Congratulations on Catalan users for hitting 50,000 articles on Wikipedia. Although quantity isn’t everything–articles in English are almost invariably far better than in other languages–they’re way ahead of Arabic and Klingon speakers, to mention several. Just for fun I’ve taken data for the first fifty languages by articles published from Wikipedia’s multilingual statistics and total…
Thinking about the origins of exclusivity, various biblical suggestions as to how to deal with idolaters spring to mind like a gazelle in wellington boots: Exodus 34 12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst…
Via GBS, from Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal for January to June 1844, where the original is attributed to the Emperor Trajan: Let Dick one summer’s day expose Before the sun his monstrous nose, And stretch his giant mouth, to cause Its shade to fall upon his jaws, With nose so long and mouth so wide, And…
The Visigoth church knocked down by the Moors was built on a Roman temple, and I’m told that both faith communities have now asked for time and space in the current building, should the request by Spanish Muslim converts prove successful. Jerry Falwell (“I think Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims…
Nick Lloyd enters 2007 a feedless and no doubt unrepentant Luddite, but he’s got an excellent story over at Iberianature (13/12/2006) about José Sideburns and his lynx waistcoat, re which: Francesc Candel‘s Han matado un hombre, han roto el paisaje (Antonio Rabinad recently sold me a copy at Sant Antoni) derives its dramatic strength in…
Shop deliveries free on foot in Leeds LS1-8 & LS13. Dismiss