Michael Lehnert

It's a pretty bullet proof viewer. I know the 16mm variant and have no knowledge of framer issues at all. It could be that the lower tolerance for the smaller 8mm format could cause an issue, but I would have heard about it by now. I think it's a good purchase for Normal 8, and virtually indestructible. On a side note, Cinematography.com has the age-old rule that people here choose their real first and real last name, in capitals and with a space in-between for their user name. Everyone here does it as a matter of valuing the professional advice and as a sign of netiquette and respect. Please go to My Account (top right hand corner of the website) > My Settings > Display Name, and insert your XXX YYY name in the entry field, enter password to acknowledge. Thank you very much. :)

Quick answer: Q1: Yes Q2: Yes, see Q1 Q3: Yes P.S.: Addendum on the CdS only measuring up to ISO 100, last page here. Long answer, given that this question is often asked by others new to Super 8 and early Beaulieu cameras: The exposure index setting control on the Beaulieu 2008-series is a pretty straightforward ASA or ISO dial with a range from ISO 10 to 400. For many, it's still one of the killer features of Beaulieu as their cameras simply ignore the (occasionally inconsistent) Super 8 cartridge notch codes by Kodak, and all the problems this may cause today. Unlike with later Beaulieu camera generations, the 2008-series' operational logic is built around Kodak's original default for Super 8 that one could only buy Tungsten film stock but would shoot it mostly outdoors in Daylight setting. So: one would set a Tungsten EI, and shoot with a Wratten 85, thus requiring a ⅔ f-stop correction to gain aperture. The operator manually chooses the correct EI for the used film stock by aligning it with the red dot marking, the camera's baseline setting. The white dot marking is placed at a ⅔ f-stop correction to overexpose the film, and would be chosen as marker for the film stock's EI when shooting Tungsten film stock in Daylight settings. Why? Because the camera's built-in Wratten 85 gelatine filter is automatically engaged by default, necessitating that ⅔ f-stop compensation. In order to retract the filter from the film path, you insert that filter key on the side (a common method for cameras of that period, see also Nikon R10) in order to shoot Tungsten indoors or Daylight outdoors with EI on the red dot. Today, you wouldn't really use the built-in gelatine filter at all without having it checked or replaced (although they age much better than thought), so have the filter key inserted all the time, and use a filter on the front lens. Because the lightmeter would then measure TTL, you would use the red dot setting and not need to compensate. But given the latitude of 7213 today, you wouldn't have to, anyway. For the Beaulieu 4008-series: The correct EI is aligned with the green dot marking, out of a range from ISO 10 to 400. As doubling or halving the ISO numbers is equivalent to one f-stop more or less, the ZM II accordingly provides dot markings above the dial for half- and full f-stops gained or lost. To overexpose or gain aperture, turn right towards the white dots, to underexpose or close aperture, turn left towards the red dots. On the dial itself, the markers in-between the ISO numbers refer to the equivalent of third f-stops, allowing even more accurate exposure adjustments. In that respect, the 4008-series is a uniquely didactic camera, teaching newcomers and oldtimers about the correlatives of physics in cinematography.

I see what you mean, but my point wasn't about technology, or digital projection per se. Or David Lynch praising S-Video and D-Video back in the day while under promotional contract for Sony. Or Quentin telling another anecdote about himself and his constant hardship to save the industry from itself. Digital projection is a skilled job, it's not something non-trivial (unless you have a beamer and a box set and a student job to fill). The gods behold we would have skilled projectionists at hand to retain the expertise to project around 115 years of cine-film-captured cinematic art. If cinema is to ascend to the status an opera play has today in a great venue such as Disney in LA, Royal Opera House in London, or Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna, it will require more effort. Concerted effort.

That's the thing. I am always sad to see so few people show up for the screening of really rare cinematographic works. There is a self-evident difference by a magnitude of, say, watching Kubrick in your home cinema, or on a massive silver screen, as I think movies can only be fully appreciating in the setting they were shot for, a darkened space with a format-appropriate projection screen. Thing is, even in cinémathèques on my side of the Atlantic, projection quality and that sense-of-ocassion is eroded. Often by the theatres themselves. At the Kubrick retrospective in Zürich a few years back — where Jan Harlan was speaking so highly in his intro about the local cinémathèque's programme, and how fortunate everyone should feel here about having such an institution — they were showing all the Kubrick films from a regular Blu-ray in 1080p through digital projection. They literally went through the box set. The quality was unworthy, and the final insult was the Eject-symbol beamed onto the screen at the end of the film, as the operator probably removed the disc from the disc tray. It was sobering, and I can understand that such things kill the interest in going to a theatre in most but very special venues of own architectural distinction. Last time I was at the BFI watching "Le Mépris", and the stench of the people in their "arty" unwashed shirts, thick winter jackets laid over seatbacks (there is a garderobe service at no cost!), or still being worn through the showing, those sitting around me were simply more distracting than part of a social and communal experience of art. I bought the DVD of the rare international edition in a shop in Germany, and watched it on my 28" CRT reference monitor at home with friends, and enjoyed that experience much much more, as sad as this may sound. [EDIT: Typos from Autocorrect, plus 28"/67cm, not 17", of course]

Ehm, not in my timezone... :-D ... do keep up with globalisation and the 21st century. I know, it's complex, and social change hurts when you cling to the past that never really was. It was terrible when the Maple Leaf replaced the Union Flag, wasn't it. All thise Canadians, I mean Real-English, saying "Yeah" to their extension of England. Goodbye, Richard.

Richard, go to bed, you are now starting to make a fool of yourself, because those questions are embarrasing due to the obvious answers, and also widely reported investigations. :-)

I am not referring to you personally, and you know that. I am making a visibly-marked ironic comment on self-reflectivity in stereotypical demographical groups that were paraded ad nausea through the political discourse in the UK surrounding the UK EU referendum, as it is being discussed in the public and the media here. Besides, you are not even an immigrant, legally or otherwise. You said so yourself. If you have anything else to contribute, then please feel free to finally reply to my question raised in post #107 and #109 in response to your first sentence in post #106, stating not even implicitly or by insinuation that my presence, my entire adult and professional life spent in your native country that you no longer live in, fiscally contribute to, or value-add in a way that you felt worthy to explain, is "devastating" its nature as a nation state and societal entity. A defamatory statement which under British law can constitute hate speech depending on contexts, especially as the accusation made has been clearly rejected by scientific research taken on board by Her Majesty's Government, especially the Home Office then lead by the current Prime Minister, Theresa May. I am sorry to realise you don't seem to understand how insulting your comments are, while you yourself intimidatingly threaten legal action when faced with some good old British ironic commentary that's not even aimed at you. I consider this conversation on this matter with you closed, after 10 years appreciating your career development here will also block you in 24 hours' time, and wish you best of luck for the Emmys. You deserve to win, but politics is probably an area you should comment on with greater sophistication, less blatant generalisation, and more profound research - especially in writing on public forums. To be fair, I am happy to delete all my comments since #107 and forget about this if you delete all yours made since post #106.

Phil, Richard is just trolling here for the sheer fun of it, making panto season start early this year. No native English speaker would mistake 'effect' for 'affect', no royalist would use the term 'Queen of England', no British citizen would fail to understand the status of his passport, no Canadian would accept a self-declared Englishman call the Maple Leaf state "an extension of the UK" and allow him to stay there in good health (well, none of my Canadian friends would), and no self-respecting immigrant would walk around spouting supremacist, nativist and xenophobic one-liners like at a Britain First convention while actually living abroad, even when using "ex-pat" for oneself, 'cause immigrants are of course the others, never oneself. :-)

I am an EU citizen living in the UK since 2000, full on and my entire adult life, having lived in all corners of the nation state and its four countries, and having gone through every career step through those years. I don't need UK papers or occasional travels to inform myself about the situation here, which is evident had you made the polite and netiquette effort to catch up with the last few pages of this thread before re-engaging. And while it's one thing to re-iterate that immigration was one of the key drivers leading to Leave to win, which is so self-evident it's not questioned by anyone, it's altogether another thing to claim that ... ...and so I asked you to elaborate in precise political, legal, economic, and social terms, using exact definitions and historical markers, to validate what you want to say with such a broad-brush and stark statement, especially as you seem to be a UK citizen having emigrated from the UK to Canada, at some stage in your life, to become an immigrant there.

:) I could ask you to elaborate in precise political, legal, economic, and social terms, using exact definitions and historical markers, to validate what you want to say with such a broad-brush and stark statement, especially as you don't seem to have an active stake in this debate at all to sound so angry. But then again, I can't be bothered, because writing out of an emotional affect can have terrible effects.

I remember reading a French magazine interview with John Bartley, fresh off his success with The X-Files and Roswell. He mentioned they shot with ARRI Arriflex 16SR 3 and Zeiss, and using 7245 and 7274, so Kodak EXR 50 D and Vision 200 T . This was part of him expressing being very content with the transition from EXR to Vision (which I was sceptical about back then until 7217 became available, even on Super 8). There was also a brief section about the new 800 ft magazine and equally new 7289, the Vision 800 T and that he would consider going full 800 to check it out but being generally hesistant on using high-speed film stock for its on sake, to eschew good lighting. Back then, greater magazine diversity was en vogue, with Aaton and Beaulieu joining ARRI in offering more choice.

Super 8 as a cine-film format would allow for this set-up to be possible if the character would own a Bauer C Royal 10E or Bauer C Royal 8E Makro (click here and here). They were on the market in 1971, and top-of-the-line production cameras used by very wealthy enthusiasts, but also used by documentary filmmmakers or German broadcasters who wanted to shoot on Super 8 during street protests in Europe, Asian revolutions in Vietnam, Rangoon etc. without evoking obvious suspicion using a 16mm camera. Juan Carlos, in 1969 declared to become the future King of Spain by Generalísimo Francisco Franco, famously owned one and used it to shoot private movies during his playboy yacht years with his wife since 1962, Princess Sofía. Both these cameras had a time exposure feature: by swinging out the leftside external lightmeter under bad light conditions (e.g. interiors or at night time), an intervalometer-derived capability of the camera automatically exposes one frame of cine-film just for such a long time until the camera deems it correctly exposed, and clicks forward to the next frame, repeating the action. The camera simply automatically adjusts the exposure time within a range of from 1/10 sec to 1 min. This means you can get a correctly exposed film under restrictive light conditions – no studio lights or unusual articifical light required, on general usage film stock like Kodak Kodachrome 40 T (7268). There's a time period counter on the camera that works as a scene length pre-selector and is required to be set for this feature to be activated. You dial in by turning the knob to any pre-selected time from 12 seconds to 1 seconds for the camera to shoot in this way, and it will be automatically stopping the camera when it has counted down and reaches 0 sec. Note that the 12 seconds don't mean that the camera will run for 12 real-time seconds, no, it will operate for as long as it takes until it has exposed, frame-by-frame, 12 seconds of actual film to be projected in a regular Super 8 film projector running at the standard 18 fps of that era. The original runtime duration the camera can continuously shoot, i.e. expose frame after frame, can be up to 3 hours maximum, (if it exposes every frame for the max of 1 minute). If you only need 20 minutes for it to shoot during the action, that means you could have a available light interior for your scene, one character could toy around with this camera, set the feature in motion to film something without extraordinary light conditions, and after 20 minutes of realtime events, it would have a film strip, motion-blurred and thus even more "mysterious to decipher" yet absolutely possible to analyse – the action would be seen, but faces might be motion-blurred – of 12 seconds of this compressed event on film. The clicking of the camera could be easily interpreted by, say, an intruder or a third party, as the clicking of a mechanical clock, so that too would work. The Bauer Royal cameras are in terms of features and operational procedure very close to the later re-issued 1977-80 Bauer A 508 and Bauer A 512 (the latter I own and shoot regularly with, including the above mentioned feature, extensively ^_^ ), and thus their manuals available online give a good indication on how to operate them. An Eclair 16 NPR with 120m magazine would only shoot for 11 minutes 7 seconds at 24 fps. You would need specific motors for the Eclair 16 NPR to run an lower filming speeds (to extend the time it can shoot), such as 18 or 9 fps. Those motors where bulky and expensive. Even industrialist playboys like Gunter Sachs who owned 16mm gear of such production/broadcast standards was not spending Mercedes 190 SL kind of money on a variety of camera motors for a film camera. And you would need higher speed film stock for the camera too, and developing negative film stock was studio-class expensive (broadcasters shot on reversal) – this all in all reduced the probability of someone just accidentally starting a 16mm camera and forgetting about it. In order for noise to not be a disruptor in your story, you would have to go for this one type of camera model – these cameras, even the low-noise NPR, are quite audible, and 120m magazines can generate additional noise levels if the film reel is "weaving" a bit within the magazine and no soft blimp is wrapped around the mag. OR an Auricon 16, in the modification pioneered by D.A. Pennebaker, see here. But these cameras are simply not inconspicuous. They are obvious, and at that time stood out. You can't hide them under cushions, and they easily clutter up a regular desktop in an office. And even wealthy people would not just handle them in such a way that they accidentally have a reel of film in it, and start it up. As someone now able to own "vintage" 8, 16 and 35 gear that was once studio class gear and very exclusive, it's not a behaviour that I deem realistic, now or then. These cameras could have been standing on a workbench for maintenance, or be mounted on a tripod, as a item to see, own and appreciate in a private studio space when out of their boxcases. But then again, due to the focal lengths of the lenses used on 16mm, you would have the camera point very obviously at the area of the action for it to get captured in a normal-sized room (say 5 x 8 metres). The wide angle of a Super 8 camera, due to shorter focal lengths available for this smaller format, would capture a wider area in a room, and again sound more probable to happen outside a novel. Right, now that was a fun thought experiment over lunch break ;) .

I can empathise with people to whom things can be difficult to understand at first if one is new to something But I must also say that recently, here in this forum, the line becomes really difficult to draw between assessing whether someone is a troll and out to tie us up, or really a person so substantially uninformed yet equally unwilling to first engage with the most basis concepts and processes ubiquitiously accessible on the Internet and in print libraries with incredibly low barriers of entry, that the questions posed in this forum are actually genuine. Anyway, needed to put this down onto a digital canvas. :huh:

I am not sure what you could mean by this problem description. Have you done some desktop research on the myriad of Super 8 How To websites, YouTube tutorials, and how to do basic light meter reading and adjusting exposure on any camera ever made, be they photo or cine film? Best, /-M

E49, 49mm You can measure the diameter of the screw-in ring yourself using a measuring band held across the widest-apart points on the lens front ring, but of course you know this, so sorry for even suggesting this.

Thank you for this overview, Dom, with the last paragraph perfectly summarising why I am so excited about his announcement, as I stated earlier.

Wow, didn't see that one coming! Lovely, available April 2017. Looking forward to this.

In a nutshell: yes, you are correct on all points B) . Super 8's camera frame size area is 23.84 sq-mm, 4.22 x 5.65 – reduced to 4.01mm x 5.36mm for projection frame size area. Normal 16 is already about 3.5 times the exposed frame size area, so the difference to the various 35mm formats is getting rather significant, irrespective if you shoot/scan Academy/Widescreen/Super 35/ 2|3-Perf. Instead of 'flaw' to describe grain (among other material-aesthetic characteristics of cine-film you list), I would choose the word 'texture'. Because that's what it is. Nice work with 7213. What camera and lens did you use? Overexposure/low-saturation was intended?

I think your malaise in outlook is not that different to the more general malaise England (unlike Scotland or, to some extent, Northern Ireland) finds itself in. Leaving the EU could be a dramatic shake-up, a big change for a post-Union England, a helpful shock so fundamental that even my English proud-ex-army plumber talking constantly about discipline and order and the university of life and school of hard knocks but can't do his own job properly, is late, or a no show, and overcharges for the privilege, will finally get his act together and get the job done. I doubt it though. Yesterday, I drove through Bletchley. Giant English flags on flag poles in derelict front gardens surrounded by faded crumbling fences. Pavements a puzzling patchwork of dozens of layers of tarmac. Broken windows in depressing terrassed houses that clearly had no one look after for years. External pipes where human waste was dripping out. A narrow-axle mobility scooter, with an old man wearing clothes that clearly had not been washed for weeks, bumbling over the pavement, looking terribly unstable and on the verge of falling over. This looked like a take from a Ken Loach movie that Loach had taken out because it was "too depressing and bleak for the audience." Frankly, I was shocked, because this wasn't the Garden City my local friends told be about without irony, it was a freaking slum. I havn't been in Yorkshire or Wales for a decade now, I fear what I would find there. I can understand why a large number of English people voted Leave, I truly do. As I can see - having lived in Scotland for a few years - why they want their independence and join the EU. Thing is: Brexit's not going to solve any of England's fundamental and substantial problems. An ultra-conservative government that was bound to gain power post-ref, with a joint-chief-of-staff and chief ideologue who wants to go back to Chamberlainian ideals... yeah, Victorian times ahead... I think my replies and commentary have reached the end of being useful to you to plot a way forward, as some questions you re-iterate I think I have already answered, including a list of languages to learn if I would speak only English. Heck, I am currently learning Portugese, partly for the fun of it because I love Lusitanian culture, but also because I have a job option there, and thanks to Brexit, simply have to entertain it because it will become economically unviable and politically difficult for me to remain in Britain. It will become too expensive and too abject to live in post-Brexit England, even within the M25. ...which is ironic, because if I receive a form from the local Council, it is in English, and I can order it in two dozen other languages, including obscure Indian languages, Bangladeshi dialects, even in French and Spanish... – although maybe the "sheer lack of any foreign language use in the UK" was the reason why the kind English working class hero who I encountered my on the train ride through the Home Counties a week after the referendum, while I was on the phone speaking French to a French client, told me in no uncertain ways that "this is England, we speak English here, take it somewhere else." Now I understand! :P Hmm... I lost three English colleagues who left since #EUref-Day for Europe, taking job offers there. They don't speak any languages other than English. Clearly some must be desperate to leave. "Traitors, we don't want them" the Daily Mail columnists would shout. Oh, I know. I agree. And I say to this that over the past 2 years more than at any time than before in my 16 years in the UK, I get that kind of association with Nazis and Forth EU Reich all the time, simply because I have a German background – never mind my ancestors suffered at Nazi hands. But hey, when Brits do this, like a barber shop guy giving me the Nazi salute, it's just "having a laugh", "rubbin' ya a bit, we know it's not you", it's just "Good Old British Humour", "celebrating our finest moment". As the German language humourously says: Mitgefangen, mitgehangen. (caught with 'em, hung with 'em) There's wonderful light now here, I think I'll shoot a S8-cartridge of 7203. B)

No, I grew up in Germany, there's just one official language spoken there. I learned what I learned in school. I shaped my English and French with colloquialism and street language and mimiks from watching English and French television and movies in the original, but that happened more because of my interest in cinematography than because of the languages. People I know who grew up in German-speaking Switzerland have little to no knowledge of French or Italian or Romantsch. Likewise, people I know who grew up in deep rural Poland or France speak the same levels and numbers of languages. It's not that simple. I don't speak Spanish. A big gap. It's a very important language. It's more important globally than German, French or Chinese. In the US, I deem Spanish skills indispensable now. You got far better marks in languages than I did in German school. What went wrong? I fail to understand that. I grew up fully aware of the European integration process of the 1980s - because it was pretty explicit and obvious, going on since the 1950s - and thereafter. Speaking another language was always understood by us pupils as a gateway to another culture, their artwork, travelling confidently, making new friends, and once you get a bit older, becoming aware that you can go abroad to study, to live and work there, find a partner from another country... Transgressing frontiers. I find Europeans scowl more at English people who feel self-entitled enough to walk into a French charcuterie, Spanish bodega, German Geschäft, Swedish sauna, and start talking to them in English, without even making that tiny effort of saying a most basic salutory greeting in the local language. That kind of disrespectful "Sprach-Herrenmensch" attitude is what some people dislike. But even now, you will find that people younger than 50 will just shrug their shoulders, think "ah, ze Englisch, zay don't speak another languädsch" and reply in English without further ado. Don't get the accent aggro there. When I first moved to the UK 16 years ago, I went to Newcastle. I survived with my school English sans problème, and the Geordies cuddled me to death. My Indian work colleague was verbally attacked 3 weeks ago with the words "We voted Leave, get out, Paki!" I started learning English at school the age of 13. It was my fourth language. I think Spanish and French are widely spoken across the world, including North America, Asia, and Africa. Right now, the amount of people learning German is shocking me, and I think I will actively vote for an ultra right-wing party in German to make sure the borders of Germany are controlled or closed, so that all the German-speaking younger, fitter, dynamic, low-pay English exilees won't take my hypothetical job in Germany away from me. After all, nativism rules *sarcasm*. I am not sure on what pedagogic foundation ("decision at the age of 5") you are building your Weltbild, but I think the problem seems to be firmly based in the English education system and the horizon of thought instilled in pupils therein. But to vote out of the EU because there's no future for this generation to be found across La Manche, thereby screwing up the chances of the generation currently studying (and I know first hand the anger pupils and students now have for those that voted Leave, because they know the complications they will face in a Hard Brexit scenario) seems rather odd, selfish at best. At least that's what the young generation thinks, and they are bloody angry. I am not thinking you are a xenophobe. That would be a misunderstanding of the highest order. I hold you in high esteem since I joined this forum a decade ago, and while you might not remeber me, I appreciate your posts highly. The quoted "bloody foreigner" referred to the general reference in British culture. When I quote other users, I use the QUOTE html for this. Voting is always about chosing options and their future scenarios. You chose to vote out of the EU. But the resulting scenario ahead for the UK will be even more restrictive, voiding all the points that were put forward by the Leave campaign. That's the irony of it all, but it will take a decade for this to be comprehended by the "52%". Unless of course you totally vote out of the world political-economic system on this planet, and generally demand a break from reality. But if you want that, then voting isn't the way forward. Armed resistance would be. Cue Ireland. Or 134 other nation states that were displeased over the past 150 years of being governed by unelected, unaccountable foreigners from Britain settling in their lands... including all the countries highest on the list the UK now wants to trade with instead of the EU. As someone who worked in India and China, I can tell you resentment against Britain as a country is the one thing very much prevailing. Tread carefully... A member of my family learned Asian languages, not at school, but at uni. It's like rocket science. All can be achieved. But I doubt a career in the Chinese film industry is a realistic prospect to make this worthwhile. Well, maybe a TTIP-like free-trade deal with the US covering the hitherto four freedom of movements with the EU would be best for you, so that you could maybe settle in the US – Americans love the English, I hear, it must be the accent *lastsentence=humour* With no hard feelings whatsoever, Phil, just so that this remains clear between the two of us, yours, /-Michael ^_^

:D I know that it's from "The Life of Brian". It's also the reason for the title of the eminently watchable BBC series by Adam Hart-Davies. I will let my colleagues at LSE know of your re-definition of 'central bank'. The next Stieglitz award is therewith decided on ;)

I was waiting for you to say something like this, because based on your responses from the other threads, your character would make you default to this "trap" of yours you have actually been ninja'd into; proving that you are in essence akin to a troll. Good-bye, and "Evanesco!"

I speak 5 European languages, including English, and learned them at secondary school, a totally ordinary school of no merit with no special curriculum. I wonder how often you work on projects in Europe, because English is the standard professional language in firms, coops, businesses where international talent comes together. Finding your way through Europe with English-only has NEVER been simpler since the turn of the millennium. How do all those Brits in Berlin working in the Creative Industries survive with English only? As for French: I just returned from Avignon on arts-related business, not having spoken French (my third language) for at least 5 years. I had the best conversations on cinematography and film I had in years, wya beyond anything I had with British pros or BFI curators over the years, on the most obscure aspects of filmmaking and film history. When my French ran out to express myself, we simply switched into English, and so did my French conversationalists, without offence or anger. Then we returned to French, or indeed to German. Welcome to the 21st century, Phil. I might return to some other points of your earlier post after the weekend, but let me tell you that me as a "bloody foreigner" in this country making a career most Brits would't be able to do, despite pretty obvious discrimination I faced (but so what, quality prevails), I sometimes think that most deficiencies Brits rail against are more of their own making than caused by their perceived evil EUSSR overlords. To describe the EU as undemocratic coming from the British state system which has no elected head of state, an unaccoutabke civil service recruited from a tiny section if society, one hereditary parliamentary chamber, another chamber that is representationally rather unrepresentative and constitutes itself and appoints (not elects!) its government based on the discarding of the majority of the demos' cast votes in a general election, and where the process of submission of legislature is less accountable and transparent than it is in the European Commission and Parliament, or through the European Council (the latter two directly elected by the EU voter, the first indirectly through the Spitzenkadidaten-System), I must say I truky wonder where such a statement could come from... I am also certain that your attempt to get rid of a layer of professional politicians (EU) and replacing them with WTO bureacrats or EFTA admins or GATS appartchiks was absolutely a bloody nose given to the establishment *sarcasm*. In the end, I am certain the new May government will have nothing but the personal interest of freelancing creatives in mind. When I look at my students and business partners, they agree, and go to Berlin, Dublin, Amsterdam and Paris with no knowledge of the local language (and Gaelic is beautiful, yet all the Irish are happy to speak English to those they gained their independence from). :-)

To be perfectly honest, not as much as I am by your content and your self as a user here in this forum, after following your posts and - frankly - crude and personal insults against David. But me and others have said so in those other threads that I won't hyperlink through here. Over the past 10 years I am a user here, I have seen people being banned for less. So count yourself content of the goodwill you receive. Maybe there's a takeaway for you there just as much as there is a takeaway from the Greek fiscal/financial/monetary crisis - a complex crisis certainly not solely centred around the €, and totally unworthy of Greek/German self-pity and anger-bashing, on both sides, in equal measure, against each other. In the end, reason has prevailed, although you might not see that. :-)

As a European living in the UK for over 16 years and being enormously annoyed and personally and professionally quite screwed by the lamentably moronic public discourse that lead to a (English-)-nationalistically induced and xenophobically uttered Brexit vote - and denying this is akin to climate change denying - let me rather ask what Enlightenment did for us. I can see that some people whose entire business life occur only in Britain and never abroad might be better off. But the economic costs that will trickle down across a post-Brexit England will nullify any of those benefits. Sure, in theory, more filmwork might occur in England and no longer in Transylvania standing in for Wiltshire, if it will be economic to bear the cost for a production. Sure, my English plumber can rejoyce from getting rid of the superior yet cheaper Polish competition, and can now allow himself to not reply to phine calls for a week again because no Pollak is snatching his business away. But this won't transform Britain into a country away from a country with the worst plumbing in an Industrialised country. It will just cost everyone more, personally and economically. Robin, the ECB is the Eurozone's central bank, copying the regional/state/federal structure of the Fed. it's not harder for them to "print money" or implement quantitative easing policies, and certainly not more difficult to other G20 states. In fact quite the contrary. To deduct an inevitable death sentence to the currency from this is piling an ignorant conclusion on ignorant knowledge. The economic discrepancies within the Eurozone are similar to the one in the "Dollarzone" of the US. Just ask a ex-miner in rural Pennsylvania and a banker in NYC. Yet because of the historical normalcy, no one is suggesting for PA to temporarily drop out of the Dollarzone to revitalise its fortunes. It's a hermeneutic problem based on perceptions of nation as much as a fiscal-economic problem. Sorry to be so blunt, but if political debates happen here on Ciny.com, they better be informed, or they become simple hogwash. [edit: some of the typos]