Folengo’s Baldo

Pleased to see that the marvellous Baldus–a vague subterranean source of inspiration for the world’s wildest walking wisness–is getting a wider hairing. I’ve read chunks of the French translation and am looking forward to the English.

Spanish politician wants to ban lying

This is deputy Rosa Díez of the newly formed party, Unión Progreso y Democracia. Today is of course the day we commemorate the Massacre of the Innocents, Spain’s April Fool’s Day: “Sin embargo de que todo esto es verdad, el aniversario de ese gran dia se celebra de una manera tan anómala, que á nosotros…

Sales on Moix

Carles Miró has conducted a lightning dawn raid on the correspondence between the publisher Joan Sales and his star author Mercè Rodoreda. Sales on Terenci Moix, a late 20th century chat show lit celeb: “Young Moix is a sadoleninist, one of those who consider that today simple homosexuality is nothing but a joke, that anything…

Servicios / Tualet

With alien hordes roaming the streets, desperate for a leak, Cazorla Council cracked open the piggy bank and commissioned this marvellous sign: But is the target audience English- or French-speaking? And, since the verbal and iconic messages aren’t coordinated (users don’t immediately associate the arrow and icon on the left with the words on the…

Good bar in Puerto de Santa María

Check out the excellent Justin’s review over at Catavino, which I can second, having got moderately wasted there on a cycle trip. (I don’t link much to Catavino because I have a basic distrust of wine reviews: if you liked it that much, how come you can remember anything about it?)

Bank of Spain introduces inflation-proof €500 banknotes

As private banker to dozens of Andalusian officials I have been responsible for maintaining the padded mattress sector in work this year. Before the summer a client called to complain that inflation threatened to render worthless the not particularly hard-earned stash of 500s he maintains under one of my beds. But there is more woof…

Mattress sales down

Figures from the International Sleep Products Association show the economy is hitting the mattress industry pretty hard, so where are smart people keeping their money now that deaky little hiding place in the hedge is gone?

Pig foot gypsy charm

A Roger Ekirch, At day’s close: night in times past: “suspending the heart of a bullock or pig over the hearth, preferably stuck with pins and thorns”. Barcelona’s inquisition records and other (later) sources also contain a desperate screech of (sometimes living) cats and a wide range of barnyard animals with pins stuck into them…
Where to, little wombat?

The great Catalan gunpowder swindle

As the evenings draw in, the Arenys de Mar sensimilla syndicate has taken time off from the plantation to post another shambling Gran Armada-wreck of nationalist historical revisionism. (It’s dated 2006, but this is the first time it’s turned up in my reader, so…) As is customary, our scenario is back-to-the-future: a massive 15th century…

The Spanish media and Madoff’s Jewishness

I looked a while back at allegations of a Spanish media obsession with Israel and concluded that they were without basis in fact. Someone of similar political views to the reactionary squatter hooligan leader, Joan Txàpal, said to me last night that the Spanish press would be all over Bernie Madoff’s Jewishness. The numbers at…