This is surely where this took place, and this must have been one of the last guests pre-mortem. I liked the unconsciously gruesome comments on TripAdvisor about the chilly welcome and subsidence on the tennis court, and a couple of the photos are thoroughly spooky.

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.

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.

How would you describe the relationship of the Slav Francisco with his mother?

A Portuguese menagerie of sozzledness.

On this day in 1466, one Juan Sort, aged 70, was beheaded for the misappropriation of public funds. Millet is said by the auditors to have stolen around 30 million and has fessed to around 10%, but has not been anywhere near a prison, and indeed seems to think that by looking old and grey [...]

Las mentiras de empresas como Evicro, y como fabricar tu propia Sal del Himalaya casi gratis y de manera sostenible.

Bishop Gibson of Granada understands beatific bureaucracy but not tradition. Featuring a bad Vietnamese flamenco clip.

Nearsightedness is increasing, and there aren’t many other reasonable explanations.

Trademark theft to liven up the Spanish fruit and veg price-war?

Every 9th Canarian nationalist councillor has a problem, and the left looks to be in worse trouble than the right nationally.

We’re in for a long recession: if the Extremadura PSOE says that pleasure is in your hands (via PD), then presumably they know that Spaniards aren’t going to be able to afford prostitutes for the foreseeable future. There’s been the predictable outcry from Catalan nationalists who believe they are subsidising Extremaduran tosspots and other spendthrift [...]

It’s not what you steal, it’s the way that you steal it.

Yet more Spanish culture for Brussels to ban.

What do ghit ratios from La Vanguardia, El Periodico, El País, ADN, ABC, El Mundo, Público, and Levante tell us about their owners’ priorities?

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

Party political prejudice, or yet more historical memory bollocks?

A Catalan children’s song remembered by Francesc Candel; early rave culture on Central America’s eastern seaboard.

Yo, el vaquilla, quinqui cinema, and the usual political whining.