Eating excellent omelettes and cold cuts and other stuff in a bar on this walk, in comes a stylist who was born in the village but now lives in the town and comes back every now and again. First she cut Mr and Mrs, and then A from Hengelo decided the opportunity was too good […]

“Special offer: leg of jamón serrano and mountain bike, 130€” For 135€ they could have included a rucksack so you could cycle away with the ham on your back.

–I’ve been coming to this shop for such a long time, and I still don’t know whether your name is Carmen or Carme.
–It’s María José.

One for the Correctors Union’s hunt-the-error day today. This torrent lined with Andalusian auto-construction on the edge of Planas de Vallvidrera is gradually being overrun by wild boar:

I imagine things got rather like this when the Romans left Britain.

–From Spain are you? I’ve got a flat in Denia, very nice indeed. I get on fine with the locals.
–In what language?
–We’re getting quite good at the old Spanish. “Dos coffee con lechy”. That means…
–I think I know that one.

The name is actually rather interesting. There’s a rule in standard Spanish that says that y is substituted by e before words beginning with i or hi, except when y forms the beginning of an exclamation or question, and except before words beginning with y or hie. However, I’ve never heard of a corresponding rule […]

The Catalan public authorities have a well-publicised horror of signs using Spanish, but the language police don’t seem to have found this one yet, which, in an exemplary display of bilingualism, has the name in both standard Spanish (Los Cuñados, The Siblings-in-Law) and one of the southern dialects (Los Cuñaos):

I’ve always kind of wondered whether this is kind of tribute to blue jeans/bleu de Gênes, but I’ve never had the courage to ask, mainly because if I’m wrong they’re going to think I’m fucking crazy.

The Delegation of Barcelona and Alt Penedès District Council are offering courses in rumour management for village politicians and administrators, says rural freesheet El Cargol.

Ooh, wouldn’t one like to be on the committee of geologists and historians advising which villages (French only, of course: what else is the EU about?) get to be added to the list of champagne producers! Although you’ve got to be slightly crazy to drink some of the donkey piss turned out by the French, […]

My feedreader’s having problems with diacritics, so LaVa says: El coche de Lady Di pudo haber chocado con otro “veh?culo grande”. Don’t think the Pharaoh of Alexandria’s tried that one yet.

Barcelona’s biggest flea market is relatively well policed, so most bikes and other stolen goods end up in unofficial markets on street corners across town. This rare bird, a lady’s Juncker originally purchased from Engelenwyck in Maastricht, was being sold this morning at the Encantes:

You can tell it’s stolen because while the the bike and […]

Re new figures on the consequences of binge drinking in England: J&A tell that the performance of the British in Andorra since the 80s has been so impressive that the first test performed on all subjects of HM admitted to hospital there is a liver scan.

Ian Llorens–who is only slightly mad, and there’s nothing wrong with that–is back. Here to celebrate is a photo of the front of the excellent Picó Lloréns family coffee and sticky things chain store in Albacete:

Hoards of Catalan and Valencian merchants are to be found throughout provincial Spain, helping provide a more sensible explanation for […]

Amb els seus 21 anyitos i sense ser colonista ni cabró ni ningú especial el meu besavi anglès es va fer arrancar totes les dents de la mateixa manera. Era més xic, una qüestió d’estil. La setmana després se li va caure el pèl–pel sustu, suposem–i es va quedar calb per tota la vida. No […]

In Ferrol, Galicia, Spain you can get traffic fines annulled by exercising your constitutional right to receive notifications in Spanish instead of the Galician preferred by the local council, which seems to be unable to effect translations.

There’s something wrong inside this garage in Plañel, Albacete:

On a farm wall near Olot:

Doors often get left open when building works are going on in blocks of flats in Barcelona, enabling access to the terraces on top. Here’s a scaffold view of the San Antonio market with Montjuich behind taken following a pub piano session featuring Mr Jorge from Cuba and the consumption of immoderate quantities of beer:

The rector of neighbouring Saravillo allegedly had a cable installed connecting the bell with the rectory so that, making judicious use of his little toe, he could keep in touch with his flock without getting out of bed.

Over at the new Barcelona historical almanac I’m slowly putting together I just posted the passage from José Sabau y Blanco’s update to Juan de Mariana’s Historia general de España (1822) dealing with the end of the Hapsburg rebellion in and around Barcelona, with massacres by both sides of villages and the lynching by the […]

Folks seem to be going through a Kevin Johansen phase. Argentine music tends to Yankee-hating-up-Manu-Chao’s-arse bollocks, but “el Hugh Hefner Aragonés” is interesting and amusing:

@ Tecnología obsoleta:

Darás lo singular por universal.
Ocultarás el trabajo acabado y darás por naturales las mercancías y los textos culturales.
Te servirás de falsas analogías.
Darás la impresión de objetividad, con el fin de ocultar tu posicionamiento personal.
En todo tema de discusión, trazarás cuidadosamente los límites de lo aceptable. En otros términos, controlarás el orden del día.
Darás […]

I guess one of us should apologise to Maurice Sendak.

One of the few surviving 20th century walls in northeast Barcelona. I’d recognise it anywhere.

Godzjumenas has a post about Johannes Goropius Becanus, who turned down the lucrative position of personal physician to Philip II of Spain in order to dedicate himself to linguistics and scientific observation in Antwerp. His most important discovery, apart from a monstrous worn-out phallus in a house patronised by women next to the town gaol, […]

Sin mirarlo de cerca compro un candado de combinación @ 9,65€ en Ferretería Pablos (dueño Domingo Pablos), Provença 504, 08025 Barcelona, NIF 07734406N. Al salir de la tienda veo que el paquete está cerrado con celo, y al sacar el candado descubro que ya ha sido utilizado sin notar la nueva combinación. Vuelvo inmediatamente a […]