“What is really worrying for contemporary Spain is not that it is a country of waiters. What is worrying are the habits and manners of its waiters, their training and their crossed nobility, that thick-set-blue-beard-festooned grin.” Arcadi is certainly your man if you enjoy the extremes of 100% pseudo-intellectual introverted wank or simple, straight-forward abuse.
The Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901 is now remembered mainly for the assassination of McKinley by a Polish-American anarchist follower of Emma Goldman. However it was yet another triumph for Thomas A Edison, Inc and its electric chairs, X-ray machines (McKinley might have survived had an Edison X-ray machine been allowed to locate the…
Check out this good short piece by Pedro Soria-Rodriguez on how for party political ends Spanish national and regional government have ensured that DVB-T/TDT will not increase choice for consumers. This is not a direct issue for me–I only see the telly in Spain in bars (the same applies in France and the UK)–but it’s…
There are various explanations of Spanish anti-Americanism. The post-colonial hypothesis is popular: Spain is bitter about its loss of empire, its defeat in 1898, its not being invited to the G-whatever. An alternative hypothesis is that anti-Americanism is frustration arising from the idea that an implicit bilateral dollars-for-favours deal has been violated. In Luis Berlanga,…
César-Javier Palacios reports on the cyclist, shot dead by a hunter who mistook him for a boar. When in death’s dark vale loud singing usually suffices to drive off hell’s hunters. Hunters know this too. In his romance, Count Arnaldos, hungry hawk in hand, falls prey to a sailor (love, glory or death, true or…
Two lovely designers who trade the occasional hour with me and eat my curries and drink my hooch have informed me that all the various sites grouped under oreneta.com need to change. The Baldie needs to be legible by users over 35. Kalebeul needs more identity (someone said duotint photo 2 in sepia; I tried…
Spain’s up at no 52 on the UN parking ticket corruption index, so that’s between the Ukraine and the Philippines, with average 12.7 unpaid violations per diplomat. The UK averages 0.0. Other crime news: Either the Azerbaijanis or the UAEers have stolen an “r” from Australia. The data’s pretty old, so perhaps Spanish councils’ new…
New translation of Horace here. Conventional version of “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, “it’s sweet and fitting to die for one’s country” here. (Thanks Jesús)
A little thing by Orson Scott Card, via Kalebeul’s DJ-guru, Irwin Chusid. Apparently I’m about to become a multiple uncle AND bring down capitalism, seriously, so don’t worry too much about this kind of detail. (FYI: kalebeul’s proprietor has voted once in public elections–green/neighbourhoodist in The Hague, has worked for two centre-left parties, once defeated…