Word: names
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...What about Taiwan's participation in international organizations? This is more difficult in the sense that many international organizations require statehood as the basis for admission. But for organizations like the World Trade Organization, which can take in countries under the name of a separate customs territory, we did exactly that. We were admitted in 2002 with a very awkward name: Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan. Chinese Taipei for short. This is a new model. We are trying to get into the World Health Assembly [of the World Health Organization]. The first obstacle is the name we are going...
...quiet, leafy street in the loveliest neighborhood of Colombo, Dr. Lucien de Zilwa christened his new house Tintagel. It was the height of British colonial rule in Sri Lanka, but de Zilwa didn't choose the name - that of King Arthur's legendary birthplace in Cornwall - out of any attachment to empire. He was a fashionable man, living in the most fashionable part of the city, and it was the vogue at the time among the local élite to give wistful English names to their villas...
...restaurant's name has curious origins. Ambassade (Embassy) is an outpost of L'Auberge de L'Ile, Ansanay-Alex's two-Michelin-star place on L'Ile Barbe in Lyon. Trivia collectors will be delighted to know that L'Ile Barbe is one of those wacky microstates, where eccentric residents - fired-up by some long-simmering grievance with the central government - declare independence and start printing their own stamps and passports. In the case of L'Ile Barbe, the "break" from France happened in 1977, 14 years after the islet was declared, in a move hugely unpopular with locals...
...running for Senate were an Olympic event, Franken would win. If it were a battle of wills or a name-recognition poll or some kind of nerdy trivia battle, he'd win those too. Even if it were just a question of having people agree with your policies, he'd win a Senate seat in the state, where Barack Obama is ahead of John McCain. But getting elected means making people believe you can relate to them, and that's why Franken - writer, actor, comedian, talk-show host and longtime denizen of Saturday Night Live - is running behind Republican Senator...
...relentlessly competitive. When we're riding in the back of his Ford Escape hybrid, I make the mistake of mentioning that when I interviewed Ted Nugent, he didn't know the Ten Commandments. For the next five minutes, Franken doesn't talk about anything except trying to name all the commandments. (He succeeds.) Then I make an even stupider comment about how much harder it would be to name all the constitutional amendments, and Franken is off again. "Holy mackerel," he says after rattling off the first three. "Come on, I know them...