The Big City » Briefly

Pitzi

Jon — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:01:59 +0000

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!

Your Sex

Jon — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:34:46 +0000

Here’s a cool little script that estimates your gender based on the sites you’ve visited. How does it know where you’ve been? Now there’s the question.

Liberal

Jon — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:57:30 +0000

If the main division in modern politics is between liberal and authoritarian then I am a liberal and if David Davis was standing against Labour in my constituency on the issue of 42-days I don’t see how I could vote Labour. That makes me very sad.

Did you know?

Jon — Sun, 18 May 2008 16:18:27 +0000

Would you believe that an adjustable spanner is called, in French, a Clé Anglaise? English Key. What are they getting at?

Bless Him

Jon — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:45:37 +0000

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

Jon — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:52:06 +0000

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!

Jon — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:19:43 +0000

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

Jon — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:42:29 +0000

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!

Jon — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 05:57:34 +0000

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

Jon — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:47:55 +0000

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.