Pleased to see that the marvellous Baldus–a vague subterranean source of inspiration for the world’s wildest walking wisness–is getting a wider hairing. I’ve read chunks of the French translation and am looking forward to the English.

This is deputy Rosa Díez of the newly formed party, Unión Progreso y Democracia. Today is of course the day we commemorate the Massacre of the Innocents, Spain’s April Fool’s Day: “Sin embargo de que todo esto es verdad, el aniversario de ese gran dia se celebra de una manera tan anómala, que á nosotros [...]

Carles Miró has conducted a lightning dawn raid on the correspondence between the publisher Joan Sales and his star author Mercè Rodoreda. Sales on Terenci Moix, a late 20th century chat show lit celeb: “Young Moix is a sadoleninist, one of those who consider that today simple homosexuality is nothing but a joke, that anything [...]

Check out the excellent Justin’s review over at Catavino, which I can second, having got moderately wasted there on a cycle trip. (I don’t link much to Catavino because I have a basic distrust of wine reviews: if you liked it that much, how come you can remember anything about it?)

As private banker to dozens of Andalusian officials I have been responsible for maintaining the padded mattress sector in work this year. Before the summer a client called to complain that inflation threatened to render worthless the not particularly hard-earned stash of 500s he maintains under one of my beds. But there is more [...]

Figures from the International Sleep Products Association show the economy is hitting the mattress industry pretty hard, so where are smart people keeping their money now that deaky little hiding place in the hedge is gone?

A Roger Ekirch, At day’s close: night in times past: “suspending the heart of a bullock or pig over the hearth, preferably stuck with pins and thorns”. Barcelona’s inquisition records and other (later) sources also contain a desperate screech of (sometimes living) cats and a wide range of barnyard animals with pins stuck into them [...]

As the evenings draw in, the Arenys de Mar sensimilla syndicate has taken time off from the plantation to post another shambling Gran Armada-wreck of nationalist historical revisionism. (It’s dated 2006, but this is the first time it’s turned up in my reader, so…) As is customary, our scenario is back-to-the-future: a massive 15th century [...]

I looked a while back at allegations of a Spanish media obsession with Israel and concluded that they were without basis in fact. Someone of similar political views to the reactionary squatter hooligan leader, Joan Txàpal, said to me last night that the Spanish press would be all over Bernie Madoff’s Jewishness. The numbers at [...]

Check out this piece by Nicholas Mead on the thorough screwing the impoverished Carmel district of Barcelona is receiving from the socialist council in alliance with developers. It’s ironic that many of the same socialists jumped up and down with glee when local lad Juan Marsé won some writing prize or other. One can safely [...]

When they were detained by the Médoc gendarmes, Georges and Frédéric had the grave misfortune to have in their possession a sack containing ten succulent little bundles of spines. Turning its face from all that the British cherish in France, the criminal court in Bordeaux put animal protection above lavish family meals and fined these [...]

The Google Earth version of ancient Rome is a bit like a collection of faked-up trainspotters’ notebooks. Until they find some way of populating it with exfoliant opera, our best bet as responsible amateur social historians is the porn industry:
European production company Daring Media Group will release its first movie, Roma, in October at the [...]

Here.

Efforts have been made to erase a sticker of a member of the Incredible Hulk clan. Superimposed on the wooden cross of the door, what a formidable Trinity that would have been! (Anglocabrones often say the eye belongs to Providence. Whatever.)
Sometimes the Eye and the Hand are combined in one icon, as in this Hamsa [...]

It’s barrel-scraping time when the comments over at El país are smarter than the article. Check out Dienekes for a bit of common sense.

Neocon ex-blogger Joan Txàpal is apparently befouling the walls of his neighbourhood in imitation of the squatter scum he so claimed to loathe. The cops should crack down (pepper spray, taser, TV3) without delay on this illegitimate privatisation of public space. (Photo: JD. Next up: smoking his way out of the recession)

A journey through the remains of Expo 92. At least it hasn’t all been stolen, as tended to happen to unguarded buildings in Andalusia during the construction boom.

It would be Å vankmajer-nice to think that the wide-scale conversion of Spanish country restaurants into brothels is the logical, albeit unexpected consequence of a social craze for abandoning what is feared to be cultural in favour of what is assumed to be natural. However, the replacement of cooks by pimps means that we have not [...]

Newland v Horsman, 1681: “thereupon Dalmasie appealed to a superior Court; then Dalmasie removed the Appeal on Pretence of Preventing several Appeals; the Master finding his Freight lodged so that he could not have it till the Cause was heard in the highest Court, which was not like to be in some Years Time, comes [...]

Check out this substantial bombshell being chucked at the Spanish establishment at all levels and in all territories for its collective refusal to confront (indeed for its participation in) the flagrant, widespread, long-term abuse of individual property rights. But will the threat of a Bulgarian-style loss of European funds to the common weal be sufficient [...]