@alexdrace
Cultural history of modern Europe. Associate Professor, @uvahumanities.bsky.social. Books: “Un boem la Bucureşti”; "The Making of Mămăligă"; "Networks, Narratives and Nations" &c. https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/d/r/a.j.drace-francis/a.j.drace-francis.html
Research paper next Thursday:
James Christian Brown (Univ. Bucharest) "A Scottish Gael in the Romanian Vineyard"
New Europe College, Thu 19 March, 15.00-17.00 (Bucharest time)
#travelwriting #gaelic #romania
nec.ro/events/a-sco...
Typo of the day: turn-off-the-century
Sloppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse
Today is the Slovenian Valentine's Day #Gregorjevo (ptički se ženijo) birds’s matrimony!
On this day St. Gregory tosses the lamp into the water as the days have become longer. Traditionally kids in Ljubljana float tiny rafts with lit candles in rivers. Ohrid has similar tradition, but for Epiphany.
Good to know that authors can still exist!
bsky.app/profile/life...
Seems to be Sloppelgänger? Can't find a usage older than 48hrs, but happy to be corrected
bsky.app/search?q=slo...
Is this also why UK @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy website seems to be under pressure, reporting technical issues?
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Dear everyone,
As per the post from the Bodleian librarian below, AI bots and scrapers are putting just about every website under great pressure, British History Online included.
A lot of excellent tech staff are working hard to keep everything working, but outages and siruptions are inevitable.
Hippocrates, Aphorisms, translated into Hungarian by David Wachtel (1843) - frontispiece
Hippocrates, Aphorisms, translated into Hungarian by David Wachtel (1843)
galeriasavaria.hu/termekek/res...
Anton von Hammer, History of the Plague in the Banat of Temesvar (1839) - frontispiece
Anton von Hammer, History of the Plague in the Banat of Temesvar (1839) @wellcomecollection.bsky.social
wellcomecollection.org/works/v4wtvt...
That's a good one! Even better, he seems to have changed his middle name from Clapp to Klapka in homage to the latter
Alphabetical list of the members of the Temes National Casino, its rules and other information (1838) - frontispiece
The latter also appeared in a Hungarian edition (1838)
mandadb.hu/dokumentum/8...
I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...
Did not know - Hungarian general György Klapka, famous for his "last stand" in the 1848-1849 War for Independence, was the son of a printer from Temesvár, Joseph Klapka. The family was of Czech origin.
I think there (having researched the issue) the airline could claim exceptional circumstances? Sorry to hear it all the same..
After 9 months we had a hearing booked in Leeds County Court (not where I live).
The airline sent me an offer of settlement and tried to get the court to vacate the hearing before I had agreed to it. Luckily the Court rang me up to check...
I once had the persistence to get compensation from a low-cost airline - it was way harder than my PhD (although the training helped)
Temeswarer Nachrichten (1771) - the first newspaper to appear on present-day Romanian territory.
Been asked to write about printing in the Banat of Temesvar
- so here is a copy of the first newspaper (1771) and a printed list of shareholders in the Timisoara casino (1838)
mandadb.hu/dokumentum/1...
Cărți care te fac să înțelegi și să iubești Bucureștiul - mă bucur de recomandarea cărții "Un boem la Bucuresti" din partea Hotelului Cismigiu www.hotelcismigiu.ro/noutati/arti...
The Balkan origins of walking upright?
Nice to hear, thanks!
Professor Dennis Deletant
Birthday balloons 80
My PhD supervisor Professor Dennis Deletant is 80 - la mulți ani!
Vacancy for a fully funded 4-year PhD at @uvahumanities.bsky.social on the key roles played by social science, demography, and nutritional science during the blockades of the First and Second World Wars, especially where they related to food.
Golestan Palace is truly an incredible sight to behold. US/Israel are attacking Iran’s history and culture, not to mention its people.
Notice saying "Technical issues with our website and catalogue. We are currently experiencing technical issues with our website and our catalogue, Discovery, which may cause intermittent outages. Our team is working to resolve these problems as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience."
"Technical issues" reported on @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy website and catalogue - hope not serious. Anyone know more?
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk
200 years ago, UCL was founded on a radical idea: education for all.
To mark our bicentenary, the Two Centuries Here Exhibition explores UCL’s past, present, and future across our Bloomsbury campus.
The exhibition is open from 18 Feb 2026 to 31 July 2027.
#UCL200
I reviewed "Le voyage dans les Balkans" for the journal Viatica, no. 13 (2006) journals.openedition.org/viatica/6856
I was lucky not to have many slugs (a few aphids, and had to net against birds when plants were seedlings).
My worst enemy was ground elder (piciorul caprei "goat's foot", it's that stubborn!)
My best cucuruz -
Time to move on
push lawnmover on allotment
Swiss chard
large courgettes
broad beans, shelled
Saying farewell to my allotment which I have cultivated for ten happy years - remember the good times
