Tweets for December 2021

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

Wed Dec 01 01:25 Historia de Barcelona, 1/12: #otd * 1347: Princeps namque (483+21) * 1833: Isabel II proclamada princesa de Asturias (7/i) * 1843: Isabel II proclamada reina de España (8/i) * 1848: Ventajas e inconvenientes del clima barcelonés, funerales otoñales,…
Wed Dec 01 08:36 Comment: @LeedsNews But only on one provider of one form of transport, & still way more expensive than well-off London
Wed Dec 01 16:43 Apparently DHL send their staff to the Boris Johnson School of Management
Wed Dec 01 17:22 Comment: Apparently it is just the DHL guy who does the Headingley round who is the problem
Wed Dec 01 23:09 Historia de Barcelona, 2/12: #otd * 1847: Primeros mosaicos de asfalto (33+334) * 1918: Pla: Dilluns * 1936: Thalheimer: Visita a una granja colectiva en Lérida, vuelta a París (583+8) * ☼ 07:57-17:24, 09:26 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%,…
Thu Dec 02 08:57 Comment: @tombcn I thought you liked being one of the tiny, hidden elite who actually determine our every move
Thu Dec 02 09:01 Crossing Hyde Park Road at Headingley Lane on green yesterday when a car almost got me - illegal right turn at speed from Headingley Lane across the Otley-bound lane and into Hyde Park Road. So common that it's safer to cross Hyde Park Road by Wrangthorn church, where no crossing
Thu Dec 02 09:02 Comment: I guess the cameras at the Hyde Park Road / Headingley Lane / Woodhouse Street junction don't work, but no time to do an FOI request & the cops prefer to sit in their van in the park checking Facebook, sorry, doing public engagement
Thu Dec 02 09:06 Comment: Solution: completely block off the Hyde Park Road entrance (but not exit) from Headingley Lane & put a café terrace in front of Buzz Club Tattoo Studio, & then reroute traffic from Woodhouse Street via Rampart Road -> Headingley Lane -> Clarendon Road
Thu Dec 02 09:11 I believe Shoreditch Library had a copy of Codex Seraphinianus in the early 80s, just after it came out, which they flogged off for a quid to a delighted student when the cuts came
Thu Dec 02 20:45 Singing Sally Go Round the Sun from the marvellous Briggs/Opie Fee Fi Fo Fum collection for toddlers this afternoon. Mum with a young babe: "Oh! my granny used to sing that to me while she washed my face. My face was the moon, & she went round and round!"
Thu Dec 02 23:23 Historia de Barcelona, 3/12: #otd * 1601: Correr de toros (52+68) * 1842: Bombardeo de Barcelona y entrada Van Halen (107+111) * ☼ 07:58-17:23, 09:25 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Francisco Javier, Galgano *…
Fri Dec 03 21:03 High-speed red is required during a lamb chop supper to prevent a ring of fat forming round one's mouth
Fri Dec 03 23:29 Historia de Barcelona, 4/12: #otd * 1447: Excomulgados, los dominicos paran de decir misa en la capilla de San Jorge (33+18) * 1827: Entra Fernando VII para suprimir a los Malcontents (26) * 1844: Gran nevada (14+37) * 1855: Terremoto (11) * ☼…
Sat Dec 04 08:18 I couldn't find an incredibly light Leeds weather feed for my old Kindle, so I made one
Sat Dec 04 17:48 A break from chaperoning four 13-yo girls round accessory shops to bellow one's heart out at an NHS carol service at Holy Trinity. Final reflection: we've had a bad year (glum expressions) but those in poor countries are worse off (everyone cheered up & headed for refreshments)
Sat Dec 04 18:10 Comment: Trinity #DoggerelOfTheDay: From Ganges' banks to Albion's vales, Oft the lone exile's musings roam; Till, giv'n his wealth to prosp'ring gales, He follows to his wish'd-for home. etc - Johnson Grant
Sat Dec 04 22:16 The toddler was not to know when she clambered onto one's shoulders and started making funny faces through the window that those inside were engaged in a crucial step of the 12 that were to rescue them from demon drink
Sat Dec 04 23:33 Historia de Barcelona, 5/12: #otd * 1082: Fallece Ramón Berenguer II, supuestamente asesinado por su gemelo (651) * 1629: Galeras españolas con ayuda de Santiago toman un navío otomano en una batalla nocturna (557) * 1705: El archiduque Carlos de Austria…
Sun Dec 05 08:19 Comment: @petersymon Curious that Shakespeare doesn't exploit the ambivalence of avian & chess (i.e. military) rooks
Sun Dec 05 10:19 Possible explanation of Leeds Council's lack of enthusiasm for crossings
Sun Dec 05 19:45 Comment: @tombcn I love the way they stack portakabins on building sites
Sun Dec 05 21:43 Why are @gutenberg_org so bad at telling you where they've sourced a book? E.g.
Sun Dec 05 22:56 Jean Ritchie - Nottamun Town
Sun Dec 05 22:57 Comment: @gutenberg_org @internetarchive Well, I didn't find it, and it would be easy for you to say, so why don't you?
Sun Dec 05 23:43 Historia de Barcelona, 6/12: #otd * 1435: Terremoto (13) * 1465: Salen dos franciscanos para Santiago para librar Barcelona de la peste (44) * 1536: Llega Carlos I de las guerras italianas (21) * 1718: Juran los primeros regidores del ayuntamiento…
Mon Dec 06 15:59 Real live operational DDR steam locomotive in 1987 "Am I in your way?"
Mon Dec 06 22:02 Comment: A week on & hoping that DHL Leeds are storing my parcel carefully. The old joke about the cost of stamps comprising 90% storage & 10% delivery
Mon Dec 06 22:07 If a doorstop doesn't stop doors, what punctuation mark is it? 3.1kg marrow pressed into service
Mon Dec 06 23:48 Historia de Barcelona, 7/12: #otd * 1492: Isabel cuenta la herida que sufrió Fernando a manos del loco Joan de Canyamars al bajar las escaleras de la capilla de santa Águeda, y el amor popular por su rey (1284+83/i) * 1639: Sale para Salses el diputado…
Tue Dec 07 11:46 Comment: @tombcn El dilluns jo no treballo el dimarts a prendre el sol
Tue Dec 07 12:05 Helping a despairing old guy navigate SE Asian customer support for the British-sold life insurance for his wife: why hasn't hard & emotive stuff like this been onshored as part of our post-Brexit drive to emulate Enver Hoxha?
Tue Dec 07 12:10 Just thinking this morning that the German historical equivalent of Boris Johnson is not the popular choice of Hitler (termination of rule of law etc) but Kaiser Wilhelm II (First World War), of whom Bismarck said that he thought every day was his birthday
Tue Dec 07 12:25 Comment: @LeedsMuseums Captain Cook?
Tue Dec 07 20:14 Image shows the Niedergrafschaft/Lower County of Bentheim (Germany) as the maw of the Belgic lion, which I choose to interpret as a ref to the fact that Low German dialects knew no frontiers
Tue Dec 07 20:16 Comment: This was a traditional shortcut after playing in Groningen. One day the lederhosen band manager got very drunk & drove the minibus up to a farm, which turned out, to the horror of these young village lads, to be a brothel (sexboerderij), & which was fortunately closed
Tue Dec 07 20:23 Don't think Vaughan Williams Oxford Book of Carols incs 1st few verses to a William Morris thing: Outlanders, whence come ye last? The snow in the street and the wind on the door, Through what green sea and great have ye past? Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. etc
Tue Dec 07 20:30 RT @EOCS_Official: Our statement following the Government's opening submission at the @grenfellinquiry today. PM Johnson, Chancellor Suna…
Tue Dec 07 23:53 Historia de Barcelona, 8/12: #otd * 1536: Carlos I sale para Castilla (16) * 1640: Un rediseño de bandera, supuestamente motivado por los ultrajes anticlericales cometidos por los tercios castellanos (368) * 1842: Fiestas de la Concepción y Santa Lucia,…
Wed Dec 08 19:36 Comment: @jennitpk It's Plan (Save) Boris innit
Wed Dec 08 19:38 What with all the respiratory disorders that aren't Covid & that aren't getting treated, everyone now laughs like Muttley
Wed Dec 08 19:40 Comment: Emphysema laugh As also performed by an elderly Argentine communist called Alfredo in a bar on the Plaça del Pi, BCN, where he taught me quite a lot of Spanish by mistake while insulting me as a filthy capitalist
Wed Dec 08 19:42 Comment: When his cough turned to lung cancer, he made his residence high up in the old Hospital del Mar, and we bought him some binoculars so he could watch the ladies on the beach
Wed Dec 08 21:42 Comment: @ibexsalad You're thinking of Jacinda
Wed Dec 08 21:52 Comment: @ibexsalad Definitely the type
Wed Dec 08 23:39 Comment: @charlottelevene This is great - I'm learning who all these people are
Thu Dec 09 00:02 Historia de Barcelona, 9/12: #otd * 1301: Prohibidas para cristianos, judíos y perros las relaciones comerciales con esclavos (60+57) * 1396: Martín I se retira a Perpiñán para escapar de la peste (27) * 1598: Barcelona pide cuatro columnas del foro…
Thu Dec 09 08:44 If only the #killthebill posters on Tory Robert Peel's statue on Woodhouse Moor, instead of random, were addressing the manifest failure of his project, via the creation of the Met, to facilitate access to justice for those lacking physical, economic or institutional power
Thu Dec 09 20:13 Helping at the auto-checkouts at Ms is an Ignatius J. Reilly-type man with a knitwear Xmas suit, neon-pink hair, & what is still called the gay lisp. Despite his size & sloth, his badge identifies him as the 2nd smallest of British birds, rather than, eg, a turkey. Why not Jenny?
Thu Dec 09 20:18 The toddler has been singing Daisy since I sang it to provide music on the shambolic carousel next to Henry Moore in town, but she quotes some fragments, improvises others & glues them together polytonally & deserves to make as much as this clown
Thu Dec 09 21:17 the notion that the Spirit of Christmas Stamps has been destroyed forever by the addition of QR codes
Fri Dec 10 00:05 Historia de Barcelona, 10/12: #otd * 1617: Remisión papal de los pecados de Cataluña relacionados al bandolerismo (91+348/i) * 1942: Las piernacas de las chicas que van en bici (377+32) * 1946: "El pueblo en masa recorr[e] las calles de la ciudad…
Fri Dec 10 13:56 The notion that black trousers and white shirts are specified for musicians because this enables them to dress themselves unaided
Fri Dec 10 21:04 Comment: @lordbonkers Still waiting for the definitive Dickson of Dock Green gag
Sat Dec 11 00:21 Historia de Barcelona, 11/12: #otd * 1524: Anuncio de una cátedra de política (23+7) * 1918: Pla: En llevar-me veig que sobre el món davalla la llum d’un sol de color de palla esgrogueïda –vagament rogenca * 1986: Un coche bomba de ETA destroza un…
Sat Dec 11 10:02 GP complaining of poverty. "But you choose to work 2 days a week, your income's guaranteed, you're getting 15 quid extra a jab, you won the fight not to have to meet patients & as a result consultations are way down & patients go to A&E or call 999, so where's your problem?"
Sat Dec 11 11:04 4:30 reading: Spike 1944-6 inc hearing Gigli do Rodolfo & an hour-long encore of popular songs at San Carlo
Sat Dec 11 13:16 In the post, one's Enhanced DBS, for which a use will be found
Sun Dec 12 00:28 Historia de Barcelona, 12/12: #otd * 1728: Empieza construcción del nuevo convento de San Agustín (23) * ☼ 08:06-17:23, 09:17 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Amonaria, Corentino,…
Sun Dec 12 16:04 Toddler: Wanna watch steam trains. Me: We're going to watch something far better than that (original Jungle Book) Toddler: Diesel trains?
Mon Dec 13 00:35 Historia de Barcelona, 13/12: #otd * 1639: Llegan desertores franceses de Rosellón (136) * 1848: Fiesta de Santa Lucía (206) * 1918: Pla: Santa Llúcia * 1933: Fuga masiva del Modelo via la cloaca (551+903) * 2009: Inauguración de la línea 9 del metro, la…
Mon Dec 13 07:05 The fear that the lady videoed one making pizzas, not to persuade her journalist husband that there are fates worse than entering a kitchen, but to give him footage of a prattish peripheral pagan to make millions of Koreans laugh
Mon Dec 13 09:01 "By far and away" (as opposed to "far and away") is pretty uncommon, so a nice choice. (My impression is that "far and away" was, by happy coincidence, most popular when the empire stretched farthest.)
Mon Dec 13 09:04 When will an end come to these non-Covid respiratories? Lack of sleep starting to tell...
Mon Dec 13 10:00 Comment: @tombcn Leaping up every 15 minutes: is she choking on phlegm? Jesus
Mon Dec 13 12:00 Comment: @tombcn That's a very good idea! I think we've got one somewhere, but my head had stopped working
Mon Dec 13 20:12 Quote from Revive IT of £95 to recycle a run-of-the-mill laptop battery
Tue Dec 14 00:45 Historia de Barcelona, 14/12: #otd * 1567: Una procesión pide ayuda divina para derrotar a los turcos (29) * 1927: Primer vuelo comercial de Iberia, parte de la lucha entre Lufthansa y Junker (305) * 1999: Miles de bragas devueltas tras sabotaje obrero…
Tue Dec 14 06:41 A rather wilder-looking Meanwood Beck & Batty Wood at Headingley, by Godfrey Bingley, somewhere in the late C19th @theleedslibrary
Wed Dec 15 00:53 Historia de Barcelona, 15/12: #otd * 1847: Acabada la reforma del teatro de Santa Cruz, ahora el Principal (16+26) * 1897: Abre el cine Lumière en el Paralelo (60) * 1959: Inauguración del Talgo entre Madrid y Barcelona (9h) (64+77/i) * 1986: Bombas de…
Wed Dec 15 20:41 O*fam, young minimum wage obese cashier vs elderly well-off healthy hippy: - Excuse me sir, could you put your mask on please? - No, I don't want to. - Why do you think you're above the law? - I'm HIV-positive. - What's that got to do with masks? Put it on or get out. - [Exit]
Thu Dec 16 01:09 Historia de Barcelona, 16/12: #otd * 1470: Muere Juan II de Lorena, pretendiente a la Corona de Aragón (27) * 1795: El médico, físico y globista Francisco Salvá y Campillo lee en la Real Academia de Medicina de Barcelona su memoria titulada "La…
Thu Dec 16 09:27 Pursuing what turned out to be a great spotted woodpecker on Woodhouse Moor, one discovers that some leafherds take football seriously. Re City's 7-0 against Leeds: "They gave everything against Chelsea on Saturday, so it's only to be expected."
Thu Dec 16 21:21 How Trains Work is brilliant & may yet, to my regret, persuade the toddler not to become a plumber
Thu Dec 16 21:35 Remote workers etc who target social enterprise cafés with their laptops & their one coffee to last the morning, because they know that those working there will be too kind-hearted to evict them
Thu Dec 16 23:03 False pilgrims, with their "Benda ti istran plegrin: / benda, marqueta, maidin. / Benda, benda stringa da da / agugeta colorada. / Dali moro namorada / y ala ti da bon matin", are the sworn enemies of musical mendicants
Thu Dec 16 23:42 Comment: @ExcelPope Aka Birmingham West.
Fri Dec 17 01:19 Historia de Barcelona, 17/12: #otd * 1525: Sale para Francia la hermana del sequestrado Francisco I (28) * 1901: Muere el emprendedor religioso Josep Manyanet i Vives, fundador de los Hijos de la Sagrada Familia y promotor del templo de Gaudí…
Fri Dec 17 11:49 Boris Johnson is now the Red-Nosed Clown at the end of the eponymous joke, which used to be very popular
Fri Dec 17 12:33 Meanwood Park café: real crime not that staff & customers are packed in mask-free (try that in hyperventilated Waitrose down the road), but that someone who doesn't know the difference between shortcrust pastry & crumble mix was entrusted with the mince pies
Fri Dec 17 14:26 Fallada's Der Alpdruck aka Nightmare in Berlin is a terrible novel, & one cares little for either author or protagonist, but it's another bit of the jigsaw that kind of answers the question of what things were like for Germans at the end of WWII - something one just didn't ask
Fri Dec 17 14:31 Comment: @londonbrassband Is that @russellwyatt with the beard?! Should be Archbishop of Canterbury at least!
Fri Dec 17 18:51 Comment: @tombcn I don't think so - bookseller in a place called Gronau unloaded on me a couple of his things (before the revival), a monstrous biography of Bismarck's Jewish banker, & some terrible comics at a stage when I had to learn German very quickly - couldn't believe his luck
Fri Dec 17 20:13 Comment: @tombcn When I read his stuff I didn't know the backstory - his depression, serial fraud, addictions - but Nightmare, particularly its ridiculous ending, makes sense in those terms. Does yours read as if of a morphine fiend?
Fri Dec 17 20:45 Near-Hackney moment today: almost run over by an Orthodox Jewish man in a Volvo on the zebra at the north end of Victoria Rd. But using zebra crossings soon leads to the realisation that no ethnic stereotypes are absolute
Sat Dec 18 01:25 Historia de Barcelona, 18/12: #otd * 1427: Jaume Rigolf puede administrar la Casa de Infants Orfes a pesar de ser casado (127) * 1471: Terremoto al amanecer (0) * 1848: Fiesta de Ntra Sra de la Esperanza, patrona de los corredores de comercio…
Sat Dec 18 20:36 Thomas More, bludy Remainer
Sun Dec 19 01:30 Historia de Barcelona, 19/12: #otd * 1827: Iluminación por gas en la Llotja (44) * 1840: Un artista romántico inglés, la puerta de la Paz (162) * ☼ 08:11-17:25, 09:14 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Eva, …
Sun Dec 19 14:32 Comment: @Transblawg Sounds like a scam to get you to destroy it, forcing you to buy another
Sun Dec 19 20:05 1st free day ever tomorrow. Plan A - old mine workings in the Dales - is off - too much weather, too few train drivers. Plan B: walk to Pontefract to prove to someone that it isn't in Wales.
Sun Dec 19 20:22 Comment: @ibexsalad Barcelona was also a barrel piano (not organ) town, but a considerable number of old people came up to me & said how the sound reminded them of their youth
Mon Dec 20 01:41 Historia de Barcelona, 20/12: #otd * 1782: La Santa Inquisición prohibe La Armonía del Parnás del Rector de Vallfogona (40+19) * 1799: Gran nevada (0) * 1840: La Audiencia Real, la Catedral, los jardines de la Ciudadela, los pavos, las murallas…
Mon Dec 20 23:32 Comment: Feet chose the opposite direction: Leeds-Liverpool canal to Apperley Bridge, up over Idle(!) & Eccleshill to Peel Park, Bradford cathedral/centre, 72 to Leeds, walk back to Headingley - 20 miles & out of practice
Mon Dec 20 23:36 Comment: More miles but less conversations sans toddler, but a lady determined that I see the kingfishers (blurred photo!); the marvellous Mr & Mrs K, walking hand-in-hand to their shrine at the spot where their son died this week 13 years ago;
Mon Dec 20 23:39 Comment: young mum & babe peering fearfully at the kestrel above them on the hill; two teenage boys who'd never seen a paper map; covid conundra - e.g. why do Pakistanis wear masks more in Leeds than in Bradford, where there's very little takeup?
Mon Dec 20 23:41 Comment: More Idle/Eccleshill at the Yorkshire Almanac, which is gradually taking shape
Tue Dec 21 01:50 Historia de Barcelona, 21/12: #otd * 1470: Entierro de Juan II de Lorena, llamado Príncipe de Gerona por la Generalidad, que murió supuestamente envenenado (26+23) * 1842: La feria de Barcelona (223/i) * 1844: Tormenta e inundación (265) * 1848:…
Tue Dec 21 12:42 Was the British brass band (inc. love of uniforms) invented in the USA? Google Books suggest that they were all there until past 1850. Belle Vue 1854 was for reed bands, & Stalybridge (allegedly our oldest brass band) competed.
Tue Dec 21 13:08 Sweet-smelling things that could be made out of (the gold/silver paper in) cigarette packets
Tue Dec 21 16:50 Comment: @GeorgesGnosall Wondering if you've announced your Xmas times yet...
Tue Dec 21 20:00 One tries to avoid politics, but Johnson is showbiz & thus legit. A hint: sacrificing the world to save himself would be more amusing at Easter
Wed Dec 22 01:56 Historia de Barcelona, 22/12: #otd * 1472: Juan II de Aragón jura los fueros después de tomar Barcelona (424) * 1673: José Oriol, bachiller en teología (15) * 1848: Feria de Barcelona (8) * 1889: Descripción del espectáculo "Buffalo Bill's Wild…
Wed Dec 22 23:01 Historia de Barcelona, 23/12: #otd * 1511: Terremoto (21+15) * 1836: Instálase la sociedad de Fomento de la Ilustración (0) * 1848: Feria de Barcelona (5) * 1918: Pla: Ara que dins de l’aire flota aquesta cosa indescriptible, humanament tendra,…
Thu Dec 23 05:18 So who is this menacing gent, oil on canvas, found in a garage? Said to have been acquired early C20th in settlement of a GP bill. My guess from the family history: some early C19th north Welsh nonconformist preacher. But I know nothing of period costume. Who might know?
Thu Dec 23 23:10 Historia de Barcelona, 24/12: #otd * 1639: Salen más soldados para Salses en Rosellón; galanterías entre sitiadores y defensores; destrozos españoles en Narbona; terminos de la rendición; gran mobilización en Barcelona para asegurarla (1676) * 1708:…
Fri Dec 24 23:16 Historia de Barcelona, 25/12: #otd * 0393: Es ordenado a fuerzas San Paulino de Nola, sin que lo sepa su mujer, a cuyos brazos vuelve después (46+561) * 1274: Alfonso el Sabio pasa la Navidad con Jaime el Conquistador (32/i) * 1333: Un fraile…
Sat Dec 25 23:16 Historia de Barcelona, 26/12: #otd * 1379: Un incendio destroza Santa María del Mar (17) * 1452: Menú para la fiesta de San Esteban al monasterio de Santa Ana (34+38) * 1710: Luis XV de Francia y los franceses están en Cataluña (78) * 1848: …
Sun Dec 26 21:56 Oh dear, got sent out into the garden to run around with a bottle of fizz & the children instead of being invited to talk inflation & vaccines with the grown-ups
Sun Dec 26 23:20 Historia de Barcelona, 27/12: #otd * 1848: Vispera de Inocentes (47) * 1918: Pla: Acompanyo Roldós a Palamós * 1920: Suspensión de pagos del Banco de Barcelona (378+75) * 1923: Muere Doménech y Montaner (50) * 1951: La Vanguardia pide la…
Mon Dec 27 07:00 Unfortunately there is no trace of a beard on the face of Claude Goaty
Mon Dec 27 21:05 This ain't progress, says Fungus the Bogeyman
Mon Dec 27 21:16 Comment: @srabsenta @jonatandodo Yup. En Inglaterra lo tienen a veces más fácil en la ciudad que en el campo que nos queda, y también hay bastantes en Barcelona, donde comen ratoncitos y caza aún menor - cuidado con el jilguero en el balcón!
Mon Dec 27 23:31 Historia de Barcelona, 28/12: #otd * 1848: Día de Inocentes (661+643) * 1897: Exhibición de una "tribu de Aschantis" en el día de Inocentes (92) * ☼ 08:15-17:30, 09:15 horas; ☾ luna menguante, iluminación 49,38%, antigüedad 22 días * ✞ Santos…
Tue Dec 28 07:17 Xmas Eve bells for Midnight Mass at St Giles at H. at 21:30(!), but toddler business & no coat, so ended up running through freezing rain in pully & hat to get onto the back row for Hark the Herald. No sheet or book, so sang the same verse five times, for which apologies
Tue Dec 28 07:22 Comment: The rector successfully decoupled MM from kicking-out time at the Bell by putting it way forward, giving a reduced & compliant congregation - maybe a dozen this time. I think MM died as an institution with the generation of WWII priests, who relished crowd management & strangers
Tue Dec 28 07:25 Comment: The Bell has seen a succession of incompetent tenants ruined by the pubco, who wish to run it down to the point that even Asset of Community Value folks will stand clear (5 guests at 22:45), & then flat conversion can happen. And no reason why church shouldn't go the same way
Tue Dec 28 13:02 Smart, educated, caring village granny: - Do you want a squash for the toddler? - Thanks, but could she have some water? - Ooh, I'd never give water to a child unless they were choking! Typhoid is the least of the threats to her (tubby) descendants' health
Tue Dec 28 15:30 The toddler has a battle plan. A fortnight ago it was bye bye, high chair. Today, nappies. We are reduced to distraction and diversion.
Tue Dec 28 23:37 Historia de Barcelona, 29/12: #otd * 1410: Blanca I de Navarra y la sucesión a la Corona de Aragón (41+9) * 1918: Pla: El «Glosari» d’avui, sobre Gluck, bé, com gairebé tots els «glosaris» de «La Vall de Josafat» * 1936: La Generalidad y la…
Wed Dec 29 06:20 QR scan & pay for an organ-grinder in Mexico City - works by killing off your carefully nurtured retro image - um
Wed Dec 29 06:27 "Stop smoking" - the Blitz-burnt National Picture Theatre on the Beverley Road, Hull in ¡2006!
Wed Dec 29 12:31 Addison has a nice Civil War anecdote to kick off a 1711 piece on partisanship
Wed Dec 29 12:34 Comment: "Were there an honest Body of Neutral Forces, we should never see the worst of Men in great Figures of Life, because they are useful to a Party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising those Methods which would be grateful to their Faction." In the Speccie...
Wed Dec 29 23:46 Historia de Barcelona, 30/12: #otd * 1568: Torneo en el Born para festejar a los Medinaceli (17) * 1710: La defensa de Barcelona (63) * 1848: Los verdaderos inocentes (31+1) * 1859: Inauguración de un faro en el nuevo muelle del puerto (162) *…
Thu Dec 30 23:50 Historia de Barcelona, 31/12: #otd * 1537: Entra Carlos I en posta (16/i) * 1822: Tropas francesas en la frontera "por fiebre amarilla en Barcelona" (46/i) * 1848: Fin de año (283) * 1918: Pla: Pluja i humitat * 1932: Carta de amor (con…
Fri Dec 31 23:57 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…