Tweets for August 2019

Babies, blackberries, Brexit, breasts. Tories, cricket, bed burials, bay windows, VR games, proverbs, Monty Python, Joaquín Turina, ghit, Ezra Pound, etymology, Freyja. Dorset, Walthamstow Marsh, Brighton, Homerton, Spain, France, Southwark, India vs Pakistan, New England, Upminster, Walthamstow, Georgia, USA, Wivenhoe, Alexandra Palace, Crouch End, Highbury, Friern Barnet, Erith, Stafford, Italy, Rome, Naples, Vesuvius, Lombardy, Ireland, County Kerry, Northern Ireland, Denmark, Soviet Union, Spain, Barcelona.

Cruella de Villas, Highbury, London.

Cruella de Villas, Highbury, London.

SingingOrganGrinder
@elorganillero

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

  • Thu Aug 01 00:38 Historia de Barcelona, 1/8: * 1439: Terremoto (24+6) * ☼ 05:44-20:10, 14:26 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Alfonso María de Ligorio, Pedro Fabro * Agustin, Consejos de jardinería: En Agosto, cogerán el lino,…
  • Thu Aug 01 06:36 Theory: spurn NCT antenatal in favour of HUH NHS classes = save 300 quid & get free chat with the notably fecund Jewish/Muslim/Christian fanatics who dominate associative life in the district, and with the teenagers from the estates. Practice: of course they don't turn up.
  • Thu Aug 01 07:02 Amusing micro-trend, noted in a non-partisan sense: harselickers in hope of work pretending Dom Cummings' blog is profound & comprehensible, instead of the ravings of a skunk
  • Thu Aug 01 07:57 Splendid depiction of Hengistbury Head
  • Thu Aug 01 07:58 Everything is so Norman Cohn / Pursuit of the Millennium. Not sure he'd have wanted to see it.
  • Thu Aug 01 20:25 Normally I explain the sanguinary trail left on the streets by my plastic bags and the gore all over the kitchen by referring to my little hobby of clubbing to death baby seals, but this year puffin hunting is my cover for blackberry picking and processing
  • Thu Aug 01 20:49 Let's stop the Dalston Furry Dance craze right now
  • Fri Aug 02 00:46 Historia de Barcelona, 2/8: * 1439: Bendición de la primera piedra del antiguo puerto (269+193) * 1492: Expulsión de los judíos impenitentes (134) * 1597: Derribado por la ciudad el teatro de madera de los actores y del Hospital de la Santa Cruz (46) *…
  • Fri Aug 02 05:23 Comment: @Transblawg @jodie__martin I'm called young man/gentleman often, though I'm manifestly not. I'm good with it.
  • Fri Aug 02 13:53 Phil Tufnell has the best voice on British radio - currently on Test Match Special
  • Fri Aug 02 22:21 Historia de Barcelona, 3/8: * 1568: Llega noticia de la muerte del primogénito de Felipe II (29+26) * 1640: Juran el obispo por virrey, tras morirse dos en siete semanas, pero ya nadie le toma en serio (148) * 1848: Fiesta de santo Domingo de Guzmán,…
  • Sat Aug 03 07:07 Man notices subsequently that the names given to his two sons correspond to those of the barmen in his local
  • Sat Aug 03 07:34 Disappointed to see the Guardian opposing child benefit
  • Sat Aug 03 07:55 Dog bed. Take off the cushions and you've got a grave monument - a variation on Anglo Saxon bed burials
  • Sat Aug 03 08:01 Pillar standards have declined, and corbels and brackets have been abandoned, since the Georgians built Brighton. These pillars supporting a bay window in Hanover may come from an old tent
  • Sat Aug 03 08:03 Comment: Apparently this particularly subset of bays are called oriel windows.
  • Sat Aug 03 10:42 Comment: @Transblawg But the Erkerfenster has its pros and cons. Unfortunately modern ones no longer look anything like medieval castle toilets.
  • Sat Aug 03 10:47 Our miserable Polski sklep has turned into a miserable VR gaming lounge cum vegan dessert bar. We are becoming quite the hub, and people are driving here from all over London and Essex to save the planet.
  • Sat Aug 03 10:52 Comment: I'm told that in response to vegans making official complaints about the lack of options at regular restaurants, meat eaters are going to vegan cafés, demanding T-bones, and getting obstreperous when deind.
  • Sat Aug 03 11:06 Blackberrying is a great platform for the exchange of proverbs. The other day someone retold me the old black-male-supremacist "The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice," & today two Turks failed to recall "Twisted fruit is sweeter," which I think Yaşar Kemal made up
  • Sat Aug 03 11:07 Comment: Basically, fruity proverbs are as common as blackberries
  • Sat Aug 03 22:59 Historia de Barcelona, 4/8: * 1567: Derrumbada parte de la muralla de las Atarazanas para dejar salir una super-galera (32) * 1632: Llega noticia de la muerte del infante Carlos; la administración municipal no reacciona (112) * 1754: La iglesia aprueba…
  • Sun Aug 04 07:43 Comment: @jzamorabonilla @Master_Plum @frikiquark Y así lo vieron los barceloneses en 1810, según uno de ellos
  • Sun Aug 04 08:33 Brilliant: Spanish tax inspectors imposed spurious penalties and advised victims to get advice from particular tax advisers, who cut the inspectors in on their invoice
  • Sun Aug 04 19:13 Epic keyboard sound
  • Mon Aug 05 10:40 10 dead blogs removed today from my secret aggregator: La Clota Informa, La Farsa d'El Triangle, De Rastros y Encantes, Lavengro, Cataloniawatch, Clapton Improvement Society, Clapton Ultras, Cronaca, Dr Weevil, From Catalonia to Caledonia
  • Mon Aug 05 11:18 Seems you can no longer download your tweet archive from Twitter - they've gone with the far more cumbersome & far less parseable Twitter data download, which was always there. Dumb dumb dumb, & I need a new microblogging tool
  • Mon Aug 05 22:03 Comment: Duh. Just edited the parser I wrote last time
  • Tue Aug 06 11:29 RT @marxconsiders: Karl Marx failed to consider how fast an anime fansite can devolve into a white supremacist terrorist cell.
  • Tue Aug 06 17:10 Historia de Barcelona, 6/8: * 1391: Segundo día de la revuelta antijudía (22) * 1424: Alfonso V celebra fiestas en el Born (21) * 1477: Coronada reina de Nápoles la infanta Juana, hija de Juan II (26) * 1714: Ejecuciones masivas de rebeldes (155) * 1834:…
  • Tue Aug 06 20:53 Female Nigerian health visitor says that men are only formally welcome at breastfeeding classes. How would Stan fare in today's NHS?
  • Tue Aug 06 23:11 Historia de Barcelona, 7/8: * 1391: Tercer día de la revuelta antijudía (288) * 1559: Rogativas públicas para el viaje de Felipe II desde Bruselas (21) * 1848: Fiesta de san Alberto de Sicilia (20) * ☼ 05:50-20:03, 14:13 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
  • Wed Aug 07 10:37 Why doesn't anyone complain about the privatisation of public space?
  • Wed Aug 07 10:39 If only financial advisory were this interesting. They're going to take your dosh anyway, so at least involve some hypothetical horses
  • Wed Aug 07 13:56 Turina with wife and accordion. @fundacionmarch has done a great job digitising his archive, from which a couple of scores have already been borrowed

  • Wed Aug 07 20:35 Is the traditional comparative civility of French kids (banlieues excepted) related to the (supposed) 98% epidural rate?
  • Wed Aug 07 20:42 Hilarious plastic bag cobra effect - more plastic being used since regulation Also doesn't factor in the massive theft of bags - in Well Street Tesco very few people scan them
  • Wed Aug 07 23:47 Historia de Barcelona, 8/8: * 1488: Los Reyes Católicos juran los fueros (18+3) * 1899: Indemnizaciones para los herederos de los propietarios desalojados de la Ribera en 1715 (202) * 1918: Pla: La mar * ☼ 05:51-20:02, 14:10 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
  • Thu Aug 08 05:14 My word "ghit", for "Google hit", hasn't made it into the OED, but years later some people are still using it
  • Thu Aug 08 05:19 HJH is working on his parody of Ezra Pound's parody of "Sumer is icumen in"
  • Thu Aug 08 05:47 "Causing anti-social behaviour," where the speaker means "behaving anti-socially," seems to be the spawn of a union between the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and our post-literate lords & masters.
  • Thu Aug 08 05:50 Comment: Only 12K ghits, but powerful ones, and the consequence will be to render tautologous Blair's "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." Future generations will have absolutely no idea what he was on about.
  • Thu Aug 08 06:14 Turina = Parisian musical magpie/me = loony? In Poema en forma de canciones, I hear Las locas por amor as Schaunard's leitmotif in La Bohème; the suspension a minute into Los dos miedos as bit of the Scherzo ex Borodin's 2nd S4; followed by a popular Andalusian band march etc etc
  • Thu Aug 08 07:54 Incoming this morning from someone in their 90s: I don't know why this machine has switched to italics, and I am too old to find out.
  • Thu Aug 08 08:02 Startling belief that the Spanish word "burgués" < "Burgos" instead of < "bourgeois"
  • Thu Aug 08 08:12 Surrealists on mescaline is irresistible
  • Fri Aug 09 00:58 Historia de Barcelona, 9/8: * 1909: Más violencia, temor de una nueva huelga general (63) * 1919: Pla: He fet el servei militar a Girona, al regiment d’Àsia número 55 d’infanteria de guarnició en aquesta ciutat * 1939: La Vanguardia: el Segundo Gobierno…
  • Fri Aug 09 05:40 I guess Steve Bell doesn't buy chlorinated salads from Pret, and his Martian is splendid
  • Fri Aug 09 09:16 Dutch law is fascinating, but please God let the bacon thaw quickly
  • Fri Aug 09 09:30 Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot pulled by two cats, is accompanied by the boar Hildisvíni, and possesses a cloak of falcon feathers.
  • Fri Aug 09 14:35 Comment: @ibexsalad Far more likely cause of war than the status of Transylvania
  • Fri Aug 09 14:38 Don't mess with owls. And a reminder that the owl is the Welshman's nightingale
  • Fri Aug 09 15:02 Physical and digital goods are a bit more complicated, but my impression is that no-deal Brexit won't affect my provision of translation services from the UK to businesses in rump EU - HMG/EU surely won't force us to start doing VAT, & I guess internet & phone will still work
  • Fri Aug 09 16:50 In the bushes with the blackberries when a Mini Pinscher comes up, followed by a black girl. I feign terror, which she takes seriously: "He's totally got the ratio. At home I look up the stairs and see him against the light and think I'm in 'Up'"
  • Fri Aug 09 16:59 "Just a dream" by Big Bill Broonzy Who cares whether he really said, when asked if what he sang was folk music, "Ain't never heard no hoss sing."
  • Fri Aug 09 22:37 Historia de Barcelona, 10/8: * 1218: Fundación por Pedro Nolasco de la Orden de la Merced en presencia de Jaime I y el obispo Berenguer de Palou (506+23) * 1475: Peste (21) * 1629: Entra el gran estratega militar Ambrogio Spinola, destrozado…
  • Sat Aug 10 06:26 Comment: @petersymon Hadn't thought of that. Unlike magpies, owls still seem not to have passed the mirror self recognition test
  • Sat Aug 10 07:07 Comment: @Transblawg I wonder if that's saying that owl vs nightingale is in the ear of the 'earer. Afaik you don't get nightingales in Wales, so maybe they make do with owls. Or maybe the Welsh are just unmusical savages.
  • Sat Aug 10 07:09 Comment: @Transblawg The Spanish "Lo que para uno NO es su lechuza, es para otro su ruiseñor" has me foxed. Then there's the Persian, "Train an owl as much as you like, it will not turn into a nightingale." I'm not sure proverbs are a good basis for life.
  • Sat Aug 10 07:19 Comment: @Transblawg The Owl & the Nightingale fight it out in Dorset ca. 1200
  • Sat Aug 10 15:52 Terrible news just in
  • Sat Aug 10 16:19 Archaeology of Remember me as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I, As I am now, so you must be, Prepare for death and follow me.
  • Sat Aug 10 23:42 Historia de Barcelona, 11/8: * 1848: El nuevo culto de Santa Filomena (77+38) * 1936: Interrogatorio al general rebelde Fernández Burriel durante el consejo de guerra (340) * 1945: Reacciones barcelonesas ante las bombas sobre Hiroshima y Nagasaki…
  • Sun Aug 11 06:20 Comment: @petersymon Oh, please trap a couple for me!
  • Sun Aug 11 07:23 "kind fortune, who we sometimes know Can take a hero from a puppet-show" From Churchill Redivivus, or, The Drury Lane Rosciad (1819), so not our Churchill or the PM of the moment
  • Sun Aug 11 09:48 BLOG: John Gay’s Fable 40: The Two Monkeys. They are shocked by their reception on attending Southwark fair: Men laugh at apes, they men contemn; / For what are we, but Apes to them?
  • Sun Aug 11 11:57 Conspicuity about to overtake conspicuousness?
  • Sun Aug 11 14:41 What do you call it when your random idea of fun coincides with someone else's? A whim-whim situation #SundayPunday
  • Sun Aug 11 14:48 I'm a novice, but it seems that Ind-Pak is essentially about blog feed formats, where Hitler invented RSS and Truman, Atom.
  • Sun Aug 11 15:11 Thread: euphemisms on New England gravestones. Better images than much of England, but not as keen on doggerel?
  • Mon Aug 12 00:16 Historia de Barcelona, 12/8: * 1506: Primera entrada en la ciudad de Germana de Foix, segunda esposa de Fernando II (32) * 1640: Robo de correos para descubrir las intenciones de Felipe IV (389/i) * 1848: Santa Clara y la vergüenza (115) * 1936:…
  • Mon Aug 12 12:01 So should a child born a fortnight before Brexit be called Zenith or Nadir? (Apologies to anyone actually called Nadir.)
  • Mon Aug 12 20:06 EU-imposed decimal comma found in Upminster
  • Mon Aug 12 20:07 @steve_guy I hope you haven't missed Dick's triumph
  • Tue Aug 13 00:16 Historia de Barcelona, 13/8: * 1522: Desembarca Adriano VI, ex ayo de Carlos I (33) * 1810: La política lingüística de los franceses (163) * 1836: Proclámase por segunda vez la constitucion de 1812 (10) * 1873: Sale para Francia el vapor Internet (11+6)…
  • Tue Aug 13 05:26 It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that Bagpuss < bagpudding (clown) < bagpudding (jam rolypoly, figgy duff, clootie pudding)
  • Tue Aug 13 05:36 Jam roly-poly used to be steamed and served in a shirt sleeve and called dead-man's arm, which I guess led to the Spanish denomination, brazo de gitano (gypsy's arm - the Iberian Swiss roll), even though brazo is only rolled in cloth post baking
  • Tue Aug 13 05:53 Did Truman Capote, Dostoevsky and Emily Bronte, aided by the Spanish Empire, steal their work from Catalan authors?
  • Tue Aug 13 10:02 Sectarian version of Child Ballad 274, "Our Goodman" aka "The Merry Cuckold," "Seven Drunken Nights" etc: "Blind as ye may jibe me, I've sight enough to see, / Ye're hidin tories in the house / Without the leave o' me." #RefugeesWelcome?
  • Tue Aug 13 19:23 Not many Indians in Walthamstow. I'll bet the demonstrators adhere to this couplet from Francis Kirkman's The English Rogue: Described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, A Witty Extravagant: The crooked wretch must not upbraid the lame, Nor must the Moor the tawny Indian blame.

  • Tue Aug 13 19:26 Comment: South Asian Muslims used to be called Moors, though presumably not by themselves. I think the Spanish "moro" was also used in that way before large-scale Pakistani immigration began
  • Tue Aug 13 22:09 London street name apostrophes: Walthamstow mini-thread. @wfcouncil uses St James Street and St James's Street on the same corner, and I imagine that in some of their doc there's a St James' Street, which is probably thought of as the modern, smart option.

  • Tue Aug 13 22:11 Comment: @wfcouncil This forked-tongue approach is reflected respectively in the London Overground station and St James's Kitchen

  • Tue Aug 13 22:13 Comment: @wfcouncil All of which is beyond the linguistic and cultural scope of the owner of the St Jame's Street apartments
  • Wed Aug 14 00:21 Historia de Barcelona, 14/8: * 1321: Decapitación para los banqueros insolventes (785) * 1373: El Consejo de Ciento se instala en el nuevo salon de la casa de la ciudad (19) * 1630: Llega noticia del inicio del proceso de beatificación de Olegario (721)…
  • Thu Aug 15 04:10 Historia de Barcelona, 15/8: * 1452: Menú al monasterio de Santa Ana para la fiesta de la Asunción (33) * 1848: Inauguración del Mercado de Santa Caterina (19) * 1890: Un inquilino da las llaves a un clan de gitanos para vengarse del propietario…
  • Thu Aug 15 06:53 I just heard a Georgian farmer on Today called Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Either that or should have had less blackberry vodka last night
  • Thu Aug 15 07:52 New favourite insult: "You've got a neck like a fooking chutney jar"
  • Thu Aug 15 07:58 Comment: Zippy Duvall, says #R4today
  • Thu Aug 15 08:20 Please can we replace all the oilseed rape ecological deserts with livestock farms and eat some proper fat?
  • Thu Aug 15 10:28 German fiddler-piddler.
  • Thu Aug 15 11:04 But will imported chlorinated chicken have the right to bear arms?
  • Thu Aug 15 11:10 Gift for conspiracy theorists from Google News algorithm
  • Thu Aug 15 22:09 Historia de Barcelona, 16/8: * 1291: Llega Jaime II de Sicilia para ocupar el trono de Aragón (13) * 1572: Nuestra Señora de Montserrat salva a cuatro pescadores de los moros (173) * 1589: La constitución de la cofradía de san Roque da principio a la…
  • Fri Aug 16 06:53 The Hungarian Sandor, delivery driver, whose one point of contact with the English speaking world appears to be "Amazon." Everything else is in Magyar
  • Fri Aug 16 06:56 Antenatal class leader: It's fine to have a glass of wine while you're feeding. Spanish woman: "Is it OK if I also have a smoke?" Stunned silence. English middle-class taboos.
  • Fri Aug 16 06:56 Comment: @ibexsalad Oh yes, but that's ancient history. Never really knew him myself.
  • Fri Aug 16 07:01 Comment: @ibexsalad Yup.
  • Fri Aug 16 12:32 Comment: @Transblawg Probably unsaleable now London's left the UK
  • Fri Aug 16 13:26 Comment: @Transblawg I will try Hoe-Down Square Dancing on them
  • Fri Aug 16 15:09 A proper machine.
  • Fri Aug 16 16:57 BLOG: The mysterious terracotta “Baronet” relief on Ye Racehorse Inne, Elm Grove, Brighton is a ripoff of the Stubbs portrait of George IV’s most successful horse, ridden by his favourite jockey, Old Sam Chifney, & a protest against the latter's exclusion
  • Fri Aug 16 22:11 Historia de Barcelona, 17/8: * 1510: Noticia de la toma de Tripoli (8+219) * 1918: Pla: Dia mort, nuvolós, amb una gran pesadesa a l’aire i un cel de xafogor * 1919: Pla: Calella-Canadell * ☼ 06:00-19:50, 13:49 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación…
  • Sat Aug 17 05:09 Giants of the Organ Come Together, featuring McGRIFF & HOLMES, but this is not John Holmes' little known gay reels
  • Sat Aug 17 05:14 Drop the "linguistic" - the left innovates, the right systematises, the left regrets. Churchill's line on the Francoist state's executions after the Spanish Civil War was that they were merely repaying with interest what they had received from the left
  • Sat Aug 17 05:40 I'm all for the stout of frame & moral & beverage. The matron-matriarch at primary school was stout, funny, and benignly terrified the trendy head. I've never heard anyone play the piano as loud - thunderous descending left hand octaves at the beginning of whichever hymn it was
  • Sat Aug 17 06:22 The Wild Man of Wivenhoe on Petunia's latest
  • Sat Aug 17 16:39 In the chicken shop: - Do you want the salt? - Trying to groom me for a gang?
  • Sat Aug 17 22:16 Historia de Barcelona, 18/8: * 1847: Es nombrado agente de seguridad pública el delincuente crónico Gerónimo Tarrés (161+127) * 1848: Fiesta de santa Elena emperatriz (23) * 1919: Pla: Havent dinat veig Hermós que enllesteix un palangre a l’ombra que fa…
  • Sun Aug 18 07:51 Can't believe that there's not a single painting of Aurora in a revealing Indian gown 1600-1750. What were they doing?
  • Sun Aug 18 08:07 While one neighbour agonises over the social and environmental implications of ready-ripe avocados, another simply chucks his old flat-screen telly off the balcony, indifferent to the fate of a passing grease-monkey rastaman
  • Sun Aug 18 08:09 The digital humanities
  • Sun Aug 18 09:28 All is quiet at the Owen Jones Bar at Alexandra Palace
  • Sun Aug 18 09:32 3 as a cat with a parasol
  • Sun Aug 18 19:17 Hackney sunset. That was a weird storm.
  • Sun Aug 18 22:21 Historia de Barcelona, 19/8: * 1527: Carlos I da una fiesta con 10 carruajes inmovilizados (39+11) * 1632: Traen a Santa Madrona a la catedral en rogativa por agua (42) * 1918: Pla: A la tarda, el costum de la joventut indígena del Canadell és anar a…
  • Mon Aug 19 05:29 "Chinese" "traditional" "medicine" outlet on Blackstock Rd, Highbury will fix your low back pain, sciatica, arthritis and YOUR DISCO PROBLEM. The broken toe, the bearded lady, the liver...?

  • Mon Aug 19 05:42 2nd style (with the elaborate royal cypher) Edward VII pillar box on Stroud Green Road from the McDowall, Steven & Co foundry in Glasgow. I love Robert Cole's 1st style one

  • Mon Aug 19 11:38 Stockpiling frozen peas is one thing, but I've got my doubts re the Home Office leak about people panic-buying sackcloth and ashes
  • Mon Aug 19 15:56 How fortunate that police resources went into Operation Midland instead of this nonsense
  • Mon Aug 19 16:11 Comment: The reflection shows that it's actually Stroud Green Road. Auto-fisked.
  • Mon Aug 19 16:31 The theory that the Kent/London town Erith takes its name from Eris, goddess of discord
  • Mon Aug 19 19:24 Cruella de Villas, somewhere in Highbury, London.

  • Mon Aug 19 22:21 Historia de Barcelona, 20/8: * 1845: Instálase el Banco de Barcelona (6) * 1919: Pla: Canadell * ☼ 06:03-19:45, 13:41 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Bernardo de Claraval, Burcardo de Worms, Filiberto de Tournus,…
  • Tue Aug 20 05:38 The lane off the beginning of Mountgrove Road, Highbury, surely leads off to an old stable block, but instead of a nag and a barrel piano one will just as surely encounter a car park, so one does not follow it.
  • Tue Aug 20 05:46 Whoever thought that sand-blasting brickwork to get rid of a century of black rain was a good idea? The London clay dust always leaches into everything else, so that even if you bother to repair the face to prevent erosion it still looks shite.

  • Tue Aug 20 07:02 Comment: @Transblawg Someone I knew bought a house built with 1926 General Strike bricks: permeable, so previous owner covered entirely with white paint-on plastic. He thought, the bricks can't be THAT bad & stripped most off before realising that bricks were coming away too, so stopped. Looks great
  • Tue Aug 20 12:58 Carbon-neutral donations are the resurrection of medieval indulgences - buy a certificate from the Vatican/Greta and you can continue sinning. Who's the modern Martin Luther?
  • Tue Aug 20 14:04 Comment: @Transblawg Northumberland was nice - surprises down alleys, instead of more apartments, carparks, security fences, cameras
  • Tue Aug 20 14:08 Is the sign on the Arsenal Tavern Backpackers Hostel (Blackstock Road) upside-down and back-to-front by mistake, or is this a den of Satanic inversion?

  • Tue Aug 20 14:09 Comment: (Oops, it's not back to front)
  • Tue Aug 20 14:26 Comment: @Transblawg Not as many monstrous psychotic dogs and owners
  • Tue Aug 20 17:22 Comment: @ibexsalad So you've abandoned our scheme to rename Toronto "Robville"?
  • Tue Aug 20 21:07 Situation in a 17th century novel where a red man and a black man have a fight and their colours get mixed up recalls a university initiation ritual (boy & girl painted different colours, locked in a cupboard overnight to see what colour they come out), but I can't remember where
  • Tue Aug 20 21:30 Comment: It turns up in the film Raw/Grave (2016) , which doesn't sound my kind of thing, but I think I heard this years ago
  • Tue Aug 20 22:30 Historia de Barcelona, 21/8: * 1847: Empieza la composición del nuevo Libro Verde de Barcelona (15) * 1921: Muere el pastelero Agustí Massana, naciendo ocho años después la escuela que lleva su nombre (103) * 1936: Empieza el derribo de la cárcel de…
  • Wed Aug 21 05:55 Sightline of Ally Pally from Crouch Hill, obscured by car-related street furniture. It is said that the driverless-car industry has given up trying to make them safe for pedestrians and wants pavements to become pens that open periodically
  • Wed Aug 21 06:33 It may be that the first dropped kerb in the UK was in Friern Barnet in 1935, and that it was for a pram crossing
  • Wed Aug 21 07:04 If it's hollow and a slot could be engineered then I could do with one of these
  • Wed Aug 21 08:03 B/V confusion. Time for a Italian-style political parody of Marlowe's Faustus in which Helen of Troy is "the face that launched a thousand votes / And showed her topless towers at Napoli"
  • Wed Aug 21 08:38 Since the hard border will be built by the country with the highest alcohol and tobacco duties, since Dublin's fiscal policy is run by Brussels, and since on the other side we'd like cheaper beer & fags, the renascent IRA/mafia will have to fight its gun battles with the Gardaí
  • Wed Aug 21 08:50 Stand aside MUTV
  • Wed Aug 21 11:25 Denmark struggling to conceal from Trump that Melania has already bought Greenland for him, but wants it to be a surprise
  • Wed Aug 21 11:56 The Singing Organ-Grinder's Wall of Jam, the closest I get to Phil Spector
  • Wed Aug 21 20:03 "Oh, how lovely, a girl!" Do you hate boys, or are you just glad it's not a sewer rat?
  • Wed Aug 21 22:36 Historia de Barcelona, 22/8: * 1918: Pla: Ahir féu un mal dia * 1919: Pla: Canadell * 1968: El avión del Papa queda bajo el control del aeropuerto de Barcelona durante treinta minutos (92) * ☼ 06:05-19:42, 13:36 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación…
  • Thu Aug 22 05:36 I wonder if the simple Brit Congregationalist founders of the Park Chapel on Crouch Hill at Crouch End & the flamboyant African members of the Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim & Seraphim Church, current tenants of "Mount Zion Cathedral," would be able to find one another in God

  • Thu Aug 22 05:37 Comment: (Original, glorious leader, the Rev Corbin, who led the building 1856-71
  • Thu Aug 22 05:43 "Pilgrim's Progress" parody thread featuring Hippie, Candyman, the City of Squaresville and Freakout City
  • Thu Aug 22 05:58 Comment: Is MZCE acronymic for Mount Zion Cathedral Entrance?
  • Thu Aug 22 06:59 OK, Dover's a logistics bottleneck, so can't we just improve access by demolishing the white cliffs?
  • Thu Aug 22 09:17 "Manolo, eat my fanny" could have been a Restoration hit if it weren't an hour long
  • Thu Aug 22 10:09 Bring your children
  • Thu Aug 22 10:42 None of those Edinburgh jokes made me laugh. Wil Shriner on the other hand: I want to die in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming & yelling like the people in his car.
  • Thu Aug 22 11:47 I don't see why you can't use "xenophonia" for the great gallimaufry of foreign languages
  • Thu Aug 22 14:34 If HushHush is "The World's Leading Luxury Shopping Marketplace", how come they haven't spent a couple of hundred euros on someone who knows what inventory is and has basic knowledge of WooCommerce?
  • Thu Aug 22 15:18 Another new word for me: petrichor, the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil, which I guess people with big noses pick up on the wind: "It's going to rain."
  • Thu Aug 22 20:36 Trombonistry from the archives
  • Thu Aug 22 22:38 Historia de Barcelona, 23/8: * 1539: Entra el nuevo virrey, Francisco de Borja (33/i) * 1918: Pla: Escenes d’un primer amor * 1919: Pla: Marxo a Barcelona * 1921: Empieza a funcionar la imprenta Braille de la Caja (310) * 1966: Expedida la matrícula…
  • Fri Aug 23 06:50 Cock in boots - or so it appeared from further away. The pub, on Sandringham Road, near Hackney Downs, was the Lord Stanley but has been a bohemian-chic film & wedding venue, Roost, since the 1990s (?). I never got the Lord Stanley bit - murderer of the Princes in the Tower?

  • Fri Aug 23 07:04 Solar-powered trains on Network Rail's Wessex route will obviously stop working every autumn, so who will care for the leaves on the line?
  • Fri Aug 23 22:39 Historia de Barcelona, 24/8: * 1627: Traen el cuerpo de Santa Madrona a la catedral para aliviar la sequía (70+19) * 1918: Pla: Defectes de Calella * 1919: Pla: Arribem a l’estació de Barcelona a quarts de nou del matí * 1920: Muere Manuel Girona en un…
  • Sat Aug 24 22:43 Historia de Barcelona, 25/8: * 1564: Entra el nuevo virrey, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y de la Cerda (15) * 1918: Pla: A la tarda, amb el meu germà, varem el «N.a S.a del Carmen», hissem el tros de vela de martell que porta i amb el garbí petit emprenem el…
  • Sun Aug 25 22:46 Historia de Barcelona, 26/8: * 1415: Fernando I sale para Perpiñán para reunirse con el emperador Segismundo sobre el futuro del antipapa Benedicto (27) * 1638: Entra el duque de Mónaco con 26 galeras (115+33) * 1839: Instálase la escuela pública de…
  • Mon Aug 26 18:17 It is said that virtually all babies born this weekend, boy and girl, have been named Ben, but there's also a good case for Jack
  • Mon Aug 26 22:50 Historia de Barcelona, 27/8: * 1466: Sale una embajada para Sicilia para notificar Renato de Anjou que ha sido elegido conde de Barcelona durante la guerra contra Juan II (31) * 1848: Fiesta de san José de Calasanz (28) * 1936: Una señorita entrega las…
  • Tue Aug 27 09:16 Obscenities in Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto / Swept away (Lina Wertmüller, 1974)
  • Tue Aug 27 09:18 Roman chariots towed by motorbikes
  • Tue Aug 27 12:00 Religion vs the state in a 1921 Soviet propaganda poster - trampling her paranja, she proclaims in some Turkic language transliterated in Arabic, "Now I'm free too."
  • Tue Aug 27 12:03 Comment: "Muslimas, the czar, beys and khans took away your rights"
  • Tue Aug 27 18:58 optimism & correlation/causation
  • Tue Aug 27 19:00 EU vs US = the occasional bottle of wine that tastes like wine vs Californian fruit cocktails
  • Tue Aug 27 21:13 Comment: @ibexsalad @frank_hodgkins But unlike the Brazilians, Africans aren't about to compete with the French beef farmers - or is that another mad conspiracy theory?
  • Tue Aug 27 22:53 Historia de Barcelona, 28/8: * 1481: Acabada la Guerra de Sucesión Castellana, muere Alfonso de Portugal (52+7) * 1824: Se empieza a construir el Paseo de Gracia (17) * 1848: Fiesta de san Agustín (21) * 1850: Reforma universitaria (209) * 1918: Pla:…
  • Wed Aug 28 08:04 No two Wetherspoon's carpets are the same. Church carpets, on the other hand...
  • Wed Aug 28 10:09 Optimum outcome: Charles knocks off Queenie to prevent prorogue, Boris declares a republic and imprisons Charles and Andrew in the Tower (guarded by Richard "III" Dawkins), ensuring enough tourist revenues to cancel any Brexit shortfalls
  • Wed Aug 28 19:58 Wren. Si monumentum requiris circumspice.
  • Wed Aug 28 20:15 1/2 9-yo discovers abstruse currants in bun of native stupidity & cultivated ignorance: (a) "If we play badminton in three hours time, the sun will be over there & you'll be able to see the shuttlecock." "How do you know that?"
  • Wed Aug 28 20:15 Comment: 2/2 (b) Teaching songwriting - verse/chorus, lyrics/music: "How can you tell what notes I'm playing unless you have a camera in the piano?" (c) "Fain" is questioned in a word game. Cue the dictionary. "Does it only have useless words?"
  • Wed Aug 28 22:57 Historia de Barcelona, 29/8: * 1381: Llega Leonor, esposa de Pedro IV (17) * ☼ 06:12-19:31, 13:18 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Martirio de Juan Bautista, María de la Cruz Jugan, Sabina * Tiempo: 00-06: poco…
  • Thu Aug 29 06:00 Several bullocks shooed back over broken fence, & off to the farmer, who says "It's not worth repairing" et finis. Free-range hen-lady down the road: "It's a council farm and they've ended his tenancy, they want someone new, he's given up, but the beasts are worth good money."

  • Thu Aug 29 06:06 No one can pun like the Sun. Boris' two policy planks in three words.
  • Thu Aug 29 06:10 Comment: If Windsor & Parliament go to war, could the British Isles be technically judged property of the descendants of Philip II of Spain?
  • Thu Aug 29 09:29 The Guardian, Anglophonia's principal Franco tribute rag, unhindered by history or semantics
  • Thu Aug 29 09:51 Comment: Google site search of the Guardian gives Franco 18,000 ghits, more than double all prime ministers this century combined: Aznar 1,110, Zapatero 1,350, Rajoy 3,670, Pedro Sánchez 825. They're obsessed.
  • Thu Aug 29 09:56 Comment: & The Times can't tell the Wehrmacht from the Bundeswehr
  • Thu Aug 29 10:05 Comment: Swapping EU for USA will bring problems, but at least journalists will no longer have to leave their linguistic and cultural comfort zone
  • Thu Aug 29 11:36 Defending bourgeois democracy
  • Thu Aug 29 11:39 Ingenious explanation as to why mare tail isn't used for fishing line
  • Thu Aug 29 12:04 White Oxford Shit on sale at Morrows
  • Thu Aug 29 15:15 Comment: @Transblawg Vauxhall/Воксхолл -> a generic term for pleasure garden in C18th (cf. Tivoli), then in 1837 their 1st railway runs ex Petersburg to the palaces at Tsarskoye Selo & Pavlovsk, where there's also a voxhall (which fools say was in the station building), and so steam -> dream
  • Thu Aug 29 15:20 Pliny the Elder at Vesuvius
  • Thu Aug 29 16:17 Italian mothers really do believe in & wear silver nipple shields, but the metal is often low-grade & the design really needs the odd Virgin Mary or something more contemporary
  • Thu Aug 29 17:40 Comment: @Transblawg You got me there. I googled Hornchuchpromenade
  • Thu Aug 29 21:21 Comment: @Transblawg Confused. Hornchurchpromenade, Fürth?
  • Thu Aug 29 21:30 Daar kom die Alibama, / Die Alibama die kom oor die see
  • Thu Aug 29 21:44 I am lying down in the road, waiting for it. I know it will come #StopTheCoupé
  • Thu Aug 29 21:45 Comment: @justinjerez I'd never heard it - tremendous thing
  • Thu Aug 29 23:00 Historia de Barcelona, 30/8: * 1636: Los frailes franciscos y capuchinos también ayudan mejorar las defensas del puerto, obra que no se acaba (142) * 1808: Son desahuciadas por los franceses las monjas de Junqueras para hacer un hospital militar (22+10)…
  • Fri Aug 30 05:14 Comment: @hackneywick Isn't it wonderful!
  • Fri Aug 30 05:21 Comment: @Transblawg I was going to say I'm not that naive, but it's within the realms of possibility.
  • Fri Aug 30 05:25 This street is home to 3 coppers & at least 8 owls. Don't try your luck.
  • Fri Aug 30 05:41 I wasn't sure about #StopTheCoop until our (Labour) councillor prevented Tesco opening a store nearby in favour of Coop. Tho he can decide how they spend 1% of their revenues, their prices are much higher than a comparable Tesco in an area where there are no cheap alternatives
  • Fri Aug 30 10:32 Comment: @hackneywick I woke up at 4 singing Alibaba, so there's something wrong in all our tiny little monkey brains. I'm not from SA, so I've wasted hours reading serious Afrikaans poetry when I could simply have been singing this song
  • Fri Aug 30 10:35 Has the KKK been financed with black money?
  • Fri Aug 30 11:16 Truly, la, we go by the clock of our conscience. All worldly clocks we know go false, and are set by drunken sextons. I'm still not clear on the Roundheads = Brexiters / Cavaliers = Remainers thing. E.g. I think of Brexiters & Cavaliers being less PC
  • Fri Aug 30 13:37 Thomas Hale on the death of the piano
  • Fri Aug 30 23:04 Historia de Barcelona, 31/8: * 1844: Instálase la empresa del ferrocarril de Barcelona a Mataró, primero en España (13) * 1848: Fiesta de San Ramón Nonato (21) * 1925: Se ilumina por primera vez el faro moderno de Montjuic (0+31) * ☼ 06:14-19:28, 13:13…
  • Sat Aug 31 07:36 Of the Lombard and the Snail (De lombardo et lumaca/limaca, C12th): When the Lombard sees the snail, he is struck senseless, shakes fearfully and loses his wind; his mind and colour leave him, and the heat deserts his bones


  • Sat Aug 31 07:38 Comment: John Gay puts the snail's side: Snail was I born, and snail shall end. And what's a butterfly? At best, He's but a caterpillar, dressed.
  • Sat Aug 31 08:29 RT @AlinejadMasih: Watch this heart breaking video from mother of 20-yr old #SabaKordafshari who was sent to 24 yrs in prison. Saba used he…
  • Sat Aug 31 15:01 I usually see pheasants scuttling or scarpering, but here's one on a fence post near Doley Brook on the old Shropshire Union Line just south of Gnosall. I am sure this will cause a Twitter sensation.
  • Sat Aug 31 15:10 John: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own, & I'm known by my own; even as the Father knows me, & I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep." There was division among the Jews because of these sayings. Many said, 'He has a demon & is mad. Why do you listen to Him?'
  • Sat Aug 31 15:53 AMA: "I think this is the last car that I will ever buy."
  • Sat Aug 31 16:41 My favourite version of the Enchanted Pear Tree (Boccaccio Decameron, Chaucer Merchant's Tale etc etc) is from County Kerry
  • Sat Aug 31 23:08 Historia de Barcelona, 1/9: * 1479: Fernando el Católico es jurado conde de Barcelona (10) * 1715: Comienzan a derribarse 665 (?) casas de la Ribera para poder construir la Ciudadela (9+719) * 1798: Bastante completa impresión de la ciudad (3540) * 1843:…

Bizarrely, Twitter data downloads don't include others' comments on your tweets, or tweets on which you comment, e.g.:

/ I say something
// Someone replies
/// I reply to them
... and so it's impossible to show tweet trees involving third parties correctly.

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