I have just been released from hospital after wading across the river Besòs in full, pink, evening dress (with knickers, ladies) playing Arthur Pryor’s variations on The Blue Bells of Scotland on a Conn 8H tenor trombone. Having almost drowned in midstream after being hit by a large patch of floating sewage, I am most…
The Italians sem to take a more practical attitude to the trombone than do the Spanish: “Rossini’s father played trombone in a company of travelling comedians, in which his mother sang. At 10 Rossini deputised for his father; later he sang in the choruses until he lost his voice; and at 21 he was the…
Catalan soldier with serpent; clearly not a trombone; Filipino guardia de vino; Catalan forge (definition, process (PDF)); Catalan knobbing furnace; Barcelona man goes to war; Garrotxa volcanoes; Catalan miqueletes; pre-Orwell Catalan barber; seasickness in Spanish Caribbean; Madrilenian crypto-Jews; Hebrew marriage contract, Gibraltar, 1826; bull kills mayor of Torrejón.
In the course of a piece on the French economic wonder, the lifestyle des intermittents du spectacle, and (anti-)Americanism, Adam Gopnik writes that when “the country and its joys can be shut down by part-time trombonists …, something is wrong, or at least ridiculous.” Mr Gopnik underestimates the threat posed to global security by trombonists.…
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…
Moving house, so orders may take longer until mid-February - mail me first if in doubt. Shop deliveries free on foot in Leeds LS1-8 & LS13. Dismiss