Day: June 26, 2015

Joan de Son Rapinya: English lesson no. 1

There’s a clever name for phonetic language parodies which I have forgotten because it’s hot and I have been undergoing ye notorious Spanish wine torture: Shades of Maria Luisa Puche, the undisputed champion. My favourite one actually makes more sense than the poésie concrète I wrote for a political campaign some years ago and is…

Sounds of a mass beheading in central Barcelona

No, wait, I have looked out of the window and it is just the British having a few drinks. But the news from Tunisia, France and Kuwait can easily lead one to misinterpret those bloodcurdling screams. Sometimes Scientology doesn’t seem that bad after all.

The Real Spain

Time for change, but literacy and numeracy and asking for advice from beyond the tribe might still be a step too far for The Real Spain, which is distributing postcards to tourists: While the Spanish peple face fines of up to 600,000 euros for defending their social rights, Politicians and bankers still walk free after…

Bin the NHS

This rings the bell of personal experience: blood samples repeatedly lost, causing extra nights in hospital; no mechanism to push test results (or lack thereof) through to ward staff; staff wheeling pressure-testing machines around whose results can be transmitted automatically to a server but instead are written down by illiterates; random bits of paper hanging…