A fragment from Italo Calvino’s quasi-17th century folk romance, Il visconte dimezzato/The cloven viscount, uses storks as a portent of battle. Several unconnected 2nd century Greek accounts might appear to do the same, perhaps particularly if one’s a lazy sod and doesn’t read anything but scraps of stuff on Google Books.

Or rather, how my grandfather seems to have been named after a minor railway station.

The pros of walking to Barcelona Airport.

It’s no longer a swinging safari now the nature-lovers have got guns too.

So they’ve posted a report alleging Sir John Moore’s defeat by the weather, 200 years ago. It’s snowing a bit in Spain at the moment, but no signs of it turning into a repeat of 1829-30, when the Ebro froze, 1835-6, when eggs froze in their shells in Palencia, 1836-7, when it snowed on the [...]