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  • Jude: Level 1
    Jude: Level 1
    by Julian Gough

    My new novel. It starts with the award-winning, BBC broadcast prologue, "The Orphan and the Mob", and continues with Jude's quest for True Love in Tipperary, Galway, the Aran Islands, and Dublin... Love, death, arson, philosophy, and sex. Starring Jude, an orphan who looks the spit of Leonardo DiCaprio. Except for having two penises. Which makes True Love... complicated.

  • Juno and Juliet
    Juno and Juliet
    by Julian Gough

    My first novel, of which I am very fond. The adventures of teenage twin sisters Juno & Juliet, in their first year away from home. Life, love and literature, in Galway and Tipperary.

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« Let us now praise J. G. Ballard | Main | Michael D. Higgins and I declare our love »
Friday
07Mar

And the Ossian for Rudest Book goes to...

Brennan Seoige Gough.jpg 

Thank you Kevin, Siobhán and Ariel for the congratulations and comments on my last post...

I did indeed get given a nice piece of bog oak, Kevin. Apparently it's called an Ossian.

The award (and I will probably give myself RSI typing this out in full), is one of the annual NUIG (National University of Ireland Galway) Alumni Awards. Mine was the AIB Award for Literature, Communications and the Arts.

Met some very interesting people there. The other award winners included Gráinne Seoige of Irish-language TV fame, and Séamus Brennan, the current minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism (the ever-mutating government department which inspired the Ministry for Beef, Culture and the Islands in Jude: Level 1). As you can see above, I flirted outrageously with Séamus, while grilling Gráinne on the leading political questions of the day.

A fun night out, and Aengus has sent me many other nice pictures, which I do intend to put up on the site... But, right now, I'm more excited by the goings-on in the credit markets. You don't normally see the words "wild and inexplicable" popping up on the front page of the Financial Times...


Reader Comments (2)

A sentence from that FT report:

"As credit spread have risen, highly-geared funds have come under increasing pressure from uneasy investors who want their money back, and brokers terrified on counterparty risk."

Are "spread have" and "terrified on" mistakes or just part of the jargon? It's hard to say, because the language has mutated so far from English. I'm told some of these stories are written by robots:

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/imomus/2006/08/71654
March 15, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterMomus
Mistakes, I think. To be fair to the Financial Times, their Proper Journalism is very well written and proofed, but that particular article I linked to was in their Alphaville section, a fast moving, breaking news blog.("Instant market insight" is Alphaville's slogan.) Stuff there is often typed pretty fast, and posted straight away.

This morning they're coming up with droll anagrams for the recently imploded investment bank, Bear Stearns. ("Barren Asset" is their current favourite.)

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/

God, I must blog about the markets again. They are SO EXCITING at the moment...
March 15, 2008 | Registered CommenterJulian Gough

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