A Google Maps/Le Figaro mashup.

Desultory bar philosophising on the socio-economic function of Secret Santa.

–Hello.
–Hello, is that the Department of Tourism? Yes? Hello, a week ago I sent you an email asking if this Friday you could let me and a group in to see the crypt of blah blah blah, and I was wondering whether this would still be possible.
–Oh yes, I read the email.
–So?
–Yes, that should be [...]

Displaying Mexican contempt for the metropolis.

Mid-20th century Ibero-American hits, state-controlled media, the personal and the public.

Check out this excellent piece from Mr Mead, whose views on (international) politics may suggest it’s time he was checked into the municipal dog pound, but whose social reporting is often very good.

Other old media may be bolder liars, but you can always rely on ABC for the grossest cheese, as in this drooling retrowank re Felipe González’s new bit. How can you write a thing like that, even if it is a double entendre? Or am I just too much of a curious puritan?

“This incendiary message was broadcast from Berlin to hot-blooded Spain by dazzling, blonde Brita Brager. It had a coldblooded purpose: to persuade Spaniards that signing up for work in German munitions plants would be a short cut to a life of opulent lechery.” According to this Time story from 1943, Ms Brager was the 23-year-old [...]

Tim the Translator is not happy with a diktat on non-sexist language issued by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, which includes a recommendation to use passive reflexive (which may well be distinct from reflexive passive) constructs like “it will be ruled judicially…” in order to avoid discriminatory acts like “the judge [m] will rule…”. He [...]

I just don’t get why Jordi Pujol, the big man of Catalan nationalism over the past 40 years, said that “crossbreeding” (mestissatge) with immigrants would mean the end of Catalonia.
My dad’s been shagging Mrs P for years, and the kids are doing fine.