12/12/2005 – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Bus

Here are photos of the Wiebe bus. Can I have this side, please? (Here‘s the Stroadlfest brochure, for if you’re in Oldenzaal 31/12.)

Of kings and clouds and technicolor worms

When Philip IV (III of Aragon and Portugal) came to Barcelona for the first time, he paused at the Valdoncellas/Valldonzellas convent, which was then outside the city. There they dressed him up in rosa seca (surely more than dry rose), hat (Iberian, not Mexican), feathers and diamonds (from the finest of which hung a pearl…

Latina wanted

From The Tatler, 1709: THIS is to give notice, That if any able bodied latine will enter into the Bonds of Matrimony with B[illegible] Pepin, the said Palatine shall be settled in a Freehold [of] 40s. per Annum in the County of Middlesex. I wonder if this is an in-joke, because 40 shillings isn’t very…