Wednesday 22 December 2010
Flæskesvær
Hope this is the right spelling - I have often been asked what this is in English. Answer - crackling. Reason I guess is that it crackles if it is made right. Roast pork and crackling is one of the major dishes for Danes at Christmas. This is, unfortunately perhaps, not the case in England. However it is a very popular Sunday lunch and it usually accompanied by apple sauce!
Friday 17 December 2010
Happy Christmas
What do people say round about this time of the year in UK? Happy Christmas covers it. However, if you also want to send New Year's greetings you should probably change it slightly. Add the two events together and you most frequently get 'Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.'
A bit more information might interest you. The big celebration in UK, and many other countries, is on Dec 25, Christmas Day, complete with roast turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings. Children open their presents very early in the morning, thanks to Santa's nocturnal descent down the chimney to deliver them. This early start does however, have the advantage that parents are left alone while the children play with the presents in the morning. Parents can then either cope with their hangovers from Christmas Eve parties or start the Christmas dinner, or both. The dinner/lunch can appear on the table any time from 1pm to 5pm according to how things go.
What about the next day, Dec 26. This is traditionally called Boxing Day - nothing to do with fisticuffs but so-called from the old word a Christmas box, or present. It was the day when, traditionally, the richer people gave their servants Christmas boxes. I can remember my father inviting the milkman in to have a tot of whisky, at about 7.30 in the morning and then giving him a small present of money. We were not, I hasten to add, rich. I used to wonder how he ever completed his round. On Dec 26 too, we (some at least) eat bubble and squeak. We will award a non-financial prize to the first person to post what they can about this dish.
Anybody got any Christmas traditions they would like to share - just post them, in English of course.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
A bit more information might interest you. The big celebration in UK, and many other countries, is on Dec 25, Christmas Day, complete with roast turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings. Children open their presents very early in the morning, thanks to Santa's nocturnal descent down the chimney to deliver them. This early start does however, have the advantage that parents are left alone while the children play with the presents in the morning. Parents can then either cope with their hangovers from Christmas Eve parties or start the Christmas dinner, or both. The dinner/lunch can appear on the table any time from 1pm to 5pm according to how things go.
What about the next day, Dec 26. This is traditionally called Boxing Day - nothing to do with fisticuffs but so-called from the old word a Christmas box, or present. It was the day when, traditionally, the richer people gave their servants Christmas boxes. I can remember my father inviting the milkman in to have a tot of whisky, at about 7.30 in the morning and then giving him a small present of money. We were not, I hasten to add, rich. I used to wonder how he ever completed his round. On Dec 26 too, we (some at least) eat bubble and squeak. We will award a non-financial prize to the first person to post what they can about this dish.
Anybody got any Christmas traditions they would like to share - just post them, in English of course.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
Wednesday 1 December 2010
Audience rules
Communication has little meaning if it is unheard, unread or unseen. So although it is important for us to get our message across, to be heard and to impact, I would suggest that the audience rules in the sense that every one of our communications is sent to a specific audience. This audience determines whether the presentation is successful. This success can be judged by how much the specific audience changes as a result of the presentation.
Imagine a spectrum ranging from a completely mechanical presentation to a completely organic one. The completely mechanical one would be a pre-recorded PP presentation. The button is pushed initially, a recorded voice drones, the slides are shown at a pre-determined rate. The audiences leaves when the last slide has been shown and the words 'The End' appear on the screen. An organic presentation ís when the presenter establishes good rapport with his or her audience, some stimulating and well chosen slides, appropriate to this audience, are shown, the presenter tells some stories which are adapted to his or her audience and finally, the audience feel included and involved in some way or other.
The decision as to where your presentation will lie on the spectrum depends on a number of factors. It can however, be interesting to start the planning of a presentation by firstly taking into consideration what the audience wants and needs to hear. Then add in what we want to say to them. This then becomes a constantly shifting process between the two. So, although it is an exaggeration to say that the audience rules absolutely, it is equally dangerous to ignore what they want and to plough on paying no attention to their initial goals and their subsequent reactions to what we deliver.
Imagine a spectrum ranging from a completely mechanical presentation to a completely organic one. The completely mechanical one would be a pre-recorded PP presentation. The button is pushed initially, a recorded voice drones, the slides are shown at a pre-determined rate. The audiences leaves when the last slide has been shown and the words 'The End' appear on the screen. An organic presentation ís when the presenter establishes good rapport with his or her audience, some stimulating and well chosen slides, appropriate to this audience, are shown, the presenter tells some stories which are adapted to his or her audience and finally, the audience feel included and involved in some way or other.
The decision as to where your presentation will lie on the spectrum depends on a number of factors. It can however, be interesting to start the planning of a presentation by firstly taking into consideration what the audience wants and needs to hear. Then add in what we want to say to them. This then becomes a constantly shifting process between the two. So, although it is an exaggeration to say that the audience rules absolutely, it is equally dangerous to ignore what they want and to plough on paying no attention to their initial goals and their subsequent reactions to what we deliver.
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