Splog – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Did Carod really give a speech at New York University on inauguration day?

There are no reports in the English-language media, and NYU’s agenda doesn’t list the event.

Hostal receptionist photographs tourists instead of letting them in

Chez Jaume Ferrete.

Four new underwater mounds off Tarragona

Depending on how the bathymetric data is rendered. Over at Ogle Earth.

Photos of pet dogs trying to eat a live vulture

I can’t see the moral difference between this and when your cat brings in a vole, but someone is outraged.

“Peres, give back the novel prize”

More Spanish bilabial confusion.

Comparison of Spanish and English development law and practice

Over at Charles Svoboda’s blog for Abusos Urbanísticos No. Its anonymous British lawyer author concludes that The hope is that the authorities will use [the hiatus caused by the bust] to introduce laws and controls that will respect European norms including the rights to private property, the protection of the environment, public contracts, etc. and…

How Andalusia is killing the goose that laid its golden eggs

Check out this excellent piece by Lenox Napier on how discrimination against northern Europeans and smug institutional corruption will surely lead to a gloomy future for one of Western Europe’s poorest regions.

Bus numbers in Barcelona atheist campaign evidence cabbalistic life-death struggle

Artful Mr Kokon notes that the number of items in Goya’s Black Paintings is the same as the number of one of the buses used in the campaign–14–, that the number of items in a series of morbid wood engravings by Hans Holbein the Younger is the same as the number of the other–41–, and…

West African joke about white people in snowstorms

The last time the issue came up, my dad rated Percy Shaw as one of the 20th century’s most under-appreciated inventors, on the grounds that his cat’s eye road studs have saved more lives on British roads than any other single measure. Ojos de gato or tachas reflectantes are not (widely) used on Spanish highways,…

Spanish traditional theme park architecture

More traditional building for Colin Davies: Real stone is expensive and makes it hard to plug holes and to plaster, so in Spain@Disney you stick (pre)machined chunks or carpet tile-type stuff onto the concrete prefab with glue. Chorus: Cladding imitates but also improves on reality.