31 March 2011

What happens when you don't watch television?

Matthijs and I don't really watch television - so how do we waste our time and unwind? Mostly we play games together - but sometimes we do other random things, like finding the quirks in national anthems (the cause was my last blog which featured the Dutch national anthem). A little searching on wikipedia and you bump quickly into the following:

Did you know that Canada has an inuit version of the Canadian anthem? And that there were lyric changes made in 1990 (more than 20 years ago - and I still don't know them [and never see them]?)

Or do you know how often the American anthem is sung poorly? Not surprising - since only the best singers have both a range from a b flat (just below middle c) to a high f and can make the strange jumps between notes necessary to sing it well.

Yet, as unsingable as the American anthem is, the Belgian one is probably worse - not because of all the jumps - but because of all the random short and long notes. Even Matthijs couldn't sightread that one!

Or have you noticed how exceptionally Calvinistic the Hungarian anthem is in its talking about how they've suffered enough for their sins?

Or that the Ukrainian anthem is one of the best anthems to have for football (soccer) games? It's definitely better than the British's "God save the queen."

Or what about the Polish anthem with its rather optimistic viewpoint that Poland starts somewhere in Italy?

I guess television is also entertaining, but a random evening with little immediate cause appeals to me more :) 

Anyone have other suggestions to add to this list of anthem quirkiness?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

In your list I do miss the Spanish anthem and its lack of official lyrics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcha_Real and http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2008/0118/p04s02-woeu.html