July tweets from London’s Singing Organ-Grinder

Cornwall, pleased to see someone.

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

Mon Jul 02 16:41 BLOG: 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.
Tue Jul 03 14:38 Belted Galloways are just the thing around town at the moment. Richmond fine & scold you if you take a a small, yappy Richmond dog near their herd, but dogs & owners are rather more fearsome on this side of town.
Tue Jul 03 15:29 I think the "weren't me" hand signal that Granit Xhaka makes as he fouls Viktor Claesson is the same one used by Hackney drivers to tell you they aren't going to stop at zebras.
Tue Jul 03 17:49 German phonological revenge for the Sports Direct Auf Wiedersehen tshirts?
Wed Jul 04 06:59 Iss art innit.
Wed Jul 04 10:37 BLOG: Etymology of Trippier: does Kieran have a goatherd or a tripe merchant in his paternal line?
Wed Jul 04 12:58 Look at the crap this guy posts
Wed Jul 04 14:58 Comment: @ibexsalad @pearkes And all without using the word $hitstorm
Wed Jul 04 15:35 BLOG: Top 10 Russian football songs: No. 8: the 1938 Futbol’nyy Marsh (“Football March”) by Matvey Blanter, composer of Stalin-era patriotic ditties. Plus a barrel alarm clock, a Shostakovich anecdote, a copyright tussle, and more Blatner material.
Wed Jul 04 20:27 The Pastels, Cycle, from Illumination (1997)
Wed Jul 04 20:39 Just saw a jay scavenging on Lauriston Road, E9. Never seen one in a town before.
Wed Jul 04 20:43 Wondering how much money could be made on Stamford Hill this Saturday, turning on tellies for football-loving Haredim just before 3
Thu Jul 05 09:20 French constitution no longer recognises discrimination on the basis of "race," but "origin" stays: "original" to replace "racist" as one-size-fits-all insult ("You facking original cant"), and original individuals to seek refuge elsewhere?
Thu Jul 05 10:03 Walthamstow Marsh, 06:00: slugs scarpering to the shady side of the path, dead shrew on its back with glistening tummy, zoophiliac porn scattered half-way across (hope the cattle are OK)
Thu Jul 05 10:16 Researchers have discovered that Magritte's pipe WAS a pipe after all
Thu Jul 05 15:20 Instead of quietly suppressing it, some Spanish translate the execrable thanonym "vibrant" as "vibrante." Appalling.
Thu Jul 05 18:56 BLOG: Top 10 Russian football songs: No. 7: The unofficial anthem of FC Zenit (St Petersburg) takes its tune & several lines from a 1960s song evoking the Siege of Leningrad & a verse & style from a performance by Liverpool fans of You’ll Never Walk Alone
Fri Jul 06 11:08 Ah, yes, CafePress
Fri Jul 06 12:30 Securitisation of infirmity
Fri Jul 06 12:33 Walked up to Enfield yesterday morning and saw quite a lot of this. Negligible water flow, no dredging (only depth is along boat path), little weeding
Fri Jul 06 12:50 Comment: @thameswater That was quick! If memory serves, the River Lea Navigation between the end of the demolished east-bank industrial estate 200m north of Tottenham Lock and the Enfield bus garage was pretty nasty. The western side is very shallow and clogged in places
Fri Jul 06 13:02 Comment: @thameswater Ta! It looked like a good blast of water would fix a lot of it, but there's probably not much that can be rerouted from the other channels at the moment
Fri Jul 06 14:24 BLOG: 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
Fri Jul 06 15:20 But he still hasn't called me to ask if I'll turn his telly on
Fri Jul 06 22:48 GDR Communist Party's alleged list of approved terms for Brits: "paralytic sycophants, effete betrayers of humanity, carrion-eating servile imitators, arch cowards and collaborators, conceited dandies or playboy soldiers."
Tue Jul 10 22:27 TrevOrgans, just saying
Thu Jul 12 06:56 Museums about to become less whiny?
Thu Jul 12 11:36 My favourite Trump nickname, take it which way you will: Tangerine Caesar
Sat Jul 14 07:08 Epigraph to Andrey Kurkov, Death & the Penguin: A Militia major is driving along when he sees a militiaman standing with a penguin. "Take him to the zoo," he orders. Some time later the same major is driving along when he sees the militiaman still with the penguin.
Sat Jul 14 07:08 Comment: "What have you been doing?" he asks. "I said take him to the zoo." "We've been to the zoo, Comrade Major," says the militiaman, "& the circus. & now we're going to the pictures."
Sat Jul 14 07:09 Comment: Takes courage to preface a novel with a good joke
Sat Jul 14 07:16 Comment: Here it is said to be a Morecambe & Wise gag
Sat Jul 14 08:26 Victorian doggerel of the day from St Just old churchyard, apparently a celestial Premier Inn: No longer must the mourners weep And call departed Christians dead; For death is hallowed into sleep, And every grave becomes a bed.
Sat Jul 14 08:38 Comment: Some credit it to Charles Wesley, but first ghits are 2nd half of C19th & Anglican churchyard, so this attribution to John Mason Neale more plausible Bondage ending, love descending, indeed
Sat Jul 14 08:41 Comment: Mark Hattam doesn't seem to have got this one
Sun Jul 15 12:23 BLOG: “‘Tis glorious misery to be born a man”: the true, Romford origins of a tomb inscription at Zennor, Penwith, Cornwall, generally taken to refer to a hen-pecked husband
Mon Jul 16 21:01 Good march composer, new to me: Franz von Blon. The fine Amsterdam Police Band in 1956 playing Heil Europa, a work happily unknown to conspiracy theorists:
Mon Jul 16 21:03 Comment: Also popular with Russian bands. Vivat Saint-Petersburg
Mon Jul 16 21:34 BLOG: Top 10 Russian football songs: No. 5: Match, by Splin: yet another Anglophile, with bits of Pushkin and Wilkie Collins
Tue Jul 17 06:49 Another triumph for UK anti-money-laundering authorities. Not
Tue Jul 17 07:44 WP says Jacob Collier has been "working on his one-man, audio-visual live performance vehicle." Some of us already have a barrel organ.
Tue Jul 17 08:05 Comment: @Crottebuster Always makes me think of the time as a child when I ate my siblings' strawberries, cream & scones & was violently sick.
Tue Jul 17 13:26 Slightly frustrating that those dragged along to megalithic monuments on the Celtic fringe write them off as "so Father Ted," but sometimes they've got a point: standing stone near the Merry Maidens in Penwith
Tue Jul 17 13:35 JK Rowling has undone all Rudyard "jingo imperialist" Kipling's good work, and the effect's far more powerful when you weight by sales. My favourite book as a child featured an anthropomorphic bear, and I have never recovered.
Wed Jul 18 14:19 Comment: @Transblawg Local MP obviously hasn't visited for a while @AndrewRosindell
Wed Jul 18 19:59 Anyone got a collection of Dave Cash's (Yiddish) lyrics? I'm after Der Shere fun Seville and a couple of others
Wed Jul 18 20:05 Comment: Here's a taster
Wed Jul 18 20:07 RT @AndrewM138: Iggy Pop singing Surfin Bird to his bird is the last pure thing online
Wed Jul 18 20:09 Comment: Qué será será is good
Thu Jul 19 08:45 Guardian, confusing aspiration & achievement. Supermarkets bag product to reduce theft & keep prices down for paying punters. With no other bagging tech available, for whom would killing plastic work in impoverished Penzance except wealthy (expat) retirees & shoplifters?
Thu Jul 19 08:49 Comment: Ah, but the poor can always forage for plastic and be paid in company store tokens
Thu Jul 19 08:53 Good presentation about Modicut, a between-wars New York Yiddish puppet theatre duo
Thu Jul 19 08:54 Comment: Here's Great Small Works presenting their show about Modicut
Thu Jul 19 08:57 Comment: And here's the script of Modicut's parody of The Dybbuk, which to be fair is considerably less accessible than the original play
Thu Jul 19 08:58 Comment: Clip from the non-parodic film based on the original play
Thu Jul 19 09:12 John Donne on mechanised puppets on what I take to be church organs: "in some organs puppits dance above / And bellows pant below which them do move." Pronunciation guesstimate: …
Thu Jul 19 10:04 Michael Jackson "Keep on - to the Post Office / Don't stop till you get enough" & more personal mondegreens from Rol
Thu Jul 19 13:41 BLOG: 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
Thu Jul 19 21:12 Comment: @Transblawg I hadn't seen that one. Thanks!!
Thu Jul 19 21:44 Loved the gloriously Švejkian Herr Zangler in Newport Playgoers Society's On The Razzle at Minack even before discovering that Stoppard had borrowed it off Johann Nestroy, a mid-C19th Viennese
Fri Jul 20 17:50 Analysis suggests that the only difference between chic Cornish butter and "Tesco British Butter (Salted)" appears to be that the former contains a higher and more satisfying level of salt. Tesco sausages are also deficient.
Fri Jul 20 17:56 The Met are gradually catching up with my blog
Fri Jul 20 18:01 Neighbour from over the road sought for Perdita Durango sequel
Fri Jul 20 18:56 All 13 hours of the Soviet Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson serialisation in one file My favourite bit, which I will probably never reach, is the scenery in Hound of the Baskervilles. Baker St is in Riga. Theme is curiously & perhaps socio-critically archaic
Fri Jul 20 22:47 Fascinating. London = socially conservative immigration, Ireland = indigenous conservatism, but what about Iceland?
Sat Jul 21 21:15 Do wealthy foreigners flock to Harley Street because it's near Dr. Watson's Baker Street?
Sun Jul 22 08:07 Like waking up and realising you're already awake.
Sun Jul 22 08:09 Comment: @DefendingBeef @justinjerez Cf the campaign against sheep on downland...
Sun Jul 22 08:27 One of the charms of the barrel organ is undoubtedly that after having been pulled over half a mile of London pavement its intonation approximates to that of the guiltiest of pleasures, a military band
Sun Jul 22 09:33 BLOG: 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
Sun Jul 22 14:25 ALEBIT: Conjunction denoting a short period of time during which consumption of beer modifies intentions. Origins unknown, though folk etymology < albeit. "Time for some English art song, alebit with a Welsh singer"
Sun Jul 22 14:29 Hand cranked knife-grinder The surviving Spanish ones attach the machine to a moped or some such and have panpipes
Sun Jul 22 14:40 Another excellent chart showing how remarkable London's population pyramid is in EU context. In the British provinces one does feel rather as if one has entered a monstrous failing care home, tho an English speaker can chat to +- anyone, which certainly ain't the case in London
Sun Jul 22 19:59 Comment: @Transblawg My impression was that there was quite a lot of that sort of thing in one-party towns, and not just where workers did less damage when they didn't work, but GDP per cap is only just below UK despite late start so someone's doing something right/wrong
Sun Jul 22 21:39 Comment: @Transblawg If I'd stuck with GF no 1 I'd probably either be artistic director of a multi million euro cat rescue foundation, funded by money laundered by granddad who sold workers to Germany, or I'd be drying out in a shallow grave in a pine forest. Missed opportunities.
Sun Jul 22 21:58 Aranda photos taken with Goytisolo in Almería in 1960. I loved Campos de Níjar
Mon Jul 23 12:44 Patrick Kavanagh: There's nothing happening that you hate That's really worthwhile slamming; Be patient. If you only wait You'll see time gently damning Newspaper bedlamites etc
Mon Jul 23 12:50 Benny Hill as patron saint of ecowarrior milkmen?
Mon Jul 23 13:40 The Chatsworth Road birdman, Sitting on the inside / Looking at the outside / Waiting for the evening pigeon? Dunno any good songs about birds in cages #Hackney #Clapton
Mon Jul 23 20:03 Nancherrow, Penwith: "Buy your fresh POLDARK EGGS 'ere! EGGS ½ Dozen. Fresh £1-20" As far as I know, "egg" in English isn't (common) slang for "testicle," and the Spanish, who do use that vulgarism, haven't yet taken Aidan Turner and his man-eggs to their bosom
Mon Jul 23 21:26 At the local Turk, Nigerian guy washes his hands BEFORE having a poo, don't want to cover those white trousers with lamb fat
Mon Jul 23 21:43 Drought areolae: sycamore sucking up water, fox poo giving back uric acid, suns burnt above the occasional door
Mon Jul 23 21:57 Chatsworth Road/Brooksby's Walk closure for new gas mains over the past couple of months has been wonderful for pedestrians & cyclists, but I guess the customary psycho gridlock is about to return #Hackney #Clapton @hackneycouncil
Tue Jul 24 08:03 Comment: @tombcn Oh my God I am moving there.
Tue Jul 24 22:03 "Should I write a novel about Donald Trump's conversion to Catholicism, and his embrace of Holy Purity and total poverty? He joins with anchorites on The Sinai. When he dies, the odour of sanctity is bottled by Ivanka and sold in pious outlets worldwide"
Tue Jul 24 22:07 Richard North: "there is no majority for Meow in Parliament." But surely a sizable minority are on Mephedrone
Tue Jul 24 22:16 Comment: @jamesfeigenbaum I'm still waiting for a study to show that some particular ancient migration was driven by an allergenic need to get away from the neighbours' latest agricultural experiment
Wed Jul 25 08:22 Comment: @Transblawg Wos wrong wiv "state above the rule of law"? Bunyan: "grace sits upon a throne that is higher than the law, above the law; and ... grace, therefore, is to rule before the law, and notwithstanding all the sentence of the law." I don't know this Grace woman.
Wed Jul 25 14:36 BLOG: In the footsteps of Spartacus: a self-guided walk from Ciampino Airport to Rome along the Appian Way
Wed Jul 25 20:51 Really chuffed to have met Andy Hewson of Stop The World, first ever famous Cornish band:
Wed Jul 25 21:08 Re the Fiona Onasanya story, curious how the name of brother Festus went from Rome to Nigeria
Thu Jul 26 08:17 The Tourist Board of Xanadu Did recently impose a fee On those who traveled far from home To visit Kubla’s pleasure dome Of $20, 9 – 3 To be fair, Coleridge was coning off an opium trip when he wrote the original
Thu Jul 26 22:00 Did Ethel Carter, Langrish sub-postmistress for at least 45 years, MBE 1948, know love with Tom from West Meon in 1910?
Thu Jul 26 22:02 Comment: Born 1885
Thu Jul 26 22:06 Comment: Curious that no one has identified the often distinctive buildings in the film
Sat Jul 28 10:03 Newish Peruvian chicha custom of dancing with coffins but did they copy it from the Ghanaians?
Sat Jul 28 10:04 Comment: @Transblawg It's bot propaganda - they got rid of the human journalists years ago
Sat Jul 28 10:20 Comment: @Transblawg Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Sat Jul 28 10:41 Martin the Postie retirement party, Droxford
Sat Jul 28 11:40 Weird freaking trans-speciesist shit next to Droxford churchyard
Sat Jul 28 12:31 retro Simpsons: heavy nedal from Okilly Dokilly
Sat Jul 28 12:37 Dylan Thomas pub scene BARMAID Seen the film at the Elysium Mr Griffiths there’s snow isn’t it did you come up on your bicycle our pipes burst Monday… NARRATOR A pint of bitter, please.
Sat Jul 28 12:39 Comment: The monkey anecdote "I remember a man came here with a monkey. Called for ‘alf for himself and a pint for the monkey. And he wasn’t Italian at all. Spoke Welsh like a preacher" is the breeding ground for monkey bar jokes:
Sat Jul 28 12:40 Comment: A man walks into a bar and orders a beer. He takes a sip and a monkey swings across from the piano and pisses in the glass. The man walks over to the pianist and says "Do you know your monkey just pissed in my beer." The pianist replies "No, but if you hum it I'll play it."
Sat Jul 28 12:46 Fantasy: Yappy dog escapes from its yard and is run over by the Turkish motorbike tester, whose body is catapulted into the Nigerian Christians' PA
Sat Jul 28 13:02 Castells: instructional videos
Sat Jul 28 14:06 Swanmore Friends Burial Ground, SW across the field from Jervis Court Farm to Hampton Hill, currently inhabited mainly by nettles, but see the excerpt from Victor Hugo, Les Misérables: Fantine. Did other Swanmore Quakers abandon this (post-)Civil War fashion or flee?
Sat Jul 28 17:53 Blood moon seen in Essex but generally not in Tower Hamlets
Sun Jul 29 06:08 Comment: @Transblawg The pig in the moon, my 2nd favourite animal after the pig in my fridge. Disney have plagiarised Teletubbies: "Squeak and Boo are two little piglets who live on a farm in the Australian countryside."
Sun Jul 29 06:55 Ngram: "an NHS" vs "a NHS." The latter is used by people who don't sing what they write.
Sun Jul 29 13:30 Turn on your inner light
Sun Jul 29 15:07 Comment: @AndrewHammel1 Only a troll would request a citation for this: "Why Sibelius should have failed to prepare The Wood Nymph for publication is a question that has perplexed scholars. "
Tue Jul 31 07:24 Cue mass anthropomorphisation
Tue Jul 31 07:25 Comment: @Transblawg Do tell
Tue Jul 31 08:16 Comment: @Transblawg I suppose the persons who knock the kefir bladder as they pass through the doorway are also free-range.
Tue Jul 31 13:14 RT @thoughtland: Makes as much sense as anything else does at the moment:
Tue Jul 31 16:32 More novels that sound too difficult for me