Tweets for October 2020

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

Thu Oct 01 20:36 RT @Transblawg: Villiers Street
Thu Oct 01 21:15 Less a house than a seismic event
Thu Oct 01 23:09 Historia de Barcelona, 2/10: #otd * 1410: Protestas provinciales sobre la preponderancia de Barcelona en las Cortes Catalanas (239) * 1701: Felipe V hace una controvertida entrada oficial en Barcelona y jura los fueros (0+613) * 1837: La Junta de…
Fri Oct 02 09:20 λήκυθοςophone
Fri Oct 02 11:28 Comment: @ibexsalad I'm surprised tourist numbers aren't closer to 13%, given reports from Bcn centre
Fri Oct 02 18:44 RT @Freedland: This is up there with the BBC Radio Bedfordshire news bulletin that reported the death of Laurence Olivier with the words: "…
Fri Oct 02 18:52 RT @thesundaytimes: Thousands of people are trapped in fire-risk flats, and millions are unable to sell because they cannot prove their hom…
Fri Oct 02 22:13 I've never put a comma before "anyway", but I like it: "the FDA might approve and distribute the vaccine, anyway"
Fri Oct 02 22:15 Rightmove porn
Fri Oct 02 23:06 Historia de Barcelona, 3/10: #otd * 1557: Procesión para celebrar la victoria española sobre los franceses en la Batalla de San Quintín (20) * 1918: Pla: En aquest temps, les tertúlies reviuen * 1938: Cómo Gran Bretaña puede aprender de los bombardeos de…
Sat Oct 03 08:55 "The first air raids may not be on Central London at all but on the traffic jams around it", or, how Great Britain can learn from the bombing of Barcelona in 1938
Sat Oct 03 10:53 Bottomless Brunch: attractive, but not without risk
Sat Oct 03 21:03 Giuliani, CEO of Covid-19
Sat Oct 03 23:06 Historia de Barcelona, 4/10: #otd * 1614: Primeras fiestas en Barcelona de Santa Teresa de Jesús, que celebra su beatificación venciendo a un cocodrilo volante (830+73) * 1714: La suerte de los restos de las fuerzas leales a Carlos VI (618) * 1848:…
Sun Oct 04 07:33 I'm not saying I believe in reincarnation, but this common frog, guarding the back door against woodlice, looks familiar
Sun Oct 04 07:41 Wasps love making nests out of polystyrene
Sun Oct 04 07:56 Comment: Field mice ditto out of plastic bag rags
Sun Oct 04 09:26 #OTD in Barcelona in 1909: Ramón Clemente García is executed for having danced with the corpse of a nun etc during anti-clerical rioting. With his taste for the macabre he must have relished it.
Sun Oct 04 09:36 "The college's particular strengths are mathematics, religion, the creative and performing arts and sport. " Ofsted: "Requires improvement." Bloody metropolitan elite.
Sun Oct 04 09:38 Hahaha
Sun Oct 04 10:19 If people want bell foundries, maybe they should think a bit more seriously about the church
Sun Oct 04 14:44 The only cladding scandal @guardiannews appears interested in is Grenfell
Sun Oct 04 14:48 might -> may also puzzles me +
Sun Oct 04 18:30 RT @andrewdmalone: Oldbury Hill near Sevenoaks. Apparently the setting for Stig Of The Dump by Clive King.
Sun Oct 04 19:04 Spanish Civil War military architecture
Sun Oct 04 23:35 Historia de Barcelona, 5/10: #otd * 1274: Jaime I instituye el Consejo de Ciento (10) * 1461: 15 mil personas vienen al entierro de Carlos de Viana (17) * 1985: Supuestos simpatizantes de la Organización para la Liberación de Palestina torturan y…
Mon Oct 05 06:08 RT @Ali_Pidsley: A brilliant group of people I'm working with are trying to raise £300k in Community Shares to buy a piece of green belt la…
Mon Oct 05 06:23 Childminders recall those for 4 siblings in 5 years: Mrs Stockley in a Victorian terrace on Millbrook Rd, Fremantle, Southampton; & more faintly Grandma Kitten in Ulster: Kathleen Carson on Ballynagilly Rd near Cookstown?
Mon Oct 05 06:24 Comment: But I see a well in a backyard just before town, & maybe I'm thinking of Ballygowan or Comber in Co. Down
Mon Oct 05 23:30 Historia de Barcelona, 6/10: #otd * 1421: Quillas para 18 barcos que ayudarán a Alfonso V en Nápoles (36) * 1896: El preso José Rizal hace transbordo en Barcelona camino a su ejecución en Manila (855) * 1934: El golpe de estado de Companys, una…
Tue Oct 06 10:06 The notion that books like Young Gums and Clever Batch are bound for mediocrity because weak puns have no place in the serious world of recipes
Tue Oct 06 19:15 The suspicion that the dogs in the park all come up to greet the infant, not because of her superior waving & "hiya!" skills, but because of her endearing habit of smoothing down her flyaway blond locks with salmon grease
Tue Oct 06 19:15 Comment: So, one more shampoo before the end of a marvellous year
Tue Oct 06 21:04 Comment: @yorkpress @hudsonquarter Have they got an EWS1?
Tue Oct 06 23:29 Historia de Barcelona, 7/10: #otd * 1369: El consejo de 25 acuerda comprar la casa de Simón Rovira para construir la casa consistorial (26) * 1488: Primer libro impreso en Barcelona? (30+121) * 1632: Muere el obispo y ex-virrey Joan Sentís (157+50) *…
Wed Oct 07 14:18 Anthropomorph/zoomorph?
Wed Oct 07 14:28 The old toys that draw a tear are at the border between crawling and walking: hodie mihi, cras tibi. Not sure how the petrol can fits in, but it does
Wed Oct 07 14:32 Comment: @Durotrigesdig Sensible precaution - Maiden Castle was widely publicised & attracted savage infants, including one A. ApSimon from Merseyside
Wed Oct 07 14:51 .@hudsonquarter development in York unable to confirm that it has an EWS1 fire safety certificate @yorkpress
Wed Oct 07 20:06 Comment: @hudsonquarter @yorkpress So you'll start marketing once you've got EWS1s, which may take 10 years?
Wed Oct 07 20:10 Curious about new developments going to market without EWS1 @EOCS_Official
Wed Oct 07 20:49 Great 1st birthday episode for the infant with Frankie & Lesley at the @EleanorArmsPub - our favourite @ShepherdNeame pub in London
Wed Oct 07 21:12 It's so long that I've thought about MS BackOffice that I'd completely forgotten Back Orifice
Wed Oct 07 23:29 Historia de Barcelona, 8/10: #otd * 1467: Descuartizados y desollados un barbero y un obrero por haber hecho llaves para Juan II (34) * 1848: Viaje experimental del ferrocarril Barcelona-Mataró (31+88) * 1919: Pla: El doctor Borralleras em parla sovint…
Thu Oct 08 10:24 A leeds is a type of creamware pot
Thu Oct 08 16:53 One Juan calls in name of the NHS & with such a strong accent that I accidentally reply in Spanish & then apologise. No problem, he says, & rattles on happily about this & that in his own tongue.
Thu Oct 08 23:26 Historia de Barcelona, 9/10: #otd * 1517: Llega el nuevo rey de España, Carlos I (13) * 1705: Peterborough toma Barcelona para Carlos y rescata a una guapa de la multitud (367+349/i) * 1806: La Royal Navy roba tres barcos del puerto bajo fuego sin sufrir…
Fri Oct 09 13:38 Little Pete has his barrow organ, Bagpuss his mouse organ, Max Vandervorst an eggcorn organ
Fri Oct 09 13:40 Nominally progressive business refuses to honour the redundant: morale-boosting pumpkin carving event not to feature caricatures of the permanent working-from-homers
Fri Oct 09 18:30 Some of the original Clangers episodes approach genius. Nothing in the modern series can touch them.
Fri Oct 09 23:23 Historia de Barcelona, 10/10: #otd * 1589: Es condenado a muerte un curandero que quería sacar provecho de la peste (18) * 1630: Llevan a la Santa Madrona a la catedral para que llueva, y funciona (100) * 1843: El consúl Lesseps interviene en la Jamancia…
Sat Oct 10 03:25 RT @thorneh: Short video of the main dry valley at Butser Hill. #Hampshire #ButserHill
Sat Oct 10 03:29 Monbiot pretty much refutes himself by picking on John Harding, who rose spectacularly through the ranks through bravery & brilliance
Sat Oct 10 03:32 #OTD in Barcelona in 1389: death sentence for a quack who dished out unregulated plague remedies
Sat Oct 10 03:37 Someone needs to tell Daily Fail hacks how their front page is generated
Sat Oct 10 03:41 The Johnson paradox: let's end freedom of movement ... except for plague carriers arriving at Heathrow
Sat Oct 10 03:42 Comment: Correction: the Soaraway Sun
Sat Oct 10 04:06 Didn't know the coloratura sop Irene Abendroth (1872–1932) - light but lovely (How does the pianist do the repetition in Bel raggio? How does one arrive at Sunset when family names become unavoidable?)
Sat Oct 10 04:56 @KboroSilverBand Your website is down
Sat Oct 10 06:00 For ca. a week, unable to download anything from Google Drive in Chrome without making it public & opening it in an incognito window
Sat Oct 10 06:06 Comment: Ah, 3rd party cookie blocking
Sat Oct 10 23:06 Takes a paracetamol past its use-by & it cures pain he had six months ago
Sat Oct 10 23:11 RT @bobscartoons: .@Telegraph cartoon for Sunday 11th October 2020
Sat Oct 10 23:22 Historia de Barcelona, 11/10: #otd * 1448: Rogativas públicas por las pestilencias (65) * 1570: Noticia de la llegada en Santander de Ana de Austria (18) * 1909: Sentencia en el juicio Ferrer (66) * 1918: Pla: Les persones de la meva edat –i fins i tot…
Sun Oct 11 23:18 Historia de Barcelona, 12/10: #otd * 1497: Noticia de la muerte de Juan, único hijo de los Reyes Católicos (22) * 1778: El Reglamento y Aranceles Reales para el Comercio Libre de España a Indias acaba con el monopolio gaditano y abre los mercados…
Mon Oct 12 06:14 Comment: @KboroSilverBand Thinking of moving to Kboro!
Mon Oct 12 06:22 #OTD in Barcelona in 1778: probably the most important date in its C18th history: Carlos III's free trade decree, removing Cádiz's monopoly on trade with the Americas
Mon Oct 12 11:26 RT @PlanningShit: Jesus Wept! One for @frontofstore #greyplague
Mon Oct 12 14:45 Happy memories of chess friends
Mon Oct 12 18:47 Someone else's hand has shown the moment when a delighted infant watched two dachshunds pursuing a cyclist across Victoria Park
Mon Oct 12 21:38 Estate agents who write "To the first floor" when they mean "On the first floor." Have they invented it to sound weird & thus posh, or does it go back?
Mon Oct 12 23:11 Historia de Barcelona, 13/10: #otd * 1652: La capitulación de Barcelona pone fin a la Sublevación de Cataluña (17) * 1822: Evicción e incarcelación de los capuchinos con pretexto anticlerical y para favorecer intereses inmobiliarios (490+74) * 1843: La…
Tue Oct 13 11:08 Pram-pushed round part of Victoria Park backwards with Akira aka the Angel of History, who says he does it for his health and because life is more interesting thus
Tue Oct 13 14:36 Incredible that at Homerton Hospital there are orderlies walking around with mask off or only covering mouth
Tue Oct 13 23:07 Historia de Barcelona, 14/10: #otd * 1310: Muere Blanca de Nápoles, esposa de Jaime II (13) * 1436: La Cofadría de los Algodoneros de Barcelona se hace con la Espada de San Martín (456+2) * 1819: Antoni Brusi establece la primera prensa litográfica (9) *…
Wed Oct 14 20:36 From Northallerton's Wikipedia entry:
Wed Oct 14 23:36 Historia de Barcelona, 15/10: #otd * 1562: Barcelona de nuevo bajo dominación castellana (176) * 1718: Felipe V firma las ordenanzas del ayuntamiento borbónico, separando la justicia de la administración (0+44) * 1759: Llega desde Nápoles el nuevo rey de…
Thu Oct 15 20:18 One Latina girl to another at Sainsbury's, Foss Bank, York: And I said to him, I promise it you with every lash of my heart (látigo de mi corazón)
Thu Oct 15 20:24 Marvellous C20th church architecture by F.X. Velarde, new to me
Fri Oct 16 19:53 RT @thhamilton: The four genders
Fri Oct 16 20:08 A reminder that there is a street in Ilkley called Golden Butts Goldfinger never stooped so low
Fri Oct 16 23:59 Historia de Barcelona, 17/10: #otd * 1472: Juan II de Aragón toma Barcelona (10) * 1826: Disturbios en Barcelona (151) * 1843: La Jamancia: todavía falta carne, un escape con mucha suerte (502) * 1909: Procesados cuatro franceses por quema de conventos…
Sat Oct 17 08:54 The Parisian murder could have been avoided by covering all public road and pavement surfaces with caricatures of deities from Mohamed to Marx and shooting anyone who plays hopscotch
Sat Oct 17 09:04 English pedestrians seem to be avoiding looking at one another more now -> the notion that this aspect of Spain's poor pavement proxemics are an echo of ancient epidemic precautions - don't show your face or the buggers may breathe on you
Sat Oct 17 23:54 Historia de Barcelona, 18/10: #otd * 1536: Empieza construcción del edificio del Estudi General (25+24) * 1687: El Consejo de Ciento entrega una carta a la Virgen de la Merced pidiendo liberación de una plaga de langostas (765+5) * 1837: Vuelta de la…
Sun Oct 18 07:02 Kind thanks to the gardener on Fulfordgate, York, who left out a load of James Grieves, which the infant is now devouring in their entirety. The pips (like Lego men's heads) come out the other end, so absolutely no cyanide danger
Sun Oct 18 07:41 Great sketch by Josep Pla of a funeral in La Bisbal during the flu epidemic 100 years ago
Sun Oct 18 23:52 Historia de Barcelona, 19/10: #otd * 1843: La Jamancia: entran mujeres para buscar ropa, expropiaciones (246) * 1907: Fundación del periódico Solidaridad Obrera (7) * 1919: Pla: La meteorologia d’octubre, a Barcelona, és molt diversa, d’una varietat…
Mon Oct 19 20:43 Unfortunately not everyone was in the mood for a full English from Mrs Greedy's in Clifton, York
Tue Oct 20 00:20 Historia de Barcelona, 20/10: #otd * 1525: Principio de las negociaciones tras la batalla de Pavía (36) * 1629: Al consejo y al gobernador les cuesta parar una batalla entre los soldados de las galeras de España y "los paysanos" (875+117) * 1843: La…
Tue Oct 20 14:39 Great journalism from the @RomfordRecorder re corruption in Havering
Tue Oct 20 15:14 RT @CommonsHCLG: Did you miss our session with Lord Greenhalgh yesterday? 🖥️ You can watch the whole thing back on Parliament Live: https:…
Tue Oct 20 15:19 Lots of gang activity on B Road featuring a kid with lux clothes & a face of superb, smooth evil
Tue Oct 20 19:53 Having tea in lawyers' front garden this morning when footsteps approached. A frisson of fear - had we been reported to plod? were we within regs? - but it was only the breast architect's girlfriend: "This quarantine shit is bollocks, isn't it?"
Tue Oct 20 19:58 There are 782 pages in the new volume of the Flemish Dialect Dictionary dealing with eating and drinking
Tue Oct 20 20:21 They hardly had any fish
Tue Oct 20 21:10 "I’m hooked on gin and tonics like your mama’s Hooked on Phonics."
Tue Oct 20 21:19 Early C19th Welsh poetry with translations, including numbers about London - its streets of gold & moral licence
Wed Oct 21 00:15 Historia de Barcelona, 21/10: #otd * 1821: Muere Josep Pau Ballot de la fiebre amarilla (13) * 1843: La Jamancia: comida y corrupción (532) * 1845: Ensayo de alumbrado de gas en la fachada de la Capitanía General (195+1240/i) * 1918: Pla: J * ☼…
Wed Oct 21 05:57 I'd like to see some proper Covid-NHS/All Hallows mashups
Wed Oct 21 05:59 Killer glares in Roundhay Park, Leeds, which hasn't got enough swings
Wed Oct 21 06:02 If you're a (Chapel Allerton) solicitor, why pay to fix your footpath when you can simply issue a disclaimer?
Wed Oct 21 06:05 RT @lordbonkers: @keithfrankish A time there was - as one may guess And as, indeed, earth’s testimonies tell - before the birth of consciou…
Wed Oct 21 06:15 The actual quote, from Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading, is more thoughtful:
Wed Oct 21 09:22 Comment: @ibexsalad I think you mean Toryism.
Wed Oct 21 13:30 Comment: @petersymon Even the statisticians are dead.
Wed Oct 21 13:36 RT @george_szirtes: CLASSIC 'Pornstar Martini - a modern classic,' it says in the pub window. That's Norfolk.
Wed Oct 21 18:51 RT @AlinejadMasih: Initially I blurred her face but now she’ is in jail, the world must come to her aid. last comment from the cameraman is…
Thu Oct 22 00:12 Historia de Barcelona, 22/10: #otd * 1511: Imprimidas las Concordie Apothecariorum Barchinone (211+78) * 1748: Prohibición de capas largas, monteras y sombreros gachos (30+439) * 1843: La Jamancia: mucha artillería (759) * 1899: Primer entrenamiento de…
Thu Oct 22 06:20 The site of the old Trawsfynydd Magnox plant near Blaenau Ffestiniog in what was Merioneth, now awaiting some Rolls Royce mini reactors. Lovely photo by William M. Connolley from
Thu Oct 22 06:31 Montpellier is pied noir territory
Thu Oct 22 20:05 Comment: @petersymon Rains more on the west, so perhaps easier to stay outdoors to the east
Fri Oct 23 00:08 Historia de Barcelona, 23/10: #otd * 1492: Llegan los Reyes Católicos tras la toma de Granada para negociar con Francia la devolución del Rosellón y la Cerdaña (21) * 1836: Sale en la prensa francesa la primera versión del cuento del librero asesino de…
Fri Oct 23 05:13 Comment: @petersymon Someone here will like that fact. Though they need more swings in Roundhay Park. Leeds wasn't at all parky the other day, but is probably now in the depths of winter.
Fri Oct 23 05:15 Comment: @lordbonkers The division of green from red?
Fri Oct 23 05:17 Comment: @petersymon I know "parky" as Lancashire dialect, but turns out it's also Scots
Fri Oct 23 05:30 Similar luminous hexagonal slag bricks ("Rosemary setts"/"stable paviours/paviors") are also extensively used in York alleys & backstreets & are referenced by the tiles used by Ushida Findlay at the Centre of Ceramic Art, York Art Gallery. Last photo:
Fri Oct 23 05:36 In a lost corrigendum to the Road Traffic Act 1988, humped zebra crossings are redefined as striped dromedary crossings. Tower Hamlets Council, take note!
Fri Oct 23 05:44 Comment: @petersymon BTW, is "wally" ("idiot") purely southern English, or was there a bit of Mancunian self-deprecation going on there?
Fri Oct 23 05:45 Borat does the subpoenas pun
Fri Oct 23 05:51 Comment: David says they're Scoria bricks by the Tees Scoria Co Ltd - late C19th/early C20th. Made from pig iron slag from the Redcar blast furnaces in South Bank, York. Break them & you smell something sulphurous!
Fri Oct 23 05:55 Comment: Mark Warman (below): Also made at Skinningrove Ironworks. Melilite is a solid solution of akermanite (Ca2MgSi2O7) & gehlenite (Ca2Al2SiO7). A polished section under a microscope showed a mass of interlocking needles typical of a structure formed by rapidly cooling liquid slag
Fri Oct 23 07:35 10:00 Arnold Circus will be the prammed infant's first subversive activity!
Fri Oct 23 12:24 A dangerous woman
Fri Oct 23 12:31 Guess who looked the wrong way
Fri Oct 23 18:44 How did we go from total respect for one's parents to her sticking her foot into my mouth to mute my singing when I dress her?
Fri Oct 23 19:46 WP: Jason Woliner began acting when he was four years old, having been discovered performing in a father/son magician team alongside his father, Alan, who did children's birthday parties under the name "Amazing Alan The Magical Rabbit"
Fri Oct 23 21:02 Reported from a Japanese in Dalston: - Can you turn the music down? It makes everyone shout & that's a Covid risk. - Loud music is part of the concept of this restaurant.
Sat Oct 24 00:37 Historia de Barcelona, 24/10: #otd * ~1576: Salen en procesión 50 peones hacia El Escorial con el Cristo de Benvenuto Cellini, muy supuestamente (144+157) * 1639: Dios rescata a los franceses de un fallido intento de levantar el cerco de Salses…
Sat Oct 24 05:35 A 6-yo acquaintance recently memorised Jabberwocky, which is great, but this is a whole different level:
Sat Oct 24 06:21 Maltese pantomime is a thing
Sat Oct 24 13:54 Comment: @lordbonkers @GrimArtGroup That is a very useful detail.
Sat Oct 24 18:15 Irish lives
Sat Oct 24 18:18 Comment: Someone called me a passport Paddy yesterday, but I don't mind
Sat Oct 24 22:01 Historia de Barcelona, 25/10: #otd * 1843: La Jamancia: falta carne, asesinatos, una huida (148+681) * 1846: Celebraciones de la boda de Isabel II (23) * 1919: Pla: He llegit aquests dies a la Biblioteca de l’Ateneu molts articles de Joan Sardà,…
Sun Oct 25 10:00 Comment: @padsley Fines work wonders.
Sun Oct 25 10:01 Guy who drives round Essex suburbs picking up boxes of apples from outside middle-class garden gates & then sells them at a farmers' market in E London
Sun Oct 25 13:57 RT @PolemicTMM: Regulatory arbitrage
Sun Oct 25 19:53 Skepi, a Guyanese(!) Dutch Creole I'd never heard of
Sun Oct 25 20:23 RT @TimesProperty: What our bricks and mortar say about our country is damning. Peel back the cladding, check the cavity walls and lift up…
Mon Oct 26 00:56 Historia de Barcelona, 26/10: #otd * 1816: Funerales para Mariano Álvarez de Castro, defensor de Gerona (40) * 1843: La Jamancia: nada de carne, deserciones, incompetencia militar (301) * 1846: Instálase la sociedad de Amigos de las bellas artes (10) *…
Mon Oct 26 05:51 However, flight data shows that the Northern League and Prince Fumble were on Jeffrey Epstein's plane at the same time
Mon Oct 26 12:30 I hope someone got a shot of when the truck went by and the message read "Save Argos"
Mon Oct 26 17:57 For fans of Little Britain: there are 24K ghits for "Covid says no", tho many have a comma after "Covid"
Tue Oct 27 00:52 Historia de Barcelona, 27/10: #otd * 1843: La Jamancia: poca fusilería, preparaciones consejo de guerra, ejecución (267) * 1899: Estado de guerra declarado en Barcelona (17) * 1918: Pla: Excursió al mas que els germans Frigola (Enric i Octavi) tenen a…
Tue Oct 27 08:53 Comment: @EOCS_Official @iamlouisesmith @ukcag I'm curious as to whether there's such a thing as indemnity insurance for e.g. housing associations commissioning buildings to cover malfeasance by builders - if there is, why wasn't it taken out, and if there isn't, why haven't insurers spotted this niche
Tue Oct 27 09:30 Comment: @OurArnoldCircus How did you get the piano up?!
Tue Oct 27 10:17 Comment: @thisisyogic @ThisFairField @oldweirdalbion @ForteanLondon @MHAONB @lawrencewarner @JohonSchepe @breach_theatre @Rob_Berry81 @SSAI13 @Barnes_Russell Where did you get it?
Tue Oct 27 10:30 An improbable number of Daves in my life right now, so here are Rol's top 10 David songs
Tue Oct 27 15:02 12 months old & standing at her Casio mini keyboard from Argos like she's freaking Little Richard
Tue Oct 27 16:08 Random quote: "Dehumanisation is viewed as a central component to intergroup violence because it is frequently the most important precursor to moral exclusion"
Tue Oct 27 21:09 1st solo day with the infant today: ca. 60 performances of "Zeg, Roodkapje, waar ga jij heen," that Red Riding Hood song being the go-to upper & downer. Suspicion of Dutch children's songs has diminished now the censors know they are mostly merely about monsters & drunkards
Tue Oct 27 21:47 Comment: @iamlouisesmith @city_m3 @EOCS_Official @ukcag So one wonders why indemnity insurance isn't used by freeholders to cover that shortfall, since you can get it for most other things under the sun. HAs are perfectly aware that we no longer live in a world where virtuous (quasi-)public bodies organise housing for the workers...
Tue Oct 27 22:06 Yoruba proverb: a terrible epidemic requires terrible medicine (image:
Tue Oct 27 22:30 Ngram Brit English "knows no mercy" vs "shows no mercy" - not what I expected - do with me as you will
Wed Oct 28 01:24 Historia de Barcelona, 28/10: #otd * 1473: Una procesión triunfal oculta el fracasado intento de Juan II de recuperar Rosellón y Cerdaña (37) * 1513: Nuestra Señora de Montserrat frustra a una banda de asesinos delante del Portal Nuevo (608) * 1760: La…
Wed Oct 28 08:22 Round Chapel playgroup has a piano, but indoors & apparently generally maskless, so another morning of mud & doggies beckons. (Imperative to maintain our liberties, so that economic chaos may deliver us up to the freedom-loving Chinese government.)
Wed Oct 28 14:38 I'll always love Flann O'Brien's Plain People of Ireland, but the mice in Bagpuss have displaced them as my favourite 20th century dramatic chorus. The Mouse Mill shows them in full glory
Wed Oct 28 14:48 Lift broken, carry infant & pram down 8 storeys, forgot mask, no Tesco, OK, can talk to old SJ on his doorstep. - Hello, come in for a cuppa! - Sorry, no mask. - Have a new one of mine! - Really? OK! It's old, fluffy, brown stained. Now worried less about covid than consumption.
Wed Oct 28 15:12 Comment: Your man is taking well to being world famous ("all thanks to you"): "It hasn't changed me one bit!"
Thu Oct 29 01:22 Historia de Barcelona, 29/10: #otd * 1558: Exequias de Carlos I (27) * 1568: Exequias de Isabel de Valois, esposa de Felipe II (12) * 1841: Empieza el derribo de la ciudadela (110+553/i) * 1843: La Jamancia: llegan voluntarios del Llobregat,…
Thu Oct 29 07:28 One line as yet unused in the school meals drama: the rat man claims that two thirds of Central London's rodent population has died of starvation since March, & we humans don't know how lucky we are
Thu Oct 29 12:40 Some great pre-renovation photos of a Welsh longhouse +- on the Wye. I'm not clear how much vernacular architecture would have differed e.g 60 miles north in Bala
Thu Oct 29 20:15 "This may look like a drunken debauch, but it is actually a business meeting about a concept so innovative & valuable that I can't possibly divulge details"
Thu Oct 29 20:44 Lexical human-animal demarcation in German - really good article by Julia Griebel: I have been called a vreetzak & zuipschuit in Dutch but still walk on two legs
Fri Oct 30 01:21 Historia de Barcelona, 30/10: #otd * 1571: Llegan noticias de Lepanto (22+495) * 1686: Nevada seguida de intensas lluvias (0) * 1806: Una "bruja" de la Barceloneta, delatada a la Inquisición por su marido (691) * 1843: La Jamancia: poco ganado, poca…
Fri Oct 30 06:13 Barcelona #otd in 1571: News arrives of the victory of the Holy League over the Ottomans at Lepanto. Also, Flemish inscriptions on the swagger stick of John of Austria, admiral that day, and the local cult of him in Barcelona.
Fri Oct 30 06:27 James Bond's shoulder holster - good comments
Fri Oct 30 07:25 Comment: @Transblawg More worried about armed bears this morning
Fri Oct 30 13:13 A blue union jack in what I thought was Tower Hamlets, but Google says it's Man City
Fri Oct 30 13:15 Autumn fashion, Rowntree Park, York
Fri Oct 30 13:18 FAO potential purchasers of building plots at Byways - late C20th history
Fri Oct 30 13:43 RT @EOCS_Official: If you haven't already, please do write to your MP. Even if a neighbour has already done so. Keep them updated. Ask t…
Fri Oct 30 13:50 Pepys on the revolt by the deranged & homicidal ultra-Puritan Fifth Monarchists in 1661: "My Lord Mayor, Sir Richd. Browne, hath carried himself very honourably, & hath caused one of their meeting-houses in London to be pulled down."
Fri Oct 30 14:10 Fearing zombie trouble on All Souls' - the dead are just about the only group Rishi has failed to placate
Fri Oct 30 20:00 What's the word for the condition which causes someone (young) to struggle to relate nouns to their pronouns? E.g.: - What a pretty cat! - I've seen it before. - What?
Sat Oct 31 01:16 Historia de Barcelona, 31/10: #otd * 1459: Una gran pedriscada deja la ciudad blanca (0) * 1821: Estragos de la fiebre amarilla debidos a la falta de cuarentena (314) * 1843: La Jamancia: peleas sobre carne, crece el derrotismo (436) * 1847: Fundación de…
Sat Oct 31 06:04 #OTD in Barcelona in 1821: a French doctor re yellow fever & commerce vs quarantine: they squabble & dispute together, whilst the evil enters, ravages, kills & they know not how to cure it; here, all labour, all industry, all prosperity, prostrates itself and dies for a long time
Sat Oct 31 07:14 Comment: Rugge's Diurnal in Gutenberg ed of Pepys, now in the bathroom: "the carcases of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw ... were drawn upon a sledge to Tyburn, and then taken out of their coffins, and in their shrouds hanged by the neck, until the going down of the sun"
Sat Oct 31 07:17 The casting director is probably relishing some contemporary description of Anne Boleyn as a "black woman", which merely means that she was a brunette
Sat Oct 31 07:25 Christmas turkey funeral
Sat Oct 31 07:35 Someone grew up
Sat Oct 31 09:06 RT @EOCS_Official: Homeowners told their properties can't be sold EVEN AFTER cladding has been removed "The bureaucratic nightmare that is…
Sat Oct 31 12:55 People who go and sit in their car while the cleaner's there to comply with restrictions.
Sat Oct 31 13:38 The notion that the Kim Kardashian private island episode was sponsored by the UK gov to test the water for a Christmas break from lockdown
Sat Oct 31 15:51 Regular lockdowns are the new Lenten sacrifice