Apparently the four corners of a square reel used in this Huesca village in hemp yarn production represent four horses bound for France. I wonder which horses these were: those that awaited the Duke of Calabria, when he sought with three others to flee the court of King Ferdinand of Aragon, or others? (If folksy […]

Nightfall in Madrid, which was apparently notorious (Pérez Galdós, Rosalía, ca 1872):
In the house a sepulchral silence reigned, but outside the noise was unbearable: carriages came and went without cease; a girl cried the lottery every five minutes, informing the public, “Tomorrow’s the last day to get your tickets. 10 reals for a décimo [tenth […]

Thanks for the concerned mails. The cooperative gave us the day off, so I’m able to report that, far from being drunk or dead, I am in fact drownded, and that neither in the Jesus Sea, nor in the Odys-sea, but in the rippling Manchegan earthsea, where gypsies wear latex and smell of Eau de […]

Re chav, here From a lexicon of flamenco song terms derived from Caló and thieves’ dialects (germanías):

He ventured along a path, following a field of cane whose leaves shook softly with the noise of a crushed newspaper. In an end he could make out several triangular cabins. Near these primitive houses, a dying bonfire sent winks by its embers.
“Haitians!” thought Menegildo. “They must be completely drunk…

Where did he get that vernacular?

Well-travelled salesmen are nothing more that the latest bunch of pechelingues.

“Gravina rose up blind with rage and cast in the face of the Frenchman his cowardly behaviour at Cape Finisterre. They exchanged somewhat strong words and, finally, the Spanish admiral exclaimed, ‘We set sail tomorrow!’” More Benito Pérez Galdós here, but what we want to know is whether Tony has invited Jacques to the celebratory […]

A lot of people here get extremely pissed off about Hispanidad Day, today, October 12th. Since it was the Romans, not the Spanish, who assigned this name to the bit of the world before the sun sets, and since every true Catalan knows that the man who set foot on a Caribbean beach on October […]