Spain, la gran puta

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,…

Mobile office

I’m in transit quite a lot, and I like getting out of houses anyway, so I’ve built up a list of unofficial workspaces where I can pop in and do email and stuff free and without registering. This arty one is quite close: Down one hill and up another, it’s ca 25 minutes on my…

Reconstruction of Puerta Osario, Seville

Sevillanadas has photoshopped back into place one of the Moorish city’s gates, demolished in 1868 by the same man who restored it twenty years earlier following a serious bout of generalised brotherly hate. Will it now be rebuilt?

A Spaniard’s home is his castle … except when utilities are involved

1) I harboured a vague suspicion that a neighbour was borrowing electricity from our connection, but the stubble-raising shock just received while fixing an extractor fan with the mains apparently turned off suggests that we may be borrowing from him. 2) As the shades of night fall, something resembling a snake in a cleft stick…

Historical leak

Up at what was originally a Civil War AA battery on Torre de la Rovira: In the early 1940s the installations were adopted and adapted by immigrant squatters who built 110 shanty dwellings, known as Los Cañones, on the steep slopes and in the old quarries around them. I believe these homes were demolished around…

Bonaparte moon

A double reflection makes up the man who was born on the thirteenth day of the moon, lost his throne on the thirteenth day of the moon, and fought the battle of Waterloo on the thirteenth day of the moon: I wonder if Josephine’s astrological babblings didn’t cause Napoleon’s natural military interest in the moon…

Fecundity of rabbits in Spain

With the vaguest of references to i-shepan-im here’s Kirby’s wonderful and scientific museum in 1820: The fecundity of the rabbit is truly astonishing ; it breeds seven times in the year, and generally produces eight young at a time ; from which it is calculated, that one pair may increase in the course of four…