Slang prof

Explanations of bodagger and the like, over at SlangCity.com. Sez AC Kemp, slang operative since 1996, and now at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, “Last summer I even had a diplomat who wanted to learn slang to understand the jokes during cocktails.” (I don’t really understand why Spanish speakers lag so far behind English…

The 30s’ stupidest songs

The other day I was walking across a field with a very old and pretty conservative farmer when he suddenly started singing The Internationale, which he was made to learn during Communist rule (1936-9). Not to be outdone, I sang a verse of the fascist anthem, Cara al sol, which I learnt in order to…

Backish

Thanks for the concerned mails. The cooperative gave us the day off, so I’m able to report that, far from being drunk or dead, I am in fact drownded, and that neither in the Jesus Sea, nor in the Odys-sea, but in the rippling Manchegan earthsea, where gypsies wear latex and smell of Eau de…

Albacete / Birmingham / New York

In Amor se escribe sin hache (Amor is written without H, 1929), “an almost cosmopolitan novel,” Enrique Jardiel Poncela describe Birmingham as “the Albacete of the United Kingdom.” Not to be outdone, José Martínez Azorín (who also gave the Generation of 98 its name) baptised Albacete “the New York of La Mancha.” That all this…

Fuel crisis

It’s cheaper to fill your tank with black truffle oil than with bear attack deterrent, and Hot Hooters Booby Oil is even better value.

LibraryThing

No way I’m doing this: isn’t anyone else embarrassed about still owning physical books?

Bang

I rather enjoyed this bang site and was disturbed to find out that “splog” is now generally taken to mean “spam blog” instead of “Spanish blog”, as it does here.