Older blog entries for marnanel (starting at number 1062)

Letterforms

An interesting point I read in the book by Eric Gill that Mark gave me: The letterforms of medieval books were handwritten in imitation of stone carving, rather than using the Roman cursive alphabet. But by the time moveable type was invented, it used letterforms (blackletter) based on handwriting. In both cases, nobody thought "I'll copy the way engravers/scribes write"; that was just the default kind of writing, so that was what letters looked like.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/295442.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-05-04 16:34:53 from Monument

17 Apr 2014 (updated 17 Apr 2014 at 22:06 UTC) »

I was just at Tesco

I was just at Tesco. I did not previously know the checkout person.

CHECKOUT PERSON: So, that'll be £16.48.
MARN: (long pause) What happened in 1648? I thought it was the Spanish Armada. But that sounds like it should have been in 1548.
CHECKOUT PERSON: Yeah, that's definitely the Tudors. It was under Henry, wasn't it? The Mary Rose and all that.
MARN: I thought it was Elizabeth. Didn't Philip of Spain send the Armada because he wanted her to marry him?
CHECKOUT PERSON: Well, what you've gotta remember is, Spain as such didn't exist at the time. There were, like, two or three different states there, and then you've got the Holy Roman Empire making things more complicated...

(discussion continues for a while)

More of this, please.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/294738.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-04-17 20:19:11 (Updated 2014-04-17 21:12:31) from Monument

Aubergine song

Most of my set last night wasn't quite this lewd, but this was the only song that got recorded!



This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/294578.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-04-16 22:03:12 from Monument

airlock

It's an airlock!



yes, I am pathetic.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/294314.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-04-09 23:25:50 from Monument

Homer's ghost in Hitchin

Here is something wonderful. The poet George Chapman (1559-1634) was born, like me, in Hitchin. He is best remembered for his translation of Homer (as in Keats's sonnet "On first looking into Chapman's Homer"); he claimed that he made the translation because Homer's ghost appeared to him on Hitchin Hill and asked him to. This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/294116.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-03-30 21:23:21 from Monument

"little girl lost"

ITN has made a documentary where they put two children in a crowded shopping centre and told them to pretend to be lost. One person helped them; six hundred did not. I gather that part of the reason people didn't stop was that they were worried someone would mistake them for a child molester.

You remember that in the Good Samaritan story, the priest and the Levite passed the injured man by because they were worried society would stigmatise them as ritually unclean if they touched a corpse. And here, people ignore lost children because they're worried society will stigmatise them as dangerous perverts if they talk to stranger children.

(FWIW, I decided a long time ago that I would *always* question unaccompanied children despite any risk of misinterpretation by others.)

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/293476.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-03-24 12:16:22 from Monument

a rare political song from me



This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/292866.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-03-20 02:10:52 from Monument

marnanel @ 2014-03-14T18:56:00

Why are there so many songs about graveyards
And what's on the Other Side?
Graveyards are places
With many an entrance
From smallpox to suicide
Some people say that we rest there forever;
I know they're wrong, wait and see
Some day we'll find it
The graveyard connection
The vampires, the zombies, and me

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/292816.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-03-14 18:56:49 from Monument

Ballade of Geniune Concern

BALLADE OF GENUINE CONCERN
by Hilaire Belloc

A child at Brighton has been left to drown:
A railway train has jumped the line at Crewe:
I haven't got the change for half-a-crown:
I can't imagine what on earth to do...
Three bisons have stampeded from the zoo.
A German fleet has anchored in the Clyde.
By God the wretched country's up the flue!
The ice is breaking up on every side.

What! Further news? Rhodesian stocks are down?
England, my England, can the news be true!
Cannot the Duke be got to come to town?
Or will not Mr Hooper pull us through?
And now the bank is stopping payment too,
The chief cashier has cut his throat and died,
And Scotland Yard has failed to find a clue:
The ice is breaking up on every side.

A raging mob inflamed by Charley Brown
Is tearing up the rails at Waterloo;
They've hanged the Chancellor in wig and gown,
The Speaker and the Chief Inspector too!
Police! Police! Is this the road to Kew?
I can't keep up: my garter's come untied:
I shall be murdered by the savage crew.
The ice is breaking up on every side.

Prince of the Empire, Prince of Timbuctoo,
Prince eight feet round and nearly four feet wide,
Do try to run a little faster, do.
The ice is breaking up on every side.

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/292475.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-03-14 13:26:07 from Monument

Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold

Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold.
> ASK THORIN ABOUT SPANDAU BALLET_




(feel free to share it around)

This entry was originally posted at http://marnanel.dreamwidth.org/292213.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Syndicated 2014-03-12 23:15:31 from Monument

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