The celebrated composer is being softened up in absolutely beastly fashion down at the excellent El casareño inglés‘s local. Long after the Chinese have learnt the OED by heart, Spanish bar proprietors will continue to torment the harmless drinker.
A helpful response in the debate between Petrarch (what’s the difference between a duck? One of its legs is both the same) might go something like this: Petrarch. I have indeed a great quantity of books. Critic. Leave them in a warehouse about 45mins cycle-ride from your house, and get rid of any you haven’t…
An amply dimensioned gypsy lady is vending six small cacti in pots and two bunches of cut chrysanths outside the municipal market building. An impeccably dressed faux-blonde pija approaches. –Three cactus for five euros! lovely flowers! three lovely cactus for five euros! lovely… –I want three cacti, that one, that one and that one. –That’ll…
Most southern European theorising re that poorly defined construct, Anglosaxonia, is corny racism dressed up as sociology or socialism or whatever. This, however, from one of my favourite reads, is amusing, if somewhat flawed: Lampedusa aroused in me the suspicion that the only country in which law and order are, pregonament, synonymous with civilisation and…
Exhibit 1 features Die Verdammte Spielerei and some blonde and was recorded in what will presumably be the Republic of Flanders by Monday. I suppose France will get Brussels. Exhibit 2 is Tango gitano, which “forms part of a group of field materials documenting Maria Garcia performing unaccompanied Spanish songs from Asturias, Spain on January…
This old bar in Badalona appears to be named after someone who doesn’t have a second surname or a business partner (there’s no room for a second word, so it can’t have been painted out) but who uses the conjunction anyway. I don’t see what’s wrong with being a brazen lover of conjunctions. They are…
A fine example of Spanish enthusiasm for the heavy metal umlaut, downstairs in the bus station in Hellín, Albacete. The -ado -> dipthongised -ao shift is common in Spanish dialects, and what you’ve got here in the last example is actually kind of diaeresis-ish. On my next visit I will communicate this information to the…
It’s all about flowerpots, says D the photographer and cook. I think the Romans did something similar. So it’s definitely OK. Update: This is my flowerpot, actually a glazed Moroccan cookpot (you put the meat on the bottom and the veg on top). D says I may need to drill a whole in the top…
