Châtenay-Malabry (FR - 92290), 1 October 2018

EFITA newsletter / 845 - European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


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Efita Newsletter - 844 Statistics
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(Nobody is perfect – GW): Barack Obama’s not keen on pudding. This means we can never be friends, by Agnès Poirier

The best way to tell if you’re compatible with someone? See how much butter they spread on their bread and how often they order dessert.
…/…
On holiday, a friend of a friend related for my amusement selected highlights from the recently published memoirs of the former French president, François Hollande. In the book, which is called, somewhat unexcitingly, The Lessons of Power, Hollande throws shade at Barack Obama by describing his distinct lack of enthusiasm in the matter of dinner. Apparently, he never once saw Obama have pudding. Even worse, offered a selection of magnificent fromages during a state dinner, the American president opted – c’est scandaleux – for only one thin slice of perfect ripeness, and there on his plate this pathetic sliver remained for the rest of the evening.

.../...
But I’m with François now, all the way to the bistro and beyond. Appetite is so important. Just as you want a friend who likes butter on her bread, so you want a lover who thinks breakfast is worth taking time over. (And lunch. And dinner.) I’m not sure about crumbs in the bedroom. I’m fastidious enough to hope Hollande and his mistress got up to drink their coffee. But I am absolutely certain that a man who notices what another man leaves on his plate has some of his priorities right, if not all.
See The Guardian



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A Better Bailout Was Possible, by Rob Johnson and George Soros (after the 2008 crisis)
See Project Syndicate


Only the British could have invented this language

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not, oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham ?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it ?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites ?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

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