Rereading

OK, you know that Trevor isn’t so damn clever, but am I really the only blogger in the world who reads books as opposed to rereading them? (By the way, I did enjoy rehearing the MIDI of My Love She’s But a Jug of Lassi Yet, to which Q Pheevr links.)

Victorian paternalism

We already knew from a footnote in Marx’s Capital that the Scottish industrialist Peter Fairbairn, who based his life and business in Leeds and was city mayor, “discovered several very important applications of machinery to the construction of machines as a result of strikes in his own factory.” Now Oxford has digitised a number of…

Triskaidekaphobia

Ah, how we all laughed at mad old Arnie! Mr Schoenberg, who was born on the 13th and feared the number all his life (Twelve tones? That’ll do nicely…), of course died on the 13th, just when he thought his illness had passed. And now the epidemiologists (c/o Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd) seem to be…

Drum ‘n’ bass

Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist this photo, which was sent to me by le Big FFF, who received it from someone else a long time ago. I think it’s probably early 70s Anglophone West Africa, but your guess is as good as mine:

Candlesticks into trumpets

I once saw a pocket trumpet miraculously transformed by a car into something vaguely resembling a plate, but back in 1753 James Hanson and his father were condemned to transportation for trying to achieve the opposite without paying for the raw materials. This text is from the online proceedings of the Old Bailey: (M.) James…

Cease and desist

Re the Abramovich boat post: I’ve been contacted now by three British newspapers, one gentleman who sounded suspiciously like a Russian investigator, various salesmen and a couple of nuts. Honest, I don’t know where the boat is, I haven’t got the faintest idea how he paid for it, and it doesn’t interest me in the…

Intermission riff (ii)

Out of sight (and probably out of my mind) for a few days, so here for you and especially for Henk is an excerpt from a Jack Bulterman number called Steeple Chase, adapted from the version recorded by Theo Uden Masman and Het Ramblers Dansorkest in Casino Hamdorff in Laren, Holland on the 13th of…

Mr Sánchez

There’s a lot of coverage in both the Spanish and the English press of the tragic death of 19-year old Adán Sánchez. LaMesera.com has a short tribute, along with audio and QT footage of the man and many other fine artists. You won’t believe me, but I originally got into this stuff while wearing a…

why don’t i get these gigs?

Fuarosa Tamati and her daughter were given $26K by the New Zealand government to go to New York, LA and a bunch of Pacific islands to listen to hip-hop: “Having an overseas experience is really good because I am the type of person who learns visually, I am not an academic at all,” said Fuarosa……

holiday

Busy again with a whirl of things, probably till Monday, so here again is the lonely howl of Radio Tirhana from the 70s: