GhanaWeb, one of the world’s leading portals, reports that

Kofi Abrampah was born in Ghana and studied molecular science at Rhode Island College, from which school he subsequently obtained his doctorate. He is currently employed by Amersham as a nuclear pharmacist which, according to Africa’s finest portal, GhanaWeb, means that “he compounds and prepares radio pharmaceutics (radioactive drugs).” So what do you think he [...]

Says the FT:

In Jews in the Notarial Culture: Latinate Wills in Mediterranean Spain, 1250-1350, Robert I Burns, SJ, writes:
Moneys in testamentary legacies followed the standard medieval pattern of the penny, the sou (or shilling) containing 12 pence, and the pound containing 20 sous or 240 pence. Only the penny and half-penny (òbol) were actually minted and circulated [...]

This is cool: Rumsfeld’s famous Feb 12th “As we know,/There are known knowns” briefing and other of his texts set to music. (Thanks A.)

We already knew that Barcelona’s Forum lacked any political credibility, but it has now done something that is completely unpardonable: hurt Michael Jackson’s feelings. Here’s the Google version of a piece on BlackFedora.net:

This morning in one of Barcelona’s beach-side districts, Barceloneta, l’Agrupació Coral Humorística “El Rossinyol”, founded 1925, was singing the following ditty, accompanied by a band that in Holland would be referred to as a boerenkapel:

Sa-le_el sol por la ma-ña-na,
por la ma-ña-na sa-le_el sol.
Los bor-rachos por la tar-de,
y por la no-che_el ros-sin-yol!
I don’t know who sang [...]

With Lithuanian star Gregor Fucka already doing fine in FC Barcelona’s basketball sub-brand, it’s a pity that el Barça don’t seem to be able to find a brother to sign along with Michael Ballack for the football entity.

Some of the locals would have you believe that Barcelona is the global capital of crazy. Not at all, for, as Holmes remarked in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, “the lowest and vilest alleys in London[, Barcelona, whatever] do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.” [...]

Graham over at Baldric’s Trousers is publishing photos of the Forum event here, and it sounds rather as if he’s got a season ticket. I’ve had the occasional glance at the webcams (1/2) which, once you get past the stupid DHTML, show great empty spaces – visitor numbers are terrible – so it’s good to [...]

Unfortunately this is not the case at Sexo para extranjeros. Oh dear, back to those extra-terrestrial marrow monsters.

Notorious scumbag Patrick Kluivert was convicted this week of threatening a Barcelona waitress. I am just trying to imagine what will happen to him if Middlesbrough buy him and he tries the same trick in a Teesside bar.

I always thought that a commodity was an article that could be traded, and that time (99-year lease, delivery in October, they’ve already started rotting) was a major determinant of price. Not so in the Guardian, where Hugh Muir writes of Simon Hughes’ moribund campaign to become London mayor that
The Liberal Democrats need a surge, [...]

Recognising an urgent need, Barcelona’s excellent Institut Français has undertaken to explain love to the Catalans (translation Googlebotted for style, steam, and speed):

Lorna’s Shorts is a feed consisting of English summaries of Barcelona news which you can use for free on your website. The standard version looks like this:

You can use Lorna’s Shorts if you understand and accept the following terms and conditions and any that may subsequently be imposed, news of which will be [...]

On Saturday, while I was being chewed by a sheepdog with an intestinal disorder, that notorious socialist Catalan republican separatist (I think that’s the correct sequence), Francesc Ferrer, was watching the Spanish royal wedding. Our Francesc takes life seriously – his writing leads one to suspect that he, too, was once bitten by a dog [...]

By a real live linguist, re criticism of Bush’s “hesitant pronunciation of Abu Ghraib”.

John Chappell writes that “Only [Rafael Ramos] could somehow establish a comparison between a 1930s realist painter and the Iraq war.” What, Barcelona’s leading illiterate plagiarist with an original idea? John might change his mind if he checked Jonathan Jones’ Guardian article, published last week. In fact, all that Ramos (search) adds to the sum [...]

Check the front page of the Vilafranca weekly, el 3 de vuit, but be quick: they might publish something.

I reckon that most of the money invested by local and regional government in providing e-services, ranging from bog-standard pages for rural councils to the more ambitious attempts seen here in Barcelona, was wasted. This is because most projects served either as a means to funnel money to new media businesses set up by the [...]