Last night reading Josep Rondissoni’s Classes de cuina for the 1930-1 season I came across an illustration of the packaging of one of the various foreign ingredients he uses, Royal Baking Powder. It’s actually called the Droste effect, of course–or at least in Holland. José Rondissoni was a Swiss cook who taught a blend of [...]

Here’s a slightly paraphrased anecdote from Ramon Miquel i Planas’ El llibreter assassí de Barcelona (1928), which his footnote seems to imply was taken from Le livre, vi, 131 (Paris, 1885):
Emile Girardin and Charles Latour-Mézeray are two young literary bohemians running round 1820s Paris. Girardin has just published a novel and is feeling fairly desperate [...]

Another strange French trial: Following his master’s death in 1371, Aubry de Montdidier’s dog showed unremitting hostility to his master’s comrade, Richard de Macaire. Charles V ordered the two to fight, and the dog won, thus proving de Macaire’s guilt. (Cyclopedia of Universal Biography, via Google Books)

Rosemary has already been established as indispensable in combating Asiatic cholera. Here’s the proverb upon which such folk medicine may have been based:
El que pasa por romero y no lo coge,
si le viene algún mal que no se enoje.
Adapted:
If without plucking twixt rosemary you pass,
Don’t bemoan your leaky arse.
Sweeter is to be found in Notes [...]

Fortunately not all the requests I get at follow the baldie are this interesting:
I and my female companoin propose to visit Spain in summer of 2007.We wan to see the following:
1.The popular sites in barcelona during day and night.
2.Nude stage shows where we can see interactive session between male and female and gays.
3.Visit a nudist [...]

Down due to mailbombing of the domain and what appear to be DoS assaults on this blog. Host says I may have to move. Watch this space (I hope I’m not being too literal).

Account of a murder trial at the Old Bailey on January 17 1676:
There were two men drinking, and there arose a dispute between them concerning a Spanish word, one affirmed that it was not properly exprest, the other gave him provoking language for saying so, he reply’d, Sir I know not how to bear that [...]

Account of a murder trial at the Old Bailey on January 17 1676:
There were two men drinking, and there arose a dispute between them concerning a Spanish word, one affirmed that it was not properly exprest, the other gave him provoking language for saying so, he reply’d, Sir I know not how to bear that [...]

In German. I know about various definitions of doublet in English, many of which also work in languages, but in German it also seems to be used by book collectors in a way I don’t understand. I’d be particularly interested if it referred to sharp practices analogous to those in the jewellery trade: “A form [...]

If the ruling Galician national socialists want to redefine the region in their statute of autonomy as the “nation of Breogan” (their leader says their identity is in their genes), does that mean that, like their mythical hero, they’re going to spend all their money building a great big tower and then take the whole [...]

John Chappell quotes a letter from Maria Pilar Pellegero of Ripoll in La Vanguardia as an example of the Catalan ethnocracy’s use of language exams as a means of excluding allochthones–including those from other parts of Spain–from public sector jobs. This fuckoff-ism is sometimes taken to bizarre extremes. An American acquaintance took the advanced level [...]

Bill Poser picks up the London Times story about the Black Mountains Smokery in Powys being ordered by trading standards to rename its Welsh Dragon sausages “Welsh Dragon Pork Sausages” to avoid disappointing lovers of the hot and spicy. God knows what they’d make of the new delicatessen or restaurant or whatever on Margarit in [...]

El Bibliómano covers Alibris’ arrival in the UK. Meanwhile we’re still waiting for Amazon to open a store in Spain. If they need encouragement, here’s a photo posted by Alvy almost two years ago on Microsiervos, concluding that they could generate revenues of up to €30M here.

Check Ernesto Rodera’s cartoon over at Carlos’ Lenguas entrelazadas. Here’s some getting a free holiday in Rome.

Yesterday PRNoticias posted an item (scroll down) about the general lack of interest in the 31st anniversary of Francisco’s death. Unfortunately it’s accompanied by a photo of Antonio Franco, ex-director of El Periódico. (Via Malaprensa)

When I went out this morning onto the Rambla del Raval, a man was standing up on the boom of the 40 metre crane overlooking Calle San Rafael. He gesticulated and shouted at the firemen in the crane cabin and then wandered out to smoke a cigarette at the 35 metre end.
Under the shadow [...]

I’m generally more Macdonald’s, but this might tip the balance. 10 fried eggs in a row sounds like an excellent idea.

Jake Burkle, trombone engineer
A snip at $250K, via Dave. The photo right of Jake Burkle reminds one that, for all their Portuguese ukelele folk hero trappings, Sousa and his people were essentially industrial pioneers. Amusing detail, from William L Bird, “Better Living”: Advertising, Media, and the New Vocabulary of Business Leadership, 1935-1955: Arthur Pryor’s son, [...]

Hadn’t seen this one.

Knew I’d seen it somewhere before but didn’t really think about it till I found this lying around. The PP’s got a bit of a reputation as the geriatric party, but someone must remember what CiU did in 2003.

Scapegoat in Catalan is cap de turc, in Spanish cabeza de turco. I haven’t got the OED, but Hector Zimmerman says (Tres mil historias de frases y palabras) it comes from the French tête de turc and refers to the decapitable Aunt Sally mannequins used at fairs. Johann Georg Heck’s Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature [...]

Without a hyperlink.

Paco “El pocero”–in Wales he’d be called Jones the Drains–is Francisco Hernando, the 57-year-old illiterate building a €6B, 13,500-house development, Spain’s largest ever, in a village near Madrid, whether the mayor likes it or not, and he doesn’t. The mayor, Manuel Fuentes, is receiving police protection, and Alfredo Urdaci wants to know what happened to [...]

The gift of a lifetime for any youngster! Guaranteed delivery in their natural born colors!

I failed to get into the Agbar tower a while back with a bunch of tourists who had agreed to impersonate a business delegation. Eulàlia Petit, however, has been inside and up Jean Nouvel’s phallus suppository rocket volcano-fired geyser. Its colours are red for fire, blue for water, and white for steam, and the irregular [...]

Javier Celaya y Luis Sábat are reported by El País as saying its partly down to fear and ignorance of the internet. Being Spain, I can’t help wondering whether it’s not some obscure new money-laundering wheeze. (Via El Bibliómano)

I believe the current early chronology of versions containing all the basic motifs is as follows:

Joseph Fouché was a politician and administrator, and the delightfully wicked creator under Bonaparte of something vaguely resembling the modern police service. According to PBS, he wrote in something called Archives of the police of a series of murders committed [...]

Here’s an interesting little anecdote to add to my list of fake/bleached virgin stories:
Barcellona [sic] has always been celebrated for the zeal of its priesthood, and for the pains taken by them to hoodwink the people; and even in these days, religious bigotry is far more prevailing than might be expected in a city so [...]

Planet Churro has a post about the preference of the local health service for Catalan literati over highly qualified nurses. Hey, but at least they won’t have to subtitle the why-is-everything-so-fucked fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Loopy and Ray used to be charcoal burners. There’s no really good way of drinking charcoal, so fortunately for us they gave it up.

Following Mad Mas’ exposition, at the invented tomb of invented Wilf the Hairy, of Catalanista scientific doctrine–Article 1: Just because something is false doesn’t mean it ain’t true–, Luis Alfonso Gámez picks up on an important story which the nutters have somehow missed. (Thanks to Carlos Ferrero)

A man who has been away for twenty years walks into the bar. The young waiter looks up at him and says, “You’re barred.” “Yes,” he replies, “but how did you know?”

Q: How do you form a Spanish barbarism from an English word beginning with “s”?
A: Easy, you add a preliminary “e”, so that, for example, smoking (ie a dinner jacket, a tuxedo) becomes esmoquin.
Q: How do you correct a Spanish barbarism beginning with “es”, thus demonstrating to your Spanish public your intimate knowledge of Foreignistan [...]

I’ve always thought of freemasonry in Spain as being roughly analogous to free black Christian sects in British colonies: providing a substitute channel for social organisation for those denied legitimate political and trade union activity. However, I’m still pretty ignorant about this kind of stuff, and so here I’ll pass on a couple of interesting [...]

Check this series of photos from Reuter, AFP and AP. (Via Nihil obstat)

This is Manuel Irurita, regionalist-traditionalist head of the diocese of Barcelona, and one of 8,352 citizens disposed of by, or to the complete indifference of, the Republican authorities in Catalonia during the Civil War for fear that their political and religious beliefs might not be fully compatible with certain contemporary notions of liberty and progress. [...]

Here.

For a modernising party, Ciutadans have got off to a terrible start in their dealings with the new media, including some quite startling and prolonged incompetence in dealing with the guys at Nihil Obstat and Barcepundit. Now it seems that Ernesto Hernández Busto has been told by those on high to turn off Ciutadans en [...]

Just had a chat with an associate of “Tío Lele”, responsible for a protection, ahem, scheme in Poble Nou and other parts. It is said that everyone’s favourite uncle is a bit disturbed about the apparent lack of progress on his website, which it had been understood would be appearing on OkieDokie.com.

We get round Barcelona faster than most motorists and we’re in much better physical condition to be nasty to nasty people, break off their wing mirrors and spit through their windows. The fat, useless coppers are the one’s who ride scooters, so update your stereotypes, Dani Sirera.