(function() { (function(){function b(g){this.t={};this.tick=function(h,m,f){var n=void 0!=f?f:(new Date).getTime();this.t[h]=[n,m];if(void 0==f)try{window.console.timeStamp("CSI/"+h)}catch(q){}};this.getStartTickTime=function(){return this.t.start[0]};this.tick("start",null,g)}var a;if(window.performance)var e=(a=window.performance.timing)&&a.responseStart;var p=0=c&&(window.jstiming.srt=e-c)}if(a){var d=window.jstiming.load; 0=c&&(d.tick("_wtsrt",void 0,c),d.tick("wtsrt_","_wtsrt",e),d.tick("tbsd_","wtsrt_"))}try{a=null,window.chrome&&window.chrome.csi&&(a=Math.floor(window.chrome.csi().pageT),d&&0=b&&window.jstiming.load.tick("aft")};var k=!1;function l(){k||(k=!0,window.jstiming.load.tick("firstScrollTime"))}window.addEventListener?window.addEventListener("scroll",l,!1):window.attachEvent("onscroll",l); })();

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Man of Straw


Well, looks like Sobieski needn't have bothered. Nor all the Turks who, having sat down and meditated on the lessons of history, not least of all on the famous line directed to those whose skins were saved by the above chap on horse, about fighting and marrying, have moved into Austria and are living happy married lives dedicated not to maintaining the annual revenues of Durex and Schering AG but to raising children. The Austrians are too busy drinking coffee and dying their hair in shades of orange (is that just the villages?) to have children. By time Turkey joins the EU in fifteen years' time, how many of the non-retired in Austria will be Turkish? And of them, how many will be secular atheist Turks?

(No am not Daily Mail's target reader, before people start foaming at the mouth in a PC sort of way.)
(But when looking for a link to an English version of Sobieski's letter I came across this hoot. Possibly up there with the British Israelites.)