Organ-grindish twitterings for November

Dominated by a sojourn in the Czech Republic.

A steam locomotive at Zaječí, Southern Moravia. In the background, the Hodonín express.

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

Thu Nov 01 07:15 Happy coincidence: pica pica is (Catalan?) Spanish for a munchie session & Latin for the perennially munching magpie, Glossa says prob. from pingo, the variegated, spotted bird
Thu Nov 01 07:28 More central London jays in London Natural History Society's 2015 bird report Hudson Birds in London 1898: doesn't inhabit inner parks & open spaces, no evidence that was resident London species at any time, but chilled...
Thu Nov 01 07:30 Comment: Crow frontispiece from Hudson, who pleads with public & park keepers for more emphasis on the (intelligent) crow family instead of the bloody (stupid) ducks, geese & swans
Thu Nov 01 09:14 The Residents, one-minute movies - what else was MTV to play? RIP Hardy Fox
Thu Nov 01 09:20 OK, so the queues around the block to get into the local office of the Czech central bank are not in reaction to some obscure financial crisis but to pick up a 100th anniversary commemorative gold crown. Did Austro-Hungary have queues?
Thu Nov 01 09:24 Oh dear, they evicted Jay from under the A12 bridge over the Lea
Fri Nov 02 07:46 A fish rots from the head down, says comrade Lawson. But what kind of appalling jazz music were the party faithful made to listen to? Free & experimental, or Parker with strings, or what?
Fri Nov 02 07:47 Comment: Comrade Birchall is found grim and dim
Sat Nov 03 09:49 My ambition, & the camera skills would be nice too.
Sat Nov 03 10:55 Was Grendel's lake in Wiltshire?
Sat Nov 03 13:28 RT @post_liberal: Libertarianism: expectation versus reality
Sun Nov 04 09:51 Fascinating photos of Frankfurt's New Old Town. I hope it gets more lively - on boring trips there, I occasionally sang at Voltaire at the northern end of the pre-WWII old town because the only pleasant place I could find, until a Turk booked me to play piano at his pizzeria
Sun Nov 04 19:14 BLOG: The Singing Organ-Grinder’s tweets for October, featuring a barrel organ drawing by Bruno Schulz and much nonsense
Mon Nov 05 13:48 Aldi, best shop I'm not allowed to go to
Mon Nov 05 18:44 Comment: @Transblawg My Aldi secret can only be shared on Twitter
Tue Nov 06 07:46 Stafford word new to me: cuffy = skanky, particularly re clothing
Tue Nov 06 14:53 Only missing motif in Theresa on the lion jumping through the EU hoop is a shark in the waters below. At last, a Brexit meme everything likes.
Tue Nov 06 14:54 RT @pilotbeeruk: How come musicians are allowed to collab with breweries on beers but when we turned up at Shakira's studio telling her to…
Wed Nov 07 07:32 Why does Wirral seek the etymology of Calday (Grange Grammar School) in "Anglo Saxon calders, which was the name given to a nearby hill which meant cold arse" rather than Chaldea - silent h - Þer comen mony Clerkes out of Caldye..Sorsers and exorsismus and fele such clerkes?
Wed Nov 07 08:44 Someone ran out on the Haredi Would be good to hear more about our various other hermetic fundamentalist neighbours. Large crowd of pious boys the other night turned out on closer inspection to be Halloween ghosts...
Wed Nov 07 10:45 This is how the patriarch recalls Guinness being served in late 1950s Dublin, + all the half-poured pints & piles of sandwiches prepared for lunchtime, just like champagne and snacks ready for the interval at the opera
Wed Nov 07 10:45 Comment: (I speak apparently, as an Irish citizen.)
Wed Nov 07 11:31 WWI: nasty to partake, nice to remember. I can't think of a decent English aphorism.
Wed Nov 07 11:58 Great to hear that the Picken's Hole, Mendip excavation report is in print but does it mention the dynamite? @DarknessBelowUK
Wed Nov 07 18:19 I used to meet Emile at the baker's in The Hague 20 years ago when he was already 69.
Wed Nov 07 20:33 Best Edgar Allan Poe tribute I've heard: Rachmaninov, The Bells (starts at 34:27) What a splendid noise!
Wed Nov 07 20:36 Comment: If only there were a Mengelberg recording...
Thu Nov 08 08:50 Mogologue
Thu Nov 08 08:53 Comment: @MPSHackney Don't you mean a yellow Ofo bike? They're what all the kids ride.
Thu Nov 08 14:37 Sitting in the park with yer Tyskie Best just ain't the same: two to a bench = no mixing, & climate change not yet optimal
Thu Nov 08 19:40 Everything makes more sense if "she's so thoughtful" means "she's an inept halfwit."
Fri Nov 09 09:04 TfL lets you buy a ticket on a non-existent service to a non-existent destination. Eldorado is in the works.
Fri Nov 09 14:22 GD(P)R
Fri Nov 09 19:31 Classy interview by Helen Lewis
Sat Nov 10 07:53 Worth recalling that AHA was driven out of the Netherlands by the same forces that mean that that country & the UK are unlikely to contemplate giving refuge to Asia Bibi.
Sat Nov 10 10:08 Die Lit
Sun Nov 11 07:41 The doggerel needs work.
Sun Nov 11 07:43 "Imagine if the easiest way to delight your wife was you just throw a ball across the room"
Sun Nov 11 08:06 The French and English Idioms Compared, an 1801 compilation of false friends. E.g. J'ai été obligé de faire maison nette -> I have been obliged to make house clean Just saying
Sun Nov 11 17:53 Eureka moment.
Sun Nov 11 21:37 BLOG: Virginity is an overrated virtue: Granddad’s Armistice, preceded by Cameronians & Royal Scots in the Eastern Med & on the Somme & 6th York & Lancaster during the final push into Belgium; the aftermath, including an exchange with a German family.
Mon Nov 12 12:34 What percentage of gluten-free purchases are by mistake?
Mon Nov 12 22:30 Barrio Gótico Café, not in Barcelona but in deepest Moravia
Thu Nov 15 08:11 Buy a (Dutch) cow . I don't think you can do this in the UK
Thu Nov 15 14:41 are a complete shambles.
Thu Nov 15 21:37 As an undercover agent you know your Czech disguise has failed when two Moravian men with Down's greet you with "Eins, zwei, drei!"
Fri Nov 16 07:47 Thanks to a drunk chauffeur, Now wed to Camilla; His youthful flame.
Fri Nov 16 20:52 Shout-out for Jaroslav Kroupa, cosmopolite, & Rita the dog
Fri Nov 16 20:54 Comment: But is Brexit comparable with the emergence of the Czech Republic in 1918 from the dissolution of Austria-Hungary?
Fri Nov 16 22:16 Tomorrow's St. Martin's menu: high smoked rib from the hellish locomotive
Sun Nov 18 08:13 Tony Norman's geezers V unusual now all the crap you find on the street is plastic
Sun Nov 18 09:52 Looking forward to a Parliament of Birds touching the heart of our ambiguous cultural identity: Dominic Raab (< Rabe, German raven) vs Jeremy Corbyn (< corvus, Latin raven). Also welcome change from Scottish Parliament of the Fishy. (Old blog post:
Sun Nov 18 20:38 Villa Tugendhat in Brno has a fur coat store.
Sun Nov 18 20:47 Fellini-esque steam train encounter at Zaječí. Who would have liked to have filmed the late-communist chugger to Hodonín?
Mon Nov 19 09:19 Comment: @Transblawg Nothing better than a barbecued missionary after the chicken soup.
Mon Nov 19 20:19 I'll sing old bacon / Green grow the rashers, o!
Mon Nov 19 20:20 Smoking seems to be unusual in Moravian bars but the norm (for staff) in supermarkets
Mon Nov 19 20:23 St Martin & the mullet, Velké Pavlovice
Tue Nov 20 17:47 Comment: @Pani_Bufetowa Ate it as poutine in a Moravian village the other day.
Thu Nov 22 08:10 Ah, suburban Mancunian pubs in the 80s
Thu Nov 22 08:16 Vienna's district museums no longer celebrate 1683, without which we would not have had this:
Thu Nov 22 08:17 Comment: But would the Ottomans have managed to stop this: ?
Sat Nov 24 11:04 A patent translator on why the 20th century was better
Sat Nov 24 16:14 Most compelling reason for converting Irish citizenship into a passport: maybe it will work on UK borders, unlike one's UK passport
Sat Nov 24 16:15 General conclusion seems to be that even a civil war would be better for the UK than May's deal
Sat Nov 24 16:21 If you can bear two pints it's free
Sat Nov 24 18:44 Maurice Sagoff's Beowulf: Monster Grendel’s tastes are plainish. Breakfast? Just a couple Danish. King of Danes is frantic, very. Wait! Here comes the Malmö ferry Bringing Beowulf, his neighbor, Mighty swinger with a saber!
Sun Nov 25 00:07 Historia de Barcelona, 25/11: * 1406: Muere Sibila de Fortiá, esposa de Pedro del punyalet (35+60) * 1568: Entra Carlos de Austria (7) * 1823: Protesta eclesiástica contra la represión absolutista (93/i) * 1842: Explicación de la sublevación por…
Sun Nov 25 08:02 Comment: @Transblawg And I thought it had been fully described by Bob Marley
Sun Nov 25 11:55 Anglo-Norman deschaunt vs descent. Deschaunt is also birdsong, and some men (and women) whistle.
Mon Nov 26 07:16 Pleasing numbers of rats at the Xmas fair outside the Viennese Rathaus. I'm probably not the only person who enjoys the Pied Piper of Hamelin going to the Rathaus with his offer.
Mon Nov 26 07:24 Eugenics just became salonfähig
Mon Nov 26 09:19 Theresa May & the Holy Grail (Via
Mon Nov 26 10:51 Historia de Barcelona, 26/11: * 1458: Justas (12/i) * 1843: La Jamancia: devolución bienes, liberación rebeldes (159) * 1918: Pla: El senyor Torras Jonama, emigrat del país molt jove, ha fet una gran fortuna als Estats Units i a Cuba, amb el suro * 1922:…
Mon Nov 26 12:55 Nice feature of Velké Pavlovice: classic C European comb-style urban layout (long narrow strips perpendicular to main street draining from ridge to stream, houses on existing route) + residual strip farming to the NW. Good intro by János Bitó:
Mon Nov 26 14:34 V funny - Canvey Island Haredim rebuff Essex CC musical welcome gesture
Mon Nov 26 23:05 Historia de Barcelona, 27/11: * 1568: Sale para Castilla Carlos de Austria (9) * 1843: La Jamancia: prohibición de símbolos de la Junta, vuelta de refugiados (72) * 1936: El POUM en Gracia (296) * 1949: Estreno de un segundo himno del F.C. Barcelona en…
Tue Nov 27 07:32 What's the best 5p shit you can buy on Amazon to get you over the 20 quid free P&P mark? Like the old minimum card payments in pubs: "What's your most expensive packet of crisps?"
Tue Nov 27 08:33 Comment: @Transblawg They still charge you 4 quid or whatever, even if you walk to the warehouse in Stilton Beanz. Did you know you can do a fulfilment centre tour?
Tue Nov 27 08:42 Who's afraid of Urdish and Urdi? Re Hindu/Urdu: the guys who say Valencian is a different language to Catalan would have, in some respects, an easier life if they adopted a different script, e.g. Persian
Tue Nov 27 08:55 Tatch with his magic shrinking wand. Or is he photoshopped on?
Tue Nov 27 13:26 Comment: @Transblawg I think he/she is omnipotent but not yet omniscient
Tue Nov 27 17:03 Potato quickstep
Tue Nov 27 17:06 Not hot foxtrots, but HOT FOXES, with steaks, strips, burgers, wraps and salads. Úvoz/Údolní, Brno, Czech Republic
Tue Nov 27 17:14 Brno: four centuries of towers
Tue Nov 27 17:15 The kind of photo I'd like to take, except the tart would be in my gob
Tue Nov 27 18:11 Comment: @Transblawg But o! my soul is a sparrow's!
Tue Nov 27 23:31 Historia de Barcelona, 28/11: * 1412: Tras el Compromiso de Caspe entra Fernando I de Aragón en la ciudad (19) * 1464: Terremoto (9) * 1827: Fin de la ocupación francesa (19) * 1843: La Jamancia: controles sobre extranjeros (33) * 1918: Pla: Dins de «La…
Wed Nov 28 07:24 Is a city farm just a boring zoo?
Wed Nov 28 08:56 RT @ShitJokes: Billy has 5 albums by Morrissey and he buys 2 more, what does Billy have? Depression, Billy has depression.
Wed Nov 28 08:57 RT @ZachG932: The confusion that ensues when you’re a Jewish guy dating an Indian 😱
Wed Nov 28 09:25 1/3 A promising young pianist called Joseph Goebbels was booked by a local concert society, whose secretary made no secret of his love for Norwegian music.
Wed Nov 28 09:25 Comment: 2/3 Goebbels turned up & played, & afterwards the secretary went up to him & said, "Herr Goebbels, I'm terribly sorry, but you violated our agreement & I can't pay you. You played Bach, Mozart & Schumann, but nothing Norwegian."
Wed Nov 28 09:26 Comment: 3/3 "Was?!" screamed Goebbels, "Wollt ihr den totalen Grieg?!"
Wed Nov 28 09:48 Comment: Herman Finkers apparently has a variant of this old Dutch musicians' joke, where he proposes to German audiences putting on a record of Peer Gynt, and then asks, "Wollt ihr ein kleines Stückchen, oder wollt ihr den totalen Grieg?"
Wed Nov 28 18:04 RT @xkcdComic: Popper
Thu Nov 29 00:00 Historia de Barcelona, 29/11: * 1550: Muere la mujer de un cierto Lluis Durall, consejero (23+44) * 1835: Proclamación de un estado de sitio en Barcelona por Espoz y Mina "contra su voluntad" (287) * 1843: La Jamancia: anunciadas fiestas para celebrar la…
Thu Nov 29 07:23 Someone losing their smartphone is a near-resurrection experience: they no longer shamble, eyes down, like myopic monks, and they can talk coherently again, although all their conversation is about how to recover it
Thu Nov 29 07:38 Game: avoiding the dog-walkers on Hackney Marshes
Thu Nov 29 13:15 "Titanic" as an adjective means something that used to be thought of as big but is now considered pretty small
Thu Nov 29 13:18 The same disfunctional genius who designed passenger processing at Vienna Airport (baggage checks decentralised to gate level is 1970s trade unionism...) is surely also responsible for the smoking booths & the seats designated for elderly men who like looking at pregnant women
Thu Nov 29 13:53 Ex libris of the Czech puppeteer Jindřich Veselý (1885-1939)
Thu Nov 29 16:14 Comment: @Pani_Bufetowa I think there's a legal obligation to have one somewhere, so Gatwick has its one hidden in a restaurant as far as possible from departures.
Thu Nov 29 16:54 Comment: @Pani_Bufetowa And when you do find the hidden fountain, it's generally one with a high lip designed to prevent you refilling your bottle, so you take a few sips and then run back to your gate and you're thirsty again. Forcing passengers to buy throwaway plastic is how airports do business
Thu Nov 29 18:24 I'll call mine Asdf and Zxcv
Fri Nov 30 00:30 Historia de Barcelona, 30/11: * 1625: Los nuevos concelleres anteponen la seguridad marítima a sus rituales cívicos (100) * 1825: El obispo prohibe Causas y Remedios de los Males de Cataluña, sobre la actual situación social (14+19) * 1833: Cataluña se…
Fri Nov 30 07:08 "'Prussians as Bees, Prussians as Dogs" sounds most unfair
Fri Nov 30 07:10 Variation on the old gag that the best way to prevent car accidents is to make brakes illegal
Fri Nov 30 21:43 RT @ShitJokes: What does a dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac do at night? He stays up wondering if there really is a dog.