Check out some local talent (@Museu d’Història de la Medicina de Catalunya) over at Morbid Anatomy. (Via Tecnología Obsoleta)

Étienne Cabet’s Voyage en Icarie (excerpt) is his novelised idealisation of Napoleonic nationalist totalitarianism: if not exactly a New Jerusalem, then certainly a New Paris, built around a New Seine, designed by its dictator, the Icar. This book and its hype led hundreds of families, mainly French, principally artesans (sez James Chastain) to doom and [...]

Is not a gay bar but a lingerie-and-that-kind-of-stuff shop on the street in Barcelona named after Pi i Margall, Mr Pine and Wall barley:

Wood ants descending rapidly en masse from a Quercus ilex on Montseny at the onset of a sharp shower:

Having spent several decades standing under trees waiting for the rain to stop, it is my firm belief that small ants do not flee from the rain as do big ones, although their level of activity [...]

San Jordi in Barcelona, and millions of females who would be perfectly happy eating hay are receiving roses from males who have problems reading a football shirt, never mind the book of 500 Catalan jokes they will get in return for their floral investment. We ecolefties disincline naturally from needlessy fucking up Lake Victoria and [...]

All but one, now living in a back garden in c/ Sors, Barcelona.

Fine upstanding gentleman, prepare your great serpent to play the lovely Encarnación’s fandango.

I once read some complete nonsense by UCD prof Clarence Major, so I do kind of wonder whether he’s got any evidence for the claim (Prentiss Riddle → MSNBC) that relates hip “to the Wolof verb hepi (’to see’) or hipi (’to open one’s eyes’)”. The Peace Corps Wolof-English dictionary (PDF) lists xippi, but they [...]

Arnie’s put a stop to their dirty games.

They speak (or someone speaks) Catalan in the Edinburgh branch of Harvey Nichols, according to The Scotsman. The assistant from Georgia, we are told, is called Nestan Rasmussen, which sounds pretty unlikely, and the manager claims that English is also spoken, which inclines me to disbelieve the whole story.

(Denver Post) Trevor is Dutch and has just returned to Barcelona from Holland when I spoke with him. He plays a didgeridoo, a long, hollowed-out eucalyptus tree branch. The Aborigines of Australia developed the musical instrument, which makes a beautiful, deep, throbbing sound. His first day back in mid-November has gone well, he says. The [...]

Life really is much better now that many Christians and some Muslims realise that chopping up and burning gays and lesbians does not generate good PR. Contemporary hate money goes on marketing campaigns based - quelle surprise! - on mumbo-jumbo:

Some of the locals would have you believe that Barcelona is the global capital of crazy. Not at all, for, as Holmes remarked in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, “the lowest and vilest alleys in London[, Barcelona, whatever] do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.” [...]

Recognising an urgent need, Barcelona’s excellent Institut Français has undertaken to explain love to the Catalans (translation Googlebotted for style, steam, and speed):

I take it the royal palaces are next.

Localisation - like most developments in publishing - has benefited greatly from the needs of the porn industry. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse,” said Charles V of Spain, without, alas, going into detail. I assume, however, that his Italian will not have been the [...]

In an article on the Madrid bombings Michael Carlin (via HispaLibertas) proclaims the doom of a Spain trapped in fear and ignorance. No reason to get excited, I would have thought, since the British have known that this boat ain’t going nowhere for at least 416 years. Nevertheless, I did enjoy Mr Carlin getting all [...]

Marleen Zachte quotes the results of a sex survey allegedly undertaken by German rubber and aluminium mag, Men’s Car, which shows that BMW drivers do it most and Porsche drivers least - if we are to believe the respondents. As usual the polluters did not dare ask cyclists.

OK, this blog is officially enamoured of Quaderns, which as well as calling Kaleboel un fenomenal poti poti now says we’re indispensable. A brown envelope is on its way to a smoke-filled office in Andorra.

Metrosexual. The Americans blame French cissies and Brit hacks, but the honours go to Galician AZ Alkmaar footballer, José Fortes Rodriguez:
Some women just don’t get it. They’re not used to being turned down. They say: Go on, you want me don’t you! I say: Am I talking Chinese? I don’t find you attractive. And then [...]

WiFi-SM (via wondering) sounds good:
I’ve been using WiFi-SM for one month and it’s amazing ! When somebody suffers on earth, not only I know it, but I can also feel a little bit of his/her pain. I don’t feel guilty anymore and I can enjoy life without limitation. I love WiFi-SM
Here’s the blurb:

More from Eurweb:

Apparently the fine children’s illustrator Honor Appleton (1879-1951) was not such a good girl after all:

There was a big discussion at choir last night about the frightful quality of semen in Barcelona. That’s not an infrequent topic of conversation, but this time it was at least partly based on quantitative evidence, namely a new comparative study by a local reproductive health institute.
The first deranged hypothesis was of a correlation between [...]

This is what I call a good post:

Like the British vis-à-vis the French, an influential current in Indonesian opinion remains convinced that the outside world is determined to destroy it with naughtiness. Some believe that, far from being innate or Islamic, the current bout of banning can be traced back to paranoia generated by the CIA’s attempts round 1960 to bring down [...]

John B (on John C’s comments) mentions the story doing the rounds about a video which, if it existed, might alarm Mr Rajoy’s more conservative following. What we need now is John A with a pirate version, or at least some decent fakes. (Does no one here know what Photoshop is really for?) Here, meanwhile, [...]

The Catalanistas are up in arms because a judge over in Torrelavega, Cantabria has denied custody of two children to the mother, now living in Lérida/Lleida, Catalonia on the grounds that this could “cause them certain disturbances,” being an autonomous community “in which important differences of cultural order with respect to Cantabria exist, particularly in [...]

Running or cycling whilst drunk may result in unanticipated (but not always unwelcome) entanglements with trees and shrubs. Mr Kouessi A Rene of Benin has monetised this concept and become a “manufacturer of alcoholics extracted from plants,” which he seems to be exhibiting at the 9th Ghana International Trade Fair.
I used often to end up [...]

Either condoms have suddenly become hideously expensive or there’s a missing link when The Guardian says that “British teenagers are better off … than ever before” while the BBC says they’re using crisp packets because they can’t afford the real thing. The solution is obvious - sell crisps wrapped in condoms - and the title [...]