An anti-intellectual French horticultural fable.

“Discontented devil of a blackamoor, why canst thou not be satisfied to live here?” “Avast there; all our gold and diamonds can’t procure us here the bright sunshine and joyous people, nor the rich fruits and wine, of my native clime.”

Half roasted Frenchmen, some o’er Gratings Broil’d/Do mix with Spaniards in the Sea parboil’d;

A Dutch compliment becomes a French insult.

Restif de la Bretonne goes one step beyond Shakespeare and says that poetry is the language of Gods and beasts, and that reason speaks in prose.

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

Party political prejudice, or yet more historical memory bollocks?

Mr Muñoz Soliva postulates the participation of some peculiarly phurtive Phoenicians.

Spanish entries from the 1811 Dictionary of the vulgar tongue, with some fanciful etymological speculation and a mercifully brief bout of bar-room anthropology.

Moreto’s El desdén con el desdén and Reznicek’s Donna Diana: Vicky Christina Barcelonas of yesteryear?

Molly Greene describes the complex anarchy that existed between the collapse of the Mediterranean powers and the entry of northern fleets.

Anecdotes from the frozen wastes of Spain and Britain, with a brief burst of the usual twaddle.

Tully, Letters written during a ten years’ residence at the court of Tripoli (1819):
June 12 1788
To you, my dear friend, who are always alive to the beauties and effects of nature, I cannot omit describing what an extraordinary impression an eclipse makes on the uninformed part of the inhabitants of Barbary. Of this we had [...]

Here’s what Ciudadanos thinks you should know about the fall of Barcelona in 1714, mourned tomorrow by nationalists with silly flags, bad music and vandalism of ATM machines:

On September 11 a commemoration takes place of the surrender of the city of Barcelona in 1714, following the declaration of war made by the Catalan Parliament on [...]

Querida amiga, ahórrate los honorarios del carnicero cosmético leyendo los Secretos raros de artes y oficios (1807):
Para tener buenos melones. Se remojan las pepitas de melon por dos ó tres dias en buen, vino moscatel añejo. Se tendrá la paciencia, de ir abriendo con destreza un cierto número de pepitas por el agujerillo que han [...]

From the Swedish Military Archive, this purports to show Vendôme at the head of some 32,000 troops bombarding Barcelona in the final stages of the Nine Years War:
Wikipedia: “The garrison capitulated on 10 August, but it had been a hard fought contest; French casualties amounted to about 9,000, and the Spanish had suffered some 12,000 [...]

Many thanks to Javier for introducing me to the Cantabrian Quixote, which devotes a whole chapter to a duel resulting from a disagreement about who should dexar la acera, give the wall sidewalk. Not surprisingly, like the cognate discussed in the linked post, it doesn’t turn up in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy. [...]

The Spanish DVD is poorly produced but this error was probably planned:

George finds sanity through lunacy, monarchy through dethronement. The film is as fine in its own way as the original play was, and Nigel Hawthorne is divine. Handel was George I and II, not III, but period films normally inflict far greater musical torments.

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 [...]

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, [...]