Old Tunisian fire engines

Karim’s got some photos of a civil protection open day, BUT NO PICS OF HUNKY TUNISIAN FIREMEN! I know a lot of men and women in Barcelona won’t forgive him for that.

Barcelona city walks

Emboldened by comments from John of CityHighlights, who was out on an in-town walk yesterday, I’m going to start offering Barcelona city walking tours via the website. (John pointed out that Roman London also took shape on a modest hill between two streams–in Barcelona’s case, we’re talking the Rambla and the old Riera de Sant…

I $hit on your progenitor

I have not the slightest problem with gay marriage (I’d go further and subsume marriage contracts etc under general contractual law so I can marry my bicycle without Mr Rajoy objecting) or adoption, but it is true that some much-loved and characteristic Spanish expressions will have to change along with society, as El Cerrajero notes.

Ciudadanos de Cataluña launch, a bitter disappointment

Liberals believe that politics is about freeing individuals to live as they want within just bounds. Nationalists believe it is a tool for translating a sense of ethnic identity and a fondness for folkdancing into, respectively, sovereignty and national ballets. No one can remember what socialists believed. For the rest of us, however, politics–I speak,…