Spanish justice

Modern law generally accepts the principal of individual responsibility, particularly for serious crimes. Warée in Curiosités judiciaires (1859), cited on this excellent and highly entertaining French criminal law site, gives an example of how not to proceed: In a Spanish village a tailor was sentenced to be hung. The inhabitants went and found the judge…

How to make head cheese (queso de cerdo)

In Argentina. In Kilburn (thanks Dave). (First mention in Corde is in Ventura de Peña y Valle, Tratado general de carnes (1832). That marrano means pig as well as a renegade converted Jew is probably explicable in non-cannibal terms, although with these Frankish types you never know.)

Ciutadans mainly took votes off PSC

WonkaPistas has done the numbers. S/he also kicks around the notion of a direct relationship between a fall in the PSC vote and a rise in that of ICV or IpC or whatever the commies call themselves.

The old ones are the best: In Mexico they speak Mexican…

Old man in coffee bar: “All this stuff from Ciutadans about encouraging bilingualism is a load of bollocks. I speak five languages, yeah, honest: Spanish, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Argentinian and Mexican.” (This uses the same basic material as the one about the prostitute advertising her knowledge of modern languages: Cuban, Greek, French etc)

Election irregularities

… inter alia in El Papiol and Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, where voters were apparently unable to exercise their right to vote Ciutadans. El Correo Gallego carries the Europa Press story on the former incident, which describes Ciutadans–sigh!–as a “nationalist formation.” Turnout is very low which in a screwed-up kind of way is probably good…

Turkish Jews in Westerbork transit camp

In early November 1943 a contingent of Turkish, Spanish, Romanian, Italian and South American Jews arrived in Westerbork. The popular journalist Philip Mechanicus records in his diary (bit of a dodgy English translation here) the “small colony of Turks” which made its home near his bed and whose “lively, agile children, quick as water” gabbled…