March 2010 – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

The Snow Virgin ain’t afraid of the rain

Not that it ever rains in Villanueva de la Jara, Cuenca.

Accompanying the big A

In which I proffer my experience in the service of the East European mafia as a model for helping us help the Aricept generation.

Cover of The World magazine of Jan. 18, 1914 featuring Francis Grierson as Psychic Pianist. Public Domain over at <a href='http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psychic_pianist.jpg'>Wikimedia Commons</a>

Stay in a hotel whose previous owners were beaten to death and buried in the garden

This is surely where this took place, and this must have been one of the last guests pre-mortem. I liked the unconsciously gruesome comments on TripAdvisor about the chilly welcome and subsidence on the tennis court, and a couple of the photos are thoroughly spooky. This and more on FollowTheBaldie.com‘s customised hiking tours.

Otra Liga es posible

An Iberian proposal would slash wage costs, free up time and talent for cashflow-friendly shagshow opportunities, and assimilate football to mainstream Peninsular cultural practice.

Photos and video of snowstorm in Park Güell

Includes video of snow felling a pine tree and a photo of a municipal bus which almost skated its way down-town.

Kalebeul, voice of the voiceless

Restores the power of speech to stricken Andalusians.

Administrative note

I’m going to shift all the crap on this server to a new host tomorrow evening–cheaper, I believe more reliable, and it’s in the States so I can say whatever I want. One query: I have vague memories from when I left the disastrous WebFusion/Host Europe setup a couple of years ago that WordPress times-out…

How not to win la Guerra de los Toros, or The Cattle Raid of Cooley revisited

Some historical advice from an Irish perspective for Esperanza Aguirre on the pitfalls of attempting to demonstrate by symbolic means the virile and libertarian spirit of Madrid in the invented and regrettable conflict between it and doldrummed Barcelona.

Medb of Connaught on an Irish pound note: model for Queen Esperanza? (Image GNU from <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Punt_-_Series_B_-_Ireland.png'>Wikimedia Commons</a>)

Domestic servant offers titillation, experience

There’s no translation angle on this one, but you won’t find many Spanish eggcorns better than this contributed example from 2008: For the machines amongst you: Se ofrece señora para atención a personas mayores y discapacitadas Con titilación y experiencia y labores domesticas… Who says you can’t find staff these days?

Tour guide learns routes from Google Streetview

Here‘s a cheeky hybrid of actual and virtual tourism: the guide hasn’t been to all of the places advertised here at 100€ per person per day, and he hasn’t visited some for a decade, so instead of conducting costly research he learns them from Google Streetview. Which, for all I know, may work perfectly well…