Vote Boozer

Solbes is going to fund his promised tax cuts (keeps the centre happy) by whacking up duties on alcohol and tobacco (fodder for the bulgy-eyed health fundamentalists), so what better way to stop him than by supporting a liberal constitutionalist called Bouza, and the hell with pronunciation and coherence.

Google Docs facked

The new version appears to have been introduced without any serious testing or any credible bug reporting system having been devised–check the chaos over at Something in Writely is broekn. My particular problem is that using IE6 on Win XP it is no longer possible to paste into docs without the browser crashing, which makes…

Bestiality in Cádiz

Urquhart, The Pillars of Hercules, Or, A Narrative of Travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848: “I observed, on a placard, the two following signs of progress and civilization, in titles of new works: ‘The defender of the fair sex,’ and ‘The Ass, a beastly periodical.’ The words were ‘Il Burro, periodico bestial.” Re the…

Unchartered territory

I didn’t know you could charter bits of Morocco (via Felix@Morocco Time), but then, unlike Isabel Choat, I’m not on a Grauniad account ;-) More on Moroccan vices and prices from Cat in Rabat, who ain’t got a cook neither.

Spot the donkey

Spot is a dog. (Dear agent, I also do other barnyard animals, as well as goldfinches, linnets and horny pussycats.)

Fiesta popular

Don’t try singing ¡Adelante los de Cuenca! at home or anywhere else, even if you can find the lyrics. Troubled companies hold their Christmas parties in May and small villages hold their St John parties on June 24. This cuts the band budget and indicates a broadness of spirit rather than any critique of religion…

Destruction by the EU of pastoralism in the Balkans

This is one reason why large numbers of Romanian shepherds, shearers and others are ending up in Spain. There’s an interesting collection of info here (beware stupid music and cursor) dealing with the history and organisation of transhumance in Spain. While the sheepway infrastructure still exists in the Balkans, lorry transport, improved roads and the…

French exam

I omitted one feasible fraudulent etymology from the Viadós post because the etymon in question is little known and less read, even in his own country, whichever that was. Here he is anyway, in another anecdote from Cela‘s late but frequently excellent A bote pronto: Some 65 years ago, more or less, possibly more, when…

Demagogy

Does David de Ugarte know nothing about the users and makers of the online world, or is he simply comfortable selling racial stereotypes and cheap lies to idiots in the grand tradition of anti-Americanism? But for the words “Anglo-Saxon” and “protestant”, one might think David was engaging in self-criticism here: “The majority of blogging tools…