Month: December 2010

No Drinking, No Smoking, No Cursing, and Always Wash Behind your Ears

I loved the original short movies. I got very excited when the trailer came out. I even braved the Christmas shoppers on a lunchtime hike from Waterloo to Carnaby Street to see their attempt at viral marketing. I’m happy to say that the movie itself didn’t disappoint.

On paper, it sounds like a complete farce. A Finnish comedy-horror about miners unearthing the real Father Christmas, who isn’t as jolly as the Coca-Cola corporation would have us believe. Instead of sneaking into people’s homes and exchange presents for gingerbread, Santa delivers spanked bottoms and boiled children. It’s then up to a bunch of reindeer herders and the only nice (if rather odd-looking) child to save the day and rescue the naughty kids.

It might just be the foreign language making it feel less of a spoof, but the movie itself has turned out to be one of the best Christmas films in years. A great mixture of creeping suspense, some genuinely scary moments, and a great heart that Disney hasn’t had since the Fifties.

I’d be interested to hear what a Finnish person thought of it; the audience at the Cambridge Picturehouse seemed to be in tears of laughter at random scenes, so much so that I was seconds away from standing up and brandishing my laminated copy of Wittertainment’s Code of Conduct. Either they were high or Finnish, in which case I’m missing out on some subtleties of their culture.

Don’t let the threat of sniggering Scandewigians put you off, however. Go and see this movie before Santa puts you on the naughty list.

You definitely don’t want to be on the naughty list.

Two Nations Divided by a Common Language

Dara Ó Briain recently posted this video on Twitter to show just how different the Irish and British are in spite of a couple of centuries of speaking the same language.

In the early days of living together, I asked Ang to put the messages in the press. While simultaneously trying to figure out when I’d installed a device for receiving emails into an iron and dialling NHS Direct to get an ambulance sent out she didn’t realise that her first forays into Hiberno-English were occurring. Nowadays things are regularly grand in our house – to be sure things are rarely things any more, but yokes – and the expletive of choice is feck.

In return I’ve started saying “Ta ra!” and Tidy, which sound quite daft in a Dublin accent.

At least I didn’t mention the Immersion.

Ranger, Barbarian, Magician, Thief, Cavalier, Acrobat… and Dick

Have you noticed everyone on Facebook changing their profile pictures into cartoon characters from their childhood. You may have done this yourself. You may have been guilted into doing so by random appeals on behalf of the NSPCC or other child protection agencies. You might even have changed your profile picture into a character from Dungeons and Dragons, maybe Dungeon Master himself.

Remember Dungeons and Dragons? Kind, friendly Dungeon Master leads our youthful protagonists through a series of trials and adventures always ending in IMPORTANT LESSONS on FRIENDSHIP and SHARING. What a nice chap.

Wrong.

Dungeon Master was an asshat. He abducted six kids and an endangered animal, tortured them for fourteen hours, and left them to die in unresolved peril. Want to raise awareness about child abuse? There’s your child abuse right there.

Dungeon Master – the Joseph Fritzl of cartoon land.

Update: We have received an injunction from the Unicorn Anti-defamation League and therefore are obliged to say that Uni was hella cute, if a little bit whiny. We offer our apologies and no offence towards any magical creature was intended.

Except to Dungeon Master. He’s a dick.

“I’ll plant a mango tree in your mother’s posterior and copulate with your sister in the shade”

Untranslatable Pun
Image by stallkerl via Flickr

Awesome Reddit thread on untranslatable phrases from languages other than English. The Afrikaans ones are particularly great:

soutpiel

Which translates to “Saltcock”, implying that they have one leg in England, one leg in South Africa, and their dick is dangling in the ocean.

Some Irish Gaelic ones:

  • Scaoil amach do bhoibilín – Go for it (literally: set your glans free).
  • Is dócha nach bhfuil seans ar bith ann – Would sir/madam like to engage in a copulatory ritual (literally: I suppose there’s no chance of it?)
  • Ag deanamh neamhshuim – To engage in the act of excretion (literally: making bad jam)

Sidenote: Scaoil Amach an Bobailín was an Irish language youth show that ran from 1990 to 1993. Someone at RTÉ missed out on the literal translation.

(via Waxy Links)