@adriantoll
Flâneur manqué. Variously: Creator @gilbertwhite.bsky.social and @johnclare.bsky.social Tech @ www.thebureaulondon.com Tea boy @ www.arantzavilas.com Neuroscience @ www.ucl.ac.uk Sculpture @ www.arts.ac.uk Psychology @ www.ed.ac.uk
The Picturehouse website commits the cardinal sin of having banner images of different depths, so when you're about to click on something it often moves and you end up clicking on something else. Rage-inducing and measurably reduces my desire to see films there. www.picturehouses.com/cinema/duke-...
"May not man himself become a sort of parasite upon the machines? An affectionate machine-tickling aphid?" Samuel Butler, Erewhon, 1872
Would "prudish" work for "pudique"? Or is it just the similarity of sound that makes me think that?
A friend's father was Tom Parry Jones, who co-invented the first hand-held electronic breathalyser. He was from Anglesey and known locally as "Jones the Breath".
"Very warm" was 54°F / 12°C compared to 45°F / 7°C the previous day.
... does not a summer make.
Brighthelmstone is the old name for Brighton: 'The ancient settlement of "Brighthelmstone" was documented in the Domesday Book.' en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton
At Datchet (near Windsor), on four days (15th, 17th, 18th & 19th) the temperature in a 'shaded' area of a garden was recorded between 90 and 96degF (latter is ~36degC); these values are probably too high by modern standards but give an idea of the intensity of the heat.
www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/geograph... July 1825: we only have records for the London & Home Counties area, but in central London (Somerset House) there was a sequence of days from the 12th to 20th (9 days) with the maximum temperature >=27degC, with the highest value on the 19th at ~32degC.
Samuel Grimm illustrated The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.
Lathraea squamaria: common toothwort. "It is parasitic on the roots of hazel and alder, and occasionally other trees, and represents the second occasion on which a member of the family Orobanchaceae lost the ability to photosynthesize and became parasitic."
(Love the use of "pillow" as a verb in that poem!)
Wooden cold frame in a garden with hay surrounding it and a sign in front saying "Cucumber 'Long Green Ridged'"
This was White's house last year around this time (although can't remember whether there were any harvestable cucumbers or not). He talks occationally about "hot cucumber beds", so I presume this is a recreation of that, although presumably not the perspex...
A garden scene: a wooden cold frame (a low-to-the-ground greehouse) with hay surrounding it, with a slate and chalk sign in front saying "Cucumber 'Long Green Ridged'"
Not sure if the perspex is strictly of White's time, but this was a cucumber hot bed at his house in April last year. Can't remember whether there were any swelling cucumbers in there though!
Given you're a translator I presume you know that English wasn't nearly as standardised then as it is now? White consistently uses this spelling.
Unfortunately he isn't actually back from London until the 22nd - I think this entry must have been filled in by someone tending the garden.
Keep an eye out for tomorrow's journal entry!
0°F is almost -18°C
Although given that he used social media, perhaps it would just be the case of a retweet bot!
They're easy to build, the hard bit is collecting / transcribing the entries... (Plus copyright issues for someone who hasn't been dead for a few hundred years).
For a split second there I read that as saying that Flanders was inspired to write the song by Henderson, which really confused me...
Phalaena is an obsolete genus of Lepidoptera used by Carl Linnaeus to house most moths: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalaena
Thanks!
Such a lovely link to have. Initially he struck me as rather cantankerous, and while I can still see that side I've grown quite fond of him over the last few years of reading the entries.
Thanks. I'll post about it on my personal profile, but prefer not to "step out of character" on the bot accounts so it's solely the words of Gilbert and John. The only time I did that on Twitter was to announce that they were leaving!
Hello @nicwilson.bsky.social - I'm the person who build the @gilbertwhite.bsky.social and @johnclare.bsky.social bots, and would be happy to have them both included. Thanks!
A John Clare Flora - www.ntu.ac.uk/__data/asset... - mentions this. Apparently Henderson sent him a specimen a week later that he'd found on the brickwork of a well shaft.
