Tweets for September 2023

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

Fri Sep 01 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 1 September 2023: Then: 1651: Robinson Kreutznaer sails from Hull, and before long wishes (monosyllabically) that he hadn't. Now: Weather for tonight: drizzle, temperature 13°C (56°F), wind easterly 6mph, visibility moderate, pressure…
Fri Sep 01 09:29 Infant rejects return to nursery - friends mostly off to school - best staff away - nursery not keen on one hanging around to try to get it to work. Not one to leave a weeping child, & unsure how this will work with compulsory school
Fri Sep 01 19:33 2 older masked lads on electric dirt bikes race up the Hill of Death, & back down on Ridge Terrace there's 1 young lad handing handfuls of wraps to 2 others from a rucksack. We pass & call 101. No reply after 5 minutes, so 999: "We want to report drug distribution." "Try 101."
Fri Sep 01 19:36 Comment: First actual clear sighting, though it's been going on for some time, & presumably linked to the dozen-or-so car break-ins in the past few weeks. But someone with a retail franchise further west says they get frequent armed shoplifting, & the cops never come
Fri Sep 01 20:35 Infant perhaps too young for Angela Carter, but I can't inflict the conventional Sleeping Beauty etc on her again
Sat Sep 02 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 2 September 2023: Then: 1686: Organization of the York garrison. Now: Weather for tonight: light cloud, temperature 13°C (56°F), wind north easterly 5mph, visibility moderate, pressure 1019mb, humidity 93%, UV risk 0/11, pollution low…
Sat Sep 02 22:06 "However bad Pudsey might be at that time Yeadon was much worse"
Sun Sep 03 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 3 September 2023: Then: 1810: Mr Jackson, Dewsbury druggist, gets drunk while visiting a prisoner at Rothwell, with terrible consequences. Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 12°C (54°F), wind south westerly 4mph,…
Sun Sep 03 08:22 Corrections. Walked over to Compaq on Pontefract Lane the other day for more jamjars, & encountered a big (hoarse) West Indian man having a poo on the pavement outside the beautiful Victorian retail/residential block at Upper Accommodation Rd/Sussex St 1/2
Sun Sep 03 08:23 Comment: In my embarrassment I registered the ad in the corner window as saying "Desirable Retail Opportunity," but it didn't 2/2
Sun Sep 03 18:09 I believe 1-4 happened. 1. Infant goes to cinema, meets friend. 2. They leave together, friend falls over. 3. Infant tries to comfort her by showing her her tummy. 4. Friend's mother: "It's so good that you're proud of your body!" 5. Infant: "Shall I show her my bum?"
Sun Sep 03 19:55 The infant is an instant convert to Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales (Fiabe italiene) as bedtime stories (Fearless Johnny is marvellous & connects well with Ted Hughes' Iron Man, another fave). Good riddance, anodyne retellings of Snow White, Cinderella etc!
Sun Sep 03 20:10 Comment: I agree with Ursula Le Guin re the George Martin translation - a certain degree of on-the-hoof editing is required
Sun Sep 03 20:25 The Romulus & Remus pantomime wolf mosaic is one of our favourite things in the Leeds city museum
Sun Sep 03 21:21 10K steps
Mon Sep 04 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 4 September 2023: Then: 1764: Laurence Sterne, curate in Coxwold, is minded to sin in Scarborough. Now: Weather for tonight: mist, temperature 12°C (53°F), wind south westerly 2mph, visibility poor, pressure 1025mb, humidity 92%, UV…
Mon Sep 04 09:00 Infant refused to go to nursery again today - allegedly boring without school leavers & several remaining friends, & she's much more fluent in English than the rest. But no more mud-pies at home - she'll have to learn to write.
Tue Sep 05 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 5 September 2023: Then: 1914: Boycott professional football to get players to fight the Germans, says the ex-vicar of Oulton. Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 13°C (55°F), wind south easterly 3mph, visibility moderate,…
Wed Sep 06 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 6 September 2023: Then: 1785: The Times calls for a royal pension for Betty Jackson, a Hull washerwoman. 1823: A list of tithes included in, and excluded from, future Tory MP Richard Fountayne Wilson's offer to pay the vicar of Leeds…
Wed Sep 06 15:30 A bit confused by the notion that Fylingdales' golf balls throw homing pigeons off course thru infrasound (which does kill their navigation): Fylingdales surely just has infrasound detection, not generation
Wed Sep 06 22:37 Did Ray Mawby, Tory minister and Czech communist spy, help push through the Fylingdales early warning system in order to damage the UK's militarily strategic carrier pigeon resource?
Thu Sep 07 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 7 September 2023: Then: 1837: Before being sent to the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Mary Frances Heaton is gaoled at Doncaster for a breach of the peace, which she later recounts in a sampler. 1874: A bell-ringing contest at All…
Thu Sep 07 12:33 In terms of stopping other people working, leaf blowers are the barrel organs of the 21st century
Thu Sep 07 19:41 Infant: "I don't want to go to Babylon kindergarten till Little J gets back." Neither institutionally nor individually inspiring, so OK. But, writing practice with Scrabble, & basic ballistics - landing water in a pot with a garden hose already used for rainbow generation
Thu Sep 07 21:35 BTW, small boy in playground with realistic but toy zombie knife the other day
Fri Sep 08 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 8 September 2023: Then: 1485: Henry VII sells the wardship of Anne Salvain of Thorpe Salvin (Rotherham) to William Hussey, Lord Chief Justice, for 1050 marks (£419K in 2021). Now: Weather for tonight: mist, temperature 15°C (59°F),…
Fri Sep 08 10:22 Doing volcanoes. - Daddy, you are ignoring my sign [NOT READING ON THE LAVA]! - Sounds like a case for PAUPER TROLL [which one has dodged so far].
Fri Sep 08 10:24 Comment: @petersymon The deity incarnate.
Sat Sep 09 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 9 September 2023: Then: 1835: Princess Victoria is not amused by Handel's Messiah at York Minster. Now: Weather for tonight: mist, temperature 17°C (63°F), wind south westerly 5mph, visibility moderate, pressure 1015mb, humidity 95%,…
Sat Sep 09 07:51 - Daddy, can we go camping again? - How about Cumberland? - No, the same place as last year. - But why on earth do you want to go camping? - So we can have croissants.
Sat Sep 09 18:51 S's charming black dog Nina has a trinity of tricks: when threatened with a finger gun, she stands on her hind legs and holds up her paws; she may then dance around on her hind legs; if shot, she lies down and dies.
Sat Sep 09 18:59 Comment: S & I agree that a strange dog should be approached with your hand's dorsum, but S is half full (if a dog has been slapped, your palm may frighten it) & I am half empty (if you proffer the back of your hand it's harder for the dog to bite off your fingers)
Sun Sep 10 06:22 Infant scared by yet another snarling Cerberus yesterday. Can microchips be redesigned so that when the owner says, "He's really friendly," the dog explodes?
Sun Sep 10 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 10 September 2023: Then: 1855: "The Russian bear, muzzled at last": Leeds begins to celebrate the fall of Sevastopol in the Crimea. Now: Weather for tonight: mist, temperature 17°C (62°F), wind north westerly 4mph, visibility moderate,…
Sun Sep 10 21:15 Great thread
Mon Sep 11 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 11 September 2023: Then: 1666: Margaret Hodgson of Richmond tells a York court that a beggar called John Fawcett visited her yesterday and informed her of a plot to burn London. 1780: Having paid £1.5M (modern) in bribes to voters,…
Mon Sep 11 09:22 Infant not keen to return to Babylon kindergarten, so hoping the excellent RoundTheCorner has space, & determined to avoid a lurch into homeschooling in a year - memories of the sect-like off-grid lives in the French Pyrenees of children of refugees from the nuclear protests
Mon Sep 11 19:50 No idea who Beecham's 1st trombonist was at the RPO in 1955, but what a noise he made on his small bore
Tue Sep 12 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 12 September 2023: Then: 1680: Francis and Mary Huntrodes are buried together at St. Mary's, Whitby with a poetic epitaph. 1687: Installation of a bell at St Leonard's, Thrybergh. 1731: Edward Garner of Dodworth dies, perhaps the…
Tue Sep 12 09:40 Mum in the playground: - That's funny, your daughter has the same name as ours! I thought it was quite rare. - One of her best friends is a Hungarian contemporary with the same name. I think it's like the Claire wave of 40 years ago. - My name is Claire.
Tue Sep 12 21:21 Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Tue Sep 12 21:24 Comment: Lots of English translations
Tue Sep 12 22:08 The creation of the myth of John Bartendale, prematurely buried York piper
Wed Sep 13 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 13 September 2023: Then: 1816: The greatness of Great Britain. 1893: An inquest jury rules on the death of James Gibbs, one of the miners shot by Staffordshire troops amid rioting at Samuel Lister Jr.'s Ackton Hall Colliery,…
Wed Sep 13 08:49 RT @elorganillero: The creation of the myth of John Bartendale, prematurely buried York piper
Wed Sep 13 11:49 Comment: @portraitinflesh I've heard of that kind of thing, but no idea if it's true!
Wed Sep 13 16:24 "Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet"
Wed Sep 13 20:02 Comment: You heard it here first
Thu Sep 14 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 14 September 2023: Then: 1864: In his last race, the legendary Blair Athol triumphs in monsoon conditions in the St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster over his great rival, General Peel. 1868: Clifford Allbutt welcomes George Eliot to his…
Thu Sep 14 09:43 Comment: @mja_owl @GroomB That's the one I've heard most.
Thu Sep 14 09:48 First known depiction of a Rottweiler
Thu Sep 14 10:00 - I'll got out first - there's a wasp's nest outside the front door. - Daddy, let me lead! (Why is wasp's nest conventionally uni-vespine? It's not as if wasps are proverbially anti-social.)
Thu Sep 14 12:29 Comment: @leedslibraries Unfortunately the recent update to their website makes it virtually unusable via your good selves
Thu Sep 14 20:38 So when you drag-n-drop customise a Google map & send it to someone on their mobile, Google strips out the customisation & reoptimises using the destinations indicated. Utterly retarded, & I can't see the commercial benefit
Fri Sep 15 04:56 Comment: @leedslibraries Thanks, but persistent logouts & then half a dozen clicks to get to the meat -> I've hacked myself a better alternative using the files from an old OED CD with GoldenDict. I hope you're not paying too much for access!
Fri Sep 15 05:52 Struggling with 16th century East Riding dialect words
Fri Sep 15 05:54 Thread. Some of the women in my Dutch village hated their nuns, but I don't think anything like this ever went on
Fri Sep 15 06:04 Comment: Come all ye homebrewers!
Fri Sep 15 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 15 September 2023: Then: 1679: Election at York for the Exclusion Bill Parliament. 1872: Death of "York's last Waterloo hero". Now: Weather for tonight: heavy rain, temperature 14°C (57°F), wind northerly 4mph, visibility moderate,…
Sat Sep 16 07:03 The infant reports mild unspecified nightmares. I'm not sure the Calvino fables are to blame - nightmares have the most surprising source, and in moderation I suspect they're useful - they'll get you sooner or later, so learn to live with them 1/2
Sat Sep 16 07:04 Comment: The other night I had a nightmare which terminated in a shouting match with a hoarse, angry D'Artagmouse. On waking I discovered some stertorous nose-breathing, and the incident has cheered me up ever since 2/2
Sat Sep 16 07:06 Comment: (Perhaps the function of scary bedtime fables - amputation, murder, bad interior decoration - is to teach children to deal with uncertainty and evil)
Sat Sep 16 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 16 September 2023: Then: 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) begins to harvest peas, and describes the technique required. 1821: The Rev. Sydney Smith describes to Lady Grey how a wet harvest was saved at Foston (Ryedale). 1858:…
Sat Sep 16 14:27 Comment: @ibexsalad If she pumps diesel up her bum and hops over it making engine noises, then I can't see the problem
Sat Sep 16 16:58 Comment: @ibexsalad Thanks! I didn't know she had died.
Sat Sep 16 19:20 Very useful advice from J (3) re the pumpkins. When we arrived here 2½ years ago we knew no one, but one day I spotted him + librarian mum. Hmm, they look interesting, raced after them surreptitiously with buggy, & the rewards have been tremendous. Walkers make great friends.
Sat Sep 16 20:52 Comment: @DrJACameron But even mills need holidays - Dutch kiddies' verse: Zeg es, zei het molentje, ik kan vandaag niet draaien! Ik heb al lang genoeg gedraaid, nu hou ik maar 's op! Ome wind mag blazen en Ome wind mag waaien... Ik ga met vakantie en ik zet mijn wieken stop.
Sun Sep 17 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 17 September 2023: Then: 1963: As RAF Fylingdales' early warning systems go live, Tory minister and Czech spy Ray Mawby perhaps hopes that less carrier pigeons will be coming home to roost. Now: Weather for tonight: light cloud,…
Sun Sep 17 18:14 "Presented as prose but comprising 10,000+ lines of hidden decasyllabic verse."
Mon Sep 18 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 18 September 2023: Then: 1880: An older reader of the Leeds Mercury recounts for its children's column a pre-1839 alternative to flogging in a one-room school. Now: Weather for tonight: light rain showers, temperature 16°C (60°F), wind…
Mon Sep 18 21:56 I don't want my Yorkshire Almanac to get modern and bitter, but this has a certain resonance - Clifford Allbutt on the threat to British manufacturing from the anti-scientific spirit (and private schools and colonialism)
Tue Sep 19 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 19 September 2023: Then: 1854: A multifarious railway accident in the Bramhope Tunnel. 1866: Consciously breaking with medical tradition, Clifford Allbutt, physician, and Claudius Galen Wheelhouse, surgeon, cooperate at Leeds Infirmary…
Tue Sep 19 15:13 Students arriving to start running up £100K debt failing to notice that the boss of the (enslaved?) cleaning gang is driving a new £60K SUV
Tue Sep 19 15:59 Large puddle/small lake along the path. Most infants dip a foot, some splash, but ζ, who has form, lies down in it and, like a hippopotamus, has a good roll. Quasi-Victorian debate as to whether this makes him a Saxon or a Viking - apparently Celts didn't do that kind of stuff.
Tue Sep 19 16:57 Comment: But re Celts: my favourite Gibbon Decline & Fall quote - vol 1 chap 1 - naked barbarians
Tue Sep 19 20:29 So when Agatha Christie is discovered hiding in plain sight at the Harrogate Hydropathic, does Colonel Christie ascribe amnesia to her to prevent accusations of her having wasted police time? I don't think her biographers consider/answer this
Wed Sep 20 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 20 September 2023: Then: 1319: During the Anglo-Scottish wars, seasoned raiders slaughter an improvised Yorkshire home guard of clergy, peasants and officials at Myton-on-Swale. 1598: Tenterhooks are prohibited north of the Trent to…
Wed Sep 20 09:33 The notion that people who say WFH instead of Working From Home (5 vs 4 syllables) should try phonics (3 & doesn't make you look that silly)
Wed Sep 20 09:54 RT @elorganillero: I don't want my Yorkshire Almanac to get modern and bitter, but this has a certain resonance - Clifford Allbutt on the t…
Wed Sep 20 22:20 The great Dewsbury-born physician T. Clifford Allbutt (1836-1925) on high blood pressure: "march up and down hill for a month from morn to eve, with no more than a crust of bread and a handful of prunes in your pocket." The Rolleston bio is most enjoyable
Thu Sep 21 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 21 September 2023: Then: 1549: The leaders of the egalitarian, republican rebellion against the Edwardian reformation at Seamer (Scarborough) are hung at York. Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 9°C (49°F), wind south…
Thu Sep 21 08:53 Buttercream icing is revolting, but clearly destined to be the national dish of a country with lots of green grass and a history of cheap sugar from slave-worked plantations elsewhere. Please can we call it racist, so cakes will taste nicer & everyone will lose a few kilos?
Thu Sep 21 09:13 Comment: I mean, sugar:cream in a standard buttercream icing recipe is 2:1. German Schlagsahne is normally something like 2 tsp sugar: 300 ml whipping cream, & people can choose whether to apply it.
Fri Sep 22 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 22 September 2023: Then: 1465: A perhaps exaggerated gluttonous menu for the enthronement at Cawood Castle of George Neville as Archbishop of York. 1674: A shotgun wedding ends in tragedy for young Mr Robinson of Sowerby. 1731: Death…
Sat Sep 23 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 23 September 2023: Then: 1844: Grunting, bleating and bellowing like barnyard animals, Geordie tourists depart for York in a 53-carriage special train. 1846: Wilkie Collins' Captain Wragge, an amiable rogue, walks out into York. Now:…
Sat Sep 23 10:33 Anyone got a bksy invite?
Sun Sep 24 07:17 Yorkshire Almanac: 24 September 2023: Then: 1862: Having bet his shirt on blockade-running to the Confederates, mayor Zachariah Pearson of Hull files for bankruptcy, ruined by Lombard Street, Abraham Lincoln, and folly. Now: Weather for tonight: light…
Sun Sep 24 22:40 Comment: @lilacleeds Let me know if you've got more than you can manage! No plums this year, apples terrible.
Mon Sep 25 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 25 September 2023: Then: 1066: The Stamford Bridge massacre by Harold Godwinson's army of Harald Hardrada and Tostig Godwinson's force symbolizes the end of the Viking Age. 1705: Daniel Defoe is amazed by Leeds's outdoor cloth market…
Mon Sep 25 11:08 A primary school classroom with a screen: "Dear Lord, thank you for yellow peppers." As a child performing in full sight of the masses at some ecumenical do at Winch Cath, I lost it when the preacher produced a packet of cornflakes to illustrate some point
Mon Sep 25 11:15 Comment: Dutch atheists who were determined to get their children into Protestant/Catholic schools so they wouldn't have to mix with Muslims: no idea if the same thing operates in England
Tue Sep 26 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 26 September 2023: Then: 1810: Anthony Brown of Bowling (Bradford) is detained for swindling the parents of soldiers at Otley. Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 11°C (53°F), wind southerly 9mph, visibility moderate,…
Tue Sep 26 20:25 Comment: @lordbonkers Is it true Illya Kuryakin stayed with The Wild Man of Wivenhoe while trying to disrupt coal imports during the miners' strike?
Tue Sep 26 20:29 New benefit of walking everywhere with the infant. Spoke to small child seated on pavement with mum & stick. They knew who we were, remembered our names: we'd spoken to them in similar circumstances 2½ years ago in Bow, London.
Tue Sep 26 21:38 Comment: @ibexsalad UK trains are appalling, but tbf there are a couple of good pubs near Preston station
Tue Sep 26 21:46 The city museum, home of the pantomime wolf, feels about hip hop "kulture" rather as I do about military band music: "very accepting and inclusive."
Wed Sep 27 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 27 September 2023: Then: 1680: Possible violating Calvinist precept, the Rev. Oliver Heywood weighs more than twice as much as his wife. ~1696: A proverbial Michaelmas rhyme and parade at Scarborough parodies rent collectors. Now:…
Wed Sep 27 09:56 Half a dozen blue tits in the eaves, apparently finishing off the moribund wasps
Wed Sep 27 11:26 Comment: @DanielGalef @MichaelEWriter Bet Fox was a latecomer to Twitter
Thu Sep 28 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 28 September 2023: Then: 1827: The good life at Stapleton Park (Pontefract), country seat of Edward Robert Petre. Now: Weather for tonight: light cloud, temperature 15°C (58°F), wind south westerly 22mph, visibility good, pressure…
Thu Sep 28 09:36 Honed by almost four years of practice on us, the infant is showing alarming signs of leadership, & none of her peers seems yet to have figured out that she has no idea where she is leading them
Thu Sep 28 21:40 I only just realised that the poor dear had just celebrated his 38th birthday
Thu Sep 28 21:42 Comment: @jonburkeUK Wait till you see the Halifax Piece Hall
Thu Sep 28 21:53 Comment: @jonburkeUK No similarity?
Fri Sep 29 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 29 September 2023: Then: 1513: Black humour from London re the arrival at York of the body of James IV of Scotland after Flodden. ~1684: It being Michaelmas, the Jolly Pinder of Wakefield (in song) deserts his beasts and pound and…
Fri Sep 29 09:23 But still no action on my ancient Dutch scheme to transmit Saharan solar to N Europe using laser bursts
Fri Sep 29 09:29 Prepared to believe that the Tories favour high immigration & low pandemic death tolls because they are the party of the rentier economy, but a smoking gun would be nice
Fri Sep 29 10:17 Security is so poor at the Neapolitan museum to which ours has lent some Roman statues that there are fears they will be nicked by people from Bradford
Fri Sep 29 11:34 Speculation that the Chinese industrial engineer AutoCAD-ing a widget at the local library is actually a PRC spy, mapping the marvel that is our national information storage and retrieval network. Makes a change from people watching tendentious videos on YouTube
Fri Sep 29 11:38 Angry librarians
Fri Sep 29 20:14 Thread - abuse/misrepresentation of copyright by publicly-funded UK cultural institutions
Sat Sep 30 07:16 Yorkshire Almanac: 30 September 2023: Then: 1859: Great popular enthusiasm for a village brass band contest at the Golden Lion, Loftus, North Riding. Now: Weather for tonight: clear sky, temperature 10°C (50°F), wind south westerly 5mph, visibility…