Looks like Mr Patel’s political career is going to be a rerun of his life as a translator.

The other day I serendipited upon a review in Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië (1853) of Abraham Benjamin Cohen Stuart’s translation of what sounds like an absolutely brilliant Javanese epic poem dealing with the life and loves of one Baron Sakendher, Geschiedenis van Baron Sakendher. Een Javaansch verhaal van vertaling, […]

Tearing myself away from the Catalan parliament debate on whether Superman is right-wing, news from Tarragona of Manoli Silva Martí, who died in a supermarket toilet and was not discovered for 57 hours. You all know the song, of course:
Oh, dear, what can the matter be,
Three old ladies locked in a lavatory,
They were there from […]

I’m going to start including (front page, bottom right) “on this day” entries taking from Juan Cortada’s 1848 compendium of “all the customs, good and bad, of the city”, El libro verde de Barcelona: Añalejo de costumbres populares, fiestas religiosas y profanas, which I’ve been reading, along with the autobio of HN Schwarzkopf. Cortada is […]

Here’s a cautionary tale from Alonso de Villegas’ Fructus sanctorum y quinta parte del Flossanctorum (1594):
Gauberto Fabricio of the Order of St Bernard writes that in 1386 [Peter/Pedro/Pere IV] of Aragon took away various possessions of the cathedral church of St Tecla in Tarragona. Although the clergy protested, they were unable to prevent the mischief.
Now, […]

Christmad thought from Karim, which might bring to mind Leo Tolstoy or Norah Jones (or even Mark Twain–“The house was as empty as a beer closet in premises where painters have been at work”), but which is certainly all his own.

From Xosé Castro’s Spanish malapropism (burrada) site, Jehova’s witnesses = testigos de Jehová -> testículos de Checová = Mrs Chekhov’s testicles.

These (from Carlos Westendorp Plaza) are OK:

Autodate - type of potatoes
Queque - cake
Quineguar/chineguar - King Edward potatoes (the d -> g swap is interesting; it reminds me of some Andalusian dialects in which you get b -> g (abuelo -> aguelo) etc

And this is a killer:

Cambuyonero - Someone who trades articles of dubious procedence. Used […]

Fernando Navarro suggests that both I and Joseph Townsend are wrong. The Spanish word for executioner, verdugo, he says, was applied originally to a rod cut green, verde, and used to administer beatings. If Townsend was wrong, then his confusion or that of his informer might have arisen if (a) executioners were clothed in, or […]

MJ suggests that “adventures, devices and hoaxes” is a better translation of “aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones” than “adventures, inventions and mystifications.” I think that’s a bit hard on C19th Spain’s greatest scientist ;o)

Joseph Townsend, A Journey Through Spain in the Years 1786 and 1787 (1791):
When we drew near to Barcelona, we had to cross a river [ie the Besòs], in which we counted fifty felons, clothed in green, and employed in clearing the channel, whilst sentinels stationed at convenient distances prevented their escape.
It is curious to observe […]

I know where I should be grazing this Christmas, thanks to the Archbishop of York:
We are so lucky in this country to have churches that are nearer our homes than most supermarkets. I encourage you to take advantage of that this Christmas.
Unfortunately there’s no way he can be referring to the Queen’s churches, which take […]

Here are some lovely photos by Eduardo Mencos which I just found.

Just in case you wondered and don’t understand Google, Beercelona isn’t my term but the name of a 5-a-side team in Cambridge. Real Madras is still around, but whatever happened to Orange Flavoured Bicycle Sheds?

… is how it always seems to end up in Word. In the New Year normality will reassert itself in the shape of l’Estatut or, more probably, nothing.

Louis Moritz (source (.doc)) was an Alsatian who settled in Barcelona in 1851 and, two years later, started working for a local brewer, Ernest Ganivet. In 1856 he started his own business, and in 1859 Luis Moritz y Compañía bought Joan Maurer’s brewery at the Santa Madrona gate. In 1864 a new brewery was opened […]

Abdul Bari Jahani told IWPR, “This is in fact not a poem, but a list of tribes.” The old Yugoslav one worked on the same basis, with each republic having a section of its own anthem included, which is why it took hours to play at football matches.

La Vanguardia really does struggle at times. Here’s roughly what Juan de la Mota of S&P said yesterday:
El consejero delegado de la entidad en España, Juan de la Mota, explicó hoy en rueda de prensa que, aunque todavía quedan muchos detalles por definir, la calidad crediticia de las autonomías debería salir beneficiada de estos cambios, […]

I am told that, during a recent Shanghai performance of The Messiah, the tenors got confused and lost during the chorus “Let us break our bonds asunder,” presumably for fear they’d be despised and rejected thereafter.

I’ve a little bottle in my brisses pocket,
which I call Icum Spicome, Spinto of Spain
Which brings dead men to life again
Here Jack take a sup out of my little bottle
And let it run down thy throttle
Arise and fight for ten thousand.

An interesting proscription is to be found in the description of a Barcelona Easter week pageant in Joseph Townsend’s A Journey Through Spain in the Years 1786 and 1787:
In the processions of the present day, practices which had crept in when chivalry prevailed, with all its wild conceits, practices inconsistent with sound morals, and offensive […]

Baron von Gizman (or whoever) threads his way round the that/which dilemma by using both on the No Kill I site. (No Kill I is a band thatwhich I have never heard, and thatwhich has been involved in a disturbing voodoo chicken situation.)

Weather and currency stuff has been evicted and rehoused here to stop it slowing this demn thing down. Even proper caching didn’t help.

If history, culture, economics and a lack of soothing medication mean that Galicia is entitled to bits of Asturias and Castile & Leon, then Andalusia should hurry up and bang in a claim for the Baix Llobregat, Santa Coloma, and large parts of Barcelona.

‘“Bush is worse than Stalin” -Hitler’ gets 30 ghits while ‘“Bush is worse than Hitler” -Stalin’ gets 822. Is this because the people who make this kind of comparison (a) haven’t heard of Stalin; (b) think Stalin was uniquely awful, an ÜberBusch; or (c) think Stalin was actually a nice guy with some bad press? […]

Here are photos of the Wiebe bus. Can I have this side, please? (Here’s the Stroadlfest brochure, for if you’re in Oldenzaal 31/12.)

When Philip IV (III of Aragon and Portugal) came to Barcelona for the first time, he paused at the Valdoncellas/Valldonzellas convent, which was then outside the city. There they dressed him up in rosa seca (surely more than dry rose), hat (Iberian, not Mexican), feathers and diamonds (from the finest of which hung a pearl […]

From The Tatler, 1709:
THIS is to give notice, That if any able bodied latine will enter into the Bonds of Matrimony with B[illegible] Pepin, the said Palatine shall be settled in a Freehold [of] 40s. per Annum in the County of Middlesex.
I wonder if this is an in-joke, because 40 shillings isn’t very much–around £180 […]

Middle class Catalan-speakers on their 5th post-prandial gin:
- You know what Maragall wants?!
-
- Us all in a mass grave!
The civil war finished in 1939.

A case of Foreign Accent Syndrome, via LanguageNews. Wikipedia says the first recorded case was in 1941.

Mare de Déu Fumadora, Mother of God Smoker, is a local name used in Arenys de Mar on Catalonia’s Maresme coast for the day before yesterday’s feast of the Immaculate Conception, la Purísima. According to the much-maligned Jordi Bilbeny, this is the day when children were allowed to smoke by their parents (picture of kiddie […]

I don’t think author and diplomat Juan Valera (“Good should always be in fashion”) will mind me revealing his smoking fetish, now he’s been dead 100 years. Here’s a quick tranny of an 1850 letter from Russia:
On May 8th, Russian style, I left Saint Petersburg for Moscow on the noon train, accompanied by a German-speaking […]

…was that they usually blew themselves up.

Re shepherds, Pío Baroja says that in the Navarre village inhabited by Silvester Paradox, hero of The adventures, inventions and mystifications of Silvester Paradox (Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox, 1901) that the local guardians of public order were called ministers (ministros). (Silvestre Paradox is very strange and very funny. It’s a disgrace that […]

Who says student jokes never go big-time?

The Guardia Civil isn’t quite the same as Hitler Youth, but I guess Jordi’s just enjoying his holiday.

An El Punt hack (900€/month, I’m told) has noticed that, with Atlantic Basin hurricane namers almost through their standard list, the Greek reserves may be required, leaving Spain open to a storm named for the 7th letter of their alphabet. (The Mediterranean is part of the Atlantic Basin, in case you wondered.)

Amando de Miguel says that Aura Grandal says that people in Ferrol, Galicia call policemen “chepas”, and that this derives from “shepherds”, which is what British engineers called the watchmen in the naval arsenals. I’m going to believe it, whether I do or not.

The only useful feature of the new local search tool Noxtrum is the free SMS feature. Unfortunately the enterprise belongs to Spain’s disastrous, dominant phone company, Telefónica, so the service is of course unavailable.

Here via Papel continuo is an official Fraga-ite guide to Spain. Since this is all that anyone cares about at the moment, it says that “apart from Castilian … Catalan, Basque and Gallego are spoken in their respective regions.”