Month: May 2015

De-euroising Barcelona

Nice try, Ada, but we already have an alternative currency: the renminbi. It might actually make more sense to have two currencies: one for thriving, tourist Barcelona; and cowry shells for the rest. Barcelona is not Catalonia.

Clue to treaty signature location in title punctuation

Convention on the Law Applicable to Products Liability. No possessive apostrophe in Dutch. Is The Hague also to blame for the greengrocer’s apostrophe? “Bring back the banana’s!“: a touchy-feely slogan for a post-EU political union between (SE) England and the Netherlands?

Kill the vibe

Unlike the Labour Party, which is still largely in blame-the-voters mode, the Evil Empire does seem to be thinking vaguely about UKIP, but there’s a word in the leaked European Commission migration doc which predicts the doom of any initiative thence: The EU must continue to offer protection to those in need. It must also…

Reïmagining Neil Young

Something I’ve been doing ever since I first heard a taped On the beach in the squat next to Islington Town Hall on Upper Street, with Ra$ta the incontinent cat periodically tumbling from his armchair perch, suffering stoically from his compulsive consumption of any small dark lumps discovered on his quite limited travels. Not that…
Since 1995, the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority has installed a snowman made of tumbleweed in downtown Albuquerque.