But craic

Re the Glens of Antrim: “But craic is what the local inhabitants are famous for.” This may well be true, but unfortunately it has nothing to do with Geoff Pullum and Mark Liberman‘s “butt crack of dawn”, since Ireland is where the sun sets.

Tranny, a mini-blog

For various research-related purposes I’ve started a mini-blog, Tranny, which will pick up stories dealing with sex, violence, feudal superstitions and other harmful information published in a variety of languages. I will shortly also post photos of my new summer frocks.

Here comes the bike

I finally married my bicycle on Saturday in a ceremony celebrated by a minister of the little-known but damn handy Carpathian Independent Church, and we have both been seriously well-oiled ever since. The downside is that my Ugandan friends have disowned me, quoting this Acholi poem: I hear a bicycle bell, The bridewealth of Laker,…

Want to burn a convent?

The Segovian communists may be able to help (Noticias y Debates link, google “quema de conventos” if it goes).

The Hitchens roadshow

It is rumoured that, following this shindig, a small British border town is about to change its name to Hey!-on-Why?

More Brussels

Here‘s another random example of why Europe doesn’t work: ICT policy consisting of a chunk of liberalisation initiatives (great, if it weren’t a sure bet that they’ll be stripped out or frustrated by the usual culprits) and large lumps of pork. (The documentation is, characteristically, available in two pain-in-the-posterior formats, .doc and .pdf, instead of…

Mad Raffa

My old mate Rafael Ramos is making stuff up again, says Jordi Orwell.

Wrong again

I must admit I always thought Deep Throat would look like this.