Tweets for May 2017

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

Mon May 01 09:55 I suppose the really nasty C16th Lutheran iconoclasts also had it in for devils
Tue May 02 19:10 The story of the Bath-Alkmaar barrel piano, starts ca 01:14:00
Wed May 03 09:30 Comment: @RuthAnderPrints @ClevedonPierG1 @NSomersetArts Life > art
Thu May 04 04:56 Leave Fraktur alone, @melvillehouse (: the Nazis preferred Antiqua:
Thu May 04 06:22 Vilafranca del PenedÌs: Renfe son la pera
Thu May 04 20:02 Bells of church of Santa Maria in Vilafranca del Penedes play diabolus in musica, honest!
Fri May 05 21:56 RT @westhamster2: I saw a pub offering "English Tapas" earlier. This consisted of half a Scotch Egg,a cup of chips,a picked onion and a min…
Sat May 06 05:44 & you thought cuttles just like cuttled
Sun May 07 05:50 blood smeared on the wall, / the first mosquito, slaughtered: / my blood, by my hand
Sun May 07 05:50 Comment: got the bugger
Sun May 07 06:46 Mixed singular / plural pronouns -> curious ambiguity (Liddle in The Times)
Sun May 07 07:04 Pulcinella: "Semi silami stanu starat'sya!" Cf. "What's French for 'fiddle-dee-dee'?" "Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.” “Who ever said it was?”
Sun May 07 07:07 Comment: Other translators take the non out of nonsense. That's beyond me.
Sun May 07 09:30 Brexit negotiating strategy really as subtle as alleged? Maybe we'll become known as Wangleterre < wangle
Sun May 07 09:47 Never realised that Carroll Lobster Quadrille was a parody on The Spider & the Fly
Sun May 07 16:50 Just realised that the trombonist in this video was the trombonist in the aeroplane
Sun May 07 16:52 Comment: Had a stroke a few years ago for the usual reasons, now in care.
Mon May 08 18:32 Comment: @MichaelLCrick I thought they wanted us to walk / take public transport to hospitals.
Mon May 08 18:37 Yes is an earthworm. Time to revise sign language
Mon May 08 21:26 Weird even for John McD voters: NE English Red Army fanclub Good pics & great 4 translation of commands 4 Punch & J
Mon May 08 21:39 Comment: Meet Brian
Tue May 09 06:08 RT @TomOrlik: China's banking regulator requires that collateral accepted by banks must "actually exist"
Tue May 09 06:24 Whiny teenager poetry generator, see p.6
Tue May 09 09:40 Punch at the V&A
Tue May 09 22:30 Kim Jong-il's list of honorifics is even longer than that of the Russian Imperial Table of Ranks
Wed May 10 06:53 Barrel organ splits up citing musical differences: valve discs fond of trad repertoire, bass pipes prefer hardcore
Thu May 11 06:01 You think you've got thru a day in Hackney without witnessing a Class C, and then there's a late night brawl with ABH at Homerton Station
Thu May 11 06:42 RT @MichaelLCrick: Actually, Labour's much derided 1983 manifesto now looks to have been way ahead of its time
Thu May 11 07:20 Comment: @tombcn Surely 2,000,000,000?
Thu May 11 08:12 What a load of Pollocks
Thu May 11 18:47 Invitation to hackers to liberate 25 million books hidden in Google Book Search
Fri May 12 05:16 Conan the Barbie clip starts as promising plagiarism of Mahler I, more influences here
Fri May 12 05:51 Two Russian mongrels are walking on Brighton Beach. One says to the other, "Of course, in Moscow I was a St. Bernard."
Fri May 12 05:51 Comment: I was interested in Google Translate romanisation of Russian, but you takes what you gets
Fri May 12 11:10 New-build with communal infrastructure (estate pubs!), companies with sports bars - a different age
Fri May 12 12:43 Love, from Leland's (Denglish) Breitmann Ballads (
Fri May 12 14:49 Comment: @tombcn Quite mystifying: Brit hospitals seem to still rely substantially on paper
Fri May 12 20:13 Good to know: One-legged Freddie Metcalf choked to death in 1962 on Blackpool Pier on the swazzle he used to make Punch’s squeaky voice
Fri May 12 20:14 Comment: On the Beeb, so may not be true
Fri May 12 23:34 Konrad "Punch" Fredericks calls swazzle unknown tongue: 1 Cor he that speaketh in n unknown tongue speaketh unto God
Fri May 12 23:34 Comment: Yup
Sat May 13 06:59 The World Turned Upside Down
Sat May 13 10:15 "the self assurance which comes to women in a country where it is a convention that they are all beautiful"
Sat May 13 10:22 Great photo for 'At another house Trevor, 87, said that he usually voted Labour but “Corbyn is not going anywhere”.'
Sat May 13 10:23 Comment: Not Munt, the Aga
Sat May 13 12:04 Comment: @Pornosawa Nooooooo
Sat May 13 12:43 Was Flashman the commedia dell'arte Spanish captain? Coward, braggart, dandy, womaniser... Image Riccoboni Histoire du theatre italien
Sat May 13 12:44 There's more evidence that Akaky in Gogol Overcoat = Pulcinella, despite claims of Slavophiles
Sat May 13 15:07 Big man on Well Street sitting on his bike and trying to pump up the back tyre with a hand pump. Hard work.
Sat May 13 17:40 Comment:
Sun May 14 07:51 Beautiful high views of Stratford's Cathedral of Sewage last night atop Tesco, Bow. Interior shot of the aka Abbey Mills Pumping Station:
Sun May 14 08:01 Comment: Image:
Sun May 14 08:17 Comment: Buttocks-related, so fundamentalist. Another local religious edifice hosts a different type of fundamentalism:
Sun May 14 08:23 Dutch bike paths originally to save other road users from cyclists, not vice versa
Sun May 14 08:30 Handy unbiased directory of Spanish corruption: In development - probably going to need more server space
Sun May 14 12:50 Dostoevsky's Mr. Prokharchin as Pulcinella Or is it tinhattish to see him poking his head in everywhere?
Sun May 14 13:44 Arabesque birdie from Adam Olearius' Oriental travels
Sun May 14 17:21 Russian puppets in the 1630s, boers being bestial in the background. But how to see what you're doing & stop the peasants hitting you?
Sun May 14 19:42 Comment: And how do you hold your arms up for 20 minutes and manipulate puppets that are too high up for the audience to see?
Sun May 14 21:06 Forget content: compare this rhetorician with Corbyn struggling with autocue banalities @ Chatham House & May & weep
Mon May 15 10:22 Comment: @Zweder_Masters @DrBeachcombing "So you think that's a big butterfly!"
Mon May 15 19:50 Still getting my bonce round the head-top puppets seen by Adam Olearius in 1630s Russia. Meanwhile, here's a Japanese one from the 1570s
Tue May 16 09:46 Suffering from a ransomeware attack: have to name all the principal characters in Swallow & Amazons to regain access
Tue May 16 09:54 Comment: Yep, the only one you can remember is Titty.
Tue May 16 12:16 Comment: @GhostwoodsBooks The OED has a very clear & extensive view of buffers.
Tue May 16 18:19 Surely how the Russian puppeteers seen by Olearius in 1636 worked - not with the show & their arms above their heads
Tue May 16 19:38 Puppet heads: Stanlio e Ollio
Tue May 16 22:14 RT @RTVEMurcia: El virus informático que desde el viernes afecta a 150 países, entre ellos España, no ha llegado a Murcia
Wed May 17 07:36 Tempestad (Tatiana Huezo, Mexico, 2016): brilliant portrayal of inter alia a clown in a failing state
Wed May 17 12:10 Greetings to the Walthamstow Marsh drummer: triplets coming on nicely, shame about the rain
Wed May 17 13:53 Name that unusual jingle on lunch van (with Zanotti fridge) delivering to the Coppermills Water Treatment Works
Thu May 18 08:18 Hard for a puppet to compete with a phizz like that
Thu May 18 08:18 Ghost machine
Thu May 18 10:27 Punch & Judy featuring a doggie. (Filmed at Buxton or Halifax? Light, hills and railway say Buxton to me)
Fri May 19 06:12 Mozart's starling (Thou shouldest have been a starling, friend, And not an earthling.)
Fri May 19 06:16 Comment: OK, the pun wouldn't work in Chairman.
Fri May 19 08:01 Think I'm bad? Try a chinchinero outside your window
Fri May 19 08:01 Comment: See also
Fri May 19 08:57 Fear the elbows of the struggling middle class when the cut-price free-range chicken is wheeled out at Waitrose, Bloomsbury
Fri May 19 14:17 NHS vs other systems. Chart p8 rates UK worse than Spain & Netherlands. My experience says that's generally correct
Fri May 19 14:29 Comment: Given their decor, I'd say they're assimilating to the Neapolitan dual-Pulcinella tradition.
Fri May 19 14:32 Comment: In 1830 one Polichinelle played the clarinet, the other the trombone: 100% Stan & Olly
Fri May 19 18:32 President of Andalusia - like Sadiq Khan's variable glottal stop. At least Tories talk posh all the time.
Sat May 20 08:28 EPD
Sat May 20 08:38 ladybird
Sat May 20 09:41 Consanguinity, endogamy & mutation in Granada gypsies See also stuff like Las Hurdes in C21
Sat May 20 09:43 Comment: The new Bourbons, if you prefer
Sat May 20 09:56 Russian train & circus lovers: Zheleznaya doroga / Railway (2007) is brilliant, & the subs are almost there
Sat May 20 11:07 How come a prominent English Baptist is the first arranger for brass band of the climax of Gallic horniness? Eh?
Sat May 20 11:11 Parsley & Petrushka < the Greek pétra sélinon, rock celery. Is Parsley the Lion a refugee from commedia dell'arte?
Sun May 21 09:16 C19th knife-fighting guide: Manual del baratero: O arte de manejar la navaja, el cuchillo y la tijera de los jitanos
Tue May 23 11:11 Description of tambourine techniques in Goethe, Wilhelm Meister
Tue May 23 20:43 Our nation is safe! This photo is so excellent in so many ways.
Wed May 24 07:33 Rotterdam campaign against DIY ghettos & resulting denial of freedom - surely contradictio in terminis as long as the faith & headgear stays
Wed May 24 15:55 Mildly smutty Spanish traditional songs, 1970 stylee (i.e. parodied to death)
Wed May 24 16:35 Apparently By the Will of Genghis Khan is not the best film ever.
Wed May 24 17:17 Why did 'make the round of' -> 'make the rounds of'? Didn't sound that bad...
Thu May 25 05:58 The flush toilet wasn't actually invented by Mr Crapper, but the ballcock valve is surely the work of Mr Ar$e.
Thu May 25 07:24 Ham Rolls in Clingfilm
Thu May 25 09:12 Civilisation surely coeval with silicone tape
Thu May 25 21:03 Ludwig Kalisch, A London Barber, Or Ten Minutes in Fear of Death (1850, and not a word of Sweeney Todd)
Fri May 26 10:05 If "raining cats & dogs" is pace Swift about dead animals being washed away, how to explain some of these?
Fri May 26 10:07 Comment: Rain didn't start bucketing down till the C20th? I'm guttered.
Fri May 26 10:50 Russian sartorial contrarianism
Fri May 26 15:51 Textielarbeiders maakten onregelmatige verticale gleuven in 't Plechelmus te Oldenzaal (Overijsselsche Almanak 1839
Fri May 26 15:52 Comment: Te mooi om niet waar te zijn...
Fri May 26 15:58 Twentse poëzie, 1838: Soamensproake tusschen Geert en Luuks an de [Rammelbeek] tusschen [Denekamp] en [Nordhorn]
Sat May 27 08:20 Deep in nightmare, can escape from Fu Manchu's precipice-top throttling only by firmly biting his hand. Wait, that wasn't his hand.
Sat May 27 08:24 Don't like music, don't like monkeys, why would they like justice? Barbarians
Sat May 27 08:29 Comment: Antecedents all in Tahmima Anam The Good Muslim
Sat May 27 14:50 RT @emilynussbaum: Some say the administration will end in ICE, some say in FOIA/from what I know of corporate lawyas, I hold with those wh…
Sat May 27 16:59 Found an 1840s portrayal of a muzhik retard, but can't think of any subsequent ones. Political correctness -> nobility and/or intelligence?
Sun May 28 06:43 Comment: Presumably recollections of piggyback fighting at primary with a small Chinese kungfu star on my back. Victim suffered no permanent damage.
Sun May 28 06:46 Quite a few Russki handyman-takes-on-the-religious-political-complex-and-loses films about, but Leviathan brilliant
Sun May 28 08:48 So that's how you do Dichterliebe. Fritz Wunderlich + Hubert Giesen is a revelation
Sun May 28 10:56 Article shows Prussian military origins of foreign agent Jeremy Corbyn's trademark cap (kartuz < cartouche)
Sun May 28 11:02 Comment: So not so much Lenin as depraved atheist militarist Frederick the Great, who admittedly took money from Britain.
Sun May 28 13:25 Gypsies "los Vascos" Clota, Barcelona. Cartwheel & horse, but also Xmas tree & Biblical camel (< Egyptians, DIY "refugees from Islam")
Sun May 28 17:40 Canadians
Mon May 29 08:59 Forget capital punishment: will Paul Nuttall come round and dispose of our feral pigeons?
Mon May 29 13:14 Would be wonderful if the thrice-bent в три погибели/v tri pogibeli < Trivakra/Kubja - Hindu myth - instead of medieval torture methodology
Mon May 29 13:31 OK, the organ-grinding piggy terrifies the pigeons. Unfortunately it also terrifies everyone else.
Mon May 29 14:31 Comment: "Not like tribhanga – Krishna’s bends are very beautiful but Trivakra means hunchback bends."
Mon May 29 16:42 A musician sold CDs and he used to say ‘If you don’t like it, bring it back and we’ll give you one WE don’t like’
Tue May 30 09:25 Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, on scaring pigeons with plastic falcons
Tue May 30 12:38 The Devil’s Corbyn of Hell, a General Election post featuring Poe, medieval female anchorites, Tolkien’s Nazgûl etc
Tue May 30 12:44 Comment: Bonus image
Tue May 30 19:42 RT @CarnyEvolution: Evolution Film Festival contribution 2017. See the rest at #evolution2017
Wed May 31 08:23 Don't waste your money: ultrasound doesn't work against pigeons
Wed May 31 08:29 Comment: Pigeons are most sensitive to sound between 1 - 2 kHz, with an absolute upper limit of about 10 kHz.
Wed May 31 21:10 Opened me WRP leaflet & a Green leaflet dropped out. Why can't we all be friends? Or was it distribution costs? @jonty_leff @GreenRebJohnson
Wed May 31 21:25 Definitely a school for Pulcinellas, not garden gnomes. But seriously, gobbi and Pulcinella are similar & coeval
Wed May 31 22:35 Flying freehold over what may still be a public easement, I think: c/ Aiguafreda, Horta, Barcelona