Man and monsters – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Counting the corrupt

A numerate, corrupt mayor, some innumerate anti-corruption campaigners, and de Tocqueville.

100% of Spanish graduates interviewed (sample size: 1) said this <a href='http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rechentisch.png'>abacus</a> was in fact architect's plans for a bowling alley.

New World Order

Someone remind me why Gaddafi is to be pursued for crimes against humanity but Laurent Gbagbo is not.

Cataloonia, Sweden on the Med

Jordi Pujol’s venerable dream appears finally to have been realised, although perhaps not quite as he anticipated.

Guerrilla gardening in Barcelona

Check out Alex on the birth, death, and resurrection of a patch of green. Contrary to what some may suspect, it wasn’t this neighbour who closed down v0.1 but the owner of this bookshop, who apparently preferred the redundant building site opposite her living room window to be occupied by filth and the occasional junky.…

Les pervertis de Santander

Archaic French erotic pulp, plugging Cantabria’s gaping literary hole?

¡Tú imitas tan bien a los animales! ¿No serás … aztor?

A phonological curiosity from coastal Cantabria, with speculation as to the supernatural powers of María Teresa Fernández de la Vega.

Spanish vice-premier María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, laser-eyed owl-bat bird?<br />(Photo CC Agência Brasil via <a href='http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_la_Vega2.JPG'>Wikimedia Commons</a>.)

Gil y pollas, pollos, racho, Gil, etc

The etymology of “gilipollas” as a mere excuse to quote a gross 16th century shepherd and link to some video fragments of Jesús Gil y Gil.

<a href='http://gilipollos.com/'>Gilipollos</a>, the famous chicken bar in Mexico City. Photo: Trevor.

Garzón and the Batman theory of justice

The relative awfulness of, and defining differences between, English and Spanish justice.

In praise of British arse

How amiably drunken shagfests could resolve the burka problem in a manner acceptable to freedom-loving readers of this blog.

Stay in a hotel whose previous owners were beaten to death and buried in the garden

This is surely where this took place, and this must have been one of the last guests pre-mortem. I liked the unconsciously gruesome comments on TripAdvisor about the chilly welcome and subsidence on the tennis court, and a couple of the photos are thoroughly spooky. This and more on FollowTheBaldie.com‘s customised hiking tours.