My new favourite website – Christvertising.com

I just stumbled upon this and I felt I had to share…

Christvertising.com – yes, you read that right.

Oh, and watch the welcome video… it's advertising a new service called TBR – Total Brand Resurrection. Yeah, it's an Easter special, apparently.

http://www.christvertising.com/flv/06.swf

Oh and this one too…

http://www.christvertising.com/flv/01.swf
March 27, 2008 | Filed Under Internet computer | 4 Comments 

Carod will not run for re-election as ERC leader

Josep Lluis Carod Rovira, president of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and vice-President of the Generalitat has finally announced that we won't seek re-election as the party's leader. This is the result of about two years' wrangling within the party over which direction it should adopt to gain more power in Catalonia.

Carod has been a divisive figure in Spanish and Catalan politics (but no more than pretty much any other political leader), and while he led ERC to large gains in 2004, many ERC supporters failed to turn out for the party after it accepted José Montilla as President of the Generalitat. Still, his strategy, as I understand it, has worked pretty well considering that the PSC has definitely radicalised somewhat in a failed effort to snatch Catalanist voters from ERC. Indeed, the drop in support for Esquerra in the recent elections was the result of a terrible election campaign (apparently run by Puigcercós), and large-scale abstention, rather than people actually going and voting for different parties.

This means that Joan Puigcercós will very likely be the next president of the party, unless one of the alternative currents like Esquerra Independentista manage to pull off a coup and nick the top job. Unlikely.

UPDATE: Carod Rovira has now made it clear that he things that Puigcercós should do the honourable thing and follow his example by leaving the way clear for a new leadership. Puigcercós will almost certainly ignore this friendly advice. Carod has also stated that he'll support the candidature of a new leader, opening up the chance of a genuine contest for the leadership.

March 25, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | 2 Comments 

Happy Easter!

With thanks to Lenin's Tomb, who posted it first…

YouTube Preview Image

By the way, check out his post about how it's us who'll pay for the economic disaster, not the wealthy.

We spent the weekend in Port del Comte, again… skiing, again (now before this sounds like archetypal cava socialist stuff, let me note that we have friends who own an apartment there and there's no hob-nobbing with wealthy industrialists whatsoever). The snow was fantastic and the only problem we had was that today, the winds were so high that we couldn't ski at all.

March 23, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Franco celebrates the 18th anniversary of the defeat of the 'Spanish Revolution'

http://www.archive.org/download/1957-04-08_Spanish_Revolution_Anniversary/1957-04-08_Spanish_Revolution_Anniversary.flv

Check out the classy pro-Franco comment at the Internet Archive…
I like the bit about dwarfs, though.

March 20, 2008 | Filed Under Spain | 2 Comments 

Updated: Iraq war killed more than Saddam

A depressing article at The Guardian discusses the death-toll of the Iraq war, in which between 700,000 and 1.5 million people have died. All studies into the human impact of the war except the Iraq Body Count now estimate a death-toll greater than the total killed by Saddam Hussein in 30 years of dictatorship.

There's your moral intervention.

UPDATE: Bush has given a highly upbeat speech about how it was all worth it, despite "a high cost in lives and treasure" – whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. I mean seriously, fuck. Treasure? What the hell is the man on about?

Will Nick Cohen, who flip-flopped on the war before settling in favour of indiscriminate suffering and death (tough decision so he must have been right… right?) – will Cohen also give a speech to say "Non, je ne regrette rien"…? No doubt it'll be rammed with 'thought experiments' and other nonsense, though hopefully not references to 'treasure'.

March 19, 2008 | Filed Under 'Terror' | 6 Comments 

Anthony Minghella 1954-2008

Sadly, another obituary. The filmmaker Anthony Minghella, who directed The Talented Mr. Ripley and The English Patient, among many other films, has died suddenly aged 54. See Peter Bradshaw's obituary here.

March 18, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

Steve Fullarton: International Brigades volunteer

Steve Fullarton was the last survivor of the 500 Scots who fought with the International Brigades against General Franco's rebels in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. Aged just 18, and halfway through his engineering apprenticeship when he crossed the Pyrenees in April 1938, he was also one of the youngest of the 2,300 men and women from the British Isles – of whom nearly one in four died – who enlisted as soldiers or medics to defend the Spanish Republic. Indeed, he had to lie about his age, since the Communist Party – the recruiting agent for the volunteers – had a policy of only accepting those aged over 21.

Read the full obituary here.

March 18, 2008 | Filed Under Spain | 2 Comments 

Here comes the snow?

Gemma and I are gearing up for a 3rd trip to the Pyrenees this Easter weekend and I'm relieved to see that temperatures are dropping and snow is forecast. We'll try to get some more decent photos of the last jaunt in this winter season… by the way, we are totally not rich pijos with unlimited funds. This is more a case of enchufle than anything else.

March 18, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia | 4 Comments 

The system works! Bear Stearns in trouble

US investment bank Bear Stearns begs for government bailout.

Meanwhile, Bush says he's "confident that the economy will improve soon". Well of course he is. He knows absolutely nothing about how it works.

March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Capital | 5 Comments 

Mysterious cloud of smoke over Sabadell

So I finally get to enjoy the terrace and this is the first thing I see. Accusations that I'll use any excuse to get back to my Mac will not be entertained.

It looks like it's coming from the direction of the airport.

UPDATE: It's a plastics factory in Polinyà (miles away) and it has hit the evening news. You saw it here first.

Incidentally, I tried sending my superior image of the column of smoke to the 3-24 (Catalan news) website, using their 'send us your images' interface. It failed several times, possibly due to the paucity of my Catalan? Racists.

March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Home | 2 Comments 

Has spring sprung?

Although it's not long since we had pretty poor weather here, today the sun is out and the temperature is about 21 in the shade. Nice.

As if more evidence for the spring were needed, another seasonal signal has been found. My legs and feet have emerged like snowdrops from their winter covering. Yes, today I got home and put some shorts on. Let the good times roll.

March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Home | 1 Comment 

What is Royal Trux? Pt.1

Friends and well-wishers may well know that my favourite rock band is the Royal Trux, a Washington DC/Chicago/San Francisco outfit from the 1990s. Combining a Keith Richards-heroin-blues-boogie-woogie aesthetic with Captain Beefheart craziness and the musical theories of Ornette Coleman, Royal Trux rocked on a different level. The band consisted of Neil Hagerty on guitar and vocals and Jennifer Herrema on lead vocals. Most of their records were released on Drag City until, following the huge popularity of grunge rock (a scene they weren't really remotely connected to), Virgin Records offered them a huge 3 album deal. When Virgin realised that they hadn't signed the next Nirvana, they panicked and paid Royal Trux off after only two of the three albums had been recorded. The Trux went back to Drag City. They split in 2001 after Jennifer Herrema 'was caught with an alcoholic beverage in her hand' (they'd been clean for years).

Well, if that hasn't done enough to pique your interest, have a look at this promotional video, filmed for the album Thank You by Virgin Records. It should make things much clearer.

YouTube Preview Image

March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Music | 3 Comments 

PP: Acebes & Zaplana out, Camps & Aguirre in

The PP has had a change of leadership. As predicted, this has involved the sidelining of Angel Acebes and Eduardo Zaplana. The new members of what Rajoy is calling his 'own team' are to be la niña de Rajoy, Francisco Camps (president of the Comunitat Valenciana) and Esperanza Aguirre (president of the Comunidad de Madrid). Both Camps and Aguirre lead PP strongholds which gained seats in the recent election,

This isn't a shift towards the centre, mind. Aguirre and Camps are both plenty right-wing when they want to be. Check out Graeme's obssesive enlightening series of posts about Aguirre if you want a better idea of how she ticks.

Meanwhile, the final final final (pero que finales, eh?) results are in and CiU lost a seat to the PP. This is apparently due to the postal vote taking ages to arrive (what?! in Spain?! surely not!). This leaves CiU on 10 seats in the parliament. They're still talking about a pact between CiU and the PSOE but I somehow doubt it. That would mean alliance in Madrid but opposition in Barcelona, which would be a pretty unsatisfactory situation for everyone, parlicularly the electorate. By the way, check out this post (in Spanish) about the peculiarities of the Spanish electoral system and how it encourages a sort of bi-partisan situation. This image in particular is interesting, as it shows how many seats the IU might have if a different system were adopted. Give you a clue: it's seven times as many as they have now.

March 13, 2008 | Filed Under PP, Politics, Spain | 1 Comment 

ERC head rolls: Puigcercós is out of Generalitat

The internal struggle in Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) between leader Josep-Lluis Carod Rovira and party secretary-general Joan Puigcercós seems to have taken a major turn: Puigcercós, until this morning the Minister of Governance in the Generalitat, has resigned in order to dedicate himself to his party. Or, in other words, to dedicate himself to taking over the party. His replacement will be Jordi Ausàs, currently mayor of La Seu d'Urgell. Carod Rovira vetoed Puigcercós's orginial nomination of his mate, Oliveras as his replacement, apparently citing 'the battle for power' with Puigcercós. ERC faired very badly in the weekend's Spanish general elections, losing more than half of their seats. I believe that Puigcercós ran this disastrous campaign.

Carod Rovira is being interviewed on TV3 right now andis essentially setting out his case for remaining leader of ERC to Els Matins host, Josep Cuní. His case seems to be "Yes, we need to change Esquerra to a party of government, not of opposition, so yes we need to change our policy and the way our party is organised". He has also said some faintly amusing things about his relationship with Puigcercós, like "We talk often, but don't always understand each other".

It remains to be seen whether ERC can drag themselves out of this morasse, and there will be some who hope they don't. But if they can make the necessary changes to make themselves more attractive to moderate voters, that will be good for democracy in Catalonia and in Spain as a whole. Resisting the creep of soporific bi-partisanship is as important as ever.

March 11, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | Leave a Comment 

UPDATED: Zapatero wins Spanish election

UPDATED 0001 hrs

PSOE win with  169 seats – the original projection was overly optimistic. PP: 154

CiU: 10

PNV: 6

IU:2

ERC: 3

To me, this looks like a victory for the right in Spain. The PSOE have maintained their government but IU have practically disappeared, as have ERC.

Information about the political parties contending these elections.

So Zapatero is returned as PM. It's unlikely that they'll have the 176 they're hoping for.

ERC have dropped by half. I was asked the other day what was the cause of this drop and I answered: abstention and dissatisfaction. I'll add that their posters were crap too.
Actually it's looking like a rout for ERC.

PP: A poor result. Rajoy will probably be out. This will bring about the completion of the right-wing's victory in the party. Esperanza Aguirre looks to be the PP's new star in parliament.

__

Updated:

Ciudad Real goes from PSOE to PP

Balearic Islands go from PP to PSOE (… or maybe not)

Almería goes from PP to PSOE

Canary Islands  go from PP to PSOE

–  I couldn't really keep up with this bit. Apparently, Andalucia has gone to the PSOE, again.

Zapatero and the PSOE have won the Spanish elections.

Rajoy has given his thank you speech.

Llamazares, leader of Izquierda Unida has resigned. What about Rajoy?

Izquierda Unida down to 2 seats.

March 9, 2008 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 7 Comments 

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