Time to renew the green card for the car; these two clauses of the policy caught my eye.

La couverture d'assurance fournie par les cartes vertes délivreés pour Chypre est limitée aux parties géographiques de Chypre qui sont sous le contrôle du gouvernement de la République de Chypre.

Regrettable, but clear enough.

La couverture d'assurance fournie par les cartes vertes délivreés pour la Serbie-Montenegro est limitée aux parties géographiques de la Serbie-Montenegro qui sont sous le contrôle du gouvernement de Serbie-Montenegro.

A lot trickier. Having observed the government of Serbia and Montenegro since its formation, it seems to me that some parts of the territory are under the control of the Republic of Montenegro, some under the control of the Republic of Serbia, and some under the control of the United Nations pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1244. I think the answer is to try and avoid having to make an insurance claim while you are there.

From the latest issue of Deutschland: Forum on politics, culture and business:

...the Germans are generally very, very friendly, they have not invaded a neighbouring country for 60 years, and they can even make you laugh! They are very similar to the Dutch.

Of course the writer of the article is Dutch, so that last bit is mean to be a real compliment. Really.

But if I was one of the German taxpayers who had funded this magazine I think I would be tempted to ask for my money back!

4) Creatures of Light and Darkness, by Roger Zelazny

Returning to an early favourite for me here; it must be over twenty years since I first read this, and I think maybe as many as ten years since I picked up this copy in an English seaside resort. The plot, to be honest, doesn't hold much water: far in the future, the Egyptian deities have returned (or some godlike beings have set themselves up as such) and are in charge of the universe. Various other mythical and cyborg beings drop in on proceedings. But really the book is a delight for the language and the impassioned present tense narrative, which sweeps you along so effectively that you don't notice how little sense it makes. Notable also for the Possibly Proper Death Litany, an agnostic's prayer:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

and for the great line, "They are my innards! I will not have them read by a poseur!"

5) The Alphabet, by David Sacks

I put this on my Amazon wish list ages ago, and can't remember why; but anyway I decided I might as well buy it and read it a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The book can't quite decide whether it's a serious investigation of the history of orthography or a collection of fun trivia snippets. I did learn a lot about the first Semitic alphabet, from which most others are descended, and its descent to us through the Phoenicians, Greeks, Etruscans, Romans and French. But I was disappointed not to learn more about other alphabets than ours - especially the Georgian script which as most of you will know fascinates me. (Does the Georgian თ have any relation to our "t"? Does their ო have a common lineage with our "o"? Or უ with "u"?)

Also the fact that the book is essentially an assemblage of 26 newspaper columns, one for each letter, meant that several topics came up again and again without ever being fully explored. One topic that I already know a bit about, but where I'd hoped to learn more, was the Great Vowel Shift. One topic that I know almost nothing about and where I found the information provided infuriatingly minimal and repetitive was the evolution of minuscule letters, and indeed why we have upper and lower case now - Georgian doesn't, for instance, and Arabic takes a whole different approach to letter shapes.

I particularly hated the practice of inserting explanatory boxes for sub-topics within the main text. Apart from the fact that it makes the main argument (such as it is) difficult to follow, I found (ironically) the fonts used for some of the boxes difficult to read. And the structure became confusing rather than ordered. The only person who has really done these vignettes well is Norman Davies in his Europe: A History, and others shouldn't try to copy him unless they really know what they are doing.

So, in summary, an unsatisfying book on a fascinating subject.

Despite theferrett's scorn, I'll do this.

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Having written this, I realise that communicator got there first. What the heck, it just proves that great minds think alike!