The phonetic rebranding of Kaleboel.

More uses for a scissors than distinguished Viennese-Albertan dialect experts think.

When people emerge from feudalism only to find themselves imprisoned once more by pyschopaths dressed as plumbers, it’s difficult to take exception to any desire they may have to change their condition and to make that change permanent. However, there is always the odd Cassandra in trousers determined to find defeat in victory. “In China [...]

JA Millán points out that Barcelona’s Herder Editorial has gone over to print-on-demand. Given the nature of their catalogue (lots of Catholic history and theology), that’s a decision that is unlikely to make the world’s forests tremble like a Melief drinker.

Taking the view that the plain folk of Catalonia were illiterate and uncouth to a degree that would lead to ridicule in more cultured lands, Catalan language evangelists at the turn of the nineteenth century launched a barrage of self-help books. These guides taught business and social forms that will be familiar to English-speaking readers, [...]

Normally I’ll read any kind of rubbish, but this has got me defeated and puzzled. It’s a collection of instructions dating from 1484 to 1576 on how to run an inquisition (there’s some Torquemada in there) that belonged to one Doctor Martín Yánez de Padilla. However, not only are there no bloodstains on the pages [...]

Andrew Motion says that important manuscripts held in Britain shouldn’t be sold abroad. Since they’re currently only available to a very small group of people anyway, this seems pretty daft to me. I say digitalise them, publish them on the web, and use revenues from the sale of the originals to finance improvements in education, [...]

There they go again, blaming the courier (via Prandial). It would never have happened in Roxboro, where peaceful co-existence is the order of the day.
In one of those coincidences that herald intestinal difficulties and a tepid spring, it turns out this week was also the last at work for the man know for inventing [...]

These 3rd quarter 2003 charts are for municipal libraries in Barcelona province and are the result of running a reformatter on a page belonging to the library service. One of the interesting features is the suggestion that kids are reading Catalan while they go through the Catalan-language education system and that they shift into Castilian [...]

un problema
Del MediaDailyNews:
[Un] estudi … [ha revelat] que els espectadors [americans] han d’aguantar un increïble 52 minuts de basura promocional durant un bloc típic de tres hores de prime time en les quatre cadenes principals. Aquesta xifra és 8% més que en 2000 i 36% més que en 1991… La durada mitja dels blocs [...]

Transblawg posts re the adaptation of the language used in British novels for the American market and vice versa. This subject also occasionally exercises John of Iberian Notes (2003/10/17, for example), who thinks that it’s time we Brits started caring again about the eccentric pastimes of folk who were so very rude to us only [...]

Duitse ondernemers in Barcelona in de vijftiende eeuw.

Jaume wordt me even te veel vandaag. Waarom? Stress, omdat ik geen drukker weet te vinden hier die (a) een computer bezit, en (b) tijd heeft om visitekaartjes te leveren dit millenium. Een authentieke drukkerij in mijn buurt is eigenlijk of een volkse sigarenrookclub of een industrieel archeologische wunderkammer, maar de meeste weten een aardige [...]