Here’s a good bunch of Pontevedra photos by Colin Davies chronicling the frenzied destruction of those not-particularly-interesting buildings that nevertheless make Spain look the way it looks. If your dwelling is in a pre-1850 zone, then the chance is that things will stay more or less the way they are, but most everything from the [...]

Here’s an old foreshadow–give or take the odd sacrifice–of a recent nocturnal trip in the English translation by Grace Frick of Yourcenar’s Hadrian:
A few days before the departure from Antioch I went to offer sacrifice, as in other years, on the summit of Mount Casius. The ascent was made by night; just as for Aetna, [...]

After struggling for 10 minutes, a well-dressed young man manages to set fire to a container just off Carmen, steps back, takes out what looks like an expensive video camera in order to film his work, and is immediately robbed by two Moroccan lads. Try explaining that to Mummy and Daddy. Other faves:

Several hoodies breaking [...]

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, [...]

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

I’ve bumped into a number of Moorish poet-princes, but I’d never heard of poet-princess Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (994-1091). There’s a sensible, sourced account (in Spanish) here, and then there’s this. I had my doubts about Wijdan al shommari, and thought I’d be able to nail him/her on the basis of his/her (?) version of a [...]

Mediaeval local legal codes, fueros, all contain passages like the following, taken from the Fuero de Bejár (1290s):

Unlike Carlos, I’m actually rather fond of Albacete, and not just because its ugliness is on a smaller scale than Birmingham’s. Although generally more energy tends to be devoted to damnation than to praise, I found out the other night, flicking through a book called Historia de la provincia de Albacete, that I’m not the [...]

Swot it sounds like. No Spanish angle to this either, curse it.

El País this morning seems still to be backing the “It wos Bush wot dunnit” hypothesis. This is because they are being paid to do so by the Russians–although they still haven’t managed to get the hammers and sickles up there in the clouds. (Thanks Dave)

New Labour aren’t in the Bible (via Al El), but then neither are the dinosaurs, except in Florida (via Popbitch). (One of Dinosaur Adventure Land’s leading researchers is Dean “Million Volt Man” Ortner.)

Broken lightning conductor on a stork chimney in Barbastro.

The bad news is that the UK is about to become a net importer of hydrocarbons; the good news, that we are now selling services to fascist regimes in Central Asia as well as colonising the lexicons of Middle Eastern analysts who, it seems, have stopped measuring oil supplies in barrels:

“My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.”

Job 1:
While [the messenger to Job] was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

All last year industry and sections of the PP were saying that there was no way that Spain could meet its Kyoto targets, currently being overshot by more than 100% as a result of the PP’s fine economic record (see below). Economics minister Rato was mugged by a bunch of industrialists in early December in [...]

Lots of people in Barcelona don’t have piped gas, but it doesn’t matter at all. When their canister of butane is about to run out, a man comes along the street yelling BUTAAAANNNNOOO!!!! and, after a brief conversation, he climbs up six flights of stairs with a new one on his back. Easy!
It used to [...]

Everyone says that the following picture, taken near Barcelona’s Forum site, is of a large solar panel cluster:

This is Celsa’s bigger, badder steel recycling plant on the Castellbisbal side of the Llobregat, taken from the train on the way back from this walk. You’d have to be quicker than me to get the satanic flames flickering inside. On a related note, here’s James Nasmyth visiting Vesuvius in 1842:
What struck me most was [...]

Een … twee meer fotos van mijn favoriete krachtcentrale, Sant Adrià de Besòs, gekiekt tijdens de wandeling van Santa Coloma de Gramenet (Barcelona) naar Montgat (Maresme).