Why Javier Cercas’ pseudo-authentic Anatomía de un instante so appalled me, and El Follonero’s 23-F mockumentary Operación Palace struck me as brilliant. I’d have liked some Austen zombies, but I suppose their moment has passed. (Of cats and hares. I gave up Galdós’ inventions of nation ages ago, but enjoyed them at the time, rather…
“No tinc hil.” See also Sense dormir la noia, which was apparently a magazine programme on the local radio in that 24*7 metropolis, Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. Homophonic punning is easier in muddy languages like Catalan and English. David Deterding has a brain-churning collection of phonetic jokes in the latter. An example: When you’ve seen one…
At the beginning of the last century one Professor Max-Bembo published La mala vida en Barcelona: anormalidad, miseria y vicio, which in authentic Daily Mail style vaguely enjoined the government to do something about the social and sexual degradation he profited from in such loving and lascivious detail. Here’s the section on wankworkers, copy-pasted from…
This is not Bert Gilbert, the actor, wife-beater and adulterer (although possibly solely for the purposes of the decree nisi) who starred as ‘Arry Wilkins in the 1906 demonstration at the Hippodrome of the effects of The flood on London, of which was wrote: Three hundred thousand gallons of water sweep away the bridges, pull…
Moving house, so orders may take longer until mid-February - mail me first if in doubt. Shop deliveries free on foot in Leeds LS1-8 & LS13. Dismiss
