Lluís Foix is another of the lost old fools who wander round La Vanguardia gabbling the ultra-conservative mantras of the Franco era, but with a Catalan accent, bien entendu. Lying (sorry: publishing extraordinary errors of fact) about America has been an integral part of La Vanguardia’s corporate culture for a very long time, and Mr [...]

Metrosexual. The Americans blame French cissies and Brit hacks, but the honours go to Galician AZ Alkmaar footballer, José Fortes Rodriguez:
Some women just don’t get it. They’re not used to being turned down. They say: Go on, you want me don’t you! I say: Am I talking Chinese? I don’t find you attractive. And then [...]

I don’t think that John McWhorter’s “YO!” has really “floated to the ends of sentences and lost its shouting intonation, and … become what linguists would call a pragmatic marker.” It’s just like football: there are always a few pragmatic markers hanging around on the margins of matches, and then there are Dutch defenders who [...]

Ah, how we all laughed at mad old Arnie! Mr Schoenberg, who was born on the 13th and feared the number all his life (Twelve tones? That’ll do nicely…), of course died on the 13th, just when he thought his illness had passed. And now the epidemiologists (c/o Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd) seem to be [...]

As the barking of the mad dogs of Mechelen recedes, Hispanic PR Newswire mutters in our ear that its market is suffering from a severe case of the proverbs:

Condescending southerner David Green (he’s Manchester-based) has a piece on the Beeb listing the delights that await Rivaldo when he finally signs for Bolton Wanderers. What many people this morning find difficult to understand is why Rivaldo can’t be arsed to travel those extra 10 miles up the A666 to the Anchor Ground, home of [...]