It's been a good week for … the Scots language
It's been a good week for … the Scots language
Comic legend Oor Wullie is to help children learn Scots. Wullie has been appearing weekly in the Sunday Post newspaper since 1936. Now, the National Library of Scotland has launched the Oor Wullie's Guide Tae Scots Language website, designed to help primary school children become more familiar with Scots words. Activities include quizzes, word searches, flash cards and a tool to design their own comic. Children used to be discouraged from speaking Scots in the classroom, but the website has been designed to fit in with the Curriculum for Excellence.
Dr Alasdair Allan, minister for Scotland's languages and a boyhood Oor Wullie fan, said he was "delighted" to launch the website, adding: "Scots is a fantastic language, with brilliantly descriptive words like driech, slitter or wheesht."
This is all braw and I'd be the first to encourage young people to explore the language of their roots and keep it alive. But, please, could they also get to grips with Scottish Standard English, too? You know: proper sentence structure, good punctuation and accurate spelling.
Jings, Wullie! That's more for your bucket list.
It's been a bad week for … birthday presents
What do you get the president who has everything? Why, a collection of specially commissioned art depicting the birthday boy as a superhero, of course.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was immortalised as Hercules in a Moscow exhibition to honour his 62nd birthday. The one-night-only show reimagined his achievements as the 12 Labours of Hercules, beginning with the slaying of the Nemean lion - Putin strangling a bearded suicide bomber, representing terrorism.
The most impressive painting showed a muscular Putin lifting his shield against the poisonous breath of the Lernaean Hydra - Western sanctions against Russia. The US head of the hydra had been lopped off, reflecting the ban on food imports from the US, European Union, Norway, Canada and Australia that Russia adopted in August, said exhibition organiser, Mikhail Antonov, who heads a Facebook Putin fan group.
One painting, showing Putin holding up the heavens, has the following description: "The sky that could fall on the earth is the war in once-thriving Ukraine. And it's only with the help of Putin, who achieved the Minsk peace agreement, that it hasn't fallen yet."
It seems that the power of mythology lives on.
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