Dido and Hengist are remembered as early heroes of isoperimetry for having solved the challenge of maximising the area of a land grant made to them by stringing together strips of oxhide and using the resulting closed superthong to trace, respectively, a semi-circle at Carthage and a full circle at Kaercorrei.
What was news to […]

This has been on the back burner for a while, but, following the fine example of Untergunther, it is hoped that work will soon be resumed on recladding all those farmhouses whose profitable stripped-stone effect is unauthentic and causes them to fall down sooner. Sheep-dyeing (thanks MM) is not done, although if they have just […]

James Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae: Familiar Letters, Domestic and Forren (1688, on GBS):
There is a Tradition, that there were divers Mines of Gold in Ages pass’d amongst those Mountains; and the Shepherds kept Goats then, having made a small Fire of Rosemary-Shrubs with other combustible stuff, to warm themselves, this Fire grew along, and grew so […]

From the baldie:

Some unusual Neolithic rock paintings. Apparently the locals used to take tourists to visit them and, to improve their colour and line, throw buckets of water over them. Once almost everything had been washed away, the authorities acted with characteristic firmness, building a 4m wall-with-spikes around the complex. The locals now explain to […]

Pascual Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos españoles y su expulsión (1901): “su admirable sistema de irrigación por medio de acequias y canales.” There are few sights and sounds more satisfying than this system of horizontal soaks and vertical sluices in action.

Giant Haystacks would be more accurate but disrespectful to the memory of the great wrestler. This ain’t Barcelona, so no lonely farmers bumping themselves off at the sight of Heidi’s mountains.

On cultivating our garden.

Brief report on carnival, goat à l’africaine, and a night out with the Belarussian putimafia.

I caught the first train out of town this morning to go and inspect what a certain farmer has in the fields round the the back (large sections of horse skeleton) before the man rose from his slumbers. Sitting across the carriage from me was an attractive woman, and at the next stop a drunk […]

The only intelligent way to get a decent photo of the Celsa’s bigger, badder steel recycling plant on the Castellbisbal side of the Llobregat is hit the emergency button of the train whilst in the same compartment as a couple of rowdy drunks and then keep quiet when security arrives. I’m a big fan of […]