Elderly client: So what’s that in pesetas then?
Barman struggles for a moment with a calculator: 601.01.
Client: Not bad.

This anti-tourism business seems to have got our Tokyo operative into trouble:

We’re doing stuff in other parts of Spain and looking at France and Italy, but I guess we’re going to have to put the Asian entity on hold for a while. Hiring is also paused as we consider the offer of some bloke called Darling to trade the whole of EC3 for a stake in the Valencian business. At the end of this sorry affair, only two of us will be left: Botín and the Baldie, and Botín doesn’t know how to grow potatoes.

(Thanks to the DG)

Spelled-out proof that Expansión, La Vanguardia and various other established Spanish newspapers’ international financial experts may actually know f-all about their subject.

Tommy Hilfiger Barcelona With a Lesbian Scene Featuring Penelope and Scarlett, as I think someone called it, got $3 million cash and substantial help in kind from local and regional government on the grounds that it would encourage people to study Catalan identity and then work in museums. Encarnação do Demônio credits unspecified assistance from the Sao Paolo authorities for a film that portrays the city a filthy chaotic slum ostensibly run by psychotic police and priests where a satanic serial rapist, torturer and killer is in fact free to set about establishing a superior bloodline. That’s some promotion, so I guess this year’s Take the Money Then the Piss prize has to go to José Mojica Marins. My commiserations to both sets of voters. Also seen last night: Mirageman, which could do wonders for Santiago de Chile: