I thought Stephen Burgen had taken the Catalan nationalist shilling, but John Pawlenko links to a sensible piece by him in the Times.

So says Alberto Gómez, Fundación del Español Urgente person. He puts it down to better quality control, while the Spanish right–of course–think it’s the result of a loss of identification with the language. (Gómez’ preachy foundation is an EFE-bot. The EFE release contains errors of orthography (“National Association of Hispanic Journalist”) and fact (the US [...]

Hideputería.

Euskerichia navarrophaga in an invertebrate splatter.

I’m really fond of Eulàlia Petit’s Barcelonetes because, unlike the overwhelming majority of distinctly underwhelming blogs here, it provides useful stuff and not house, garden and kitchen chitchat. Take, for example, this drawing of a vendor using simple Roman scales (una romana) in a Montpellier market. Close-ups of others here and here, and here’s a [...]

Fastfud, fastfudes.

Thanks to Margaret Marks for pointing out Mrs Tilton’s post on Jordi Moya-Laraño’s upcoming spider sex symposium. Widows, and, particularly, black widows, are, of course, the ones to watch, not the harmless tarantulas I take people to see. There’s a spider Kama Sutra over at Pharyngula for those of you with enough legs to make [...]

Czech Carol.

Catalan nationalism is not, of course, unique in the region in its attempts to eradicate a language that straddles borders and unites people:
Première femme de lettre maghrébine élue à la prestigieuse [sic] Académie française, [Assia Djebbar] n’a eu droit, dans son pays, qu’à un bref communiqué lu à la télévision algérienne. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, l’académicienne n’a [...]

On what grounds does Spanish or Catalan law forbid one to make soup out of bones in a (Peralada) cemetery, bad taste aside?

In vague reference to après moi, le déluge and José Luis Guerín, this, from Carmen Laforet, Nada (1945):
- Espero que no habrás bajado hacia el puerto por las Ramblas.
- ¿Por qué no?
- Hija mía, hay unas calles en las que si una señorita se metiera alguna vez, perdería para siempre su reputación. Me refiero [...]

Here’s a lovely little thing by Jacques Prévert. Some of the best Dutch kleinkunst in the 60s was built according to French models, and brief Parisian romances with Annemaries were the order of the day. I once spent an evening listening to the splendid voice of one of Sonneveld’s writers, and I wish I could [...]

Today Catalonia celebrates its ecologist, anti-globalist credentials (on which, as a neo-liberal, Bush-babe, militaristic Anglo, I have been lectured so often) by importing millions of chemical roses from East Africa in the hope that their gift will lead to a decent shag. Don’t be fooled: Cervantes smells better, and a pine-needle bed at 1000m is [...]

The last time I went down Ridley Road market, this geezer (nature of usage: advisèd) was selling a sheep that looked as if he’d slaughtered it himself while on acid in the back of his Mondeo. Things are changing, notes the wonderful Hackney Gazette, via April Angell@KissMyPanties.com, via Albert Pantygirdle, who is back on the [...]

Erik Dams has been czeching old French ladies who insist on being called “mademoiselle”, but it seems that moves are underway to end the official distinction between “madame” and “mademoiselle”. I’ve never understood why titles have to figure on forms anyway: I’ve filled in “Mrs” for years; no harm has ever come to me as [...]

I’ve got a soft spot for Denis MacShane, who never really fitted the New Labour mould. Here’s a piece by him on France. The sentence that will probably annoy most: “Pour un Britannique, la France est comme un remake des années 70 au Royaume-Uni” (my emphasis).

Vallecas officially became part of Madrid in 1950. Here’s a gallery of some of the village elders. Barcelona’s Gracia district has been centrally administered for much longer, but has an even stronger sense of space- and time-capsulity.

Ramón Buenaventura’s published a journal of his translation of Jonathan Franzen’s The corrections. He concludes that, for several reasons, including the rapidity imposed by the coordination of publication in various languages and the lifelessness of Spanish slangs, it is impossible to translate the novel well. That seems narcissistic to me, but that may be because [...]

I agree with Martí Saballs on this one:
Catalan politics has become an operetta that discredits a whole people [OK, that's not a word I'd use]. The Italianisation is so extreme that it is coming to the point of no return. The divorce between citizens and their representatives may finally achieve magnitude that the explosion could [...]

Mad Marc Belzunces is about to get whacked again by Chief Sparky. (Check David Millan over at Alianza entre mamones.)

Big Sheep and Small Sheep and Evil Lesbians.

One of the best ways to avoid being made redundant is not to take phone calls of any nature midweek. It’s an interesting comment on Maragall’s competence that he chose to reshuffle at a moment when, due to holes in the mobile network, one of his victims couldn’t have answered even if he’d wanted to. [...]

Half the Spanish population is sedentary, while the other half undertakes periodic top-up trips to the kitchen.

Now I’m a loose kind of man. (Feargal the lawyer has asked me to make it clear that “Barcelona” refers to the council and not to FC Barcelona, where it is understood that traditional practices are observed.)

Some of you will know at least one of the ladies in this photo.

Ander Izagirre is checking the paths and byways of The United National Realities on a Vespa. This is a Good Thing. (Pedro de Miguel proposes, on debatable grounds, that he call himself Vespasian.)

The burger chain’s resurgence explained. Anti-American trash here are circulating a “boycott the gringos on May 1” mail, so I may have the extra fries with my menu that day.

Colin Davies’ new name for the new Spain, being fashioned by constitutionally-handicapped collective onanists. He’s wrong to exclude the Canaries: halfabet fascists there have discovered Canariedad (check Bye, bye, Spain), the official translation of which is hereby declared to be “Canariousness” (Gurgle helpfully suggests “consciousness”. (Virgulilla notes that the Senate is going after the Catalan [...]

Fortunately not here.

OED:
A black, magnetic, isometric oxide of nickel and ferric iron, NiFe2O4, belonging to the spinel group.
1921A. F. CROSSE in Jrnl. Chem., Metallurgical & Mining Soc. S. Afr. XXI. 126/2 One of the most interesting mineralogical discoveries..in the Transvaal..is an extraordinarily rich nickel ore… This ore is as far as I am able to judge a [...]

“It has the piercing gaze of the living and the fixed stare of the dead,” says dragonologist Jean-Marie Privat, “[and] breathes only in the shades of a strong, structured, nay, monotheistic state. It is both a representation of, and a figure of the transgression of, power, as testified by its presence in carnival. It is [...]

Re this post, this remarkable image of a falcon scattering starlings, which won Manuel Presti the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. (Via esprit azul@après moi, le deluge)

In a romance from Almansa on the La Mancha-Levant borders:

A nice piece of historical trivia: many of Castro’s 60s slumberfests were held in Havana’s Teatro Chaplin. (The speeches veer between the grotesque and the hilarious. Check Fidel in 1959 asking Venezuelan students whether he should dedicate himself to the revolution or to signing autographs.)

Bill Baar reminds us that this is not the first time military leaders have disagreed with their political bosses re strategic change. The anti-Bushos cheerleading the generals might like to recall what happened the last time the Spanish military picked a fight with head office.

Are at the CCCB bar tonight. Apparently clients take all their clothes off and jump around in a completely non-exploitative way. One may venture a glimpse.

I’ve had a number of enquiries recently from groups (including one hen-party) and individuals keen to be taken to experience, if that’s the correct word, one particular segment of Barcelona’s tranny community. I’m slightly curious as to whether this constitutes an offence, either under mayor Floss’s new crackdown or in other legislation dealing, perhaps, with [...]

Apparently Catalonia Last Week has reprinted the Times’ 1931 story of the Catalan Duce’s separatist coup. It beats me how anyone can look back on the Second Republic with anything but igry, but I have never been particularly fashion-conscious.

God was busy, but Roman security services came for Ms Tchacos Nussberger anyway.

Good to see Italy’s back on track.