I want to do something quite simple: change from Vodafone to Movistar or Amena-Orange so I get reception in the Pyrenees, while keeping the same phone (a stream-personalised Nokia 3310), number and pre-pay accountability. When I say this shop assistants laugh uneasily and reach under the counter for the bat, and online things are no…
Re this post, this remarkable image of a falcon scattering starlings, which won Manuel Presti the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. (Via esprit azul@après moi, le deluge)
The other day I serendipited upon a review in Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië (1853) of Abraham Benjamin Cohen Stuart‘s translation of what sounds like an absolutely brilliant Javanese epic poem dealing with the life and loves of one Baron Sakendher, Geschiedenis van Baron Sakendher. Een Javaansch verhaal van vertaling, aanteekeningen…
There’s a bunch of mad old guys in the neighbourhood who come out and feed the pigeons, which then crap all over benches, bicycles and toddlers. One of the locals has discovered how to make them stop. He puts a handful of salt in his pocket, lies in wait till he sees them emptying their…
I’ve bumped into a number of Moorish poet-princes, but I’d never heard of poet-princess Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (994-1091). There’s a sensible, sourced account (in Spanish) here, and then there’s this. I had my doubts about Wijdan al shommari, and thought I’d be able to nail him/her on the basis of his/her (?) version of a…
I know we’re not meant to read books using CORDE, but we do, and we enjoy it muchly, so we do. Here’s a bit from Diálogo argentino de la lengua by Avelino Herrero Mayor, published first in 1954 with 50 gorgeously anachronistic dialogues teaching the art of talking and writing propane, and then again in…
Margaret Marks says that the Marxist-Leninists are not giving away balloons in the German elections. I hope this is because they can’t afford them rather than for ideological reasons. While it is true that Jimmy Connolly saw in them the nemesis of the working classes, a progressive balloon vendor appears in one of my favourite…