Arthur Kenyon in Letters from Spain (GBS), in an otherwise standard mid-19th century account of the sherry trade in Jerez (“Zeres”), writes: A good deal of the wine makes a voyage to India and back before it is mixed in the way I have described and sent to England. Maybe the guys over Catavino will…
Cool post by Carlos Ferrero on linguistic maps of Spain and Portugal that appear arbitrary or ideologically driven. Power, preference and politics in the linguistic mapping of the Romania: representations of reality or the reality of geolinguistic representation?, Erin M Halm’s UPenn dissertation, looks like a really interesting followup. Unfortunately the download is USD37.
Lots of sites promise, but I still haven’t found one that delivers serious historical weather data outside of the US, the UK and other dominions of Anglocabronia. I’ll roast a baby lamb for the winning respondent.
Here, via Carlos Ferrero, thanks to MM. (Is paint-bombing and slogan-daubing terrorism? Yes, when it’s part of the systematic campaign of violence and intimidation being conducted by regional nationalists in Spain with the goal of disenfranchising other shades of opinion.)
Mmax says that, on February 14 1929, his great-uncle, Ralph Forte, was listening to Chicago police radio from the offices of AP when he heard some slightly unusual news from North Clark Street. Apparently Mr Forte had just fled Italy after writing an article entitled “Everyone obeys Mussolini except the cats”. Can his welcome in…
Good fisking by John Chappell of a completely nonsensical piece by a troll who calls himself Ignacio Russell Cano and who publishes in the Jerusalem Post. Has the author ever visited Spain? I doubt it, but there’s a considerable volume of native anti-Zapatero lying to deal with as well–check out RMF at fum i estalzí…
“Basically, the old woodsy was fat and went running around in the woods with no shoes on. Someone decided that this was a bad message to send to kids.” This kind of stuff doesn’t bother the Asturian government, which has (mis)spent €6M on an unshod, fire-raising, drunken Yogi campaign featuring this astonishing piece of creativity.…
Found whilst hunting help for a tiny bit of Judæo-Spanish/Sefardi/Dzhudezmo/Judezmo/Spanyol/Spanyolit/Ladino-English translation I did for someone. The book is The Lives of the Right Hon. Francis North …, The Hon. Sir Dudley North …, and The Hon. and Rev. Dr. John North (Roger North, 1826, available on GBS), the year is 1680, and the great English…
From William Pulleyn’s The Etymological Compendium, Or, Portfolio of Origins and Inventions (1830), via Google Book Search: It is generally believed, that Cards were invented for the amusement of one of the early kings of the line of Bourbon; but this belief is erroneous. Who the man was that invented these instruments of amusement and…
GA Sala of Brompton says in Notes and queries in 1874 that “the Spaniards … have not yet arrived at the stage of excusing [bullfighting] on the score that it makes the beef tender. This idea seems borrowed from the old story … about whipping pigs to death. ‘Carne de Toreo’–bull-fighting beef–is usually looked upon…