There’s a great word in Romanian, Pitzipoance, which you can pronounce (badly) in English as pitzy pwonka or just pitzi. It is usually used to describe over made-up and frivolous young women but you can use it to describe men, or anything really. There’s a good little article about it over at I’m More Romanian Than You!
Category Archives: Briefly
Did you know?
Would you believe that an adjustable spanner is called, in French, a Clé Anglaise? English Key. What are they getting at?
Bless Him
Counting every sneeze! Pete Fletcher thinks he can do it. He’s up to 562 already. I hope he doesn’t have hay fever. sneezecount.joyfeed.com
BBC Micro
The BBC Model B was the first computer I wrote music on. In fact I wrote my own sequencer and made my own midi interface. Now the Science Museum have made an exhibition about it. I don’t know why this makes me feel so sad.
It really happened!
Overheard in the Science Museum:
“What’s that man doing?”
“He’s testing her eyes.”
“So what do you think he is?”
“An optimist?”
New Channel
Overheard in the Arts Cafe, the best place on Mersea island for prolonged Sunday papers, tea and cake, “Oh I can’t remember where I saw that. Was it on Film 24?”
Well just fancy that!
JFK was assassinated on 22 November 1963 at 12:30 and pronounced dead at 13:00 CST. That makes his time of death probably about 18:32 GMT. On the very same day Aldous Huxley died at 17:21 and CS Lewis died at 17:32. So they all died within roughly an hour of each other. According to Wikipedia, Huxley had two large doses of LSD that morning. No shit.
More car news
I just found out that a band I really like, The Books, wrote the music in a TV advertisement for a car I quite dislike, the Hummer H3. In the advert a nasty, anti-social SUV (capable of driving just over 4 miles on a litre of petrol) is crashing its way through a formerly pristine jungle. The Books’ subtle meanderings drown out the cries of mangled monkeys and squashed snakes as well as the chuckling and dry hand-rubbing of the evil car makers. Such a shame.
Fairytale of New York
Fairytale of New York is pretty much my favourite Christmas song and so when I read that Radio 1 has censored the lyrics because they include the word faggot I thought they were pretty daft. On reflection though I think they are probably right. If you’re going to criticise homophobic rappers for their vile outpourings then it would be hypocritical to be letting Kirsty MacColl use a similar vocabulary, whatever the context.
All I want for Christmas
I’ve finally found something I actually really crave. It’s a book. The site it’s on also happens to be the best site I’ve seen for ages. Damm I love typographers. Check it out. Lineto.com