“Jewish mountain” is currently hot favourite in Barcelona council offices because it is believed that this will attract well-off tourists from New York and Israel. Joan Amades says that at the end of the C19th, local sailors referred to gardens of St Bertrand as fossa del jueu, “the Jewish grave”, and indeed there were Jewish…
Ian Llorens–who is only slightly mad, and there’s nothing wrong with that–is back. Here to celebrate is a photo of the front of the excellent Picó Lloréns family coffee and sticky things chain store in Albacete: Hoards of Catalan and Valencian merchants are to be found throughout provincial Spain, helping provide a more sensible explanation…
Manuel Capdevila occasionally comments here but now has his own blog, Revised Catalonia History, whose goal is to remedy what he believes is the deliberate obfuscation of the Glorious History of the Catalan Nation and its Contribution to Civilisation and create a correct, Catalan-centric view. One of his early claims is that the English paper…
The County Miscellany, 1,8, December 1 1836. Source: GBS This is part of the beastly bookseller of Barcelona series and is referenced here. BIBLIOMANIA, or “Book Madness,” has been exemplified to its utmost extent by remarkable and dreadful disclosures on the recent trial, at Barcelona, of an ex-monk, one Friar Vincente, a “lover and preserver”…
In 1927 the Catalan literary researcher and writer, Ramon Miquel i Planas (1874-1950; henceforth MiP) wrote a little book, published in a bibliophile edition, called La llegenda del llibreter assassí. In it he reflects on the origins and recycling of “Le bibliomane ou le nouveau Cardillac”, an anonymous tale published as if true in 1836…
“Boynamedsue is a collective of Italian anarchists living in a tunnel below the Condis supermarket on Plaça Maragall.” Apparently. Can you visit them? (John lived in a tunnel near Bath for a while. What’s the posh word for a tunnel-dweller?)
Wikipedia currently notes the disappearance of the d from the tail of past participles in Spanish (estoy cansado → toy cansao) and corresponding hypercorrections in which a redundant d is inserted into -ao endings. The following passage dealing with syncopes is from Avelino Herrero Mayor’s 1967 Diálogo argentino de la lengua (source: Corde) Profesor. –…
Excellent news, with an interesting addition to the library’s name. The Library of Catalonia is … the national library of Catalonia, clarify those vile Spanish. (Recently when I went to pick up my new membership card the guy on the desk looked at my ID and then at the card, and snipped up the card…
Nick Lloyd enters 2007 a feedless and no doubt unrepentant Luddite, but he’s got an excellent story over at Iberianature (13/12/2006) about José Sideburns and his lynx waistcoat, re which: Francesc Candel‘s Han matado un hombre, han roto el paisaje (Antonio Rabinad recently sold me a copy at Sant Antoni) derives its dramatic strength in…
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