L’ús més original d’un Chupa Chup: en l’educació fonològica.

El meu menjar favorit nadalenc és la xirivia rostida en una salsa de bolets. La xirivia és bastant barata aquí, perquè només es dóna a les vaques. En Agricultura elemental española (Madrid, 1933) José Dantín Cereceda va escriure:
410. Chirivía.- La chirivía (Pastinaca sativa L.), con sus dos variedades P. s., var.edulis, y P. S., var. [...]

On Saturday evening a 61-year old publican shot two Portuguese gypsies dead from the balcony of his flat in Terrassa for parking their Ford Transit opposite and sitting around drinking and playing the electric organ.
A policeman here once threatened to arrest me for doing roughly the same, but this is Douglas Adams in So Long, [...]

When I was small I used to hang around a container port, hoping to be picked up by a passing pirate ship, and it is with a similar contempt for danger that I now traipse across Spanish building sites. Unfortunately, signs like the one on the left are generally an indication that (legally speaking) the [...]

Això és la llista dels llibres que més s’estan venent dins el grup específic de codis postals que constitueix Microsoft. Es diu un purchase circle e hi ha mes aquí. A Anchorage (Alaska) es llegeix sobre escapar, viatjar, sobreviure, els gossos y Microsoft .Net.
Via Scobleizer.

I’m just trying to work out what will now happen to the hypothetical French girl whose parents tattoo “Dubya is Love” on her forehead at birth. Will she be able to attend school normally, or will she have to wear the hijab? An interesting interim solution would be to let everyone wear what the hell [...]

My impression is that there’s still a lot of it going on here - banking regulation seems lax and there’s always someone who’ll turn a blind eye - but here’s a technique I don’t remember coming across before in the gambling industry: offering to pay lottery winners a premium in order to be able to [...]

Ms Tilden-Davis was in Howling 4, so she should have known what to expect. (Early reports quote Ms TD being lifted onto the stretcher saying: “What looked like nothing more than a harmless ripple turned out to be a full-blown crime wave.” The hippopotamus is undergoing treatment for a severe case of the groans.)

What with wars and everything, this is a turn-up for the books. The November poll (Word) of the national stats institute, the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas asked the Spanish people how much they liked Johnny Foreigner:

a lot

quite a lot

a little

not at all

don’t know

didn’t answer

Americans

4.9

35.0

32.2

16.1

9.8

1.8

Argentines

14.9

58.6

13.3

3.5

8.0

1.8

Brazilians

11.3

54.1

16.9

3.9

11.7

2.1

Chileans

8.0

51.5

20.4

5.7 [...]

Ernest Benach en la seva utopia, demostrant que el surrealisme no és el domini exclusiu dels cosmopolites.

The Peckham chapter of the Taliban and a horde of Yorkshire lesbians are going to be fighting it out here for the next few days so , to remind you of how good life was before Reagan, is Radio Tirana’s old call sign.

A brief take on els pastorets.

Aquesta foto d’en Marc, fet per un tub de cartró, és una imitació de Le faux miroir (1935) d’en Magritte, que possiblement estava pensant en la Porte fenêtre a Collioure (1914) d’en Matisse. Altre bon exemplar d’aquesta època és la Venus B (1933) de Kazimierz Podsadecki, i peces modernes que m’agraden inclouen aquesta foto anònima [...]

A free choral arrangement of an old French carol.

Fleshbot quotes from the blurb of a moving picture that is unlikely to be showing at a cinema near you:
In the mythical realm of Diddle Earth, diminutive yet delectable Throbbit Dildo Saggins is sent by Smirnoff the Wizard to destroy the legendary G-String - most powerful weapon in the land.
We know, we do, and we [...]

I suggested to Mark Liberman the other day that the word Frank turns up in western Arabic in the C8th. A provisional apology is due because the first reference I’ve found in a hitherto brief search is not until the first half of the C9th, when ʻAbd al-Malik b Habīb (display problems?) of Granada uses [...]

un problema
Del MediaDailyNews:
[Un] estudi … [ha revelat] que els espectadors [americans] han d’aguantar un increïble 52 minuts de basura promocional durant un bloc típic de tres hores de prime time en les quatre cadenes principals. Aquesta xifra és 8% més que en 2000 i 36% més que en 1991… La durada mitja dels blocs [...]

Sorry, but anyone tell me whether the following William Dunbar quote refers to the long battle by Dorset priests to rid their churches of scrumpy ‘n’ western, to yet another destruction of Leicester City FC’s charity team, or to skirmishes between farmers and those legendary mint tea-crazed monsters?
Done is a battell on the dragon blak;
Our [...]

Si has enviat una targeta a algú a Anglaterra aquest Nadal, hauràs hagut d’utilitzar un codi alfanumèric de set caràcters com PO16 7DZ. Aquest codi s’utilitza per a dividir els 27 milions de bústies al Regne Unit com segueix:

exemple

unitat geogràfica

nombre

PO

àrea (Portsmouth en aquest exemple)

124

PO16

districte

2.932

PO16 7

sector

9.750

PO16 7DZ

unitat

�1,75M

Si pagues l’alta tarifa (�EUR 0,40) hi ha una possibilitat [...]

Disputes that in England might be settled by single combat (thanks Transblawg) are often resolved here using anonymous notes left in the entrance hall:
We request of a resident of this building (specifically of the rear façade) that out of consideration for the [right to] rest of the remaining residents she moderate her tone of voice [...]

Most people think that the kermes oak, Quercus coccifera, is actually holly because it’s a prickly evergreen tree that round here doesn’t usually get much bigger than 2m. Cocciferous plants are so-called because they bear berries (coccus + fero), and people used to make cochineal out of what they thought were this plant’s berries. Then [...]

Wel leeg, bij Margaret Marks.

Ben Berg:
Kanjigate (v.). To write in kanji.
Langmaker is a site for people who like creating new words and languages. Here’s the history of Chicken.

Dos consellers municipals a Nova York, Eva Moskowitz i John Liu, han proposat la prohibició de la venda i instal·lació de alarmes de cotxe audibles dins la ciutat.

Pictures of houses and a Derbi.

“Ara que al Saddam li han trobat viu, vull demanar als quals que ho consideraven una guerra il·legítima: ¿va vostè a exigir ara que Hussein sigui retornat al poder? “

How global government could make some lonely shepherds very happy.

La BBC divulga que prop de Irkutsk (Sibèria) s’estan tractant els arbres amb una substància que olora malament en cases calentes perquè la gent no els compri en el mercat negre. A Holanda la lluita contra els lladres es concentra en els boscos, on s’utilitza avions per a llançar merda de porc sobre els arbres.

“How could they do that to me now I’m having to inject in me feet?”

Molt bé, que DocMorris, una empresa holandesa, pot vendre medicaments sense recepta en línia. Desafortunadament no ens beneficiarà com a consumadors perquè, gràcies al seu model de alt volum/baix preu, Espanya segueix sent un dels millors països europeus per comprar drogues legals:

Font: IMS (2002)
Polònia és interessant. L’estat no subvenciona les marques conegudes i es ven [...]

I don’t see that selling a kidney is irreversible, and therefore worse than prostitution or working for the University of Manchester (normblog). Can’t you just purchase a new one when you’re better off and plug and play? Come to that, is there any limit to the number of kidneys you can have, either inside you [...]

Com he senyalat abans, l’ús exclusiu del català en l’ensenyament (secundari) i l’administració és una violació clara del Pacte Internacional de Drets Civils i Polítics, ratificat per Espanya en 1977. Només falten un parell de víctimes valentes i un advocat de drets humans.

Funny old world: your share price has been falling steadily for a couple of months when suddenly you put together a nice little deal in a far-away country and - lo and behold! - your price starts to recover. That’s what happened to an Californian business that makes airport security devices:
IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ [...]

Los Angeles Police Department:làpida=Guardia Real Provincial:gurapas?

Interesting report in this morning’s Vanguardia:
The man who in mid-November calls the police station of the Mossos d’Esquadra in Vic says that his 11-year old son has witnessed a kidnapping in Taradell (Osona). The report alarms the autonomous police force, which puts its incident plan into action; the description provided by the infant is precise [...]

Algú pot explicar-me perquè només s’ensenya la religió catòlica aquí i aquí? On queden Star Trek i Homer?

Late C19th Spanish quasi-realism sometimes reads more like Flashman than Zola. Here is a fairly random translation of a not entirely random excerpt from Un viaje de novios, a fine romance (mashed potato plot and all) written by minor aristocrat Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) during a stay in Vichy and published in 1881:
The strange thing [...]

Disseny exclusiu de jardins a Catalunya.

Gesprek tussen de gemeente Barcelona en Antoni Tàpies, kunstenaar:
DAG SPREEK IK MET MENEER TÀPIES
Ben ik.
KIJK MENEER TÀPIES VOLGEND JAAR HEBBEN WIJ EEN GROTE KERMIS GEPLAND NOU IS ER EEN GIGANTISCHE TENT NEERGEZET EN ER MOET IETS OP DE MUUR KOMEN KAN DAT
Jazeker. Mijn prijs is…
MAAKT NIE UIT MAAR HET MOET WEL OVER ZES WEKEN AF [...]