Barcelona-Cadiz, part 1

Brief report on carnival, goat à l’africaine, and a night out with the Belarussian putimafia.

Pirates and Kleinecke’s etymology of “pidgin”

It is suggested that an old Spanish slang word has nothing at all to do with Dutch pirates but instead adds weight to David Kleinecke’s generally discarded South American etymology of the word “pidgin”.

Spring is here (again)

I have been up the coast a couple of times this week (off again tomorrow) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many spring flowers. Their profusion is partly a consequence of heavy rainfall, and partly of the fires last summer that burnt away heavy shrubbery and young pine woods, clearing the ground. However,…

Flash mobs

… are going from bad to worse. First there was the defeat of a tawdry bunch of Manchester liberals by a rabble of saucepan- and mobile-wielding Marxists. Then 70K kids left behind 20 tons of rubbish in a couple of Seville suburbs during an impromptu spring party – organised by phone. And now a colleague’s…

Catholic sharia courts in Spain

Half of Spain has been walking round for the past decade chanting “Aznar, murderer,” which is demonstrably untrue, and nothing at all has happened. Now a kid down in Seville has put a picture on his website of some virgin (sorry, Our Lady of Hope of Triana) with a willy in her hand and a…

Moron

Interested to note that the campaign to reduce the amount Catalonia contributes to central government – part of which is destined to help poorer regions like Andalusia – is being supported among others by the president of the Casa de Andalusia in Sant Boi de Llobregat, Mr Pedro Moron.

Say it like Beckham

David Beckham and Andalusian chanteur David Bisbal are the public figures most admired by Madrilenian schoolchildren aged 6-12, according to a new survey. While the missus is admired elsewhere for the form, if not the functioning, of her aural receptors, I suspect that Becks the voice artist may eventually revolutionise English teaching in Spain. Says…