As I walked home from the bus stop last night, I was approached by a man in Hassidic attire for a brief, confusing conversation.

He: Excuse me, but are you Jewish?
Dunce: I'm sorry, I'm afraid not.
He: OK, thank you, have a good weekend.

And with that he walked on, leaving me puzzled. What could he have wanted? What would he have said if I had answered "yes"?

Maybe he wanted to ask for directions? I'm quite used to strangers asking me for directions, no matter where I go. But it seems that asking directions surely shouldn't depend on the faith of the direction-giver, unless maybe he was looking for a synagogue or some other place known only to Jews. Somehow I doubt it -- I don't think I look like someone who knows his way around the local synagogues.

On the other hand, an unexpected conversation from a total stranger often leads to a plea for money, or some sort of distress scam. But surely a well-dressed Hassidic gentleman would not be begging for money or attempting some sort of fraud. And in the unlikely event that he was, surely he would be willing to target a non-Jew.

Maybe some sort of "reform to Orthodox" evangelism of some kind? I've been approached by street evangelists of various sorts through the years, but I've never had the feeling that this is a common Hassidic practice.

I considered various other possibilities, less and less plausible, before finally resorting to Google (without much hope of success -- I mean, how likely is it that googling "Are you Jewish" will turn up anything besides things like "Which Annie Hall character are you?" and a load of lunatic hogwash).

Imagine my surprise when I found this from the Jewish Virtual Library. Quoting from the linked source (wikipedia link added by me): One Jewish group, the Lubavitcher Hasidim, have made a particular effort to promote the mitzvah of Tefillin among Jewish males. They often set up vans, known as Mitzvah Mobiles, in neighborhoods frequented by Jews, and ask men who pass by: "Are you Jewish?" If the answer is yes, they continue: "Did you put on Tefillin today?" If the person says, "No," they invite him inside the van. First they put on the box that goes on his arm (for right-handed people, the Tefillin go on the left arm; left-handed people wear them on the right arm) and wrap the strap around the arm seven times. Then the other box is put on his head. They lead him in the recitation of the blessing over the Tefillin, and in certain other major prayers, such as the Sh'ma.

Thank goodness that I told him the truth (that I am not Jewish). I don't think I would have been comfortable with a stranger inviting me into his van -- especially if I'd just lied about being a member of his religion.....

On the first of April, we decided to experience the last day of operation of classic Routemaster buses on one of our local routes. These buses are being phased out across the city in an effort to modernize, and now it's the 19 route's turn.

Around 6pm we arrived at Finsbury Park tube station and joined a small group of bus enthusiasts waiting for a suitable bus. The first was a modern-style double-decker bus, although we saw our ride waiting in the wings:

We boarded on 6:08 and rushed to the upper deck where we chose the "love seat", a double seat at the very back of the bus, next to the curved staircase. By 6:19pm we had reached the Angel and the bus was full enough that passengers were turned away. More passengers were turned away at 6:30 when we reached Mount Pleasant (formerly Coldbath Fields). Some begged the conductor to let them on but to no avail; the bus was so full that unpleasant grinding noises issues from the suspension at every dip, bump and turn.

Only a few minutes later (6:33 to be exact) we came to a halt in a traffic jam in Holborn; where it was announced that we expected to wait for 15-20 minutes due to an RTA at Hyde Park for which an air ambulance was required. RTA? RTA? RTA? Me either. In any event, the bus quickly emptied out, except for the most enthusiastic of enthusiasts.

As promised, it was 7:00pm by the time traffic finally broke and we were able to move smoothly down Charing Cross to Shaftesbury Avenue where we were joined by two more Route 19 Routemasters. We passed through Piccadilly Circus to Hyde Park without incident as the bus gradually refilled to capacity.

At 7:32pm the bus made its final stop on the run, just across Battersea Bridge, and I was the last one to alight from it before it cruised round the corner to the bus garage where a small group of enthusiasts were taking pictures.

Although our ride was nowhere near the last Routemaster on the 19 route, and we spotted few of the special buses running that route in honor, we were happy to have been part of the last day. Some excellent pictures of the final day of the 19 Routemasters can be found here (day) and here (night).

Readers who are acquainted with me are probably aware that I have been involved in research on "tip of the tongue" states (research article in PDF format). So it's especially interesting to me that I have been experiencing a fairly long-running "TOT" which has eluded me despite daily attention. Rather than look up this word from the numerous details I have (it's just a simple Google away at this point), I thought I would attempt to resolve it using only my own memory (so please don't reveal his name in the "comments").

The word in question is the name of a (deceased) British entertainer, best known for the song "When I'm Cleaning Windows" (and numerous revised versions) and his use of the "banjulele" or "banjolin" which looks like a small banjo and is played by frantic strumming (ordinarily I would include a link here but I'm afraid searching for a URL might inadvertently reveal the answer). In fact this artist seems to be the UK's best-known banjo player (at least to many people). His name was frequently called out by some of the surly, drunken locals at the Golden Lion (previous site of Come Down and Meet the Folks), most often when a musician was playing a downbeat, moody, dark or generally unhappy song.

I can pinpoint the start of this TOT: the evening of Wednesday 23 March, in a discussion with Opal Hush. We were talking about the upcoming UK tour of Curtis Eller ("New York City's angriest yodelling banjo player"). On a previous visit, Mr Eller expressed some confusion about this artist ("why do people keep asking me if I know any of his songs"), and we were wondering whether his repertoire might include a song by this artist this time around (It makes sense; Mr Eller's lyrical content, musical style and general manner would fit well with the time-frame of this artist, ie, pre-WWII).

As of today's date (nearly two weeks later) I have still not come up with this artist's name despite having its absence come to mind at least daily since that time. Perhaps uncharacteristically for TOT experiences, I have almost no intuition about the form of his name: not the first letter, not the kind of name, nothing. I have a vague feeling that his first and last names both have two syllables, that his first name is old-fashioned and his last name is very English, but none of those are much of a stretch.

I will update this entry again as the TOT develops (or ideally is resolved). If you make any comments before I've posted a resolution, please do not reveal this artist's name, nor give any clues about how his name sounds (no letter clues, no sounds like clues). Biographical or historical information is welcome, however.

Taking my daily wander over to the Diamond Geezer's patch; I discovered a horrifying Blogger page, the contents of which I paste below in full:


After a very similar experience with the photo galleries at membo.org (don't bother following that link as it's dead as dead can be) I have to say I fell for it for at least long enough to start composing an email to my better half. But then I noticed that there was a "comments" entry on the bottom of the page without the massive number of comments one might expect to find on a "Blogger has died" notice page. Very clever indeed, well done to the Diamond Geezer.

"X is the new black" is a heavily over-used expression; a google search throws up more than 75,000 hits, highlighting the numerous things that are apparently the new black, including young, war, fat, incoherent, Australia, Ohio, and many many more, including the frighteningly recursive.

Here I ignore all the many things that could be the new black, focusing instead upon which color should be the new black, should the powers that be choose to appoint/elect/?? a new one. As I am not aware of the official processes (although they clearly exist) I chose to let Google counts decide. I chose an assortment of colors, although I became a bit overwhelmed at the range of color names out there (apparently, anything that grows or that you can eat has its own color name, and never mind the offensive additions now offered by Crayola [Outer Space, Macaroni and Cheese, Razzmatazz? How are kids supposed to learn their colors these days?!])

Below I list the rankings (color of text may not be "official"). It's a runaway: Pink is the new black.

3610 Pink
1380 Silver*
1090 Green*
988 Red*
726 Black*
677 Orange
604 Grey/Gray*
560 Brown
514 White* (514, White)
498 Purple*
273 Blue*
273 Yellow*
146 Beige
126 Copper
44 Gold
41 Khaki
24 Navy*
18 Mauve
15 Maroon*
11 Tan
9 Denim
6 Lavender, Teal*
5 Chartreuse, Fuchsia*, Salmon
3 Aqua*, Charcoal, Lime*
2 Olive*, Rust, Scarlet, Violet
1 Cornflower, Ecru, Indigo, Jade, Mahogany, Rose, Sepia

* Official color name supported by the W3C HTML 4.0 standard.

This past Sunday at Come Down and Meet the Folks was one of the best Folks evenings I've had in a long time. The headline act was the Rosinators, who play a good mix of bluegrass, gospel and Cajun. We've seen quite a lot of them (including a recent performance in Haltwhistle) and they keep getting better.

I also enjoyed the short opening set from Silver Saddle. Their sound fits well into the "alt-country"/"Americana" vein, quite reminiscent of Uncle Tupelo, Ryan Adams and the like. I wasn't completely bowled over; something about their performance came across as Tupelo-lite. But maybe I'm being hard on them because I was so impressed by someone else who followed immediately after them:

The highlight of the evening came from one man and a guitar. Cam Penner was over from Canada, playing a floorspot here and there. He only played a few songs, but what songs. I was quite impressed, and I've been waiting to be impressed by someone new for a while. Looking for a description of the music? Why not pick a few words from the "Write your own review" sample below, stir and bake until golden?
blue-collar gritty blues "trad" country suffering dust-bowl acoustic
(I left out "Canadian" but feel free to add it if you'd like to make direct reference to prairies, long roads, etc.

The Fiddlers Elbow can be a tough audience, especially where solo floorspots are concerned, but not in this case.... I wasn't alone in being seriously impressed. I managed to get the last copy of his CD (with band), Get Up and it's just as good. I hope he manages to make it back to the UK; I'd go out of my way to see him again.

Other saints share March 17 and perhaps it's unfair that St. Paddy gets all the glory. I nominate St. Gertie (Nivelle, Brabant) as an alternative:

A virgin of noble birth. Because she despised the world, and during her whole life practised all kinds of good works, she deserved to have Christ for her spouse in heaven.

St. Gertie's day is celebrated by staying out of pubs, harrumphing at revellers, picking up litter, and going to bed alone.

The previous entry refers, of course, to the Shqip language, more known to non-Shqip speakers as Albanian. My shame in failing to identify it is somewhat reduced, because it is not closely related to any other language: although Indo-European it appears to be "the sole modern survivor of its subgroup". The comment by bdw is probably correct, as Albanian has quite a bit of Latin influence (although more closely related to Romanian). The Albanian alphabet has a lot of extras (despite having a similar appearance to English); the Wikipedia entry (linked above) lists these:

vowels: A, E, Ë, I, O, U, Y.
consonants: B, C, Ç, D, Dh, F, G, Gj, H, J, K, L, Ll, M, N, Nj, P, Q, R, Rr, S, Sh, T, Th, V, X, Xh, Z, Zh.

This, however, says little about Albanians in London. I took a confusing diversion into transport history with Albanian Coaches Ltd. (incorporated 1934). Quite early indeed; however, few of the residents of St. Albans at the time were Shqiptarë.

News coverage of Albanians in London tends to be heavy on the Albanian mafia, people trafficking and prostitution, both from sources that seem rather propagandistic as well as those that are less so.

As it turns out, however, most of the Albanians in London are not from Albania but instead from Kosovo, where Gheg (the northern dialect of the Albanian language) is spoken. Suddenly it makes a lot more sense, given Milosevic's efforts to expel ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. The resulting humanitarian crisis led to a UK commitment to accept refugees from Kosovo, and in 1999 more refugees came to the UK from the former Yugoslavia than from any other nation (PDF link) (second rank: Somalia). This site gives an indication of the geographical clustering of Kosovan refugees/evacuees and some of the issues raised by their arrival.

Once again it's related to local government, this time the free publication Haringey People. At the end of the current issue is an offer "Do you want to access this magazine in your own language?" followed by several format options (large print, on disk, on audio tape, Braille) and several language alternatives. The previously-mentioned Turkish and Somali are included in the list, as well as Bengali, French, Kurdish and today's mystery entry, labeled Shqip). Below I copy the Shqip entry (in its entirety):


Of course it would probably be easy to figure out the entry using Google, just plugging in one or two of the words in the entry (or the name Shqip). Much more difficult to try and solve the puzzle without "external resources" but simply my own knowledge about the area (quite limited, I must admit, having only lived there for six weeks), and possibly aspects of the language sample as well. For the moment I am stuck, but I will let some time pass before admitting defeat and googling "shqip". I'll eventually stick a solution in the "comments" section.

Many years ago, a small, bedraggled paperback found its way into our family home. Not a particularly unusual occurrence as hundreds (if not thousands) of small, bedraggled paperbacks have appeared in similar manners over the years. But one in particular had a great impact upon our family: Scoundrels, Fiends and Human Monsters by Cliff Howe (pub. 1958). 

It didn't look like much; in fact, the first few chapters were torn out (so we were able to learn that Thomas Dun had his limbs sawn off with jagged knives, etc. as punishment for his crimes, but not what those crimes might have been). But the first full chapter remaining was that of Sawney Bean(e), notorious cannibalistic murderer of the __th century (a remarkably similar text to that chapter can be found here; more on this source later).

In our home, the vicious character of Sawney Beane became a less frightening but more pervasive evil influence, taking over the role of bogey-man from an assortment of imaginary wolves, mice, and undifferentiated ghosts and spirits who had previously carried scare-duties on their own but had lost their spark for one reason or another. Beane mostly hovered around the dinner table (and occasionally communion service at church) in case reference to cannibalism was appropriate for the given meal (surprisingly often, I found), although sometimes he was invoked to scare younger children when our usual range of bogey-men (Rick James, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Jackson) wasn't enough.

Unfortunately, it may have been too good to be true. A recent piece in the Fortean Times is rather dismissive of the whole tale; a host of other sources join in a solid and robust debunking of the most important details of the whole matter. The title tells the story in Urquhart's "Sawney Beane: Myth or Myth", "The reaction of any serious historian... to the Sawney Bean myth should be polite incredulity at least, and outright denunciation at best...." and more information of a debunking nature (along with a snippet of information about films inspired by the Beane legend) can be found at Mysterious Britain. Not everyone is a debunker, however; those with strong stomachs (especially with regard to unwanted sound effects/midi music on web pages) may enjoy this site which offers not only a full complement of dripping blood effects, skulls and the eerie like, but also your own Sawney Beane email address!!!1!111!!

To me, perhaps the greatest disappointment was not the debunking of the Beane legend (after all, certain elements just didn't ring quite true), but the discovery that Mr Cliff Howe's extensive historical research could be found, nearly word-for-word, in a slightly older text: the Newgate Calendar.

As described at exclassics.com, "The Newgate Calendar was one of those books, along with a Bible, Foxe's book of Martyrs and the Pilgrim's Progress, most likely to be found in any English home between 1750 and 1850. Children were encouraged to read it because it was believed to inculcate principles of right living -- by fear of punishment if not by the dull and earnest morals appended to the stories of highwaymen and other felons."

To think, the great historian from whom I learned about these important historical figures (fiendish though they might be) was merely a fan of the Newgate Calendar.  I guess my search for his other seminal work (Lovers and Libertines: World's Greatest Lovers, 1958) is not so urgent...

I took a brief trip to Saarbrücken this week to present a paper at a small conference. I managed to make a small detour to see the 13th century gothic church of St. Arnual:


As described in remarkably identical wording on quite a few Web sites,


I queued up among the masses and shuffled my way along the designated tourist route, peering for my designated twenty seconds at the tomb of Elisabeth. Or more accurately, I walked into the empty church and inspected its contents at my leisure, undisturbed by anyone. Perhaps the most impressive was the tomb of Count Johann III of Nassau-Saarbrücken (d.1472), depicted along with his two wives (Johanne von Loen and Elisabeth von Württemberg) as illustrated on this page (scroll down to section "Saarbrücken, Landeshauptstadt. Evangelische Stiftskirche St. Arnual).

Some more historical information about the church can be found here (with photos) and here (timeline) (both in German only, although if you do not speak German, they can also perhaps use automated translation aids, as Google translate, if you are ready to employ a certain level from immutability to).

Who was St. Arnual? Not clearly listed in the register of Catholic Saints but apparently he is also known as St. Arnulf which matches up to the timeline also linked above. Arnulf seems to be a popular name, or at least a saintly one as there are six other St. Arnulfs listed in the register at catholic.org.  This particular St. Arnulf doesn't seem to be a particularly exciting saint; a cynic might even say he's only a saint thanks to royal patronage of King Theodebert II of Austrasia (who gave him the village of Merkingen as a gift & changed its name to St Arnual by royal decree) More biographical detail can be found here.

Comparing him to the other saints who share July 18 (as described here) he's definitely low on the list of impressive criteria for sainthood. Here's my own ranking of the July 18 saints (all descriptions cribbed from the breviary.net site linked above).


The miracles are only vaguely stated, although the hermitage moves him up from the very bottom of the list. Without death, misery and suffering it's hard for a sainthood to impress me.

Not an insult to the prodigal but the title of the latest album by my favorite local band, or perhaps more correctly, my favorite band who, to my delight, are from the local area (broadly stated, and in contrast to "The Local" as established in my last post.

Last night we went to London's swanky 100 Club to see the Broken Family Band. It was their 'official' launch party for Welcome Home, Loser (Now available on limited edition colored flexi-disc cassingle).

What makes them my favorite band? It's a not-so-easy-to-get-a-handle-on question. Or one with a complicated answer at least. (I should also note here that I'm tiresomely fickle when it comes to "favorite band" and anyone fool enough to ask is likely to get a sequence of bands from the recent period, all of whom I considered my favorite at least for a brief moment in that period [quite parallel to my response to the question "Where are you from?" which also evokes a sequence of locations {and perhaps a whole life story told to someone who's just making polite conversation /sorry about that/}]).

In short (ha!) they have a good combination of consistently good songs (both musically and lyrically), a musical style I can appreciate (and now that I've written that, I need to label them. Take a few of these words & jumble.  INDIE     ALT     GUITAR      IRREVERENT       COUNTRY      LOW-FI        CRASS. Now see how many other bands also fit that description. Repeat and serve warm.), and, well, I like listening to them. A lot.

Maybe it's also got something to do with having a snarky attitude that plays well with me. Nicely characteristic is from the FAQ on the band's website (linked above, you guess which one.):

What time are you on?

usually we're playing in venues that open around 7/8pm and close at 11pm/12am so its advisable to get to the venue between those times. If we're headlining you could get there later, if we're not then simply get to the venue early. Usually we try to play with people we like and would therefore recommend, so we'd advise seeing the whole show. There's no point asking us what time we're on, ever

And with that, once again I've run out of time before I have made much of a point. Sorry about that. I will try to return to the Broken Family Band love-fest in the future.

One important consideration upon moving to a new neighborhood is the new local. I refer in particular to the Oxford English Dictionary's sense B.2.h. "The public house in the immediate neighbourhood. colloq.(Usu. the local.)"

Our old neighborhood had a rather impressive range of dismally rated pubs, but eventually we settled upon the Faltering Fullback.  "Student union theme pub for middle-aged ex-students" ? Fair enough, but it ticked all the boxes

(x) walking distance
(x) decent beer selection
(x) reasonably priced food that didn't make us sick
(x) non-aggressive clientele

But now we've moved beyond walking distance and it's hard to call it our local when it's now 7 bus stops away. Fortunately we have an easy decision. Although the Woodbury Tavern is technically closer and (apparently) reasonably well-regarded, the Oakdale Arms is a clear winner.

As card-carrying members of the Campaign for Real Ale how could we not choose a pub that chooses to emphasize traditionally-brewed real beers? The pub itself, inconveniently located in a mostly-residential area, is nothing special, somewhat ramshackle, cavernous, and (still) a bit too brightly-lit. It's never very busy, but for a small cluster of the most regular of regulars (among whose numbers I cannot count myself). But it's the drinks that are the most convincing: a good range of real ales mostly from Milton's range (8 hand pumps on the bar), real cider, bottled Belgian and German beers. They may stock a run-of-the mill commercial lager or two like Stella Artois or Foster's, but if so they are well-hidden.

At the moment they are putting on a small Beer Festival, about which more later.

Something happened; this statement is the one in which i explain how user error and/or technical issues contributed to the disappearance of a rather lengthy entry, optionally including some ranting. Rather than attempt to reconstruct the original entry (an impressive scholarly effort on the linguistic diffusion of the All Your Base phenomenon), I shall instead highlight a new resource, The Eggcorn Database. Eggcorns are described in much more detail in this Language Log entry (and many subsequent discussions on the Language Log). In short, they are errors of usage (as in "egg corn" in place of "acorn") -- "linguistic errors" in which the erroneous form makes some sense -- perhaps more sense than the original form in this day in age (~10,600 Google hits vs. ~662,000 for "in this day and age", and only 3 for "in this dane age").

An interesting flyer appeared through our post box recently, titled "Spruce It Up!" and announcing a local event "Celebrating environmental achievements". Although the activities didn't interest me so much (plant potting, bird boxes, lantern making, ecological crafts, face-painting and badge making), the multiple languages did. The flyer contained text not only in Turkish ("TEMİZ GÖRÜNÜŞ", with no exclamation point) but also a mystery language ("Isku dubba rid!").

I was especially curious about this mystery language; not only was it unfamiliar (and had an awful lot of double letters, e.g. "U dabbaaldegga horumarinta bii'adda Ee mandaqadda NDC") but also I failed to think of any immigrant community that might speak this language (although we've only been living there two weeks). Although I had my own Rosetta Stone in the form of the English translations, it didn't get me very far;

Sabtida = Saturday
Waalidiinta/Daryeelayaasha = Parents/Carers
Cunto iyo cabbitaan lacag la;'aan ah = Free food and refreshments

I tried to put off the temptation to use Google but eventually I gave in.  The word "XUSUUSNOW" ("Note", I think) did the trick (do it yourself if you'd like the answer). And as it turns out, by remarkable coincidence, the same language provided the basis for an audio Language Quiz 2 over at the Language Log.

So now I know some more about the ethnic composition of our neighborhood (as it turns out, also fairly prevalent in our old neighborhood, although you don't see many _________ restaurants or ___________ shops).