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…

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.

Folengo’s Baldo

Pleased to see that the marvellous Baldus–a vague subterranean source of inspiration for the world’s wildest walking wisness–is getting a wider hairing. I’ve read chunks of the French translation and am looking forward to the English.

Sales on Moix

Carles Miró has conducted a lightning dawn raid on the correspondence between the publisher Joan Sales and his star author Mercè Rodoreda. Sales on Terenci Moix, a late 20th century chat show lit celeb: “Young Moix is a sadoleninist, one of those who consider that today simple homosexuality is nothing but a joke, that anything…

Good bar in Puerto de Santa María

Check out the excellent Justin’s review over at Catavino, which I can second, having got moderately wasted there on a cycle trip. (I don’t link much to Catavino because I have a basic distrust of wine reviews: if you liked it that much, how come you can remember anything about it?)