I do like the Dutch foreign ministry desk diary, although more for its furry cover than the tired and overwhelmingly western images reproduced. One exception: Co Westerik’s Snijden aan gras (Westerik’s site -> enter -> Schilderijen -> scroll down or Ctrl-F to Snijden aan gras I). Fingers that are cut in Spanish culture tend to [...]

I think it’s safe to assume that none of this will be going to Madrid.

If the council can deal with the Ukrainian prostitution mafia, why can’t they cope with Peruvian panpipe terror? This is not, by any means, to say that we should imitate the Californians and execute guys who dress up as Indians. We are Europeans! We will do nothing!

The only way to stop the people of Barcelona bashing you with their brollies and pushing you off the pavement is to make them speak English (from Robert B Bechtel, Environment & Behavior: An Introduction):
Rosenfeld (1982) measured the distance between bilingual subjects and found they sprang apart going from Spanish to English but moved closer [...]

Good post by Megan Saltzman.