Why Do British People Think The EU Is Their Enemy?

Channel 4 News is very good.

Blockquote

ā€¦ We could not know then that our political leaders were going to abdicate all responsibility for making that future secure.

Blockquote

Well said.

Al Jazeera is excellent. It makes the BBC seem like a one horse race. Global coverage from a different perspective.

Exactly why I so enjoyed reading mediaeval Arabic and Persian books and manuscripts as an undergraduate. It is good to see things from outwith the orthodox framework.

Oo VĆ©ro you are a brain box! :grinning:

Answer me this svp: how do arabic scholars and little kiddies manage not to smudge their writing when they have to write so fluidly from right to left? Or are they born left-handed? :thinking::baby::point_left:

I write left handed and often wondered how right-handed people manage? :thinking::joy::hugs:

TouchƩ de la main gauche, Peter ! :blush:

1 Like

Writing is cursive and was traditionally done with a qalam or reed pen - now with a biro etc thereā€™s no more reason to smudge it than going the other way.

Can you smudge a clay tablet?

Probably but they were used with a vertical jabbing movement making dents (if you are thinking of cuneiform writing) not a sliding horizontal one leaving an ink trail.

I was indeed

Cambridge University has just made a film in Babylonian, a story about a man, a goat and revenge.
It was translated from an ancient tablet and will show sub titles.
It is available on line.
I thought you might be interested.

1 Like

Ooh yes, thank you Jane. Is it the old man of NiĢˆppur? The same or a very similar story was made into a modern Egyptian play but not for scholarly story resurrecting reasons, because it had endured, isnā€™t that amazing :relaxed: there is a brilliant bit of audio of a chap reading the Epic of Gilgamesh in the original (or how we imagine the original) it is marvellous. Thank you again for telling me!

Sorry, they didnā€™t name the story.
Iā€™m glad you are interested.

Me to Jane, reading up on the Babylonians and Sumerians

2 Likes

Wonderful! Thank you. Heā€™s sitting in front of my old college at the start of the film :blush:
Poor man of Nippur, obviously, not old man. Iā€™m an idiot.

A wonderfully different treat. Thanks to all concerned.