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Simon Pulleyn

@simonpulleyn.bsky.social

560 followers 450 following 350 posts

Read LitHum at Balliol. Former Lecturer in Classics at Merton. Honorary Research Fellow at Dept of Greek and Latin, UCL. Solicitor (nowadays non-practising). Fellow, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. Gay. 🏳️‍🌈 Comments in personal capacity only.

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 37m

Slow Horses has been such a treat.

Kristen Scott Thomas’s chilly character reminds me rather of Charlotte Rampling in London Spy.

Gary Oldman: breathtaking.

Saskia Reeves is so wonderfully dry. “Le Blanc Russe - don’t say anything.”

Jonathan Pryce: handy with a shotgun.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 1h

There are things we didn’t know even had names before the internet.

And things whose names are not intuitive. For example, this is variously described as swing top, clip top, spring top.

Cicero said there weren’t enough words for everything to have its own unique label. And that was before eBay.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 10h

Is “REVOLT” really a word you want to put into people’s minds if you are trying to persuade them that an underwear brand is attractive?

Perhaps it is assumed that potential buyers will be distracted from such pettifogging linguistic quibbles by the person doing the modelling.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 10h

There is ScrewFix City. I went in today. No actual goods on display. All very minimalist. You have to search a screen and stuff is brought to the bare counter. One screen was being hogged by an inert organism who showed no signs of moving. The other was broken. I made my farewells and left.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 10h

First, you don’t need to start every word with a capital letter.

Second, Dickens didn’t write ‘Oliver’; he wrote ‘Oliver Twist’.

The musical by Lionel Bart wasn’t called ‘Oliver’ either. It was called ‘Oliver!’

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 10h

I braved the chuggers outside bloody Farringdon station because I needed to go to Clerkenwell Screws. But, the horror, it has closed down.

Where now am I to go for threaded fastenings?

It’s no good trying to buy online. To compare things properly, you need to have them in your hands.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 20h

Up to now, I’ve done my indexes myself. But it’s so time-consuming. I don’t want to pay someone a four-figure sum to do what I could do myself. But I might be prepared to pay a more modest amount for software. *IF* it’s any good.

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 20h

Historical Linguists: Any recommendations for indexing software that can handle (1) PDF proofs and (2) languages other than English, specifically lots and lots of Ancient Greek?

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 1d

Happy Birthday! And thank you. ❤️

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 4d

I remember Brian Sewell hooting with derision at the Courtauld laying on a course called “Getting to Grips with Rembrandt.” Maybe the novel equivalents would be “Getting To Grips With Dickens” or “Resilience in the Face of Richardson” or “Resisting Rankin”.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 6d

You mean you didn’t before? 🙂

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 6d

How to tell your friends you have fallen through a wormhole into the London of an alternative universe without saying explicitly that you have fallen through a wormhole into the London of an alternative universe:

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 7d

I just saw Tallis’ Spem in Alium referred to “as featured in Fifty Shades of Grey”.

Gawdelpus. Surely this is the nadir of “relevance”.

Can’t it just be one of the most evocative pieces of sacred music ever written?

Does it need to be commended by reference to BDSM-lite?

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 11d

So much for AI.

I mean, technically … yes. But … no.

I dread to think how AI would construe it if someone texted to say, “Sorry I can’t make it. My sister’s having a mare.”

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 11d

Schofield’s department store was a Leeds institution from 1901. The incarnation I knew was demolished in 1996 and replaced by what I still think of as “that HORRID new building.” Now I see that’s being demolished in its turn. I shan’t miss it. But where did those 29 years go?

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 11d

RIP Tony Harrison 😢

We went to the same school in Leeds. He, however, was a genius.

His poem “V” upset the usual suspects. His reaction was typically pithy and pointed:

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 13d

Weird.

I read “… which would verify an individual’s right to live and work in the UK …”

So what does my passport do? I thought it was not just about crossing borders. I thought I only had one by virtue of my citizenship, which confers the right to live and work.

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 13d

I just put out a bin fire on Oxford St with the help of the guys at a falafel stall who gave me a kettle full of cold water when I asked them and then a second. It had begun to take hold. But now no more bin fire. Hat tip to falafel men.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 13d

I went to the recent Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery half a dozen times. This is exactly what it was like. Quite dispiriting. Why can’t people just LOOK at the pictures?

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 14d

The thing on the left is obviously from, and meant for, the US.

But I gather that those trans-flag crossings at the junction of Marchmont St and Tavistock Place in Camden WC1 (right) have provoked the indignation of religious objectors.

(Ppl in photo are NOT objectors. Two are friends of mine.)

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 14d

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Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 15d

Plainly this is US English. But were Americans using “blasted” in this sense at that period? Dunno. The piece is too unremarkable to bother faking. In this country, the usage took longer to take hold. I remember hearing it on the BBC and thinking they’d let their hair down.

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 18d

ה״יד

Simon Pulleyn @simonpulleyn.bsky.social · 21d

I came across this rather loaded little presentation by unhappy accident yesterday:

youtu.be/SwGEnVEijCA?...

This is an area of London I’ve known for 25 years. I do not experience it like this.

Does the presenter have local knowledge? He mistakes The City skyline for, er, Canary Wharf. Hmm.

24 Hours in East London’s Muslim Area | Apostate Prophet

YouTube video by Visegrad24

youtu.be