After the Friday night show I was talking to several empresarial gents about taking something along similar lines into districts and villages much further afield. It would be really interesting to weave in local culture, said one, at which point my spirits sank. Literary fakelorism of the silverquick quality of Lorca’s gypsy ballads has always…
The head of the Balearics tourism authority, Juan Carlos Alía, has just had to resign following the revelation – brought out by some smart work by socialist deputy, Antonio Diéguez – that he tried to include a trip to one of Moscow’s top brothels, Rasputin, on his expenses claim. Alía was in Moscow to give…
I want to illustrate at ridiculous speed the change in status of Ficus carica – once found outside the back door of farmhouses around the Mediterranean – over the last couple of thousand years. Since you’re all familiar with Genesis 3, I’ll start a bit later, with the Ethiopic version of the Apocalypse of Peter.…
OK, I fiddled a bit with the last one, but the light and the colours are getting more interesting now and these agaves (big version = 90K) are exactly how I found them near the beginning of my Gelida-Sant Sadurní route, honest guv. The agave is very much in the eye of the beholder. Last…
“En de berg, een diefachtige kat, zet haar zure agave overeind”, schrijft Lorca in zijn Romance Sonámbulo. Elders wordt het een pulpo petrificado, een versteende octopus, wat ook een beetje raar klinkt als je deze plant alleen van Nederlandse tuintjes kent. Mijn voorbeeld trof ik tijdens deze wandeling aan, dichtbij onze toverberg, Montserrat, maar Lorca…