Tuesday, April 18, 2017

18.04.17 - Álcool, talco e água velva

Hallooo!

Hope all well.  My boss is on his boat and rather predictably wrote the whole of last week off, but then the whole country basically shut down for Easter, so not a great deal happened despite the reprieve from work.  Highlights included a Sunday stroll around the Horto, a rare swim and a massive rabbit chocolate cake from Gaby's grandma.

To conclude:
  • a saying: we'll have to take Ridaut's word for this, but apparently in the olden days people would go to the barbers and ask for a haircut and a shave with "álcool, talco e água velva": alcohol (as a disinfectant? or just to have a good time...), talcum powder and aftershave.  This sounds funnier with a strong provincial accent, trust me.  Nowadays, to the extent that anyone uses the saying at all, it stands in for "the whole nine yards", "the whole kit and caboodle" and other expressions which one doesn't really hear anymore...
  • blog, about one grad student's quest to teach a neural network to cook, with hilarious consequences;
  • and a joke: I made an online payment to my local Catholic church the other day, but it didn't go through properly.  So much for PayPal infallibility...
Ciao for now,

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