May 2007 – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

We won the Cold War but we lost the Eurovision

I don’t think Malta has a nuclear stash.

Open-air CD and DVD library

Those tree-hung disks aren’t really for scaring off the deer, silly. Take one home with you and, when you’ve had all you can bear of Hits of Hits or Dirty Dancing II, or when you figure that installing BitWare for Windows wasn’t that smart anyway, take it back and hang it on the correct tree.

Ilaridad

Hilaridad is increasingly ilaridad, while partner import hello is still universally jota-ised as jelo. Has this got anything to do with the availability of undubbed Ali G?

Ewerthon

I’m unreliably informed that Real Zaragoza star Ewerthon Henrique de Souza’s dad couldn’t spell Everton rather than Erewhon. Not that anyone gives a feck, but by all means keep the tips flowing.

Home-jacking

First encounter with this one was a few weeks ago when a Dutch-speaking client insisted I use it in some insurance copy. When I declined, he googled it and came up with the following supporting ghit: “And since the betas apparently go out to people who aren’t familiar with the fucking Tribes universe while I’m…

Proof that Ian Llorens is Hispanic

Here he is, confirming the old adage (or is it a new one?) that the only sure way to tell a Spaniard is to hear him denying it.

Extremadura police buy fleet of new mouth-operated hospital beds for highway patrol squad

“We can afford this because we don’t waste all our money on nationalism,” said a spokesman. Unfortunately I seem to have lost the link.

Slashdotdot

What is the connection (if any) between the symbol on this house in Sin, Huesca, and that of the Día supermarket chain? ( Sin really does exist. Here’s the sign: One would obviously like to live in it, at least for a while, but owners are reluctant to sell. )

One-letter title

Ã‘ is the cultural supplement of the Argentine daily, Clarín (here, via A&C, attacking norms established by the Spanish Royal Academy for a language spoken in 20 countries). Someone told me the other day that I should look up some numbers of a 40s Falangist publication called Y. Happy I was, till I discovered its…

Pródiga de la vida, y anticipadora de la muerte

Lovely phrase, something along the lines of “lavish in life, eager in death”, used here to describe the Spanish, although you will doubtless recall similar elsewhere. It’s from the discourse by the Count of Portalegre which rounds off the BBG edition of Guerra de Granada, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza‘s chronicle of the disastrous rural uprisings…