Are the Spanish media really obsessed with Israel?

John Chappell links to an old piece from the Stephen Roth Institute in Tel Aviv which claims among other things that “reports about Israel occupy a disproportionate amount of international space in the Spanish media”. If their frame of reference is countries in a similar situation to Spain and and with a similar relationship to…

“My great uncle took the Spanish government into exile”

From the often superb BBC WWII site: As France fell my great uncle Ioannis (John) Colentzos was captain of a Greek freighter berthed in Bordeaux. He a did not wish to remain in the port as he was uncertain of what the outcome might be for his vessel once the Germans got there. Greece was…

Pheasant playing dead

Dead playing pheasant (gamekeeper’s grave on the N estate in what used to be called Central Southern England before Labour, inspired by Norman Tebbit’s dad’s bicycle, decided to demolish the entire north and rebuild it in Southeast England, which unfortunately turned out to be a tad small for the exercise): Keepers’ memorials like the above…

Wanted: English/French/German->Spanish translator

Rate: percentage of advertising and any other revenues accruing from this site or publication in any other form or medium. So that’s probably about €2 over the next 50 years. Talk to me here.

Language of love

Localisation – like most developments in publishing – has benefited greatly from the needs of the porn industry. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse,” said Charles V of Spain, without, alas, going into detail. I assume, however, that his Italian will not have been the…