Civil War – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Gerra civil Cataluña contra Calunya

Activists who can’t spell “war” with the paintbrush deserve to die by the sword, no? I think we’ve already established that schools should be teaching peepul how to write in whatever language they prefer, and that nations can go fuck themselves, so let’s not go here: … or here:

Slogan in Bon Pastor, Barcelona. I blame a CGT drunk.

Langston Hughes in Spain

Idealism vs realism as a Stalinist hack copes with the Italian bombing of Barcelona but struggles to explain why Moorish peasants are slaughtering Spanish workers in the battle for Madrid.

Politics, the art of confusion

A borrowed verdict on the current public utterances of Spanish officials, and a suggestion that the Catalan national question may be about to be resolved in the same way it was in 1918-23.

The demolition of <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Columns'>Puig i Cadafalch's symbolic four columns</a> in 1928, CC from <a href='http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catalunya-Barcelona-EnderrocamentColumnesMontjuic.jpg'>Wikimedia Commons</a>

Garzón and the Batman theory of justice

The relative awfulness of, and defining differences between, English and Spanish justice.

Wellington vs Glasgow Rangers’ International Brigadiers, and the origins of “No pasarán” and “No surrender”

Nominations for the noblest British fighter in a Spanish war, and speculative revisions of the history of two idiot idioms.

The green of the louse/Lo verde del piojo

An etymological hop from kite-flying with Juan Marsé back to Concha Piquer’s greatest hit.

Seen from Turó de la Rubira, a solitary head louse in light drizzle on Monte Carmelo.

Aub on burning Barcelona

Seeing hordes of plump Barcelonans engaged in public Tai-chi–imagine Jackie Chan on lard–and reading of the dreadful internal purges inflicted by Johannes Itten–who seems to have believed himself a Tibetan monk–on Bauhaus students before the parties started, I remembered that I was going to translate a bit more Aub’s Campo cerrado. So here, at top…

Hirsute pursuit

The Popular Front’s Patent Baldness Remedy.

El Barça, Franco’s favourite team?

There is no statistical evidence for claims that the Franco government worked for Real Madrid and against Barça.