And what to do when those boring old marble columns get in the way of your new staircase.

I have been busy for a while, and this is what I have been doing.

The news (via Normblog) that the Iranian justice system has strung up a mentally incapable and unrepresented 16-year old girl for getting to know a boy shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to anyone who has heard the stories of those who escaped the revolution or the various officially sanctioned torture and murder [...]

Says the FT:

If you want to save a beefmobile from a horrible death, the best way is to keep bullrings open. These are the numbers:

In the Middle Ages anyone of any commercial talent (and his/her mum) had visions and stored some human bones in the new toilet chapel extension of the pig shed nave of the temple next to that handy spring holy source on the hillside. Here, extracted by moderately cunning device from Amazon, is the relevant part of the ToC of Eileen Gardiner’s (not completely exhaustive) Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell: A Sourcebook:

As the barking of the mad dogs of Mechelen recedes, Hispanic PR Newswire mutters in our ear that its market is suffering from a severe case of the proverbs:

Lots of people in Barcelona don’t have piped gas, but it doesn’t matter at all. When their canister of butane is about to run out, a man comes along the street yelling BUTAAAANNNNOOO!!!! and, after a brief conversation, he climbs up six flights of stairs with a new one on his back. Easy!
It used to [...]

Not only (as Margaret Marks notes) has the BBC started using trucker instead of lorry-driver or patient with chronic back pain and a dietary disorder: the Americanism has been the preferred usage in Holland for years. Henk Wijngaard’s 1978 hit, Met De Vlam In De Pijp, is probably the best-known Dutch truckliedje. Try singing this [...]

El meu menjar favorit nadalenc és la xirivia rostida en una salsa de bolets. La xirivia és bastant barata aquí, perquè només es dóna a les vaques. En Agricultura elemental española (Madrid, 1933) José Dantín Cereceda va escriure:
410. Chirivía.- La chirivía (Pastinaca sativa L.), con sus dos variedades P. s., var.edulis, y P. S., var. [...]

Webster 1913:
Bovine \Bo”vine\, a. [LL. bovinus, fr.L. bos, bovis, ox, cow: cf. F. bovine. See {Cow}.] 1. (Zo["o]l.) Of or pertaining to the genus {Bos}; relating to, or resembling, the ox or cow; oxlike; as, the bovine genus; a bovine antelope.
2. Having qualities characteristic of oxen or cows; sluggish and patient; dull; as, a bovine [...]

Morgen is nationale waarom-verliezen-wij-elke-oorlog dag. Speciaal daarvoor heb ik een patriotische versie van een salade russe gemaakt, waar ik erg trots op ben:

Koop Quality Czech Mushroom Recipes: Meer vlaggen hier.

Transblawg heeft vandaag een heel goed verhaal betreffende de pogingen van een bedrijf om de Platduitse naam voor hun briljante koeienligmat te registreren.

Sorry to break my normal Dutch-Catalan-English flow, but this is important: we’ve got a winner for the cowbike drawing competition!
The winning artist, Jan-Willem de Bruijn (7) from Rotterdam, notes in his entry that “The Netherlands seems to be the country with the highest density of roadsigns in the world. We have signs for everything. One [...]

… i fosca està la meva vida, perquè ningú m’ha dibuixat una vaca en bici. Només tinc el vaquer Billy en holandès (WMP) per a consolar-me.

Compra Against the Vigilantes: The Recollections of Dutch Charley Duane:
Vaca holandesa a Delft de Karel Capek en les seves Letters from Holland (Faber: Londres, 1933)

I’m afraid we’re not doing very well in the cowbike drawing competition. Although there have been encouraging rustlings from Stoke Newington, Hampstead and Albacete, the only entry in so far is from Geoff (35) in Bermondsey – yes, the one displayed here.

With reference to several recent items (1, 2, 3), Emma Moo-Cow bets we can’t produce a cow on a bike. Well, finding what a number of sites call Cow-A-Saki wasn’t too difficult (anyone know who it is?). However, I think she probably meant a pushbike. That’s harder, but let’s try:

“When I start singing you go out on the balcony.”