Alexis de Vilar says the film copies his 1987 novel Goodbye, Barcelona. Manel Haro points out that the book was not, as Alexis claims, registered with the Ministry of Culture (to indicate publication) in 1987, but in October 2008, a month after the film was released here. Alexis claims inter alia to have survived an [...]

Estacions fantasmes del metro de Barcelona (via Dani@Altres Barcelones) has got some great contemporary photos, digital reconstructions and historical material.
The one thing I find curious is that, as with lots of Spanish websites, sourcing is vague and intellectual property appear not to be an issue. While one part of the Spanish blogosphere suffers periodic attacks [...]

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There are various explanations of Spanish anti-Americanism. The post-colonial hypothesis is popular: Spain is bitter about its loss of empire, its defeat in 1898, its not being invited to the G-whatever.
An alternative hypothesis is that anti-Americanism is frustration arising from the idea that an implicit bilateral dollars-for-favours deal has been violated.
In Luis Berlanga, [...]

“Prime minister José Luis Zapatero said the assault on Andrew Sachs was ‘measured’ given the actor’s portrayal of a halfwit Spaniard who thinks a rat is some kind of Siberian hamster.” Given that Manuel in Fawlty Towers is Barcelona’s best-known literary figure, I’m surprised the council hasn’t declared war, or banned UK flights, or something. [...]

César-Javier Palacios reports on the cyclist, shot dead by a hunter who mistook him for a boar.
When in death’s dark vale loud singing usually suffices to drive off hell’s hunters. Hunters know this too. In his romance, Count Arnaldos, hungry hawk in hand, falls prey to a sailor (love, glory or death, true or trickster? [...]

El Mundo apparently says that Catalan schools are using a book which encourages small children to give the Hitler salute. Not so: heil is afaik an old-fashioned and regionally-specific greeting, along the lines of the English hail. The publisher is wrong to believe that this is the normal greeting–that’s hallo–and El Mundo is wrong, as [...]

Two lovely designers who trade the occasional hour with me and eat my curries and drink my hooch have informed me that all the various sites grouped under oreneta.com need to change. The Baldie needs to be legible by users over 35. Kalebeul needs more identity (someone said duotint photo 2 in sepia; I tried [...]

The following description of birdsong contests is taken from Josep Pla’s brilliant anecdotography of Rafael Puget, Un señor de Barcelona, and is mid- to late-19th century ():
Singing competitions
A fondness for birdsong has existed in Manlleu, Barcelona province for as far back as my memory reaches. The “Societat d’aucellistes”, the Society of Bird-Fanciers, is very old [...]

Spain’s up at no 52 on the UN parking ticket corruption index, so that’s between the Ukraine and the Philippines, with average 12.7 unpaid violations per diplomat. The UK averages 0.0. Other crime news: Either the Azerbaijanis or the UAEers have stolen an “r” from Australia.
The data’s pretty old, so perhaps Spanish councils’ new [...]

New translation of Horace here. Conventional version of “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, “it’s sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” here. (Thanks Jesús)

This isn’t about who invented bar snacks, or about why one particular gibber of Catalan nationalism should want to deny having invented them.
Someone speculated drunkenly last night that, since tapas appears in English from the 1950s (C Salter in OED, “In Spain, when you order a drink in a bar.., you will always be [...]

A little thing by Orson Scott Card, via Kalebeul’s DJ-guru, Irwin Chusid. Apparently I’m about to become a multiple uncle AND bring down capitalism, seriously, so don’t worry too much about this kind of detail. (FYI: kalebeul’s proprietor has voted once in public elections–green/neighbourhoodist in The Hague, has worked for two centre-left parties, once defeated [...]

Take Goig Heroin Elixir:

From La Vanguardia anno 1912. Their current principal source of immoral earnings, apart from editorial-related state subsidy and tax-(ahem-)efficient paid-for journalism, is, of course, brothel advertising. I seem to recall it worked out at around €1M pa, but now most things do. The first ever front page of this then conservative, Catholic [...]

19th century newspapers had better names.

Apparently we anglocabrones used to think that crossing oneself was prerequisite to being Spanish. Here’s Juan Goytisolo in La Guardia, a short story written in the early 1950s, partly available in GBS:
From the window I saw a group of conscripts in parade dress. It was Sunday and the officers’ room was deserted. Its furniture consisted [...]

Is still only scoring 9 ghits in the Vulgar Latin Empire, while the great Japanese detective author Edogawa Rampo is on

I’m in transit quite a lot, and I like getting out of houses anyway, so I’ve built up a list of unofficial workspaces where I can pop in and do email and stuff free and without registering. This arty one is quite close:

Down one hill and up another, it’s ca 25 minutes on my Batavus [...]

This is often a work issue–eg with stuff forwarded to attorneys by IT-challenged clients–but also arises when archives digitalise stuff which is way out of copyright but which they still protect from private fiddling around, whether because of a lack of sophistication in their systems or because of some mad bureaucrat stuck up in the [...]

This piece by Julio José Elías Baturones explains how PSOE lawmakers led by Alfonso Guerra neutralised the guarantees contained in the constitution. I don’t know whether it’s accurate or complete, but it certainly makes recent events and today’s judicial strike easier to understand.