The monument is a quality marble tomb round about where the sea gate was, on which Habsburg general Josep Moragues’ head hung in a cage for 12 years from 1715-1727, his body having previously been quartered on the Ramblas. This for surrendering on a Bourbon pardon at the end of the War of the Spanish […]

–Uncle, I’ve decided to get baptised and celebrate my first communion next week. Will you be there?
–Only if you buy yourself a buttplug.
I’m not that easily shocked, but etc etc

Antonio Gascón Ricao:
Es de sobras conocido que una de las habilidades más comunes de las brujas consiste en clavar agujas o cortar con unas tijeras un corazón, el hígado o los riñones de un animal, y así, el daño causado en dichos órganos animales se puede reproducir de igual forma en la persona a la […]

“The Mahávansa and the Rájaratnákari state, that the king Walakanabhaya, or according to the latter work, Deveny Paetissa, caused the temple of a heathen named Girrie (doubtless Giri) to be destroyed, and caused to be constructed upon its site twelve temples consecrated to Sákya, which communicated with each other; and in the midst of which […]

We’ve been outed by a couple of publications, so here’s the why/where/when for any readers of this blog who want to come along:
La Hermandad “Pippi Kortkjol” invita a amigos, compañeros, y luchadores de anteriores y actuales jornadas a participar en la Romería Tradicional de La Primera Sueca, que este año se realizará el día sábado […]

The other day I did a libertarian Raval tour with a particularly dangerous Californian sociologist, and we got onto Orwell’s apparent incapacity to see the most recent civil war as anything but a class conflict betrayed. This despite ethnic-based stuff like the vicious mini-civil war between Catalan fascists associated with Estat Català and self-described communist […]

The famous “Kiss of death” memorial sculpture in Poble Nou cemetery, photo by the excellent izarbeltza, regularly visited on one of these Barcelona walks:

A more earthy interpretation, from a Chinese shop, also in Barcelona:

I think the laugh/laughter thing is probably quite a hard mistake for non-natives to spot. I am consciously aware of about as much grammar as is your dog’s posterior end, so don’t ask me to explain why it’s wrong. (From CaixaForum’s exhibition.)

Apparently there is a multi-ethnic casa de barrets (hat-house, from the number hanging there) at the top of the John Lennon Musical Garden–there hasn’t been any music there since people used to pop outside the city walls to have a crap:

Here’s the pricelist:

Argentines: 80€
Blacks: 30/60€
Catalans: 50€
Romanians: 30€
Columbians: ?
Ecuadorians: 25€
Pigs, bitches, cocksuckers, whores in general, etc: […]

This falls into the same category as the revelation by Arenys de Mar’s thriving community of dope-fiends historians that the three kings were all black. Dunno where that leaves trite lyrics like Siempre que pintas iglesias/pintas angelitos bellos/pero nunca te acordaste/de pintar un ángel negro. (On this walk. Critical discussion of inocentadas here.)

I’ve only ever been a witness of vomiting and fighting at midnight mass, but none of this is new. One of today’s Libro verde items records that until a few years [before 1848], mass was sung at one in the morning, but that the irreverences of the ignorant made it impossible. Henceforth it was celebrated […]

Re this, some results. The comments in Dutch are grossly libellous, so don’t even try to translate them. I finally managed to get the mitre on my head–Spanish bishops don’t have much between their ears–but the only way the beard would stay on was to jam it over my nose with half of it in […]

None of the evangelists mention San José, electrician:

Here’s a lamb emerging from the tower blocks with which urban planners chose to blanket the lower half of the old market square, which has been jacked up to cover a huge underground carpark:

All on this walk.

BS has kindly pointed out that Lérida has a selective digitalised press archive going back to 1896. With ref to this, he notes the existence of similar commemorative genocidal banging by children in the city in the early twentieth century (?):
–Where are you off to this early?
–To kill Jews, mum!
–Don’t you know that that’s in […]

From the SPCK’s Saturday magazine in 1823:
During the siege of Barcelona by the Spaniards and English, in the war of the succession, in 1705, an affecting incident occurred, which is thus related by Captain Carleton, in his memoirs. “I remember I saw an old officer, having his only son with him, (a fine man about […]

The rector of neighbouring Saravillo allegedly had a cable installed connecting the bell with the rectory so that, making judicious use of his little toe, he could keep in touch with his flock without getting out of bed.

Or is it a smiley? Does Ratzinger regard ecclesiastical ecstasy as a theologically acceptable substitute for communion wine? I think not.

The RC rector of the church in Plan, Sobrarbe, Huesca, Spain blasts out his services over speakers, to the distress of neighbours without detachable hearing aids and to the alarm of sheep on the mountains. It’s not 140dB (source), but it ain’t good for tourism neither.

For a while it sounded like Morse machine being boiled alive, something which probably hasn’t happened for quite a long time, and for sure it’s a terrible thing to be doing anyway. (You may need to turn up the sound. I’m using YouTube and accepting its lack of editing facilities because, like various other […]

Re a reference@Amando de Miguel: that the expressions are interchangeable (“Capulino frotó suavemente el respaldo de una silla; acarició después el metal de un llavero, por expresa recomendación de Juana. Y sonrió.”, or here for the English) suggests that Frazer was wrong to point to iron’s novelty as the source of its taboo status. Intriguingly, […]

Sez Florica from Pitesti:
You cannot pretend you are a real witch if you cannot help a businessman get the European Union funds he wants. For example, only the other day I had a young businessman who came to me with his papers applying for European funds. I spread the cards on his documents, said my […]

It’s not just Spain that is cracking down on the re-dedication of buildings as temples and unregulated preaching.
[
I’ve been in a few mosques in Holland and in Barcelona (once, beer in hand, with a couple of Bangladeshis, to the concern of some of the faithful), and on aesthetic grounds as well as out of […]

Thinking about the origins of exclusivity, various biblical suggestions as to how to deal with idolaters spring to mind like a gazelle in wellington boots:

Exodus 34
12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
13 […]

The Visigoth church knocked down by the Moors was built on a Roman temple, and I’m told that both faith communities have now asked for time and space in the current building, should the request by Spanish Muslim converts prove successful. Jerry Falwell (“I think Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims […]

Off-location, but too exquisitely grisly to omit:
In September, when the 13th of 27 condemned men was hanged, the rope snapped and the prisoner landed on the floor and shouted: “God saved me!”
He lay on the ground praying and shouting while prison guards and the hangman discussed whether there had been divine intervention and the execution […]

From William Pulleyn’s The Etymological Compendium, Or, Portfolio of Origins and Inventions (1830), via Google Book Search:
It is generally believed, that Cards were invented for the amusement of one of the early kings of the line of Bourbon; but this belief is erroneous. Who the man was that invented these instruments of amusement and folly […]

Zazie@Cocanha has scanned extracts from two versions of the highly amusing Cartas d’el Rei D. Fernando, O Catholico, a varios reis e principes do mundo, e suas respostas: colligidas e commentadas por Fr. Antonio Tarfan de los Godos, Commendador na Ordem de S. João de Jerusalem: the first bunch from a manuscript in the collection […]

A bunch of deranged Catalanista xenophobes are campaigning to drive out “foreign” Christmas symbols. Don’t anyone tell them that in Holland Santa Claus is believed to be a Spanish bishop or that current research suggests that Jesus was actually a teddy bear.

Item 000174 from Passe-Partout, the University of Lausanne’s International Bank of Printers’ Ornaments

I’ve been merrily dilettanting away recently with a couple of literary robberies and forgeries, so it’s good to see that Zazie over at cocanha found a really great one.
What he has are extracts from a book published in 1842 in Porto, Portugal under the promising title, Cartas d’el Rei Don Fernando, O Catholico, a varios […]

Here’s a slightly paraphrased anecdote from Ramon Miquel i Planas’ El llibreter assassí de Barcelona (1928), which his footnote seems to imply was taken from Le livre, vi, 131 (Paris, 1885):
Emile Girardin and Charles Latour-Mézeray are two young literary bohemians running round 1820s Paris. Girardin has just published a novel and is feeling fairly desperate […]

When I went out this morning onto the Rambla del Raval, a man was standing up on the boom of the 40 metre crane overlooking Calle San Rafael. He gesticulated and shouted at the firemen in the crane cabin and then wandered out to smoke a cigarette at the 35 metre end.
Under the shadow […]

Here’s an interesting little anecdote to add to my list of fake/bleached virgin stories:
Barcellona [sic] has always been celebrated for the zeal of its priesthood, and for the pains taken by them to hoodwink the people; and even in these days, religious bigotry is far more prevailing than might be expected in a city so […]

Following Mad Mas’ exposition, at the invented tomb of invented Wilf the Hairy, of Catalanista scientific doctrine–Article 1: Just because something is false doesn’t mean it ain’t true–, Luis Alfonso Gámez picks up on an important story which the nutters have somehow missed. (Thanks to Carlos Ferrero)

I’ve always thought of freemasonry in Spain as being roughly analogous to free black Christian sects in British colonies: providing a substitute channel for social organisation for those denied legitimate political and trade union activity. However, I’m still pretty ignorant about this kind of stuff, and so here I’ll pass on a couple of interesting […]

This is Manuel Irurita, regionalist-traditionalist head of the diocese of Barcelona, and one of 8,352 citizens disposed of by, or to the complete indifference of, the Republican authorities in Catalonia during the Civil War for fear that their political and religious beliefs might not be fully compatible with certain contemporary notions of liberty and progress. […]

Just had a chat with an associate of “Tío Lele”, responsible for a protection, ahem, scheme in Poble Nou and other parts. It is said that everyone’s favourite uncle is a bit disturbed about the apparent lack of progress on his website, which it had been understood would be appearing on OkieDokie.com.

The story of the Moroccans with keys to houses in Granada is well known. La Cruz, The Cross, a Catholic periodical carried what sounds like a variant of this in 1854, claiming that Prussian Jews were about to petition the Spanish court to abolish the 1492 expulsion decree. Léon Carbonero y Sol wrote:
In truth it […]

Translator Carlos Ferrero quotes bit of a piece called Aprender a ser libre (Learning to be free) by Jorge Edwards, whose work had the singular distinction of being banned by both the Castro and Pinochet dictatorships:
I recall a Venezuelan poet of Arab origins who was contracting as a translator in North Korea. The documents he […]

Neither an aficionado of la Tomatina in Buñol nor a shooting victim in Millersburg, Ohio, but a follower of the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas:
Si hun religios es bon thomatista, a tot sera bastant a satisfer. Per ço, nostre senyor Deu, ans que vingues esta saviesa en sent Thomas, ja li anava davant per profecia e […]