Bus
Here are photos of the Wiebe bus. Can I have this side, please? (Here’s the Stroadlfest brochure, for if you’re in Oldenzaal 31/12.)
Here are photos of the Wiebe bus. Can I have this side, please? (Here’s the Stroadlfest brochure, for if you’re in Oldenzaal 31/12.)
When Philip IV (III of Aragon and Portugal) came to Barcelona for the first time, he paused at the Valdoncellas/Valldonzellas convent, which was then outside the city. There they dressed him up in rosa seca (surely more than dry rose), hat (Iberian, not Mexican), feathers and diamonds (from the finest of which hung a pearl [...]
From The Tatler, 1709:
THIS is to give notice, That if any able bodied latine will enter into the Bonds of Matrimony with B[illegible] Pepin, the said Palatine shall be settled in a Freehold [of] 40s. per Annum in the County of Middlesex.
I wonder if this is an in-joke, because 40 shillings isn’t very much–around £180 [...]
“I think the sherry trade could learn a lot from their cousins in Portugal. But of course that’s only if the sherry trade sees any benefit in visitors to their bodegas. I often wonder if they really do.” It’s the old Spanish paradox of shops whose owners seem prepared to go to quite extraordinary lengths to avoid selling you anything, unless that something is guaranteed to malfunction at the first opportunity. Experiences recounted last night of finally persuading a well known department store to relinquish a sewing machine which immediately jammed, the replacement literally falling to pieces whilst being bagged. Why?
A double reflection makes up the man who was born on the thirteenth day of the moon, lost his
throne on the thirteenth day of the moon, and fought the battle of Waterloo on the thirteenth day of the moon:

I wonder if Josephine’s astrological babblings didn’t cause Napoleon’s natural military interest in the moon to be unduly romanticised.