Não é desgraça ser pobre, there ain’t no shame in being poor, and sometimes it’s better only being able to afford one tranny hooker.

By Amália Rodrigues, who I only discovered the other day.

“Originally built in 1901, this walkway now serves as an aproach to makinodromo, the famous climbing sector of El Chorro.” (H/t to the DG)

When I saw this first I briefly thought it was Montjuïc viewed from Maians Island, where Quixote first saw the sea. But the sun sets west, not south, and those are mountains in the background, not clouds. So it must be Italy, somewhere. Here’s the text.

Mr Clarke blogging at It’s Probably The Pox, My Son links to a typical bit of mendacity, or gross ignorance if you are feeling charitable, from John Hooper at the Guardian:
Silvio Berlusconi, who won a general election earlier this month, welcomed the latest evidence of Italy’s leap to the right by declaring: “We are the [...]

Apparently it’s quite well-known, but I only found it this morning in HG Bohn’s A hand-book of proverbs (1855), in the household reading room:
To build castles in the air. Far castelli in aria.–Ital. The French say, Faire des chateaux en Espagne.
It is tempting although perhaps erroneous to believe that this derives from Frankish experiences with [...]

Peret’s (Catalan-language) recording of El mig amic is from Spanish telly in 1969, when, as Wikipedia continues to remind us, the “use of Catalan in the mass media was forbidden.” Such claims have decreased considerably over the last five years due solely to kalebeul’s relentless and fearless campaigning. One important defeat for the inventors of [...]

Generic Manu Chao-ist dumbagogy in Che Sudaka’s latest ¡uf!re, but a nice little Raval puppet theatre by Marta Pujol & Joan Picó:
Something with a bit more musical class (tho in playback) from pioneer Peret, Mataró-born and hence the only sensible reason why the genre is called rumba catalana instead of barcelonesa:

I sometimes wonder what would [...]

The proceedings of the Old Bailey are now searchable to 1913. Apart from anything else they are an interesting source of information re the misfortunes of London’s Spanish population, from the refugees from Fernando VII to the anarchist trials in the 1890s. The following testimony to the traditional linguistic handicap of the Iberian tribes was [...]

–¡Alfonso primero!
–¡Alfonso XIII!
Probably one of those time-space-specific things. Alfonso XIII strikes me as an infinitely superior as far as witless losers go, but I wasn’t there at the time.

John Chappell links to an old piece from the Stephen Roth Institute in Tel Aviv which claims among other things that “reports about Israel occupy a disproportionate amount of international space in the Spanish media”.
If their frame of reference is countries in a similar situation to Spain and and with a similar relationship to [...]

“I have in my mind the most masterly farts which, however, would be impossible to reproduce.” The farting policeman explains nevertheless how to perform the “Imperial”, the “Terminator” and the “Saturday Night”, which may or may not refer to the comparable artistic frustrations no doubt suffered by the admirable Mr Travolta.

San Jordi in Barcelona, and millions of females who would be perfectly happy eating hay are receiving roses from males who have problems reading a football shirt, never mind the book of 500 Catalan jokes they will get in return for their floral investment. We ecolefties disincline naturally from needlessy fucking up Lake Victoria and [...]

Ta meao, pissed on, one rendering of the Generalitat’s €400,000 exercise in vanity publishing.

La Vanguardia, 2008/4/21: “Piratas somalíes secuestran un atunero vasco. El ‘Playa de Bakio’ lleva 26 tripulantes, trece africanos, ocho gallegos y cinco vascos. Anoche, una fragata española acudía desde el mar Rojo a auxiliar al barco.” Victims from north of the Mediterranean are dissimilated on the basis of their autonomous community, while victims from the [...]

Eurotopia–a Europe consisting of a host of regional statelets–is actually 15 years old, and was produced by historian Henk Wesseling on request of beer magnate Freddy Heineken as a systematic response to the gradual decline in the efficacy of large (multi-)nation-states. He’s not proposing new, mini-nation states as desired by the less crazy Cataloonies, and [...]

Raquel Meller, the most successful Spanish artist of the 20th century, struggling with pitch and pace in 1914:

Sara Montiel, who made her name in the 50s singing old Raquel Meller songs, only much better:

Rudolph Valentino, who would have struggled to compete with barnyard animals had films not been silent:

Maybe the X Factor isn’t so bad [...]

“In the sentence it is considered to have been proven that [in the church of St James of the Sword, Andalusia during a funeral] Refugio MS [74] approached the other woman saying, “I’m going to have your cunt, I’m going to have your cunt,” at the same time pinching her with her hand in her [...]

This delectable flor del mal from Barcelona’s Poble Sec district is a daisychain from A Nun’s link to a review of a book dealing with degradation and deviancy in the same neighbourhood. New York, April 26 1926:
Ushers with tall combs and white mantillas stole back up the aisles as the house lights faded out. The [...]

I didn’t know they served frankfurters in Bocatta. Someone says it’s in Galicia. I hope no Galician bloggers are involved.

Xavi Caballé has read a book which suggests that the 18th century predecessors of the Norfolk Regiment were thus called because Spanish soldiers thought their Britannia badge represented the Virgin Mary. There’s another, more scurrilous version:
Well, I got fond enough, after all, of the Holy Boys, as the old Ninth lads were called… You see, [...]

We say we’re anti-nuclear and then buy electricity from the French; we say we care about water conservation while doing everything possible to make Barcelona unsustainable; but if we’re going to keep on moaning about the fuel consumption of the unspeakable Yankees, at least we could end eco-Barcelona’s facking absurd ban on hanging washing to [...]

Or, as La Vanguardia has it, “El presunto parricida de su madre…“. I thought Eve had left the Garden of patriarchal vocabulary, or maybe this is just what happens when you’re paid by the word.

I humbly draw your attention to a new minisite–fear of public shame may help me get round to doing it. Meanwhile the Barcelona historical almanac continues to progress, although the timeline and feed and various other stuff need fixing.

Surreal quote in this doc on personal adoptive languages, a typically absurd Belgian scheme to avoid civil war, appropriate EU funds, and inflict a tactical defeat on the Anglo-Saxons by having the Flemish learn French and the Walloons learn Dutch, instead of just letting everyone get on with their English classes: “An Le Nouail Marlière [...]

Is one of the all-time greats of popular Spanglish linguistics, so it is very much to be hoped that the NYT will again use the former after the next pirate raid off Barbary or in the Caribbean. There’s probably similar wordfun to be had in the South China Sea, but we don’t go there.

A flamencocrat says goodbye. I thought nation branding was the kind of thing undertaken only by scoundrels like Tony Blair and Andrei Zhdanov, both of whom were capable of presenting their villainy with slightly more tact.

Nice story here about underpaid author Thomas Kohnstamm, who wrote his Lonely planet guide without going to Columbia. (Or did he go there and have to deal coke to survive? LD is characteristically confused.)
Guidebooks are so superficial, and information online so plentiful, that there’s actually no reason now why they shouldn’t be written from [...]

Celestino Corbacho, our new minister of Honest Endeavour, is also rebranding himself from faceless Volkssozialist of the periphery as a new metropolitan Che Guevara. Apart from the charming blurred little tourist booklets produced by the regional Delegation in order to give him name recognition, it now turns out that he, too, fought the fascists, tooth [...]

I think that’s the subtext to the announcement of a “Reunió de l’Àrea de gais, lesbianes, bisexuals i transsexuals d’EUiA“. Other news just in: EUiA is holding a referendum on whether to introduce a republic; I and the barmaid at Bodega M have declared war on Scunthorpe. We are also addicted to Volare by Super [...]

Uliczkę znam w Barcelonie, by the great Sława Przybylska, who has no English-language Wikipedia entry, and who I first got to know during a dissolute spell in a village near Breslau, or whatever it’s called these days. I have no idea who sang the original or who wrote it–I’m guessing it wasn’t a Pole, since [...]

Or something along those lines. Jerry R Craddock clears up this and a number of other confusions in his excellent inaugural Disparatorio del suroeste. (Via Jesús Rodríguez Velasco). Galdós was politer in Trafalgar, but we all know what he meant. This one will run and run.

Tom’s being more naive than necessary re the latest Woody Allen crap being in Catalan and English only. Mediapro was a creature of the Generalitat in terms of finance and the Generalitat’s TV3 in terms of personnel. It also continues to count on the formidable assistance of Generalitat’s ICF, eg in the €125M required to [...]

Still showing along the Sequia Comtal in Clot, by then incorporated into Barcelona. The date is 1914, which is to say 20 years later, and just as Dreyfus was limbering up to go to war once more. I suppose the flick must have been French translated into Spanish. Incidentally, goats make excellent cinema audiences and [...]

Colin Davies refers to progress in his neck of the desert. I am told that staff at a distinguished Barcelona institute of higher education, none of whom speak English, have petitioned to have Basque rather than English as the third language on their website “because we can speak Spanish to them, and what are we [...]

Some walkers want to have a look round a ruined factory, so conversation must be made with the security guard. He is truncheoning around with a muscular, aggressive, sleek-haired pup and a peaceful older bitch–Heinz 57 varieties with some dominant sheepdog:
–Good morning, that’s a fine-looking pup you’ve got there. He’s going to be a monster [...]

Olympic torches on a Parisian bus reminded me of Josep Pla, smoking merrily away on oil tankers in the famous 1976 A fondo interview with Joaquín Soler Serrano:

Not having heard other recordings, I continue to wonder whether don José wasn’t playing up the accent for the occasion.

Catalan regional telly, TV3, is a fascist fiefdom whose only quality product is syndicated football. Here’s a kiddies programme teaching them how to sing the Catalan “national” anthem (which is seen as being about killing Spaniards, hence the sickle) hand-on-heart:

As a child I found occasions involving the British anthem and flag and all that shite [...]

A summary of the statement made to the Commons in April 1714 (History and Proceedings of the House of Commons : volume 5: 1713-1714):
Catalonia swore loyalty to Philip V and its ancient privileges were guaranteed. Unfortunately it then changed its mind, rebelled, and appealed to Britain for help, claiming that Catalonia and Spain were [...]

Coverage of the Barcelona water crisis in yesterday’s Vanguardia was a standard victimist litany:

Our consumption per capita is low compared to other cities.
We have reduced consumption per capita significantly
It is like SO unfair that we’re all going to have to roll around in sand to get clean this summer.

I think the comparative stats quoted are [...]

From the often superb BBC WWII site:
As France fell my great uncle Ioannis (John) Colentzos was captain of a Greek freighter berthed in Bordeaux. He a did not wish to remain in the port as he was uncertain of what the outcome might be for his vessel once the Germans got there. Greece was not [...]