“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.”
Jingoistic poem celebrating the Battle of Vigo Bay (1702)
Posted: November 3rd 2009 23:35.
Half roasted Frenchmen, some o’er Gratings Broil’d/Do mix with Spaniards in the Sea parboil’d;
Rhyme vs reason
Posted: October 4th 2009 18:05.
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.
Referendums on independence are for pussies
Posted: September 8th 2009 12:40.
Serious separatists will drive on the left, in Vic, starting Sunday.
Fiesta mayor programmes and Zapatero
Posted: August 29th 2009 14:46.
Party political prejudice, or yet more historical memory bollocks?
The naming of El Picazo
Posted: August 10th 2009 00:56.
Mr Muñoz Soliva postulates the participation of some peculiarly phurtive Phoenicians.
Spain, a nation of whores, soldiers and fools?
Posted: April 17th 2009 13:39.
Spanish entries from the 1811 Dictionary of the vulgar tongue, with some fanciful etymological speculation and a mercifully brief bout of bar-room anthropology.
The invention of Barcelona carnival
Posted: March 2nd 2009 19:08.
Moreto’s El desdén con el desdén and Reznicek’s Donna Diana: Vicky Christina Barcelonas of yesteryear?
Revisionist history of 17th century Mediterranean trade
Posted: February 12th 2009 17:31.
Molly Greene describes the complex anarchy that existed between the collapse of the Mediterranean powers and the entry of northern fleets.
Death of a monkey mascot
Posted: February 9th 2009 15:12.
Anecdotes from the frozen wastes of Spain and Britain, with a brief burst of the usual twaddle.
Extraordinary effects of a solar eclipse on the population of Tripoli on June 4 1788
Posted: September 22nd 2008 07:30.
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 [...]
Revisionist version of September 11 1714
Posted: September 10th 2008 14:43.
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 [...]
Para tener buenos melones
Posted: July 19th 2008 13:48.
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 [...]
Siege of Barcelona by the French in 1697
Posted: July 3rd 2008 10:58.
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 [...]
The RAE takes the wall and then goes and loses the bugger
Posted: June 21st 2008 07:17.
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 madness of King George, authorised for all pubics
Posted: June 20th 2008 14:04.
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.
Generalitat drops C18th Catalan language ban claim
Posted: April 28th 2008 14:23.
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 [...]
The Holy Boys
Posted: April 17th 2008 19:26.
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, [...]
French to Apaches: your Spanish allies are a load of big fanny girls
Posted: April 10th 2008 19:50.
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.
On this day
Barcelona
- February 9 1848
En el año del Señor 1839 un cirujano de la villa de Sancti Spiritus en la provincia de Badajoz hizo saber á la Diputacion provincial de Sevilla, que habia encontrado un remedio seguro para curar el dolor de muellas, remedio que consistia en apretar entre los dientes el mástil de una guitarra ...
Josep Pla, Palafrugell (1918-9)
- 9 de febrer de 1919 Diumenge. Matí de petites volves d’aigua glaçada. Un cel com esmerilat. Fredor insidiosa i desagradable. Havia d’haver anat a començar d’aprendre la instrucció militar a l’Acadèmia de les Drassanes. No hi he anat. A la tarda, acompanyo Xavier Güell a casa seva –un pis sumptuós i sòlid del Passeig de Gràcia. Té foc a la llar. [...]
The peepul's choice
- Mysterious Spanish game
- Catalan language policy: Marxist, Stalinist, Francoist or fascist?
- Pig / lion / monkey / child wine
- Barcelona Airport T1 pics
- More Nordic body culture in Barcelona
- Time to behead Fèlix Millet?
- A Barcelona spamvertising blog
- Chop up those gift-bearing Catalans
- The secret language of doctors
- 100 best lycées in France
- Follow la quiniela live with PHP data import to Excel
- Venus de Milo tribute in Villanueva y Geltrú
- Voter registration campaign for EU elections in June
- Man combing Vietnamese pot-bellied pig in Cuenca courtyard
- The naming of El Picazo
- The green of the louse/Lo verde del piojo
- The coming and going of the gypsies
- Fiesta mayor programmes and Zapatero
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona has had impact on mainstream acceptance of Spanish in USA
- What’s your ex-pat blogging style?
- Windows Vista: Error en el servicio Servicio de perfil de usuario al iniciar sesion. No se puede cargar el perfil de usuario
- New Abramovich yacht pictures
- Some more sun goddesses
- Traductor castellano-andaluz
- Sagrada Familia mural
- Forum auction not to include mayor Clos
- Jaws is not a feminist shero
- Dogs’ bollocks
- Follow la quiniela live with PHP data import to Excel
- Venus de Milo tribute in Villanueva y Geltrú
