Stream
Some other stuff ...
What I’ve watched
I keep a little log.
There’s no way to take John Buchan seriously today, but for sheer escapist, eclectic tosh, he’s very entertaining, especially as a free download from a library. I’m not even sure how to go about reviewing the book, and while procrastinating I tried to find contemporary reviews to see how it might ha...
“An anchovy, to get to an important point, is a larval sardine (Engraulis encrasicolus). Around Nice, anchovies are called poutines (not to be confused with fast-food from Quebec).”
This, from a writer I have long respected for their meticulous research, rang alarm bells. Nowhere, ever, have I come across the idea that an anchovy is a larval sardine. A sardine, I’ve always thought (known?) is a young pilchard. And an anchovy is ... an anchovy. These days, though, you can’t be too sure, so I turned to the magisterial Mediteranean Seafood by the master, Alan Davidson (2nd edition, Penguin, 1981).
My worst fears, confirmed: [Someone is Wrong on the Internet]((https://xkcd.com/386/).
Two writers on Substack get money from me, one because I genuinely wish to support them, the other because I find what they write valuable and they abandoned first their print subscriptions and then their website. All the rest, and there are a fair few, probably never will. Obviously, despite their best efforts, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
A friend to whom I had raved about 📖 Cahokia Jazz raved back about Civilisations. Well no, he didn’t rave, because he didn’t want to offer any spoilers. All he said was that it was a great counterfactual. When I asked for at least a bit of an outline, he added only, “well, when the Inca fleet turn...
The modern digital audio recorder is a thing of wonder. I have a Zoom F3 that is tiny and that records such an insanely wide dynamic range that it doesn’t even have a “Volume” setting. All fixed in post. And yet ... Every so often it completely fails to work as expected. Most likely it is my expectations that are wrong, but that’s no excuse.