Some historical advice from an Irish perspective for Esperanza Aguirre on the pitfalls of attempting to demonstrate by symbolic means the virile and libertarian spirit of Madrid in the invented and regrettable conflict between it and doldrummed Barcelona.

Here’s a cheeky hybrid of actual and virtual tourism: the guide hasn’t been to all of the places advertised here at 100€ per person per day, and he hasn’t visited some for a decade, so instead of conducting costly research he learns them from Google Streetview. Which, for all I know, may work perfectly well [...]

With an excerpt from a plea for more state funding by the Bostonian Western Rail-road, in which we are given to understand that snow is not necessarily a bad thing.

TravelShop Turkey’s bus doesn’t actually take you to Istanbul or Tunis, but love those krazy keywords (and of course even Trabzon isn’t that Turkish any more anyway).

The precedents for, and some possible implications of, the Catalanisation of Barcelona’s cinemas. Plus some crowd-pleasing video of the Quebec language police in action. (Allez! Allez! Allez! And the hell with the economy!) All in somewhat fevered response to an article by Martin Dahms in the Tages-Anzeiger.

But getting there is still a pain in one’s posterior end.

Or rather, how my grandfather seems to have been named after a minor railway station.

Can someone work out from this steaming pool of verbal diarrhea if they’re loading the donkey down with GPS recorders etc and then letting it go wherever it wants? Now that would be really interesting. Er, not, actually. [Whatever happened to Deirdre (?) and the donkey and cart with which she made her way from [...]

Serious separatists will drive on the left, in Vic, starting Sunday.

Excerpts from Juan Goytisolo and Ramón Fernández Palmeral, with an epitaph from George Orwell.

Party political prejudice, or yet more historical memory bollocks?

Both white and black men prohibited from ambulant advertising.

An illegal brothel at Girona Airport.

At Giseno, Lago di Como.

An etymological hop from kite-flying with Juan Marsé back to Concha Piquer’s greatest hit.

If phone companies don’t provide window stickers, Pakistani shopkeepers may have a go themselves.

By Ramon Vila & Marta Cuatrecasas

Will the pigeon get the cat’s food, or will the cat get the pigeon?

And whatever you do don’t let them loose in fields containing horses.

They’re not necessarily for pedestrians.