Titles

I thought some people might be interested in my titles… but they weren’t, nevertheless, I keep writing this, though who knows for how long.

For those who don’t know, Madrileño Inglesito means, more or less, English boy from Madrid. Here is some information on the titles of older posts.

• THUERK@DEC-MARLBORO was the email address of the person who spent the world’s first spam email.
• 4069 DWY was the numberplate of a car that I saw drive into a bollard the other day.
• In Memory. is a post written in memory of a dead friend.
• The its aquí don’t bante is the result of rolling phrases around my head while walking back from doing the shopping in the midday sun. I started, possibly, with “The ants here don’t bite”. Aquí is Spanish for ‘here’.
• Very GOOD news! is a post which contains very good news.
• Μολὼν λαβέ This is a Greek expresion roughly equivalent to “over my dead body” in English. It’s a bit military and is connected historically (or mytho-historically (must find the correct word for that)) with the Battle of Thermopylae.
• Candy Drop I know I got this phrase from somewhere, but I can’t for the life of me remember where, nor what the significance is.
• Piquancy is another word for pungency. In Chilli peppers it is measured using the Scoville scale.
• The Size of Wales is, 20,779 km². As proof that Wikipedia has a page for everything it is listed on their List of unusual units of measurement page, a page that is well worth a perusal, for sheer idiotic joy.
• Pseudepigrapha are written works which have been falsely attributed to historical figures. They are typically religious works [Wikipedia link].
• Sensus fidelium is a Roman Catholic concept that suggests that doctrine can be derived from the feelings of the faithful (as inspired by the Holy Spirit) as opposed to originating from scripture. See, for example, the Immaculate Conception, which, I must confess, I mistakenly thought was to do with Mary’s virginity. Silly me.
• Of Sleeping Little Beauties is the title of the poem in the post.
• τρέπω is Greek for “to turn, to direct, to alter, to change” and gives us the word trope.
• not without my discrepancies refers to nothing.
• I Skip The Part About Love is a lyric from the song Low (truly great video by the way) by R.E.M.:
  

  I skip the part about love

  It seems so shallow and low

  Low low low

  Low low low

  You and me

  We know about time

  We know how things go

  They come and go

  They live and grow

  They pass and go

  And glow and glow

• 9785 FWB was the numberplate of a car that I saw drive into another car the other day, I remembered the numberplate, you know, just in case.
• The King of Naples could refer to any of a number of historical figures, I am referring to the Napoleonic figure of Joachim Murat. Why, I shall let you guess, but I had read War and Peace not long before writing this post.
• Dreidel. A Dreidel is small spinning top used to play games with during the Jewish Holiday of Hanukkah.
• Minor Site Update refers to the fact that there had been a minor site update.
• Sorority Gril. A sorority girl is a girl who is a member of a sorority at an American university, I know one of these. Gril, apart from being an obvious typo of girl, is a joke only two people in the world will get.
• Maaaaaan, this is annoying is an expression of annoyance.
• Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a sexploitation film directed by Russ Meyer famous for cars, violence and large breasts. I am using it in this post to refer to the rabid lust for more money (also an aspect of the film).
• I Could Fall for You is a line from the song My Blue Wave by Lampchop:
  

  And if I gave a crap

  Would that show you where my head is at

  I would ride the moon

  And even if it comes too soon

  I could fall for you

  And you could fall for me

• Conservation of Linear Momentum. I think good ol’ wikipedia can explain this better than I can.
• Sharks v. Jets. Sharks and Jets are the two opposing gangs in the film West Side Story, a musical set in New York and based on Romeo and Juliet.
• Sacred Geometry, Re:Sacred Geometry & Re:Sacred Geometry II. Sacred Geometry is geometry – shapes and patterns – that appears repeatedly in nature, perhaps because divinely ordained, and has subsequently been used in the construction of holy places such as mosques and temple. These post are about geometry.
• Never Not Full of Love is an addendum to the Full of Love project.
• We Dance Like This refers to nothing but dancing, a subject of the post.
• Function and Abasement one to nine is the title of one of my pictures. The title relates to the different meanings and uses that can be found in everyday objects.
• Big Buck Bunny is the title of an open film and also the subject of the post.
• Don’t you wish your girlfriend was raw like me is a lyric from the song ‘Don’t Cha’ by the Pussycat Dolls. It was one of the songs danced to at the dance festival mentioned in the post. It is not music I would normally listen to:
  

  Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me

  Dont cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me

  Dont cha, dont cha

  Dont cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me

  Dont cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me

  Dont cha, dont cha

• Gobbledigook is the title of the first single from the Sigur Rós album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. This post was about that song. It is a very good song.
• The Bakery is Across From the Laundromat refers to a debate that had been going on between myself and a number of English-speaking Spanish friends over the precise difference between ‘In front of’ and ‘opposite’, both of which are normally translated into Spanish as ‘en frente’, ‘across from’ gives a third phrase to the mix.
• A nonsense of tongues refers to nothing.
• El Tonto del Bote is a modification of the title of the film La Tonta del Bote. It is a musical and you can watch the title song here. Frankly, I don’t know how to translate the title – tonta means foolish or silly and bote means boat or jar, or a bunch of other stuff – so maybe it’s ‘the silly girl in the jar’, but I’d imagine there’s some kind of better translation. If anyone Spanish reads this, give me a shout. My change was from the feminine to the masculine. Thanks to Ruben for sharing this film with me :D .
• Flora and Fauna on the Nature Trail. Forgive me, I can’t remember precisely the origin of this but Flora and Fauna on the Nature Trail was the title of a cartoon on the back of a nature magazine produced by a charity that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of. We had a subscription to it when we were kids. I have fond memories, just not very coherent ones.
• On No Chip Repenteth is the name of another blog of mine. Don’t ask me what it means.
• Estoy en Ascuas is a Spanish phrase which translates literally as ‘I am on embers’ it is used similarly to the English phrase ‘[to be] on tenterhooks’.
• Soñar Variations I – III. Variations of the original picture Soñar. Soñar means ‘to dream’ in Spanish.
• Como En Casa is a Spanish phrase which literally ‘like in [my] home’ and is used identically with the English phrase “[to feel] at home”.
• Pastel sobre papel milimetrado is a Spanish phrase which appeared in an art gallery describing the medium used for a piece of art, it translates as ‘pastel on graph paper’. I like the word milimetrado.
• God Spoke On The Promise Variations I & III. Variations of the original picture God Spoke On The Promise.
• 431! is a reference to this post where I give the number of films I had watched on a list of 1001 films to watch before you die. I have since been trying to watch more of these films to get my score above 500.
• Infanta Variations II & III. Variations of the original picture Como Una Infanta which means, ‘Like A Princess’, although Infanta is more correctly translated as ‘daughter of the king’ or, according to some sources (not wikipedia) the daughter of the king in line for the throne.
• the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth is a quotation from the film Jacob’s Ladder. It also appears, as a sample from that film, in a track by UNKLE, although don’t ask me which one, it’s on the album Never, Never, Land.
• legionario Variations I – III. Variations of the original picture como un legionarion which means, ‘like a legionary’ in Spanish.
• turn inside out. To turn [something] inside out is an English phrasal verb normally applied to clothes or other items that have both an obvious inside and outside and it means to reverse what the positions of what are normally considered the inside and the outside, for example, “I turn my t-shirts inside out before washing them”. It is not normally applied to something that can’t easily be turned, like a wooden box.
• Reina Variations I & III. Variations of the original picture Como Una Reina which means, ‘Like A Queen’ in Spanish.
• turn it in. To turn [something] in, is a synonym for ‘to hand in’ as in “Turn your essays in once you have finished” and means to deliver or submit.
• si no puedes enseñarme a cantar, enseñarme a volar is Spanish for ‘if you can’t teach me to sing, teach me to fly’. It is a reversal of a phrase found on the wall of the music classroom at school, which reads in Spanish and in English, ‘if you can’t teach me to fly, teach me to sing.
• Princesa Variations I – III. Variations of the original picture Como Una Princesa which means ‘Like A Princess’ in Spanish.
• turn into. To turn into, as in “the caterpillar turned into a beautiful butterfly” is an English phrasal verb meaning ‘to become’. To turn into, can also be used when giving directions as in, “turn into Albert Street” meaning to turn down or turn along, to enter a street (for bonus marks contrast with ‘turn onto’).
• Beautiful Variations I & II. Variations of the original picture Sometimes I Think I’m Beautiful which means ‘Sometimes I Think I’m Beautiful’ in English.
• Carrier Bag Variations I – IV. Variations of the original picture I Prefer Your Carrier Bag To You.
• Snippets from English Presentations I,II,III, IV and V contain short quotations from the presentations I had been helping my students prepare for their English exams.
• Tasting Skin Variations I – IV. Variations of the original picture Taste Your Skin.
• turn in. To turn in, as in “I think I’m going to turn in now” is an English phrasal verb meaning ‘to go to bed’.
• You are just like your stone refers to (kind of) nothing.
• casada con tu marca means ‘married to your brand’ in Spanish.
• Bathroom Stall Variations I – III. Variations of the original picture In a Bathroom Stall.
• off like scales Variation II. Variation of the original picture off like scales.
• You Precipice (Príncipe Pío) Variations I – III. Variations of the original picture You Precipice (Príncipe Pío). Príncipe Pío is a metro and railway station in Madrid, it means ‘Prince Pius’.
• Philematology is the art or science of kissing.
• JESUS & I WERE CONFUSED was a phrase found on Buddy Wakefield’s Journal (scroll down to March 26, 2008). Buddy Wakefield is a performance poet.
• M30 I and II. The M30 is a motorway which runs around Madrid. It appears in photos in these posts. (Oh, and that Wikipedia article is very out of date, like pre-wikipedia out of date ore something, maybe I should have a crack at translating the Spanish version…)
• विलायती is the Hindustani word from which Blighty derives. And that’s a really interesting little wikipedia article I think.
• Artist in Residence. Artists in residence are artists who spend a period of time working in or for an institution or other organisation in order, in part, to foster creativity. There is a wikipedia article about them, just like there is about everything else. The title jokes that I am the artist in residence at my school because, as of the time of writing, I had been spending a lot of time working on art projects there.
• Bedouin today, Yurt tomorrow as Wikipedia says “The Bedouin, (from the Arabic badawī (بدوي), pl. badū), are a desert-dwelling Arab nomadic pastoralist, or previously nomadic group, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and Negev to the Arabian Desert.” and “A yurt is a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.” You can build your own yurt.
• Loose Lips Sink Ships was a phrase used in British propaganda during the Second World War as a warning to guard against revealing information that might help the enemy.
• A Desire to Rule the Masses refers to nothing. It came to me in the shower. Maybe I am a bathroom tyrant.
• eidetic. Eidetic Memory is more commonly known as photographic memory.
• sola verbum Dei means “the word of God alone”.
• Full of Love is the name of a series of pictures that I made. The choice of title reflects my interest in the language of love as divorced from the actuality of love. The titles of the pictures play more with these ideas.
• Sara Montiel is a Spanish actress. One of her films, La Reina del Chantecler, is referred to in the post.
• Fecundación is the Spanish word for fertilisation.
• Just Like Honey is a song by The Jesus and Mary Chain:
  

  Walking back to you

  Is the hardest thing that

  I can do

  That I can do for you

  For you

  I’ll be your plastic toy

• Чернобог is Russian for “Black god”, the name of an obscure Slavic deity.
• Domine dirige nos is Latin for “God guide us” and is the motto of the City of London.
• The Electrio Co. is a song by U2:
  

  Red, running red

  Play for real, talk and feel

  A hole in your head

  You won’t shout, you’re spoon fed

• Spondee. A spondee is a word or phrase consisting of two equally stressed syllables. It is also the title of a song by Matmos which juxtaposes single-word spondees being read aloud with, among other things, frequency response tests for defective hearing aids.
• Πατεριχόν is Greek and is short for “father’s book” and is used to refer to literary collections of sayings and stories of the saints.
• Amillennialism refers back to the Eschatology of a few posts ago. It is a point of view that the 1000 years of Christ’s reign on earth spoken of in the Book of Revelation is symbolic rather than referring to a literal thousand years.
• Veit ec at ec hecc vindga meiði a / netr allar nío, are lines from the Rúnatal section of Hávamál, a Norse poem:
  

  Veit ec at ec hecc vindga meiði a

  netr allar nío,

  geiri vndaþr oc gefinn Oðni,

  sialfr sialfom mer,

  a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn.

  Við hleifi mic seldo ne viþ hornigi,

  nysta ec niþr,

  or rather, in translation,

  I know that I hung on a windy tree

  nine long nights,

  Wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,

  myself to myself,

  on that tree of which no man knows

  from where its roots run.

  No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,

  [[all this stolen from wikipedia]]

• Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is, I think, a beautiful phrase. It is a service in the Orthodox Church in which communion is given on the weekdays of Lent.
• Eschatologicaly Fine is a bit of a random title, Eschatology though is the study of the end of the world, more or less.
• Landscape Of The Body is a play by John Guare, that’s just a coincidence though, I didn’t know that before I wrote this entry.
• guapo? Variations I, II & III shows variations of an image first posted at the fotolog under the title Eres guapo. ‘Eres guapo’ means you are handsome in Spanish.
• Jötunheimr is the land of giants in Norse Mythology.
• Grue is a portmanteau of the colours blue and green (as is bleen) coined by Nelson Goodman and is used by linguists when studying languages which do not distinguish between these two colours (a fascinating area).
• Aprovechar Variations I – IV shows variations of an image first posted at the fotolog under the title Aprovecharse. ‘Aprovechar’ means to make good use of or to take advantage of in Spanish, ‘Aprovecharse’ is the reflexive form of that verb.
• Not Quite Variation I, II and Not Quite Variations III & IV show variations of an image first posted at the fotolog under the title Not Quite.
• perpetual marble calm is a phrase used by Sylvia Plath to describe a character in her novel The Bell Jar who has had a lobotomy. For an interesting documentary on the history of the lobotomy in the United States, see here.
• Heitr ertv, hripvþr! / oc heldr til micill; are the opening two lines of the Old Norse poem Grímnismál which forms part of the Poetic Edda. The full first stanza goes like this:
  

  Heitr ertv, hripvþr!

  oc heldr til micill;

  gongomc firr, fvni!

  loði sviþnar,

  þott ec a lopt berac,

  brennomc feldr fyr.

  Which, in the translation by Henry A. Bellows can be read in English as:

  Hot art thou, fire! | too fierce by far;

  Get ye now gone, ye flames!

  The mantle is burnt, | though I bear it aloft,

  And the fire scorches the fur.

• Variations I, II, III and IV show variations on an original image posted to the fotolog.
• If and only if is a logical connective used in philosophy, maths, and so on… check out wikipedia.
• ღვთისმშობელი is the Georgian translation of the Greek word Θεοτόκος or Theotókos, which translates literally as Birth-giver of God and is used as a title in Orthodox churches for Mary, the mother of Jesus.
• kjøpe katta i sekken is the Norwegian equivalent to the English phrase “to buy a pig in a poke” and translates literally as to buy a cat in a sack.
• The Story So Far (Part I) refers to the content of the post, a story that has yet to be completed.
• Quick Update refers to a small site update (and is also an update for you, the reader).
• Skeið is ‘spoon’ in Faroese.
• Κοχλιάριον. I like spoons, this fact is well documented I think. A κοχλιάριον is the Greek for a spoon used in holy communion in the Eastern Orthodox Church to distribute the body and blood of Christ.
• Whoever struck the first note… the results go undisputed doesn’t refer to anything.
• Mil Besitos means ‘A thousand little kisses’ in Spanish, it’s a fairly common way to sign off an email or the like to a friend.
• Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes is a line from the song Changes by David Bowie:
  

  Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

  (turn and face the strain)

  Ch-ch-changes

  Just gonna have to be a different man

  Time may change me

  But I can’t trace time

• Agnus Dei tolis pecata mundi is Latin for, I believe, “Lamb of God who wipes clean the sins of the world”. Also interestingly, google for it, this blog comes top – I seem to have the knack of picking obscure titles.
• Pishtaco. The Pishtaco is legendary creature native to Peru which bears some similarity to the vampire, although it takes not blood but the body fat of a person. There seems to be surprisingly little information available online, although there’s this wikipedia article is Spanish (interestingly when you google for it this blog entry appears as the third result)
• March Project (01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24) . A project for the month of March, 2008. Each day an image, each image made on a production line.
• cut the nose off the cheese – the nose is the pointy end of a wedge of cheese, cutting it off is considered extremely bad manners.
• ¿Is snailsnail an idiot? Yes he is.
• El Choricero means The Sausage Maker.
• The Possibilities Are Endless refers to nothing.
• The Permanence of Glances refers to nothing.
• The perineum of Madrid. The perineum is the part of the human body between the genitals and the rectum. These parts of the body are sometimes represented by the colours pink and brown respectively. Madrid’s Metro lines are colour coded. There is both a pink and a brown line. My house is equidistant from stations on both of these lines, hence it is placed between the pink and the brown lines, hence I live in the perineum of Madrid.
• Here’s one for all you Spaniards:-. Because the post contains a video that you need to speak Spanish to appreciate and is for Spaniards to learn English.
• Befores and Afters. Because the post had before and after pictures in it.
• Remote Control in the Mirror. This is may be the title of a future poem, a companion piece/response to Remote Control / El Mando. I’m thinking about it.
• Never Without My Tourniquet. Not entirely true, but I do have a medical tourniquet that I tend to carry around with me… you know, just in case.
• Orson & Christ is a piece of graffiti I read on a bench in Pinar de Chamartin Metro station.
• somewhat the worse for where is a pun based on the common idiom “the worse for wear” meaning damaged from use… or often used to refer to drunkenness. ‘Where’ is the English adverb of place (also used as a noun and a conjunction) and is a homophone of wear. The post talks about finding oneself in a strange place as the result of a long night out.
• Never let a man see you putting on your face is basically a nonsense title but inspired by a 30 minute Metro trip spent sandwiched between two women who both spent the whole journey applying their make-up.
• Teachers, Sweet Teachers is the first line of the poem presented in the post.
• vivez assez longtemps pour trouver le bon is the slogan of an anti-aids campaign in France which is promoted by a pair of very well-done digital animations – one with a homosexual and the other a heterosexual [I know I've seen a much higher quality version of the straight one, but I can't find it right now] theme. My French is pretty awful, but I translate it as something like: “live long enough to get to the good stuff”.
• bracketing time is my phrase for the idea of taking ‘Thick Photos’ (as described in this research paper [pdf link] by Michael F. Cohen and Richard Szeliski). Bracketing is a process in photography whereby one takes several photos of the same scene at different exposures (or other settings), this is useful in situations where one isn’t certain of how the final photo will look, or when conditions mean that small changes in settings will produce very different images. Thick Photos are a concept that are close to being achieved technologically whereby when you press the button on your camera you do not take a single image but rather a short video clip (at a rate of maybe hundreds of frames a second) this allows a number of things (read the paper linked to above) among which are choosing an image in which the subject is not blinking, or combining several moments in time to get all the members of a group photograph looking their best (a process that I have done myself manually in photoshop on a number of occasions). This idea can be an anathema to photography purists whereas on the other hand the authors of the paper suggests that it comes closer to representing reality as perceived. Myself I stand fairly neutral on the subject, but the technology lover in me would love to play with this kind of kit. I could ramble on – I’ve had a fair few philosophical musings on this subject – but I’ll leave it at that.
• ≠is the mathematical symbol for inequality, or one thing not being equal to another, for example 1 ≠ 2.
• mama had an epidural, hoping I would be a girl is the opening line from the song Jungle Telegraph by Eels:
  

  Mama had an epidural

  Hoping i would be a girl

  The night was black

  The sky was booming

  Darker clouds were surely looming

  I heard screaming Doctor shouts

  And baby then i came out

  It contains the word ‘epidural‘, a vocabulary item in the post and a form of aneasthetic most commonly associated with childbirth.

• I did a bad bad thing is a modified lyric from Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing by Chris Isaak, a song that for me is inextricably linked to Kubrick‘s last, much misunderstood, sadly underrated film, Eyes Wide Shut, in which it appears on the soundtrack. I quoted some more of the song on that day’s fotolog post.And yes, I did do a bad, bad thing, but I didn’t write about it
• El Encubierto. I couldn’t find anything about this on the English language webs, although I’m sure it’s out there somewhere… El Encubierto is Spanish for The Hidden One and according to Angus Mackay in Spain A History, Raymond Carr, Ed., it refers to a legendary Spanish figure expected to appear in the Middle Ages who was to drive the Moors out of Spain, cross over to the Holy Land and eventually recapture Jerusalem, defeat the Antichrist there and become the World’s last Emperor.
• Ronald drew me a portrait. Ronald, is Ronald McDonald, he has a wikipedia page here, I teach one of him and he drew a picture of me (not paying attention in class) I have written about him in these posts.
• tz. I’m not telling about this one.
• Underachievers Please Try Harder is the name of an album by Scottish band Camera Obscura, it is a reference to my students, those mentioned in the post are not underachievers.
• grrrrrrrrrr is an expression of frustration.
• Ere unde lop diu schepfent list, da list ze lobe geschaffen ist; swa er mit lobe geblüemet ist, da blüejet aller alaht list. is a stanza from Gottfried von Straßburg‘s prologue to his Tristan. In A.T. Hatto’s translation (the Penguin Classics edition) it reads thus:
  

  Praise and esteem bring art on where art deserves commendation. When art is adorned with praise it blossoms in profusion.

• ugly boys know their fate is a mauled line from the song Tongue by R.E.M., the proper line being “ugly girls know their fate”:
  

  I am ashamed to say,

  Ugly girls know their fate

  Anybody can get laid

  You want a room with a fire escape

  I want to tell you how much I hate this

  Don’t leave that stuff all over me

  It pains me

  Please just leave it.

• Botellón is the name of a Spanish gathering of (usually) teenagers to drink alcohol on the streets (or in other public outdoor places). You can read about them in this fairly awful wikipedia article, or you could not and you could read this paper on modelling the movement of crowds and predicting when they’ll form a Botellón [pdf link]. The foto (actually two different photos combined) in this post is of a site where youths gather every evening near where I live.
• pelo liso, liso, liso is the first line of a chant composed by the Rosita mentioned in the post, the full thing goes:
  

  pelo liso, liso, liso

  culo gordo, gordo, gordo

  where are we from?

  Baaaaaaaaaaaaangor!!!

  which, I’m afraid, is not very flattering to the girls of Bangor (university), in English it means:

  hair straight, straight, straight

  arse fat, fat, fat

  where are we from?

  Baaaaaaaaaaaaangor!!!

• αρτεμης is Greek for “safe and sound”, at least according to this Wikipedia article on Artemis, who some application on Facebook told me I was after I added it in a rash moment of soggy-brained-idiocy.
• How do I love thee Jack Cardiff? let me count the ways. borrows the opening line of Elizabeth Barrett Browning‘s ridiculously well know poem, sonnet number 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese:
  

  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

  I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

  My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

  For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

  Jack Cardiff, who’s mentioned in the post, is a highly influential cinematographer who pioneered colour photography and who is best known for his work with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

• Al Diablo con Los Guapos is the name of a Spanish-language telenovela (or soap), see this article. The title means, in my somewhat untrustworthy translation, something like “To the devil with the hotties”. You can read a little about the telenovela here, and telenovelas in general here.
• just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon is possibly my favorite line in the Harry Potter books, spoken by Hermione to Ron in The Order of the Phoenix, I was very pleased to see it retained in the film.
• una serpiente boa que digería un elefante is a quote from The Little Prince (which I am currently reading in Spanish) it means “a boa constrictor digesting an elephant”.
• the palm, the oak, or bays is from the poem The Garden by Andrew Marvell, which starts:
  

  How vainly men themselves amaze

  To win the palm, the oak, or bays,

  And their incessant labours see

  Crowned from some single herb or tree,

  Whose short and narrow-verged shade

  Does prudently their toils upbraid;

• riding by is nothing more than a reference to riding public transport.
• Costaguana is the fictional South American country that is the setting for Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo.
• Teach me mummy… how to catch someone’s fancy is a lyric from Grow Grow Grow by PJ Harvey:
  

  Teach me, Mummy

  How to grow

  How to catch someone’s fancy

  Underneath the twisted oak grove

• For All These Months I’ve Ignored Futurism is a nonsense title. According to Wikipedia the defining principles of Futurism are a passionate loathing of ideas from the past and a love of speed, technology and violence.
• You’re Innocent When you Dream is a lyric from Innocent When You Dream by Tom Waits, although I’ve been told it’s a reference to something else… possibly Shakespeare, possibly Macbeth.
  

  It’s such a sad old feeling

  the fields are soft and green

  it’s memories that I’m stealing

  but you’re innocent when you dream

• throw by stone is a nonsense title (more or less).
• Press Play is a nonsense title, though there is a band called People Press Play.
• Cautionary Tale is a direct reference to the content of the post which constitutes a cautionary tale.
• them weakly gilded arches is a nonsense title (kind of).
• a mini redesign is explicitly referring to a site redesign.
• un cojudo a la vela is rude.
• Avenida de la Capital de España, Madrid is a road in Madrid, with possibly the stupidest name for a road ever.
• All I want in life’s a little bit of love to take the pain away (Parts I, II, III, IV, V and VI) is a lyric from Ladies & Gentleman We Are Floating in Space by Spiritualized:
  

  All I want in life’s

  A little bit of love to take the pain away

  Getting strong today

  A giant step each day

  This series of posts led up to this video.

• We were the night is a reference to the last album by The Chemical Brothers, We Are The Night.
• Back in the line of fire is a reference to returning to blogging after a hiatus precipitated by my computer suiciding.
• Because the light’s gone out for me is a lyric from Bodysnatchers by Radiohead:
  

  Has the light gone out for you?

  Because the light’s gone for me

  It is the 21st century

  It is the 21st century

  It can follow you like a dog

  It brought me to my knees

• all ye well is a nonsense title.
• Knit Knit Knit is a reference to the large amount of knitting I was doing at the time of the post.
• This Is England is a 2007 film by Shane Meadows about skinheads in the 1980s.
• Lost in La Mancha is a 2002 film about Terry Gilliam‘s failed attempt to make a film about Don Quixote, also, of course, a reference to Don Quixote itself.
• ¿How come there ain’t no photos? is a reference to my continuing inability to put my Spanish fotos online.
• A bit of praise where praise is due is because it’s a post giving praise.
• Wintery is a reference to the weather being wintery.
• Bait is a reference to one of my own poems that I wrote a very very long time ago, it’s not very nice so I won’t quote it here, but if you really want it’s still up on this site somewhere
• Ba ba ba ba baa baaaaa baaaaa is musical.
• Î Î¿Ï Î‘Î½Î±Ï€Î½Î­Î¿Ï Î½ is Greek, if I could remember what it was I’d tell you… It’s a product you can buy from the supermarket.
• By Now is a nonsense title.
• He kind of looked like someone else is a nonsense title.
• Strange is a reference to the strange contents of the post.
• I think Christmas is kind of coming is a reference to Christmas approaching.
• Querido Amigo means Dear Friend, it’s a way of formally starting a letter in Spanish.
• Plancha is an iron. I was doing ironing.
• Nosotros lo Sabemos means “We know it…”. It comes from an advert the full text of which reads “Tú crees que las cosas en el mundo podrían cambiar. Nosotros lo sabemos.” which means, I believe, “You believe that things in the world can change. We know so.”
• And the gap in between is from a song by Hefner but right now I can’t for the life of me remember which one… good lyrics though.
• 5 días de Nov means “five November days” and is a reference to the contents of the blog covering a period of five days, in November.
• EL Educación es el arte de la doma means, I believe, “Education is the art of taming” and is a piece of graffiti daubed on a school near where I live… a reference too to my job of teacher.
• And everything is covered in hairs is a reference to sharing a house with two cats
• En Traje de Adán means, literally, “in Adam’s suit”, Adam as in and Eve. It’s a phrase akin to English’s ‘in your birthday suit’.
• In the event that a colleague has an accident or believes he/she has a sprain, dislocation or fracture in a limb, you should try to return it to its normal position is a quotation from the health and safety test that I had to take for my job. I had to decide if it was true or false.
• Those who can, teach. is a reference to the awful UK government campaign to recruit more teachers, also to my job of teacher.
• Because I am is a nonsense title.
• Ni un día sin poesía means “no day without poetry” it is a slogan found on Metro trains on posters of poems in Spanish for you to read while you’re traveling.
• Kill The Night is a nonsense title (more or less).
• By My Troth is a nonsense title.
• Physical Objects is the name of one of my films.
• Flaneur is a French word.
• Oh, and also… refers to the contents of the post, something I forgot to include in the previous one.
• Blather is a nonsense title.
• snailsnail es en Madrid! means ‘snailsnail is in Madrid!’ because he was.
• Up up and away is a reference to flying to Madrid.