Year: 2007

Market segmentation

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…

Those Anglo-Saxons, habeas corpus, and detective stories

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…

Tango flamenco

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…

Miquel i

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…

Lös Töstaös

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…

Bread, the future

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…

RIP Tossal

In Gracia, on the corner of Fraternitat and Tordera. From outside it used to appear a filthy hole, with an elderly couple behind the bar and a couple of clients ripe for the taxidermist. Inside, round to the right, was a secret dining area, with yellow walls, a couple of exceptionally bad paintings, and the…

Goat

I am building a bird table so I can catch tasty little birds with a net and fry them in bechamel for breakfast. Its leg consists sturdy spring, which will cause pigeons, goats and other creatures undesirable for this purpose to fall off before they get to the bait.