January 2021 tweets

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

Fri Jan 01 01:36 Historia de Barcelona, 1/1: #otd * ~0370: Nuestro santo obispo Paciano vs el dios cornudo de la fiestas del año nuevo (152+842/i) * 1366: Empiezan a llegar los franceses para ayudar a Pedro del Punyalet (47+9) * 1833: Predicción de la Primera Guerra…
Fri Jan 01 06:43 Matthew Radlett in Nancy Mitford The Pursuit of Love: Abroad is unutterably bloody & foreigners are fiends
Fri Jan 01 08:31 Tommy Cooper told it better: They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they're not laughing now.
Fri Jan 01 13:38 RT @tombcn: Latest tech 😎
Fri Jan 01 17:47 Ngram for the horrors of country life. What happened in the 1930s?
Fri Jan 01 21:09 The great 18th century Shylock, Charles Macklin, as the Scottish knight, Pertinax Macsycophant, in his "Man of the World", a brutal satire
Fri Jan 01 21:12 David Bromberg doing Mr Bojangles
Sat Jan 02 01:31 Historia de Barcelona, 2/1: #otd * 1602: Los Conselleres quieren ser marqueses de Flix (19) * 1808: Establécese la Escuela de Mecánica (11) * 1848: Ser abogado está de moda (236+9) * 1919: Pla: Fa fred * 1929: Se constituye la empresa Hispano-Olivetti…
Sat Jan 02 19:37 Vol III of the 1912 Supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography covers the surnames Neil-Young
Sun Jan 03 01:28 Historia de Barcelona, 3/1: #otd * 1844: Empieza construcción del Museo de Antigüedades de Barcelona (16/i) * 1848: Las rifas semanales (430) * 1904: Primer número de la revista infantil En Patufet (186/i) * 1919: Pla: Calella, hivern * ☼ 08:15-17:35,…
Sun Jan 03 07:58 Birth of a hooligan: tot's pleasure at trying to kick me in the head on the swings is redoubled now she gets a glimpse of her (heavily reduced) Clarks Ferris Run Toddler Grey Combination trainers each time
Sun Jan 03 08:31 Annual reminder from Ezra Pound that Winter is icumen in
Sun Jan 03 14:00 Comment: @charlottelevene I'll handcraft you a pair my darling
Sun Jan 03 14:02 Comment: @padsley Can you still work in Chairmany if you're not a born Lutheran?
Sun Jan 03 15:30 Mrs Porty drinking port and lemon in "The Cuckoo Clock". Ingredients: port wine, lemon juice, soda, sugar. I think of it as a between-wars drink, but other memes are Edwardian, and "You've been watching too much telly-welly Mrs" is later. (Ivor the Engine is teetotal.)
Sun Jan 03 15:53 Google Chat/Hangouts/Voice: what an utter shambles. It's like they're being run by HR
Sun Jan 03 19:46 RT @j_amesmarriott: Its the time of year for Hardy's great poem The Darkling Thrush, written at the very beginning of the twentieth century…
Mon Jan 04 01:19 Historia de Barcelona, 4/1: #otd * 1454: Revaluación oficial del cruzado y del florín aragonés (26+15) * 1458: Juan II huye de la peste (29) * 1698: Tras el Tratado de Ryswich, las tropas españolas reemplazan a las francesas entre alegría popular (185/i)…
Mon Jan 04 11:13 RT @MilesDilworth: It's been 1.3k days since Grenfell, so why have only 202 out of a possible 11,760 dangerous buildings been fixed? How ha…
Mon Jan 04 11:18 BLOG: The great Victoria Park nursery rhyme schism of 2021, in which Retrograde Akira resolves a bitter “Row, row, row your boat” confrontation between Hackney and Tower Hamlets parents. Includes a Newfie joke
Mon Jan 04 13:56 When your mobile disconnects automatically after 27 minutes on hold to HMRC
Mon Jan 04 14:51 British & resident in Spain but barred from return by defective papers? Let me guide you over the high passes in the Pyrenees. Platinum references, experience with bears, & there's bugger all snow at the moment
Mon Jan 04 15:24 Comment: @Master_Plum Haha, and the important thing is not to get lost in a snowstorm & end up back in Ariège!
Mon Jan 04 16:50 Still looking for investors for my Ezra Pound Shop. The real joke is that when the modernists/poets/fascists walk in, they find it sells souvenirs of the ancient Jewish scribe (who ordered men to eat garlic on the Sabbath eve to improve their fornication the following day)
Mon Jan 04 21:34 Holland Disco by The New Dutch Organ Group (1978)
Mon Jan 04 21:35 Comment: With video
Tue Jan 05 01:15 Historia de Barcelona, 5/1: #otd * 1387: Muere Pedro IV de Aragón en el palacio (20+24) * 1848: Llegada y cabalgata de los Reyes Magos (460/i) * 1919: Pla: Diumenge * 1978: El ejército y els Joglars (118) * ☼ 08:15-17:37, 09:21 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
Tue Jan 05 06:55 I'm afraid that during clearance AT took an early C20th Kunst und Spiel building set like this for kindling
Tue Jan 05 14:43 Comment: @tombcn I think there are references to the Generalidad de Cataluña, in Spanish, in the 1610s, and you can find examples from the 1670s in Google Book Search. Your turn Tom. @EsterMunoz85
Tue Jan 05 17:42 Comment: @EsterMunoz85 @tombcn Hahahaha, do you know what a digitised book is?
Tue Jan 05 22:10 From Norman Nicholson, "Windscale" (aka Sellafield): This is a land where the dirt is clean And poison pasture, quick and green, And storm sky, bright and bare; Where sewers flow with milk, and meat is carved up for the fire to eat, And children suffocate in God's fresh air.
Tue Jan 05 22:11 Why does Boris have two flags but Keir only one?
Wed Jan 06 01:40 Historia de Barcelona, 6/1: #otd * 1569: Lucha de fieras cobardes (22/i) * 1640: Salses se rinde a los españoles (421+27) * 1703: Un terremoto protesta contra la situación política (40+53) * 1823: Ntra. Sra. de Monserrat vs. la fiebre amarilla (19+22) *…
Wed Jan 06 07:16 Ginette Neveu playing the Sibelius with Süsskind & the Philharmonia four years before her tragic death
Wed Jan 06 07:21 #DoggerelOfTheDay Frederick J. Johnston-Smith (1897): We piled more wood upon the blazing hearth — More broken planks from off the mould’ring wreck; The billets, all composed of Norway pine, Were evidently portions of the deck
Wed Jan 06 09:15 The Magi's leggings. I thought they were (cowboy) chaps, but I think these cover the buttocks
Wed Jan 06 09:39 Michael Kay of Saxonica on cross-border VAT charging - not just the systematic Chinese scamming of the system
Wed Jan 06 09:40 Comment: @helengrantsays It's as you'd expect
Wed Jan 06 12:21 Among the Vere Gordon Childe works featured in my sale of archaeology books is his extraordinary 1931 final report on Skara Brae on Orkney - a curious landmark in Scottish archaeology
Wed Jan 06 12:59 When the main cupboard contains more than the wardrobe of the lion & the witch
Wed Jan 06 23:14 Historia de Barcelona, 7/1: #otd * 1466: El Consejo de Ciento guarda la fiesta de S. Sebastián por causa de las epidemias (48) * 1637: Nevada (0) * 1789: Gran nevada (38) * 1848: Purificación de Ntra. Sra., degeneración del pesebrisme (885) * 1919: Pla:…
Thu Jan 07 20:11 RT @DrFrancisYoung: @hagenilda We refer to them as Job 1:21s: 'The Lord giveth, and the Lord doth takeaways, blessed be the name of the Lor…
Thu Jan 07 20:19 Our tot takes a digger off a bigger boy in the sandpit. Me to her: Good sharing. His mum: You're meant to say that when you make your child lend something to another one. Me: The {'good' + gerund} formula is quite Orwellian, isn't it. Her: I could tell you were weird.
Thu Jan 07 20:20 I wish I had seen this.
Thu Jan 07 23:13 Historia de Barcelona, 8/1: #otd * 1025: Berenguer Ramón I reconoce los derechos locales de Barcelona (16) * 1561: Funerales de Jaime Cassador, obispo de Barcelona (13) * ☼ 08:15-17:40, 09:25 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22…
Fri Jan 08 07:08 Wally, idiot: OED's first citation is 1922, but surprised they didn't seek its etymology in wallus, Welshman. Cf. walnut, Wallography etc
Fri Jan 08 13:48 When the truth hurts: Laura Gibbs' 100-word stories enter the land of the monkeys
Fri Jan 08 19:41 I have been in the Swiss underground bases at Geneva, & disappointingly they are not full of chocolate. Once at a big function at the US embassy there, way before QAnon, & outside there was a kind of fair run by folk like this - nutters & wannabe Nazis
Fri Jan 08 20:33 Comment: @ArchHistDarling @ray_verrall @FaberBooks @TheSAHGB @C20Society @AllElseIsGooky @Elain540 @alanpowers99 He's still writing letters to Pringle at Faber re layout on 13 August 36
Fri Jan 08 23:40 Historia de Barcelona, 9/1: #otd * 1495: Cese una epidemia de peste (13) * 1875: Regocijos al llegar el nuevo rey, Alfonso XII (337+43/i) * 1919: Pla: Al matí, marxem a Barcelona gairebé tota la família: la meva mare, les meves germanes, el meu germà i…
Sat Jan 09 06:56 Notion that clowns are called after the national delicacy - Jack Pudding in England, Pickled Herring in Holland, Macaroon in Italy
Sat Jan 09 12:09 Marcelle Meyer playing the Scarlatti sonatas - recorded post WWII, but I guess effectively part of the (post-)WWI Parisian Italian Baroque sound which -> the neoclassicism of Stravinsky etc
Sat Jan 09 12:10 Comment: @jmguardia So what are you going to do about it?
Sat Jan 09 14:38 #DoggerelOfTheDay from Benjamin Franklin on the Thames tideline: For age and want save while you may, No morning sun lasts all the day
Sat Jan 09 14:40 Comment: A plate much plagiarised
Sat Jan 09 20:20 "If Shakespeare remains, even today, a small part of the Welsh question, Wales is and has always been a big part of the Shakespeare question." Er.
Sat Jan 09 23:36 Historia de Barcelona, 10/1: #otd * 1401: A pesar de oposición municipal a todo lo académico, Martín I funda una facultad de medicina (0+424) * 1848: La matanza del cerdo, entre el 1 y el 20 de enero (1080/i) * 1899: Los soldados regresan demacrados…
Sun Jan 10 08:53 Australian rabbit doc, but it still seems wrong that there are ca. two humans for every rabbit in the UK (of which a good couple of sentences on warreners). (Where is the S. Spanish location at the beginning @ibexsalad ?)
Sun Jan 10 14:40 Someone inside says that 3 times too many beds in ICU. Time for bigger beds?
Sun Jan 10 16:41 Michael Cleveland doing his thing. The rest of the band are very good musicians
Sun Jan 10 16:44 Someone asked me the other day to rate Mozart vs Michael Jackson - someone who could handle adult emotion when he was barely into his teens vs someone who never managed that all his life
Sun Jan 10 20:02 Vanity academic article publishing by Taylor & Francis - I wonder how much the poor lady was charged
Sun Jan 10 23:29 Historia de Barcelona, 11/1: #otd * 1284: El Consejo de Ciento obtiene de Pedro el Grande el Recognoverunt proceres, consolidando su poder (24+17) * 1849: Disolución via real decreto de una empresa metalúrgica fraudulente (634) * 1919: Pla: Ara que com…
Mon Jan 11 11:26 Looks like caps are back. I think the Guardian's "Black" (though still "white" and "brown") is their tortured way of beginning to acknowledge that no one understands their style manual
Mon Jan 11 14:52 The folks sitting around on Mare Street are quite used to night-time jabs & I'm sure would be happy to help out
Mon Jan 11 19:49 RT @QuireMemes: UPDATE ON SINGING Only one singer is permitted at a time, and they are only allowed to sing an E. So, no change for alto…
Mon Jan 11 22:53 The rabbit-keeper's (triangular) lodge at Rushton, Northants
Mon Jan 11 23:19 Elk encountered in Brussels zoo on the entry into the city of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian in 1517
Mon Jan 11 23:30 Historia de Barcelona, 12/1: #otd * 1554: Consejo de Ciento: ¿qué hacer para Felipe II? (19/i) * ~1872: Llega el general estadounidense Sherman, con muchos ojos puestos en Cuba (31+517) * 1919: Pla: Em donen d’alta a l’Ateneu Barcelonès –soci transeünt:…
Tue Jan 12 23:28 Historia de Barcelona, 13/1: #otd * 1566: Inauguración de la iglesia de los Angeles (19) * 1945: 5 centímetros de nieve (19) * 1991: Los Boixos Nois matan a un francés de las Brigadas Blanquiazules; la vida posterior de un asesino (183+25) * ☼…
Wed Jan 13 05:37 Birdie automaton
Wed Jan 13 05:39 Comment: Via
Wed Jan 13 05:56 Sci-hub criminals continue to facilitate open access to academic papers
Wed Jan 13 06:15 Comment: & so I got to read Kristen Fairey's marvellous reconstruction (with Neil Hauck Architects) of Thomas Tresham's Hawkfield Lodge at Rushton
Wed Jan 13 06:15 Comment: Delicious detail: when Tresham was imprisoned for Catholic recusancy, all that meant was that he had to live in his mansion at Hoxton
Wed Jan 13 06:33 The toddler seems to have acquired the basics of standing on my shoulders & doing a backflip to the ground, & to appreciate the entertainment value thereof. Civilisation is safe, & Little Bear can be proud.
Wed Jan 13 07:34 King Rabbit
Wed Jan 13 07:36 RT @LuisaPorritt: I'm delighted Lib Dem-run @SuttonCouncil has backed @EOCS_Official's 10 demands to protect victims of the cladding scanda…
Wed Jan 13 07:41 Oh bog off
Wed Jan 13 09:45 Comment: @Durotrigesdig Too lazy to google, & wondering whether Whitchurch Canonicorum is an eggcorn for cunicularium, coneygarth. Not to mention the theological jokes about the warrener being to the rabbits as Our Lord is to us poor mortals
Wed Jan 13 10:01 RT @BarnesyJohn: To be honest, I much prefer the earlier clippy-cloppy figure, if this illustration from a map of 1773 is anything to go by…
Wed Jan 13 13:57 Comment: @DrFrancisYoung @RyanTurnbull20 Last year someone on high told me I should have a think about it, but my impression was of a process that was long and corporate and really missed the point of it all
Wed Jan 13 14:00 Comment: @DrFrancisYoung @RyanTurnbull20 My friend is doing quite nicely, thank you!
Wed Jan 13 14:01 This building was put together by the mice from Bagpuss
Wed Jan 13 23:23 Historia de Barcelona, 14/1: #otd * 1466: La suerte del mossen Sort: decapitado con 70 años por la malversación de caudales públicos (22+31) * 1640: Vuelve el diputado militar, Francisco de Tamarite, tras la toma de Salses (24) * 1907: Inauguración del…
Thu Jan 14 06:35 The Aesopian mice in council, by Francis Barlow, who did the frontispiece to Ogilby's 1675 road atlas
Thu Jan 14 06:39 Struggling to remember good Spanish poetry
Thu Jan 14 06:44 If the 2nd dose is nasty, then perhaps it should be administered first
Thu Jan 14 08:42 Howth is pretty high, but ~Dublin-Snowdon is a view I've never seen
Thu Jan 14 08:48 Not stella(r) (a Good Thing) but beer batter (a terrible waste)
Thu Jan 14 10:30 Dutch: plattegrond. C16th English (Thomas Tresham's Rushton estate): platt of grounds.
Thu Jan 14 13:02 An early Jelly Roll Morton gig poster
Thu Jan 14 14:09 - How's napping going? - Fine! I have a nap, & when I wake up the toddler's still moving furniture around.
Thu Jan 14 17:31 Comment: @DrFrancisYoung He was the Devil's corbin of hell
Thu Jan 14 17:44 The tot can do the English th & has moved on from addressing me according to the first line of my CV (error < Trevor) to using the strap on line 2: this & that
Thu Jan 14 17:46 RT @mbk_center: Prosecutors in Udmurtia, Russia 🇷🇺 have launched an investigation after a monkey wearing a Nazi uniform performed at a stat…
Thu Jan 14 23:22 Historia de Barcelona, 15/1: #otd * 1258: Jaime I perdona la multa impuesta a la ciudad por la lapidación de Bernat Marquet; la reorganización del barrio de la Ribera (102+340) * 1475: Con la Concordia de Segovia, la Corona de Aragón se une…
Fri Jan 15 12:16 Old Kurd: The baby should wear more clothes. Me: I did wonder, but in the playground the kids wearing lots move slower, so they're getting both cold and fat. Kurd: But it's freezing today. Me: I have this theory that Kurds only live in the mountains because they're overdressed.
Fri Jan 15 16:54 If life's so interesting she ain't got time for a nap till quarter to five, she should at least pour me a glass before closing her eyes
Fri Jan 15 17:07 If it's not possible to proscribe the demolition of anything associated with Basil Spence, then at least it should be obligatory to construct a replica in India or similar, where light & colour favour him more. The Newcastle Central Library was a massive case in point.
Fri Jan 15 18:44 Typology of shanties
Fri Jan 15 20:57 Comment: @amjuster Thank you for having me!
Fri Jan 15 20:58 RT @Transblawg: How to advertise your services as an estate agent.
Fri Jan 15 21:11 Never trust an analyst who can't spell Beerenburg
Fri Jan 15 23:20 Historia de Barcelona, 16/1: #otd * 1716: Decreto de Nueva Planta de Cataluña (1206+1577) * 1848: Antonio, abogado de los asnos (103) * 1892: Ejecutado el infanticidio Isidro Mompart y Prats (1165/i) * 1912: El mar causa destrozos en las fábricas de la…
Sat Jan 16 07:04 Olympic ornithology
Sat Jan 16 07:21 A penthouse on Sedgwick Street where the blinds are always closed & the lights off, & no one ever uses the substantial roof terrace. But every now and again the terrace door opens a couple of inches & cigarette smoke spirals out. Cf Frederick Forsyth
Sat Jan 16 10:14 If I had space I'd hang onto this classic of Whig/radical political journalism - the first 6 months of the Morning Chronicle under James Perry's control, with revolutions in France & Poland, & Wilberforce, Catholics, smallpox, Paine etc at home
Sat Jan 16 10:23 Comment: Ivon Asquith's 1973 PhD thesis on James Perry & the Morning Chronicle gives a very good all-round view. There may be subsequent books on the subject, but I don't know them
Sat Jan 16 11:46 Comment: @RBornebroek Da's zeker mooi meneer Bornebroek, mer woar steet dat?
Sat Jan 16 23:17 Historia de Barcelona, 17/1: #otd * 1503: Regocijos públicos por la entrada de Felipe I de Castilla (19) * 1641: Pau Claris declara una república catalana (0+274) * 1833: Instálase el colegio de abogados de Barcelona (0) * 1842: Fiesta de San Antonio…
Sun Jan 17 06:38 pOesíA mAl, edging onto the terrain of the Bad Sex in Fiction award
Sun Jan 17 06:41 Sad that the pre-Roman Jurassic Way long distance footpath is only mapped & performed from Banbury, Oxon to Stamford, Lincs, when the limestone ridgeway on which it is based stretches from the Humber to Dorset
Sun Jan 17 06:53 Comment: Bruce Smith has an excellent collection of British drove roads
Sun Jan 17 07:10 Trying to remember the last time the Tories rooted for the SPD
Sun Jan 17 07:16 Comment: #DoggerelOfTheDay from a disappeared inn sign: Be not in haste; Step in and taste Good ale for nothing – tomorrow
Sun Jan 17 13:24 Comment: @AndrewHammel1 I've never heard of a Hispanic one called Estímulo, though there are still plenty of Hitlers
Sun Jan 17 13:33 Toddler's first measured long toddle: 800 m from the Lea Valley Horse Riding Centre along the old aqueduct to the railway bridges at Walthamstow Marsh, at her own insistence & despite aggressive cyclists. Then she did half of Coppermill Lane, despite the unofficial carparking
Sun Jan 17 13:52 The hyphenation of moped at the Too Sweet West Indian takeaway on Chatsworth road is very help to non native speakers like myself, suggesting both pronunciation & etymology
Sun Jan 17 19:44 Don't start me on Steiner
Sun Jan 17 19:44 RT @DeletedWiki: List of people who are alive or are dead
Sun Jan 17 19:56 Comment: @Transblawg Great depression in the Netherlands that they no longer have the most shambolic government in the Union
Sun Jan 17 23:11 Historia de Barcelona, 18/1: #otd * 1665: Gran nevada (0) * 1764: Fundación de la Conferencia Physycomatemática Experimental (21+360) * 1912: La lluvia causa grandes destrozos en el barrio de Pekín (38) * 1919: Pla: M’agrada –a la tarda– de divagar pels…
Mon Jan 18 12:01 Comment: New playgrounds like in Victoria Park are excellent, but have the defects of all social engineering. Far more amusing & educative, then, a street-walk like this AM, rearranging people's front yards, charming plumbers & learning to assess which doggies are risky & which not
Mon Jan 18 23:04 Historia de Barcelona, 19/1: #otd * 1479: Muere Juan II de Aragón, padre de Fernando II, víctima de una orgía litúrgico-musical en Nochebuena (14+130) * 1492: La carta de Fernando el Católico sobre la toma de Granada inicia diez días de fiestas (30+214)…
Tue Jan 19 08:55 A piece of quite shambling incompetence by someone called Alice Mary Smith on BBC Radio 3
Tue Jan 19 11:34 Is EORI (as in the European Union Registration and Identification number for importers/exporters) pronounced Eeyore-y?
Tue Jan 19 20:13 CM message re the tot contains almost as many whilsts as my last school report, but on the bright side she has today worked out how to work the washing machine & oven
Tue Jan 19 20:19 Comment: She also knows how open the freezer & take out fishfingers, but not how to put them on a tray and into the oven, and the ketchup is in the fridge, which is too high
Tue Jan 19 21:12 Two late middle-aged men out for a stroll on Hackney Marsh. "So he's at that time of life when he needs someone around. I mean, I'd ask cousin Kenny, but he can't even turn on a fucking microwave."
Tue Jan 19 21:14 Comment: And I encounter a mad-looking light-brown man, striding along, gesturing and loudly rapping: - Fucking nigga bitch, I said get your blouse out my house. - Blouse and house aren't a really satisfying rhyme. But he has headphones on.
Tue Jan 19 23:02 Historia de Barcelona, 20/1: #otd * 1401: La taula de canvi, la primera tabla de cambios en Europa (80+48) * 1492: Fiesta con confits en la casa del infante Enrique para celebrar la toma de Granada (33+5) * 1640: Vuelve el conseller en cap tras la toma…
Wed Jan 20 07:50 RT @Durotrigesdig: It’s #HillfortsWednesday we’re hearing a lot about #Reconstruction Here’s the epic oval trivallate Iron Age enclosure o…
Wed Jan 20 07:54 A bunch of cladding fire marshals had been watching Netflix in a building's electric riser cabinet, but then they somehow tore the street door off & now shelter in cars from cold & rats
Wed Jan 20 08:22 Comment: Madness. The obit in the Musical Standard 13/12/1884 is generous. Alice Mary Smith would have been unknown when alive had she not been wealthy & would remain so now but for her sex.
Wed Jan 20 08:56 RT @jdmccafferty: Sign of the time, spotted yesterday. A warning in the church reminding people to dry off any residue hand sanitiser bef…
Wed Jan 20 13:20 Most enjoyable videochat with someone from Barcelona Council about tax. Should be premium rate.
Wed Jan 20 15:05 Toddler & her food procurement strategies leading to her increasingly being taken for a graduate of the Roma Academy of Dramatic Arts, for which I will seek credit in due course
Wed Jan 20 17:13 Comment: @thisisyogic Even if they block your credit card, it can still sometimes get you somewhere to stay for the night...
Thu Jan 21 01:54 Historia de Barcelona, 21/1: #otd * 1362: Peste negra (74) * 1464: Desembarca Pedro de Avis para luchar por parte de la oligarquía contra Juan II (25) * 1937: La Consejería de Abastos anuncia la Oficina del Huevo (262) * ☼ 08:10-17:55, 09:45 horas; ☾…
Thu Jan 21 13:35 So pleased to have closed my account with CaixaBank & to now be using @Transferwise for all that, inc. direct debits. Way cheaper & excellent customer service
Thu Jan 21 13:39 - So why when you were telling her Riding Hood did granny eat the wolf, & why did the pumpkin in the next story have 12 legs & his lady friend only 1, making a pretty weird sound? - She was about to realise that she wasn't being fed to sleep: distraction, distraction, distraction
Thu Jan 21 13:40 Comment: @CarolinePidgeon @MayorofLondon Nice one Caroline!
Thu Jan 21 14:19 Comment: - Where's the hairbrush? - Yes. (Comes back with police truncheon.)
Thu Jan 21 15:24 Childish/childlike in Dutch - kinderachtig/kinderlijk
Thu Jan 21 19:22 Abhominacioun I went to very few lectures at uni, but I did borrow & sit in bed working my way thru the English Lit list, & very cheerful Chaucer & Co. made me too
Thu Jan 21 19:41 Reeds mijn zusje werd gedragen naar de akker van de dood
Thu Jan 21 19:43 A ghost ghost
Thu Jan 21 20:44 All one needs to know this weekend: the good Turk on Chatsworth Road (MFR) has Seville oranges at 1.79/kg loose while Tesco is 2 quid with a pretty box I do miss the 2020 lockdown parking barriers
Fri Jan 22 01:52 Historia de Barcelona, 22/1: #otd * 1628: Mucha lluvia y nieve (13) * 1899: Inscripciones felinas para un certamen en els Quatre Gats (269/i) * 1919: Pla: A primera hora del matí, quan vaig a la Universitat, trobo de vegades, senyoretes amb mantellina,…
Fri Jan 22 13:14 Trickle-up economics in practice: old people I & the toddler know from doorstep conversations trying to give us potatoes, biscuits, tea, anything, because they can't get through all the bloody food parcels. Maybe it's time to start a supermarket now shop rents are low
Fri Jan 22 13:43 Romano-British rat drinking a yard of ale
Fri Jan 22 13:52 "Life's a ratchet not a pendulum," says Richard Littlejohn
Fri Jan 22 14:04 Comment: World-upside-down image of a mouse drinking wine while a cat has none from ancient Egypt Re the yard of ale: could Roman glassblowers have managed that?
Fri Jan 22 16:52 Sweet Chinese girl gives the toddler a revolting piece of white bread to feed the ducks, but charity definitely begins at home
Fri Jan 22 16:53 Comment: @EOCS_Official @Conservatives Just curious why @UKLabour don't seem to be supporting this
Fri Jan 22 20:47 Ecclesiastical Viagra
Sat Jan 23 01:51 Historia de Barcelona, 23/1: #otd * 1641: Tras una semana de república catalana y antes de llegar el ejército de Felipe IV, Pau Claris se corrige y proclama Luis XIII Conde de Barcelona, pasando Cataluña a soberania francesa (0+97) * 1775: Se abre la…
Sat Jan 23 06:03 Ryan has showered in musk & absinthe & now resplends in leopard-skin lycra over his atrophied zoomer legs, fluffy lilac coat & gold chain. - I hope you got the big box of Muscle Food the postie left. - I need to keep in shape for work. - Are you a dustman? - I work in fashion.
Sat Jan 23 06:06 So, Mr Shakespeare, who is Sylvia?
Sat Jan 23 06:16 Comment: John McCormack is one of the most curious recordings of the Schubert I didn't know the anecdote about when he encouraged James Joyce to launch a singing career (of sorts).
Sat Jan 23 06:46 A Jesuit displayed ... amidst the Popish plots of the 1670s & 80s as a surrealist, demonic pedlar of tools & other household implements. John Tradescant in the verse is the uncontroversial Suffolk plant collector
Sat Jan 23 07:00 The old Great North Road/Ermine Street/A10 from the City through Shoreditch, Kingsland (Hackney & Islington exits), (Stoke) Newington & Tottenham to the ford at Great Barwick in Herts, from the frontispiece to Ogilby's pioneering 1675 road atlas of Britain
Sat Jan 23 17:45 Crazed scribe Nelson Summers is back with more tales of Barcelona & beyond
Sun Jan 24 01:47 Historia de Barcelona, 24/1: #otd * 1336: Muere en Barcelona Alfonso IV de Aragón (13/i) * 1809: Decreto proteccionista a favor de los fabricantes barceloneses (189) * 1848: Víspera de la conversión de San Pablo (23) * 1919: Pla: En passar aquest matí…
Sun Jan 24 07:46 Franco & Aeschylus' Persians
Sun Jan 24 12:21 Cos that really worked in Catalonia. Expect a massive increase in the prison budget before then.
Sun Jan 24 12:30 London snow is fine, but for the real stuff go to Barcelona
Sun Jan 24 19:15 Given current circumstances, the Commune of Bugliano, Pisa prohibits further use of the word "resilience" & recommends use of a thesaurus Issa choke
Sun Jan 24 19:44 People quite often come up & greet the toddler by name, but I can't even remember what day it is
Sun Jan 24 20:06 I wish the dates on offer in my spam folder were the fruit of the eponymous palm
Mon Jan 25 01:43 Historia de Barcelona, 25/1: #otd * 1464: El anti-rey Pedro jura los fueros (15) * 1848: San Pablo y sus gitanos, chuchería y dentistas, niños epilépticos y barbas (448) * 1919: Pla: Ateneu, de quatre a set de la tarda * 1937: Batalla del Huevo (135+95)…
Mon Jan 25 12:11 Another bunch of Christmas cards today which have spent 5 weeks with Royal Mail - negative correlation share price/mail performance
Mon Jan 25 17:08 I think "third parties" has also come to mean "others" - can't imagine who the second party might be in this case
Mon Jan 25 19:22 RT @DrFrancisYoung: There are some wonderful photographs. Take a look at this beauty - interior of @RCEastAnglia's oldest continuously func…
Mon Jan 25 19:25 One pot of pre-pandemic organ-ground marmalade left!
Tue Jan 26 01:41 Historia de Barcelona, 26/1: #otd * 1460: Juan II de Aragón es obligado a reconocer a su hijo Carlos como gobernador de Cataluña (30) * 1641: La batalla de Montjuic, primera victoria para la Cataluña borbónico-francesa contra las fuerzas de Felipe IV (0)…
Tue Jan 26 08:21 Comment: Seville oranges at the Turk on Chatsworth Road are now suddenly 2.99/kg, so it's back to Mr Cohen on Well Street at 2.00 with a fancy box
Tue Jan 26 08:22 RT @DrFrancisYoung: The great thing about vampire-hunting companies is that the employees are always stakeholders
Tue Jan 26 11:26 Comment: Though: - Here are some grapes for the toddler. - Ooh! thank you! I'll just bite them in half so she doesn't choke to death. - It's OK, they're seedless.
Tue Jan 26 13:15 Marvellous Congregationalist chapel interior in rural Carmarthen - soon to be flats & I guess the pews will be burnt since there aren't going to be any pubs to take them
Tue Jan 26 13:56 Why can't you get full fat crème fraîche any more? Is this also the fault of Boris?
Tue Jan 26 19:43 The West's retaliation against the people of Wuhan is utterly bizarre
Tue Jan 26 19:52 I actually preferred it when they got hydrophobia
Tue Jan 26 23:19 Historia de Barcelona, 27/1: #otd * 1641: Destrozado el ejército habsburgo en la Batalla de Montjuic (1093) * 1899: Nieva (25) * 1939: Dionisio Ridruejo: alivio y alegría al entrar los nacionales (325) * ☼ 08:05-18:02, 09:57 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
Tue Jan 26 23:19 I've posted a free epub/mobi download of The State of England in 1685 by Lord Macaulay, being Chapter 3, Volume 1 of his marvellous History of England: Whiggism unbound
Wed Jan 27 08:17 An example: councils like LimDem York using Facebook to broadcast to & take feedback from residents, disenfranchising those who don't use it or have been kicked off
Wed Jan 27 20:00 Comment: The CCTV camera turned out to be real, but didn't work, so it's just as well the Met didn't get round to requesting the CCTV, despite several calls from them at the beginning assuring that they were dead keen to get on top of the gang, who haven't gone away
Wed Jan 27 20:07 Infant now fluent in "yes" but not "no", so consent-based care consists of framing all questions accordingly. "Would you actually like that cabbage you just threw on the floor?"
Wed Jan 27 21:48 The Shostakovich Satires, by the man & Galina Vishnevskaya Extraordinary stuff
Wed Jan 27 23:16 Historia de Barcelona, 28/1: #otd * 1530: Alianza entre Carlos I y las repúblicas italianas (14) * 1534: Plantan naranjos en el Palacio de la Generalidad (16) * 1627: Gran nevada (10+7) * ~1629: Pasquín contra Barcelona con respuesta contra Madrid (220)…
Thu Jan 28 08:04 RT @julianborger: "I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent boy, aged 11." This was the personal ad my Viennese grandparents p…
Thu Jan 28 08:06 RT @EOCS_Official: Sir @KeirStarmer will be on @LBC at 9am today with @NickFerrariLBC. Call 0345 60 60 973 to ask Sir Keir how he plans to…
Thu Jan 28 12:37 Comment: @EOCS_Official @Keir_Starmer @LBC @UKLabour Labour will almost certainly lose the cladding vote on Monday, so will they commit to compensating leaseholders when they come to power?
Thu Jan 28 21:28 My docs are all in a removals box in Barcelona, so for bureaucratic purposes the council (whose writings are a constant source of amusement) have asked me to take a literacy test to prove that I have a basic command of English. Now I am getting nervous.
Thu Jan 28 23:13 Historia de Barcelona, 29/1: #otd * 1640: Procesión general para dar gracias por la victoria de Salses (33) * 1680: Abre la Casa de Convalecencia en el Hospital de la Santa Cruz (9+308) * 1939: Pla publica su "lección terrible" (544+27) * ☼ 08:03-18:05,…
Fri Jan 29 15:56 Now waiting for my extensive experience with Belgian contract law to start paying off in the form of work
Fri Jan 29 17:12 Toddler at 15 months refused to get in pram & instead walked 1500 m in 90 min to the café in Victoria Park. That's more than some of her relatives have walked this year, & far more interesting in terms of encounters (alarums & excursions...) than the park itself.
Fri Jan 29 19:38 Comment: And I did bioinformatics for a company now owned by AstraZeneca. I could become a secret agent if I didn't have to make pizza
Fri Jan 29 19:42 Why's health service nationalism admirable & vaccine nationalism despicable?
Fri Jan 29 20:02 The blind accordion player forcing his way through the piazza at the beginning of Amarcord is alive and well in Stoke Newington, as a panicky old lady making her way up the High Street shouting, "Get out of my way!"
Fri Jan 29 23:12 Historia de Barcelona, 30/1: #otd * 1466: El concejo de 32 manda fabricar una imagen del ángel custodio para proteger la ciudad de la peste; la leyenda de la Puerta del Angel (49+844) * 1563: Conducta disoluta del conseller en cap (35+22) * 1784: Una…
Fri Jan 29 23:33 On the River Zaan in the Netherlands. Plenty of lifting bridges, with the (industrial heritage) Zaanse Schans windmills & relocated buildings at 1:30
Sat Jan 30 07:31 Archbishop of Canterbury & Capital says the EU (whose flag suggests to nonconformists a neo-Popish plot) isn't Christian! Schism in the EUcumene!
Sat Jan 30 08:01 The dog poodemic is a real thing - quite revolting around Hackney. And nowhere to leave the dogs when it's all over, with all these smart motorways
Sat Jan 30 09:27 While the Labour Party & LibDems faff around with rival virtue-signalling amendments & the Guardian keeps quiet, the right-wing press is going after the government on #EndOurCladdingScandal
Sat Jan 30 12:14 Lawrence of Arabia failing to blow up an Ottoman troop train with an IED, one of many illustrations by the great war artist Eric Kennington from the 1935 1st edition for general circulation of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Sat Jan 30 23:38 Historia de Barcelona, 31/1: #otd * 1628: Conmemoración de los 26 cristianos crucificados en Japón en 1597 (670+3/i) * 1785: Empieza construcción del edificio de la aduana (9) * 1809: Prohibido el paso de caballos y carruajes por la Rambla (128) * 1919:…
Sun Jan 31 13:04 RT @EOCS_Official: 'The government must make builders pay for their greed'. We're hoping that cross party action takes place to ensure tho…