Viktor Orbán 0, Shakespeare 1

Mr Fido, who compensates for a distinct lack of charm with cunning a-plenty, has a piece in the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Called “Are you against peace?”, the customary response to awkward questions of Communist officialdom during the Soviet era and of EU officialdom now, he says that we should be worrying rather less about the future…

My top 10 boxing songs

All-star bill featuring Dan Mendoza aka the fighting Jew, manly Victorians, Joe Louis and the Dixieaires at the Battle of Jericho, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, Rocky Graziano aka the Maharishi Yoghurt, Bob Dylan and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Muhammad Ali and over-reliance on computer technology, Rich Hall and the George Foreman Grill, Wesley Willis and Batman, and Ivor Cutler.

Richard Humphries' second blocks a crucial blow from Daniel Mendoza in the 1788 bout.

Three Russian rooster animations

“Big cock” and “The old man and the cock are versions of “Medio pollico” / “Demi-coq”, and “Why the cock wears shorts” is something else.

But this *is* my good side!

Eastern Black Sea Tour, Tunisia

TravelShop Turkey‘s bus doesn’t actually take you to Istanbul or Tunis, but love those krazy keywords (and of course even Trabzon isn’t that Turkish any more anyway).

The storks of war

A fragment from Italo Calvino’s quasi-17th century folk romance, Il visconte dimezzato/The cloven viscount, uses storks as a portent of battle. Several unconnected 2nd century Greek accounts might appear to do the same, perhaps particularly if one’s a lazy sod and doesn’t read anything but scraps of stuff on Google Books.