Well then, this should keep you busy... As we know only too well, the devil makes work for idle hands to do. Here, then, is an exciting craft project to ensure your hands do not remain idle over the weekend. Go to a field. Attaching clamps to slats with quarter-inch gulliver ... Read More...
Year: 2012
Christmas is a coming, this is my 100th post, so what could be more apposite than...a few words on Yiddish? Yiddish, sometimes known as Jüdisch -Deutsch (Jewish-German) is the dialect of German spoken by the German or Ashkenazi (Hebrew: ‘German’, i.e. European) Jews. It has been recorded since the 9th-10th centuries, ... Read More...
Nige reflects on a precocious talent, and his disappointing son-in-law... I was up at Tate Britain, mooching among the rehung Romantics, when this very accomplished oil painting caught my eye. Its subject is Kensington Gravel Pits, and it was painted in 1811/12 - when Kensington was still a village surrounded by ... Read More...
Will Lowe keeps it real (whilst also distilling rather wonderful gin - you can learn more, and find the perfect Christmas gift for the boozer who has everything here). Real ale is enjoying an undeniable resurgence. As we have seen across many categories, including food, wine and spirits, people are now ... Read More...
In last week’s diary ZMKC accused me of being happy. Well, happiness comes and goes. Happiness can of course be found in one's sprogs, but then so can worry. The real problem with happiness is that it is elusive in the present, which is why we have page-turning novels, epic ... Read More...
The world has been robbed of too much great music, says Mahlerman... Back around Christmas of 2010, I posted on a quartet of composers (Gershwin, Bizet, Schubert and Mendelssohn) who had achieved greatness, immortality some would say, but left us with the burning sense that, had they lived for just a ... Read More...
If it weren't for a proper, old fashioned newspaper, I would not have discovered an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, and would never have visited the extraordinary property that has recently been named one of 31 national treasures by the USA’s National Trust for Historic Preservation. Located at 2007 Franklin Street, Haas Lilienthal ... Read More...
Austerity of austerities, all is austerity! I've been wondering: how are we going to pay our way in the world? Sunday, and we were in Oxford, visiting the postgraduate college where my wife and I met. It’s doubled in size: there are two new large buildings, mostly residential, with another academic ... Read More...
The time has surely come to give our schools much sillier names, argues Frank passionately... According to a report in the Guardian the other day, the following are the names of certain schools in South Africa. Official names, note, not nicknames: Thighs of a Virgin, At the Buttocks, Prison, Stab Him, His ... Read More...
Sarah Ogilvie's new book on the Oxford English Dictionary, Words of the World, caused a stir recently when the mainstream media reported it as claiming that a former editor, Robert Burchfield, had deliberately purged it of foreign loanwords... Jonathon reads the book and sets the record straight... So my friend publishes ... Read More...
