Lido by Pedro

[Nigel Gordon]

​The are some stories which have really great themes explored in terrific writing. There are some which are interesting and challenging. Then there are those which are just amusing. Lido is one of these, and that is not to knock it. A well crafted and well written amusing story is as good, if not better in some cases, as your other classes of short story. In fact such a story may even be considered better, if you look at the English language literature of the first part of the 20th century it is the stories of writers like P.G. Woodhouse that tend to stand out as those still being read.

This is a delightfully crafted and quite amusing story. I would not put it up amongst the greats of AD writing but I am sure it is going to end up being one of the frequently read.

You can find it here:

Lido by Pedro

[Bruin Fisher]

I really loved this story on so many levels - deft description of British political life, neat and plausible explanation of events with reference to single-sex boarding school experience, comic situations, happy developments in the east. A delight. Thanks Pedro!

[Paul Wren]

Loved it, just wish it could be for real!

[Chris James]

Pedro certainly enjoyed standing politicos on their heads. Given the facts we don't know about the current leaders mentioned in the story what he had to say could very well be true. The humor is evident far beyond the English pomp and the Russian ego mania. We shall never know what goes on behind the scenes but this could very well be it. Loved it, Pedro.

[colinian]

We should have it translated into Russian (by a native speaker) and post that version on AD. Any volunteers?

Colin

[Cole Parker]

I volunteer. I don't speak Russian, however, so it would be gibberish, and this is too delightful a story to gibberishize.

Good job, Pedro!

C

[colinian]

I took Russian in high school. I've lost most of it as a result of non-use. My favorite Russian sentence is Я не знаю ничего. Transliterated it is I not know nothing. (Russian uses the double negative.)

Colin

[Bruin Fisher]

Ah, the double negative! There's a story:

A teacher tries to explain to his class that in English a double negative is incorrect. He explains that in English a double negative equates to a positive and therefore is unlikely to convey the meaning that is intended. He finished by saying that to the best of his knowledge there is no language in which a double positive equates to a negative - at which point a voice from the back of the class could clearly be heard commenting: "Yeah, right!..."

[Cole Parker]

That's great, Bruin!

C

[Nigel Gordon]

I recall being told that there are some African languages where a double positive results in a negative. I suspect this might be the case with some of the 'click' languages, as I was once told that a specific click could mean positive or negative in accordance with how it was used, essentially it changed the meaning of the following phrase from positive to negative or visa versa. Though thinking about it the logic is probably more like the NOT operator in programming languages. NOT YES = No NOT NO = YES.

[Pedro]

Gentlemen, thank you for your positive comments.

Given the facts we don't know about the current leaders mentioned in the story what he had to say could very well be true..

I think there is something of an age disparity amongst the current crop of real life politicians that rules out the possibility of any of them having met in their early teens.

[Pedro]

As the tea lady handed Sir Brian his tea, she had to apologise. " Sorry, Sir, but we hain't got no lemons today."

It was probably a good thing. He might have choked on it when the Press Secretary got to the bit about 'gibberishize' in one of the newspaper reviews of the PM's trip to Sochi.

[Nigel Gordon]

I am definitely going to try and find a use for gibberishize in some of my writing in the future, it is certainly a word which we need to get into the Oxford English Dictionary. It exactly explains the outcome of most political and official speak.

[Nick Deverill]

Isn't most of it newspeak? George Orwell was more accurate than most people think.

[Nigel Gordon]

Isn't most of it newspeak? George Orwell was more accurate than most people think.

No, newspeak as described by Orwell is a very specific subset of a language that removed words, constructs and phrases or modified their meaning, in order to make certain types of thought impossible. There is some very interesting examples of newspeak in announcements of the Nazi propaganda department during the WWII. Although newspeak changes the meaning of things it still makes sense within the context that it is used. I would suggest that to gibberishize something is to take a statement and change it in such a way that it no longer has any useful information in it and carries no meaning to such an extent that the statement is now total gibberish.