April 2015 – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

The Kalash: myth vs genetics

Everyone except UMassD prof Brian Glyn Williams, the Huffington Post and Greek nationalists has known for more than a decade that there’s no way they were left behind by Alexander. No great loss: it was always a pretty unimaginative story, and what actually may have happened (via) is quite extraordinary. Don’t get me wrong: I…

Baltimore is not Ferguson

Except in the Express.

E-commerce fack-up

Cart logic: Total price < 150€: you can have your paint delivered to you; you pay extra. Total price > 150€: you can have your paint delivered to you, free; unfortunately the only delivery option (Formas de Entrega) is to pick stuff up in the shop. If I point this out to them, do you…

Libertarian literary translation question

A reader writes: I have found an excellent novel in Spanish by a long-dead author who is still just in copyright. He was already forgotten when he died, and has remained so. I’d like to translate and self-publish it. How much should I offer the rights-holders?

Excellent Ciudadanos proposals for autónomos

Maybe one can vote for them after all.

A beautiful, venomous phrase

But Spain’s new nepotism is actually rather good.

On cycling in London after an absence of some years

Everyone now has a cute little helmet. Drunken pedallers are now frowned upon. Behaving like a sociopathic arsehole in other respects remains de rigueur.

Mind over mutter: Céline on the challenges of speech production

Other doctor-novelists; why musicians can’t write.

Strength to sweetness

“Lions Bible”, from 1804: 1 Kings 8:19 reads “thy son that shall come forth out of thy lions”, rather than “loins”. What would the world have been like had the Lyle’s Golden Syrup tin borne a picture of the rotting carcass of some loins with a swarm of bees? (Via a lovely guy who seems…

Mis 25 canciones favoritas con kazoo / My top 25 kazoo songs

Con Nathan, Captain Kazooz, Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, Toy Dolls, Provizorka Jazz Band, The Savoy Orpheans, Beat Farmers, Dionne Warwick, Susan Christie, Del Shannon, Syd Barrett, The Cure, Toby Keith, Dion, Eric Clapton, The Kinks, Monsieur Mirliton, Jurassic 5, Queen, Mound City Blue Blowers, Frank Zappa, Red Hot Chili Peppers / With Nathan, Captain Kazooz, Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, Toy Dolls, Provizorka Jazz Band, The Savoy Orpheans, Beat Farmers, Dionne Warwick, Susan Christie, Del Shannon, Syd Barrett, The Cure, Toby Keith, Dion, Eric Clapton, The Kinks, Monsieur Mirliton, Jurassic 5, Queen, Mound City Blue Blowers, Frank Zappa, Red Hot Chili Peppers.