Tweets for July 2020

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

Wed Jul 01 00:48 Historia de Barcelona, 1/7: #otd * 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…
Wed Jul 01 05:17 Comment: @Transblawg Oh, but you can drown in a well! Hackney Council was meant to put up a plaque to commemorate the century since Jack Cohen but forgot about it
Wed Jul 01 05:25 Blind bigamist condemned to play the organ (i.e. work the bellows?) at the hospital for the rest of his life, while a sighted one is sent to the galleys. #otd in Barcelona
Wed Jul 01 05:26 Oh, It Was My Cruel Parents Who Did Me First Trepan
Wed Jul 01 05:27 Comment: His pipe is out of order, his flute is never in tune Oh, I wish that he was dead and a young man in the room
Wed Jul 01 05:45 Comment: @tombcn Noto que l’entrada de Viquipèdia en llengua catalana l’omet
Wed Jul 01 06:14 Comment: @tombcn Llavors són més tertulianos que res?
Wed Jul 01 09:35 Gwennap Pit, aka Methodism as a descent into Hell. How would Satan defend his pit?
Wed Jul 01 09:35 RT @midlee01: I know meadow pipits are not that clever but surely they must suspect this chick is an imposter by now.
Wed Jul 01 09:38 Comment: @MetCC @MPSHomerton Not true: Hackney out-of-hours service finishes at 2 AM
Wed Jul 01 20:05 Always a fan, but suppliers & retailers say that @ShepherdNeame has behaved very well over the past couple of months, so I'll be drinking even more of that
Wed Jul 01 20:11 pa la maestra @annapantinat
Wed Jul 01 22:21 Historia de Barcelona, 2/7: #otd * 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…
Thu Jul 02 09:10 RT @Transblawg: @carlgardner Yes, I was brought up an atheist too. Humanism is OK for some, but it seems like agnosticism with tea parties.
Thu Jul 02 09:12 Comment: @edwest Walthamstow Town Hall...
Thu Jul 02 09:15 RT @PolemicTMM: E scooter rental agreed for UK. Tiny wheels + Curbs, cracks and gravel + centre of gravity + pedestrians + wet + dark = ca…
Thu Jul 02 12:37 F: The back of my hand is covered in scar tissue because when I was little a hot iron dropped on it. My mum knew it had scared me, so afterwards when I was bad she used to burn me with a boiling teaspoon.
Thu Jul 02 15:04 The Hawksmoor London church pub crawl is the classic
Thu Jul 02 15:43 Wondering how a local rastaman & statue-breaker, who worships Haile Selassie as the greatest teacher of all, is reacting to the destruction of the Hailie Selassie statue in Cannizaro Park, Wimbledon
Thu Jul 02 15:46 Saw Henry V at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton as a kid & laughed so much at Fluellen & the leek that the performance was halted & I was told to shut up
Thu Jul 02 16:09 Also: Why do Poirot fans never notice crimes happening around them?
Thu Jul 02 21:18 Can local lockdowns in London be facilitated by the creation/recreation of natural barriers, such as Hackney Brook, perhaps populated with crocodiles?
Thu Jul 02 21:28 Looby will not be down the gastropub on Saturday
Thu Jul 02 23:06 Historia de Barcelona, 3/7: #otd * 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…
Fri Jul 03 06:04 Wordsworth ed. L. Flanagan (?): In this still place, remote from men, Sleeps Oisín P. with maidens ten.
Fri Jul 03 06:31 All June's tweets in one place: the blog: Featured photo: blue bricks, made from Middlesbrough blast furnace slag, at Stepney Green Gardens.
Fri Jul 03 08:16 A Xhosa friend tells me that #BlackWivesMatter & sends me this beautiful photo, stolen from Wikipedia, of a Californian female Latrodectus hesperus
Fri Jul 03 12:25 Comment: @tombcn Pathetic wannabe paramilitaries
Fri Jul 03 15:03 Comment: @GermanAtPompey Wo bleibt Old Shatterhand?
Fri Jul 03 15:05 I find it helpful to think of Beethoven as the musical equivalent of Gordon Brown.
Fri Jul 03 15:11 After some tough negotiation, Babe has established her cut of blackberries collected on the marshes: 20% for immediate consumption & another 20% for use as hair gel
Fri Jul 03 16:14 Comment: @Hackneycyclist Makes a change from the psychos with speaker backpacks
Fri Jul 03 20:44 Extracts from the plague diary of Mark ne-Francois-Pepys H/t Dr Yes
Fri Jul 03 23:04 Historia de Barcelona, 4/7: #otd * 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…
Sat Jul 04 07:48 A passerby on Waterworks Meadow: - Blackberries? It looks like you've punched the poor little thing in the face!
Sat Jul 04 07:50 I'll miss Nigel because he distracted attention from the real crime: doggerel
Sat Jul 04 07:57 Coventry Peeping Tom
Sat Jul 04 11:01 Aka the UK govt plan to spend 27 billion on roads to attract more car drivers
Sat Jul 04 11:48 Can't delete .OGG files? Uninstall Microsoft Web Media Extensions grrrr
Sat Jul 04 12:29 Some very interesting stout the other day
Sat Jul 04 16:01 Covid foretold in 2012 Olympics opening ceremony
Sat Jul 04 18:45 Comment: @ibexsalad Ergo it's Sacha Baron Cohen
Sat Jul 04 18:51 Thread about Vatican II & Satan - popular lighthearted thesis among some musicians (guitars? in a church?), but check the detail & conviction, & the Muscovite angle
Sat Jul 04 19:18 Several bizarre lockdown stories re Spanish F, who, several years ago, while his wife was dying of cancer, took a prostitute to a hotel where his nephew was on reception & asked for a friends & family discount
Sat Jul 04 19:24 Dalí, Una Polla Xica
Sat Jul 04 23:09 Historia de Barcelona, 5/7: #otd * 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) *…
Sun Jul 05 05:45 Really?
Sun Jul 05 06:14 Retiring León cathedral organist objects to three-fingered successor from down South, who says that his predecessor is a nepotist who would like to appoint "a dedo", "by finger", i.e. arbitrarily. H/t @Transblawg
Sun Jul 05 06:14 Comment: Why they didn't employ someone with the surname Seisdedos (six fingers), which is common around relatively nearby Zamora, is beyond me.
Sun Jul 05 08:21 Free state education in England: a single mum on benefits in the midst of the zombie apocalypse has to find 350 quid for an iPad, because Apple have used cheap equipment to bribe the teachers, who may not bother to turn up in September anyway
Sun Jul 05 08:22 Comment: Apple have been corrupting the educational establishment into poor decision making for decades, from here to Harare
Sun Jul 05 08:26 New York retail social distancing: 6 at a time for English speakers, 4 at a time for Spanish speakers
Sun Jul 05 08:37 #SaveTheArtsUK is curious: it seems that you're not an Artist unless you take the Arts Council England etc shilling & rehearse the slogans. Has anyone ever attempted to map our unofficial arts scene, along the lines of surveys of Soviet Nonconformist Art ?
Sun Jul 05 08:38 Comment: (I'll obviously support the campaign if someone will cut me in.)
Sun Jul 05 09:18 Park keerers < cearr (Gaelic: wrong, left-handed): a celebration of otherness in an England flag
Sun Jul 05 14:19 When the film of Babe's life is made, please include the scene where she is standing up in the buggy in tight leggings & naked torso, baying like a metal star, while a large gent demonstrates (to her) how he uses his steering lock/baseball bat to scythe down the enemy
Sun Jul 05 14:19 Comment: @Transblawg Oh dear, hadn't even noticed that. Yorkies are all racist, innit.
Sun Jul 05 19:51 Ah, so there is an English version of Charles Trenet's "L’âme des poètes": "At last, at last", which completely misses the point, and was first sung by Bing Crosby: Old blog post:
Sun Jul 05 19:54 Comment: At least the Stanley Black arrangement has some music box:
Sun Jul 05 23:06 Historia de Barcelona, 6/7: #otd * 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…
Mon Jul 06 06:03 You can draw mathematical roses & such with Spirograph, but Leon Hall will blow your mind with Trochoids, Roses, and Thorns - Beyond the Spirograph
Mon Jul 06 06:04 Still waiting for the Guardian to call out Boris for fiscal irresponsibility
Mon Jul 06 06:10 Driscoll's® Katrina™ strawberries from Mansfields in Kent are 3.60/kg in Tesco, so jam. Not enough detail here for anyone interested in the process industries: Re the IP:
Mon Jul 06 06:17 One of the best things about the last three months has been the absence of the threat of the gastropub Sunday roast
Mon Jul 06 06:29 Comment: S Berendonk, "Double generating spirographic curves" is wild: We can use a spirograph in different ways to draw curves. Do these different modes of drawing necessarily yield different curves, or is it also possible to get the same curve by using two different modes of drawing?
Mon Jul 06 12:23 It is said that L has left J and the lurgy for part of the Appalachians. On the bright side that's cue for a song:
Mon Jul 06 13:37 Apparently racial discrimination may be legal when you contract employees but not when you make them redundant. What an unjoined-up world.
Mon Jul 06 18:55 Not so coot after all, geddit. Terrifying birds, & eat virtually anything, so it's good to be bigger than them
Mon Jul 06 23:08 Historia de Barcelona, 7/7: #otd * 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…
Tue Jul 07 04:46 RT @MrTimDunn: Man spends 18 years building funicular railway to Devon home “so he and his wife won’t have to climb steps when they’re olde…
Tue Jul 07 05:00 Barcelona #otd 1800: prohibition of non-guild competition amongst cobblers & of the establishment of chains of shoe shops
Tue Jul 07 05:00 RT @BrendaPuech: As a determined user of Marylebone/ Euston Road usually crawling through inches of space between lanes of stationary traff…
Tue Jul 07 05:01 The Charleston has evolved
Tue Jul 07 05:04 Haven't seen this road for a while
Tue Jul 07 05:10 It is said that these excellent gents have been banned
Tue Jul 07 06:53 Tower Hamlets eventually crumbled and painted 2 metres as 2 metres
Tue Jul 07 07:01 "Colllasped wall" may be a mistake, but "alterative route" revives a rare word, referring to changes the route may make to your mind or body, & indicative of @CanalRiverTrust 's transforming role in modern British psychology & society. (Hertford Union Canal at Grove Road.)
Tue Jul 07 10:59 Comment: @tombcn @annuskaodena Bring down property prices, reduce pressure on services, what's not to like?
Tue Jul 07 11:35 I listen to @timesradio for politics instead of the Beeb, which I find pretty crass. But for the real world it's still @WFMU
Tue Jul 07 11:59 1/3 Good chat during this morning's pramming with a toothless old Turkish Cypriot collecting young walnuts with a DIY pole-hook on Millfields for his wife to make "a Turkish spirit" called "majoun/majun."
Tue Jul 07 12:01 Comment: 2/3 Majun (Arabic) is paste known to tourists to Morocco from balls enlivened by cannabis & honey, but perhaps Mrs is making something closer to the madjoon which hastened the end in 1839 of Sultan Mahmud II (White, 3 Years in Constantinople)
Tue Jul 07 12:01 Comment: 3/3 But whence "spirit"? Raki/heroin/cannabis? Is this an aphrodisiac like the various majuns to which Mahmud, Arabs & other tributary cultures (e.g. Pakistan) attribute magical powers? What are Mr & Mrs planning?!
Tue Jul 07 15:02 Another highlight of the morning's pramming: singing (Babe shrieked cheerfully) a belated Happy Birthday to the ultraorthodox Bensie, who we fist-bump regularly when we meet him with carer Dimitri, & who was 21 yesterday
Tue Jul 07 15:04 Comment: And finally the lady with doggie & two grown-up daughters, who told us how she sees & saw in them a palimpsest of male (but rarely female) relatives. We think this is quite common & speculated fruitlessly re biological function.
Tue Jul 07 22:15 "2005: My Year of Divine Favour" on Harrowgate Road, near Victoria Park. I think it refers to something relating to an African church rather than to installation of the outside light by an anonymous wellwisher
Wed Jul 08 00:21 Historia de Barcelona, 8/7: #otd * 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…
Wed Jul 08 05:57 Not enough music, so here's the revolutionary chant of a wannabe murderer. Ashanti Mews is behind St John-at-Hackney, where the nutters hang out.
Wed Jul 08 09:09 When faulty syntax leads the section on force majeure in some T&Cs to classify governmental decisions as irresistible and unforeseeable natural phenomena
Wed Jul 08 10:45 Do I need to learn how to pronounce Kanye?
Wed Jul 08 14:31 Why is it still considered acceptable for living people to play dead people in films? They should be allowed to tell their own story.
Wed Jul 08 15:14 Currently watching films set in the 17th century while practising the trombone - sound off, subs on. Witchfinder General last week was dreadful, but Cromwell (1970) succeeds pretty well at cramming quite a long period of time & complex circumstances into the format
Wed Jul 08 15:17 Comment: Richard Harris is very good as Cromwell, but it's still a shame they didn't pick Tony Hancock
Wed Jul 08 19:33 RT @PolemicTMM: And I can see supermarket café sales soaring as the deli counter is swung under the café brand. "100g of olives, 250g of…
Thu Jul 09 00:21 Historia de Barcelona, 9/7: #otd * 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…
Thu Jul 09 05:40 Aryan
Thu Jul 09 05:43 Things that are racist
Thu Jul 09 05:50 Victoria Park: - Do NOT use this area as a toilet CCTV covers this area [No it doesn't] - Well open the Public Toilets then? Also: if outside is good, then perhaps some billions could have been better spent on providing a national system of public water fountains (see Spain)
Thu Jul 09 05:57 Why the French mag Hara-Kiri didn't report the auto-disembowelment of Mishima Series on authors given to death
Thu Jul 09 05:58 Excellent AirBnB in the prettiest village on the Loire
Thu Jul 09 08:43 .@Tesco needs to get a licence so you can buy beer before 8 a.m. as long as you also buy nappies
Thu Jul 09 08:48 .@BBCr4today piece on the English colonisation of Munster neglected to mention that its name either comes in part from the Old Norse spoken by Viking raiders/colonists or I think more probably in full from the Old English munster/menster etc., whence our minster
Thu Jul 09 08:58 Apparently a significant % of X-ray referrals to Homerton Hospital fail because the IT system doesn't force GPs to send an order to the hospital as well as an SMS to the patient
Thu Jul 09 10:43 The hateful implication is that the Welsh had not contributed greatly to the US at that stage
Thu Jul 09 10:45 Titanic sunk, lives in danger
Thu Jul 09 11:10 Now it's table service in obesity joints, will waiters wear t-shirts saying not "Waiter" but "Superspreader"?
Thu Jul 09 11:13 Comment: See also:
Thu Jul 09 11:29 If it's Llanuwchllyn this is probably just Congregationalist graffiti
Thu Jul 09 14:29 Comment: @AndrewHammel1 Hot Rats is such a mad album
Thu Jul 09 14:32 Taking turns at spoonfuls & scoring points for whoever gets it in. Twice the age she was when she started on solids.
Thu Jul 09 14:35 Comment: @Captain_Bionic Ladbrokes or the posh kind?
Thu Jul 09 14:39 I don't get why people slash bread dough. Prettier, but surely destroys the oven-within-an-oven effect from a good crust, so less tasty, no?
Thu Jul 09 16:49 Comment: @russellwyatt At last, a scientist instead of an art-isan! A friend's wife used to moan about him drinking to excess & not using face cream to disguise the damage. Doubting its efficacy he began an experiment where he applied cream to one side only, but she left him before the results were in
Thu Jul 09 18:20 Comment: @Transblawg @russellwyatt So is slashing just a sourdough thing? Quite horrific - a monster lives in your fridge & then you take it out & encase it in slime & slash its stomach & burn it alive
Thu Jul 09 19:41 Comment: @HookEagleMorris That sounds about right. I think I saw you at Wickham & loved it, & hope to see you again.
Thu Jul 09 19:42 There's a proper St George for you
Fri Jul 10 00:18 Historia de Barcelona, 10/7: #otd * 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…
Fri Jul 10 06:13 It's good that little Aisha was named for her grandma & not for the famous precedent. I still don't understand Jonah:
Fri Jul 10 11:47 Comment: @russellwyatt I'm sorry for your loss. I've got this theory that you need to slash sourdough (as you would baking potatoes) because everything tends to be so much more explosive
Fri Jul 10 15:16 One does try, but it is very hard to accept the dogma that one characteristic is binary & another non-binary when merely by opening one's eyes it becomes obvious that the opposite is true in both cases. People are going to notice this.
Fri Jul 10 15:19 Please note that swimming is still banned on the railway line north from Stratford near the Eurostar repair yard
Fri Jul 10 15:21 I have this suspicion that the letter N disappears more frequently than others, & have set up CCTV to check on "Pavilion"
Fri Jul 10 15:27 A coven of Virginia Andrews fans worships at this shrine on Daubeney Road: "Andrews' novels combine Gothic horror and family saga, revolving around family secrets and forbidden love (frequently involving themes of consensual incest), and sometimes include a rags-to-riches story."
Fri Jul 10 19:53 Here's item 2 in my series of new transcriptions for trombone of good stuff from the Classical & Romantic repertoire: Dove sono, from Mozart's Figaro
Sat Jul 11 00:18 Historia de Barcelona, 11/7: #otd * 1565: Las autoridades visitan a Juan de Austria, que quiere unirse a la flota antiturca (14) * 1919: Pla: Biblioteca * 1939: Cena eufórica en el Palacio Nacional y el Pueblo Español (137+943/i) * ☼ 05:26-20:27, 15:00…
Sat Jul 11 05:10 RT @LdnRomanBaths: Take a virtual tour of Roman London Wall with @InspectorSidell tomorrow from 11.00am. This is one of two virtual tours o…
Sat Jul 11 06:34 RT @TimHarrisBrown: In Dec 1640 the papists offered to give Charles I £1,500,000. The lord chancellor said if he took it he would loose 15…
Sat Jul 11 06:46 It's an incredible map with which my only contact really is Nettl's notion of the diffusion of the xylophone -> East Africa
Sat Jul 11 12:55 More skirmishes in the Scott Alexander thing There was the ability to talk analytically about stuff like genetics & AI, & hence the barely acknowledged rivalry with the renovated but hidebound old media - remember blogs? I thought Mencius was a parody a/c
Sat Jul 11 13:09 People who write McCaulay for Macaulay. But the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander. (As a toddler, gazing out of the window from his cot at the chimneys of a local factory, he is reputed to have asked his father whether the smoke came from the fires of hell.)
Sat Jul 11 13:57 If you're CoE, can you stay in AirBnB Primitive Methodist chapels, or just the Wesleyan ones?
Sat Jul 11 18:38 For a fiver I'll deliver homemade Lea Valley jam to your doorstep & sing you an Italian song
Sat Jul 11 19:24 Comment: @martina_der Ah! Berufsgeheimnis! My impression is that the NHS is far more chaotic than the other two systems I vaguely know - the Dutch & the Spanish - but comparison's difficult even if you know your stuff
Sat Jul 11 19:24 Comment: @ibexsalad Gets me out of the house...
Sun Jul 12 00:58 Historia de Barcelona, 12/7: #otd * 1842: Inaugúrase la Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación (8) * 1957: La Vuelta a Francia llega a Barcelona (44+38/v) * ☼ 05:27-20:26, 14:59 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días *…
Sun Jul 12 06:17 Comment: @petersymon We're going to regret trying to repair the ozone layer
Sun Jul 12 06:21 Comment: @petersymon So real French people may be involved? I always imagined them to be like the England vs the Rest of the World tag matches in wrestling at the Albert Hall, where you could hear from ringside that the Rest of the World all had Liverpudlian accents
Sun Jul 12 06:22 Comment: @martina_der Haha, if you're local cash is good! It's my way of getting out & meeting people
Sun Jul 12 06:32 What about the Paraguayan Mato Grosso Offensive in 1864?
Sun Jul 12 06:40 Late C16th soldiers at the Barcelona dockyard - a piratical crew - modern actors can never be monstrous enough for historical dramas
Sun Jul 12 06:46 Grocery store window graphics plunder stock image libraries, which in turn sell photos of the results I like the fact that the nominally competing fish shops on Walthamstow High Street bought from the same vendor
Sun Jul 12 08:47 Without going the full Instagram: Les Fêtes Galantes on London Lane at London Fields
Sun Jul 12 08:51 This will work, with climate change & earlier closing times
Sun Jul 12 08:55 - Some Louis Jordan lyrics are pretty sexist, take Outskirts of Town... - [Puts on Bessie Smith] - OK, LJ's not that bad
Sun Jul 12 09:31 Personal drama of deelitization of education in communist Poland. Obviously incomparable in so many ways with the UK, but I often wonder what stories of the Blair degrees-for-all generation will be like
Sun Jul 12 11:07 Comment: @martina_der Oh dear, get better!
Sun Jul 12 11:49 Comment: @ibexsalad haha, the twitter image algorithm certainly catches a climber & fighter - not much crawling...
Sun Jul 12 18:47 M-istake
Sun Jul 12 20:00 Comment: @WateryTom Defoe at High Hill Ferry
Mon Jul 13 00:58 Historia de Barcelona, 13/7: #otd * 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:…
Mon Jul 13 06:22 Cherished memories of one particular Vancouver Sikh taxi driver
Mon Jul 13 06:23 This morning at the foot of the bed stood a lunatic in full straitjacket, grinning madly & trying to climb over the rail. Time for a larger, more secure cot.
Mon Jul 13 06:23 Form over function in railway station signage. I hadn't noticed the Leyton disfunction
Mon Jul 13 06:48 Mr Softy ice cream van running its engine to power the fridge all afternoon yesterday on Gascoyne Road at Victoria Park Queen's Gate. "The London Local Authorities Act allows roaming ice cream vans to trade from an area for 15 minutes" @jonburkeUK
Mon Jul 13 06:59 The story of my bank balance: "Missing, generous reward." I found it for them and they gave me a dog. (I hope this one is recovered. The trauma when Violeta the cat went walkies...)
Mon Jul 13 07:11 Hearsay: the sleeping bag on the high voltage pylon at the NW end of Hackney Marsh is due to a conflict between a coarse fisherman & a rough sleeper, & that the latter's voice can be heard across the Lee on the triangle of development land, cursing the cunt in the cowboy hat
Mon Jul 13 07:44 Comment: @charlottelevene You women always seem to find something to grin about. Blackberrying this afternoon with Mr Sin & sprog, which I fear will be very bloody.
Mon Jul 13 08:07 Fog-sea intro I struggle to find this Friedrich particularly tragic - the breeze is clearing the fog, nice day for a walk through the Elbe Sandstone
Mon Jul 13 09:38 RT @RichardKSense: A man has been found guilty of planning a stream of consciousness novel. He is about to start a four-year sentence
Mon Jul 13 18:51 Dads too
Mon Jul 13 18:54 Wisbech sounds like a proper museum
Mon Jul 13 18:59 Comment: Though the rhyme doesn't work. I'd use a cross-section of a panting, polluted dog & call the campaign Tongues&Lungs, crossmarketing folks to my offal bar. (#DoggerelOfTheDay from Marvell: For their loudest cannon were their lungs; / And sharpest weapons were their tongues.)
Mon Jul 13 20:06 Max. 6 consecutive steps today. Give her a trolley & she can do the shopping, now I've bust my toes on the barrel organ.
Tue Jul 14 00:59 Historia de Barcelona, 14/7: #otd * 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…
Tue Jul 14 07:23 I love the #otd in Barcelona entries relating to the invention of the cult of Our Lady of Montserrat, here rescuing a cleric who has a seizure while out swimming in 1589
Tue Jul 14 07:35 Comment: @TheHouseLive @lordbonkers @rushanaraali That's misleading because it excludes the far greater numbers of people living in blocks with other types of cladding which are now adjudged dangerous (i.e. unsaleable) & for which no solution or finance is in sight.
Tue Jul 14 07:48 Re Eustice, Grayling etc: What's the linguistic term for the situation where someone's surname (almost) rhymes with the adjective best describing them?
Tue Jul 14 08:09 @petersymon
Tue Jul 14 10:04 RT @YeOldeAmel: Old MacDonald implies the existence of Middle MacDonald, early modern MacDonald, modern MacDonald
Tue Jul 14 15:10 @IKEAUKSupport We purchased an item online which was delivered to our apartment. Unfortunately it is faulty and we have no way of getting to the nearest store. Your website asks us to contact you & directs us to , which has no contact info. What do we do?
Tue Jul 14 18:38 Comment: @ibexsalad Victorian values
Tue Jul 14 18:57 I'd never heard of Maria Grinberg - what a pianist
Tue Jul 14 19:01 Comment: @ibexsalad The pious hypocrite Dr Arnold & the drunken lecher Flashman at Rugby School. I guess high sermons are always accompanied by low deeds.
Tue Jul 14 19:20 A swastika/German flag in a 1920s mural in Westminster Walthamstow Town Hall is less potent but never ceases to amuse
Wed Jul 15 01:02 Historia de Barcelona, 15/7: #otd * 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…
Wed Jul 15 04:37
Wed Jul 15 04:46 Comment: @Captain_Bionic
Wed Jul 15 12:52 Phone wires in the windscreen of one of the many cars on Harrowgate Road, Victoria Park
Wed Jul 15 12:58 Uninterested community Covid help (aka a real existing free lunch) or a foot in the door for something else? I have never forgiven the plonker from Militant for coming round & trying to drink all my beer.
Wed Jul 15 13:00 This brave, healthy, new world of ours relies quite heavily on vans whizzing round residential streets
Wed Jul 15 13:02 Abandoned municipal water fountain at Homerton Library, because we're all against disposable plastic, aren't we.
Wed Jul 15 13:04 The "shop" at 40 Chatsworth Road is always a pleasure
Wed Jul 15 19:09 What not to ask when you encounter a dozen young gangsters in full masks making a drill video: "So why are you all pretending you're holding guns when actually you always stab each other?"
Wed Jul 15 19:20 I thought that academia had agreed that the Ancient Greeks were Afroasiatic
Wed Jul 15 22:04 Historia de Barcelona, 16/7: #otd * 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:…
Thu Jul 16 08:53 Ikea high chair makes a pretty good laptop stand
Thu Jul 16 13:04 Babe's rhetorical style is now pure Lloyd George
Thu Jul 16 13:53 Someone's going to love these
Thu Jul 16 13:57 Note how the timber H is cunningly echoed by the yellow fire hydrant sign
Thu Jul 16 22:39 Historia de Barcelona, 17/7: #otd * 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…
Fri Jul 17 05:42 I thought I was the organ-grinder - turns out I'm the monkey
Fri Jul 17 05:43 "Thank you for the new cot! What an interesting climbing challenge!"
Fri Jul 17 07:51 500 Barcelona flats de-touristed
Fri Jul 17 07:55 Amid all the end-of-offices/end-of-cities gloom/elation, trying to remember what Defoe reported in 1665. Also: I've always idly wondered whether the barbarian invasions tended to abandon towns in part because they were poxed
Fri Jul 17 08:03 Perhaps there are only 7 burger bars in Hackney that don't give you botulism. (From one of my DIY feed reader pages, which keep working after sites) are paywalled - people forget they've implemented RSS, & all I want are the headlines anyway)
Fri Jul 17 08:11 #otd in Barcelona, 1938: future Tory leader Edward Heath visited & (unlike Orwell) was quite impressed by Soviet rule
Fri Jul 17 08:12 Where public transport timetables often used to understate journey times, TfL now overstate them
Fri Jul 17 08:59 After we came to England one of my first schoolfriends was a Chinese boy whose parents were running a seafood shack. From him I learnt to count & other useful stuff, & one day he confided that they had escaped & were from Canton, but I mustn't tell anyone. Plus ça change...
Fri Jul 17 09:15 Which came first, the egg or the spoon race?
Fri Jul 17 11:11 RT @rupertbu: How delightful is this? Another project from the gang @HackneyMosaic, in association with #TessaHunkin, In Stoke Newington.…
Fri Jul 17 15:13 I hadn't noticed that The Old Codger is back
Fri Jul 17 19:27 Ring a Ring o'Roses was working so well, with her falling down alternately onto the bass & treble keys of the Casio SA-46, but now the high end smells of poo
Fri Jul 17 19:30 I've never actually tried to fire anything out of my trombone
Fri Jul 17 22:40 Historia de Barcelona, 18/7: #otd * 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…
Sat Jul 18 05:28 Sophie the giraffe, obvs
Sat Jul 18 07:14 It always amuses me that one of the highpoints of Barcelona tourism is a Disney invention dedicated by Franco's lot to their victory in the Civil War
Sat Jul 18 12:21 Comment: @LowEbbs Go to the hospital, say you've got an appointment but have forgotten your mask, & they'll give you one
Sat Jul 18 15:39 So is south York Yorkshire for people who don't like Yorkies, in the same way north Bath is Somerset for people who don't drink cider?
Sat Jul 18 18:06 If offices are out of fashion, can we knock em all down?
Sat Jul 18 18:53 Comment: @ibexsalad Ah, but do you know who the journo is related to? Main thrill in that rag
Sat Jul 18 22:41 Historia de Barcelona, 19/7: #otd * 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…
Sun Jul 19 06:07 RT @GDeneufbourg: Je ne l’avais encore jamais vue celle-la. Elle m’a ouvert l’appétit ! 🥐📈😋
Sun Jul 19 06:07 - The red is very good, sir. - OK, I'll have some. - Some of what? Diagnosis?
Sun Jul 19 06:10 Comment: Or will the 21st Century Society be up in arms?
Sun Jul 19 06:27 Dutch official spelling of the verb to google is googelen, which I hope will assimilate phonetically over time away from the name of the behemoth to goochelen - juggle, sleight of hand, etc
Sun Jul 19 06:47 So is Babe imitating the crows or vice versa?
Sun Jul 19 07:37 This corona platitude near St Helen's Bishopsgate is no more absurd and dishonest in the City than elsewhere. I'm sure we'll soon get past all this pandemic desert-faith nonsense & back to Ben Franklin - God helps those who help themselves
Sun Jul 19 07:53 I know nothing about these particular walk-in barristers, but it is said that among Bangladeshis in the Hamlets the Public Access Scheme has led to barristers being contracted for cases that only require a solicitor, at greater cost to the client, cos barristers are better innit
Sun Jul 19 08:56 Apparently "swellegant", in which one part of the compound is eliminated because it occurs in another part, is a haplologic blend, & apparently Louis Jordan didn't invent it
Sun Jul 19 08:59 Comment:
Sun Jul 19 09:00 Study shows it's riffs not spliffs that kill your brain
Sun Jul 19 09:05 I didn't know that St. Paul's was the tallest in all London until Millbank in 1963, so the woman at Greenwich Observatory who said she came up there as a child & saw St Paul's towering over everything was telling the truth. Recent Wren's view east:
Sun Jul 19 21:00 RT @timburrows:
Sun Jul 19 22:42 Historia de Barcelona, 20/7: #otd * 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…
Mon Jul 20 06:12 Pinscreen animation of Gogol's Nose
Mon Jul 20 09:35 To save the world it is not enough merely to tear down idolatrous images: we must also dig up the bones of those portrayed, says Stephen Marshall in a sermon to the House of Commons in 1642. Fittingly his body was exhumed and maltreated at the Restoration. Do unto others etc etc
Mon Jul 20 14:20 It is well known that the Romans created cities & bureaucracy merely in order to service existing fast food outlets
Mon Jul 20 14:46 Young street gangsters were early adopters of masks & blue nitrile gloves for reasons of anonymity & style, but now everyone wears masks they're back to black balaclavas/scarves and gloves
Mon Jul 20 18:34 Occasionally they print something that has the ring of truth
Mon Jul 20 18:35 Comment: Sorry, I meant this
Mon Jul 20 20:46 Of choppers Two Ton Tessie has a great life story
Mon Jul 20 22:40 Historia de Barcelona, 21/7: #otd * 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,…
Tue Jul 21 06:09 London developers doing a bit of cycling virtue signalling - like the children's play areas which they put on top of blocks & which are never used (key fobs don't give access, drainage failures, blahdiblah)
Tue Jul 21 06:39 Babe is a natural climber - up since 3:30, when light/temperature/wind optimum for ascents. Descents increasingly sustainable.
Tue Jul 21 09:09 For years after he wondered how when, several weeks before, they had scheduled the redundancy presentation they knew that it would be immediately preceded & overshadowed by release of the Russia report
Tue Jul 21 12:59 Historical atlas of Andalusia
Tue Jul 21 14:25 Comment: @boden_jon @Captain_Bionic You know there's a sustain pedal?
Tue Jul 21 20:21 Doesn't anyone make revolving magic lamps apart from Trousselier, which are a bit twee?
Tue Jul 21 20:42 "Originally used by Klan members to call meetings, this Scene in Action Ku Klux Klan Lamp represents a shameful historical chapter in our history but still should be recognized as the incredible and unique piece that it is"
Tue Jul 21 22:14 "This new business ecosystem will be a natural home for diverse ideas and innovation." One of the demolition contractors on King's College's Jewry/India/Vine St site was called KCL. I believe the chunk of Roman wall + bastion that was downstairs in Roman Wall House survived.
Tue Jul 21 22:17 I always read "PAST FOOD BAR" at Aldgate & imagine rotten chips & garum
Tue Jul 21 22:28 The repetition in "Heaven and earth will pass away / but my words will never pass away" makes it one of the weirdest bits of doggerel in the Bible. Why didn't St Helen's Bishopsgate use King James, which sounds better with "shall"? Nice bit of wall, though, & a favourite interior
Tue Jul 21 22:43 Historia de Barcelona, 22/7: #otd * 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) *…
Wed Jul 22 06:59 Photos of 80s Hackney Unfortunately you can only see the rest if you have a smartphone & Instagram - not very 80s... (H/t @Transblawg )
Wed Jul 22 13:50 If a one-hour hair appointment takes three, it's kidnapping
Wed Jul 22 13:59 Neighbours
Wed Jul 22 14:43 Ngram lesbian vs transgender
Wed Jul 22 15:48 RT @Durotrigesdig: To celebrate the chronological certainty of #HillfortsWednesday (huzzah) here’s the exquisite bivallate 9.3 hectare Iron…
Wed Jul 22 15:51 Comment:
Wed Jul 22 15:58 Assange Road, E1
Wed Jul 22 15:59 Buy the world a God, E1. Hackney graffiti & commercial signs just can't compete with Tower Hamlets.
Wed Jul 22 16:02 Big Brother is watching The House of Toby, and my friend Toby used to love watching Big Brother
Wed Jul 22 18:00 Comment: @petersymon Not as far as I know.
Wed Jul 22 21:22 3D zoetrope & other marvels
Wed Jul 22 21:26 Comment: I lose it when in Process & WALK_short ver. he says "Turn the data into 3DCG & connect it to the time axis through morphing." Break it down man.
Wed Jul 22 22:45 Historia de Barcelona, 23/7: #otd * 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…
Thu Jul 23 07:24 The builder persuaded them using the Russian(?) fairytale about the invisible castle. Cf. Spain's El Algarrobico
Thu Jul 23 07:55 Boris bridges
Thu Jul 23 08:08 Fats Waller on bad government: Rome meant nothing to Nero, He never was a hero. Rome fell to zero, 'Cause he fiddled away
Thu Jul 23 08:11 Swedish Iron Age warriors bearing home Nymö table lamps after a bloody morning at Ikea
Thu Jul 23 11:44 Preaching to Parliament to save Charles I's neck, the English Presbyterian Thomas Watson on the two distinguishing marks of a hypocrite: "1. He is one that is partial in his goodness; zealous in lesser things, and remiss in greater. 2. He makes religion a mask to cover his sin."
Thu Jul 23 11:46 Comment: "He is zealous against a Ceremony, a Relique or painted Glasse, (not that I plead for these) but in the mean time lives in known sinne; Lying, Cozening, Extortion" "Iehu made Religion hold the Stirrop, till he got into the Saddle, and possessed the Crown"
Thu Jul 23 15:04 Comment: @jamesrbuk @gabrielmilland I believe they were to be converted, heralding the Millennium, which is rarely a totally good thing.
Thu Jul 23 15:05 At least the Provisionals didn't make videos
Thu Jul 23 15:07 Comment: @gabrielmilland @jamesrbuk The curious beliefs re Israel of some modern US evangelical sects... Sometimes it's fine not to have friends.
Thu Jul 23 15:09 Everyone knows this, but every new development makes it worse
Thu Jul 23 15:15 Comment: @gabrielmilland @jamesrbuk Hence some rather curious names in my pre-WWI north Welsh family - the Independent churches, which looked back to King Oliver & 17th century radicalism in England, before becoming disillusioned & supporting the Liberals or nationalism. Strange & often splendid stuff.
Thu Jul 23 21:17 Lost the page, but there's a house on Rightmove where the agent's lying lens has generated a piano keyboard so long that all J.S. Bach's children could sit down and play together
Thu Jul 23 21:18 Comment: @ibexsalad Woof
Thu Jul 23 21:19 RT @joncstone: It’s noticeable how even totally ordinary streets in London look beautiful if you remove on-street parking
Thu Jul 23 21:21 The future of Christianity: services in ruined churches ACCOMPANIED BY A BARREL ORGAN
Thu Jul 23 23:49 Historia de Barcelona, 24/7: #otd * 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…
Fri Jul 24 07:13 #otd in Barcelona in 1945: Pétain's Prime Minister & Nazi collaborator Pierre Laval is in Montjuic gaol, knitting sweaters to calm himself. Franco extradites him & he's shot by the French in October.
Fri Jul 24 14:09 Leierkastenmann by Gerhard Thieme in the beer garden of Zu den Arkaden, Berlin. I will worry until I see the bronze cables connecting his legs to the hi-hat & drum on his back. Small wheelbase also worrying me. (H/t @Transblawg )
Fri Jul 24 14:11 It appears that the only local shops enforcing the mask edict are the ones no one visits anyway. (Correlation ≠ cause.)
Fri Jul 24 14:14 Comment: @WateryTom @BorisJohnson No loot on a coot
Fri Jul 24 15:59 Comment: @thisisyogic @portalsoflondon @ForteanLondon @BermondseyTrees @WISE16 @se16 @EtyMagic @EtymologyOTD The Germans say that Opel, the family name of the car baron, comes from Adalbert of Prague, who died in 997 bringing the gospel to the Prussians, so the sign may be decaying meaningfully and in accordance with divine wish
Fri Jul 24 17:11 Comment: @ibexsalad @ArchitecSpain @Corpus_Ruiz Igualico que el dragón peruano en la entrada del convento al lado del Estudio General en Valencia. ¿Cuántos hay en España?
Fri Jul 24 19:18 Comment: @Corpus_Ruiz @ibexsalad @ArchitecSpain
Fri Jul 24 19:20 Sensible thread gets hijacked by pictures of large reptiles on Spanish church/palace walls.
Fri Jul 24 19:30 Nice type (terrible photo) at @Chubb at 100 Leadenhall
Fri Jul 24 19:36 "The death that nailed death. Meet the man who conquers death and commands life." St Helen's Bishopsgate goes against tradition & locates the Mount of the Sermon in the Swiss Alps. Is our Lord looking towards us or towards a future more certain than awaits Friedrich's Wanderer?
Fri Jul 24 19:43 The Thames at Pelican Stairs, Wapping Wall
Fri Jul 24 19:44 RT @EleanorArmsPub: Friday night, no excuse to not try #shepherdneame cask ales.
Fri Jul 24 19:47 Dialect: Where locution meets location
Fri Jul 24 19:49 Image from one of the most musical of C20th Dutch poets, Michel v/d Plas: De bosrand buigt zich nog als het refrein van een psalmodisch ingezet gedicht over de bank
Fri Jul 24 20:02 Comment: @DrFrancisYoung In this still place, remote from men, Sleeps Ossian with fair maidens ten
Fri Jul 24 22:05 Where a pub name takes the definite article, what percentage display it on their sign (e.g. Duke of Wellington vs The Duke of Wellington)?
Fri Jul 24 22:18 Comment: (So we're not talking about a certain George & the Dragon, the latter being Mrs George)
Fri Jul 24 23:54 Historia de Barcelona, 25/7: #otd * 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:…
Sat Jul 25 11:03 The Turkish Cypriot lady in the dry cleaner's (9 grandchildren) often stops Babe on the way back from Hackney Marsh for a chat. - Where is your wife? - At home. She says she's working, but I think she may be asleep. - Don't let her do that. Sleeping makes you weak.
Sat Jul 25 11:53 #FelineLivesAlsoMatter say the Spanish persecutors of bullfighting. Not sure if this makes them racist.
Sat Jul 25 11:55 #otd in Barcelona in 1914, Anaïs Nin is leaving for New York: "No more shall I be able to surrender to nameless thoughts that always come to me in the evening when I lean on the railing of our balcony, in the silence of the night."
Sat Jul 25 19:49 Comment: @petersymon I think we'll need to be quite specific re hits for the particular grammatical construction in names (The Duke of Wellington ≠ The Case is Altered) but there may not be enough pubs left now for the results to be statistically valid.
Sat Jul 25 19:50 Comment: @petersymon I think modern signs are more likely to exclude, given the decline in the popularity of "the" - here's a Google Ngram:
Sat Jul 25 20:13 Bump: the death of "the"
Sat Jul 25 20:14 @RealAleLive Hi, have you got any stats on the omission of the definite article from pub signs, so e.g. The Marquis of Granby -> Marquis of Granby? Many thanks!
Sat Jul 25 20:26 Comment: @thhamilton That is a common trick, but if it turns out that he also thinks that he is a bandicoot, a possum, or a platypus - all nocturnal - then you can triumph by demonstrating that Australian night is our day.
Sat Jul 25 20:27 Comment: @petersymon @RealAleLive I am too shy to ask.
Sat Jul 25 23:56 Historia de Barcelona, 26/7: #otd * 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…
Sun Jul 26 03:47 Siege elephants at Montjuic #otd in 1472. And a bit of my code is broken.
Sun Jul 26 03:51 The BJP relies on vegetarians
Sun Jul 26 04:03 I'm not clear whether in Great Britain people of African descent acquired the right to own property before or after Catholics (Papists Act 1778)
Sun Jul 26 04:13 Comment: This comes in part from the "No Irish, no blacks, no dogs" meme
Sun Jul 26 04:54 Ray King's Sink Symphony (1964) King was a Tory councillor in Oxford
Sun Jul 26 10:05 British experience of shared spaces (pedestrians/cycles/internal combustion) pretty much reflects actual (vs idealised) Dutch: in some places pedestrians dominate the old road space, while in others cars drive at traditional speed on the old pavement space - depends on the people
Sun Jul 26 19:33 Comment: @thisisyogic @merylE11 Spitfire, Lancaster & Hurricane booked to celebrate Chelsea putting 2 past Wolves in 5 tonight, but they banked early so wtf
Sun Jul 26 20:19 Google's coverage of the cricket is really handy, but whoever provides the copy needs to consult Wikipedia
Sun Jul 26 21:30 Comment: @petersymon Did you ever play for Scotland?
Mon Jul 27 00:29 Historia de Barcelona, 27/7: #otd * 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…
Mon Jul 27 07:31 Comment: @petersymon 2 x dix points
Mon Jul 27 08:42 Wondering how many Q2 invoices will get paid. The private sector is for the outcast, the loonies & those with trust funds.
Mon Jul 27 08:51 West Indian gent lying semi-naked in his front garden next a machete with the air of having just fallen from his roof. - Are you OK there? - I have just cut down my tree for the sun and for my muscles. And there indeed is the mutilated stump.
Mon Jul 27 10:19 GP surgery admin. - Many thanks for the referral, but perhaps their not having rung me at 10:49 ten days ago has something to do with their abolition in 2017. - You must have patience. - I might as well wait for the Resurrection. - With that too we must have patience.
Mon Jul 27 10:21 Babe now crawls conventionally instead of dragging herself across the floor like a man who had both his legs shot from under him at Waterloo. All civilisation is at an end.
Mon Jul 27 12:09 Comment: @ibexsalad I totally loved it
Mon Jul 27 13:24 Comment: @petersymon They are homaging the best-known translation of all time
Mon Jul 27 19:02 Benjamin Pollock in 1928 making toy theatre scenes & demonstrating a rather nice example
Tue Jul 28 00:37 Historia de Barcelona, 28/7: #otd * 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…
Tue Jul 28 05:57 People think I should have the broken toe x-rayed simply so that barrel-organ-related injuries show up in the national industrial injuries stats for the first time since 1935
Tue Jul 28 06:07 In Dutch people say (when they think the telescreen isn't listening) that someone is "zo zat als een Turk", "as drunk as a Turk". I wonder if the proverb comes from stories of Ottoman gluttony, like that reported #OTD in Barcelona in 1787
Tue Jul 28 22:16 Historia de Barcelona, 29/7: #otd * 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…
Wed Jul 29 07:44 One of the things I don't get about 19th century Welsh Independents like Simon Jones of Bala is that they viewed themselves as intellectual descendants of the Cromwellian Independents but at the same time supported Home Rule for Ireland
Wed Jul 29 12:07 Tesco woman gave me a look as I walked in & realised I'd forgotten to put on the mask, but then so had half her colleagues, so her attention presumably attracted by the sick on my t-shirt
Wed Jul 29 14:16 Re the neighbours
Wed Jul 29 18:50 First time in Staffs since before the lurgy, & gutted that @GeorgesGnosall still closed...
Wed Jul 29 18:54 Comment: @MamaMammut trombone mute
Wed Jul 29 19:08 #DoggerelOfTheDay
Wed Jul 29 21:53 This water vole clip is all the more enjoyable for the stock music track having accompanied an estate agent's online tour the other day. (BTW: Does the rodent poison laid by the Lee Valley Authority eg by the Waterworks Nature Reserve also kill voles?)
Wed Jul 29 21:58 In circulation, from the Eye
Wed Jul 29 22:03 One of the security guards has Nilotic features & could easily be a grandchild of Sultan Mawien Diing Akol of Aweil, South Sudan. "God bless you!" he always says with great fervour to myself and Babe, and I just need to gather courage & ask what he gets up to on Sundays.
Wed Jul 29 22:19 Historia de Barcelona, 30/7: #otd * 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…
Wed Jul 29 23:00 No. 3 in my series of new transcriptions for trombone and piano of good stuff from the Classical & Romantic repertoire: Che gelida manina, from Puccini's Bohème
Thu Jul 30 05:54 Comment: @JulianChamorroC wtf hijo ¡tenemos una pequeña!
Thu Jul 30 22:19 Historia de Barcelona, 31/7: #otd * 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…
Fri Jul 31 22:58 Historia de Barcelona, 1/8: #otd * 1439: Terremoto (24+6) * ☼ 05:45-20:09, 14:24 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Alfonso María de Ligorio, Pedro Fabro * Agustin, Consejos de jardinería: En Agosto, cogerán el lino,…