Pneumatic!

I rather like Barcelona’s pneumatic waste disposal systems, mainly for the pretentious reason that they provide a principally non-organic analogue to the principally organic waste systems wandering around upstairs on their hind legs. Although pneumatic systems are still to be seen, whooshing bundles of banknotes away from our grubby mitts in supermarkets and banks, they…

Anti-Americanism and self-censorship in the German media

It would be interesting to run a similar study here to this one by Ray D. Many Spanish journalists and even more columnists accept the old socialist-fascist consensus that the US and its friends deserve all that can be thrown and flown at them, but many others are often unaccountably silent.

Why Spanish imperialism failed

The Spanish didn’t realise the importance of enforcing pidgins and creoles, says noted scholar, Cornelius DuBois, over at Speculative Grammarian.

Moorish scientist

No, not Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi. I’m talking about Noble Drew Ali, prophet of possibly “the only religion ever to be founded in Newark, NJ”, Moorish Science. Although his early career as a magician in a gypsy troupe took him to Egypt and conversations with a high priest, I don’t think he ever went to Morocco,…

Which side are they on?

Two of today’s stories: Lleida council refuses to name a street after local Guardia Civil, Jesús María Freixes Montes, murdered by ETA in 1986. Barcelona council announces it is to name a square after anarchist bank robber, Salvador Puig Antich, sentenced to death by a military court in 1974 for the killing whilst being detained…

Catholics, soft on tree worship

Substantial numbers of nominal Catholics in Barcelona spend their weekends up on weird therapy cult farms, hugging trees–complete strangers, of whose names they remain blissfully unaware–without church organisations showing the least bit of concern. Javan Muslims are, inevitably it seems, built of sterner stuff.

Buried Moorish treasure

This bit from James Richardson, Travels in Morocco (1860) sounds like the many Spanish myths of troves (often guarded by dragons) left behind by the outscored hordes: The inhabitants of Barbary all bury their money. The secret is confided to a single person, who often is taken ill, and dies before he can discover the…