Here’s another daisy for my chain of Spain-goes-south posts, unlikely to be of interest to anyone at all, although the ads may amuse. Vital Fité’s Las desdichas de la patria viewed China as an imperial basket case. Ricardo Beltrán y Rózpide in La geografía en 1898 (1899) explains why it was to remain so: The…
Here’s another nugget from that dark and dirty vein, Spain’s colonial adventures. It’s from Vital Fité’s Las desdichas de la patria (The misfortunes of the motherland; 1899), in which he reflects on national destiny following the disastrous loss to the US of Cuba and the Philippines: If others’ troubles could console us, a brief examination…
Since my reader in the northern hemisphere is spending all his time hanging around in a beach bar, hoping someone will talk to him, I’m going to post the occasional bit of new-to-me nonsense from down south until things cool down again in September. I think there’s no question that we’re all going to end…
This and the huge and prosperous French population in SE England just go to confirm the notion that Britain is where the French go to work, while France decays gradually into a gigantic agricultural theme park dotted with wildlife reserves dedicated to obscurantist and ageing political dogmatists. Spain, on the other hand…
I’m right there (well, kind of) with Jordi Orwell, David Millán, and (really!) Francesc Ferrer on (sorry, against) the “Save the Family From Men in Frocks” demo. I can understand why the PP is promoting this ridiculous enterprise: they lost the last elections because they supported liberty abroad and have come to the natural but…
Vincent Pinte, commenting at Technologies du Langage, suggests that the “de” between the “Dominique” and the “Villepin” that denominate France’s deranged and disastrous prime minister need not necessarily evidence noble origins. Apparently–I certainly wouldn’t know–medieval prostitutes customarily used only one name, their first, and were subsequently assigned surnames on the basis of their location, eg…
Well, kind of, notes Technologies du Langage: you’ve got to call them “blocs” or “bloc-notes”. Jean goes on to note that “bloc” is already used in heaps of other meanings… If one had wanted to create “French” French at all costs, it seems to to me that carnet (“notebook”) would have been a better reflection…
The French are going to reject the Euroconstitution, and for some reason this is worrying some Brits. There’s some interesting anthropology in this post by Jon Henley, and here‘s a contrasting piece from a couple of years ago. (There’s a much more exciting effort from Boris Johnston here (free reg), which includes the following: The…
Since the publication of Memories of Hell in 1978, radical trade union leader Enric Marco has represented for many the suffering Spanish prisoners underwent in Nazi camps. Now it turns out (via Teresa Amat) that, like “Binjamin Wilkomirski” (although he lacks Bruno Grossjean’s research skills and literary bent), he made up the concentration camp experiences…
Towards the end of part 2 of Quixote, Sancho Panza is hailed by a German pilgrim who turns out to be Ricote, a Morisco from Sancho’s village. Ricote was driven out of Spain by religious persecution and has spent his exile in France, Italy, and Germany, near Augsburg, where I found we might live with…