In Spain it’s a cubana, a Cuban, the Uruguayans call it una paja rusa, a Russian wank (not to be confused with a Russian mountain, una montaña rusa, which is a big dipper in the nicest of senses), while José João Dias Almeida’s excellent dictionary of Portuguese argot (calaõ) and idiom informs us that his…
Gerry Studds was, as far as I know, the only Portuguese-speaking member of the US Congress. His name always made me think of that bit in “My old man’s a dustman” which goes “He wears gor-blimey trousers/With the studs sewn down the back.” Googling I find “He wears cor-blimey trousers/And he lives in a council…
Translator Carlos Ferrero quotes bit of a piece called Aprender a ser libre (Learning to be free) by Jorge Edwards, whose work had the singular distinction of being banned by both the Castro and Pinochet dictatorships: I recall a Venezuelan poet of Arab origins who was contracting as a translator in North Korea. The documents…
‘Sídí Abú Yahya, who had been governor of Cordova, said of its people, “They are like the camel, which fails not to complain whether thou diminishest or increasest its load, so that there is no knowing what they like.”‘ (Gyangos, History of the Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain, quoted in Adolphus, Letters from Spain in 1856…
I’ve cycled south from Albacete via Yeste twice. On both occasions it would have been really nice to have had a direct road or track from Parolis / Parolix to Los Arroyos, but there just isn’t one, whatever all the maps say. The road from Miller up to the sierra does exist, but those extra…
Bicycle sticker in the port: “Computer Asisted Design by European Engineer Group for Riamo Bikes”. Were computers really involved? Do either of these entities actually exist?