I thoroughly approve of British attempts to imitate Spain and introduce round the clock drinking. Maybe it will encourage the drongos who were singing outside my window at 5 this morning will stay at home next year.
For reasons still unclear, MM has been investigating Chinese punishment and bondage gear. Ah, if I had but the spondoolicks… (The first person I heard using “spondoolicks” was a well-off British public (that is to say, private) schoolboy whose Cockneyisms have brought him fortune and a certain degree of fame. Ach well!)
In a piece here Amina Talhimet observes that in order to make it in southern Europe, it is no longer enough for African emigrants to be odd-job men. That’s true to a certain extent, but sometimes the skills that enable the boat people to earn a living here are obtained on the road. There’s a…
Why’s there no Spanish expression for silly season / big gooseberry time / komkommertijd (nl: cucumber time) / Sauregurkenzeit (de: gherkin time) / morte-saison (fr: dead season) / nyhetstorka (sv: news drought) etc? Do the Spanish press and their readers really think important stuff is getting published in August (or the rest of the year,…
Martin Sewell > TheDamnBlog. Panic was once engendered in a stoned drummer in a stuck lift by mentioning to him that the lift brand was named for someone who died (singing Higher and higher, no doubt) when his plane fell out of the sky. (This has nothing to do with Spain, where there are no…