An amusing and completely credible post from Avui. Meanwhile Tío Lele has confirmed via a spokesman that he is completely happy with this, the final version of his corporate website. Apparently its brutal emptiness is a metaphor for the intangible aspects of making do without the brand. It would have been nice to include at…
When I went out this morning onto the Rambla del Raval, a man was standing up on the boom of the 40 metre crane overlooking Calle San Rafael. He gesticulated and shouted at the firemen in the crane cabin and then wandered out to smoke a cigarette at the 35 metre end. Under the shadow…
Just had a chat with an associate of “Tío Lele”, responsible for a protection, ahem, scheme in Poble Nou and other parts. It is said that everyone’s favourite uncle is a bit disturbed about the apparent lack of progress on his website, which it had been understood would be appearing on OkieDokie.com.
Unlike motorcars, bicycles take you through village centres and allow you to park outside at any interesting-looking drinking hole you encounter. Friday afternoon on my way up-country for a weekend engagement I stopped at a village café in the mountains between Montseny and Montserrat, where a nice but weary barmaid was serving brandy to some…
Kalebeul hopes to avoid the widescale unrest we believe will result from police action against nocturnal street drinks parties by implementing two preventative strategies: 30 years ago three gentlemen in Bar Manolo were given a monthly allowance on condition they drink all the alcohol in Spain. Project delivery date: 20:00 17/3/2006. All streeting from the…
Sarkozy’s going to need to look for some soon, but I fear that the current Parisian definition is the guy with the newest fridge. The earliest mention I’ve found here also floats in on a wave of urban violence: It is in the anxious and transforming 15th century that we begin to discover forms that…
“First thing we do is break their noses,” says Ukrainian cop, Igor, over at this Don Weber exhibit (via BB). I think that’s also Algerian police strategy: the Algerians who stalk tourists here tend to have omelette noses, nasty limps, parapet dentistry, you name it, while their Moroccan colleagues are usually more or less unscarred.…
Two old people were arguing this afternoon under the memorial to Joan Amades on Calle Carmen in the Raval about whether the pigeons should be fed. The argument proceeded along roughly the same lines as in the 1950s Parisian skirmish recorded in Juan Goytisolo‘s Señas de identidad (1966), in which the old man is determined…
Global warming is a reality in Gracia, where the guy at Bar Musical Zimbabwe has included a sun setting behind a desert island (I always thought Zimbabwe was land-locked) on his storefront sign. Despite claims to the contrary, Zimbabwean “traditional” music styles are just as un-proto-democratic as is the Ampurdan dance, the sardana. However, like…