Some classic PP fuckwittery (PSOE guys keep this kind of stuff private) here from Luis Suárez Fernández, who wants to defend the thesis that Spanish nationalism is not nationalism. Duh. Beats me anyway why commentators think they can come up with something smarter on the subject than PJ O’Rourke‘s notorious contribution (via John Chappell).
MM has kindly mailed the story of an illegal from Mali found climbing one of the Sierra Nevada’s major peaks in flipflops. Jorge Rodríguez’z story in El País, plagiarised by Elizabeth Nash for The Independent, has Anthony Braxton Tony Brascons making the same journey in reverse undertaken in sandals by Judar Pasha, who they describe…
To get away from British Spanish music would be a plausible explanation. Here two famous examples, a cover of George Formby’s Lancashire toreador and of Mike Read’s The Spaniard wot blighted my life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwUy735pnhU I actually love them, but don’t tell.
Such was the worldwide stir caused by my revelation that the Sweeney Todd story is at least a century older than previously thought that I know many of you will be impatient to read this new story of sinister stylists across the water. It’s from a French tutor, Méthode rationnelle suivant pas à pas la…
Foreign language tutors are quite common in lists of books banned by the Inquisition. Check for example this page in the 1844 Indice general de los libros prohibidos, which records the proscription in 1797 of a French-Spanish commercial correspondence course and of an English-Spanish conversation primer published in 1719 by the Anglican minister in Seville.…
I find that the rector of the church in Plan, Sobrarbe, Huesca, Spain blasts out his services over speakers, to the distress of neighbours without detachable hearing aids and to the alarm of sheep on the mountains. It’s not 140dB (source), but it ain’t good for tourism neither.
A rebujito is a dry sherry (manzanilla, fino) or occasionally a white wine to which fizz (lemonades, …) has been added, typically in a ratio of 1:2, in order to give you a head-start on the alcohol. This is the lite version of whichever British drink it is that has you knock back a third…
El Niño de Tetuán singing fandangos (MP3s or him and a superb selection of others). We’re probably talking early 1930s, but I don’t know where–Seville or Jerez seems more likely than Tetuan :-): A esa liebre no tirarle cazaores de la sierra a esa liebra no tirarle porque está haciendo en la tierra madriguera pa…
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…