Blasco Ibáñez says that actually we have always thought “at all hours of the Mediterranean rim.”

(Even if they can’t make a decent paella.)

Between-wars texts about Zaragoza by Germans who appear never to have visited the place.

Proud English cock, limp Latin hen: the binary opposition of English and Spanish fowls as a metaphor for the contrast between growing British military might and declining Spanish power.

Excerpts from Juan Goytisolo and Ramón Fernández Palmeral, with an epitaph from George Orwell.

Kalebeul explained.

And an explanation of why “La gata sobre el tejado de zinc” is, in metallurgical-roofing terms, an inappropriate translation of “Cat on a hot tin roof”.

Our itinerary, and that of Polo Polo on his Viaje a España.

A Barcelona scrap-metal dealer only has 12 on the favicon on his website.

An etymological hop from kite-flying with Juan Marsé back to Concha Piquer’s greatest hit.

But where does the buck stop?

And it’s free.

Joan Txàpal strikes at the heart of dorkness.

• French farmer tells him, “Get off my land!”
• Did a Pakistani Dracula turn Brad and Angelina into zombies?

From saviour to saved to savoury: the de-/remystification of bodily imperfection.

I wondered here whether pew-beating as a means of reliving medieval pogroms was a nineteenth century invented tradition. It was a rather naive question, and confirmation that the practice was already popular in Barcelona in 1848 is to be found in this Libro Verde entry for today, Holy Wednesday.

Is Silvio a cyborg?

Witness accounts from the records of the Spanish Inquisition in Córdoba.

The cottaging zone is getting so popular they’re having to pipe the stuff in.

Statues are designed to be bird-friendly on the orders of a mysterious avian deity, which may have held sway over Luis Buñuel.