Singing Organ-Grinder tweets for April

Cranking it up along the River Lea.

Food market, Church Lane, Leytonstone. Image: Margaret Marks.

Bio: Kazoo Academy & Barrel Organ Disco/Yorkshire Almanac/translator Romance & Germanic languages & Russian/old-style jazz trombone & vocals/brass bands/allotmenteer

Sun Apr 01 08:15 The loss of the idea of trad pub open to everyone (did it really exist?) is also the loss of the ability to really understand the Canterbury Tales & Quixote. What we get instead are closed societies like the villa of the Decamerone
Sun Apr 01 08:21 Comment: When that Aprilis, with his showers swoot, The drought of March hath pierced to the root Because it definitely didn't rain in March this year
Sun Apr 01 08:25 Comment: @ibexsalad Those of Montpellier have a strong claim to those waters, since its their wee that washes down the coast
Sun Apr 01 08:31 You think you've got a reasonable handle on spoken Italian, and then you see the tranny sisterhoods of Pagani and it's back to square no. 1
Sun Apr 01 08:33 Comment: (Seen at the brilliant UCL Italian film club )
Sun Apr 01 09:07 Manolo Escobar as Sweeney Todd v2
Sun Apr 01 09:16 C8th BC bronze with articulated arm of Astarte (one of whose symbols is the lion) found at Cerro del Carambolo, Seville is definitely the origin of the East Asian lucky cat
Sun Apr 01 19:33 633 Squadron, one of the first tunes I played with a brass band, & a Ron Goodwin classic. Still haven't seen the film #RAF100
Mon Apr 02 08:41 Dan Geesin kind of thinks it's fine to say "google it up" What’s the meaning, Huh? What’s the meaning of life What’s the meaning, Huh? What’s the meaning of life I’m going to g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g google it up I’m going to g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g google it up
Mon Apr 02 19:40 The duck quacketh
Mon Apr 02 21:21 Amongst lesser-known masterworks of early Spanish science, a "Treatise in which is proved that snow is cold and wet", published in 1630 by the incorrigible barber of Córdoba, Lucas de Valdés y Toro
Tue Apr 03 07:51 When you're not going to be the next face on Gramophone mag: “They worked hard. But they worked hard to turn me into a trained monkey. Anyone can become a monkey. Even a chimpanzee can become a concert violinist.” Via @lordbonkers
Tue Apr 03 20:04 When did Age UK (= Age Concern + Help the Aged) become an online retailer?
Tue Apr 03 20:04 Terrible joke
Tue Apr 03 20:11 Google's HTTPS push is an utter megalomaniac pain in the posterior end, designed to further massacre us dwarves
Tue Apr 03 20:59 Comment: @Transblawg It's mental. When they recommended equipment I always thought, they're taking bungs, but now they're just an expensive version of Amazon
Tue Apr 03 21:00 Comment: @Transblawg OK, Amazon doesn't pay tax, but at least they don't pretend they're a charity
Wed Apr 04 08:23 Comment: @Transblawg Used it for Punch&Judy-style computer animations for a power company 23 years ago.
Wed Apr 04 08:24 Wanna make money & connections with music? You'll need money & connections
Wed Apr 04 08:45 Comment: @Transblawg I think I used an IBM or AT&T labs online generator. Pleasingly primitive. Google Translate's TTS is now so good that it's no fun.
Wed Apr 04 08:59 Parody of the Sulkowicz hoohaa, brandwashing, WTF?
Wed Apr 04 15:08 Worth checking when you sign what you think are a Green Party bod's election nomination papers that the crafty buggers haven't recruited you as a candidate
Wed Apr 04 19:03 Author of book about Cologne Carnival says that gala jokes aren't jokes because no punchline. My experience is that most German jokes are like that
Wed Apr 04 20:02 Some fool says the couplet "Your pedal extremities are colossal,/To me you look just like a fossil" sounds better than it is
Thu Apr 05 06:45 Nice vid showing value of train wheelset conicity WP says that
Thu Apr 05 06:46 Comment: Cylindrical wheels and squealing
Thu Apr 05 17:15 Lammy blaming the Albanians, the Albanians the Jamaicans, & Sadiq the (white) Westminstrians recalls an oldskool Islington council tenants meeting where peace between God's peoples was only restored when someone announced that he was there to represent the squatters
Fri Apr 06 06:06 Lovely picture in link of City's C17th (?) weathervane dragon on steeple of Mary-le-Bow, subject (Timbs, Curiosities of London) of a Ma Shipton prophecy re London carnage if met Exchange's grasshopper, which happened in 1820 @thegentleauthor
Fri Apr 06 06:07 Comment: Presumably interest in potential of Mother Shipton in 1820 because of Reform & Peterloo
Fri Apr 06 06:47 Eric Bristow 180
Sun Apr 08 13:55 Curious about Madam Glass, Bristol piano teacher in the 1930s/40s, visited in hospital there by Myra Hess and Irene Scharrer ca 1947. Anything to do with the pianist/teacher Richard Glas, pupil of Leopold Godowsky in Vienna?
Sun Apr 08 22:01 Imogen Holst says that Gustav heard the tune in the Brook Green Suite, 3rd mvt at 04:21 at a puppet show in Sicily Rings no bells here
Sun Apr 08 22:03 I always get this one wrong
Sun Apr 08 22:17 The Briggs translation of War & Peace "risks sounding like a child’s pirate movie made by Australians"
Sun Apr 08 22:27 Comment: Comparison of various translations by Miss Lupine Lady
Sun Apr 08 22:38 1941 Nabokov rant on translating Russian lit: The third, & worst, degree of turpitude is reached when a masterpiece is planished and patted into such a shape, vilely beautified in such a fashion as to conform to the notions & prejudices of a given public
Sun Apr 08 22:40 Comment: The Russian version [of a Baudelaire thing] was due to the pen of Merejkovsky, who had even less poetical talent than Balmont. It began like this: My sweet little bride. Let’s go for a ride; Promptly it begot a rollicking tune and was adopted by all organ-grinders of Russia.
Mon Apr 09 15:32 Already appalled by the attack in Münster, scene of some of my best(-catered) gigs, but now the Mirror etc. have mistaken a verb for the surname of the suspect. FFS, use Google Translate, morons
Mon Apr 09 15:39 Dodgy sales of public land offshore, inc by part of the Mayor of London's Office
Mon Apr 09 17:25 Rural Hampshire on a Monday: toxic smoke from builders burning the interiors of Victorian houses under demolition; lardy arses barrelling down tiny lanes in huge vans to bring packs of surgical gloves to geriatrics; a lady goose stepping on Botley station to keep her abs in order
Tue Apr 10 07:23 Obviously kids want to delay arrival at school, but there must be a better way than sitting in a traffic jam
Tue Apr 10 08:25 Dog walkers live in fear of the Hampstead Russians
Tue Apr 10 13:59 Just can't help translating corporateSpeak "démarche de progrès" as "Great Leap Forward"
Tue Apr 10 14:00 Comment: Not their fault we don't want to be improved
Tue Apr 10 15:41 Herodotus on the Massagetae: Though they fix no certain term to life, yet when a man is very old all his family meet together and kill him, with beasts of the flock besides, then boil the flesh and feast on it.
Tue Apr 10 16:13 Santiago de Compostela Effect - one person's shrine makes some money so everyone opens one
Tue Apr 10 20:55 Wheels, bus
Wed Apr 11 09:35 The Kremlin would have some sympathy if it started poisoning pigeons instead of people. Combating spring onslaught of the randy buggers is like being housemaster in private school boarding house
Wed Apr 11 09:54 Heaven will have fluffing horn players
Wed Apr 11 11:24 Mupdate: patch released by childish clown
Wed Apr 11 11:27 Why do publishers of musical cards never check their example with someone who can read music? Like website localisation by someone who once went to London
Wed Apr 11 15:31 Videos claiming geographical exclusivity ("Only in Milwaukee") invariably show the most universal of human traits (desire of obese men to dress up in bikini & heels before shopping in the pound store)
Wed Apr 11 20:32 Beautiful old photo of the Beehive (now flats) & the Robin Hood (demolished) just along from the Anchor & Hope on the Lea Navigation at Clapton
Thu Apr 12 05:17 RT @JaneyGodley: Imagine the #ZUCKERBURG hearing was in Glasgow #ZUCKERBURG #janeygodleyvoiceover
Thu Apr 12 06:20 Someone explain to me why Spanish voters have been pretty much impervious to massive and comprehensive evidence of universal embezzlement and incompetence, but throw a tiz on discovering that politicians have corruptly obtained useless bits of paper from degree mills.
Thu Apr 12 06:27 Iggy & Cristiano. I don't think I want to discover the truth re the old story about the Ig's reasons for alleged rib removal
Thu Apr 12 06:32 Mairzy Doats
Thu Apr 12 06:38 By a long chalk the most popular page on my website: Come on people, this is far more interesting:
Thu Apr 12 06:51 Comment: @azforeman LITHP ith thaid to be utheful in proceththing lithtth
Thu Apr 12 12:04 Dear authors, if you can't define the difference between a colon & a semi, then either stop using them or turn over on your front and let me take a cattle prod and explain
Thu Apr 12 12:15 Comment: @Transblawg My name is Diogenes I live in a tub I work best when I'm starkers Or pissed in the pub
Thu Apr 12 12:29 The Clonmacnoise airship
Thu Apr 12 12:29 Comment:
Thu Apr 12 12:33 Gerrit Bellers canoe-dling
Thu Apr 12 12:38 Comment: @Transblawg Tadpole?
Thu Apr 12 12:39 Comment:
Thu Apr 12 12:46 Comment: De Ster in Hengelo, old-school provincial Dutch bar, one-time watering place of Arie Stronks
Thu Apr 12 13:39 Till Death us do Part viii. 135 What are you talking about, you great hairy pilloch?
Thu Apr 12 13:54 Comment: Communist sex witches: The shuttle flies, the loom creaks loud, Night and day we weave your shroud, Social democrat, at your shroud we sit, We’re weaving a threefold curse in it, We’re weaving, we’re weaving!
Thu Apr 12 15:29 At last I understand the ground level differentials on Leyton Marsh: Blitz rubble
Thu Apr 12 15:32 Comment: Eureka moment like the shell hole pond on Walthamstow
Thu Apr 12 16:13 Comment: @soxgnasher Nice one! The hole my foggy brain didn't twig for ages was this
Thu Apr 12 16:19 The red told my confused mind these were steel chilli ploughs, and close inspection would reveal a field of Capsicum
Thu Apr 12 21:17 Orwell A happy vicar I might have been Two hundred years ago To preach upon eternal doom And watch my walnuts grow; But born, alas, in an evil time, I missed that pleasant haven, For the hair has grown on my upper lip And the clergy are all clean-shaven.
Thu Apr 12 21:18 Comment: Rhyme of harem & (Eugene) Aram is inspired
Tue Apr 17 08:33 On at 11
Tue Apr 17 19:22 Clapton Stadium, Hackney Power Station, Millfields South, Lea Bridge pumping station, filter beds, depot (RIP, but not the house), curious objects on Leyton Marsh
Tue Apr 17 19:23 Comment: More Clapton images
Tue Apr 17 19:23 Comment: via @lordbonkers
Wed Apr 18 06:32 Looking forward to singing at the new Leytonstone food market Saturday, but a bit short of local numbers - "Orient, Orient, Orient" probably won't hack it. Suggestions? @wfcouncil @LeytonFood @WFculture19
Wed Apr 18 16:21 Non-stop mechanical music from Cornwall...
Thu Apr 19 09:21 May try out my first Polish song
Thu Apr 19 09:29 Comment: @ArchitectsJrnal @MarleyEternit I suppose it's too late to enter my barrel organ.
Thu Apr 19 12:04 Walthamstow Marsh particularly Noël Cowardy this lunchtime. The drones will eventually decapitate someone but dogs will take care of the remains
Thu Apr 19 12:05 Can't get enough of that photo
Thu Apr 19 15:11 Comment: @BLMedieval What's it all about, Alfie?
Thu Apr 19 17:34 Comment: @SBaltimoreBoy @BLMedieval Could have been a great soccer player
Thu Apr 19 20:36 Top Spanish allergologist mate who rescued me from nasty pine processionary caterpillar attack said that the only way of curing anything was to take twice the recommended dose of the next grade up. Notoriously cautious bloke. #hayfever
Fri Apr 20 07:20 Survey spam from 'Which?' Thought they'd promised to stop using prize draws
Fri Apr 20 07:23 Comment: @oobr Do those figures include the hacked ones used extensively for neighbourhood deliveries by London teenagers?
Fri Apr 20 10:12 Paris mayor from Cádiz, so no reason in principle (law?) why someone born in Barcelona (tho with French passport) shouldn't be mayor there. Anyone prepared to bet that Cs will still be below 30% in the national elections in 2020?
Mon Apr 23 10:00 Job that's probably less fun than it looks: renovating the pebbles & mosaics on Freeform 1980s florists & sheep on London Fields. Menacing pre-renovation pic: @mandyist
Mon Apr 23 11:29 Londoners aren't interested any more if you tell them you've just bumped into a red kite. But are they eating kebabs like everything else, or stuff left out in gardens?
Mon Apr 23 12:57 Comment: @julianpharrison @BLMedieval @britishlibrary So, no sibling called Dragon yet
Mon Apr 23 13:04 16,016 BBC Sound Effects & not a single barrel organ
Mon Apr 23 13:27 V pleasant lunchtime had Saturday at the Leytonstone Food Market on Church Lane - impeccable organisation, bright sunshine & an (uncooked) white rabbit. I'm back next Saturday at 13:00, hopefully with a 5-year-old guest singer @LeytonFood @wfcouncil Photos by @Transblawg
Mon Apr 23 13:31 Comment: Beats per minute vs bites per minute - read it all
Mon Apr 23 13:51 Comment: @mandyist Nokia 100, I'm afraid. Guy was laying out the pebbles this morning. I'll see how far he's got this afty
Tue Apr 24 08:51 Comment: @Transblawg I'm no lipreader, but perhaps that's what he's saying to you
Tue Apr 24 09:07 Tall, powerful, Kings Cross type strolling down Percy Circus chanting "Lenin was a vanker" to the tune of Harry Worth's "Let's all do the conga." "I mean, what a cant, might as well put up a plaque to Adolf Hitler." Excellent page on the circus by Jack:
Tue Apr 24 09:13 Comment: No sound in the BL, but I think Harry Worth is doing "Let's all go to Civic" at 0:57 in this compilation, after which you may wish to turn off
Tue Apr 24 10:05 Wish people would stop talking bollox about the Bard: Sheikh's Pier is from Eastbourne. "Mr Gulzar said fishing on the pier was dangerous and an excuse to drink cider"
Tue Apr 24 12:38 Mandek Penha (anagram: naked hep man): When I Touch my Leg More on the Church of Sarrean Alignment
Wed Apr 25 13:52 How do you know when your landline's down? No cold-call phishing from the Indian gents in the employ of Donald M Rees of Llanelli aka DMR Financial Services
Wed Apr 25 13:57 Comment: Calls are presumably VOIP routed thru 01223-851778 which belongs to Magrathea & has track record of facilitating spam
Wed Apr 25 15:47 Geezer's got his safety helmet on & is plucking up courage to hi5 me. Much more popular in England than in Spain, where, after one school session, all 90 kids spontaneously formed a queue to give me a proper old-style handshake. Teachers were cool with it: 10 min off next lesson
Wed Apr 25 15:47 Comment: Photo by @LittleStormDes
Thu Apr 26 15:41 Innit great living at the heart of thrusting hi-tech London: just entering second week without landline or internet. Ta, Post Office
Thu Apr 26 15:59 Dear Lord, why does so much rice get stuck in the crevice separating the sieve from its frame?
Thu Apr 26 16:42 Comment: @PostOffice E9, reported Friday 20th AM, fix promised by Wednesday, guy booked to come tomorrow cancelled, rebooked for Monday 30th
Thu Apr 26 16:49 Comment: @PostOffice Cancellation of tomorrow & rescheduling for Monday was received in voicemail at ca 16:20 today
Thu Apr 26 16:50 Journey to the home of Hitchcock
Thu Apr 26 16:51 Comment: @Transblawg It's the pretzel knot that kills me. I mean, how incredibly useful
Thu Apr 26 16:58 Comment: @PostOffice No.
Thu Apr 26 16:59 Comment: @PostOffice The original callcentre guy last Friday was apparently meant to have asked us to do some tests, but didn't.
Thu Apr 26 17:00 Comment: @ibexsalad Incredible guy
Thu Apr 26 17:03 Comment: @PostOffice Haha, well that was a waste of time!
Thu Apr 26 20:51 Comment: @Transblawg Oh dear, oh dear, and our mayor's a beard too. Candidate I'd be least unlikely to support to run our rotten borough is the WEP barrister, but all pretty dismal.
Thu Apr 26 20:53 Comment: @PostOffice It didn't occur to you that we looked at that page before ringing the helpline a week ago? I'm sure you don't mean to take the pi$$, but...
Thu Apr 26 20:54 I love people who ruin keyboards - check the vid at the end
Fri Apr 27 07:20 Ngram 1800-2000 of comparative/superlative modifiers of 'unique': '[quite unique]', '[very unique]', '[absolutely unique]', '[uniquely unique]', .
Fri Apr 27 07:43 Comment: @Transblawg Ooh, I wish! I wish I could find a recording of Fritz Wunderlich, but Rudolf Schock's facial expression always makes me laugh I suppose it might work, calmed down a bit, and I'd be most happy to sing it for your MP
Fri Apr 27 07:54 Comment: @Transblawg I'm very conscious of not having spoken German got several decades, so when I do my bleeding chunk from Mahler Zwei blauen Augen I tend to use the Dutch translation - like anyone would notice. In English it sounds silly
Fri Apr 27 08:58 Why I bet 6 months ago that Trump would win the Nobel Peace Prize: hidden connection between his orange sun lotion & Korea:
Fri Apr 27 09:06 Comment: @Transblawg Advantage of longevity. Wunderlich nostalgia: I used to know a failed Dutch operatic tenor who sat in a bar doing Fritz impressions. He probably fell downstairs while drunk too
Fri Apr 27 09:56 Comment: @steve_guy Oops, relied on Gog's tweet generator. Relativists often say that people are qualifying cos "unique" sometimes means "unusual" but I think it's just our monkey brain saying "put bigger tyres on me Mini"
Fri Apr 27 09:58 Comment: @Transblawg Think I'll give that one a miss & focus on me Chas & Dave ballads
Fri Apr 27 09:59 Comment: @Transblawg Ah, yes!
Fri Apr 27 14:02 Comment: @Transblawg Twitter threading is shite, isn't it. Someone should invent a different kind of platform that does proper content and commenting delivery. They should call it a blog.
Fri Apr 27 14:08 @SuttonHouseNT Just wondering whether the water meter personhole cover should be rotated thru 180º to make it fit. Um.
Fri Apr 27 14:15 Comment: @steve_guy But the "one" already qualifies the "kind" & you've just said that you can't qualify the "one"? How about pursuing the "unusual" usage: you have 100 dogs, 1 with 2 heads, & 100 cats, 2 with 2 heads; can you say that the bicephalic dog is statistically more unique than the cats?
Fri Apr 27 14:36 Comment: @steve_guy More unusual, yes, but there'd still only be one of you, and you still wouldn't be able to say "unique New York" ten times without dribbling hopelessly
Fri Apr 27 14:45 Comment: @steve_guy ‘Toad Hall,’ said the Toad proudly, ‘is an eligible self-contained gentleman's residence, very unique.’
Fri Apr 27 14:51 Comment: @steve_guy Yeah, but he thinks some animals are more equal than others
Fri Apr 27 15:15 Another year, another conference, and still @SAGB hasn't booked me to sing Miley Cyrus' terrifying epic, "Pablow the blowfish", which deals with the four large teeth of her pet, which, fused into an upper & lower plate, are used for crushing the shells of crustaceans and mollusks
Fri Apr 27 18:25 A Greek trying to convince a German. I'm trying to think of a German with big gestures. Even Karajan was incredibly restrained.
Fri Apr 27 20:23 Comment: @GouldingChris @kjhealy I thought that was just me. Ditto Dutch motorways with "Uit"
Fri Apr 27 20:49 Perhaps re Korea & the Trump Nobel: Time squats in our present, devouring our future and excreting our past. Trying to imagine what kind of face the Angel of History might then have, eyes to the past and mouth to the future
Fri Apr 27 20:53 Chilean organ-grinder & chinchinero in the puppet museum on Tibidabo, Barcelona. Hoped it would be representation of me, but memories are short
Fri Apr 27 21:43 Comment: @ifyoutickleus It'll be interesting to see whether priority is also demanded by other populations which emphasise speed, e.g. those from Mediterranean countries
Sat Apr 28 07:51 In Spanish people also use "unique" absolutely or relatively, but afaik without the debate with (anti-)clerical tones about whether something can be beyond compare. Quevedo on the "very unique" shirts of the charity scholars of Salamanca (Los sopones de Salamanca):
Sat Apr 28 08:14 Comment: Perhaps the problem's there in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: 7 ungerim swyðe ænlices folces forð mid = and with them a countless number of very unique/incomparable folk as well
Sat Apr 28 15:35 Epic cab ride with barrel organ & Istanbul/Wood Green driver back from @LeytonFood: "Looks like a good market. So what kind of food have they got? Any Turks, any Greeks?" "Nope." "OK, I'm sick of driving for XY, I'm going back now to try to rent a stall for next week" @wfcouncil
Sun Apr 29 08:54 River Lea smells of elderflower this morning
Sun Apr 29 08:58 Comment: Last Sun's 6AM encounters: junkie ripping out block's electrics, posh Spanish raving @ Hackney Marsh, Leyton acupuncturist closing "we have to go back to China to do something very important", Thai ladyboy in tears on phone, Bangladeshi throwing rubbish onto street from 5th floor
Sun Apr 29 17:18 Comment: @oldmudgie @mjt_1970 Ex banker down the road can't push into poor fat people's houses to lecture them, so confronts them on the street & demands they sign up to her cooking courses
Sun Apr 29 17:22 Best Smithfield's market song: Momus, Pervert Doppelganger: "where refrigerated lorries unload dead cows"
Sun Apr 29 17:33 Adults (not children) always want The Wheels on the Bus, but I can't do it any more. I hate it. It's a terrible song. 10 Green Bottles is as far as I'll go down that road.
Sun Apr 29 18:58 Comment: @ibexsalad Got a geodesic dome in the garage if you know any buyers
Sun Apr 29 19:05 Comment: @Transblawg Patronising pap. I was just thinking that if only dear Dan Jones would actually get round to publishing The Singing Playground (or whatever his monstrous collection of children's rhymes was going to be called a decade ago), then how exciting life would be
Sun Apr 29 19:07 Comment: @Transblawg As in: I hate you You hate me Tinky Winky shot Dipsy With a great big bang And a hole in the head Sorry Laa Laa Dipsy’s Dead
Sun Apr 29 19:18 The scholar
Sun Apr 29 20:18 Comment: @Transblawg Son of Elwyn Jones
Mon Apr 30 06:31 Comment: @Transblawg I'm afraid my lot were also Joneses at one stage
Mon Apr 30 11:54 I know the concrete anonymity and mass tourism of 21st century Spain is progressive & splendid, but oh! to be able to step back into this album posted by Jean-Paul Margnac
Mon Apr 30 11:58 Comment: And here he is again three years later, in 1958, on a motorbike
Mon Apr 30 11:59 Comment: And the Alcázar of Toledo, still in ruins from the siege during the Civil War, has now been rebuilt
Mon Apr 30 12:11 Daan Kersbergen's Jan Klaassen (Pulcinella) show on the Dam in Amsterdam in 1970
Mon Apr 30 19:42 I'll never have his job, he'll never get mine