Wedding – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Peter the Great’s April Fool’s jokes

Of dwarves, arson, stammerers, and binge drinking.

The Mathew Brady Studio's photo of the marriage of Charles Sherwood Stratton (Barnum's General Tom Thumb) to Lavinia Warren in 1863.

Organ-grinding tweets for March 2018

The latest barrel organ news from Hackney, London.

Section of London-Harwich in 1675, crossing the River Lea at Bow.

A sensational 1810 Parisian fire scene on top of an 1840s Russian barrel organ

But who are the three noseless Austrian ladies?

Robert Hillingford, The Disaster at the Ball Given by the Austrian Embassy in Paris, 1810 (1897).

Will Kemp Morris-danced from London to Norwich

But unfortunately he probably won’t figure in the results of the Singing Organ-Grinder’s historical explorations into English popular song.

Will Kemp underway from London to Norwich in 1600, with Thomas Slye on pipe and tabor, but without an organ grinder, because the technology wasn't there.

Two versions of Flann O’Brien’s “The workman’s friend”

With some relevant chunks of Henry Fielding.

Contemporary etching of Fielding from his <em>Jonathan Wild the Great</em>.

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.

There’s so much brilliant German shit on YouTube

Was: How pleased I am to find both the Zarah Leander and the Nina Hagen versions of “Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder gescheh’n” on the line.

Facebook: if you form a civil partnership you must be gay

Chez Lexicool, via MM, Katia, who, using Facebook in English, described herself as being in a civil union with Juan, only to have a lucky escape from her mother-in-law, who, using Facebook in Spanish, had understood that this was in some sense a homosexual union, and was just about to order some educational literature from…

Weeding planner

Conjugal Bliss, or You Always Hurt The One You Love. It’s a interlingual malapropism, but let’s swing with it. For anyone contemplating a musical career in Spain, the site contains encouraging evidence: apparently this kind of thing works out at €800/hr. For anyone contemplating marriage here, do consider flying in geezers.

Mayoress´ Gretting

What does the English translation of the official presentation website for Vinoble 2010 tell us? That the Mayoress of Jerez cares more about how her hair looks than about how her words are interpreted? That her administration is as thick as pigshit and happy to wallow in it? Well, not necessarily. Our etymology department has…