I don’t think author and diplomat Juan Valera (“Good should always be in fashion”) will mind me revealing his smoking fetish, now he’s been dead 100 years. Here‘s a quick tranny of an 1850 letter from Russia: On May 8th, Russian style, I left Saint Petersburg for Moscow on the noon train, accompanied by a…
Re shepherds, Pío Baroja says that in the Navarre village inhabited by Silvester Paradox, hero of The adventures, inventions and mystifications of Silvester Paradox (Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox, 1901) that the local guardians of public order were called ministers (ministros). (Silvestre Paradox is very strange and very funny. It’s a disgrace that…
An El Punt hack (900€/month, I’m told) has noticed that, with Atlantic Basin hurricane namers almost through their standard list, the Greek reserves may be required, leaving Spain open to a storm named for the 7th letter of their alphabet. (The Mediterranean is part of the Atlantic Basin, in case you wondered.)
Amando de Miguel says that Aura Grandal says that people in Ferrol, Galicia call policemen “chepas”, and that this derives from “shepherds”, which is what British engineers called the watchmen in the naval arsenals. I’m going to believe it, whether I do or not.
The only useful feature of the new local search tool Noxtrum is the free SMS feature. Unfortunately the enterprise belongs to Spain’s disastrous, dominant phone company, Telefónica, so the service is of course unavailable.