Month: May 2007

Serbs barter cows for penises

I recently had lunch with a Huescan entrepreneur who sold his dad’s cows in the 50s to buy a car, but this is ridiculous. [ Update: D confirms that Srecko Djordjevic is not an anagram of for example “jive jerks cod cord” and points out that he has form: A man chopped his own penis…

Moroccan censorship

The King has unblocked YouTube, but Moroccan bloggers could do with a hand in encouraging him to restore must-haves like GoogleEarth and LiveJournal. Bono is recording in Fez, and I’m sure he needs this kind of stuff too.

Luvvies

The socialists in Madrid are bitching full time after being slaughtered in the regional and municipal elections. Miguel Sebastián, Zapatero’s disastrous choice as mayoral candidate, has announced his resignation. “What’s he resigning from?” enquires senior national colleague, the excellent Alfonso Guerra, “what was he?” Fellow loser in the regionals, Rafael Simancas: “I’m staying on because…

Immigrant-whacking

Back in September 2004 the Catalan regional police, keen to capture anti-terrorism responsibilities from their federal colleagues, carried out a spectacular raid in Barcelona in which a dozen Pakistanis were arrested and accused of planning al-Qaeda-type attacks on a couple of small towers and the municipal aquarium. Evidence for this was provided by the suspects’…

Wolves/pigs

Bit of fratricidal jollity from Ángel Ganivet, Idearium español (1897): “Confronted with the spiritual ruin of Spain we must put a stone where our heart is and throw a million Spaniards to the wolves if we all do not wish to be thrown to the swine.” No national stereotypes, please. Just trying to think of…

Disappearance of Galician wolf-man explained

Manuel Blanco Romasanta (1809-?) was born Manuela because everyone thought he was a girl, and things went downhill from then on. After his wife died he became a travelling salesman of human fat and, when the law finally took an interest, he went on a CANNIBAL RAMPAGE, TEARING APART and DEVOURING nine innocents before being…

Public libraries

AMA once told me they were A Good Thing because in the 1930s they gave unemployed men in Britain somewhere dry to stand. It seems that Tomás Salvador spent the Civil War hiding in them, reading.

Bar Celona

The pic is by MM, who has heard that this Nuremberg watering hole has nothing to do with Barcelona or even Celona. The Flash on the site is gruesome, so that may be the connection. Next wannahave: a photo of Somerset’s pride, FC Bathelona. (Update: Ponz@Bloguras says that he prefers McDonald’s to English “tapas”.)
The pic is by MM, who has heard that this Nuremberg watering hole has nothing to do with Barcelona or even Celona. The Flash on the site is gruesome, so that may be the connection. Next wannahave: a photo of Somerset's pride, FC Bathelona.

El libro verde de Barcelona

I’ve republished my OCR-ed and translated version of sections of a Barcelona municipal almanac from 1848 here. It’s still in a very basic form, but at least the PHP doesn’t go apeshit any more. I’d like to think of a way to include the texts relating to movable feasts, and Catalan translations and suggestions would…