January tweets

Who took this photo?

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

Wed Jan 02 00:30 Historia de Barcelona, 2/1: * 1602: Los Conselleres quieren ser marqueses de Flix (19) * 1808: Establécese la Escuela de Mecánica (11) * 1848: Ser abogado está de moda (236+9) * 1919: Pla: Fa fred * 1929: Se constituye la empresa Hispano-Olivetti (186) *…
Wed Jan 02 23:48 Public Health Soviet Union's campaign against home brew, in Valentin Kataev, "A goat in the garden" (1925)
Thu Jan 03 01:12 Historia de Barcelona, 3/1: * 1844: Empieza construcción del Museo de Antigüedades de Barcelona (16/i) * 1848: Las rifas semanales (430) * 1904: Primer número de la revista infantil En Patufet (186/i) * 1919: Pla: Calella, hivern * ☼ 08:15-17:35, 09:20…
Thu Jan 03 08:01 Video was discovered of the New Orleans 2nd line-style brass band leading a funeral cortège on Berger Road, Homerton, Hackney
Thu Jan 03 08:55 "Three-card monte"/"find the lady" scammers on London Bridge. They appear to be of the same nationality as the guys who work in Barcelona - a dozen words of German and English - but I can't work out where home is. & haven't approached them yet.
Thu Jan 03 09:00 Comment: Obviously no cards involved - same trick as the shell game, & for some reason I use the wrong name
Thu Jan 03 15:47 Comment: @Transblawg Ah, so not Benson & Hedges
Thu Jan 03 15:53 I used to walk to school with my eyes closed in order to hear better -> light collision with a car #BirdBoxChallenge
Thu Jan 03 16:57 Comment: @Transblawg Quieter cars aren't all good
Thu Jan 03 19:30 Hearts have minds and minds have hearts
Thu Jan 03 19:40 1995 Commons debate on banning French words in retaliation for French linguistic protectionism
Thu Jan 03 19:47 FX fixing heist-type scenario
Thu Jan 03 19:52 Still don't know why the two tunnels south of Guildford on the Godalming (aka Godawful) line are called respectively the chalk & the sand tunnel. Surely they're both thru chalk, & obviously lined with brick.
Thu Jan 03 21:28 Yes
Fri Jan 04 01:52 Historia de Barcelona, 4/1: * 1454: Revaluación oficial del cruzado y del florín aragonés (26+15) * 1458: Juan II huye de la peste (29) * 1698: Tras el Tratado de Ryswich, las tropas españolas reemplazan a las francesas entre alegría popular (185/i) *…
Fri Jan 04 11:00 Late middle-aged Southampton ambulance man on relations with the Portsmouth brethren: We'd get a call to a big job & the Pompey lot would stand in a circle & wouldn't talk to us & our lot would stand in their own circle. I used to go & stand in the middle & everyone hated me.
Fri Jan 04 11:04 Comment: "Navigating in Pompey before satnav was a nightmare. Once we were somewhere in Southsea with a critical & we got lost. I was losing hope when a couple of streets away a blue light went past, so we followed it, & fortunately it was going to Q[ueen] A[lexandra] & not to a job."
Fri Jan 04 15:12 The voice recognition in HMRC's systems is improbably bad, but you can get through to something vaguely human by quoting liberally from Father Jack.
Fri Jan 04 15:19 My look for 2019. Classical but not necessarily classy.
Fri Jan 04 16:13 Comment: @Transblawg It's so weird it must be planned: I can articulate RP well when required but the system doesn't recognise it. Get everyone online.
Fri Jan 04 20:04 Following a successful initial trial, 100% of Parkinson patients believe that more research is needed into the ability of hop-based preparations to suppress swallowing disorders (n = 1)
Fri Jan 04 23:27 Historia de Barcelona, 5/1: * 1387: Muere Pedro IV de Aragón en el palacio (20+24) * 1848: Llegada y cabalgata de los Reyes Magos (460/i) * 1919: Pla: Diumenge * 1978: El ejército y els Joglars (118) * ☼ 08:15-17:37, 09:21 horas; ☾ luna nueva,…
Sun Jan 06 00:07 Historia de Barcelona, 6/1: * 1569: Lucha de fieras cobardes (22/i) * 1640: Salses se rinde a los españoles (421+27) * 1703: Un terremoto protesta contra la situación política (40+53) * 1823: Ntra. Sra. de Monserrat vs. la fiebre amarilla (19+22) * 1848:…
Sun Jan 06 09:13 Definitely Chris Grayling
Sun Jan 06 09:15 The laziest man in the world has always told us that his given names are José and F. I now know that F. stands for Feliciano. Here's the original with Sting
Sun Jan 06 10:07 Kinky scarecrow at the big house on the bend on the A272 (51.008145, -0.964055), Stroud, Petersfield, Hampshire
Sun Jan 06 13:56 The colonisation of Stroud, Gloucestershire by Islington North is almost complete, but at least one inhabitant still doesn't eat avocado.
Sun Jan 06 13:57 Comment: @Transblawg Never too late for a repost. Doesn't sound like much has changed.
Sun Jan 06 14:36 Differing folk & scientific taxonomies of ape/monkey/etc
Sun Jan 06 16:07 Most encouraged to hear that her New Year Honour was for marching up to fat black people & telling them they are lazy & disgusting, rather than for wining & dining influential Tories (without once employing the services of a singing organ-grinder) #ViveLaMéritocratie
Sun Jan 06 16:08 When you're in love with a beautiful woman / You gotta clean the bath
Sun Jan 06 16:33 Welsh word of the day: lol (nonsense)
Sun Jan 06 17:16 Hypothesis: English pronunciation of Huawei splits north/south: Geordie haway (man) vs Hawaii (Five-O )
Sun Jan 06 18:18 Road sign as Christmas tree: [children running]/School/Playground/STROUD/30
Sun Jan 06 18:27 "In place of" as substitute for "instead of" & "rather than": Ngram: Abellio relishing their unpopularity?
Sun Jan 06 18:31 Comment: My guess is it's due to their being owned by the Dutch state train operator, Nederlandse Spoorwegen: either there's a Dutchie translating "in plaats van" or Anglophone Abellio staff have internalised Lowlandisms
Mon Jan 07 00:47 Historia de Barcelona, 7/1: * 1466: El Consejo de Ciento guarda la fiesta de S. Sebastián por causa de las epidemias (48) * 1637: Nevada (0) * 1789: Gran nevada (38) * 1848: Purificación de Ntra. Sra., degeneración del pesebrisme (885) * 1919: Pla:…
Mon Jan 07 11:58 South East Water (@sewateruk) has closed a permissive bridal route through a field near Stroud, Petersfield to prevent hen parties scaring the horses @postpfield
Mon Jan 07 19:10 Some of the BBC Les Misérables is embarrassing (distribution of workers over quarry, "Vive LE France!") but at least they've got hurdy-gurdies (like those used to drown out the functionary's murder in the Complainte de Fualdès) instead of barrel organs & a Polichinelle/Punch act
Mon Jan 07 19:11 Comment: Of course it's Beeb: the villains are black, look Jewish, or speak with thick London accents, while the goodies are pretty much RP
Mon Jan 07 20:14 The Met has ruled out the Russians, who are only just starting Xmas
Mon Jan 07 20:49 My 1987 Welsh-English pocket dictionary, Y Geiriadur Bach, is a "dictionary of the living Welsh language." Back in 1987, the Welsh were interested into incest, but not homosexuality or masturbation, and home-rule, but not referenda, & the tech glossary included "intuitionism."
Mon Jan 07 20:50 Comment: Feeling smug, because at 5 this morning I thought of my first Welsh-English bilingual pun, which seems to be original.
Tue Jan 08 01:28 Historia de Barcelona, 8/1: * 1025: Berenguer Ramón I reconoce los derechos locales de Barcelona (16) * 1561: Funerales de Jaime Cassador, obispo de Barcelona (13) * ☼ 08:15-17:40, 09:25 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 3,62%, antigüedad 2 días *…
Tue Jan 08 10:39 Did they really play Darth Vader's theme when Arron Banks came on last night?
Tue Jan 08 17:54 Norway-plus
Tue Jan 08 23:10 Historia de Barcelona, 9/1: * 1495: Cese una epidemia de peste (13) * 1875: Regocijos al llegar el nuevo rey, Alfonso XII (337+43/i) * 1919: Pla: Al matí, marxem a Barcelona gairebé tota la família: la meva mare, les meves germanes, el meu germà i la…
Wed Jan 09 06:52 Comment: @botanicalmartin My ignorance: is it products like this which explain why all "wildflower meadows" installed by councils & developers look the same & bloom all year round?
Wed Jan 09 18:47 A film by Barnabás Tóth. If the secret of simultaneous interpretation is to sense and prepare the denouement, then perhaps the secret of making films about simultaneous interpretation is to conceal it rather more
Wed Jan 09 18:59 Squids in
Wed Jan 09 20:51 Comment: @Transblawg I liked the first half though.
Wed Jan 09 20:57 So the film's the Wrath of Paul Bunyan, not John Bunyan. Most disappointing
Thu Jan 10 00:25 Historia de Barcelona, 10/1: * 1401: A pesar de oposición municipal a todo lo académico, Martín I funda una facultad de medicina (0+424) * 1848: La matanza del cerdo, entre el 1 y el 20 de enero (1080/i) * 1899: Los soldados regresan demacrados desde…
Thu Jan 10 08:43 Hoping Igor gets the right audience
Thu Jan 10 08:43 Comment: , not to mention Mr Stagliano
Thu Jan 10 08:56 Gumtree ad
Thu Jan 10 09:10 The old ones
Thu Jan 10 16:54 Rastaman in Walthamstow mall raving at ClearChannel screen: "You people are channelling my energy away." Oh to be able to relate so directly to ads.
Thu Jan 10 18:07 Russian alphabet aide memoire Almost as weird as Welsh numbers
Thu Jan 10 20:39 Ofo's pulling out of London, so what are all the 12-yo gangsters going to ride? Great free bike scheme
Fri Jan 11 02:14 Historia de Barcelona, 11/1: * 1284: El Consejo de Ciento obtiene de Pedro el Grande el Recognoverunt proceres, consolidando su poder (24+17) * 1849: Disolución via real decreto de una empresa metalúrgica fraudulente (634) * 1919: Pla: Ara que com aquell…
Fri Jan 11 09:20 V excited about Pinner on Sunday. Even if Heath Robinson hasn't escaped the museum to reinvent the Lido Railway, what can possibly be wrong with a place that chooses to celebrate the inventor of Uncle Lubin's crank?
Fri Jan 11 09:22 Comment: @jmguardia Ironía típica inglesa, no, wait...
Fri Jan 11 09:24 Bank of Jamaica goes one up on ET Mensah's Inflation Calypso. Too hard for me.
Fri Jan 11 11:15 Thesauri not helping me out with cow past bearing
Fri Jan 11 11:16 Comment: There must be a word for it
Fri Jan 11 11:32 Jeff Bezos alarmed that new girlfriend hasn't arrived yet - no Prime subscription?
Fri Jan 11 16:32 The old man gathering winter fuel with a chainsaw in a half-dream the other night naturally turned out to be colleagues of these guys. But no one stabbed, so heyho.
Sat Jan 12 00:33 Historia de Barcelona, 12/1: * 1554: Consejo de Ciento: ¿qué hacer para Felipe II? (19/i) * ~1872: Llega el general estadounidense Sherman, con muchos ojos puestos en Cuba (31+517) * 1919: Pla: Em donen d’alta a l’Ateneu Barcelonès –soci transeünt: 7,50…
Sat Jan 12 10:12 So no customers for grilled ox heart this morning
Sun Jan 13 00:53 Historia de Barcelona, 13/1: * 1566: Inauguración de la iglesia de los Angeles (19) * 1945: 5 centímetros de nieve (19) * 1991: Los Boixos Nois matan a un francés de las Brigadas Blanquiazules; la vida posterior de un asesino (183+25) * ☼ 08:14-17:46,…
Sun Jan 13 10:35 Comment: @Transblawg I loved the characters
Mon Jan 14 01:20 Historia de Barcelona, 14/1: * 1466: La suerte del mossen Sort: decapitado con 70 años por la malversación de caudales públicos (22+31) * 1640: Vuelve el diputado militar, Francisco de Tamarite, tras la toma de Salses (24) * 1907: Inauguración del…
Mon Jan 14 23:30 A puppet of Olivia Colman is being made which will either replace the automaton on the front of the barrel organ or become the centrepiece of a household shrine
Tue Jan 15 01:42 Historia de Barcelona, 15/1: * 1258: Jaime I perdona la multa impuesta a la ciudad por la lapidación de Bernat Marquet; la reorganización del barrio de la Ribera (102+340) * 1475: Con la Concordia de Segovia, la Corona de Aragón se une voluntariamente a…
Tue Jan 15 13:19 Nicholas Longworth introduced winemaking to Ohio in early C19th & made a fortune from land: “I will help the devil’s poor, the miserable drunken dog, whom nobody else will do anything for but despise and kick,” left the deserving poor to others
Tue Jan 15 14:26 Graves, Goodbye to All That: the same sort of dishonesty that deaf people have when they miss the thread of conversation. They dare not be left behind and rely on their intuition and bluff to get them through
Tue Jan 15 14:27 Comment: This disability is most marked in very cold weather.
Tue Jan 15 14:31 Graves re his infant German: We had the feel of German so strongly that I would say now that I know German far better than French, though I can read French almost as fast as I can read English & can only read a German book very painfully & slowly, with the help of a dictionary.
Tue Jan 15 14:32 Comment: I use different parts of my mind for the two languages. French is a surface acquirement and I could forget it quite easily if I had no reason to use it every now and then.
Tue Jan 15 15:16 .@Transblawg
Tue Jan 15 22:11 More Welsh numbers
Tue Jan 15 23:04 Historia de Barcelona, 16/1: * 1716: Decreto de Nueva Planta de Cataluña (1206+1577) * 1848: Antonio, abogado de los asnos (103) * 1892: Ejecutado el infanticidio Isidro Mompart y Prats (1165/i) * 1912: El mar causa destrozos en las fábricas de la…
Thu Jan 17 01:27 Historia de Barcelona, 17/1: * 1503: Regocijos públicos por la entrada de Felipe I de Castilla (19) * 1641: Pau Claris declara una república catalana (0+274) * 1833: Instálase el colegio de abogados de Barcelona (0) * 1842: Fiesta de San Antonio Abad,…
Thu Jan 17 09:51 I think I'd prefer a cigar up my ar$e
Thu Jan 17 12:19 Comment: Sorry, corybungus
Thu Jan 17 16:45 Either this must work or we'll have to find a way of enacting the bold proposals of Lathe of Heaven
Thu Jan 17 16:51 All El Prado's travelling Velázquez's are at CaixaForum Barcelona. Buffoon With Books is obviously my favourite.
Thu Jan 17 16:54 Comment: Amongst other Golden Age work, here by Alonso Sánchez Coello is jesteress Magdalena Ruiz with monkeys & (cut out) some Habsburg princess.
Thu Jan 17 16:56 Genesis P-Orridge's shoes
Fri Jan 18 00:39 Comment: @JosephHolt1849 It looked like this in 1985.
Fri Jan 18 00:39 Comment: @JosephHolt1849 What's the prize?
Fri Jan 18 01:31 Historia de Barcelona, 18/1: * 1665: Gran nevada (0) * 1764: Fundación de la Conferencia Physycomatemática Experimental (21+360) * 1912: La lluvia causa grandes destrozos en el barrio de Pekín (38) * 1919: Pla: M’agrada –a la tarda– de divagar pels…
Fri Jan 18 09:30 Neil Brittlebank has a life I can only dream of. I love bricks
Fri Jan 18 09:32 Ugly fruit thread
Sat Jan 19 01:36 Historia de Barcelona, 19/1: * 1479: Muere Juan II de Aragón, padre de Fernando II, víctima de una orgía litúrgico-musical en Nochebuena (14+130) * 1492: La carta de Fernando el Católico sobre la toma de Granada inicia diez días de fiestas (30+214) *…
Sat Jan 19 07:46 Google doesn't associate Clogau with the Vigra Mining Company
Sat Jan 19 19:25 07:46 Laurie D & Ben F
Sat Jan 19 19:31 Comment: I think these were done at Moonraker
Sat Jan 19 19:45 How BBC Radio 3 came to worship composers who weren't very musical
Sat Jan 19 20:18 Bizarre bastardy bond from Llanuwchllyn in 1829: both the father of the child, Richard Cadwalader of Ty Coch, and Sarah Williams's master, Simon Jones of Y Lôn, have to pay sureties for maintenance
Sat Jan 19 20:24 Comment: (Sarah drowns in Bala Lake 21 years later, despite the efforts of Simon Jones, son, & now her employer)
Sun Jan 20 01:49 Historia de Barcelona, 20/1: * 1401: La taula de canvi, la primera tabla de cambios en Europa (80+48) * 1492: Fiesta con confits en la casa del infante Enrique para celebrar la toma de Granada (33+5) * 1640: Vuelve el conseller en cap tras la toma de…
Sun Jan 20 09:28 George Melly includes a brief quote from Kurt Schwitters Sonate in Urlauten in a trad call/response routine at 07:00
Sun Jan 20 10:19 Man said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, & let it divide the waters from the waters. & another man said, let us make ducks in our image, & he scattered seed in monstrous handfuls, & all of it fell along the path, & the ducks came and ate it up, & it was so.
Sun Jan 20 10:50 Does Gastroid Hotel in Sarajevo really have a belly-like dilation?
Sun Jan 20 11:08 Winter reds without robins: hawthorn, Royal Mail, 30, safety post. All at Droxford
Sun Jan 20 11:15 The Sistine ceiling of Vlu's garage-pub
Sun Jan 20 16:48 BLOG: A 27 km walk from Petersfield over the South Downs to Bishop’s Waltham. Featuring an erudite parrot, Edward Thomas, William Cobbett, a 1791 chic doggerel tombstone, two extinct railways and Churchill
Sun Jan 20 22:19 "While relationship coaches usually know something about relationships, translators who dispense advice on how to become a successful translator often know little about translation" Aside: recently saw John Wayne Rio Bravo & True Grit: former is dodo-dead
Sun Jan 20 22:20 Notion that civilisation can be categorised by skin colour, redux
Sun Jan 20 22:29 London is prosaic, and DG does it better than anyone
Mon Jan 21 01:50 Historia de Barcelona, 21/1: * 1362: Peste negra (74) * 1464: Desembarca Pedro de Avis para luchar por parte de la oligarquía contra Juan II (25) * 1937: La Consejería de Abastos anuncia la Oficina del Huevo (262) * ☼ 08:10-17:55, 09:45 horas; ☾ luna…
Mon Jan 21 10:10 Pale Hands I Loved, Beside the Shalimar 17:10
Mon Jan 21 10:42 Comment: Whispering Grass
Mon Jan 21 18:32 If this continues we're going to be facing a No Eel scenario
Mon Jan 21 23:40 If you use E-number emulsifiers in your products, you should have to advertise them as zombie chow. The chemistry is not pretty.
Tue Jan 22 01:58 Historia de Barcelona, 22/1: * 1628: Mucha lluvia y nieve (13) * 1899: Inscripciones felinas para un certamen en els Quatre Gats (269/i) * 1919: Pla: A primera hora del matí, quan vaig a la Universitat, trobo de vegades, senyoretes amb mantellina,…
Tue Jan 22 09:00 Académie Française gets to the roots of the gilets jaunes cloud: 'On ne dit pas "des produits low cost"' Everything's too expensive in Frrrance
Tue Jan 22 15:58 Given that everyone at Davos will be arriving in environmentally responsible trains and not private jets, it's curious that the webcams have been turned off at Zürich Airport #WEF19
Tue Jan 22 19:26 Comment: @Transblawg @MaxFassbrause Amazing it's survived. Perhaps T&L and its public think it's some kind of pre-internet cat photo & leave it at that
Tue Jan 22 19:45 OK, so it's probably the impresario Alberto Aurenti outside the cabaret he's running, Barcelona de Noche, on c/ Tapias/Tàpies in about 1990, but who took the photo and where was it originally published, in @LaVanguardia or @elperiodico perhaps?
Tue Jan 22 19:48 Comment: @Transblawg @MaxFassbrause The Mail has covered this: 'I thought it was sleeping!' Golden syrup fans are shocked by online post pointing out the Lyle’s logo is a DEAD lion covered in bees (so had YOU noticed?)
Tue Jan 22 22:25 Comment: @Transblawg @MaxFassbrause You don't post anything like enough photos
Tue Jan 22 22:27 Comment: @Transblawg @MaxFassbrause So Tate and Lyle aren't two obscure, saccharine prophets?
Tue Jan 22 23:04 Addicted to a pre-war Greek hash ballad playlist (h/t @tombcn). Rempétika (chasiklídika) primer: . Closer to assassins than Chasidim. Sekarius87 has posted some great stuff, but afaik no barrel piano / latérna repertoire.
Tue Jan 22 23:06 Historia de Barcelona, 23/1: * 1641: Tras una semana de república catalana y antes de llegar el ejército de Felipe IV, Pau Claris se corrige y proclama Luis XIII Conde de Barcelona, pasando Cataluña a soberania francesa (0+97) * 1775: Se abre la Escuela…
Wed Jan 23 07:59 One for the annals of föcked translation: @LibroSingular publishes an Arnold Bennett translation and gets both the author's name (two Ts) and title (Riceyman Steps) wrong on the cover. @BennettSoc
Wed Jan 23 08:02 Comment: It's not a one-off: they seriously can't spell Arnold Bennett. #MadeInSpain
Wed Jan 23 08:35 Comment: @LibroSingular It's not just the cover: you've also spelled his name wrong in your Amazon PR. Re the street name, I think you'll find that it's normal in Spanish to use the original English capitalisation - Downing Street, Baker Street, Pall Mall, Regent's Park etc etc. Good luck!
Wed Jan 23 23:10 Historia de Barcelona, 24/1: * 1336: Muere en Barcelona Alfonso IV de Aragón (13/i) * 1809: Decreto proteccionista a favor de los fabricantes barceloneses (189) * 1848: Víspera de la conversión de San Pablo (23) * 1919: Pla: En passar aquest matí per…
Thu Jan 24 09:57 Why is my organ-grinding act not one of the more than 250 British-based businesses the Dutch government is allegedly trying to poach?
Thu Jan 24 10:23 Old friends in the Alta Garrotxa
Thu Jan 24 11:53 Useful composite map of southern Spanish railways in 1898, surplus to reqs
Thu Jan 24 12:39 Comment: @justinjerez No trains or maps for sale, but nifty Barcelona 18th century pied-à-terre, yes...
Thu Jan 24 13:12 Re Scouse: "Linguist Gerald Knowles suggested that the accent's nasal quality may have derived from poor 19th-century public health, by which the prevalence of colds for many people over a long time resulted in a nasal accent becoming regarded as the norm & copied by others"
Thu Jan 24 13:13 Comment: I've heard such claims about so many dialects but never credibly
Thu Jan 24 13:13 Comment: @justinjerez Intermediary fee obviously available
Thu Jan 24 18:27 Comment: @ibexsalad @goodclimate Can't remember - probably David Rumsey or something like that. I'm clearing out stuff, so more info will turn up.
Thu Jan 24 18:30 Comment: @ibexsalad @goodclimate More likely to be in the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica
Thu Jan 24 19:03 Comment: @ibexsalad @goodclimate A burlesque novel was planned - a fat man & a thin man passing through railway age Spain on a DIY tandem to their nemesis in Cádiz. But I couldn't figure who would buy it.
Thu Jan 24 21:34 Comment: @ibexsalad @goodclimate As my dust settles after some turbulent years, I think I will relocate it to somewhere with perhaps a larger reading public: Liverpool. Tho S Spain is prettier than N Wales/Cheshire/Lancashire/Pennines, & Cádiz has the Atlántida association, better parties & croc-friendly climate
Thu Jan 24 22:46 Where now are to be met those thrifty men who, mounted on sleek roadsters, with well-filled saddle-bags carefully packed behind them, explore their obscure way by means of guide-books & maps from town to town, as in days of yore? (1826 review of Smith's New Pocket Companion)
Thu Jan 24 23:52 Historia de Barcelona, 25/1: * 1464: El anti-rey Pedro jura los fueros (15) * 1848: San Pablo y sus gitanos, chuchería y dentistas, niños epilépticos y barbas (448) * 1919: Pla: Ateneu, de quatre a set de la tarda * 1937: Batalla del Huevo (135+95) *…
Fri Jan 25 09:12 The full stop after "sticks" is the icing.
Fri Jan 25 09:18 For PS, who for his guests one night produced a burger containing a mouse asphyxiated by the leaky connection on the gas fridge, lightly fried, and garnished with slugs.
Fri Jan 25 09:28 Rotterdam says shisha lounges are a danger to health comparable to drugs and alcohol, and not just because of the tendency of the patrons to bomb one other
Fri Jan 25 09:31 So to make Hophead drinkable they just need to reduce hopping?
Fri Jan 25 10:08 Punch laughed when the Manchester Ship Canal was suggested. In similar vein, "When Birmingham is a seaport town" (, and look at Brum now. Not to mention Hackney, with its famous brook.
Fri Jan 25 11:58 Comment: @LowEbbs Glad to hear of a well-behaved dormouse. Someone recently told me a C16th Moor-killing parody: ¡Ola!, lirón, lirón, ¿de dónde venís de andare? - ¡Ola!, lirón, lirón, de San Pedro el altare. - ¿Qué os dixo don Roldane? - Que no devéys de passare; etc etc Should be banned
Fri Jan 25 16:52 Please no one tell Xavier Bertrand ("We're ready for no deal, how about you?") that both the Stansted Express and the M11 are buggered this weekend #LogisticalGenius
Fri Jan 25 16:58 Hoping against hope that Llangadock/Llangadog in S Wales is either full of Provençal peasants or hosts a statue of an extended relative of the cod.
Sat Jan 26 00:00 Historia de Barcelona, 26/1: * 1460: Juan II de Aragón es obligado a reconocer a su hijo Carlos como gobernador de Cataluña (30) * 1641: La batalla de Montjuic, primera victoria para la Cataluña borbónico-francesa contra las fuerzas de Felipe IV (0) *…
Sat Jan 26 09:20 Looking forward to hearing @106hjut 's "Fantastic Organ-Grinder", whatever that may be.
Sat Jan 26 10:38 Would it have been more honest to call the congestion charge a turnpike trust? London tollgates in 1801:
Sat Jan 26 11:04 Disturbing email from phishing for personal data. Which bit of the NHS did they buy or borrow the mailing list from?
Sat Jan 26 11:10 Comment: Utter shambles of private provision masquerading as public
Sat Jan 26 17:09 Comment: @Transblawg Email out of the blue from a commercial organisation called PatientAccess telling me that I have an account with them. No password, so I'll need to give them loads of info about myself to get one. I mean, WTF.
Sat Jan 26 23:03 Comment: @Transblawg Interesting question. The surgery has two different bits of software for patient contacts, neither of which works, and they may have more up their sleeve. But I'm quite happy joining the queue of people with improbable ailments and impossible dialects.
Sat Jan 26 23:45 One approach to Ofsted: "And this is our message to the representatives: be strong and be fortified for the Honour of His Blessed Name, and may it be the Will that we should merit the revocation of the evil decrees speedily. Amen."
Sun Jan 27 00:06 Historia de Barcelona, 27/1: * 1641: Destrozado el ejército habsburgo en la Batalla de Montjuic (1093) * 1899: Nieva (25) * 1939: Dionisio Ridruejo: alivio y alegría al entrar los nacionales (325) * ☼ 08:05-18:02, 09:57 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
Sun Jan 27 09:01 Love in the madhouse
Mon Jan 28 00:52 Historia de Barcelona, 28/1: * 1530: Alianza entre Carlos I y las repúblicas italianas (14) * 1534: Plantan naranjos en el Palacio de la Generalidad (16) * 1627: Gran nevada (10+7) * ~1629: Pasquín contra Barcelona con respuesta contra Madrid (220) * ☼…
Mon Jan 28 16:55 "The translator's invisibility" is a thriller featuring Sir Richard Burton as a stealth-tech-equipped superhero who chastises dishonest agencies
Mon Jan 28 17:38 Excellent school campaign vs Hackney Council's feeble efforts to rearrange the deckchairs on the air pollution Titanic
Tue Jan 29 00:58 Historia de Barcelona, 29/1: * 1640: Procesión general para dar gracias por la victoria de Salses (33) * 1680: Abre la Casa de Convalecencia en el Hospital de la Santa Cruz (9+308) * 1939: Pla publica su "lección terrible" (544+27) * ☼ 08:03-18:05,…
Tue Jan 29 09:20 RIP Trevor, savaged by dogs
Tue Jan 29 12:56 V content to have left GoDaddy, the Ryanair of domain registration, and ASmallOrange, a zombie business, for Google Domains
Tue Jan 29 13:27 E-scooter speed cap. Now all that is required is an army of enraged ferrets
Wed Jan 30 01:38 Historia de Barcelona, 30/1: * 1466: El concejo de 32 manda fabricar una imagen del ángel custodio para proteger la ciudad de la peste; la leyenda de la Puerta del Angel (49+844) * 1563: Conducta disoluta del conseller en cap (35+22) * 1784: Una gallina…
Wed Jan 30 10:02 Freddy Heineken's BMW, possibly Apparently Kidnapping Mr. Heineken has the kidnappers drinking out of the little green bottles, which were only introduced in the Netherlands in 2012
Wed Jan 30 10:07 Bitter horse-piss wine: a history of Asahi I like the Fuller's pubs that haven't undergone the corporate makeover - Anchor & Hope on the Lea is a prime example - but these will presumably drop out of the portfolio. Beer often better than the alternatives
Wed Jan 30 19:38 Brilliant map of development in Walthamstow since the mid-C19th
Thu Jan 31 01:48 Historia de Barcelona, 31/1: * 1628: Conmemoración de los 26 cristianos crucificados en Japón en 1597 (670+3/i) * 1785: Empieza construcción del edificio de la aduana (9) * 1809: Prohibido el paso de caballos y carruajes por la Rambla (128) * 1919: Pla:…
Thu Jan 31 08:39 Cobranding Guinneß / Nazis
Thu Jan 31 08:52 Freelancer to agency
Thu Jan 31 08:55 It turns out that Maduro is of normal stature and not a Madurodam-sized, raging dwarf. Wim Sonneveld & Margootje would have been so disappointed
Thu Jan 31 22:09 Comment: @Transblawg @lynneguist As we say in the countryside: Of shoot or wild pursuit The /ˈfʌɪzənt/ is /kɒɡˈnʌɪzənt/
Thu Jan 31 22:12 "a wide range of theoretical material on the nature of law and legal interpretation, including Cover, Hart, Fuller, Dworkin, Goodrich, and Derrida" wtf
Thu Jan 31 22:19 Great photos of 1840s Europe / Middle East: Just as well Elgin didn't lose his marbles - Parthenon in shocking state
Thu Jan 31 22:20 Comment: @Transblawg I thought it would be more exciting
Thu Jan 31 22:30 Scouse: They speak a bastard brogue: a shambling, degenerate speech of slipshod vowels and muddied consonants—a cast-off clout of a tongue, more debased even than Whitechapel Cockney, because so much more sluggish, so much less positive and acute.
Thu Jan 31 22:30 Comment: @Transblawg That's cheered me up