Organ-grinding tweets for July 2019

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

Mon Jul 01 00:50 Historia de Barcelona, 1/7: * 0986: Los moros de Mallorca ponen sitio a Barcelona (0) * ~1464: Jaume Safont decide hacer un censo de Barcelona y encuentra 7160 hogares (197) * 1587: Filippo Ariosto se compromete a pintar retratos de los condes de…
Mon Jul 01 16:07 Facked translation from Gatwick. I suspect they were pleased with the pun in English (give us your change so we can enact change) and didn't consider the multilingual consequences.
Mon Jul 01 20:27 Comment: @ibexsalad From the NW. Not everyone is so fortunate as to live in London.
Mon Jul 01 20:40 Some of the wonky fruit in supermarkets isn't wonky at all. They're remarketing straight fruit for the eco premium.
Mon Jul 01 20:41 Comment: @petersymon Have you considered emigrating to Scotland?
Mon Jul 01 21:37 Northumbrian snakes: flexible plastic drain at Cragside near Rothbury and young adder near the River Alwin north of Clennell and Alwinton in the Northumberland National Park. I have never understood why a venomous beast would be called an adder and not a subtractor.
Tue Jul 02 00:48 Historia de Barcelona, 2/7: * 1836: Trasládase el mercado de la Bocaría al local que fue convento de San José (16) * 1842: Restablecimiento de los Jocs Florals (110+32) * 1844: Cómo el enchufado Joaquín Bastús intentó robarle el trabajo a Pablo Piferrer…
Tue Jul 02 06:54 Chaplin Great Dictator tribute
Tue Jul 02 13:16 La web nonfood de @CarrefourGroup España no funciona nunca? Lleva días sin aceptar pagos...
Tue Jul 02 16:39 Answers the question as to whether there's anything worse than Spanish reggae
Tue Jul 02 16:49 .@intueldonsquare Newcastle very helpfully confirmed by email that there were luggage lockers at the mall. What their rep neglected to mention was that the conversion by ULocker to cashless operation hadn't worked, so the lockers were unusable.
Tue Jul 02 19:19 Kudos to the @brexitparty_uk delegation to the European Parliament for noticing that the Slovenian-Latvian and Latvian-Slovenian interpreters had taken advantage of the traditional lack of interest in their activities to go naked in their booth.
Wed Jul 03 00:51 Historia de Barcelona, 3/7: * 1383: Pedro IV de Aragón manda quitar las horcas de la ribera para dejar sitio para la casa lonja (67) * 1918: Pla: La Maria, una vella minyona, que ara és a casa, després d’haver servit molts anys a Girona, sento que diu…
Wed Jul 03 06:03 Musical verisimilitude as necessary condition for dramatic adequacy - the "live" music sounds as if it were played by the "musicians" on cam. Two spy dramas: Poliakoff Summer of Rockets is rubbish, Hitchcock 39 Steps is genius in this (& everything else)
Wed Jul 03 06:15 Paddington the Paedophile? Dodgy-looking bear behind bars at Amble Links School, Northumberland
Wed Jul 03 06:24 Fish crate at Amble by Umbúðamiðlun ("packaging brokerage"?), an Icelandic leasing company. Pretty dominant along England's NE coast, so presumably don't regret choosing a name that will puzzle even the Geordies. Still time to change it to the simpler Umbúthamithlun
Wed Jul 03 06:28 Enjoyable composite of natural & cut rock & various periods of concrete at Amble harbour
Wed Jul 03 06:36 - Can't you see that they're fooling you?! - Can't you see that we like it?!
Wed Jul 03 06:42 Comment: @pachalafaka Chris Hawkes is good on the climb
Wed Jul 03 08:24 I'd love the prehistoric cup & ring rock carvings (pic at Lordenshaw fort #HillfortsWednesday) to be architects' plans (aerial view) for a return to Eden (wells to water your plants, a wall (or 3) to keep out hairy heathens) implemented by building of hillforts slightly later
Wed Jul 03 08:26 Comment: Either that or the Neolithics were imagining a branch of Dunkin' Donuts
Wed Jul 03 08:29 Comment: The cups on their own might be explained by a lunatic as having been caused by particularly acidic wee
Wed Jul 03 08:33 Comment: Sheep don't care
Wed Jul 03 13:55 Normally "cuatro indios" would translate as "a few Indians," but intriguingly Josep Borrell, EU Foreign Minister, here uses it to mean "a lot of Indians, and then there were their massacres, oh, and an uncommonly bloody civil war, and so on and so forth" #FuckedTranslation
Wed Jul 03 16:33 West Indian guard at L tells aggressive Polish shoplifter to f off back to his own country. Afterwards I pull his leg about it & he laughs & says that in the army his commander told him that if you couldn't say that, you weren't (yet) really British. Beats the Tebbit test?
Wed Jul 03 19:24 Just saw a worried stoat on Leyton Marsh, so herewith a stoatecdote
Thu Jul 04 01:00 Historia de Barcelona, 4/7: * 1356: Empieza a correr la fuente de la Plaza de San Jaime (0) * 1525: Grande y extraordinario terremoto (29+6) * 1899: Disturbios en Alicante, Valencia y Barcelona (56) * 1909: Más bombas (69) * ☼ 05:21-20:29, 15:07 horas;…
Thu Jul 04 07:58 Skylark at Lordenshaw hillfort. Minor improvements in focusing on Little Brown Jobs on wobbly bracken. No luck with ones hovering (they flutter like drowning men) on NE wind just before NW-SE ridge at Alwinton Burn & swooping into low pressure over the ridge
Thu Jul 04 08:05 Comment: The stuffed specimens in @GNM_Hancock were great for posterior identification of birds seen up on the moors - I don't know the environment, so even grouse were new to me
Thu Jul 04 08:06 Comment: But nothing beat the kingfisher on the Coquet (cokehead) at Thropton. Haven't seen one of those for years.
Thu Jul 04 11:51 The consecutive 4ths in Piero Piccioni's main theme for "L'assassino" (1961 dir Elio Petri feat Marcello Mastroianni) are surely the inspiration for the Pink Panther theme
Thu Jul 04 12:30 Good to see NE Dutch zwartbles (black-blaze - on forehead) sheep at Rothbury. Dutch farming friend: bred from Schoonebeek fen sheep post WWI, resilient (inc during lambing) & amiable, good meat yield, not much wool but no value there anyway now
Thu Jul 04 12:31 Comment: Word also applies to dogs, horses, cattle etc. Bruinbles is brown with a white blaze, and if I could find a characteristic white patch on the musket I'd claim it was the origin of the name of the Brown Bess.
Thu Jul 04 14:03 Comment: @Transblawg But have they got a Bierrad?
Thu Jul 04 14:15 Re strawberries: now that Tesco etc have mostly disintermediated the wholesalers, what's the average price differential / kg between the retail shelf and wholesale markets like Spitalfields? Can't be ar$ed to do research in the latter at 4 am...
Thu Jul 04 14:50 Sunderland City Council might want to remove metadata when nicking documentation from Winchester City Council
Thu Jul 04 18:17 Problems with circuses. I think our sourdough bread is safe, though.
Thu Jul 04 18:18 Comment: @tombcn Holidays. Nice people, nice dogs, even the criminals are friendly.
Thu Jul 04 22:01 Historia de Barcelona, 5/7: * 1446: Secuestrar a todas las prostitutas en el convento de las Arrepentidas durante Semana Santa libera dinero para el altar (279+27) * 1522: Vuelve Carlos I desde Alemania tras su elección como Rey de Romanos (23) * 1588:…
Fri Jul 05 11:39 This is not the Huck Finn I know
Fri Jul 05 12:01 Comment: @tombcn Hahahaha, so they were beers, and not some kind of soft plastic grenade
Fri Jul 05 22:02 Historia de Barcelona, 6/7: * 0985: Die quod Barcinona interiit: Almanzor toma Barcelona con ayuda de los moros de Baleares (155+209/i) * 1110: Un cierto Guillermo Ramón hace testamento antes de ir a luchar en Tierra Santa (186) * 1519: Carlos I recibe…
Sat Jul 06 06:04 Curiosity for lovers of sharp objects: hexagram at the base of an axe blade. Probably nothing to do with Jews (or Masons), but a maker's proved mark
Sat Jul 06 06:14 Comment: More complex one with brass slug on early C20th British cavalry sword, as found I think on all British and US military swords following Wilkinson's use of it around the beginning of Queen Vic. They seem to have nicked the motif & marketing concept from the Levant.
Sat Jul 06 06:16 Comment: So perhaps the axe is from the Middle East and older than the owner thinks, but I'd guess Soviet bloc 1950s
Sat Jul 06 06:17 Comment: More axe and hatchet fun over at @komaxt
Sat Jul 06 06:19 Portrait of Dostoyevsky cut into the spines of Lenin lit
Sat Jul 06 22:01 Historia de Barcelona, 7/7: * 1535: Llega noticia del sitio de la Goleta, llave a Túnez (26+1459/i) * 1758: Se refunde Tomasa, la campana mayor de la catedral (10) * 1800: El real y supremo consejo de Castilla aprueba las ordenanzas del Gremio de…
Sun Jul 07 17:52 Good thread - "The last thing Greece needs is to become again a field for Anglo-Saxon proxy culture wars" - though the rest of Europe has of course for the last couple of thousand years been a field for Greek proxy culture wars
Sun Jul 07 22:05 Historia de Barcelona, 8/7: * 1466: Muere en Granollers el pretendiente al trono aragonés, Pedro de Portugal (23) * 1859: Un viaje de manicomios, y el proyecto para el de la Santa Cruz (5280+45/i) * 1918: Pla: En els pobles tothom es coneix, més o menys…
Mon Jul 08 07:50 Not turning off Thought for the Day is asking for trouble
Mon Jul 08 07:52 Huisje, boompje, bootje
Mon Jul 08 17:28 "Spain is an emotional luxury to a gang of sap-headed dilettantes"
Mon Jul 08 21:14 A resignation offer you can't refuse - the wonders of Italian HR
Mon Jul 08 22:38 Historia de Barcelona, 9/7: * 1588: Guerra contra Tortosa por no dejar pasar al conseller en cap con vara levantada (27+19) * 1918: Pla: És incomptable el nombre de persones que es pensen que no han de morir mai, que estan absolutament segures –en virtut…
Tue Jul 09 06:31 One of the afflictions that overcome organ-grinders is the illusion that as well as omnipotent they are omnipresent: take the harp bit at 00:24 in Che manina gelida (Puccini, Bohème)
Tue Jul 09 06:35 Comment: That's the recent remastering with newly recorded accompaniment by Weeny Symphonikers. The original Caruso recording has lighter accompaniment (no harp, brass bass), so no barrel piano effect
Tue Jul 09 06:38 Comment: But then the tutti at 03:10 does sound pretty barrel-organish. Every nemesis has a hubris-in-waiting.
Tue Jul 09 07:40 If Trump doesn't want Darroch, ask Corbyn if he'd fancy a go
Tue Jul 09 10:03 Hello Kitty free to roam says neoliberal EU clique
Tue Jul 09 23:07 Historia de Barcelona, 10/7: * 1452: Simon Sala abre un burdel público (41+19) * 1574: Quemados cuatro sodomitas (10) * 1848: La calle Regomir y las fiestas de San Cristóbal (487) * 1855: Campamentos en los campos de trabajadores en huelga y campesinos…
Wed Jul 10 06:53 Interesting story about Snowball the cockatoo's dance moves & socialisation
Wed Jul 10 07:47 Nedersaksisch (Dutch Low Saxon) as political conspiracy I use the word sometimes, but never felt comfortable with its introduction into the language tree between Nederduits (Low German) and the (vestiges of) dialects I knew on the Dutch side of the border
Wed Jul 10 07:52 Comment: Nor did I enjoy the introduction of the political border into the language tree (Dutch vs German Low Saxon), when on cycle trips east it was still easier to communicate with old countryfolk for the first 80 km or so with Twents vs their Westphalian than with standard High German
Wed Jul 10 07:55 Comment: The people who promoted the change were not the amusing and charming wordsmiths and other jokers who I knew, but ideologues with a hustle, and I hope their work can be undone.
Wed Jul 10 07:56 Comment: (@Neerlandistiek )
Wed Jul 10 19:56 Wednesday's doggerel champion: Rohmer for Perceval le Gallois, mainly borrowed from Chrétien de Troyes, lubricated with AmDram, Rossetti, cheap CGI avant la lettre etc etc. But why wasn't title translated for English release? Surely OK to portray Welsh as Holy Fools in the 70s
Thu Jul 11 06:54 The birds & the bees aren't put out of their jobs by pesticides & polytunnels: they are given the opportunity to move into more creative & satisfying employment
Thu Jul 11 07:01 On the fringes we look for monsters under every stone. Rodger Kamenetz has TS Eliot appear before the rabbinical court in Jewish heaven to answer for the lower-case Jew:
Thu Jul 11 07:02 Comment: Judge: And now in the name of the letter J which every eye can see— J that stands for Jehovah, Jesus but also for Jew, that little j you left behind now stands for justice—too. Bleistein: Poets—you should be careful the words you choose. Remember, there are no lower case Jews.
Thu Jul 11 07:08 It is sad that none of the guides recommend singing the Ride of the Valkyries to girls in the womb.
Thu Jul 11 08:16 Help the Bonzos recover their name
Thu Jul 11 08:19 Clearly a droodle
Thu Jul 11 09:12 More cultural greyout stuff
Thu Jul 11 09:56 London Air Ambulance dropping into collision site at Mare Street / Graham Road, Hackney. The irregular rotor sound as they circle prior to landing always freaks me.
Thu Jul 11 10:05 Comment: Monkey also unamused
Thu Jul 11 10:18 In the mid-80s, the Sainsbury's Superstore on Cromwell Road was my first proper supermarket: 8 in the morning, cold & calm, floor still glistening from cleaning, like a stumpy, well-stocked Notre-Dame
Thu Jul 11 12:08 Comment: @patrickggreen Cool, can you credit and/or London's Singing Organ-Grinder
Thu Jul 11 12:10 Reading OBO reports on the net is a return to the age when porn-starved British men waited for the latest sweaty French novel in the post #ENGvAUS
Thu Jul 11 20:29 Fame. IMF sources say that George Osborne won't transfer from the Evening Standard because of his poor quality record - he still can't do HTML or spell London road names.
Fri Jul 12 14:10 "This monument has failed a regulatory test and has therefore been temporarily supported": Amble East Cemetery, looking out to Coquet Island
Fri Jul 12 14:16 Historia de Barcelona, 12/7: * 1842: Inaugúrase la Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación (8) * 1957: La Vuelta a Francia llega a Barcelona (44+38/v) * ☼ 05:26-20:26, 15:00 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞…
Fri Jul 12 14:19 Comment: Robert Thomson/Thompson Ben Erskine, coal hewer of Hauxley Links, is killed at Newburgh Colliery in 1904, leaving wife Mary Ann heavily pregnant. Daughter is named after him - Robertina - but dies aged 6 weeks. More graves, but not this one:
Fri Jul 12 14:20 Comment: 1901
Fri Jul 12 15:02 Comment: @ibexsalad Marvellous man.
Fri Jul 12 23:16 Historia de Barcelona, 13/7: * 1431: Muere Violante, segunda esposa de Juan I de Aragón (15+6) * 1452: La reina huye de una epidemia en Barcelona (31) * 1714: La tropa quiere rendirse, la administración negociar, la gente luchar (333) * 1899: Manifiesto…
Sat Jul 13 09:21 I'd never heard the story about Jerry Jeff Walker & Mr Bojangles
Sat Jul 13 10:09 Orchestras are top-heavy so made some sense for brass sections to switch to large bore instruments - richer timbre - but brass bands are bottom-heavy & squeaky small bore is what is needed - aping orchestral fashion was madness.
Sat Jul 13 10:11 Barcelona bus driver gives up seat to old lady, who crashes into tree
Sat Jul 13 10:22 German woman doesn't know first name of the Strauss whose music she's playing to her unborn. Bound to be Richard
Sat Jul 13 15:20 The 1980s (?) Muswell Hill Methodist Church nods craftily to both the Catholic and the Dissenting traditions: stained glass, but in north- and west-facing windows untouched by sunlight; proto-semi-transepts in the roof and one wall; a posh tennis club & spliffery, but no alcohol
Sat Jul 13 18:22 Vegan bird feeders
Sat Jul 13 18:23 Comment: Phyllis Tate London Fields
Sat Jul 13 21:15 MIaouw
Sat Jul 13 23:50 Historia de Barcelona, 14/7: * 1565: Juan de Austria desiste de su intención de unirse a la flota para salvar Malta de los turcos (5) * 1589: Nuestra Señora de Montserrat salva a un clérigo mientras se baña en el mar (510) * 1855: Ejecución del coronel…
Sun Jul 14 23:52 Historia de Barcelona, 15/7: * 1472: El ejército de Juan II que sitia a Barcelona corta las aguas que venían a la ciudad (0) * 1918: Pla: He estat uns quants dies sense escriure * 1919: Pla: Quim ha arribat avui a la penya amb una cara intensament…
Mon Jul 15 09:10 Only in Galicia (Cataluña etc etc): Civil Guard Women & Minors team closed brothels & rescued prostitutes ... to make them work in their own brothel Jesus
Mon Jul 15 09:21 Terribly sorry about the Algerian riot over in Finsbury Park, but I needed them to beat Nigeria in the Africa Cup in order to stop the Lagos locals weeing in our street
Mon Jul 15 14:51 The Alan Turing £50 will be a major blow to homophobic money launderers
Mon Jul 15 17:38 Let us beat our swords into ploughshares, our spears into pruning-hooks, our children's glockenspiels into hex keys; nation shall not lift up percussion mallet against nation etc
Mon Jul 15 21:13 The German "Keks" doesn't actually come from "cakes" but is gay argot from Geordie "kecks", "trousers", so "ein feiner, gefüllter Keks" is "a fine, (well-)filled pair of trousers" and "ein mit Schokolade überzogener Keks" is most inadvisable
Mon Jul 15 21:29 Beautiful image
Mon Jul 15 23:56 Historia de Barcelona, 16/7: * 1469: Dos monjas paran una pelea entre dos caballeros (39) * 1785: Establécense los serenos (9+29) * 1787: Una entrada en Barcelona desde Montserrat (778) * 1848: Fiestas de Nuestra Señora del Carmen (135) * 1899: Llega una…
Tue Jul 16 06:33 The case against criminalising music that encourages murder in the context of increasing state censorship in the UK: Illiberalism & fear of its soldiers is so common that even Lehrer's satires feel unsafe. Bring back (the good bits of) Charles II!
Tue Jul 16 10:07 You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
Tue Jul 16 21:04 No, Disney, Mulan was a ∼Turkic tranny
Tue Jul 16 21:08 Comment: I'd be particularly interested if a stag were to turn up in the etymology of Mulan, because it would enable me to resurrect a very old BLOG post about a Catalan folksong about a Hungarian stag-girl
Tue Jul 16 21:14 Comment: Of course, Mulan did not escape from a chorus line of high-kicking female dancers in frills
Tue Jul 16 23:55 Historia de Barcelona, 17/7: * 1533: La emperatriz manda 156 abanicos a las cortes en Monzón (40) * 1551: Ataque francés (69) * 1787: Barceloneta, el puerto, la fundición, los mercados, el teatro (1603) * 1918: Pla: Els amics * 1936: Debate en el…
Wed Jul 17 06:39 Next job for AI: emulate the ageing on this organ - bloody difficult manually
Wed Jul 17 09:38 This Firefox web carbon footprint analyser is a revelation
Wed Jul 17 09:38 Comment: Via
Wed Jul 17 09:58 The monkey still doesn't really get Beethoven, but this will be good when he grows up
Wed Jul 17 11:21 chewering (tʃuːəːrɪŋ) adjective & adverb - vulgar slang used to express anger, annoyance, contempt.
Wed Jul 17 13:16 Comment: @LowEbbs Stamford Hill isn't a country - no army & navy
Wed Jul 17 22:10 Historia de Barcelona, 18/7: * 1845: Primer parvulario (14) * 1918: Pla: Cap al tard, he anat al mas * 1922: Francesc Macià crea Estat Català (0+8) * 1936: Tensiones en la Olimpiada Popular (859) * 1937: Companys deniega permiso a los anarquistas para…
Thu Jul 18 06:57 Fleeing Ofsted, not Corbyn - the neighbours' emigration plans. Wonderful stuff.
Thu Jul 18 07:01 Zero emissions electric mini digger
Thu Jul 18 07:11 1/3 Every evening a squirrel ran up two floors of a neighbouring block to be fed by a retired abstemious white bachelor on a beautifully decorated sunlit balcony. It then descended one floor to a bare balcony occupied by a retired beer-drinking black bachelor to have a poo.
Thu Jul 18 07:12 Comment: 2/3 The men were aware of each other and both enjoyed the company of the squirrel.
Thu Jul 18 07:13 Comment: 3/3 But now downstairs has a domineering house-proud girlfriend, also black, who wants to move in. How can this be prevented?
Thu Jul 18 08:06 Blame the camera, not the Zuck
Thu Jul 18 10:15 Comment: @ZacharyLatif Yes we do! Alongside "you facking fat/ugly/etc twat" is "you facking smug/smarmy/etc twat" for those more gifted. The war on adjectives threatens to end all this.
Thu Jul 18 22:13 Historia de Barcelona, 19/7: * 0940: Llega el embajador judío del califato de Córdoba en una misión de paz y comercio (547) * 1131: Muere Ramón Berenguer III (19) * 1639: Salses se rinde a los franceses (151) * 1848: Fiesta de las llaves en la catedral…
Fri Jul 19 07:40 William Tangye begat William Henry Tangye begat William Henry Tangye begat William Henry Tangye Makes William look like a creative genius
Fri Jul 19 10:58 Not the Wolverine Blues I used to play Love Entombed's Swedish doggerel: "I'm a misanthropical breed / Insatiable in my need to feed"
Fri Jul 19 11:01 Comment: I don't think there were ever lyrics to go with Jelly Roll Morton's original Wolverine Blues
Fri Jul 19 11:22 Plumber screwed up the toilet: engineering insight of a border collie, hourly tariff of Isambard Kingdom Facking Brunel
Fri Jul 19 13:24 I'm not a big fan of the final decrescendo
Fri Jul 19 13:31 Oh dear, he's up for murder
Fri Jul 19 14:28 Just ordered a pink chiffon skirt on Amazon
Fri Jul 19 15:01 Chinese sweatshop, Hackney
Fri Jul 19 15:03 Nominative determinism: A$AP Rocky, Sweden, Trump & the end of the world
Fri Jul 19 15:23 Comment: @p_ceretti Quite a lot of the "Poles" in the UK were until recently Ukrainians
Fri Jul 19 22:17 Historia de Barcelona, 20/7: * 1263: Disputa entre el rabbi Nahmánides y el fraile y judío apóstata Pablo Christiani (283+492/v) * 1571: Sale una flota de Barcelona para luchar contra el turco (373+362) * 1629: Sale el virrey para mejorar las…
Sat Jul 20 07:13 Amazing that there are no ghits for "ice cream Geordie," as used on Tyneside to refer to residents of Italian origin
Sat Jul 20 13:02 How to recycle the municipal Christmas street decoration wires when the mercury's touching 40º
Sat Jul 20 19:46 "Moon on a stick" origins
Sat Jul 20 22:21 Historia de Barcelona, 21/7: * 1464: Ahogados y quemados dos supuestos homosexuales (17) * 1838: Empieza la gratuidad en la primera enseñanza (167) * 1899: Disturbios bajo bandera francesa (75) * 1918: Pla: Segon dia de la festa * 1936: Incendios,…
Sun Jul 21 07:26 Is Wernher von Braun the only Tom Lehrer song to mention the human moon landing project? at 42:40. Unusually without outrageous rhymes - what's the word for that addiction?
Sun Jul 21 07:29 Comment: More on the Anguish Languish from Drew Letchworth, who had it from Howard L. Chace
Sun Jul 21 07:31 Comment: The jacket-front book is great
Sun Jul 21 07:54 Comment: Homophonic carols
Sun Jul 21 10:06 Women as thick domestics
Sun Jul 21 11:37 De Quincey: I had devoted the labour of my whole life to the slow and elaborate toil of constructing one single work. This was now lying locked up, as by frost, like any Spanish bridge or aqueduct, begun upon too great a scale for the resources of the architect.
Sun Jul 21 14:30 Queuing on the M1 or M25 on Sunday afternoon makes sense: motorists feel part of a great national or metropolitan project. But competing to queue on Homerton High Street?
Sun Jul 21 16:09 I'm the butterfly and here's the effect. One bot that isn't going to replace humans soon.
Sun Jul 21 16:19 Comment: @tombcn Mirrors don't like me either.
Sun Jul 21 19:52 Comment: @Transblawg I was going to ask you how to monetise this kind of stuff.
Sun Jul 21 22:31 Historia de Barcelona, 22/7: * 1319: Fundación de la Orden de Montesa, que recibe parte de los bienes de los Templarios (24) * 1640: Muere en Perpiñán el nuevo virrey tras intentar castigar a los responsables del descontento en Cataluña (436+17) * 1848:…
Mon Jul 22 05:05 The trombone & cornet in the liberation of Spain from the French, from "Iberia Won: A Poem Descriptive of the Peninsular War, with Impressions from Recent Visits to the Battle-grounds, and Copious Historical and Illustrative Notes" by Terence McMahon Hughes (Newry, 1812-1849)
Mon Jul 22 05:12 Comment: "Revelations of Spain in 1845" appears to be his most read work, which isn't saying much. Curious that I've never heard of him. Perhaps British interest in Carlism and liberalism was waning by then
Mon Jul 22 13:30 People moan about drill videos, but they're usually more competent & less violent than much praised shite Corbucci's Django & imitators
Mon Jul 22 16:58 Comment: @steve_guy I bumped into them as they were waiting to film and had a brief conversation - I thought they were there with murderous intent. Now he's out of the way there's only one Unknown T.
Mon Jul 22 17:30 Comment: @ibexsalad And the British obsession with progress vs reaction in Spain, Carlism vs liberalism never went away
Mon Jul 22 19:45 Why would anyone buy a birthing ball instead of a space hopper? Space hoppers are cheaper and cheerful and have handles.
Mon Jul 22 22:43 Historia de Barcelona, 23/7: * 1802: Se manda construir la fuente propuesta por el diputado Canaleta para la visita de Carlos IV (142+15/i) * 1897: La Esquella resucita al dentista aficionado y poeta popular, el Noy de Tona, después de que su muerte a…
Tue Jul 23 06:12 I think the "syndrome syndrome" meme is 15-20 years old
Tue Jul 23 06:15 Clinic's the only road
Tue Jul 23 06:26 I think they said, "What end's you from?"
Tue Jul 23 07:43 Frenchman on Today just said that Boris wants to cut off all thighs. A case of hyperþorn?
Tue Jul 23 12:26 I guess no columnist is perfect
Tue Jul 23 13:23 The Moguls as South Asian Charles V
Tue Jul 23 13:47 Comment: @LowEbbs @SadiqKhan Could we ban airco too to stop people inside heating up the streets?
Tue Jul 23 14:22 Terri's Bingo Night, Frampton Park Estate Tenants & Residents Association. Good old-fashioned fun, friendly faces & cash prizes. 50p entry, £1 a game, tea & biscuits. Call the Bingo Hotline for more info @FramptonparkTRA
Tue Jul 23 23:03 Historia de Barcelona, 24/7: * 1639: Alegría por la noticia de la llegada en Sevilla de la flota de Indias; Olivares sobre un conflicto personal catalán-napolitano: los superiores han de ser de todas naciones y de ninguna (53+320) * 1833: Empieza a…
Wed Jul 24 07:27 80s British cinema is weird. Did people really enjoy stuff like Jarman Caravaggio & Greenaway Draughtsman's Contract?
Wed Jul 24 22:14 Who ignored the climate change mantra and ordered trains and track for London Overground and other routes that stop working when temperatures head towards the low end of Spanish summer norms?
Wed Jul 24 23:43 Historia de Barcelona, 25/7: * 1714: Misa y gran bombardeo para celebrar el cumpleaños de Berwick (368) * 1834: La apertura de la plaza de toros de la Barceloneta sirve para recoger fondos para los asilados de la Casa de la Caridad (9+159/i) * 1835: Las…
Thu Jul 25 07:04 If video emerges on antisocial media of a man on the London Overground with gory groin, carrying a plastic bag & rucksack also dripping with blood, please direct enquiries to the person who placed heavy objects on top of my blackberry collection, causing it to leak into my lap
Thu Jul 25 07:25 Priti & the Moggster said to be in favour, but disturbing silence from No 10 re repeal of the Performing Animals (Regulation) Act 1925
Thu Jul 25 07:46 Comment: It would be nice to be able to use a monkey instead of slugs, invertebrates always having been exempt ("For the purposes of this Act—The expression 'animal' does not include invertebrates")
Thu Jul 25 07:46 Comment: @charlottelevene I think they are wise to my little game
Thu Jul 25 08:49 Yes, yes, yes, but what's the ATU classification?
Thu Jul 25 08:56 Mouse fearing repeat of John Mayow's respiration experiment in the C17th
Thu Jul 25 08:56 Comment: @TarkabarkaHolgy Haha, excellent!
Thu Jul 25 08:58 Comment: Combustion vs respiration
Thu Jul 25 12:56 Practical application of cricket ball catching practice at school: interception of full jam pot falling out of high cupboard before it smashes down onto one's skull. There's always a lurker from last year.
Thu Jul 25 14:18 Heartbroken for the Taunton Tendulkar
Thu Jul 25 21:12 Kolašinac carjacking doggerel
Thu Jul 25 21:22 Ephraim J. Burford read out English translations of the revolutionary government's bulletins in Barcelona in the first week of the 1936-9 Civil War
Thu Jul 25 21:25 Comment: He went there with his wife to the Stalinist Popular Olympiad, but, given Barcelona's (then) reputation as a den of sin, one wonders whether this wasn't a step along the road to his publications on English prostitution
Thu Jul 25 23:47 Historia de Barcelona, 26/7: * 1452: Menú al convento de Santa Ana en el día de su santa (34) * 1472: Juan II toma Montjuic gracias a sus "grans besties" (27/i) * 1636: Fiestas para la mujer de un general italiano filoespañol en la guerra de Flandes…
Fri Jul 26 06:55 Rather than figuring whether addressees feel comfortable with their genitalia, I'm tending to start letters à la Seamus Heaney with "So!" Alternatives: "Tally ho!" confuses North Londoners and "Indeed!" is still too Ian Paisley for me.
Fri Jul 26 06:58 Comment: Are "Tally Ho!" (Finchley, London) and "Westward Ho!" (North Devon) the only toponyms worldwide to formally include an exclamation mark? I know that people say "Kabul?!" but don't think it's gone further than that.
Fri Jul 26 07:21 Drinking fountains. London barely into double figures? Barcelona has 1700 - great for children/adults staggering round obscure bits day/night. Repeated country-wide & crucial for walkers/cyclists. But councils tend not to repair, or to install disfunctional trendy design
Fri Jul 26 23:51 Historia de Barcelona, 27/7: * 1538: Carlos I sale para Castilla después de concluir la Tregua de Niza (21) * 1835: Las bullangas de Barcelona: los gobiernos civil y militar amenazan mientras preparan su huida (510) * 1909: Huelga general y ley marcial…
Sat Jul 27 23:52 Historia de Barcelona, 28/7: * 1458: Solemnes exequias en la catedral por Alfonso V (21) * 1481: Entra por primera vez Isabel la Católica (13) * 1787: El apetito gigantesco de la comitiva del embajador turco (576) * 1844: Fundación de la sociedad Amigos…
Sun Jul 28 20:50 Concealed "Concealed Entrance" sign, Stanmer Estate, Brighton
Sun Jul 28 21:01 "Ufo DWELL ON TIN KEG" at Shoreham-by-Sea is probably the best pub on the Sussex coast, and serves @Titanic_Brewers Plum Porter
Sun Jul 28 23:54 Historia de Barcelona, 29/7: * 1529: Carlos I sale en la escuadra de Andrea Doria para volver como emperador (28) * 1571: Nuestra Señora de Montserrat salva a siete pescadores de los moros (332) * 1639: Cinco muertos en peleas entre catalanes y…
Mon Jul 29 06:47 Mullofkintyre-gate
Mon Jul 29 07:44 Small girl: Why would I need piano lessons? I've already seen how Trevor does it.
Mon Jul 29 12:52 One militant atheist found St Bartholomew's, Brighton very moving. Pure ignorance, but never before considered SE English Anglo-Catholicism a popular faith - the backstory's a revelation whence photo 2 - they were setting up for mass on Sunday am
Mon Jul 29 12:54 Comment: Glad to see that British Wagners aren't short of ambition, but it still requires a spire.
Mon Jul 29 13:02 Another gem in downtown Brighton, which I didn't manage to get into: Church of Christ, Oxford Street. 1890 but looks 80 years older
Mon Jul 29 18:07 Casabianca parodies e.g. The boy stood on the burning deck, His pocket full of crackers, A spark flew up his trouser leg, And blew off both his knackers
Mon Jul 29 19:16 Man goes into village shop on the Spanish coast: "Have you got newspapers?" Ca 20 year old assistant: "What's that?"
Mon Jul 29 19:26 Industrial Revolution doggerel: It was on a steamer this girl I first met In a cabin below, as it was rather wet
Mon Jul 29 23:53 Historia de Barcelona, 30/7: * 1460: Prohibidas las telas de lana extranjeras para proteger a los tejedores (23) * 1466: Los poderes locales proclaman rey a Renato de Anjou frente a Juan II (22) * 1636: Pasa una gran flota franco-holandesa por la costa…
Tue Jul 30 08:00 great things past finding out, and wonders without number
Tue Jul 30 08:01 Comment: @petersymon Somewhere, over that rainbow. I figured a pig, but you wouldn't believe the bureaucracy.
Tue Jul 30 08:30 Can never really believe that our pre-/protohistoric predecessors (eg in Brighton Museum archaeology room) didn't eat fish, but then there's the great rant in Henry Fielding Voyage to Lisbon - "in London ... there is not one poor palate in a hundred that knows the taste of fish"
Tue Jul 30 08:32 Comment: Said display does a great job of recreating our our predecessors in the image of Cotswold hipsters, but still insufficiently diverse - fails to acknowledge crucial contribution to Neolithic Britain by black and queer individuals
Tue Jul 30 08:47 Boosterism was new to me, but the OED knows most things: boosterism, n. colloquial (orig. U.S.). A tendency to ‘boost’ or seek to raise the estimation of (oneself, one's town, product, etc.) by praise; the expression of chauvinism.
Tue Jul 30 09:01 They're frying slices of bacon, but not for me. Possibly the saddest day of my life.
Tue Jul 30 09:14 Dog spends 4 years sleeping next to tomb which isn't that of his owner
Tue Jul 30 09:19 T*******wise 48 hour margin is a nice little call option in unsettled times
Tue Jul 30 09:27 Origins of Scottish banding?
Tue Jul 30 13:47 Non-lethal but spectacular electrical explosion at Homerton Station on the London Overground - branch on train heading to Stratford caused short circuit
Tue Jul 30 20:27 Comment: @PolemicTMM Bath is a disaster
Wed Jul 31 00:29 Historia de Barcelona, 31/7: * 1848: Fiesta de san Ignacio de Loyola (48) * 1909: Escaramuzas y ejecuciones (200) * 1926: Atentado del "neurasténico" Domènec Masachs Torrente contra Primo de Rivera (149+5) * 1929: El ayuntamiento advierte que ya no se…
Wed Jul 31 06:39 Cobra effect meets pre-school
Wed Jul 31 11:48 These are imported goods, so a 5% reduction in nominal price may mean that the pound is at least rising against the renminbi
Wed Jul 31 11:48 Comment: @Transblawg They must be very well disguised
Wed Jul 31 13:38 Kudos to the Argentine embassy in London for the Spanglish inscription on the Belgrave Square monument to the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru: "General Don José de San Martín 1778-1850, founder of the Argentine independence..." #HireATranslator