Apparently there is a multi-ethnic casa de barrets (hat-house, from the number hanging there) at the top of the John Lennon Musical Garden–there hasn’t been any music there since people used to pop outside the city walls to have a crap: Here’s the pricelist: Argentines: 80€ Blacks: 30/60€ Catalans: 50€ Romanians: 30€ Columbians: ? Ecuadorians:…
A revealing note from Fran Harper’s Spanish phrasebook (1963, “text by Joan I de Corvera”): If you stay in a hotel or private boarding house which has no all-night porter, and return after 10.30 p.m. in winter, or 11 p.m. in summer, the outer door will be opened by the “Sereno,” who is a kind…
This falls into the same category as the revelation by Arenys de Mar’s thriving community of dope-fiends historians that the three kings were all black. Dunno where that leaves trite lyrics like Siempre que pintas iglesias/pintas angelitos bellos/pero nunca te acordaste/de pintar un ángel negro. (On this walk. Critical discussion of inocentadas here.)
The end of an anonymous piece entitled “The English and Christmas” found in the bilingual Spanish-Catalan Christmas 1949 issue of Colegio Condal’s school mag, Condal (more here): The evening is devoted to innocent games in which young and old participate, one of which is called “snap dragon” and consists of fishing walnuts out of a…
I’ve only ever been a witness of vomiting and fighting at midnight mass, but none of this is new. One of today’s Libro verde items records that until a few years [before 1848], mass was sung at one in the morning, but that the irreverences of the ignorant made it impossible. Henceforth it was celebrated…
The papers are running their usual “worst weather ever” stories, but 163 years ago here massive floods signalled an end to a period of abnormal cold–snow lay on the land around town–and a Norwegian brig was lost in storms at the mouth of the Llobregat.
16/9: I purchase El último pirata del Mediterraneo from this gent on Abebooks for 17 quid, shipping speed 3-7 business days. 20/9: Book apparently sent via Correos, ETA 27/9. (That’s 16 business days after the order, but why be pedantic?) 6/11: Still no book or notification, and bookseller has had nothing returned by Correos. (You…
Re this, some results. The comments in Dutch are grossly libellous, so don’t even try to translate them. I finally managed to get the mitre on my head–Spanish bishops don’t have much between their ears–but the only way the beard would stay on was to jam it over my nose with half of it in…
Graffiti art outside the nursery of the Coves d’en Cimany (Cimany’s Caves) primary school on one of the variants of this walk. Sendys says that his friend Zoen said, “Man, it’s like a meringue smeared with sugar.” I seem to have lost the accompanying photo of the work of Messrs Shaggy and Txiki Trepax. They…
Shop deliveries free on foot in Leeds LS1-8 & LS13. Dismiss
