4 spiders a year...

Some pre-match trivia

• Real Madrid have won all their home matches at the Bernabeu this season, seeing off Ajax, Lyon, Dynamo Zagreb, CSKA Moscow and Apoel Nicosia, scoring 22 goals and conceding just five.

• The average person eats 4 spiders every year in their sleep.

• In 19 matches between the clubs, Bayern have won 11 compared to Real's six, but the Spanish side have won six out of nine games against Bayern at home. In four European Cup semi-finals between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, the German side have won three times.

• The only animal with four knees is the elephant.

• Between them Real Madrid and Bayern Munich have won 13 European Cups. Four-time winners Bayern last won it in 2001, while nine-times champions Real Madrid hoisted the famous old trophy most recently in 2002.

• A whopping 75% of the world's population wash themselves in the shower from the top down to toe.

Real Madrid: Casillas, Arbeloa, Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Marcelo, Alonso, Khedira, Di Maria, Ozil, Ronaldo, Benzema.
Subs: Adan, Kaka, Granero, Fabio Coentrao, Albiol, Higuain, Callejon.

Bayern Munich: Neuer, Lahm, Boateng, Badstuber, Alaba, Gustavo, Schweinsteiger, Ribery, Kroos, Robben, Gomez.
Subs: Butt, Olic, Rafinha, Pranjic, Muller, Contento, Tymoschuk.

Barry Glendenning
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 April 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/25/real-madrid-bayern-munich-live-mbm

Football is a strange sport.

They survived Gary Cahill's injury, John Terry's red card and going behind, and still had time to see Lionel Messi, the greatest player in the world, miss a penalty. Football is a strange sport.

Jacob Steinberg
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 April 2012 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/apr/24/barcelona-chelsea-champions-league-live-mbm

French presidential election: first round.

lemonde

Irresistible Signs

Language is now understood as a key component of cultural identity, but discourses on linguistic nationalism are only a few centuries old. In Irresistible Signs, Paola Gambarota investigates the connection between Italian language and national identity over four hundred years, from late-Renaissance linguistic theories to nineteenth-century nationalist myths. Challenging the consensus that linguistic nationalism originated with nineteenth century German philosophers, Irresistible Signs advances a more nuanced theory of how culture and language become inextricably linked through literary and rhetorical elements. Gambarota combines Anglo-American theories of the nation with the most advanced Italian scholarship on language ideology and delves into ideas from Giambattista Vico, Giacomo Leopardi, and Melchiorre Cesarotti. Irresistible Signs also explores how images of national communities are represented within vernaculars, affirming their influence in shaping contemporary models of monolingual nationhood.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irrestible-Signs-Language-National-Identity/dp/144264298X

magnetic resonance and... wine and... cocaine

In vino Spectroscopy

http://www.spectroscopynow.com/coi/cda/detail.cda?chId=5&id=24342&type=Feature&page=1

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science_technology/Hospital_scanners_detect_cocaine_in_wine.html?cid=28681012

http://corrieredelmezzogiorno.corriere.it/napoli/notizie/scuola/2010/19-ottobre-2010/i-narcos-mettono-cocaina-vinoun-napoletano-li-sventa-lo-scanner-1703984729753.shtml

http://www.mk.ru/science/article/2010/09/30/533370-naydut-kokain-ne-vlezaya-v-butyilku.html

http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=FP7_ART185_NEWS_EN&ACTION=D&DOC=1&CAT=NEWS&QUERY=012c11b922b4:3f11:5cbcc6be&RCN=32671

http://www.chemistryviews.org/details/ezine/854017/Cocaine_Stored_In_Alcohol.html

trompez

20:35

Mando l'sms:

Trovato il pub - si aspetta il fischio d'inizio...

20:36

Ricevo l'sms:

Désolée, je ne comprends pas de kel pub vous parlez!!

20:37

Penso: 'wow, Enzo parla bene il francese..'

20:45

Mando l'sms:

Si parte!!!!!!

21:35....Intervallo della partita, provo a telefonare, nessuna risposta

21:37

Ricevo l'sms:

Je suis votre prof de francais, vous vous trompez de personne

In an average year

In an average year, 30 murders are committed in Norway. In three hours one afternoon in July last year, Anders Behring Breivik more than doubled that figure.

Helen Pidd in Oslo

guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 April 2012 13.16 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/16/anders-behring-breivik-cries-own-propaganda-film

We will win, Mr Obama. You and me, together.

Nicolas Sarkozy has been accused of using a video conference with Barack Obama to boost his election campaign. In an unprecedented move in French diplomacy, newscasts on several TV channels showed the first few minutes of a video link-up between the French president and his Washington counterpart.

Days before the 22 April first-round vote in the French presidential election, the rare glimpse of banter between world leaders shows Obama saying of the campaign, "It must be a busy time." He adds: "I admire the tough battle you are waging." Sarkozy replies, grinning and with arms folded: "We will win, Mr Obama. You and me, together." The cameras leave before the presidents talk about Syria, Iran and oil.

The Socialist party accused Sarkozy of breaking diplomatic protocol and embarrassing France on the world scene in order to boost his struggling campaign for re-election, saying the images "weakened France's credibility in Washington and across the world".

The SNJ-CGT journalists' union at the state broadcaster France Televisions condemned what it deemed "a grotesque communications operation" by Sarkozy, calling it a "surrealist sequence" of electoral media strategy.

French media questioned whether the White House knew the footage would be made public or whether Obama was set up. But Washington told Le Monde it had indeed been aware that cameras were authorised to film the first few minutes of the video conference.

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 April 2012 11.50 BST

random citations from Nobel Laureates

'I have read through this interesting report now. We need to have a discussion of some of the key findings and their presentation. I am NOT supportive of submission of the manuscript as it is. Let me stress that this is not intended to reflect negatively on the project or the hard work. Writing an effective paper that crosses disciplines in medicine is difficult!'

Anna Brüggemann

© Wuestefilm Ost


Robert Gwisdek, Anna Brüggemann, Jacob Matschenz.

seldom

Professional golfers seldom hit shanks. Woods hit two in the space of two holes, at the 15th and 16th. Garnish those with a broad selection of poor drives, bad putts and what a tennis buff would call "racket abuse" and you have a meal guaranteed to bring indigestion.