Jacob Christensen

Or rather, two chairwomen and one chairman:

1. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Social Democrats (Denmark) – 2007-09-08
2. Jan Bj�rklund, Liberals (Sweden) – 2007-09-08
3. Maud Olofsson, Centre Party (Sweden) – 2007-09-01 Warning: doc/MS-Word format

• Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Electronic downloads make us want our Pavarottis in person even more
  Prince makes no bones about it. Once he toured to promote his albums; now he gives away albums to promote his tours.
  (tags: music internet art)
• Geisteswissenschaften – Wissenschaft – Wissen – ZEIT online
  Die Klage von der Krise der Geisteswissenschaften lenkt ab von dem wahren Problem: Der Vernachl�ssigung der Lehre
  (tags: academic education germany University humanities)
• Economist’s View: The Job News is Not Good
  …but let’s not pretend that using tax policy to stimulate the economy is faithful to supply-side ideals.
  (tags: academic economics economy usa labourmarket)

Mark Thoma discusses the surprise slashing of iPhone prices from an economic perspective. Compare with Joy of Tech’s take on the issue.

Declaration of interest: I bought a Nokia 6233 in June. Works perfect with a mac, even though you need to find a plug-in to make synchronisation work.

One suggestion for the Danish international team before the Euro 2008 qualifier: Follow the footsteps of the New Zealand “All Blacks” and perform a haka. (See also this) The Swedes’ only possible answer will be to perform “Sm� groderna”.

It should be a walk-over the rest of the way.

Svenska Handelsbanken – or rather: a very clumsy sysop at SHB – gives the term bank-robber a new meaning.

I hope that I’m not ruining the quiz over at Language Log but in Danish, “white goods” (hvidevarer) are household appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators etc. To be more precise, they are known as h�rde hvidevarer (“hard white goods” – or perhaps “white hardware” would be a better fit?).

On a completely unrelated note, a Swedish student once told me that he was fascinated by the fact that the usual Danish word for drugs is stoffer (stuff may be the best translation but “matter” and “textiles” are two other meanings) or even h�rde stoffer (hard stuff). I would appreciate if Fredrik Lindstr�m could inform me where the Swedes got their knark from.

Stoffer – with a capital S – is the usual pet name for someone called Christoffer. When the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes was translated into Danish, the main characters lost their philosophical element and became known as Steen og Stoffer. Occasionally, you might get the impression that Steen was on stoffer.

Note to self: Proof-read before pressing “Publish”.