Barcelona’s worst restaurants

I’m very fond of Pizzas l’Avia; no. 2 would be most surprised to be described as a restaurant (and its sarnies are fine, and everything else is brilliant); and the Ramblas… The American bit of Vice.com is OK, but the Spanish edition is monstrously lazy shite.

Music over the wire

I got a tremendous kick out of singing duets over CU-SeeMe with some mad Icelandic woman in 1994, but it had all been done before, at the beginning of the telephone age: ten musicians performing, in 1892, in four different towns (Dudley, Wolverhampton, Stafford and Hanley) In other words the telephone not only allowed you…

“Family,s rock”, the world’s first recorded greengrocers’ comma?

Should definitely be an apostrophe, dudes: I’m pretty sure I’ve actually seen this before, in both Hispano- and Anglophone environments. You might think that it suggests that they are also pretty unlettered in their mother tongue, but establishing that would require thorough excavation. Nurse, my bluntest chisel! (H/t: Thingamajig) Update: Jeremy suggests that some people…

Hitler’s interpreter at Hendaye

Brian Harris, via his blog, on events 74 years ago tomorrow: Gross is said to have been incompetent. As they parted, Franco, who was worried by Hitler’s attitude, decided to emphasise his esteem for him in a typically Spanish manner. He stood up and pressed Hitler’s hand between both of his, and declared, “In spite…