Tweets for September 2019

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

Sun Sep 01 06:42 What does "Sorry Bro, Black Box!!" mean on a car?
Sun Sep 01 06:49 Neat organist's bum-radiator, St Lawrence's church, Gnosall, but is it enough? The next time I'm up I would love to get photos of the bell installation & operatives
Sun Sep 01 06:57 Apparently in considerable parts of the States, everyone SHOULDN'T have a Buddleja, because they out-compete native species & demolish C19th buildings
Sun Sep 01 06:57 Comment: @Transblawg Aaaaaahhhhhhh
Sun Sep 01 21:44 I brought my girl an apple
Sun Sep 01 23:13 Historia de Barcelona, 2/9: * 1467: Es elegido conde de Barcelona Juan de Lorena, pretendiente a la corona de Aragón (25) * 1843: La Jamancia: Barcelona es tomada por los rebeldes (354+26/i) * 1899: Llegan los sobrevivientes del sitio de Baler, Filipinas…
Mon Sep 02 05:43 Comment: @DuncanDucky Excellent - Ms Woolf's 2nd draft for "A Room of One's Own"! Now I'll follow you if you stop going on about Brexit
Mon Sep 02 05:53 One's beloved George & the Dragon at Gnosall, Staffs, before opening. If British bars were like Spanish & opened at 7 to provide beer & breakfast to wanderers, maybe there'd be more wanderers - perhaps something to start on Ascension Day, like the Dutch dauwtrappen, dew treading
Mon Sep 02 05:55 Comment: But what's the Royal Mail van doing with its doors open on Sellman Street? Gnosall sorting office. I was in a bit of a hurry & didn't go in
Mon Sep 02 06:03 Dutch skarrealism from 1997 with Philip doing his dodgy barrel organ act
Mon Sep 02 13:00 Comment: @DuncanDucky Well done your granddad, then.
Mon Sep 02 23:11 Historia de Barcelona, 3/9: * 1843: La Jamancia: instalación de la Junta Suprema, huida de refugiados (648) * 1848: Fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Consolación (13) * 1918: Pla: Fa més de quatre anys que dura la guerra –quatre anys i un mes exactament *…
Tue Sep 03 06:23 Fine detail on willing stone at Gnosall for Richard Madeley, late of Coton (Cambridge), who died June 23rd 1825 aged 67. John Madeley's memorial, at the bottom, is itself undergoing slow burial by yew root. Perhaps excavation will reveal the history of the entire human race
Tue Sep 03 06:24 Comment: The epitaph is something like: Weep not for me, my wife and children dear, I am not dead but merely sleeping here. My end you know, my grave you see, Therefore prepare to follow me. Common on both sides of the Atlantic since at least the 1750s
Tue Sep 03 06:28 Comment: The last line appears to be Exodus 33:33 - people increasingly questioning some of the translations in the King James Version, which has: "And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen." This obviously led to farting jokes
Tue Sep 03 07:06 Comment: Sorry, Exodus 33:23
Tue Sep 03 07:09 Spain appears to believe that the UK left the EU in March, presumably without a deal, and nothing bad has happened. PS Whatever happened to the scheme to rename Kentish Deal?
Tue Sep 03 07:19 Remain media's FX headlines invariably have sterling slumping vs euro, Brexit media prefer soaring, reality is mundane: nothing's really happened since before/around referendum
Tue Sep 03 07:49 Home Kinks
Tue Sep 03 11:34 Comment: See e.g. Chaucer's Summoner's Tale
Tue Sep 03 11:35 Comment: One riposte, apparently on a tombstone: To follow you I’m not content, How do I know which way you went?
Tue Sep 03 19:17 Is practising the trombone while watching the beginning of the English Civil War the same as fiddling while Rome burns?
Tue Sep 03 20:07 Comment: If you don't know Flann O'Brien's Nero anecdote you haven't lived.
Tue Sep 03 23:18 Historia de Barcelona, 4/9: * 1269: Los vientos impiden a Jaime I de ayudar a los mongoles en Tierra Santa (37+11) * 1843: La Jamancia: conflicto interno (442) * 1918: Pla: Al carrer de Cavallers trobo Marià Vinyas, de Sant Feliu de Guíxols * ☼…
Wed Sep 04 14:35 Communist agitator questions the very bedrock of democracy
Wed Sep 04 19:32 Maclaren made the worst product choice wizard ever
Wed Sep 04 20:33 Comment: Sorry, should have copied @MaclarenGlobal on this. It's very pretty but absolutely useless
Wed Sep 04 23:17 Historia de Barcelona, 5/9: * 1422: Desastrosas pruebas de artillería (19+43) * 1843: La Jamancia: asalto a Sarriá (280/i) * 1918: Pla: Em demano sovint si aquest dietari és sincer, és a dir, si és un document absolutament íntim * 1919: Pla: La política…
Thu Sep 05 06:04 Comment: @ibexsalad Easy: Mr Crow an October election and no deal so that Mr Boris will utterly fack up and Mr Crow will win the next election
Thu Sep 05 06:23 Comment: @Captain_Bionic Tatchell vs Hughes, Bermondsey 1983
Thu Sep 05 06:31 Problems with hyphenated compound modifiers. 6 months everyone supported a no-no-deal party, where e.g. May led the {no-no}-deal party and Cable the no-{no-deal} party. Could use = to clarify hierarchy, e.g. no=no-deal party, but that is also confusing
Thu Sep 05 08:16 Hoping this is Beatrix Potterian jurisprudence rather than genetics
Thu Sep 05 08:17 Brexit has made politicians think that we're fascinated by how they live, when all we want to know is how they're going to die
Thu Sep 05 08:51 Comment: @ZacharyLatif @DPJHodges Nope, that's excluded
Thu Sep 05 08:52 Taken out of context: Permit me, in some dismal cell, With Goths or Leiden bards to dwell, Or to consume my wretched time 'Twixt Dublin verse & Glasgow rhyme
Thu Sep 05 08:54 Doggerelist corrected
Thu Sep 05 08:56 I think as an Irish citizen I'm allowed to repost Paddy & the monkeys The old ones
Thu Sep 05 15:12 On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me / A PARROT in a pear tree? C17th mosaic in Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence - before first known English version of Twelve Days of Christmas. Pear is symbol of Virgin Mary & so is parrot, unlike partridge @CeciliaFrosinin
Thu Sep 05 15:16 Comment: @CeciliaFrosinin My pet theory is that the pear's association with the Virgin Mary is created or strengthened when "Bon Chrétien" cultivars create pears that ripen for Christmas, sometime in the late Middle Ages. Not sure if anyone's got behind the parrot's association with Her.
Thu Sep 05 15:17 Comment: @CeciliaFrosinin Image from a Kremlin exhibition
Thu Sep 05 15:30 Comment: @CeciliaFrosinin The Virgin/pear tie doesn't always work out.
Thu Sep 05 23:17 Historia de Barcelona, 6/9: * 1491: Funerales regios en honor del Infante de Portugal, esposo de la hija mayor de los Reyes Católicos (23) * 1529: Se acaba la segunda guerra entre Carlos I de España y Francisco I de Francia (21) * 1843: La Jamancia:…
Fri Sep 06 06:21 Never trust a genius who italicises inter alia
Fri Sep 06 09:25 Work in progress: koorsstuipen -> choral convulsions. I think they meant koortsstuipen.
Fri Sep 06 09:36 Several musos who knew Mugabe in the 70s say he was always a psychotic ba$tard - there was no midlife change of course, but up to 1980 and even after the mass killings in Matabeleland it was PC to pretend he was a good guy
Fri Sep 06 10:48 Comment: @justinjerez I was so hoping for your dulcet tones on R4 this morning
Fri Sep 06 10:56 Interesting translation at NPR
Fri Sep 06 15:34 A sign of the times: someone sleeps inside the carboot sale sign at Brighton Racecourse
Fri Sep 06 15:38 Comment: Required: Sleeping Beauty
Fri Sep 06 15:41 Comment: In Brighton production has started on John McDonnell busts
Fri Sep 06 15:45 Comment: Sunday bus
Fri Sep 06 15:49 Comment: Cigerettes, confectionary: deportation offences in Georgian times. Ugliness was capital.
Fri Sep 06 16:18 Are Iranian studies on the effects of late pregnancy consumption of dates on labour etc as reliable as French and Spanish studies on the excellent general health outcomes of a bottle of red/day?
Fri Sep 06 23:17 Historia de Barcelona, 7/9: * 1487: Celebraciones tras la toma de Málaga por Fernando el Católico (23) * 1843: La Jamancia: contradicción sangrienta del supuesto apoyo de Montjuic a la Junta (416) * 1919: Pla: A la matinada veig el doctor Borralleras…
Sat Sep 07 23:19 Historia de Barcelona, 8/9: * 1235: Boda de Jaime I y Violante de Hungría (21+5) * 1541: Nuestra Señora de Montserrat libra a un fraile de varias heridas mortales (424) * 1821: Declárase oficialmente la fiebre amarilla (6) * 1848: Romería a Montserrat…
Sun Sep 08 23:18 Historia de Barcelona, 9/9: * 1423: Llega Alfonso V de Aragón después de sus aventuras italianas (17) * 1783: Empiezan construcción del pastim, los hornos de munición (12) * 1881: Luis Moritz pide legalizar un generador en su fábrica de cerveza en c/…
Mon Sep 09 21:38 Spoken Catalan is rare in UK media (usually some urban politico off to jail) so kudos to @TheSun for promoting minority languages with this confrontation between a farmer & the "colla de lladres," gang of thieves, who have walked off with 14 of his rabbits
Mon Sep 09 23:19 Historia de Barcelona, 10/9: * 1638: Llega noticia del levantamiento del sitio de Fuenterrabía, pero no todo el mundo está contento (554+2) * 1843: La Jamancia: "Antes que ser esclavos nos sepultaremos entre las ruinas de esta ciudad" (846+11/i) * 1919:…
Tue Sep 10 06:28 Favourite Chinese is the Cantonese on Marsh Hill, Homerton (Caribbean backwoods takeaway...) but the Hong Kong place on Lower Clapton Rd gives fortune cookies: Your ability to find the silly in the serious will take you far Learning is a treasure which accompanies us everywhere
Tue Sep 10 07:36 A Lime e-bike bell curve in slime: River Lee flood relief channel behind Lea Valley Riding Centre near footbridge to Argall Business Improvement District. Dubious whether planet/waistlines benefit from our transfer from bikes/feet to electric scooters, & why we pay for cleanup
Tue Sep 10 07:39 Duma-on-Thames
Tue Sep 10 12:07 Translation thread
Tue Sep 10 13:07 Did I really send a mail beginning, "I am sorry to hear about Alfred's penis"?
Tue Sep 10 19:07 Apparently frou-frou is no longer the rustling of a dress but what is contained thereunder
Tue Sep 10 23:23 Historia de Barcelona, 11/9: * 1477: Empieza construcción del muelle hasta la isla de Maians, naciendo así el puerto de la Barceloneta (22+32) * 1535: La Diputación rebaja los impuestos para facilitar un gran mercado de esclavos y otros géneros…
Wed Sep 11 05:43 Atlanta man hates (undocked) escooters (they block public space needed inter alia for wheelchair passage) AND plays good music. Unbeatable.
Wed Sep 11 07:24 Beware of due diligence when Greeks come bearing gifts
Wed Sep 11 07:52 Unfortunately this is not about the persecution of Platanus x hispanica
Wed Sep 11 09:31 Dutch polsstokverspringen, or a simulation of the Boris Bridge from Larne to Portpatrick?
Wed Sep 11 10:10 Maybe some historical musicologist or ethnomusicologist can tell me what in C17th England "a vocal spoon with a whistle at the end" was, in a peasant dwelling
Wed Sep 11 10:41 Comment: I am told it may be some kind of dual function gemshorn-spoon, made from the horn of a goat
Wed Sep 11 19:36 Comment: @Transblawg @lynneguist @SimonKoppel British English is 99% /ˈnʌɡᵻt/, even in Highgate. Just try going into a takeaway and ordering chicken /ˈnuːɡɑː/
Wed Sep 11 23:27 Historia de Barcelona, 12/9: * 1462: Enrique IV de Castilla es nombrado conde de Barcelona en la guerra civil con Juan II de Aragón (21) * 1714: Capitulación a Berwick (435) * 1918: Pla: El temporalet continua, petit * 1972: Breve manifestación contra…
Thu Sep 12 05:44 Thanks to the amusing gent at @FidelioArt on Mill Road for giving a 3½-year-old a mock pierced heart tat on Saturday - highlight of a great weekend, of which she is still dreaming industriously
Thu Sep 12 05:58 Phil Hogan, working to unite the UK. The only other common ground we have is our universal contempt for the Thought for the Day segment on BBC R4 Today
Thu Sep 12 06:00 Beijing, channelling Sellars & Yeatman, say Joshua is Wong but Womantic
Thu Sep 12 07:35 Civil unrest in London this morning. Sorry, it's Barcelona. The best bit is that the ex-graveyard on which they're skirmishing didn't even contain any of the martyrs they believe they're commemorating.
Thu Sep 12 08:21 Can something be proverbial if no proverbs cite it?
Thu Sep 12 09:54 Tom Shadwell, 1682: Fops & knaves are the fittest characters for comedy & this town was wont to abound with variety of vanities & knaveries till this unhappy division. But all run now into politics, & you must needs, if you touch upon any humour, offend one of the parties
Thu Sep 12 09:54 Comment: The Lancashire-witches and Tegue O Divelly, the Irish-priest a comedy
Thu Sep 12 11:17 RT @MattCartoonist:
Thu Sep 12 18:25 Our Lord is under threat
Thu Sep 12 19:00 Real Mediterranean diet
Thu Sep 12 19:16 Comment: @tombcn The Mediterranean Diet is such a deranged superstition. I think people live quite well because the weather's nice, & that kind of stuff
Thu Sep 12 20:53 People ask what the big deal is about prorogation - parliament had 3 years and achieved nothing, so what difference can 4 days make - but look at God
Thu Sep 12 23:29 Historia de Barcelona, 13/9: * 1629: Un incidente durante la elección de provincial de los padres dominicos demuestra su poder vis a vis el obispo (266) * 1920: Matanza en el cabaret Pompeya (1014+81) * 1923: Golpe de estado del capitán general de…
Fri Sep 13 06:28 "To be collected on 13/07/2018 Ref: REQ80367397-1" but flytipped along the bike/footpath (51.570473, -0.039691) in Argall Business Area, Walthamstow. I can't see how they got it in there unless from an industrial unit behind. Raised bed for planting? @wfcouncil
Fri Sep 13 08:24 Platform announcer at Bridgetown North on the London Overground is clutching his megaphone in one hand & a lady by the other. No one listens to the announcements, which are always a variation on, "We fixed the Overground for Olympic visitors & Chinese launderers, not for you."
Fri Sep 13 08:30 Mail from "Mr.Warren E. Buffett Billionaire investor You Can Google my name for more information" donating $1.5M, comfortably exceeding sum of gifts via
Fri Sep 13 09:28 Painted trombone memorial on narrowboat
Fri Sep 13 23:33 Historia de Barcelona, 14/9: * 1636: Pagado algo en concepto de los impuestos debidos por la ciudad, vuelven el virrey y la Real Audiencia tras una estancia gerundense de 16 meses (129) * 1639: Salen cuarenta mil hombres para recuperar Salses en…
Sat Sep 14 07:28 & period dramas set even recently are patent bollocks - everyone's pretty & undiseased. Bring back the ugly poxheads
Sat Sep 14 08:26 Johnny Cash sings "Wer kennt den Weg" - but read the comments for his true identity
Sat Sep 14 23:39 Historia de Barcelona, 15/9: * 1463: El rey de Portugal recomienda a los catalanes someterse a Juan II de Aragón y, por implicación, olvidarse de Enrique de Castilla (34) * 1529: Paz de las Damas entre España y Francia después de la Segunda Guerra de…
Sun Sep 15 07:48 Hong Kong anthem: "many may find it hard to sing because of the wide vocal range required." Yup Sing Hallelujah To The Lord is easier. Is the HK thing a neo-Christian movement?
Sun Sep 15 07:48 Comment: @Transblawg Ta for the site
Sun Sep 15 07:54 "can you beatbox?" thread
Sun Sep 15 09:47 London statues
Sun Sep 15 19:09 Renato Carosone, Tu vuò fa' l'Americano, boxing edit
Sun Sep 15 19:36 Comment: @ibexsalad Years ago on the continent when Anglophone news was in short supply I used to listen to the late night radio news on RTE, the Irish broadcaster, which used to have items about 66 year old cyclists frightened by horses
Sun Sep 15 19:38 Pub regular allegedly announces without fail at 22:30: Ok, lads, I'm off home to tear the wife's knickers off. They're killing me.
Sun Sep 15 23:44 Historia de Barcelona, 16/9: * 1617: Informe sobre la magnífica recepción del conseller en cap en Madrid (25+2) * 1718: Felipe V firma la reforma por José Rodrigo de la administración pública de Barcelona (157+11) * 1889: Nace Mercedes Jellinek, hija del…
Tue Sep 17 00:23 Historia de Barcelona, 17/9: * 1409: El Papa Luna y Vicente Ferrer, en la boda de Martín el Humano (37+78) * 1918: Pla: Observant la gent des del punt de vista de la cerimònia de la conversació, noto el que segueix: Els pobres, realment pobres, són…
Tue Sep 17 05:11 Alphabet or betalpha at @AmazonKDP ? Tax interview form has Fiji before Falklands, (Federated States of) Micronesia before Faroe, & United Kingdom between Gabon & Grenada. By UK the developers mean GB & just haven't bothered to resort, but what about the rest?
Tue Sep 17 05:19 Looks like more of Tony Blair's Better Regulation Task Force's pretty tower block cladding has gone up in smoke. Just waiting for the theory that the drones were pyromaniac Martians
Tue Sep 17 06:39 The Guardian seems to favour exotic crystals when they are NaCl
Tue Sep 17 06:40 Comment: @joereddington Most of my neighbours couldn't tell you the way to the park without consulting their phone, let alone find their country on a map
Tue Sep 17 07:22 I'd forgotten piles of passports. Once crossed from Italy to Austria in a band bus with everyone asleep except the narco, who decided he'd clear up. Only at the German border that it was discovered that one of the rubbish bags he'd ditched contained the passports. Back to Brenner
Tue Sep 17 07:29 Someone has kindly donated Ham & Pigs by Paul Heiney from my Amazon wishlist. The story of Trevor Gamble, curing bacon in a lockup on a Leeds estate, is particularly encouraging. I was raving about my passion for pigs on Sunday to someone who unfortunately turned out to be vegan
Tue Sep 17 07:54 Comment: @Captain_Bionic Cataphonics is reflected sounds but I can't name the science of silhouetted cats
Tue Sep 17 08:16 Twitter would be fine if you could auto-mute all trends
Tue Sep 17 13:44 Royal prorogative prerogative should be applied to the necks of those (mainly in the Carolinas and India) who use "prorogative" where they mean "prerogative"
Tue Sep 17 14:03 Petardos (firecrackers) -> retardos (delays). Retards are retrasados. (Poble Sec, Barcelona)
Tue Sep 17 14:12 I have found an image of a beacon of gravitas
Wed Sep 18 00:35 Historia de Barcelona, 18/9: * 1714: Entrada del Duque de Berwick, Te Deum en la catedral, grandes destrozos en la ciudad, los Migueletes entran en el ejército borbón, quema de banderas (886) * 1918: Pla: Llarg passeig pels voltants de Palafrugell –sense…
Wed Sep 18 07:26 Kamsons Pharmacy, Brighton: Be proud of who you are. Punter: Haven't you got a pill for that?
Wed Sep 18 07:29 Free today But where is the public execution place for escooter-ists?
Wed Sep 18 07:55 The neighbours have got to the Ukraine amid clouds of plum brandy and some controversy has arisen that is beyond my understanding
Wed Sep 18 09:19 Jays
Wed Sep 18 15:13 I'll set to music Aidan O'Neill's defence in the Supreme Court of the Scottish prorogation ruling ... if he hasn't already sold the rights
Wed Sep 18 18:19 Work your way back through the tweets & read the whole of this guy's travelogue
Wed Sep 18 18:34 More political interference in Google Translate: σοϕιστής (a wise man, later a cheat) -> socialist
Thu Sep 19 00:43 Historia de Barcelona, 19/9: * 1634: Llega la duquesa de Mantua (será la última Virreina española de Portugal), pero es feísima y poco festera (86) * 1639: Comienza el sitio español de Salses en Rosellón (541) * ~1829: Stendhal: sufrimiento de los…
Thu Sep 19 07:00 This (new) article is surely going to lead to a fashion for the smearing new-born C-sections with their mum's poo
Thu Sep 19 07:01 Comment: @afneil & that's an important distinction from e.g. Dutch referendums, which are advisory & always loudly proclaimed to be so
Thu Sep 19 13:19 How come there isn't a photo of Rosa Luxemburg's Persian cat, Mimi?
Thu Sep 19 22:39 Crazy way of making a French omelette sarnie. I am converted
Fri Sep 20 00:48 Historia de Barcelona, 20/9: * 1517: Nuestra Señora de Montserrat salva a Antonio Malorba de una casa que le cae encima (221) * 1918: Pla: La família * 1962: Inauguración de El Corte Inglés (188) * ☼ 06:35-18:54, 12:19 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
Fri Sep 20 05:35 Small boy: Yes mum, I'll go on the school strike. No, wait, Friday is fish & chips day.
Fri Sep 20 06:35 You see a lot of Dutch barges etc on England's inland waterways, but the French makes me wonder whether this isn't un Belge - the legislation in question in the Prohibited Access Article 461 Penal Code sign is Dutch, but some Belgians believe it to be theirs
Fri Sep 20 06:40 I failed to photograph an Aesopian confrontation between a fox and a crow (well, a magpie) yesterday at the Waterworks Nature Reserve, but here's a crow and a squirrel near the River Lea
Fri Sep 20 06:50 Comment: A real Dutch tjalk on the River Lea - sailing barges used on inland waterways starting C17th/18th. Were it not for the beer & gin on expeditions with Chop Suey & the Blowjobs, I would know whether "skûtsje" is just Friesian for "tjalk", or whether there are technical differences
Fri Sep 20 21:03 Magical transformation of Burnham-on-Crouch sailor from nemesis (drowning, with faint cries of "Help") via shock ("my fingers are hanging off ... please do up my shoelaces ... I didn't take off my coat cos it's got my wallet in it") to hubris ("where can I get a gin and tonic?")
Fri Sep 20 21:03 Comment: Fell of his boat in April too, but optimism requires no life jacket
Sat Sep 21 00:53 Historia de Barcelona, 21/9: * 1559: Solemne procesión por la llegada a España de Felipe II tras firmar la Paz de Cateau-Cambrésis (20) * 1995: Grave tormenta (16) * ☼ 06:36-18:52, 12:16 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días *…
Sat Sep 21 07:02 I've encountered Frank Mason's 1939 poster for the Ministry of Information, "The British Navy guards the freedom of us all," on a few bathroom walls, but no one seems to know which specific (class of) ship is leading the convoy. It looks overarmed to my ignorant eye, so fantasy?
Sat Sep 21 07:05 Comment: Edwin Embleton commissioned it from Frank Mason, so when @I_W_M gets round to publishing Embleton's recollections maybe we'll find out
Sat Sep 21 07:14 Comment: @I_W_M One of Embleton's own from the Brighton University Design Archives I live next to an important railway freight line & wonder if I am beginning to see a change in the balance of international shipments
Sat Sep 21 07:18 Comment: @Master_Plum @LordCirencester I know it's foolish, but I do like a touch or realism in propaganda posters
Sat Sep 21 07:29 Probably a bit long to work as a front-door motivational quote for political canvassers
Sat Sep 21 08:20 Where can I sign up?
Sun Sep 22 00:57 Historia de Barcelona, 22/9: * 1783: Carlos III manda dejar la actitud criminal que constituye la gitanidad, prohibe la discriminación contra supuestos ex-gitanos (quienes sin embargo no pueden trabajar de esquilador ni vendedor ambulante ni posadero…
Sun Sep 22 09:12 Railway museum with best website navigation
Sun Sep 22 10:20 All appears quiet, but the woke & amiable wings of English Folk Dance & Song Society are at each other's throats re whether Justin Trudeau's blackface hobby is a charming tribute to Morris/Moorish dancing or cultural appropriation by the liberal elite of working people's culture
Sun Sep 22 11:36 From the corner of Twitter devoted to facts, Frank Mason's British Navy poster shows a 'battleship of the King George V Class armed with ten 15” guns on three turrets (4-2-4).'
Sun Sep 22 18:32 In praise of the German Volkshochschulen on their 100th birthday - "folk high schools", but much like British evening classes I know two very smart Turkish women who would still be in shitty jobs & probably ditto marriages were it not for the VHS
Sun Sep 22 22:02 Historia de Barcelona, 23/9: * 1461: Muere en el palacio real Carlos de Viana, hijo de Juan II y quizá víctima de Juana Enríquez (18) * 1757: Alumbrado público con aceite para celebrar el cumpleaños de Fernando VI (23) * 1760: Carlos III restituye…
Sun Sep 22 22:07 Chicken gravy is so much better if you thicken with ground almond instead of flour
Mon Sep 23 07:47 Why in cruder times did no one put on Romeo & Juliet featuring a dwarf and a giantess? Balcony scene would win greatly. Still potential to do this in the Congo, featuring a hunter-gathering pygmy Romeo & a Bantu farmeress Juliet, given symbiosis/rivalry
Mon Sep 23 07:48 Comment: Gnomeo & Juliet did not involve height differential
Mon Sep 23 08:04 Lawless Britain
Mon Sep 23 10:16 Why are middle-aged men fond of puns (dad jokes)?
Mon Sep 23 11:15 Felipe Lombó, University of Payola, Spain finds that eating acorn-fed cured ham may alleviate & prevent symptoms of inflammatory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis I still prefer the study on dates & pregnancy from Iran, the world's largest exporter
Mon Sep 23 12:21 Comment: @MPSKingsPark @MPSHackney So the raves between the Lee and Temple Mills depot, so north of the Lee and New Spitalfields, are safe?
Mon Sep 23 12:25 Comment: @tombcn Just curious how they helped. I find dates very comforting, and we're pigging them, but the link to induction sounds to me correlative rather than causative - basically, whatever you do you're probably going to go into labour around that time.
Mon Sep 23 12:38 Comment: @tombcn Anything but p____ massage
Mon Sep 23 12:39 I have never seen man nor beast urinate as quickly as the barman at the E____field. Under 10 seconds from entry to exit. Wearing a nappy behind his apron?
Mon Sep 23 18:09 Lack of transparency in baby buggy market is best argument for communism. Man walks into bar, looks at 50 beers on offer with funny names, says, "Give me a Doom Bar."
Mon Sep 23 22:15 Historia de Barcelona, 24/9: * 1616: Empieza construcción del muelle nuevo (12/i) * 1629: Pasa por la ciudad el duque de Alba camino a su jubilación como mayordomo mayor del rey tras unos años dificiles como virrey de Nápoles (103+58) * 1848: Fiesta de…
Tue Sep 24 08:15 Bangladeshi consultant at a London hospital doesn't use the standard London Jafaican filler, "innit," but rather hypercorrects to "isn't it."
Tue Sep 24 08:21 raining this morning
Tue Sep 24 08:50 Comment: @tombcn aaaahhhh!
Tue Sep 24 09:06 Grossman Life & Fate is a great novel, & satisfyingly, for organ-grinders, includes a few telling monkey references: "There’s something ghastly about a monkey imitating the ways of a man" when theme is actually men imitating monkeys
Tue Sep 24 09:26 Desperate, weeping, hysterical child tries to convince UN that global warming doesn't exist
Tue Sep 24 10:27 Can Boris appeal to the ECJ?
Tue Sep 24 10:28 Comment: Or is it the ECHR? No one knows the difference.
Tue Sep 24 12:42 Is the Spanish chaval/Catalan xaval distinction a Romance phonology thing, or is it a reflection of different Romani dialects using initial /tʃ/ or /ʃ/, as seen in the spellings čavo and šavo?
Tue Sep 24 12:45 Comment: If 17th century Welsh speakers in the Borders call a pony a shaval, are they channelling the Anglo-French cheval or the Welsh Romani čavo (vocative plural čavale) for a (male) child?
Tue Sep 24 16:36 It's the Queen, not Boris, who goes to the Tower, because she signed it off. Then she pardons herself.
Tue Sep 24 20:40 How could someone with initials TAPS not be a fine faucet-fixer?
Tue Sep 24 20:44 Gardener's World isn't the same without Monty Don demonstrating perennial massage
Tue Sep 24 20:56 Westminter, as opposed to Northminter (aka Gateshead), where De La Rue print the banknotes
Tue Sep 24 22:35 Historia de Barcelona, 25/9: * 1258: Real cédula de Jaime I autorizando la Carta consulatus riparte Barchinone (27+23) * 1410: Primera sesión del parlamento catalán para elegir sucesor a Martín I (31) * 1919: Pla: He aprovat les assignatures que em…
Wed Sep 25 07:30 People quoted Dick Emery's Mandy, but I'd never seen her
Wed Sep 25 11:08 One's gratitude for not having been created an interpreter, today tinged with regret:
Wed Sep 25 11:14 Comment: @ibexsalad Some Brits apparently don't recognise that this is all essentially National Enquirer - applied, fearless of sect, morals & the Oxford English Dictionary
Wed Sep 25 13:43 crIKEA
Wed Sep 25 22:32 Historia de Barcelona, 26/9: * 1496: Exequias por la madre de Isabel I (14) * 1919: Pla: Escapada d’un dia a Palafrugell amb motiu de l’aprovació de les últimes assignatures de la carrera * ☼ 06:41-18:44, 12:02 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación…
Thu Sep 26 06:22 It's ok for guys to like dolls
Thu Sep 26 12:11 I suggest calling anyone doesn't moderate the language of debate a traitor.
Thu Sep 26 12:12 A poisoner asks: apparently onion smells/tastes similar to arsenic under the right conditions, but what are those conditions?
Thu Sep 26 12:55 The Arabic Wikipedia is utterly pathetic, with few exceptions, one of which is any kind of luxury good
Thu Sep 26 14:29 Batman takes Buddha from behind, but in the exercise of law or love?
Thu Sep 26 22:37 Historia de Barcelona, 27/9: * 1879: Las farolas de Gaudí y las Tres Gracias en la Plaza Real (85+172) * 1902: Abre sus puertas el Diorama Animado de Salvador Alarma (706+22/i) * 1975: Las últimas ejecuciones del franquismo (396) * 1998: Ultimo día del…
Fri Sep 27 06:37 Comment: @integlangsbiz @adrechsel @ACGInterpret I think that virtually everyone knows that anyone who talks about "untranslatable words" is just rather silly, but perhaps @EUCouncil still hasn't found a translation for "majority"
Fri Sep 27 06:46 The One-Note Zombie
Fri Sep 27 08:01 The only bad bit about Godard Alphaville is having to watch it
Fri Sep 27 08:13 Comment: Are the negative reviews for Hazanavicius' Godard biopic Redoubtable all from the dwindling cult dedicated a guy who just didn't know how to tell a story?
Fri Sep 27 10:00 I want one with Big Ben and vultures
Fri Sep 27 23:32 Historia de Barcelona, 28/9: * 1565: Celebración del levantamiento del sitio de Malta (26) * 1918: Pla: No sé pas a quin partit polític pertany el meu pare * 1919: Pla: Apareix un criat a la porta de la penya i diu: –El senyor Solé de Sojo… El demanen…
Sat Sep 28 10:26 Everyone's like, "OK, let all the tourists fack off to Saudi and get beheaded," but then we'll have even more time to hate each other
Sat Sep 28 10:30 Back when Iceland was accessed by a Hull herring boat I almost took a job in a tiny settlement up north where everyone had the same grandparents. The thrill is gone away
Sat Sep 28 20:01 Legal cruelty: accidentally drop a fiver on the floor in a room full of heavily pregnant women
Sat Sep 28 23:35 Historia de Barcelona, 29/9: * 1305: Tributos aduaneros de Barcelona (16) * 1562: Santa Madrona vs la sequia (31+90) * 1617: Empieza el diluvio catalán (775+31) * 1637: Llega noticia del desastroso sitio español de Leucate/Ocata, Rosellón, y sale un…
Sun Sep 29 07:01 Book editors aren't artisans, but Chinese printers are
Sun Sep 29 09:07 Painter with no-bum-crack guarantee
Sun Sep 29 09:10 Clapham negotiating Brexit to central Madrid
Sun Sep 29 13:08 SOG: So what's the difference between free-range and outdoor-reared chickens? Butcher's assistant, spinning on the retreat: Outdoor-reared means they're protected from foxes.
Sun Sep 29 17:34 The truth about the Pie'd Piper When I first heard the original my parents knew a woman called Hamlin, and I was most disappointed not to find rats in her bag.
Sun Sep 29 23:38 Historia de Barcelona, 30/9: * 0992: Muere Borrell II (6) * 1568: Nace Jerónimo Pujades, cronista de Cataluña (15+132) * 1802: Se recibe a Manuel Godoy con más extravagancia que a Carlos IV (313) * 1868: Galdós: recuerdos de la Barcelona revolucionaria…
Mon Sep 30 07:16 Gujarati consultant: But madam, you are eating a Yorkie bar! Now you need to be very careful: I tell my daughter that Yorkies & Snickers are for boys, while Maltesers are for girls, because they are full of air. If you eat another Yorkie your baby girl will come out with a beard!
Mon Sep 30 07:42 I think this & subsequent verses are meant to follow limerick structure: Some said wonders would never cease As we attempted to hypothetically release Some poor sod who strayed Beyond the 380 ft way And got stuck in the technical masterpiece
Mon Sep 30 10:24 When did Taylorism turn into HR-ism?
Mon Sep 30 16:51 I reckon at the end of Mark Jenkin's Bait the fishers are taking out the boat to scuttle it and drown, but I'm always the cheerful one
Mon Sep 30 17:18 Eel in a Bournemouth park had better be careful: sizeable East End retiree population
Mon Sep 30 23:41 Historia de Barcelona, 1/10: * 1792: Primera edición del Diario de Barcelona (87+120) * 1814: La Junta de Comercio crea la escuela de economía política (12) * 1839: Un profesor de francés corta en pedazos a un joyero (878) * 1842: Inaugúrase el alumbrado…