Bumptious crumptious

Bill Baar reminds us that this is not the first time military leaders have disagreed with their political bosses re strategic change. The anti-Bushos cheerleading the generals might like to recall what happened the last time the Spanish military picked a fight with head office.

Electroputas

Are at the CCCB bar tonight. Apparently clients take all their clothes off and jump around in a completely non-exploitative way. One may venture a glimpse.

Love dove

Good to see Italy’s back on track.

Flickr feed

The front-page pic is now generated by “goat” rather than “sheep”. I hope this causes no offence.

Spring is here

Life is skittles, life is beer, and, where possible, life is adultery. There’s a lovely bit in Enrique Jardiel Poncela’s But … were there ever eleven thousand virgins? where he says that amor is Spanish for two people eating stew together. Resistance is futile, my dear, particularly with the roses up in the Cervantes gardens…

Halfabet

A semi-literate, a verbose nitwit, from Writer’s Block. Romance language speakers are nothing like as innovative or as welcoming of innovation as the Dutch.

Etymology of assassin, up in smoke

The hash-crazed killer etymology we all know and love is, according to Nouvelle Langue Française (via Langue sauce piquante), a nonsense, invented in 1809 by a dilettante orientalist, Silvestre de Sacy. We should, instead, be looking to the Arabic, assas, guard.