Month: June 2007

Communal herding arrangements in the Pyrenees

The sheep and goats above have just arrived back in Plan from low pastures to spend the summer in the mountains, rather like schoolchildren coming back from a language exchange. Joaquí­n Costa’s Colectivismo agrario en España (1898), available in full on Corde, contains a number of accounts of communal herding arrangements in the Pyrenees: The…
The sheep and goats above have just arrived back in Plan from low pastures to spend the summer in the mountains, rather like schoolchildren coming back from a language exchange. Joaquín Costa's Colectivismo agrario en España (1898), available in full on Corde, contains a number of accounts of communal herding arrangements in the Pyrenees:

Gunplay

Thanks to MM (with a little help from BB) for news of the English musician who used to play bugle calls on his rifle using a mouthpiece inserted into the barrel. The photograph recalls the following Spanish joke: Two hippies from Gracia are shrooming in the woods when they find a shotgun. “Hey man, get…

Layered/laid

Disturbing developments in Lebanese pâtisserie: “This country is like a cake. On the top it is cream. Underneath it is fire.” Reminds me of the sofa-bed encountered last night in Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Greguerías, with dreams below and conversation on top. For some reason this is more popular in Portuguese (“os sonhos ficam…

The famous Galician bluefish, climate change and my arse

This is the anjova (Pomatomus saltatrix) caught off Galicia. According to Europa Press, fisherman Pablo Oliver got in touch with the Spanish National Research Council/Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas and the Institute of Oceanography/Instituto Oceanográfico to tell them of his discovery and to enquire as to why this fish was in waters outside its known…

Drug checkpoint

Quiet mountain road, chilly evening. The Guardia Civil do an ID and vehicle document check and then ask us to get out. GC1 takes a couple of paces back, while GC2: OK, we’re going to do a thorough check of you and the car for estupi … estupe … estupefacientes. M, also happier with common…

Bondega

Spanish wine producers have caught the marketing bug, which usually goes hand in hand with pouring loads of oak chips into the barrel to make you so ill that you don’t notice that the product is basically mediocre. This particular new bodega investment is wasted on me since I can’t remember whose it is, although…

El niño de San Andrés

Cool post over at Aentwaereps about the Antwerp singer, Willy van de Velde, who grew up above the Bernad family’s “Spanish shop”, took guitar lessons from Ilse Alfonso, and called himself El niño de San Andrés because it sounded cooler than something like That geezer from St Andrew’s. As Godzjumenas observes, there’s no direct trace…

Literary feet

“En Santander. El pez y el reloj” in Los pueblos, ducking out of eternity and the meaning of life, Azorín is fetishising feet at the Cantabrian beach resort: Little feet, arched and clad in elegant new shoes, are one of the most attractive features of a woman. I contemplate them all with the discretion with…
“Little feet, arched and clad in new, elegant shoes, are one of the most attractive aspects of a woman...”

Congresaos

Re “EL PALACIO DE CONGRESAOS DE BOLTAÑA”: congresado, da. (Del part. de congresar). 1. m. y f.coloq. Persona que se deja mandar a congresos. It’s still rare, but here’s an example: el candidato emite su mensaje a unos congresados pasivos, pero no se convierte, a la vez, en receptor del sentir y el parecer de…