Tweets for July 2023

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

Sat Jul 01 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 1 July 2023: Then: 1718: The first issue of the Leeds Mercury is London news headed with a woodcut of a fat postman in a wig 1788: Leeds textile workers celebrate the banning of exports of live sheep 1840: The opening of the Hull and…
Sat Jul 01 08:41 I enjoyed the Public Goods chapter in Dieter Helm's Green and Prosperous Land, but don't feel he answered his question about how to persuade a phenomenally ignorant public to vote to pay the bills
Sat Jul 01 21:20 Good synopsis of Njal's Saga
Sun Jul 02 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 2 July 2023: Then: 1644: Henry Slingsby (York garrison) on the Royalist defeat at Marston Moor today, which ends Charles I's hopes in the north 1829: An elderly postman and a one-legged Waterloo veteran set out in ironed clogs to walk…
Mon Jul 03 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 3 July 2023: Then: 1643: The Royalists take Bradford after the Second Siege, but are warned off massacring the inhabitants by a ghost 1761: John Wesley visits an unjustly bankrupted Yarm liquor smuggler in York Castle 1816: Emilia…
Mon Jul 03 08:57 The fear that the muskrat will force me to look at MORE than n tweets/day
Mon Jul 03 11:29 Old E gets me into the Yaris, ostensibly on a terracotta salvage mission: - She's a clever little girl, so I want you to promise me now that you'll scrimp & save & do whatever it takes to send her to Leeds High School for Girls - But it closed 20 years ago - I'll bludy reopen it
Mon Jul 03 19:29 I haven't done this for a few years - the OSM data approach is really cool
Mon Jul 03 19:31 Comment: I mean, recognition of the concept of public goods seems to have dropped to close to the Guatemalan level of big car, big deal
Mon Jul 03 20:45 Comment: @GroomB Do you happen to have a primary for that? Martin Amis says he said it to Robert Pitman, but I haven't got The Daily Express archive to hand...
Mon Jul 03 21:14 Comment: @GroomB Thanks! (Colin Wilson's Dreaming To Some Purpose is v amusing on Braine in Bingley)
Mon Jul 03 21:23 The infant appears chicken-poxed, so tomorrow I will kill them all
Tue Jul 04 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 4 July 2023: Then: 1604: The daily timetable for Cicely Sandys' university at Ripon is approved today by Queen Anne of Denmark 1985: Publication of Blake Morrison's Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper Now: Weather for tonight: partly…
Wed Jul 05 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 5 July 2023: Then: 1603: In his will, William Clapham finances an annual potation of figs and ale on St. Gregory's Day for poor pupils at the Giggleswick free school 1858: The view from the tower of Beverley Minster Now: Weather for…
Wed Jul 05 08:07 I used Twitter as a cheap-n-mental microblog, but will be moving on if you now need an account to read tweets
Wed Jul 05 10:08 British government omitting to mention that water here is better on one metric than Belgium, Latvia, Czech, Hungary, Germany and Luxembourg
Wed Jul 05 10:08 Comment: Bottom: Netherlands
Wed Jul 05 19:04 Comment: Wazzocks
Wed Jul 05 20:11 Hypotheticals: Delft. "I could never learn Dutch." Cycles a mile through an English town. "I could try."
Wed Jul 05 21:04 Dusted the potatoes with cayenne - it's kill AND cure for the squirrels
Thu Jul 06 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 6 July 2023: Then: 1381: John de Erghom and others in service of the Beverley oligarchy murder William Haldane and throw him in a pit on Walker Lane 1825: James Backhouse, a Quaker nurseryman from York, triumphs with exotic varieties…
Thu Jul 06 21:22 1/4 I naively thought that "The Kiboomers", to which the ubiquitous Planet Song is credited, was some inept Chinese AI project, but it turns out that two Canadian Anglos are responsible for encouraging children to misemphasise ("then Ve'nus" etc etc)
Thu Jul 06 21:22 Comment: 2/4 Why? Even in a post-walking age, children are phenomenally good at distinguishing between stressed & unstressed syllables (Pink Floyd's "dark sar'casm" is faux infantile, "'accentuate the positive" et al are adult gimmicks) (Ruskin Praeterita for historical ref)
Thu Jul 06 21:23 Comment: 3/4 Do they think that their invented incompetence helps non-native learners, or that it comforts code-switching speakers of e.g. Jamaican English (e.g. "Cari'bbean" vs "Ca'ribbean")?
Thu Jul 06 21:23 Comment: 4/4 If you need a planet song, try Drake and Josh
Fri Jul 07 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 7 July 2023: Then: 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) starts making hay 1819: The Rev. Sydney Smith complains from Foston to the historian John Allen of summer colds Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 14°C (57°F),…
Sat Jul 08 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 8 July 2023: Then: 1940: Amidst rumours of German parachutists, Evelyn Cardwell of Aldborough disarms and arrests an enemy airman Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 16°C (60°F), wind south easterly 9mph, visibility good,…
Sat Jul 08 20:16 I'm no judge of these things, but Juli Zeh's Über Menschen strikes me as a great novel, a great Eastern. Someone sent me the excellent Dutch translation - Onder Buren, by Annemarie Vlaming. I think she's Dutch, but the action would also work in the Flemish hinterland
Sat Jul 08 20:17 Comment: An error suggests that Vlaming doesn't use machine translation: "Je leidt [lijdt] niet aan angst, je praktiseert hem."
Sat Jul 08 20:26 What is @GeoffRimington 's instinctive reaction to Italian tiramisù recipes with lots of eggs (& mascarpone, obvs) but no cream?
Sat Jul 08 20:36 Old E comes round to have his chain watchband shortened ("you know how to do bike chains, so..."), but might be prepared to eat more
Sat Jul 08 20:40 Comment: Great mercies: her chickenpox seems to have fixed my Achilles tendon (right) & plantar fasciitis (left). Less desktime or less prampushing? Physio thought the latter, but h is a footballer
Sat Jul 08 22:08 Comment: @Transblawg It is true that she likes pushing it and me down the Hill of Death
Sun Jul 09 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 9 July 2023: Then: 1680: William Battley of Leeds is accused of perjury, perhaps for having claimed that Robert Bolron thought almanacs a good thing 1849: Suicide of a London bride at Holbeck (Leeds) Now: Weather for tonight: partly…
Sun Jul 09 15:53 Comment: @andrew_jeans @GeoffRimington Oh dear, oh dear, I suppose I'll have to tell them they've got it wrong.
Sun Jul 09 16:22 Several hundred vehicles for marginalia still available
Sun Jul 09 20:17 Argument against nationalisation as a solution for UK churches
Mon Jul 10 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 10 July 2023: Then: 1869: The first prosecution under the Sea Birds Preservation Act results in a fine at Bridlington of £330 (2021) for killing 28 birds at Flamborough Now: Weather for tonight: mist, temperature 13°C (55°F), wind…
Mon Jul 10 21:43 Comment: Hoping for a sequel in which Dora returns her house to its historical function of kindergarten
Tue Jul 11 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 11 July 2023: Then: 1787: Advertisement for The Commercial and Mathematical Academy, Hull 1829: A Leeds Mercury subscriber asks why Christians do not seek to refute the claims of the Rev. Robert Taylor and Richard Carlile's "infidel…
Tue Jul 11 09:27 Comment: @john_sour No idea why you're doing it, but I love the series
Tue Jul 11 19:50 Comment: @TheLeedsCyclist @BlatantWatch @ParkLkeAPrick @izaakww @mshazleeds @joolsheselwood @emmaflint18 Are roofers special? Hyde Park is the Wild West of Leeds parking, but in working hours Marcher Roofing Ltd literally *always* occupy the double yellow & pavement on both components of the tight Welton Rd/Brudenell Rd junction
Tue Jul 11 22:14 John Stuart Mill's "five shilling elephant" - Leeds Mercury, 5/3/1867
Wed Jul 12 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 12 July 2023: Then: 1692: Philip Wharton finances the annual donation of large numbers of English bibles and catechisms to poor children in York 1770: William Hickington, the Pocklington Poet, signs his will in verse Now: Weather for…
Wed Jul 12 09:41 16ºC & not envying the infant her British Seaside Experience at preschool: - Daddy, do I have to go in the paddling pool? - Darling, Yorkshire girls strip off and dive in at Whitby when it's actually snowing. I think she was kidding about the paddling pool.
Thu Jul 13 08:16 Comment: @ConnectingLeeds Can you tell us how long the cycle lane and pavement on the north side of the A660/Headingley Lane between roughly St Columba URC & Hinsley Hall will be closed, & what's happening?
Thu Jul 13 22:17 Someone with a lanyard likes my plan to manage Headingley's green space with a flock of sheep & goats (latter to keep the vicious dogs at bay)
Fri Jul 14 08:27 I haven't seen flaked almonds on supermarket shelves for a few months & I don't know anyone in Dover
Fri Jul 14 08:37 This alphabet song on Twinkle Twinkle is widely used in British early years education, despite relying on C rhyming with Z, which it doesn't in British English: #CrimesAgainstRhyme (It's also rubbish in other respects)
Fri Jul 14 08:37 Comment: There's a parody of its awfulness: ZYXWVUT SRQPONMLK JIH, GFE, D and C and B and A. Now I know my ZYX's. That's the way we say the alphabet in Texas.
Fri Jul 14 08:59 Comment: 50% of Tory MPs don't eat Bakewell tart?
Fri Jul 14 09:16 Comment: @thhamilton Amanda Holden
Sat Jul 15 05:52 Marcelo Bielsa looks down in dismay at a @ClearChannelUK van illegally obstructing the pavement at Hyde Park Road/Headingley Lane, Leeds. I hope the three hoardings will go, ending Clear Channel's habitual ASB & opening up a view of St Augustine's, Wrangthorn
Sat Jul 15 05:58 Comment: While we're in the hood, here's the truck delivering artisan goodies to @HPBCLeeds obstructing footpath and cycle lane, as usual
Sat Jul 15 06:05 The infant was first visitor to the renovated Hyde Park/Woodhouse Moor playground yesterday at 13:30, not having slipped through the barriers on the previous weekend
Sat Jul 15 06:16 The infant took control of an old Canon yesterday & is proving a prolific recorder of local flora & fauna
Sat Jul 15 06:30 Comment: @Transblawg Hahahaha! She just did her first selfie, though it's not easy with an old school camera
Sat Jul 15 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 15 July 2023: Then: 1855: At Sevastopol in the Crimea, boatswain's mate John Sheppard of Hull tries to row through enemy lines on an improvised explosive punt to blow up a Russian warship, winning a VC. Now: Weather for tonight: partly…
Sun Jul 16 06:20 The infant has happy to see on Woodhouse Moor that Robert Peel (Catholic emancipation, repeal of the Corn Laws) is somewhat belatedly accessorising for the summer - peach liqueur and two wigs. But still short of the Duke of Wellington (Catholic emancipation)'s cone and shades
Sun Jul 16 06:22 Comment: @TrentTelenko Around 2018 I did a top 10 of Russian football songs, of which the the most surprising aspect was the rather dubious Anglophilia
Sun Jul 16 06:24 A survey of Ukrainian music videos from 2019
Sun Jul 16 06:25 Comment: I give you once more my top 10 Russian football songs from 2018ish
Sun Jul 16 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 16 July 2023: Then: 1638: Henry Best and several other citizens of Elmswell (Driffield) are taxed to relieve plague-stricken Hull. 1858: Walter White meets two Middlesbrough families on Roseberry Topping. Now: Weather for tonight:…
Sun Jul 16 20:01 Comment: @Hodgyleeds @KirkstallArt @KECC1853 Perfect afternoon with the exhibition & cricket (better luck next time)!
Mon Jul 17 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 17 July 2023: Then: 1785: Mr Strother, a York draper's assistant, finds that diarising is not for common folk, and stops. 1815: John Dunhill and William Bewell stand trial for their lives shortly after Waterloo, accused of the riotous…
Mon Jul 17 19:01 Please @LeedsCC_Help get "no dogs" signs put up on the renovated children's playground on Hyde Park/Woodhouse Moor. Had to do my best schoolteacher impression this afternoon to convince a thick thug to remove his large & lively American bully
Mon Jul 17 19:18 It's worth shopping around with radio, because everyone has gold to give. GB News this AM was assimilating anticyclonic Charon to its imagined target audience by calling it Sharon. (The Plutonian moon is pronounced thus because its discoverer's wife was called Charlene.)
Tue Jul 18 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 18 July 2023: Then: 1784: Wesley finds children "restrained from open sin" at one of the first Sunday schools, at Bingley. 1848: The sanitation committee of Bradford Council and other notables witness the use of iron(III) chloride and…
Tue Jul 18 09:17 H thought he'd retire from the smoke to his native town, bought an expensive house, & went along to rejoin the town band: - Fack off mate, you haven't played for 30 years!
Tue Jul 18 19:53 Offset your avian windmill-print by eating your cat I still don't get how people can in North Sea terms believe both in offshore wind and the revival of our fishing industry
Tue Jul 18 21:16 Comment: @OED The content is now actually harder to access and understand on larger screens, which admittedly may not be your marketing priority. E.g. termination of multi-session logins, more clicks to access material, loss of overview. Please at least allow users to choose layout.
Wed Jul 19 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 19 July 2023: Then: 1761: John Wesley speaks at the first love-feast at Birstall. 1849: As William Clarke's All-England Eleven begins a three-day match against a Hull twenty-two, the Hull Packet notes the failure of seaports to produce…
Wed Jul 19 09:01 Comment: @aljopainter @OED File still there, but base template applied - laughable incompetence
Wed Jul 19 09:54 Everything OK, @CooperativeBank ?
Wed Jul 19 12:35 Comment: @LeedsTours @WYP_LeedsCity Words/deeds: here's the double yellow patch used by the guys from Hyde Park police station as their private carpark
Wed Jul 19 19:52 Comment: @OxPoetryLibrary @OED @Quaiteaux @aluxt @gauzale @anjumsheh Unfortunately users accessing via their local library have to reselect every time they use OED. I don't know what life is like now for for institutional users, but for subscribers like @leedslibraries the value of the service in general seems greatly diminished
Thu Jul 20 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 20 July 2023: Then: 1849: Jane tells Thomas Carlyle how she rebelled against the brutal hydrotherapy meted out by Dr William Macleod at Ben Rhydding spa. 1858: Haymaking with the Quakers of Bainbridge, Wensleydale. Now: Weather for…
Thu Jul 20 09:10 M funeral all black so far, half expecting horses
Thu Jul 20 19:43 On the Leeds skyline
Thu Jul 20 20:35 One look at the range & number of monsters waiting to devour all the fruit & veg planted in Alf's (wooded) garden, & you understand that the Bronze Age deforestation of England was also about pest control. Bar-steward squirrels still trying to dig up the spuds.
Thu Jul 20 20:40 Comment: I can't remember who told me about the squirrels who'd been digging up and eating her bulbs & then storing nuts in the cavities. SM has had an allotment here for 20 years: "Every year a new plague hits. Onions, a good bet? This year it's onion fly."
Fri Jul 21 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 21 July 2023: Then: 1666: A white ghost army is seen by the Don near Sheffield. Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 11°C (52°F), wind westerly 7mph, visibility good, pressure 1012mb, humidity 83%, UV risk 0/11, pollution…
Fri Jul 21 20:12 Comment: @petersymon uf
Sat Jul 22 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 22 July 2023: Then: 1932: Bradford officials are taxed mercilessly by French customs en route to making the composer Frederick Delius a freeman of the city. Now: Weather for tonight: light rain, temperature 13°C (55°F), wind southerly…
Sat Jul 22 09:14 The British addition of cream to the mascarpone & eggs required for tiramisù is a separatist vulgarism, & the partial replacement of (expensive) ground almonds by plain flour & almond extract in the frangipane mix is also terrible
Sat Jul 22 09:16 Comment: I've never seen GBB, but it sounds a visual rather than taste sensation - like most children's birthday cakes here. Had a look at some recipes & honestly think I prefer my 1930s Mrs Beeton
Sat Jul 22 09:43 Comment: @ViragoWomen Our three-year-old thinks she'd like to visit you & wonders whether you run a café or similar for drop-ins
Sat Jul 22 12:24 Uitsmijter spek-kaas coming up
Sat Jul 22 20:48
Sat Jul 22 21:52 Comment: @petersymon @tromby65 Sounds like something I should have got ages ago
Sat Jul 22 23:08 The black keys of the Casio SA-46 tend to fatigue & fall off, & the solution, rather than paying another 50 quid, is obviously to 3D print a new set, so now to find out how you go about that!
Sun Jul 23 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 23 July 2023: Then: 1955: Philip Larkin tells his 'bun' that he doesn't fancy Beverley's 'rabbit'. Now: Weather for tonight: heavy rain, temperature 15°C (59°F), wind easterly 6mph, visibility poor, pressure 997mb, humidity 96%, UV…
Mon Jul 24 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 24 July 2023: Then: 1761: Jonas Rushford (14) of Bradford tells a wholly unenvious John Wesley how the Skipton magician Timothy Crowther helped him find a missing man. 1766: Hats off for Jesus at Pateley Bridge. 1771: Actor-manager…
Mon Jul 24 11:10 Swine
Tue Jul 25 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 25 July 2023: Then: 1603: Sir Richard Wortley, persecutor of his neighbours, dies, and is zoomorphized as the protagonist of the ballad of the Dragon of Wantley. 1730: John Hobson encounters two outlandish, free-living men at Thirsk.…
Tue Jul 25 11:14 Moral dilemma: squirrel dying of a respiratory condition next to the plants it's been pillaging. Not telling S because he'll drive over and shoot it.
Tue Jul 25 12:20 An encounter with an old man and dog: - Delicious loganberries. - Actually, that's my hedge. Do you want to come back and pick my apples?
Tue Jul 25 21:59 Haven't seen this little beauty for ages
Wed Jul 26 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 26 July 2023: Then: 1699: Doncaster magistrates hear how Dr. Greene, a mountebank, assaulted those who sought to prevent his show. 1802: Dorothy Wordsworth travels with brother William from Scarborough across the Wolds to Beverley and…
Wed Jul 26 17:55 The 1981 Byford report on WYP is often touted as a moment when everything changed in police investigative culture, but you look at Andrew Malkinson's experience 20 years later at the hands of GMP & you think, yeah, right
Wed Jul 26 19:03 Colin M: When Chris P knocked me out, I remember waking up & thinking, what are all you people doing up there?
Thu Jul 27 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 27 July 2023: Then: 1612: Jennet Preston, the only Yorkshirewoman among the Pendle witches, is found guilty at the York Assizes of the murder of Thomas Lister of Westby Hall, Gisburn. 1976: Fast bowler Wayne Daniel on being serenaded…
Thu Jul 27 09:11 Why do First Group buses in Leeds have a sticker on the back suggesting that it is illegal for bikes to undertake, when it is not?
Fri Jul 28 06:51 Senior copper talks in eggcorns: "that would set a president" (she means create a new status quo), "on-duty officers need rest-bite" (coffee and kebab)...
Fri Jul 28 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 28 July 2023: Then: 1809: The Napoleonic career of Richard Beckett of the Coldstream Guards (and Meanwood, Leeds, and the MCC...), who fell today at Talavera (Toledo). 1887: Local and Leeds cattle smallholders are abusing the (feudal)…
Sat Jul 29 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 29 July 2023: Then: 1822: An inquest at York finds that John Furnel of the Queen's Regiment of Foot died by flogging. 1895: The Law Lords rule that Edward Pickles of Trooper's Farm may, even in malice, divert water percolating under…
Sun Jul 30 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 30 July 2023: Then: 1661: John Ray encounters the effigy of a tragic Inuit in his canoe at Hull Trinity House. 1798: The homeward-bound Greenland whaler Blenheim fights off a Royal Navy press gang in Hull harbour, killing two boarders.…
Sun Jul 30 08:58 Worked for the Christian Democrats in Berlin
Mon Jul 31 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 31 July 2023: Then: 1667: Thomas Danby, Leeds's first mayor, is stabbed to death late at night in London. 1846: Pudsey celebrates repeal of the Corn Laws with a monstrous imperial Free Trade plum pudding. 1881: A London cyclist…
Mon Jul 31 20:56 More infant snaps
Mon Jul 31 22:19 What amuses me about Richard Beard's "Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England" is that his insulation from our world was/is so complete that he doesn't realise how similar, in essence if not degree, much of private boarding practice was/is to state day schools