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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Happy 2014

Open Thread: Happy 2014

by Anne Laurie|  January 1, 201412:27 am| 41 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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From Wikipedia’s entry on Hogmanay:

It is suggested that the full forms

Hoginanaye-Trollalay/Hogman aye, Troll a lay (with a Manx cognate Hop-tu-Naa, Trolla-laa)
Hogmanay, Trollolay, give us of your white bread and none of your gray

invoke the hill-men (Icelandic haugmenn, cf Anglo-Saxon hoghmen) or “elves” and banishes the trolls into the sea (Norse á læ “into the sea”). Repp furthermore makes a link between Trollalay/Trolla-laa and the rhyme recorded in Percy’s Relics Trolle on away, trolle on awaye. Synge heave and howe rombelowe trolle on away, which he reads as a straightforward invocation of troll-banning…

Here’s to a healthy & prosperous 2014 for all!

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Previous Post: « Happy New Year’s Eve
Next Post: And a Happy New Year to Everyone, aka THANK FUCKING FSM 2013 IS OVER »

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    max

    January 1, 2014 at 12:35 am

    Happy Holidays Bowladays!

    max
    [‘It’s goddamned cold!’]

  2. 2.

    Helen

    January 1, 2014 at 12:39 am

    Edinburgh! I’ve never been. Have you? I’ve been all over Europe. Is anyone here from Scotland? My mom’s best friend was from there but she could not wait to get out.

    Oh and the language in the post? Looks like galic? But it can’t be galic in Scotland. My Irish kin say galic is like talking with marbles in your mouth.

  3. 3.

    Yatsuno

    January 1, 2014 at 12:40 am

    Computer is kinda freaking out, plus the muscle relaxers are gonna hit any minute now. To Hades with your midnight.

    @Helen: We have a semi-regular commentor from Scotland, though I can’t recall her nym off the top of my head. AL?

  4. 4.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 1, 2014 at 12:45 am

    @Yatsuno: Time is relative.

  5. 5.

    Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)

    January 1, 2014 at 12:53 am

    Aha!

    Blog got Trolls.

    Needs Elves.

  6. 6.

    Violet

    January 1, 2014 at 12:56 am

    @Helen: Yep, been to Edinburgh. Cool city. Been around in various parts of Scotland due to family member living there. Cold and wet much of the year but beautiful.

    Happy New Year everyone! The fireworks are going off here now. Have been all night, actually.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    January 1, 2014 at 12:57 am

    The January transfer window for football opens up today. I am disappointed to learn, from the Football365 website, that Arsenal FC, whose offer of £40,000,001 for Liverpool FC striker Luis Suarez was for some reason refused in the summer, will not follow up with an improved offer of £40,000,002.

  8. 8.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 1, 2014 at 1:00 am

    Happy New New Year, CST!

  9. 9.

    Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)

    January 1, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I had a relative who took A Lot of time! Talked like her mouth was full of Scotsmen. Never went anywhere but took all day and then some to tell all about you all about that.

    Same relative used to put pills! Muscle relaxers! right into her computer! Claimed it made it easier on the fingers.
    Then, later, when what they wrote made No Sense, said it was because of the computer! That the computer was on drugs!

    Lord she was a riot! I do miss her.
    …went on to be a lawyer.

    Was never much fun after that.

    Now what was I talking about?
    I can never remember.
    You all talk now. Y’all are so good at it.
    Are any of you Elves?

  10. 10.

    SectionH

    January 1, 2014 at 1:04 am

    @Yatsuno: It’s all wibbly wobbly; hang in there. We’ll send a search party if you go dark for too long. Hugs.

  11. 11.

    SectionH

    January 1, 2014 at 1:07 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: THAT? You fiend!

  12. 12.

    Helen

    January 1, 2014 at 1:09 am

    @Violet: Great you say that. Cuz – hot and dry is not always the best. Every time I tell someone I am retiring the Dublin, they say “Doesn’t it rain there all the time?” Well, no, but so what if it does? You got something against rain? Not me.

  13. 13.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    January 1, 2014 at 1:09 am

    Happy New Year, Juice Balls!

    All the best in 2014.

    Hey, it might happen.

    In the meantime, on topic, we have this:

    Haggis hurling is a Scottish sport involving the hurling of a haggis as far as possible for distance and accuracy from atop a platform (usually a whisky barrel). The Haggis must be edible after landing.

    Hurling indeed.

    While it says that this event is actually a recent invention, I read years ago that haggis in the ould days was used as a weapon, throwing them boiling hot at the advancing enemy hoping to pop them on their spears and drenching the soldiers below with scalding liquid.

    I’ve always been dubious about food that can be used as a weapon, but that may just be me. Growing up Irish, the most you could hope for by throwing your dinner at them would be to bore the enemy to death.

    Okay, back to it….. see you across the great divide.

  14. 14.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 1, 2014 at 1:10 am

    @Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler): Brilliant.

  15. 15.

    The Pale Scot

    January 1, 2014 at 1:10 am

    Good health to All:

    Ben and Jerry’s butterscotch ice cream is great.

    And I watched Matt Smith’s send off show with laughter and tears in my eyes, and damn, I thought I was a Tennant guy.

  16. 16.

    BruceFromOhio

    January 1, 2014 at 1:19 am

    Mazel tov!

  17. 17.

    andy

    January 1, 2014 at 1:26 am

    Damn I’m glad 2013 is over- hopefully I can finally shake this target-on-my-back feeling.

    Meantime- a fantastic cover of the worst song of the year.

    Happy New Year!

  18. 18.

    gene108

    January 1, 2014 at 1:31 am

    Happy New Year!

  19. 19.

    Helen

    January 1, 2014 at 1:35 am

    @andy: OMG ONCE AGAIN I am having a discussion about how out of touch I am with pop culture. I have NO idea what the song being covered is. Also? My neighbors are awfully LOUD. Get offa my lawn!!

  20. 20.

    MikeJ

    January 1, 2014 at 1:36 am

    @Helen:

    Edinburgh! I’ve never been. Have you?

    I worked for RBS for a few months in Eburgh. Fun city.

  21. 21.

    eemom

    January 1, 2014 at 1:39 am

    Happy new year, y’all!

    I’m in a miserable mood, the holiday has sucked, and fucking Cole didn’t even put an OF in his last post….but things can only get better. Hap-py New Year!

  22. 22.

    Tommy

    January 1, 2014 at 1:41 am

    Happy. Happy New Years to all.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    January 1, 2014 at 1:48 am

    Prompted by a story on the BBC site reminiscing about it, I watched on YouTube (Shh! Don’t tell the Beeb!) a 1979 TV debate over Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Cleese and Palin appeared for Python; the Catholic writer Malcolm Muggeridge and the Anglican bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood, for Outraged Christians Everywhere. Per the BBC story, Cleese said that, when he watched the debate for the first time in many years, he was struck by the stupidity of Muggeridge and Stockwood’s arguments. So was I.

  24. 24.

    Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)

    January 1, 2014 at 1:49 am

    @eemom:

    E, I know that you know, it can *always* get worse.

    But – I hope things do get more pleasant, cheerful, enjoyable and entertaining for you.
    Cheers!

  25. 25.

    Tommy

    January 1, 2014 at 1:52 am

    @The Pale Scot: I almost cried as well. Watching it again myself. I actual am working on a Tardis on my front door. See this. Been lazy and not put it up, but will in the coming days. Hope maybe a kid might stop by and I can say it is larger on the inside and not seem like a pervert :).

  26. 26.

    Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)

    January 1, 2014 at 2:06 am

    @Tommy:

    Hope maybe a kid might stop by and I can say it is larger on the inside and not seem like a pervert :).

    Tommy, go ahead and enjoy thinking of saying that …but, don’t.

    [see above: ‘things can always get worse.’ Saying that to some kid, pretty much guarantees ‘worse’ *will* follow]

    Otherwise, nice door.

  27. 27.

    J R in WV

    January 1, 2014 at 2:09 am

    Well, we neighbors put another year to bed together, and drank bubbly at midnight, and then went out in their yard and floated burning paper hot-air balloons off into the night air. They sparkled from the burning heat source this year, a new feature. They rose straight up, almost, until they reached the top of the ridge, and then moved off north quite rapidly…

    Happy Holidays to all!

    “And to all, a Good Night!”

    G’night.

  28. 28.

    andy

    January 1, 2014 at 2:10 am

    @Helen: This is why all good people have a handy bucket of pre-positioned rocks waiting for them. And believe me, you don’t want to hear the original…

  29. 29.

    Tommy

    January 1, 2014 at 2:12 am

    @Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler): Yeah I don’t think I would. Clearly not a pervert but I could see how that might not work well as a middle aged single dude. Most parents around me know me, and I know their children. But it takes time for them not to think I am a pervert if I want to engage their kids. And I get that.

    I don’t want a Tardis front door for kids to come up to my house, I just want to do it cause I want to do it :).Something I will enjoy.

  30. 30.

    MikeJ

    January 1, 2014 at 2:19 am

    @Tommy: I’ve been sick so I have tons of extra candy and cookies from the holidays that I didn’t eat. Seems a shame to waste it. Perhaps I should go down to the playground and give it away.

  31. 31.

    srv

    January 1, 2014 at 2:20 am

    Beyonce opens the year with a new song which samples “major malfunction” from the Challenger disaster.

    Stay classy, pop stars.

  32. 32.

    Tommy

    January 1, 2014 at 2:25 am

    @MikeJ: You should actually. Why is it time where I can’t offer up, you can’t, something a young kid would like. If that sounds creepy to you then you don’t know anything about me. I am far more likely to find a way to hit on your wife then your kid.

  33. 33.

    smedley the uncertain

    January 1, 2014 at 2:36 am

    Here’s tae ye lassie… thanks for the E’burgh fireworks.
    Happy New Year to all.
    It’s too cold here for this Scot to be out “first footin’ ” this year.

  34. 34.

    Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)

    January 1, 2014 at 2:50 am

    Well, there we were, ready to leave the dreadful year 2013 behind.
    Our friends were over, all of us commiserating over all the crap that happened; everyone losing their jobs, the friends who had been shot by the Big City Fellers who came out to try and hunt deer.
    We had been able to collect enough of the ‘hunters’ food scraps they’d left behind to put into the still and make a few ounces of moonshine – not enough, nothing near enough, to erase our constant misery. Just enough to taste and remember the better days when we could drown our sorrows. Cold comfort, to be sure.
    The one, the one and only, fragment of hope we had was the small garden we had nurses through pestilence and disease. We knew it wouldn’t grow anything like enough food – it was still going to be a desperate Winter, but Seeds! We just might be able to get enough seeds to let us plant a bigger garden next year…

    But then, over the ridge, from the South, fire! God Damned Fire! fell the fuck out of the God Damned sky!
    We were stunned! Once we got over the paralyzingly shock, everyone grabbed whatever could hold water and Ran! to our precious little seed garden. But it was too late. It was all dead and burnt.
    Devastating.
    Even the strongest of us couldn’t muster the ability to try and comfort those who completely broke down. And the children, oh my god the children. You could see that they knew, they knew their futures were as dead, as burnt, as our one last feeble hope.

    Tomorrow, those of us who can make it, will head over the ridge, see if we can find out what in the Hell happened.

  35. 35.

    Full Metal Wingnut

    January 1, 2014 at 4:01 am

    @The Pale Scot: I expected to hate Smith. Loved tennant. But he was phenomenal. Truth be told I’m more of a Moffat than Davies fan. Better writing during the Smith years but. Tennant is still my doctor. And so glad another Scot has the role. Go Capaldi!

  36. 36.

    Robert Sneddon

    January 1, 2014 at 7:20 am

    I live about a mile from the castle in Edinburgh. I could hear the fireworks all evening — this year they had a short fireworks sequence every hour from about 8 o’clock up to the spectacular at midnight. Fireworks are a regular thing on the castle mound especially during the Festival in August — there’s usually an hour-long Son et Lumiere event involving live music from an orchestra with synchronised fireworks, for example.

    The area around the castle is locked down for Hogmanay to prevent severe overcrowding and also to monetise the event for the city council with ticket sales — like the Festival it tends to be for out-of-towners rather than locals who appreciate the trade but not the disruption.

  37. 37.

    HeartlandLiberal

    January 1, 2014 at 8:11 am

    Scots lover tip for today:

    Ask the Google what “detonate the Haggis” means.

  38. 38.

    greenergood

    January 1, 2014 at 1:26 pm

    Happy New Year from the west coast of Scotland, just down the road from the major British (NATO, ahem) nuclear submarine base in Euroop. Lots of fireworks, of the benevolent kind, but pouring rain and semi-howling wind made first-footing a non-starter. Today better with major artery-busting New Year’s Day breakfast, a custom started by a neighbour who doesn’t do the New Year’s Eve gig: bacon, sausages, black pudding (google it), eggs, baked beans, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, potato scones (google them), washed down by Buck’s Fizz: 1 measure alcoholic fizz (champagne if you’re a hedge fund manager; cava or lambrusco if you’re not) to 1 measure orange juice – measures to be decided by size of glass, so obviously pints are preferable. Unlike England, Scotland officially has two days off after New Year because we take our New Year rituals (and sleep-offs) seriously – which is obviously why we need to vote YES in the referendum this year so we can be an independent country, like, y’know, Norway, or Sweden, or New Zealand, or all those other countries that don’t have nuclear weapons either, but know how to drink, and eat processed pork products. Happy New Year, y’all!

  39. 39.

    Origuy

    January 1, 2014 at 1:40 pm

    @Helen:

    Oh and the language in the post? Looks like galic? But it can’t be galic in Scotland. My Irish kin say galic is like talking with marbles in your mouth.

    I’m pretty sure that’s Scots, a dialect of English, unless you ask the Scots. (A language is a dialect with an army and navy.) Split off from Anglo-Saxon and picked up more Celtic and less Norman.

    The name of the Celtic language of Scotland is spelled Gaelic like Irish, but pronounced galic.

  40. 40.

    greenergood

    January 1, 2014 at 2:01 pm

    @Origuy: Scots Gaelic is a Gaelic language, mostly found on the west coast of Scotland and related to Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Breton (i.e. from Brittany in western France). They break down into ‘P’ Gaelic (Scots and Irish) and ‘Q’ Gaelic (Welsh and Breton) depending on pronunciation and orthography. Scots and Doric are dialects of Anglo-Saxon with bits of Scottish Gaelic, lots of Norse, plus German and Dutch – mostly found on the east coast of Scotland.

  41. 41.

    Origuy

    January 1, 2014 at 2:42 pm

    I just learned a Scots phrase for New Years: Lang may yer lum reek! It means “Long may your chimney smoke.”

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