La Vanguardia, 2008/4/21: “Piratas somalíes secuestran un atunero vasco. El ‘Playa de Bakio’ lleva 26 tripulantes, trece africanos, ocho gallegos y cinco vascos. Anoche, una fragata española acudía desde el mar Rojo a auxiliar al barco.” Victims from north of the Mediterranean are dissimilated on the basis of their autonomous community, while victims from the […]

Is one of the all-time greats of popular Spanglish linguistics, so it is very much to be hoped that the NYT will again use the former after the next pirate raid off Barbary or in the Caribbean. There’s probably similar wordfun to be had in the South China Sea, but we don’t go there.

From the often superb BBC WWII site:
As France fell my great uncle Ioannis (John) Colentzos was captain of a Greek freighter berthed in Bordeaux. He a did not wish to remain in the port as he was uncertain of what the outcome might be for his vessel once the Germans got there. Greece was not […]

But not in Pedralbes:

If only shots were that cheap at my local.

The papers are running their usual “worst weather ever” stories, but 163 years ago here massive floods signalled an end to a period of abnormal cold–snow lay on the land around town–and a Norwegian brig was lost in storms at the mouth of the Llobregat.

Taken towards the end of this walk, it demonstrates some of the impact of the speculative development programmed by Barcelona’s eco-warrior council over the past five years.

If I could do rather more advanced wheelies on my Batavus Tripper I would post aerial shots of the dramatic shifts in the shoreline as a consequence of the […]

Below the Burcht at Leiden:

… and on a Gent lamp post:

Faced with global warming, Dutch civic Canutes are off somewhere else contemplating amongst other engineering wonders the construction of (a) a great new channel to sea to prevent flooding from upstream on the major rivers, and (b) a megalopolis to the East to house the […]

Will this lead to revision of the etymology of filibuster?

Máximo Puente (I don’t think that’s a pseudonym–think “ain’t no mountain high enough”) also swims in it every day, says Mariano Gistaín.

This is the anjova (Pomatomus saltatrix) caught off Galicia. According to Europa Press, fisherman Pablo Oliver got in touch with the Spanish National Research Council/Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and the Institute of Oceanography/Instituto Oceanográfico to tell them of his discovery and to enquire as to why this fish was in waters outside its known […]

“En Santander. El pez y el reloj” in Los pueblos, ducking out of eternity and the meaning of life, Azorín is fetishising feet at the Cantabrian beach resort:
Little feet, arched and clad in elegant new shoes, are one of the most attractive features of a woman. I contemplate them all with the discretion with which […]

I’d have thought this story establishes for once and for all that chickens discovered America, but I guess there’s still a whole load of work to do.

Off the other evening to see Chelsea-Liverpool on a big screen in a village bar in another valley. Coming down from the pass on an old walled stone track, I turn a corner and there’s a flock of goats nibbling the hedges. In the middle of the path, the cloth-capped ruddy-faced goatherd in classic caganero […]

I’m now doing most of my work from locked-down government machines in rural internet centres, which means using online applications for almost everything. I used to be reasonably good with stuff like Premiere, but, though tool-blaming is bad manners, I can’t get online video editor Jumpcut to very much useful, even fades being beyond my […]

It’s ridiculously and dangerously cool to be able to read the WNT (via the NRC) again without having to sit next to a load of drunks in the public library on Saturday morning. Here, in brief return for this post on Dutch words in Iberian dialects, and at the most basic level imaginable given the […]

Why the curious reluctance (n = 0 at post time) to give the pillagers of the Napoli their correct name? The Spanish word is raquero, which the DRAE says comes from raque, which it describes as the “act of gathering objects lost on the coasts through shipwreck or cargo spillage.” Etymology suggested is Gothic rakan, […]

If the ruling Galician national socialists want to redefine the region in their statute of autonomy as the “nation of Breogan” (their leader says their identity is in their genes), does that mean that, like their mythical hero, they’re going to spend all their money building a great big tower and then take the whole […]

I believe the current early chronology of versions containing all the basic motifs is as follows:

Joseph Fouché was a politician and administrator, and the delightfully wicked creator under Bonaparte of something vaguely resembling the modern police service. According to PBS, he wrote in something called Archives of the police of a series of murders committed […]

This is a translation of part of the chapter on Romance languages in Marius F Valkhoff’s 1943 study of De expansie van het Nederlands. The text is annotated–probably excessively and untidily so–with [additional or contrasting information] and [???] where Valkhoff has clearly found something I haven’t.

Gerry Studds was, as far as I know, the only Portuguese-speaking member of the US Congress. His name always made me think of that bit in “My old man’s a dustman” which goes “He wears gor-blimey trousers/With the studs sewn down the back.” Googling I find “He wears cor-blimey trousers/And he lives in a council […]

Go check JP Getty Jnr’s Talitha in Barcelona harbour. It’s a lovely boat, although $315K/week seems a bit steep for someone who’s not exactly a fan of American luxury hotel decor. Still, I can imagine its passengers being content that they’re not one of the 24,000 other cruise sheeps passing through Barcelona today.

Time, August 17 1936:
Along the dusty roads of Lusitania Spanish peasants last week saw a sight that white men had not seen in 450 years: Moorish tribesmen, bearded and burnoosed, swinging their long brass-mounted rifles on the way to fight in Spain. News of the march caused grim chuckles to a ginger-bearded fat gentleman on […]

Where muffled squid was once only to be found in exclusive establishments like Hotel Termes Montbrió, today it is merely one of 1,043 featured specials at the Chinese snack on Jovellanos in downtown Barcelona. Kalebeul Research has established that the worldwide glut of squid is due not so much to overfishing of predators like tuna […]

Via the Royal (Dutch) Library: “Spanish newspapers say that the real inventors of the Paris Gun [vèrdragend kanon / Pariskanone / Gran Bertha (sic)] … are two Spaniards, who offered their invention to the German consulate in Barcelona. Thereupon they were taken in a U-boat to German to show their invention to Krupp.” (NRC, April […]

Or El meu aerodesllissador està ple d’anguiles (Via Onze Taal)

Several Chinese have whispered me grossly inaccurate versions of this story, so here’s the truth, from the mouth of a horse who wouldn’t want his mum to read this kind of stuff on his blog:
I was having a drink in La Penùltima on Barcelona’s Riera Alta when in came what turned out to be an […]

It doesn’t really matter whether Columbus was that posterior construct, Catalan, or not; the Mings got there first, using trained otters.

Spain will be just fine.

As bandleader. I think I can safely reveal that customer prices are slightly more than today’s GoogAds takings.

I’d like to see Guus Hiddink take over England asap, but then I was supporting Mark Oaten (go on, get me one for my birthday!) to run the Lib Dems until he started chasing the England job, leaving Boris Johnson as the LDs’ only potentially electable leader.
(Apparently the Koreans gave Guus a villa on […]

If I were a bit smarter I’d have tried a couple of alternative spellings before posting this. There’s a good chapter by Anthony Reid dealing among others with Sakender in Implicit Understandings: Observing, Reporting and Reflecting on the Encounters Between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era (ed Stuart B Schwartz) in which […]

The other day I serendipited upon a review in Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië (1853) of Abraham Benjamin Cohen Stuart’s translation of what sounds like an absolutely brilliant Javanese epic poem dealing with the life and loves of one Baron Sakendher, Geschiedenis van Baron Sakendher. Een Javaansch verhaal van vertaling, […]

These (from Carlos Westendorp Plaza) are OK:

Autodate - type of potatoes
Queque - cake
Quineguar/chineguar - King Edward potatoes (the d -> g swap is interesting; it reminds me of some Andalusian dialects in which you get b -> g (abuelo -> aguelo) etc

And this is a killer:

Cambuyonero - Someone who trades articles of dubious procedence. Used […]

Amando de Miguel says that Aura Grandal says that people in Ferrol, Galicia call policemen “chepas”, and that this derives from “shepherds”, which is what British engineers called the watchmen in the naval arsenals. I’m going to believe it, whether I do or not.

Check some great photos by David Bryan of a tornado off Castelldefels, south of Barcelona.

Shame about the site, but go and see the gorgeous, steel-hulled, 3-masted Belem from Nantes if you’re down on the Moll de la Fusta in Barcelona harbour. It’s infinitely preferable to all the white cuboids being refitted in dry dock further up.
The Belem counts among previous owners the 2nd Duke of Westminster who, while […]

Someone has been trying recently & kindly to hammer into my thick skull the nature and depth of early Irish ties with Iberia. Here’s a bleeding chunk from a piece called The City of the Tribes: Italian Memories in an Irish Port in a recently cited James Joyce anthology (Occasional, Critical, and Political Writings):
The lazy […]

We just had a typically ill-informed discussion here about how Narcís Monturiol’s second submarine, Ictíneo II, worked. Robert Hughes’ Barcelona says that
for surface running, Monturiol decided to save the muscles of his crew and install a six-horsepower steam engine. But you could not run a steam engine underwater: it would use up all the oxygen […]

In an update, even more Pelorus boato-photos here. This is getting ridiculous, because there’s a rumour going round that the guy may be going to use Le Grand Bleu (354′) as a frigging supply vessel for the Pelorus (377′). The latter is apparently now heading back to Monte Carlo, which will cheer up Shirley Bassey […]

He’s got bath in his boat and I’ve got a boat in my bath, so I can’t really see why the world’s media only wants to interview Roman Abramovich. Anyway, here are some more photos (previous post) which I have received of the Pelorus undergoing what look like hull rib repairs, this time in Malta, […]