany…

By the 9th and 10th century the Frankish Empire had been divided and weakened enough for the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Despite its awesome name, it did not actually include Rome for most of its rule — the name derived from each new emperor having to be crowned by the Pope. Not a lot happened until the 15th century when the Renaissance finally blew away the cobwebs of the Middle Ages, leaving Germany with the beginnings of a powerful and industrious empire. The 1400s brought us Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the mechanical printing press, and Albrecht Dürer who is widely considered the finest Northern European artist of all time.

The 17th and 18th centuries would finally see the efforts of the Renaissance period come to full fruition: The philosophers Leibniz and Kant; the musicians Bach and Mozart. Genius polymath and the author of Faust, Goethe, would be be the first writer to emerge from the growing, Bohemian strength of the Germany. The turn of the 19th century would see their intellectual powerhouse continue to grow with the birth of philosophers Marx and Nietzsche, the eminence of the piano virtuoso Ludwig van Beethoven, and the composer that would craft musical masterpieces destined to be played at max volume while conquering Europe, or in fact anyone that stands in your way: Wagner. Two of the most important and influential scientists of all time, Planck and Einstein, were also born in Germany during the 19th century.

Throughout the 1600s the Duchy of Prussia had continued its spread across what is now the top of Poland. When the Holy Roman Empire finally fell after the Napoleonic Wars in 1806, Prussia would continue to gain land across the north of Germany. In 1871, with the help of decisive victories on the Franco and Austro-Hungarian fronts, the German Empire was formed by the president of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck with William (Wilhelm) the First installed as emperor. This is the same Empire that would be the unwitting instigator of first World War. Bismarck himself kept the role of Chancellor, the one-man-cabinet, a position whose power would later be confirmed as autocratic by Adolf Hitler.

The next 50 years would see a huge surge in industrial strength and population — from 40 to 70 million, with over half of those living in cities. Germany became the world’s first social welfare state with sickness and maternity leave, and it had a free press! But such privileges and liberties were not easily come by — Germans worked hard; a work ethic that still exists today.

Back in 1800, Napoleon had been crushed by a mix of Prussian (German) and English forces at Waterloo, but how quickly allegiances are forgotten! Only 80 years later, Emperor Wilhelm formed the Triple Alliance with Italy and Austria-Hungary, its purpose to defend itself from potential attacks by Russia, France and Britain — the three countries that then formed a similar, counter-allegiance: the Triple Entente (’Triple Agreement’). It would be Germany’s allegiance to the Austro-Hungarian Empire — and the British Empire’s anger at Germany’s growing navy — that would spur the Triple Entente into joining a war: World War I.

Though it falls outside the scope of this entry, and just because I love bringing religion into these things, I’ll share an ironic little coincidence. When Hitler was made Chancellor he had to pass the Enabling Act of 1933 to actually become the Führer; to effectively demolish the democratic powers of the Reichstag for four years while he ‘tidied things up’ (this sounds a lot like Caesar demanding to be made Dictator back in Rome…) Despite the instigation of concentration camps in the hope of terrorising the populace into voting for Hitler’s party — the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or more commonly ‘Nazis’ — they could only muster 44% of the 66% majority required to pass the Enabling Act. Desperately, he turned to the Catholic Central Party for their votes. They demanded continued liberty for the Church and their involvement in education, which he obviously granted — not that it mattered, after the Act had been passed. The kicker: who brought Catholicism to Germany? Missionaries from Britain!

And there you have it, the exciting history of Germany in 1200 words. If you made it this far — hooray! I hope it wasn’t too boring; I hope you learnt as much as I did. Now I actually have to visit Germany…

Ask Me Anything is turning into an Internet phenomenon! My cute little buttons are turning up on blog sidebars all over the net! My inbox is almost full to overflowing with fun, tricky, geeky and out-right disturbing questions. This week sees the (popular?) return of The Apron, at the behest of one of the anonymous submissions. Remember, if you have anything to ask, ask me. No ‘Sebby In Doctor’s Jacket’. Sorry, I failed!

Dear Bearded Wisdom Dispenser [Bonus points! -S]

Is there any fail-safe way to give a cat medicine? Specifically pills, since the liquids are much easier to force-feed.

My cat nearly died of kidney failure and was sent home on two meds. Then he wouldn’t swallow one of them (for one pilling only!) and had to be re-admitted to the hospital and sent home on FOUR meds. He hates me and I feel like a terrible overlord every time the medicating-by-force hour rolls around.

PETA would be shocked to see me in action, shouting at him and cramming things down his throat! I have tried EVERYTHING: wrap him in a towel, coat the pill with butter, dab butter on his face to make him lick it off and swallow, blow in his face, stroke his neck, prise his jaws open and throw the pill down his throat… even a pill gun! Which is guaranteed by the vet, and yet still the little bugger keeps figuring out ways around my tricks.

As he gets healthier it gets harder and harder to get him medicated! His latest method involves working up so much drool that it literally pours down his front, and washing the pill out in the flood.

What do I do with the little @#!%?? Despite the hell he gives me, I do rather like him and want to make this easier on BOTH of us. Heeeelp!

Entertaining the thought of a home-made fur coat,
Scrawny-but-surprisingly-strong Brunette

Well… kudos for trying so damn hard to help your cat! I think I would’ve given up long ago and simply got a new cat — I’d do the same if I had a troublesome baby too. I guess that’s why no woman has agreed to have children with me yet. Hm. Anyway… This is going to be tough, as you’ve tried almost all of the conventional methods — and even a few highly creative unconventional ones! (Did you photograph your cat covered in butter…?)

There are a few other things you can try though! From easiest to hardest:

• Pill pockets! You can actually buy kitty treats that you can slot the pill into! How cool is that?
• Hide it in his food? You don’t mention it, but I assume you’ve tried hiding the pill in his food? Some experts suggest using a different kind of food that they’ve not had before, so that they won’t know you’ve tampered with it. Best use whole pills, not powdered, so you know how much (or little) of the medication has actually been consumed.
• Dissolve the pill. If all else fails, dissolve the pill into a little water or the juice from a tin of tuna. Then inject it into the cat’s mouth with a little plastic pet syringe (which you can probably get from your vet).

Notice how all of these methods don’t involve holding the cat down (or tying it up in a towel? you cruel mistress!) So hopefully the cat should still be your friend afterwards!

How on earth can ask.com which I have never installed/used hijack my browser?

Better still how the hell do I rid myself of the devlish blighter? Thought I’d consult a master before I go downloading random “fix” software willy-nilly. Thus far I have run Ad-Aware and Spybot and cleared cookies but to no avail

I didn’t surf any porno sites, honest,
Obviously Female from Dakota

Browser hijacking is horrible! You were right to start with Ad-Aware and SpyBot, both of which are usually very good — but not always capable of resolving and removing everything! You’re a bit lacking in details, so I’ll start with the basics and go from there: first, are you sure Ask hasn’t just become your homepage? Are you using Firefox or Internet Explorer? (The solution will vary wildly dependent on which browser you use!)

It might be as simple as resetting your homepage (Tools -> Options -> ‘Main’ or ‘General’ and just set the homepage to Google!) or it might be something a whole lot more gribbly.  A little searching suggests that the main Ask.com hijack involves using Firefox, so I’ll just assume you’re using Firefox…!

• Open up My Computer and navigate to: C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ — alternatively, you can type that address into Start > Run!
• There should be a folder there ending in ‘.default’. It’ll be called something like ‘ym0is63z.default’ — you want to go into that directory, double click it.
• Delete user.js and user.js.bak. That ought to clean things up.

To be honest, the number of hijacks that you could be afflicted by is probably in the hundreds, and I’ve only listed one way to fix it. If all else fails, have you tried Google’s new browser, Chrome? It’s not perfect, but it’s probably the easiest solution to your problem!

Mr Seb,

This morning on a semi-crowded subway car, I encountered a bit of drama when a man 20 years my senior fitted his way into a space between myself and another mid-thirties comely lady like me. After a few beats, I felt this man’s shoe at the edge of mine and then his bag fell against my calf. As there was an empty space this man had just vacated in order to wedge his way betwixt us two and furthermore, since I was in the space I occupied first, I felt no need to move an inch. Therefore, I politely inquired, “Excuse me, sir, would you mind your bag that is touching my leg?” He replied, “I have a bag and you have a bag.” (Indeed, he was showing his brilliance there as we were both holding bags.) Though in truth the ass did position himself near me, so he was actually touching my bag, I recognized my handbag was touching him, so I moved it away from him and repeated my inquiry. He then leaned over near my face and stated, “If you lost some weight, you would have more room.”

Seeing as how I was now dealing with a man-child, say about mental age eight, I responded in kind by saying, “I can lose some weight, but you’re not going to lose your stupid.” Now, I feel my response was adequate. After all, it elicited a boisterous shouting of the word “Porky” from the man on the train, who I might add was clad in a suit. (Quite the professional man, eh?) I definitely wedged under his skin. However, my reply certainly is nothing to send into the history books, and I readily admit that during the fog of my morning commute, I probably plagiarized it from some book or movie.

So here’s my question… [Finally, eh, after a truly Shakespearean/Herculean effort... -S] How would you have responded to the man had you been a witness to this subway folly? I’m also intensely interested in how Apron would have reacted. (I heart Apron.) Thank you (and Apron) in advance for your considered replies.

Regards,
Well Proportioned Lady with robust self-esteem, despite the lunacy of a deranged middle aged man during a NYC commute

Seb

First of all, congratulations on being the first Ask Me Anything that I haven’t had to modify in any way shape or form. Though flowery, your use of language was, I believe, apt. It took me right back to the Middle Ages when men would joust and duel to the death for the privilege of marrying and deflowering the finest of maidens.

As for advice… Do you mean, if I witnessed the situation as the well-proportioned lady in question (i.e. you), or if I was a chivalrous man sitting opposite and watching the sad little incident unfold?

This is where I should probably tell you that I have a bit of a ‘thing’ for busy train carriages. As I’ve already alluded to in my ‘Best places to have sex‘ articles, I do like trains. And busy trains really do it for me… … With that in mind, I give you my wisened advice: Sock it to him! Just scream something along the lines of Hey, stop touching me!, leap out of your chair and swing the aforementioned bag at him. There’s no way in this day and age that anyone will ever doubt the veracity of your claim — yay, feminism! — so there’s likely to be little or no repercussions for a dazzlingly protean display of ball-whacking  audacity in front of the other commuters.

However, if you prefer a more temperate approach, I’d suggest you simply ‘take it like a man’ and just take a photo of him with your phone. Then upload it to your computer, scrawl something rude across it with Paint, and put it on the Internet.

[What follows is one of the funniest things I've ever read... but maybe that's because it's 3am and I'm starting to lose it. -S]

Apron

Dear Big & Bouncy,

How would I have responded to him?  Um, I wouldn’t have.  I’m way too scared of getting knifed in the neck to start shit with obvious lunatics.  Especially lunatics in suits.  They’re known commonly as “Suitatics” or “Mafioso.”

The real issue here is not necessarily how I or anybody else would have responded– the real issue here is the whole confrontation.  Now, you say you love me, and I’m truly touched and flattered by that.  And, honeybear, I love you too, so I know you won’t mind when I tell you that both you and the suit-wearing dickhead were both behaving like five-year-old children on this particular subway ride.  So, maybe the guy shouldn’t have placed himself in between you and the other “mid-thirties comely lady,” but he did.  The last time I checked the New York State’s penal codes, standing in between two people on a subway isn’t a crime, even if there is space elsewhere in the car.

Right?  Right.

Here’s the sad, cold, hard, unpleasant truth of life: in subway cars, people touch each other.  To me, if I can ride the MTA from Brooklyn to Coney Island without enduring somebody’s finger in my asshole or their chin-zit on my shoulder, then I think I’ve done pretty okay for myself.  So his shoe was at the edge of yours.  So his bag was touching your leg.  Jesus Christ, you sound like a child in the back of the Oldsmobuick with your older brother on a family vacation to Hot Springs.  “He keeps touching me!”  “She won’t stop licking my seatbelt!”  “He keeps shoving his fingers in his eye sockets and rubbing the goo on my t-shirt!”

Um, yeah.  Get the fuck over yourself.

Seriously– if you had just endured his shoe touching yours and his bag touching your leg, you wouldn’t have made the totally unnecessary comment about his bag touching your leg, the comment that escalated this whole series of events.  And he wouldn’t have called you “Porky,” which I’m sure you’re not.  Now, was he in the right for doing that?  Certainly not.  He obviously wasn’t brought up by kind, egalatarian, loving parents.  And, if he was, he probably killed them and ate them the morning of this unfortunate subway ride– chalk his brusque comment up to a little indigestion.

I’m willing to bet that this isn’t the only instance of Subway Drama that has involved you, has it?  Honestly, if you’re going to live in NYC and ride the MTA every day of your life, you’re going to have to get used to people mashing your buxomness, stepping on your Nine Wests and breathing pickle steam down your neck.  That’s just the way it is.  And I tell it like it is.  ‘Cause I’m a 20 something blogger, and I’ve got snark leaking out of my ass, little bitches.  Don’t stand next to me on the subway, some snark might get on your skirt.

That about wraps it up for another week! Share my Ask Me Anything buttons around! (How smooth am I? Getting better at this self-promotion thing…)

I had a few personal questions trickle in this week, which I don’t mind, but they’re outside the scope of Ask Me Anything. Feel free to email any questions you might have though, or perhaps you might find the information you’re looking for on the ‘About‘ page. Alternatively, I might compile a few personal questions and post them all at once — but that’s getting awfully close to those list-style Internet memes that I do so despise.

I’ve covered the sorry state of knowledge and inherent lack of truth that plagues contemporary society.

But it didn’t start yesterday or even 100 years ago! It’s an eternally recurring theme of dumbing-down and almost-truths dispensed by nasty people posing as intellectual authorities over thousands of years. There is an endemic ‘loss of wisdom’ that has an iteratively degenerative effect, gaining more momentum with each generation.

Historically these lies, these tales, were of a philosophical or mythical nature and virtually harmless. They were stories that became true through retelling: Hercules, Romulus, Arthur. The stories were told first by the travelling bard, then more abstractly through tribalism and shamanism. Polytheism followed with its anthropomorphic (god of wine, god of war) pantheon of valiant heroes and demigods. Finally monotheism trumped them all and wrapped up with its epic, fearsomely vengeful tale of apocalyptic events.

Old wives’ tales (or fables or myths or whatever!) might’ve been lies or half-truths but they didn’t really harm anyone; they might have been ‘not ideal’, but that’s not the point — they were moving towards the ideal — they were retold to children with good intentions! The same could be said for the basic spiritual maxims of most religions: everlasting life; don’t murder; try your best not to sodomise your brother’s wife; treat others how you would like to be treated. All good but… it sadly didn’t last. Something changed. All of a sudden enforcement entered the equation. Arbitrary enforcement: rules, laws and peer pressure with little or no basis in moral/cultural advancement or ethical living. If abstract/intellectual enforcement wasn’t enough, there was a strong physical aspect too: witch-hunts, the Inquisition and the Crusades are but a few obvious examples.

Why did it happen? For thousands of years our focus had been on becoming a more advanced race. But one day, probably after the fall of Rome, we woke up and well… we fell asleep again. Life was no longer about pushing the progress of civilisation. Perhaps it was our growing understanding of human anatomy and psychology that caused the change. Maybe it was due to the formation of metropolises like Rome and the urgent need to control large groups of people quickly and easily. Personally I think the continued development of written and spoken language — and rhetoric — played a big role. Whatever it was, something snapped. No longer was storytelling used to share wisdom or morals to improve our progeny’s standard of living. Gone were the tales that frightened children away from actual dangers like dank caves or poisonous fruits.

A new breed of story started to appear, tales that weaved lies and believable half-truths into their narrative. And we know that words, both written and spoken, have a terrible power. Instead of cresting taller peaks and pushing towards new horizons people started to fear their surroundings. Authorities of knowledge slowly faded away to be replaced by scary chieftains, oppressive teachers, greedy priests and, of course, a vengeful God.

I’ve written about magic before and how it is ultimately synonymous with technology. Television was magic (find an old person that was around when television was invented and talk to them about it!) but sure enough, it very quickly became mundane. What do you think would’ve happened to the inventor of the television if he had been around in the Middle Ages? What do you think ‘witchcraft’ actually was? With such an attitude towards innovation and revolution (or evolution, hah!), is it a surprise that books, education and intellectual enlightenment all but disappeared for 1,000 years?

For a very, very long time the pursuit of knowledge and truth — science! — was frowned upon, persecuted. Scientists were shunned or burnt at the stake. Why?

Because they were dangerous. Knowledge is power.

We humans learnt just enough for the monotheistic surge to take place. We learnt how to exploit the human love of mystery with smart wit and sharp turns of dogmatic phrase. We have become a scared and tentative flock too fearful to break from the pack. In essence we learnt just enough to be dominated and no more.

And now we await — or do we create? –  the next Renaissance where veracity of knowledge is returned to us.

***

Still more to come, I think; on prejudice and ignorance. Oh, and if you’re reading this on the blog itself, remember you can double click a word to find out what it means!