Month: May 2008

Spanish funeral service

Spanish insurers Fiatc have a fairly grisly reputation for health provision care in general. Here‘s how they deal with you once you’re dead: “When we arrived at the crematorium we were taken in through the rear entrance, down a long corridor, where we passed someone else laying in a coffin, a woman walking down the…

Mike’s Flying Bike hits Google Earth

Not really relevant, but good dreamy stuff while I talk to people about building the barrel organ and puppet theatre onto the tricycle: (Via Google Earth Blog and Ogle Earth)

Groin’s

Is not a gay bar but a lingerie-and-that-kind-of-stuff shop on the street in Barcelona named after Pi i Margall, Mr Pine and Wall barley:

Torre Libro

Villa in c/ de l’Hortal, Carmelo, Barcelona apparently dedicated to books. The garden looks good. (Miquel Hortal i Arisó is probably the richest piano tuner in the history of Barcelona, inheriting from his father the estate on which a substantial part of the Carmelo was constructed.)

“Let the arseholes die of thirst”

The mayor of Agón, Aragón, “sick of extreme nationalism”, on the transfer of water from the Ebro to Barcelona. The underlying point being made by him and others in this, the latest episode in the Iberian Water Wars, is actually fair enough: aware of declining water resources, Barcelona’s “eco-warrior” council planned for unsustainable growth in…

Costumer Service

Neither Randstad Work Solutions nor their “important international” client can spell “customer”. Unless they really are looking for a bespoke theatrical tailor.

Effect of rainfall on wood ants and Ukrainians

Wood ants descending rapidly en masse from a Quercus ilex on Montseny at the onset of a sharp shower: Having spent several decades standing under trees waiting for the rain to stop, it is my firm belief that small ants do not flee from the rain as do big ones, although their level of activity…
This post isn't really about swallows at all.

Occupational hazards of flamenco

No mention of heroin, but presumably it is only a matter of time before inspectors start banning players for risky rasgueado and closing all those nasty cellars lacking in natural light. Camarón might still be alive if he had been given a cubicle and regular coffee breaks.