I’ve got a soft spot for Denis MacShane, who never really fitted the New Labour mould. Here‘s a piece by him on France. The sentence that will probably annoy most: “Pour un Britannique, la France est comme un remake des années 70 au Royaume-Uni” (my emphasis).
Ramón Buenaventura’s published a journal of his translation of Jonathan Franzen’s The corrections. He concludes that, for several reasons, including the rapidity imposed by the coordination of publication in various languages and the lifelessness of Spanish slangs, it is impossible to translate the novel well. That seems narcissistic to me, but that may be because…
One of the best ways to avoid being made redundant is not to take phone calls of any nature midweek. It’s an interesting comment on Maragall’s competence that he chose to reshuffle at a moment when, due to holes in the mobile network, one of his victims couldn’t have answered even if he’d wanted to.…
Ander Izagirre is checking the paths and byways of The United National Realities on a Vespa. This is a Good Thing. (Pedro de Miguel proposes, on debatable grounds, that he call himself Vespasian.)
The burger chain’s resurgence explained. Anti-American trash here are circulating a “boycott the gringos on May 1” mail, so I may have the extra fries with my menu that day.