It's Monday night and the e-pilg transcriber's awake! :)

I know I have mentioned this before on one of these sites, but I was in Finland just over a year ago, and the first ten minutes of the Finnish evening news was all about how cold it was. They were interviewing people from Siberia who were complaining about the cold. I remember calculating at the time that we were down in the range where it didn't make much difference whether we were talking F or C. (It was down to at least -31C.)

[rab] Indeed I am, sir! I wouldn't put anything past them!

Nice one in the 50 Ways, Guest Login! Should've been fiftieth, that one. Any ideas for the next lot?

Ladies and gentlemen... just to conduct a straw poll, if the top-left-hand corner of this page doesn't look (roughly) like this:

Could you inform. Obliged.

Well, mine looks like that little mc5 symbol in a white square on a grey background.

rab]Running IE6 I see the logo is on white background.

Not on my IE or Firbird browsers, rab. I confirm Inkspot's comment regarding the IE6 background.

There's so many people who aren't getting the full smoothness of this site...

I must be going bonkers. The Firebird browser shows a smooth and 'highlighted' mc⁵ logo, whereas the IE shows the same image but with the white rectangular background; sorry for any confusion.

It's a (fairly) specific (range of) version(s) of IE that don't render transparencies in pngs. I don't like gifs and I don't know how to set the default background colour of a png. Yet.

rab]Running IE6 I see the logo is on white background too. What was clever was your screen capture insert!

[Chalky] I don't even want to think about doing that

I discover a shiny new magazine in my pigeonhole tomorrow, in which the new university logo' (for some reason, it has a trailing apostrophe in the article) was unveiled. Sadly, I can't track down a website with it on, but it looks a bit like this MANCHESTER with the number "1824" under the gold lettering. Vertically upwards and below to the left we have (on two lines) "The University" and "of Manchester" in a sort of matt grey sans-serif. In case we needed any explanation, here it is:

It features a simple, but distinctive, typographical treatment of the word "Manchester" that acknowledges the key feature of our brand and the way in which colloquially people talk about universities. ... The positioning of the full university title alongside the word "Manchester" is also a crucial element of the overall logotype, achieving a contemporary and consistent look whilst reinfocing the University's official name.

Later, we learn that "more detailed information about the reputation-building project and how to use the visual identity will be explained in a special leaflet and website". I will of course let you know when this happens.

(apologies for the bizarre timeshifting in the first sentence)

[rab] I wonder which firm of consultants trousered the (no doubt) six-or-seven-figure sum for coming up with that!

[rab] Ah, but are you in the same situation as Nottingham where it's compulsory to use the corporate identity (and to make sure you're using the latest up-to-date one -- we recently had a wavy line representing the Trent River removed) on any materials designed for outside consumption (eg talk slides)?

I presume people read about East Midlands airport which wanted to get a new name everyone could identify. It's now called Nottingham East Midlands, despite the fact it's not in Nottinghamshire and the nearest places are Derby, Loughborough and Leicester.

[Twiki] Are they getting American flights in? Most of us over here think they're "Durbee", "Low-burrow", and "Lie-cester"....

[rab] No IE (on Windows, anyway. Dunno if IE5/Mac works) supports transparent PNGs. [Dujon] There's something wrong with your Firebird if it doesn't support transparent PNGs - Firefox is the way forward, of course. There are actual usability and performance improvements post-0.8.

[Chalky] I just noticed your email thingy up above. I used to live opposite a girl called Karen Davenport, about whom I recall nothing except that her house had great pillars at the front. Was that you? Thought not.

Many happy returns of the day!

[Nik] Surely you mean post-0.7 for the last Firebird release, since 0.8 is/was the first Firefox?

[Breadmaster] I've lived in a few houses in my time and recall that at least three of them had great pillars at the front. Where was it? Oh yes - if you noticed my posting about the ISIHACThemeNightInRugby - perhaps you can give some thought as to whether you can join in? Eh? Eh? Eh?

[Tobes] thank you :-)

[Dr Q+] It constantly amazes me that Americans, most of whom speak English as their 1st language, have such trouble with English place names. Especially as so many of them are duplicated in the States. Why, do you think, this should be?
Actually Nottingham already has an airport! No scheduled flights, mainly freight and private planes, but it's there, nevertheless, and I've been there to see brother-in-law's plane (of which he owns one wing and the rear wheel, or something like that.)

[Twiki] The impression I got from the little local news I ever watch was that most people in Derby, Loughborough, Leicester, etc. (or at least the ones they bothered to interview), were generally quite p-ed off by the existence of the airport and "if Nottingham want it, they can have it" (apparently believing that the renaming would somehow magically move it somewhere where they wouldn't be under the flight path).

I've got tickets to the concert I've been waiting for! Yes! Sorry, just needed to share that with someone. :D :D :D

At least someone has tickets. *sigh*

[HB] You usually find the more English place names in New England (esp. around Boston.) Another problem is that many names are Americanised so that some consonants are de-silenced and others are eliminated; e.g. around here, North Versailles is pronounced "North Ver-sales"; Baden is "Bay-den"; Cheswick is "Chez-wick"; East Liberty is "E-Slibberdee"; White Oak is "Whairda-helzat". Strange that Duquesne is still "Doo-kane", but there we are.

There is one more town here that's worth mentioning. It's called "SNPJ" -- I swear I am not making that up -- it stands for "Slovenska Narodna Podporna Jednota".

(Herr Bratsche) I think you're a bit hard on the Yanks. If there's anything that shows up the vagaries of language it's local pronunciation. For instance, in south London there's Streatham (pr. Strettum) and in Berkshire there's Streatley (pr. Streetly). And why are Ardingly and Hellingly (Sussex) pronounced as if they have a final "e"? Who knows? (Dr Q) Near Mrs Trellis' house is the 58-letter name we all know, but the locals all call it Llanfair PG. (All) Anyone here from Shrewsbury? I call it Shrooze-brie. How say you?

(Rosie)Us Bristolians call it Shrowz-brie. And why is Berkshire "Barkshire"?

(Dr Q) In one of the jazz pubs I go to is a vast mural with a map of the lower Mississippi and New Orleans and there is a place on the river called D'Lo (presumably at one time De l'eau). We don't take anglicisation quite that far because we've got places such as Grosmont (N. Yorks) and Grosvenor (London) in which the "s" is silent, even though the names are several hundred years old. (Bigsmith) Yes, why, particuarly as Berkhampstead is BURK, but not Berkeley Square. Re Shrewsbury - two locals I have known call it Shrooze, for what it's worth.

Towns in America often have names reflecting the language its settlers spoke, or occasionally that of the natives who previously occupied the area. Mind you, these don't quite explain some towns just East of Lancaster, PA....