Tweets for August 2021

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

Sun Aug 01 00:40 Historia de Barcelona, 1/8: #otd * 1439: Terremoto (24+6) * ☼ 05:45-20:10, 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,…
Sun Aug 01 17:11 Comment: @ibexsalad Ja ho sabia: ets català
Mon Aug 02 00:46 Historia de Barcelona, 2/8: #otd * 1439: Bendición de la primera piedra del antiguo puerto (269+193) * 1492: Expulsión de los judíos impenitentes (134) * 1597: Derribado por la ciudad el teatro de madera de los actores y del Hospital de la Santa Cruz…
Mon Aug 02 16:38 Oliver Postage
Mon Aug 02 20:33 RT @Transblawg: Machine translation and legal translation - new post
Tue Aug 03 00:59 Historia de Barcelona, 3/8: #otd * 1568: Llega noticia de la muerte del primogénito de Felipe II (29+26) * 1640: Juran el obispo por virrey, tras morirse dos en siete semanas, pero ya nadie le toma en serio (148) * 1848: Fiesta de santo Domingo de…
Tue Aug 03 18:48 RT @frome_maude: Springtime of Flight, by Tirzah Garwood, 1950. One of only 20 paintings made by the artist, who was married to Eric Ravili…
Tue Aug 03 19:34 Samuel Butler on multilingualism
Tue Aug 03 22:04 Historia de Barcelona, 4/8: #otd * 1567: Derrumbada parte de la muralla de las Atarazanas para dejar salir una super-galera (32) * 1632: Llega noticia de la muerte del infante Carlos; la administración municipal no reacciona (112) * 1754: La iglesia…
Wed Aug 04 10:04 A Polish predecessor of Tom Lehrer's Masochism Tango
Wed Aug 04 19:43 Good for @UKLabour
Wed Aug 04 19:46 Comment: Hazlitt cites the Butler in "On the ignorance of the learned" (, much of which applies to our prancing prannock of a premier
Wed Aug 04 19:49 Trying to teach the toddler to compound the name of her new favourite beverage with another, initial noun like "apple" or "orange" so that the Hassidim in Sainsbury's no longer start in fear when she shouts "Jews!"
Wed Aug 04 19:50 Comment: I suppose Trumpian orange Jews might still take exception, but we'll cross that bridge
Wed Aug 04 22:16 Historia de Barcelona, 5/8: #otd * 1391: Primer día de la revuelta antijudía (35+6) * 1410: Terremoto y epidemia de la peste (18+6) * 1477: Torneo para celebrar el matrimonio de Juana, hija de Juan II, con Fernando I de Nápoles (29) * 1835: Se quema la…
Thu Aug 05 07:53 Comment: @tombcn Bismarck, foreseeing difficulties, said of Kaiser Willy that he thought every day was his birthday
Thu Aug 05 08:25 "Two Punch & Judy performers say they are fed up with being subjected to foul-mouthed tirades when they ask spectators for a £2 fee to watch. Audiences assume that because the shows are on public beaches they are free." Post cash we're all doomed anyway
Thu Aug 05 11:20 Comment: @HeadingleyMkt hiya, is the music going to be that little jazz band who played a couple of months ago?
Thu Aug 05 20:32 This is deranged - @HighwaysEngland infilling & otherwise destroying old railway bridges etc
Thu Aug 05 20:33 An art gallery can't reasonably complain if they give toddlers crayons near a nice white marble statue & then accidents happen
Thu Aug 05 22:26 Historia de Barcelona, 6/8: #otd * 1391: Segundo día de la revuelta antijudía (22) * 1424: Alfonso V celebra fiestas en el Born (21) * 1477: Coronada reina de Nápoles la infanta Juana, hija de Juan II (26) * 1714: Ejecuciones masivas de rebeldes (155) *…
Fri Aug 06 11:09 Comment: @Transblawg The fact that I used to work with a lovely Dutchman called Dick Kissing counts for nothing in this barbaric age
Fri Aug 06 11:10 Toddler ecstatic having wolfed a fiver's worth of rain-wet redcurrants from a plant outside Waitrose at Meanwood
Fri Aug 06 22:34 Historia de Barcelona, 7/8: #otd * 1391: Tercer día de la revuelta antijudía (288) * 1559: Rogativas públicas para el viaje de Felipe II desde Bruselas (21) * 1848: Fiesta de san Alberto de Sicilia (20) * ☼ 05:51-20:02, 14:11 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
Sat Aug 07 06:35 Dreamt that the historian Michael Twaddle was a secret trombonist
Sat Aug 07 08:25 Toddler sings along with chorus of old Mexican song: So sleep, my pretty baby Follow dream-paths through the night You shall waken to birdsong And sunrise for your delight. Ay yay yay, ay yay yay etc
Sat Aug 07 08:50 Egbert vs Ecgberht: inability to remember new spellings of Anglo-Saxon names parallels struggle with LGBTblah
Sat Aug 07 09:16 The notion that Bede was so into music and recitation because it helped him cure himself of a hypothetical speech impediment
Sat Aug 07 18:30 "A brass band swings like a statue's dick"
Sat Aug 07 19:00 The toddler enjoys the passers-by
Sat Aug 07 22:37 Historia de Barcelona, 8/8: #otd * 1488: Los Reyes Católicos juran los fueros (18+3) * 1899: Indemnizaciones para los herederos de los propietarios desalojados de la Ribera en 1715 (202) * 1918: Pla: La mar * ☼ 05:52-20:01, 14:09 horas; ☾ luna…
Sun Aug 08 06:27 Weather Underground went the way it went, but the UMich site is still there
Sun Aug 08 06:28 RT @lordbonkers: John McGovern does an impression of Brian Clough performing AC/DC's Whole Lotta Rosie
Sun Aug 08 18:47 Thanks to the lady at the club who spotted the toddler asleep on my right shoulder and moved my pint to my left. "Someone's got you wrapped round her little finger."
Sun Aug 08 22:50 Historia de Barcelona, 9/8: #otd * 1909: Más violencia, temor de una nueva huelga general (63) * 1919: Pla: He fet el servei militar a Girona, al regiment d’Àsia número 55 d’infanteria de guarnició en aquesta ciutat * 1939: La Vanguardia: el Segundo…
Mon Aug 09 16:24 Infant son of the Saudi interior ministry guy: - Where are you going? - To the pub. - To the pump? - To the pub. - What's that? - Where people drink beer & tell terrible jokes. - Can I come? Whereupon papa realises what's going on: - Ah, thank you very much, bye!
Mon Aug 09 16:25 Was Messi faking?
Mon Aug 09 22:59 Historia de Barcelona, 10/8: #otd * 1218: Fundación por Pedro Nolasco de la Orden de la Merced en presencia de Jaime I y el obispo Berenguer de Palou (506+23) * 1475: Peste (21) * 1629: Entra el gran estratega militar Ambrogio Spinola, destrozado…
Tue Aug 10 07:11 RT @AndrewHammel1: Two albums on display at #heimatindustrie record store in the #brunnenstraße in #bilk in #duesseldorf.
Tue Aug 10 18:41 Comment: @Transblawg That sounds very interesting. I hope you were expecting it.
Tue Aug 10 18:43 Toddler delighted with the quality and quantity of @Weegmanns pork pies
Tue Aug 10 19:25 Comment: @Transblawg You could write an archaeology of builder's left-behinds in a lot of gardens
Tue Aug 10 19:30 X84 bus Otley-Leeds left 16:55 (advertised 16:30) & arrived Headingley 17:50 (17:00) thru mad traffic into town, in mid August when half population is WFH. Yet local (Lab) & national (Tory) politicos think it's OK to build 1000s more houses on the route without +infrastructure
Tue Aug 10 19:31 Comment: BTW: Curious that the London weighting is put down in part to higher transport costs, when TfL is way cheaper than regional equivalents
Tue Aug 10 19:59 Comment: @jennitpk Of course housing costs etc are way lower in Leeds, but I'm surprised that transport continues to be cited as a contributory factor in the LW, when public transport is so poor(ly managed) in most places outside the reach of TfL that an (expensive) car becomes a requirement
Tue Aug 10 20:01 Comment: @jennitpk I'd say that groceries and other consumables are also more expensive in Leeds, but for a really tough comparison look at Cambridge, where just about everything is as expensive as London but there's no weighting. It's not because civil servants live in London, is it?
Tue Aug 10 23:05 Historia de Barcelona, 11/8: #otd * 1848: El nuevo culto de Santa Filomena (77+38) * 1936: Interrogatorio al general rebelde Fernández Burriel durante el consejo de guerra (340) * 1945: Reacciones barcelonesas ante las bombas sobre Hiroshima y Nagasaki…
Wed Aug 11 08:45 B started at grammar school last year: The only teacher who made an effort with online classes was English, who was also caring for her kid during Zoom calls. The rest just said, Here are a couple of things from the curriculum, go look them up.
Wed Aug 11 08:49 Comment: @Transblawg Those chimneys are freakish, & the new is no improvement. Builders are everywhere. Do they ever go genuinely bankrupt?
Wed Aug 11 12:46 @FortisVision, re the people you are employing at James Baillie Park, Leeds for @LeedsUniAccom, can you ask the driver of EJ61 EGV & the colleague he was chasing down North Hill Road to calm down? The pavements are full of crap and old people & kids walk on the road
Wed Aug 11 18:44 S. thinks the new neighbours (M, F, boy) are CCP and plans to ask them if they are Vietnamese. Every evening follows a set programme of execrable but orderly violining followed by physical jerks in the road and sport in the garden.
Wed Aug 11 18:46 Comment: What attracts academics from repressive oligarchies to Babylon? Or do they go everywhere?
Wed Aug 11 18:48 Comment: Another encounter. Boy in the back seat of the car asking questions through the window, grandma in front passenger seat looking rigidly ahead through her cloth vizor. Mum and any sisters are presumably out in the desert, safe from wandering fools. How is one to engage with that?
Wed Aug 11 19:23 I recite numbers 1-9 as part of a toddler handover routine, & now, reflecting ancestral flippance & obtusity, she has started doing the same, but 2-10 (or 13)
Wed Aug 11 19:24 Comment: Possessive pronouns are also in fashion, & I am beginning to realise the true extent of my poverty
Wed Aug 11 19:27 Comment: @jennitpk I was really surprised, but I think the death of the high street is even more pronounced out here, & the economies of scale less.
Wed Aug 11 19:28 Comment: @jennitpk In Hackney I could walk to the local Tesco Met & pick up a lot of almost-sell-by perishables, comparing prices with half a dozen Turkish greengrocers. Here, there are no ethnic shops worth speaking of (the Pakistani grocers are pretty bad) & there's not the same throng of supers
Wed Aug 11 19:29 Comment: @jennitpk So pretty much everything is bought online, which is way more expensive (and worse quality, particularly for fruit & veg)
Wed Aug 11 19:31 Comment: @jennitpk I think that's the case in Cambridge, but that generally speaking tradition also plays a role in slowing wage inflation - costs may shoot up, but people still think of a job as being worth X.
Wed Aug 11 19:32 Comment: @jennitpk Ah, I didn't realise that. My last proper job in London was private sector & had a car allowance, generous for someone without a licence, but that was it.
Wed Aug 11 23:48 Historia de Barcelona, 12/8: #otd * 1506: Primera entrada en la ciudad de Germana de Foix, segunda esposa de Fernando II (32) * 1640: Robo de correos para descubrir las intenciones de Felipe IV (389/i) * 1848: Santa Clara y la vergüenza (115) * 1936:…
Thu Aug 12 04:25 Elgar Howarth: "They say that the definition of a cultured man is one that can listen to Rossini's William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger." Not sure anyone would get either reference now
Thu Aug 12 04:28 Only noticed last night that the moustache of OAP Richard, who, assisted by ex-guide-dog Spencer, throws chicken drumsticks to a size-ordered row of foxes at 10 in the nuns' carpark, resembles two small fox brushes stuck together in the middle
Thu Aug 12 04:29 Comment: The only fox he has named is the smallest, Baby. Perhaps he is considering moustache renovation
Thu Aug 12 08:14 Insolvable/insoluble/unsolvable. Unsolvable appears in several papers, so presumably ex the Windsor leaker. Increasingly popular, but still a marker of folks incapable of accepting that a word originally associated with bowels can be transferred to chemistry & thence to problems?
Thu Aug 12 17:31 The toddler announces that she doesn't like blackberries, whereupon we meet a Pakistani gent (+ own toddler) who tells of an ancient mulberry nearby, whose fruit the toddler turns out to adore
Thu Aug 12 17:45 Comment: But then she discovers a wake (not woke) buffet at the club, & all the good work is for naught
Thu Aug 12 23:57 Historia de Barcelona, 13/8: #otd * 1522: Desembarca Adriano VI, ex ayo de Carlos I (33) * 1810: La política lingüística de los franceses (163) * 1836: Proclámase por segunda vez la constitucion de 1812 (10) * 1873: Sale para Francia el vapor Internet…
Fri Aug 13 05:35 Pretty sure this is a Van Kooten & De Bie character, in the style of the subtitled clip
Fri Aug 13 05:54 No 25 on the 2018 GreenLeft list for Deventer spilt ash in my dream-food last night
Fri Aug 13 13:44 Frans's open letter re the Netherlands' nitrogen crisis etc
Fri Aug 13 13:53 In Brussels they also erect their meiboom/maypole in August without changing its name (the Swedes in contrast use midsommarstång for their midsummer pole). Is this some lunar or Julian calendar incongruity?
Fri Aug 13 19:37 Everyone thinks William Wilberforce said "You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know," but no one seems to have a source. Is it an invention?
Fri Aug 13 20:15 Marvell on Holland
Fri Aug 13 23:47 Historia de Barcelona, 14/8: #otd * 1321: Decapitación para los banqueros insolventes (785) * 1373: El Consejo de Ciento se instala en el nuevo salon de la casa de la ciudad (19) * 1630: Llega noticia del inicio del proceso de beatificación de Olegario…
Sat Aug 14 11:22 No blood poisoning, but the blackberry thorn that went into my hand yesterday hurt more than either AZ jab
Sat Aug 14 11:44 Comment: @Transblawg Babylon-on-Hill has villa gardens where a contractor mows the grass but not the blackberries, generally domesticated & v different from the Marshes - much redder jam, & I was worrying needlessly about pectin. Major prob is small one's current focus on strawberries
Sat Aug 14 11:58 Abolish the sugar tax & we won't need heat pumps to keep us warm
Sat Aug 14 12:03 Comment: @Transblawg Ah, if only! Found an abandoned red jostaberry the other day - an incredible thing
Sat Aug 14 23:36 Historia de Barcelona, 15/8: #otd * 1452: Menú al monasterio de Santa Ana para la fiesta de la Asunción (33) * 1848: Inauguración del Mercado de Santa Caterina (19) * 1890: Un inquilino da las llaves a un clan de gitanos para vengarse del propietario…
Sun Aug 15 23:26 Historia de Barcelona, 16/8: #otd * 1291: Llega Jaime II de Sicilia para ocupar el trono de Aragón (13) * 1572: Nuestra Señora de Montserrat salva a cuatro pescadores de los moros (173) * 1589: La constitución de la cofradía de san Roque da principio a…
Mon Aug 16 10:35 One more for the metrical index
Mon Aug 16 23:15 Historia de Barcelona, 17/8: #otd * 1510: Noticia de la toma de Tripoli (8+219) * 1918: Pla: Dia mort, nuvolós, amb una gran pesadesa a l’aire i un cel de xafogor * 1919: Pla: Calella-Canadell * ☼ 06:01-19:49, 13:48 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación…
Tue Aug 17 07:47 Comment: @tombcn Expand, please
Tue Aug 17 07:48 Ah, for the processions of the secular-led (Hispanophone) revival in the Barcelona region
Tue Aug 17 13:29 Comment: @tombcn Oh dear!
Tue Aug 17 13:34 Toddler doing an excellent job, selecting low-hanging, ripe blackberries. Even selected a handful to take back to her mum.
Tue Aug 17 14:21 Comment: @tombcn You are sophisticated! I'm still recovering from Hornblower.
Tue Aug 17 23:09 Historia de Barcelona, 18/8: #otd * 1847: Es nombrado agente de seguridad pública el delincuente crónico Gerónimo Tarrés (161+127) * 1848: Fiesta de santa Elena emperatriz (23) * 1919: Pla: Havent dinat veig Hermós que enllesteix un palangre a l’ombra…
Wed Aug 18 18:22 Given the parlous state of most translators' finances, it is encouraging to hear the DWP believes work can be found for 20K basic-level Pashto-English pros. Meanwhile, my age-old invite to Khyber province+ sounds like it might turn into a go-er, particularly if I acquire Mandarin
Wed Aug 18 18:23 Comment: @jennitpk It's a truth people are shy to acknowledge
Wed Aug 18 18:46 Comment: @jennitpk Oh dear, oh dear
Wed Aug 18 19:09 Comment: @jennitpk I think that sells well into the apartmentista segment, although not half as well as books about what to do when you can finally afford a garden as big as Monty Don's
Wed Aug 18 19:10 1/3 6 AM wood pigeon song hypothesis: most of it is boring because of a failure in market regulation: we have failed to ensure adequate supplies of mixed, cleared woodland, with a good acoustic and low ambient noise
Wed Aug 18 19:10 Comment: 2/3 This means they can't hear each others' echoes through the trees, & so there's no incentive to up their game & perform the chain of crystalline tri- and tetratonic calls I heard this morning on mid-August Headingley Hill
Wed Aug 18 19:10 Comment: 3/3 Previous abandoned hypotheses explaining virtuosity include regional variation (like that which finch-fanciers claim in the wild) & unprompted individual initiative
Wed Aug 18 19:12 Ways I could have improved my student diet
Wed Aug 18 19:42 1/4 On 27 April I take out a subscription to @CurrentArchaeo from @CurrentPub, having read their FAQs (image). On 10 May, I request cancellation because it's basically not very good
Wed Aug 18 19:42 Comment: 2/4 Tiffany replies that they can only cancel once the first direct debit of 49.95 has been taken. That goes from my account 27 May. No more magazines are sent, and on 13 July I remind Tiffany of the cancellation & their refund commitment
Wed Aug 18 19:43 Comment: 3/4 Tiffany: "There was no mention of a refund in your previous email, just a cancellation. There is a partial refund we can send of £41.62 and I will set this in motion although it will take a couple of weeks."
Wed Aug 18 19:44 Comment: 4/4 Me: "Please read your FAQs." Tiffany: "We will add the extra £8.33 to your refund." Five weeks later & no refund. Is @CurrentArchaeo / @CurrentPub a scam operation?
Wed Aug 18 20:06 WANTED: Normal size, undamaged jam jars with lids (Headingley LS6) #freegle #free #reuse
Wed Aug 18 23:01 Historia de Barcelona, 19/8: #otd * 1527: Carlos I da una fiesta con 10 carruajes inmovilizados (39+11) * 1632: Traen a Santa Madrona a la catedral en rogativa por agua (42) * 1918: Pla: A la tarda, el costum de la joventut indígena del Canadell és anar…
Thu Aug 19 22:52 Historia de Barcelona, 20/8: #otd * 1845: Instálase el Banco de Barcelona (6) * 1919: Pla: Canadell * ☼ 06:04-19:44, 13:40 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Bernardo de Claraval, Burcardo de Worms, Filiberto de…
Fri Aug 20 13:19 The toddler has eaten the gooseberries, the blackberries, the raspberries, the jostaberries; what we now need are moreberries
Fri Aug 20 13:27 I knew that Pevsner was part-Jewish, but I didn't realise that he was for a long time pro-Nazi
Fri Aug 20 13:29 Comment: She thought the mulberries were homophonic with moreberries for a while
Fri Aug 20 13:59 Any Responsible Persons in the statutory sense (see the list - fireman, chiropodists...) & friends coming to Leeds imminently? I need an ID signature on my DBS app
Fri Aug 20 16:39 Business opportunities of climate change
Fri Aug 20 19:49 Leeds Council's Hyde Park/Headingley Area Oneirology Department was looking for people with strange dreams a while ago, possibly not entirely kosher
Fri Aug 20 19:50 Another photo from a while back: the toddler's doggerel skills are greatly improved, but illiterate nursery staff persist in daubing paint on her work
Fri Aug 20 19:58 Two Keynsham poems from Geoffrey Grigson's Isles of Scilly collection, which sold today (more: . An extraordinary figure, if only for the fate of his brothers, was there 1943-6 (near the Beeb in Bristol) & then moved to Wiltshire, near Pevsner
Fri Aug 20 20:02 Comment: Not the Keynsham I knew, which also no longer exists - a grassy driveway, a constant but irrational cat, a man older than the earth sunbathing naked midst the tomatoes in a greenhouse with an inexhaustible supply of cigarettes and abstruse pornography
Fri Aug 20 20:08 Verdi's Requiem with brass band accompaniment is a lovely & obvious idea when amateur orchestras are mostly now amateurish (with Facebook, who's got time to practise the violin?), but classic problems of balance & intonation with the choir combination
Fri Aug 20 20:08 Comment: Steve is open about the probs here
Fri Aug 20 20:15 Comment: @ibexsalad Great guys, usually helping people who are anything but
Fri Aug 20 22:43 Historia de Barcelona, 21/8: #otd * 1847: Empieza la composición del nuevo Libro Verde de Barcelona (15) * 1921: Muere el pastelero Agustí Massana, naciendo ocho años después la escuela que lleva su nombre (103) * 1936: Empieza el derribo de la cárcel de…
Sat Aug 21 10:35 Comment: @welovekeynsham There are a couple near me in Leeds, with the gates chained - Victorian mansions converted into lots of "luxury" flats, carpark in the stable yard, front garden & drive gone to rack & ruin. One looks up the drive & dreams!
Sat Aug 21 11:39 Handwritten Chinese ambient advertising
Sat Aug 21 20:31 Still haven't finished the bludy hotel
Sat Aug 21 22:33 Historia de Barcelona, 22/8: #otd * 1918: Pla: Ahir féu un mal dia * 1919: Pla: Canadell * 1968: El avión del Papa queda bajo el control del aeropuerto de Barcelona durante treinta minutos (92) * ☼ 06:06-19:41, 13:35 horas; ☾ luna menguante,…
Sun Aug 22 05:59 Dreamt I was in Central African rainforest, then woke & discovered it wasn't pygmies hocketing away, but wood pigeons
Sun Aug 22 19:55 Email updates work, but still no pretty template, & not very much content
Sun Aug 22 22:23 Historia de Barcelona, 23/8: #otd * 1539: Entra el nuevo virrey, Francisco de Borja (33/i) * 1918: Pla: Escenes d’un primer amor * 1919: Pla: Marxo a Barcelona * 1921: Empieza a funcionar la imprenta Braille de la Caja (310) * 1966: Expedida la matrícula…
Mon Aug 23 20:23 "Polish classic lit" on Freegle. I obviously haven't read widely enough
Mon Aug 23 20:25 Prototype for Bergman Seventh Seal? I watch it on a roughly seven year cycle
Mon Aug 23 20:46 Comment: @HeadingleyClub Can you get us a ticket?!
Mon Aug 23 22:46 Historia de Barcelona, 24/8: #otd * 1627: Traen el cuerpo de Santa Madrona a la catedral para aliviar la sequía (70+19) * 1918: Pla: Defectes de Calella * 1919: Pla: Arribem a l’estació de Barcelona a quarts de nou del matí * 1920: Muere Manuel Girona en…
Tue Aug 24 19:12 I think Tesco Mobile PAYG Lite is going to cost me about 25 quid pa, and neither I nor anyone else knows where I am
Tue Aug 24 20:07 So in music scores you've got solo and tutti, but where there is interplay between the soloist & the rest of the section, what word do you use for the latter? Altri? Never seen it.
Tue Aug 24 22:38 Historia de Barcelona, 25/8: #otd * 1564: Entra el nuevo virrey, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y de la Cerda (15) * 1918: Pla: A la tarda, amb el meu germà, varem el «N.a S.a del Carmen», hissem el tros de vela de martell que porta i amb el garbí petit…
Wed Aug 25 10:00 Comment: @tescomobile It's a joke about my old dumbphone
Wed Aug 25 19:09 Fruit trees in many of the Victorian mansion -> HMOs round here, the gardens of which one can usually plunder. This PM, a superb but terribly neglected Victoria plum, & an exclamation of sheer joy from the toddler on her first bite. Now trembles with excitement at each piece
Wed Aug 25 19:27 Comment: Rent/salary is probably a bit more favourable in Leeds than London, but difficult to understand why residents don't care for & harvest trees in front of their sitting room windows. We must have had a tenner's worth of fresh plums in half an hour.
Wed Aug 25 19:50 Comment: @Transblawg I gave the rotten ones to her.
Wed Aug 25 20:03 Listening to chains of wood pigeon calls in early morning woodland, I can imagine them one day chancing on a download of African pygmy hocketing & saying to one other: Let's develop and structure our anti-social territorialism into social communication & get a recording deal
Wed Aug 25 20:05 Look at this beauty, but one should definitely walk there from afar, armed
Wed Aug 25 20:20 Comment: One of them is busy plagiarising a national anthem: its call closely resembles the opening phrase of America the Beautiful
Wed Aug 25 20:43 Comment: @AndrewHammel1 See Dildo Shwaggins in South Park
Wed Aug 25 22:30 Historia de Barcelona, 26/8: #otd * 1415: Fernando I sale para Perpiñán para reunirse con el emperador Segismundo sobre el futuro del antipapa Benedicto (27) * 1638: Entra el duque de Mónaco con 26 galeras (115+33) * 1839: Instálase la escuela pública de…
Thu Aug 26 08:38 Carbon costs quantified
Thu Aug 26 08:40 Given that the black madonna at Montserrat was allegedly originally white, I've wondered for some time about the relationship between this and the blackface tradition
Thu Aug 26 22:24 Historia de Barcelona, 27/8: #otd * 1466: Sale una embajada para Sicilia para notificar Renato de Anjou que ha sido elegido conde de Barcelona durante la guerra contra Juan II (31) * 1848: Fiesta de san José de Calasanz (28) * 1936: Una señorita entrega…
Fri Aug 27 12:36 Someone in Moscow thinks that the British might be about to go to war to save the Afghan dogs and cats. Carrie's Pussies as the new Jenkins' Ear?
Fri Aug 27 12:43 Locomotive powered by wool grease: this is a fact
Fri Aug 27 20:37 Along the lines of the campaign to ask Africans to pay reparations to Europeans for making their ancestors emigrate to somewhere cold and wet 50K+ years ago
Fri Aug 27 20:41 Found a Punch & Judy kiosk by the road & carried it home up the Hill of Death, pushing the pram with the other, in the hope that the toddler would embrace the dramatic arts, but she converted into an ice cream bar & took all my cash off me
Fri Aug 27 22:15 Historia de Barcelona, 28/8: #otd * 1481: Acabada la Guerra de Sucesión Castellana, muere Alfonso de Portugal (52+7) * 1824: Se empieza a construir el Paseo de Gracia (17) * 1848: Fiesta de san Agustín (21) * 1850: Reforma universitaria (209) * 1918:…
Sat Aug 28 05:26 Priestley ain't the world's finest plotter, but The Good Companions is a sublime comic novel re the musical entertainment business as silent film kicks in. Drunk scenes also ring true. Got it from - no longer a bestseller or even convincingly in print
Sat Aug 28 19:06 Comment: @MetalSolace @Durotrigesdig I guess popping up from the carpark in a t-shirt feels less meaningful. Another example: I'm not saying all tourists heading for Rome should walk there from home, but strolling in from Ciampino certainly feels sensational
Sat Aug 28 19:12 Comment: OK, it works, & the level of meaning she invests in a ventriloquised green frog puppet is incredible
Sat Aug 28 22:07 Historia de Barcelona, 29/8: #otd * 1381: Llega Leonor, esposa de Pedro IV (17) * ☼ 06:13-19:30, 13:17 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Martirio de Juan Bautista, María de la Cruz Jugan, Sabina * Tiempo: 00-06:…
Sat Aug 28 22:14 RT @george_szirtes: Now that Charlie Watts is gone Will the Stones go Rolling on? When will time get its sharp teeth Into the perma-yoof of…
Sun Aug 29 19:42 Comment: @srabsenta @COMIC_bcn Un héroe mío desde mi niñez
Mon Aug 30 00:55 Historia de Barcelona, 30/8: #otd * 1636: Los frailes franciscos y capuchinos también ayudan mejorar las defensas del puerto, obra que no se acaba (142) * 1808: Son desahuciadas por los franceses las monjas de Junqueras para hacer un hospital militar…
Tue Aug 31 00:51 Historia de Barcelona, 31/8: #otd * 1844: Instálase la empresa del ferrocarril de Barcelona a Mataró, primero en España (13) * 1848: Fiesta de San Ramón Nonato (21) * 1925: Se ilumina por primera vez el faro moderno de Montjuic (0+31) * ☼ 06:15-19:27,…
Tue Aug 31 05:10 Comma crisis at The Times. (BTW, when did drivers stop ante-indicating turns? Flashing after the deed is deliciously nostalgic, but different.)
Tue Aug 31 21:30 Latest instalment of the inculcation of sound dietary habits via customised classics: Bob Marley's No Water, No Pie