In the footsteps of Spartacus
A self-guided walk from Ciampino Airport to Rome along the Appian Way.
Month: July 2018
Wilful mondegreens from the popular repertoire
Lionel Richie opens a butchery in Bradford, while Frank Sinatra with the Count Basie Orchestra refuse to sell a raspberry ripple to the Archbishop of Canterbury in Jerusalem. With a generational categorisation of Millennials.
.jpg "There is nothing funny about a vegan raspberry ripple (cupcake).")
A remarkable gravestone in Waltham Forest Muslim cemetery
If tears could build a stairway / And memories a lane, / We’d walk right up to heaven / And bring you home again.
Top 10 Russian football songs: No. 5: Match (The Match) by Splin (Splean (spleen)) (2006)
Yet another Anglophile.
The true origins of an 18th century tomb inscription at Zennor, Penwith, Cornwall
“‘Tis glorious misery to be born a man,” generally taken to refer to a hen-pecked husband, is in fact a misquotation of verse by the 17th century Romford and London poet, Francis Quarles, dealing with human mortality.
Top 10 Russian football songs: No. 6: Manchester United FC by Whiteman the Blacksoul (2013)
Russophone Kazakh rapper tramples the identitarian jungle in praise of his idols. With William Blake, and Guf and his granny.
Top 10 Russian football songs: No. 7: the unofficial anthem of FC Zenit St Petersburg (1981)
It takes its tune and several lines from a 1960s song evoking the Siege of Leningrad and a verse and style from Liverpool fans’ 1979 performance against Dinamo Tbilisi of You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Top 10 Russian football songs: No. 8: the 1938 Futbol’nyy Marsh (“Football March”) by Matvey Blanter, composer of Stalin-era patriotic ditties
With a recording of a barrel alarm clock, a Shostakovich anecdote, a copyright tussle between the Russian Premier League and the Russian Authors’ Society, and more Blatner material.
Etymology of Trippier
Does Kieran have a goatherd or a tripe merchant in his paternal line?
Musical objects found in the Damrak and Rokin Amstel-bed excavations
A treasure trove from the tunnel bores for Amsterdam’s controversial North-South metro line.
