Includes video of snow felling a pine tree and a photo of a municipal bus which almost skated its way down-town.

Some historical advice from an Irish perspective for Esperanza Aguirre on the pitfalls of attempting to demonstrate by symbolic means the virile and libertarian spirit of Madrid in the invented and regrettable conflict between it and doldrummed Barcelona.

An anti-intellectual French horticultural fable.

With the Anglo-Saxon plot in tatters and Jewish machinations a non-starter, some strategic paranoia for Mr Zapatero. (Like: Is Mendelssohn’s Elijah a secret weapon of German subversion?)

With an excerpt from a plea for more state funding by the Bostonian Western Rail-road, in which we are given to understand that snow is not necessarily a bad thing.

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.

The artist speaks.

Desultory bar philosophising on the socio-economic function of Secret Santa.

Bishop Gibson of Granada understands beatific bureaucracy but not tradition. Featuring a bad Vietnamese flamenco clip.

Launch of Arcadi Espada news-site.

Escolar is “a nasty fish with buttery flesh that can cause bizarre episodes of diarrhea, accompanied by a waxy intestinal discharge.” But that has nothing to do with Spanish bloggers.

Fill in the gaps in this pasquinade on the voiceless velar fricative, which I found last night in Mesonero Romanos’ El antiguo Madrid:
En la plaza hay un cartel
Que nos dice en castellano
Que José, rey italiano,
Roba a España su dosel;
Y al leer este cartel,
Dijo una maja a su majo:
–Manolo, pon ahí abajo
Que me C….. en [...]

A not particularly serious assault on Prosper Mérimée.

We’re in for a long recession: if the Extremadura PSOE says that pleasure is in your hands (via PD), then presumably they know that Spaniards aren’t going to be able to afford prostitutes for the foreseeable future. There’s been the predictable outcry from Catalan nationalists who believe they are subsidising Extremaduran tosspots and other spendthrift [...]

Is Mr Barbecue Bunny’s sardonic grin pre- or post-mortem?

Its teachers are raging butterflies, says a 16th century music publishing entrepreneur.

Half roasted Frenchmen, some o’er Gratings Broil’d/Do mix with Spaniards in the Sea parboil’d;

There’s an oddly proportioned hare in one of this autumn’s auctions in Barcelona.

Yet more Spanish culture for Brussels to ban.

Restif de la Bretonne goes one step beyond Shakespeare and says that poetry is the language of Gods and beasts, and that reason speaks in prose.