Two elderly ladies have just met for the first time and are sounding each other out: A: My dog is so intelligent it stands by the door and woofs whenever it wants to go out and have a poo. B: My cat is so intelligent it comes in at five o’clock in the morning and…
I think the laugh/laughter thing is probably quite a hard mistake for non-natives to spot. I am consciously aware of about as much grammar as is your dog’s posterior end, so don’t ask me to explain why it’s wrong. (From CaixaForum’s exhibition.)
This falls into the same category as the revelation by Arenys de Mar’s thriving community of dope-fiends historians that the three kings were all black. Dunno where that leaves trite lyrics like Siempre que pintas iglesias/pintas angelitos bellos/pero nunca te acordaste/de pintar un ángel negro. (On this walk. Critical discussion of inocentadas here.)
I’ve only ever been a witness of vomiting and fighting at midnight mass, but none of this is new. One of today’s Libro verde items records that until a few years [before 1848], mass was sung at one in the morning, but that the irreverences of the ignorant made it impossible. Henceforth it was celebrated…
14/12, Octavi Martí 1950s gossipwank in El País: “Pero hay quienes aseguran, sin embargo, que [Rachida Dati] es una de las ministras más cercanas [a Sarkozy] y a ninguno de los dos les importa que se note.” 18/12, more gossipwank in El País, this time from one JM Martí Font: “El presidente francés Nicolas Sarkozy,…
Wikipedia suggests that H’Angus the Monkey (cartoon) may have been voted mayor first time by local gamblers attracted by the high odds against him. Stuart Drummond failed to honour his “free bananas” pledge, but was re-elected. On this walk.
None of the evangelists mention San José, electrician: Here’s a lamb emerging from the tower blocks with which urban planners chose to blanket the lower half of the old market square, which has been jacked up to cover a huge underground carpark: All on this walk.
This has been on the back burner for a while, but, following the fine example of Untergunther, it is hoped that work will soon be resumed on recladding all those farmhouses whose profitable stripped-stone effect is unauthentic and causes them to fall down sooner. Sheep-dyeing (thanks MM) is not done, although if they have just…
I’ve spent the past half hour helping a milliner source sinamay, the principal material used in the confection of hats. It is made using small quantities of silk and the fibres of the abacá, a species of banana from the Philippines. Joaquín Martínez de Zúñiga (Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, researched 1803-5) writes that the…