Joan over in John Chappell’s 2004/02/04 02:35 comments section is getting annoyed about people using the word Spanish instead of Castilian. “I think we should call things by their name,” he says,
Spanish languages are: Castillian, Catalan, Basque and Galician. I speak both Castillian and Catalan. I don’t agree with Español being the same as Castellano. [...]

Homage to Catalonia achieved the double-whammy of focusing attention on the Stalinist terror that followed the 1937 coup while whitewashing the merciless anarchist repression here in 1936. With the heroic optimism that often accompanies foreign jaunts, Orwell seems to have approved wholeheartedly–although never in public, my dears!–of the slaughter or exile of the Catalan clergy [...]

Orwell biographer DJ Taylor wants to dig up the common of Southwold, a quiet Suffolk seaside resort, in order to find a time capsule that Orwell allegedly buried there 70 years ago. If found, I suspect that it will not contain a bucket and spade.

While garden show presenters who can’t tell the difference between cannabis and cabbage would probably do better sticking to alcohol, I’m intrigued to note that healthcare scammers, All Nutritional Supplements, are advertising bags of Jamaican bat guano, apparently for human use. (Yes, it’ll also do wonders for your cabbages, although the Scots may want to [...]