Robert Hughes – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Submarooned

We just had a typically ill-informed discussion here about how Narcís Monturiol’s second submarine, Ictíneo II, worked. Robert Hughes’ Barcelona says that for surface running, Monturiol decided to save the muscles of his crew and install a six-horsepower steam engine. But you could not run a steam engine underwater: it would use up all the…

Caganers, nation, faith

“Shit, operating as the preeminent figure of self-alienation …, becomes a symbolic medium for questioning the place of the autonomous individual in new postcolonial societies.”

Franco and the golden ages of the sardana

The sardana was encouraged by the Francoist state and suffered its greatest difficulties during the period of revolutionary anarcho-syndicalist and Stalinist control

(no title)
Yorkshire Almanac: 21 May 2024: Then: 1108: Archbishop Gerald of York dies reading Roman astrology 1641: Six corn-wains from villages east of Driffield pass slowly through Elmswell on their way to Malton 1643: Thomas Fairfax takes two "true prisoners" at Wakefield, but is then… http://dlvr.it/T79CKG
(no title)
Yorkshire Almanac: 20 May 2024: Then: 1606: The courtier John Lepton rides from London to York in one day, and repeats the feat on the following four Now: Tonight: light cloud, temperature 11°C (51°F), wind northerly 7mph, visibility good, pressure 1018mb, humidity 89%, UV… http://dlvr.it/T76Y7f
(no title)
Les Dawson might have disagreed with the great Canon Purvis' translation of "fere" in the now generally accepted version of the York Mystery Plays. ("I discovered the wife's got asthma. Thank God - I thought she was hissing at me.")