Historical leak
Year: 2008
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Up at what was originally a Civil War AA battery on Torre de la Rovira: In the early 1940s the installations were adopted and adapted by immigrant squatters who built 110 shanty dwellings, known as Los Cañones, on the steep slopes and in the old quarries around them. I believe these homes were demolished around…
Apparently some ladies & gents with whom I sing when the big geezer is off doing other stuff are going to be on the telly: Apart from the odd bit of arranging, the barrel organ is the thing at the moment, when I get time. It’s a somewhat more lonely path, but I’m not very…
“I think the sherry trade could learn a lot from their cousins in Portugal. But of course that’s only if the sherry trade sees any benefit in visitors to their bodegas. I often wonder if they really do.” It’s the old Spanish paradox of shops whose owners seem prepared to go to quite extraordinary lengths…
A double reflection makes up the man who was born on the thirteenth day of the moon, lost his throne on the thirteenth day of the moon, and fought the battle of Waterloo on the thirteenth day of the moon: I wonder if Josephine’s astrological babblings didn’t cause Napoleon’s natural military interest in the moon…
Bodegas Almocaden goes beyond the usual annoying Flash and cursor-stalker. All a bit sad: I’ve never drunk anything by them, but I suspect it’s pretty good. Unfortunately there’s more to life than product.
With the vaguest of references to i-shepan-im here’s Kirby’s wonderful and scientific museum in 1820: The fecundity of the rabbit is truly astonishing ; it breeds seven times in the year, and generally produces eight young at a time ; from which it is calculated, that one pair may increase in the course of four…
Henri Weber’s panacea for French social-democracy. When, btw, are the Irish going to be allowed to correct their referendum mistake? It all makes the old “destroy the system” dogmatists look positively innocent.
Re the War of Jackson’s Sneer, Colin Davies notes the presence of trolls in Spain but suggests they have still not discovered the woods and grottoes of the Royal Academy. Not so: it’s just that the RAE, for reasons that are logical but probably doomed, calls them trol. If their behaviour is anything like that…
Code-swapping, rather than Gibraltar-Andalusian. This week’s instalment comments on the stateless national soap opera, maritime conflicts and confusions with Spain.
I think they mean tourist guides. (The link doesn’t take you to the English version, unfortunately, so you’ll have to look for it yourself. Globally speaking, Turisme de Vic’s has got to be one of the worst-built sites out there.)
Great tunes, great doggerel, small simians