Backish

Thanks for the concerned mails. The cooperative gave us the day off, so I’m able to report that, far from being drunk or dead, I am in fact drownded, and that neither in the Jesus Sea, nor in the Odys-sea, but in the rippling Manchegan earthsea, where gypsies wear latex and smell of Eau de…

Fuel crisis

It’s cheaper to fill your tank with black truffle oil than with bear attack deterrent, and Hot Hooters Booby Oil is even better value.

LibraryThing

No way I’m doing this: isn’t anyone else embarrassed about still owning physical books?

Bang

I rather enjoyed this bang site and was disturbed to find out that “splog” is now generally taken to mean “spam blog” instead of “Spanish blog”, as it does here.

Huus

I want to live in this.

When the Spanish beat the English

The isleños (islanders), the Canarian-based dialect speakers based in St Bernard parish near New Orleans, are some of the less-publicised victims of the floods. Their victory against age-old enemies in the interests of yet more Anglo hegemony is commemorated in this 1970s song (more links; Mississippi song project): Setecientos setentaisiete, varias familias dejaron las Islas…

Downhill walking

I used to know a Dutch cyclist who, as he got older, would take the train for the outward leg and return with the wind, and I was aware that the French army used to teach conscripts to ski by giving them post-season seconds and leaving them up an Alp, but the following approach had…

Balloons and the social revolution

Margaret Marks says that the Marxist-Leninists are not giving away balloons in the German elections. I hope this is because they can’t afford them rather than for ideological reasons. While it is true that Jimmy Connolly saw in them the nemesis of the working classes, a progressive balloon vendor appears in one of my favourite…