Querida amiga, ahórrate los honorarios del carnicero cosmético leyendo los Secretos raros de artes y oficios (1807): Para tener buenos melones. Se remojan las pepitas de melon por dos ó tres dias en buen, vino moscatel añejo. Se tendrá la paciencia, de ir abriendo con destreza un cierto número de pepitas por el agujerillo que…
From the Swedish Military Archive, this purports to show Vendôme at the head of some 32,000 troops bombarding Barcelona in the final stages of the Nine Years War: Wikipedia: “The garrison capitulated on 10 August, but it had been a hard fought contest; French casualties amounted to about 9,000, and the Spanish had suffered some…
Many thanks to Javier for introducing me to the Cantabrian Quixote, which devotes a whole chapter to a duel resulting from a disagreement about who should dexar la acera, give the wall sidewalk. Not surprisingly, like the cognate discussed in the linked post, it doesn’t turn up in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.…
The Spanish DVD is poorly produced but this error was probably planned: George finds sanity through lunacy, monarchy through dethronement. The film is as fine in its own way as the original play was, and Nigel Hawthorne is divine. Handel was George I and II, not III, but period films normally inflict far greater musical…
Peret’s (Catalan-language) recording of El mig amic is from Spanish telly in 1969, when, as Wikipedia continues to remind us, the “use of Catalan in the mass media was forbidden.” Such claims have decreased considerably over the last five years due solely to kalebeul‘s relentless and fearless campaigning. One important defeat for the inventors of…
Xavi Caballé has read a book which suggests that the 18th century predecessors of the Norfolk Regiment were thus called because Spanish soldiers thought their Britannia badge represented the Virgin Mary. There’s another, more scurrilous version: Well, I got fond enough, after all, of the Holy Boys, as the old Ninth lads were called… You…
Or something along those lines. Jerry R Craddock clears up this and a number of other confusions in his excellent inaugural Disparatorio del suroeste. (Via Jesús Rodríguez Velasco). Galdós was politer in Trafalgar, but we all know what he meant. This one will run and run.
A summary of the statement made to the Commons in April 1714 (History and Proceedings of the House of Commons : volume 5: 1713-1714): Catalonia swore loyalty to Philip V and its ancient privileges were guaranteed. Unfortunately it then changed its mind, rebelled, and appealed to Britain for help, claiming that Catalonia and Spain were…
One of the many etymologies of flamenco is rather curious. From the typically poor Spanish-language entry in Wikipedia: Durante el siglo XVIII el asistente Olavide pretendió combatir el bandolerismo instaurando colonias de catolicos alemanes y flamencos (tenidos por disciplinados y laboriosos) en el Alto Guadalquivir. El fracaso de adaptación de muchos de ellos engrosó las…
The monument is a quality marble tomb round about where the sea gate was, on which Habsburg general Josep Moragues’ head hung in a cage for 12 years from 1715-1727, his body having previously been quartered on the Ramblas. This for surrendering on a Bourbon pardon at the end of the War of the Spanish…
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