Strange World

Throughout Glasgow we have photographed … well, the strange things. Signs, in particular, have been a source of interest, in particular because occasionally the words have meanings which escape us, or the usage is different than we’d find on a sign in the US.

Another strange thing we’ve noted have been unusual T-shirts, sweatshirts, and sports paraphernalia (which is difficult to photograph, as usually someone is wearing it). We see random nonsensical sentence T-shirts worn by University students of non English-speaking countries — their meanings are lost in translation. However, a few days ago D. saw someone wearing a t-shirt which proclaimed itself to be for “Pacific Union College … Virginia.” The PUC with which we’re familiar would, of course, be in California – somewhat closer to the Pacific Ocean than Virginia which is near the Atlantic. Then there are the full, coordinated outfits for the alleged “Oak. Athletics” – which, to anyone who’s familiar with the Bay Area, would be a teensy bit odd because Oakland wouldn’t be abbreviated but Athletics could be abbreviated to “A’s” without any trouble whatsoever.

A few weekends back we went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and because there were so many people about, D. was able to capture one of these strange shirts “in the wild,” as it were. We have here a sweatshirt proclaiming the fair city of “Hollister Laguna Beach.” Um, yeah. This is the first time we’ve seen the “Laguna Beach” portion of this shirt, but we’ve actually seen Hollister T-shirts and hoodies repeatedly. Now, those of you from California will understand our confusion. Those who have never been to Hollister, however, will have to take our word for this: not only is it about as far from Laguna Beach as you can get while remaining in California (about 500 miles away), but Hollister has … cows. And garlic. It’s a little farming town, near the famous, garlic-growing Gilroy…

(And no, we won’t begin to touch on the dubious fashion statement of black tights beneath the shorts. It was a theme which we saw a whole lot of during the Fringe — people freezing, but wearing their shorts anyway. Welcome to this summer in Edinburgh, Americans!)

Maybe someone has a good explanation for this. If so, bring it on!

After a “what the heck was THAT!?” moment last weekend, we realized this little piece of animated goodness is the BBC’s tribute to the Olympics in Beijing.

BBC’s Monkey is apparently based on a traditional Chinese folklore Journey to the West, and is actually pretty cool for an icon whose ultimate destiny it is to be made into a plush doll.

We haven’t watched much of the Olympics here — though since we have them on BBC, they are completely commercial (and Bob Costa) free. However, since sports make up a huge part of the television schedule here in the UK, it doesn’t seem like a great big change to have an additional channel of excitedly screaming commentators and sweating athletes. Just about any given day of the week, one can see thick-necked brutes dragging minivans and massive rocks on “Britain’s Strongest Man,” natty lads wearing white and doing that wind-up pitch on cricket, vicious, elbow jabbing and freely splattering sweat on a rugby scrum, and of course, rabid games of soccer, mistakenly known here as football. (Okay, fine. It’s not a mistake. Yes, it makes more sense. Whatever.) There’s even random snooker tournaments.

The only way we know the Olympics are the Olympics is those five little rings in the bottom of the screen, and the presence of the occasional female… Not a whole lot of girls in sport here. However, Glasgow Magazine recently did a lovely piece on cheerleading.

*cough*

Hope your world is equally entertaining this week!

– D & T

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