Carlos Ferrera notes the bizarre preoccupations of Galician nationalist and regional deputy, Bieito Lobeira: If some catastrophe were to occur today that would lead to the partial or total eradication of human life from the part of the planet which it is our fortune to occupy, with all probability future archaelogical studies of funerary remains…
There’s a ways and means discussion over at MemeFirst. If Spain hadn’t more or less abandoned its space programme–mentioned in the Voz de Galicia edition plugging Franco’s hon doc–we’d have been able to sell Chávez stuff like this. Not.
I had an interesting chat (ie I listened) with someone the other night about the social position of musicians in the Middle Ages. I didn’t really buy his idea of the musician as The Other–at least not in Spain–but what he told me about Moorish and Jewish musicians in Christian society (as opposed to, for…
Re shepherds, Pío Baroja says that in the Navarre village inhabited by Silvester Paradox, hero of The adventures, inventions and mystifications of Silvester Paradox (Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox, 1901) that the local guardians of public order were called ministers (ministros). (Silvestre Paradox is very strange and very funny. It’s a disgrace that…
Amando de Miguel says that Aura Grandal says that people in Ferrol, Galicia call policemen “chepas”, and that this derives from “shepherds”, which is what British engineers called the watchmen in the naval arsenals. I’m going to believe it, whether I do or not.
According to Colin Davies it rains thrice as much in the winter in Galicia as in Manchester, but he still looks remarkably cheerful and Thoughts from Galicia is a great read. Per Svensson sounds like a man I could do with talking to right now: his Fundación Instituto de Propietarios Extranjeros is there to fight…
Following the news about a Galician politician-trombonist, here’s a Louisianan trumpet-playing coroner: The first time Dr. Minyard ran, in 1969, he lost to the incumbent. But four years later, he and a slate of other candidates viewed as reformers – including Harry Connick Sr., the “Singing D.A.” – were swept into office. Another of those…
I’ve been on planet Mars, writing some arrangements and checking out the deeper side of big band theory, so I’ve only just discovered that the head of the conservative Partido Popular in Orense, Galicia, is a keen trombonist. Xosé Luis Baltar recently suggested to voters that Zapatero’s lot might try to steal the Galician elections…
Metrosexual. The Americans blame French cissies and Brit hacks, but the honours go to Galician AZ Alkmaar footballer, José Fortes Rodriguez: Some women just don’t get it. They’re not used to being turned down. They say: Go on, you want me don’t you! I say: Am I talking Chinese? I don’t find you attractive. And…